#And it looks weird and stupid and they have to animate him weird to compensate for his weird face.

[loveletterworm]

I think the model Sonic has in the HD mario and sonic olympics games is underrated He actually looks somewhat endearing here I like his normal face and shiny eyes. Unfortunately it's difficult to find good pictures of it because there's no renders with it just the same generic model they've used for all sonic renders for like 15 years...so these example pictures are terrible.

[fraugwinska]

Whoop - There it is! :> Glad to be back, folks! It's been too long, but I finished this behemoth of a Oneshot (7.1 k words FTW!) and I can't wait to see what you're thinking! Riding Alastor? ✅ Rut/Heat? ✅ NSFW? ✅ (Sorry minors!)

Thank you to @macabr3-barbi3 and also @ritualofcirice for encouraging me throughout the writing process - I'd still be rewriting and overthinking if it wasn't for you! <3 ILY

“Alastor, again?! Seriously, this has to stop. Look at the poor girl.”

“Oh Charlotte, don’t make an elephant out of a house fly – she knows it’s all in good fun, don’t you darling? No hard feelings, hm?”

You forced yourself to smile, although it must’ve looked strained, as you were still trying to get your tail to depuff.

“He’s right – no harm done, Charlie. It’s fine.”

Of course, it was anything but fine. Your whole system was still dialed in on the danger you had felt yourself in not two minutes ago. You should’ve been used to it by now. But you weren’t, and your feverish, nervous state you had been in lately didn’t help either.

Alastor had found sick pleasure in tormenting you since the moment you stepped foot in this cursed hotel.

You came after speaking to Cherri one night in the shady bar you worked at the time, not really believing that you could actually be redeemed but what she promised you’d find there: That the people there were weird but actually bearable to be around and lodging was free. The prospect of quitting your job, freeing yourself from that lewd, ambiguous boss of yours that also happened to be your landlord with a tendency to let his eyes linger too long on all the wrong places was too tempting to pass. Cherri’s latter statement was right, the room you were provided was almost as big as your flat, and the princess refused any compensation… even the meals were free. And for the first five minutes you thought her first one was, too. Charlotte Morningstar, daughter of Lucifer himself, welcomed you with open arms, and the other residents were a quirky, eccentric but still mostly friendly and fun bunch. But then it had begun – small at first, bolder by every passing day.

Alastor’s insistent, relentless, illogical bullying.

You knew about the radio demon, of course. You were neither naïve nor stupid - despite some acquaintances of yours would beg to differ - having heard and read too much about him not to be respectful yet distanced. Wary, but polite.

You were both woodland creatures, although he, despite being a deer demon, normally a prey animal, in a hilarious twist turned out far more powerful, dangerous and predatory than you. A fox demon, slender, clever and with an air of elegance and mystery around you – well, at least on the outside. The only thing you shared with your animalistic form was that you had a quick-witted, although very scattered, mind. You were a klutz, often speaking before thinking, getting yourself into trouble more often than being able to think or talk your way out of it. But you had been careful to tame that loose tongue of yours around him, not wanting to get on his bad side. And you weren’t, not in that literal sense.

You had barely introduced yourself, your new room key in hand and following the deer that enthusiastically offered to guide you to the right floor “as a good host would”, when you felt your foot being grabbed and twisted mid-step, making you tumble down a full flight of stairs. The grinning demon remained standing on the top, looking down on you with glowing eyes and a smug smile while you struggled to stand back up, your ankle sharply throbbing with pain. “Oh my, seems you are a flight risk, my dear.” He had said with a low chuckle, and if you’d usually reason that this incident had just been due to your general clumsiness, the deep satisfaction you could see in his eyes as you limped back up the stairs made it apparent that this wasn’t the case here.

From then on, stranger things just appeared to happen to you. They were slight nuisances at first, like getting locked in rooms that didn't even have keyholes or following stairs leading into nowhere, ending up in you getting exceedingly lost or terribly late to Charlies exercises, or furniture simply collapsing underneath you during dinners or get-togethers. Those incidents always were inconspicuously accompanied by the presence of Alastor, who appeared seemingly out of nowhere and with some kind of casual joke he cracked at your misfortunes, but there always was something about him that told you these so-called jokes were in a way maliciously aimed at you, more thinly-veiled accusations more than lighthearted antics.

As time went by his efforts became less discreet - he tried less and less to hide the fact that he was the cause of your various misfortunes. Things you carried with you disappeared, just to land into his hands... always personal, embarrassing stuff that he theatrically and loudly announced to anyone near before giving it back to you. "You surely didn't mean to drop this, darling, though I must say that sage green doesn't suit you at all." he had purred one time, twirling some lacy piece of underwear of yours in his hands when you had retrieved your laundry to carry it back to your room, holding it just long enough out of the reach of your panicked attempts to snatch it from him so that the whole lobby could stare in interest, pity or amusement before he finally let it fall into your hands. You were tripped even more, his shadow blatantly laughing at you from under the feet it was holding to make sure you'd fall, and his obviously faked tutting at it with that devious smile of his stung even more than the words that came with it.

"Now, now, don't look so affronted, my dear - what's a harmless prank between friends? No hard feelings, hm?"

That became a catchphrase of his - a question not so much directed towards the victim but an exclamation directed at everyone present to assure them that everything happening was harmless and perfectly okay. And you always played along.

Truth was - despite rhyme or reason – that you were infatuated with him. His witty sense of humor, that mischievous grin that set off so many alarm bells yet was oddly charming, the power and knowledge he was carrying inside him that showed on how effortlessly he handled any situation... maybe it was because he was almost everything you were lacking that you endured his relentless teasing. In addition to the respect you had for the older demon's dangerous side, the little flicker of hope in the corner of your mind that he might someday turn from 'funny but cruel' to just 'fun' if you'd prevail long enough was too strong and it became easier every day for you to try not to be bothered with each new stunt Alastor would pull, hoping that today would be the day where something in the impenetrable brick wall that seemed to be him would crack, allowing your real self to show through and find some acknowledgement in his eyes.

What had just occurred, however, had you question that hope tremendously. You had felt hot and feverish since yesterday, suspecting you'd maybe coming down with something. But as much as you tried to avoid the others as to not spread whatever disease you were cooking up, you seemed to keep running into them.

Not all of them, just the men, though.

New residents, delivery men, even Husk and Angel seemed to smell you from afar. They popped up everywhere, and you thought yourself delusional when they stood unusually close to you, were uncomfortably touchier and their eyes more intense and even hungry when they stared at you as you practically fled from them with the excuse of getting sick. The only one who kept his distance for once was Alastor, who you only saw once, with a twitching grin on his face and a dangerous aura of his shadows around him that seemed to flicker with dark energy when Julius, one of the newest hotel guests, had cornered you and put one of his bear paws much too low on your hips, suggesting to get a drink with him to cool you off. Though you had a feeling that the radio demons glowing eyes continued to stalk you, even without seeing him again. You had decided to skip dinner and just go to bed, hoping that whatever was happening to you, it'd be over by the morning.

But the night didn't bring any relief, you just woke up in more sweat and short-breathed exhaustion, filled with a dreading sense of anticipation for something unknown to you, as if your body was in constant alert mode. After checking the time, finding it close to breakfast and your stomach twisting with hunger, you made your way downstairs, hoping it was early enough for the others to still sleep and to catch Charlie alone and talk to her, not knowing how to describe the feelings you had felt but sure that somehow the hellborn princess could tell you what the hell was wrong with you. But as soon as you turned corner on the first landing base, you had felt it - electricity in the air.

In the blink of a moment, the floor became dark and gloomy, shadows creeping out from the growing void’s fraying edges, and instinctively you turned on your heels to practically fly down the hundreds of steps just in time before the deafening screech hit your ears. Every strand of your copper fur stood on its root as you panted, flaying yourself around another corner and watching a beast with familiar, yet obscurely twisted and long antlers crash into the wall behind you in frenzied pursuit. For one second too long you were frozen in place, realizing two things.

One: That it was Alastor that was chasing you.

And Two: That as soon as you knew it was him, your body reacted with a sudden wave of heat and ache, the thought of fleeing completely wiped from your mind but instead turning as if to throw itself into his waiting claws.

The momentum of the crash made him swipe at you, and without that one second too long that you would’ve needed to react, you didn't have time to dodge it. Instead, you had lost balance and fell backwards down the stairs, the impact on the tiled marble floor of the hotel lobby so loud it had Charlie and Vaggie rushing out of the kitchen and hurry towards your shocked and sprawled out, but miraculously unharmed form.

"Are you sure you're okay? You’re burning up…" Charlie asked, her hands gently rubbing the back of your neck as both women helped you back up.

"You look pretty rough..." Vaggie added, her brows furrowed. You were sure you looked like a complete mess - your hair sticking out in all directions, your tail bristled, your shirt damp and the fabric clinging to your flushed body, your pupils blown and your breath shallow.

"I-I'm fine, it's just a little fever. But, listen-"

A hand on your shoulder made you instantly mute, long, red tipped claws digging slightly into the thin fabric of your shirt, not breaking through but still stinging the flesh underneath. Its heat soaked like hot oil through the cloth down into your skin, burning its way deep into your core.

"How about I escort you back to your room, darling, as my way of apologizing for my little... shenanigans. We wouldn't want your current state to... affect the others. Does that sound reasonable?"

His voice was sickeningly sweet, almost too innocent, the smile on his face wide and his eyes twinkling in almost a warning that only you caught. From the corners of your eyes you saw Vaggie turning red with anger and ready to blow up at him, and Charlie, worriedly fidgeting with a conflicted face. If you'd stay silent, the girls surely would take you out of his grasp safely. You could escape him. Any logical mind would take that chance without second guessing, especially after what happened just mere minutes ago.

"That'd be nice, Alastor."

The walk back to your room was tense and quiet. His hand had left your shoulder, and the coldness it left behind made you want to wince. Your mind was still fuzzy and your body aflame, but as you climbed up the stairs, his tall figure close behind you, the space between the two of you suddenly felt much too large after the novelty of actual, physical contact. It just occurred to you that indeed, he had never touched you before - the pushing, shoving and teasing all done by the sentient extension of his shadow companion that followed him everywhere he went. But he had never directly touched you - until now. Innocently enough, and yet you couldn't seem to shake the weight of the ghostly hand still present on the dip of your neck. The thought alone made your tail shiver, and the sudden realization made your legs move faster, the tension in the air almost suffocating.

Reaching your door, you take a deep breath. The air around you smelled musky and thick, a scent that you could've sworn wasn't there before, and the feeling of his looming presence behind you almost makes you dizzy. You turn the key with slightly shaking hands and turn as you open it, expecting him to make a snide remark and say his goodbyes for now. Instead, you don't even get to move your head before his hand returns, this time on your lower back, to all but shove you into the room, followed by him, and the loud thud and click told you he'd closed it shut and locked it, the chiming of your key on the keychain shrill in your ears.

"You seem to be in quite the predicament, my dear."

He hummed, taking slow, deliberate steps towards you, and as much as your instincts told you to back away, the fire inside you had flared up and you stood still, waiting, anticipating.

"Your little display yesterday was a nice touch. A little too theatrical, perhaps, but not everyone has the natural talent for drama like I do, hah!"

He chuckled, coming to a halt barely a foot in front of you, his eyes gleaming with something you had seen before, but couldn't name. You swallowed hard, trying to keep your voice level.

"I'm not sure what you're talking about."

"Oh, don't play coy now, little vixen. You weren't really discreet in your search for a willing mate, but I thought you'd at least show some decorum not to flaunt your pheromones like this." You stared at him, a bit dumbfounded and the gears in your brain turning much too slow.

"...Mate? Wh-what pheromones? What are you talking about, Alastor?"

He blinked, tilting his head. His gaze was piercing, and yet you could've sworn he had a hard time keeping it on you, as if he wanted to look anywhere but at you. "Don't tell me you don't know?" he purred, a dark smirk pulling at his lips, a slight glimmer of the yellowish hue of his sharp teeth showing from behind them.

"How quaint. I'm afraid I didn't take into consideration that you are not the type to make yourself acquainted with the hellish form you took on. Why, you're in heat, darling. A very... desperate and needy one, at that."

You were unable to speak. You had known that something was off yesterday, when the men started crowding around you like vultures, their eyes hungry and their approaches over-eager, but not once had the word 'heat' come up in your mind. You had been in Hell for not even nine months, not exactly long enough to really explore all its nuances and differences. You had only heard the term 'heat' being used before in relation to animals – which, in hindsight, you technically were, in a way. Your ears and cheeks burned and your head was swimming, your tongue like a dry piece of sandpaper in your mouth.

"H-how did you... why did you..."

Alastor sighed, taking a few steps towards the windows. "As I said, darling, you weren't very subtle. And neither were the buffoons that stumbled over their own feet trying to make you choose them. The smell of a vixen in heat is hard to resist, after all." His head fell back, and the expression he wore when he looked at you was both frightening and intoxicating. "And the scent that clings to you is absolutely divine."

His words made you blush and shudder, the ache between your thighs growing so embarrassingly strong you quickly tore your eyes from him and looked at your hands that were fumbling with your damp shirt. He hadn't even touched you, but your body was already begging for him, as if it knew his presence would be the solution to all your suffering. Why were you reacting like this to him, and not the others that had swarmed you yesterday? It made no sense, none of it did.

"Why were you chasing me, then?"

The question escaped you before you could bite your tongue, and he turned around, a brow raised but his smile wider now and the smug amusement that was so habitual of him returning to his eyes .

"Well, my dear, you were running."

He laughed at your expression of shock and dismay, obviously proud of himself as you opened your mouth and closed it again and again, no words leaving it. You watched him raise his hand up as a means to silence your inevitable ramble, to stop you before you were even able to find something to say. "Although I have to admit that I quite lost myself a bit in the heat of the moment - pun intended. Which brings us back to topic."

He was closer now. Not fully in your personal space but in the almost invisible borders between friendly distance and invading closeness, arms behind his back and a mocking grin on his face.

"Now what will you do, little vixen in heat? Unlike our earthly counterparts, demons in heat stay in it unless they've bred sufficiently - Oh no, it'll only become worse the longer it’s avoided. Do you have one of the many low-rank rutting sacks that are roaming about the hotel just for a chance to fill you up in mind to sate your needs? Most of those unworthy imbeciles would happily spread their seed into you, but - Oh dear, where's the fun in settling?"

You couldn't think straight. You knew what he was insinuating but couldn't bring yourself to truly understand and accept the gravity of the situation. It felt too much like a dream, your mind foggy with fever and every nerve and muscle in your body aching. You knew by now that your mind had chosen the one you wanted long before your body forced a decision. But despite the painful want you were scared of saying it out loud, just to be rejected. Left wanting. The perfect and most cruel tease he could use against you yet, delivered by your own damned nature.

Alastor clicked his tongue, pacing from your one side to the other like a shark in the span of your thoughts that slowly began to settle, rubbing his chin in false contemplation. Your eyes followed him absent-mindedly, and when the whirlwind of your thoughts quieted for a moment, you saw with shock that pearly beads of sweat began to form under that fiery fringe of his hair and the fingers tapping on his chin twitched ever so slightly.

“Well, your scent certainly tells me what you seem to be unable to. But good things only come for the ones that ask for it, darling.”

Again, the tingling that started to become oh so familiar shot down to your belly with the heavy pull that the glint in his eyes had on you. Maybe it was the primal need you felt playing a trick on you but something in his composure, normally so perfectly put and stoic, struck you as hastier and more unrefined. The barely hidden jerk of his ears, the slightly glossy sheen in his eyes, and that intensifying smell of musk and moss and spices oozing from him all were subtle but noticeable telltale signs, just small imperfections in his person, tiny cracks of his façade that grew larger and louder the longer he was alone with you. And finally, they began to speak a language you knew.

Without knowing the details, you became aware, sensing that he, too, wasn't nearly as collected as he liked to present himself. As if the fact that he was here, alone in the room with you was enough to allow him to slip up, ever so subtly and most certainly not intentional. You had noticed from day one that it was nearly impossible to truly get a read of his emotions, an impressive trait you envied to some degree. Yet, the most rational part of his brain appeared to have shut off when his pupils widened ever so slightly as you closed the distance between your bodies, finally throwing caution and fear and hesitancy to the wind. It was a leap of faith.

"I… want you. If..." Your voice was shaky and breathy, and everything in you wanted to pounce him, touch him, bite and scratch and bind him to you, but you resisted, both scared and excited for his reply, the space between your trembling bodies paper thin. "... if you'll have me."

Before your brain could really register what's happening, his smile became predatory, his red irises swallowed almost completely by his dilated pupils, making the blackness appear brighter than his naturally glowing eyes, the shadows around him writhe and grow.

"Oh, I indeed intend to have you, little fox." he cooed, an echo-like echo mixing in with the static of his usual voice. It sounded wrong, demonic, but it lit a flame of pure want within you. It made you frantic in the need to touch him, and the first and only thing your trembling fingers could grasp was his red coat, the instinct you acted on so intense you ripped the fabric from his shoulders and sent buttons flying as your hands sprouted black claws.

For a second, you were blind with panic but his dark, rumbling laugh eased the fear, your head tilting up as he lifted his taloned hands, moving over your head and dragging the tie and the suit jacket along. He held your stare as the two items landed next to you on the floor and his head tilted, a silent, cocky, knowing approval of the first piece of your real, raw self he had gotten to see, and the gesture made you almost break from under his hands as they went back into motion, hungrily peeling the sweat-damp shirt off your back. He was quick yet careful, but when you felt those sharp claws of his scraping over the curve of your back you couldn’t stifle the wanton whimper they drew from you.

He shrugged the remaining pieces of shredded, crimson fabric off his shoulders and pulled on the sleeves of his ripped dress shirt, seemingly not as affected or distraught as you by having lost almost all of its buttons in your careless undressing of him, and it had you lick over your fangs that poked through when your senses became clouded with desire.

His skin faded seamlessly into soft, thin fur right under his clavicles, spreading over his lean chest and arms and towards his flat, toned belly and his hips, where it began to look like it continued on his legs but was covered by the high waisted pants of his immaculate dress outfit. Hypnotized by his alluring form, you barely noticed how quickly he took piece after piece of your clothing off of your sweaty body, the fire in you fanned by the mere feeling of his sharp fingertips dancing over your hot skin, until there was no fabric left to take off. You only realized you were completely nude once he pulled your head up to face him by your chin, his grin glistening as if he was salivating at the view of you - and it drove you mad. His other hand reached around you, finding the base of your bristled tail, long fingers raking through the fur and pulling teasingly on it.

"What a fine specimen of a vixen you are, darling..."

You don't give him time to crack any more jokes as you wrapped yourself around him, rubbing your head against his neck with a growl in a primal need to rub your own scent into him, marking him, wanting him - no - needing him and him only to ease the infernal heat bubbling inside you. The only one worthy, your instincts were telling you, and the thought was taking a hold of you, dragging you down whether you wanted or not. The sheer feeling of his exposed chest brushing against yours was almost overwhelming and your hips instinctively rutted against his, begging and silently pleading for him to fulfill his duty as your chosen mate. A chuckle, resonating deep in his chest, roused from him as he gripped your shoulder with eager force, throwing his weight into you and pushing the two of you the last couple of steps you've still had left onto your bed. Your hands found their way into the soft, maroon fur of his ears, his silky scarlet locks and down his lean, muscular back, clawing and pulling and kneading as the urge to ruin him just as he was ruining you became overwhelmingly powerful and undeniable.

"Aren't we eager now? So desperate to be bred."

A tight tug on your copper fur, which drew an unexpectedly lewd and desperate sound from you, tore your eyes away from the straining, bulging fabric of his pants, where they had previously been staring for a moment too long, your wide blown pupils reflecting his. With your cheeks, chest and shoulders flushed, you saw that a faint pink colored his features, which darkened more the longer he was looking you up and down, the large hand on your side flexing, scratching and kneading every inch it could reach, as if he was still trying to collect himself.

"Y-You don't look too u-uninterested as well." you stutter as his warm lips trailed over your collarbone and down to your nipples, softly sucking one while his other hand twirled the other between his talented fingers, the pinch deliciously painful. When he flicked his tongue out and you yelped at the intense, electrifying and unbelievable feeling he shot into you with that single, simple move, his laughter vibrated against the sensitive flesh between his lips and you swear it's the first time you ever heard him really, genuinely laughing - a deep and powerful and sincere sound. You can feel it throughout your whole body and soul and something within your mind flickers to life - as if his laugh had recharged a part that had been turned off and numb during all of your times in Hell so far, only now to feel truly alive, you and Alastor’s souls intertwining and connecting in a way you had never believed possible before.

"Finally growing into your fangs, I see. Well, if that's the case then..."

He moved swiftly, shifting his weight and pulling you with him, until your places were reversed and you sat on top of him with his hands on your waist pressing you down, down, down - the clothed bulge pressed against the junction of your thighs. A heady moan was ripped from the depth of your throat as your sex ground down against the coarse cloth of his pants, the delicious friction all the more tantalizing for the simple fact that it wasn't nearly enough.

His pupils were huge, black circles with ticking dials in them, nearly completely swallowing the rich crimson, and his normally discreetly hidden antlers sprouted with loud cracks, growing exponentially with each new sound that broke the seal of your lips, each buck of your hips or twitch of your thighs.

"... prove to me how you deserve to receive my seed."

As the words fully hit you, all blood rushes downwards and your body responds on its own. Your mouth latches on his, not sweetly, not gently - wetly, harshly, the clash of tongues and fangs drawing blood, iron and spice spilling in both of your mouths as a new wave of hot arousal wets your center, seeping into his pants.

With both clawed hands planted on his chest you could feel every single tremor, twitch and move of his - the furious pulse of his blood running under your fingertips, the shudder as you breathed his name against the heat of his jugular - you wanted to memorize, tattoo each second into your mind because despite the hazy frenzy you found yourself in it didn't elude you that this might be a once in an afterlife time thing. The thought pained you, and you felt tears prick in the corners of your eyes, which went completely disregarded by both you and the one so voluntarily trapped beneath you.

His claws raked up and down the smooth, soft skin of your sides, tracing every inch and curve and divet and painting them with red streaks, before he finally - FINALLY - moved them to his belt, the clinking sound of his buckle opened music to your ears. The buck of his hips in an attempt to get his slacks to slide lower, his soft grunt as his cock sprang up when he freed it from its clothed confines, it all drove you even madder, his powerful aura and the heaviness of his swirling shadows tipping and bending your senses as you desperately sought to draw out more of these delicious sounds, more of that want that was so obvious now in his eyes and staggered breath.

You lean forward as your tail whipped and shivered as it stood up bristled in arousal, almost losing your balance for a second, bracing yourself on his bared chest as your tongues, teeth and lips crashed together again. Jolts of white-hot electricity shot straight down to your core at the feeling of the damp tip of his cock catching on the wet and slick opening of your folds. A slow drag upwards and your nails clawed over his pectorals and ribs, his throat answering to your touch with a deep, feral growl, almost beast-like as he slid effortlessly up between your lower lips, the combined juices that leaked from his and your loins slicking the hard length. He didn't let you sheath himself into your throbbing heat though, as if to test you, and you whined as you lowered yourself onto the length of his shaft, rutting slowly on it to satiate the hunger that seemed to only grow.

It was merciful torture, a tease you didn't mind for once as the tip of his cock hit your clit every other slide and the vibration of his taunting purrs traveled throughout your spine, leaving behind a tingling burn. It had you toss back your head, the drool hanging from your lips, completely involuntary but curiously not ashamed of it.

"Al-Alastor, please...I need..." You whined, half out of breath and delirious as the sensation of his tip pushing up against your entrance just didn't seem to be enough, the emptiness inside you demanding to be filled. The very corners of his mouth twitched as he stared up at you, your hips rolling helplessly against his, panting and moaning and begging.

"Need what, darling?"

Your brain was foggy with lust, your fingers twitching as you leaned backwards, your claws digging so deep into the soft fur of his chest that they drew blood, and the fire raging inside you wild and untamable. You wanted to speak and plead, to make your tongue cooperate and to say all the right things, to seduce and coax his shaft to fill you the way you knew only his would, but his sultry yet rough voice seemed to have put a stop to whatever reasonable and rational thought that had somehow still remained. Eloquence eluded you in this desperate state, and the only words leaving your gaped mouth were broken and hoarse.

"Mate me. Fill me. Breed me."

"There's a good girl..." he rasped, one clawed hand firmly squeezing the side of your waist, while the other brushed the thin line of tears, sweat and drool hanging from the corner of your agape lips before holding his swollen cock straight for you to impale yourself on it with a moan.

"Take all of me in, little vixen, show me you are worth it. There you go..."

The stretch was blissful, but not as much as the euphoric waves crashing down on you once your greedy core had swallowed up the entirety of his length, your velvety insides clamping down on the girth the way a vise would. His sly coaxing sent another surge of raw, primal and animalistic passion rippling throughout your body, and with strange triumph you felt him experiencing the same kind of exhilaration, making you mindlessly jump forward and down to fully grind yourself down on his member with all the leverage your thighs provided, while simultaneously his strong grip on your waist and him bucking up into you in that sinfully precise way allowed for him to immediately slam right into your most intimate spot, burying his entire shaft into your dripping, welcoming heat.

Falling in sync was shockingly easy, his muscles as responsive as yours and your bodies molding together like two pieces of a perfect puzzle. He thrusted upwards with a force that took your breath away, forcing the air of your lungs to flow out with the repeated bounce and pressure, your ears ringing with the rhythmical slap of skin against skin. Relentlessly, minute after minute passed, and he cruelly ripped you away from tipping over the edge multiple times, your sanity tearing at the seams whenever he slowed you down on his throbbing cock.

In and out, up and down, faster and faster your two bodies worked together and his thick tip and tantalizing ridges brushed all too perfectly against every right spot as his pace quickened once again, making your eyes roll back and the need to cry out his name through desperate sobs over and over and over again became unstoppable, each time a little less distinct and a little more wild than the last.

"You are quite the noisy little one, aren't you? ǤØØĐ. I do love the way you scream my name." he so much as growled as you did exactly that when his fingers gripped on your hips even tighter, his hold more firm as he forced your trembling, exhausted frame up and down, each new hit a bit harder and deeper than the previous one, his entire body tensing as he picked up the speed to a feverish and merciless intensity that had you cry out with pain and pleasure alike.

"β€Ǥ for your release darling, tell me who you want to be filled by once again."

"A-Alas...tor! I'm- fuck... please, let- I w-want only y-ou..."

It was all too much - too hot and too big and too deep, too close and too far away - thick, hot tears joined the sweat and drool that ran down your face. You wished it was over and yet that it would never end, that you could stay frozen like this for the rest of eternity - filled and aching, burning and melting on him, giving and taken from. You were broken, yet pieced together at his hands, and all of a sudden, just like that, he moved you up and his cock felt so much thicker than before this time. With one last violent push he pressed you deep into his lap - You screamed as you felt something swelling inside you, interlocking the both of you as he came right when your own vision turned first white, then black while you mercifully collapsed on top of him, finally being allowed your long-craved release. Hot seed painted your insides and made your toes curl, his cock twitching deep inside you as he gasped through the last ropes of thick and warm release. It lasted and lasted, his hand frantically stroking over your spine and down your whipping tail while he shushed you and purred praise after praise into your folded ears.

It took a few long moments for the fog to clear from your mind before you realized you had buried your nose and mouth into the crook of his neck, teeth sunken in his taupe flesh and fur unconsciously. You dared to turn your head enough to watch his face - his eyes had returned to their usual shades of red, and the engorged branches of his antlers were slowly retracting back to the small, hook shaped ones nestling at the crown of his head. He was still smiling, wide and satisfied and superior almost. You gingerly retracted your fangs from his neck, but when you attempted to unmount him – rationality, and with it shame, creeping back into your consciousness - Alastor's arms locked firmly around your bare frame, rendering you unable to move.

"So eager to get rid of me, already?" he cooed, a chuckle rising from his chest. "I wouldn't advise to move yet, my little vixen - Not while we're knotted."

"We're... knotted...?!"

He nods, and you follow his intense stare down to where you and him were still connected. Sure enough, you couldn't make out his shaft itself but a noticeable bump stretching the flushed lips of your sex impossibly wide, the sight causing you to gasp and tear your eyes away in shameful realization. A tidal wave of blood flushed your cheeks - partly due to arousal, but mostly because of embarrassment and confusion, and you willed yourself to stay calm and not to freak out. When you looked back to him you found him grinning, his expression the picture of amusement but there was something tender in the glimmering ruby eyes that looked up to you. It felt strange that even though you were sitting on top of Alastor, you still felt small and submissive to him, how much dominance and assertiveness he could hold even in a position like this.

"How long...?" you managed to ask, avoiding to look at him by turning your head aside, staring at the mess of ripped and torn cloths on the carpet.

"How long?" he echoes, but there's a pause until he hums a dark and pleased sound, "Well, darling, your guess is as good as mine. Despite what you may think, I've never knotted with anyone before."

You thought your heart would jump from your chest and flutter through the room when his hand softly petted the base of your fluffy tail before his knuckles ever so lightly traced the line of your back. His other arm still held you tightly, and his fingertips danced over the heated skin of your side, the soft caresses a sharp contrast to the way he'd handled you only a few minutes prior. You were overwhelmed by the sheer gentleness and intimacy, the vulnerability it made you feel, and you felt a lump forming in your throat.

"Relax, my little vixen. You've been so good for me, so now let me service you while we wait."

Too stunned and overstimulated to respond you feel his mouth licking and kissing along the various bruises and cuts scattered over your chest and torso, his hands soothingly stroked every inch of your sweat-damp body, tracing the lines of the scratches and welts he had left on your hips and waist while he still managed to somehow hold you still. Every touch and kiss had your tail bristle and quiver, a whimper leaving your throat, but he didn't stop until his lips were pressed to the pulse on your neck, the steady and heavy heartbeat drumming against his nose and chin.

"You know, I knew you'd come to your senses and give in to my advances eventually, darling. Although I didn't think it'd take you to get into a heat to finally admit it."

"Your wh-..."

He latched onto your breast, sucking a little too harshly on the sensitive nipple as if that’d answer your unfinished question, and the yelp that tore from your throat turned into a moan when his teeth raked over the nub before his tongue flicked out, soothing the pain he had caused while your head swirled in confusion.

Advances?

What did he mean, advances?

All he had done since you two met had been taunting and teasing and chasing and ridiculing you... right? Another sharp bite on your sore bud had you gasp, partly by pain but also by epiphany.

Like a boy on the playground, pulling the pigtails of the girl he likes, Alastor had tormented you, chased you, tripped and caught you, waiting for you to get the hint - No hard feelings, hm?

All this time, every day and any second, in his own weird, twisted way, he had been showing a perverted version of affection and pursued you.

You weren't sure how to react, what to feel - there was too much to wrap your head around and no way in hell you'd be able to sort through it all right now, with his cock still locked inside you and his lips wrapped around your breast, still teasing, still taunting. Although now, with the context you were given, you welcomed it, wanted it even. The more you thought about it the more it all fell into place, and his actions towards you suddenly felt less and less like harassment and more like a tremendously badly executed attempt at wooing. But it was oh-so in character for him, the enigma that was the Radio Demon, and you would've laughed if his ministrations on your chest and his gently swaying hips wouldn't have coaxed your body slowly but surely steer into yet another, but softer - almost lazy - orgasm.

"You are... o-oh god... the biggest p-pain in the ass, Alastor…"

He laughed, another genuine and carefree one, the vibration of his voice tickling your flesh as you came again with a pitiful moan and he let go of the rosy, pert nipple to lift his head, the soft and tender smile and the glint of his sharp teeth a sight you knew you'd never be able to forget.

"That's what they all say, dear."

Tag, you're it! - @diffidentphantom @sirens-and-moonflowers @tayraedoll @catticora @valerie-is-in-the-cupboard as well as my fab four (whose fics carried me through my unavioidable vertigo pause)

LOVE YOU @hazelfoureyes @minkdelovely @sugoi-writes and @synamartia <3

[edupiii]

im distraught by the fact Murder Drones is ending, so to make me (and possibly you) feel better, here are:

Some Random MD Character Head Cannons!

Most of these are goofy silly and aren’t really that important, but I wanted to share them anyways :3

　　*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

Uzi 🦇

- uses she/they pronouns but is fine with being referred to with other pronoun sets. however, they don’t like to be referred to as it/it’s since this set was used in a derogatory way towards her when they were younger (still sometimes is)

- has autism + ADHD but is not accommodated for it in school

- her guilty pleasure anime is Ouran High School Hostclub (kiss kiss fall in love!)

- had a My Little Pony phase when they were younger and even made a pony sona. When she’s tired and can’t sleep, she puts on their favourite mlp episodes and listens to them while they fall asleep

- is a Warrior Cats kid

- listens to hyper-pop and scene music along with their usual rock, goth, scream-o and night core songs

- is a passionate artist but has kept her sketch books and digital drawings hidden from others ever since they were mocked for drawing “cringey stuff” in elementary school. They still draw when she has free time and she has become more comfortable sharing their art work again (though mostly only with N)

- has multiple fursonas

- also has a crap tone of ocs with super traumatic backstories

- loves to watch crappy horror movies because she laughs at the dumb choices the stupid human protagonists make. however if N is ever over for a sleepover, she’ll refrain from suggesting any scary movies since they know he doesn’t like horror

- they were picked on for having a unconventional name at a young age, but when she found out it was the name of a firearm, she began to believe she had the coolest name out of all of their peers

- knows all of the FNAF game and book lore and will talk about it if given the chance to

- wants tattoos and piercings but thinks they would look weird or bad on her since they’re a robot. to compensate, they occasionally will put super cool stickers she finds on her plating

- has extensive knowledge on Pokémon types weaknesses and strengths

- writes and reads fanfic

- after Nori passed, young Uzi would try to talk to Khan about mechanical engineering just so he would pay attention to them

- Uzi and Thad were decent friends in kindergarten and elementary school, however they grew apart due to their differing personalities and social groups as they got older. Uzi believes that Thad did this on purpose to preserve his popularity. Thad is not aware of this belief.

- already had intrusive thoughts before the Solver was activated, but they became more aggressive and disturbing after it awoke

- despite enjoying getting work done in silence or listening to music, they find that she works better when N is nearby talking about anything. it’s like a comforting white noise

- has a bad habit of challenging V to anything and everything. this is simply because they know V won’t back out, guaranteeing a fun yet quite spiteful competition for the two

N 🐶

- mainly uses he/him pronouns but is open to multiple pronoun sets

- has ADHD and social anxiety

- whenever he hears classical music, his anxiety spikes a bit as it reminds him of his time in the Elliot Manor

- knows how to slow dance but isn’t very good at it

- before Tessa repaired him, N was originally discarded due to his lack of boundaries with humans (aka, speaking casually to them/out of turn), and his clumsiness

- is the fastest of the DD trio

- he doesn’t really enjoy anime as much as Uzi does but he really likes western cartoons like Adventure Time, The Owl House, Craig of the Creek, etc.

- very much dislikes horror in any form (have it be in a movie, video game, book, etc)

- likes to watch nature documentaries, however he skips the bits when an animal dies or is hurt because he feels bad for them

- doesn’t enjoy loud noises or shouting, however he makes an exception for Uzi and V when they yell out in excitement

- knows an ungodly amount of information regarding dogs, wolves or just canines in general. he will start talking about them if ever given the chance

- he doesn’t always understand some things Uzi talks about but he listens anyways since he enjoys her voice and company

- brings V out to social gatherings in the bunker in an effort to get her more aquatinted with the colony and make the workers feel more comfortable around her. However his efforts are in vein since by the end of the party, V is standing against a wall gabbing with Lizzy and every other drone is avoiding her

- N has tried to learn about football so he could play with Thad and his team, but he didn’t understand the rules in the slightest and worried about tackling Worker Drones and potentially hurting them

- when him and Uzi first had a sleepover, he wandered around her room and asked about all the trinkets, plushies, books and posters they had

- draws whenever he gets the chance and gifts his doodles to his friends

- isn’t very good at fighting games, but loves playing games like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing and Spiritfarer

- whenever at sleepovers, N tries to get everyone (usually Uzi, V, Lizzy, and Thad) to play Just Dance or do karaoke of Disney songs

- vocal stims words he thinks sound interesting

- he often feels as though he speaks too much, so he usually apologizes when talking about something he likes or just knows a lot about. Uzi and him have actually developed a thing where if he feels like he’s been talking for too long, he will give her a thumbs up to which she will respond with two thumbs up, letting him know that he’s good to keep talking and doesn’t need to apologize

- really wants to find out where all the immortal dogs had been put so he can go visit them

V 🦊

- uses she/her pronouns but she is okay with they/them pronouns too

- has generalized anxiety disorder

- when she was a worker in the Elliot Manor, she kept quiet to avoid upsetting or disturbing any of the humans around her. even when spoken to, she would speak as little as possible

- before Tessa repaired her, V was originally discarded due to her poor vision and skittishness around humans

- always found her maid uniform to be stuffy, irritating, and incredibly hard to move in, hence why now she doesn’t wear pants or anything constricting

- remembers the entirety of her Solver transformation but isn’t able to remember much of her time being possessed by the Solver

- she is physically the strongest of the DD trio

- whenever she is introduced to someone new (have that be through N or Lizzy), her first response is to try and intimidate them by saying unsettling things or bringing out some of her weapons. this is her way of judging the individuals character and helps her decide if she actually wants to be around them or not. due to this way of introduction, her friend circle is very small and many workers avoid her as much as possible

- tries to avoid affection or comfort from others as much as possible since she doesn’t know how to physically or emotionally react to it

- also try’s to avoid comforting others since she doesn’t believe she’s very good at it (she’s not good at it but she’s learning lol)

- thanks to Uzi, V now likes to listen to J-Pop and vocaloid

- whenever she is genuinely complimented she sputters a bit but will quickly respond with something along the lines of “i already knew that” or “and it took you this long to notice?”

- V is still unsettled by Uzis wings and tail as it is a continuous reminder of her own transformation. she’s become a lot more used to them being present but they still cause her to twitch uncomfortably

- doesn’t enjoy parties or sleepovers but if N, Lizzy or Uzi invite her to one, she has a bit of difficulty saying an honest no. she’ll suffer through the social interaction to make the few people she cares about tolerates happy

- unlike N and Uzi, she enjoys hunting for her oil and feels embarrassed when it is given to her in a canister. in private, she will go out and hunt for a bot or two from a different colony, however she doesn’t torture her prey like she used to

- V will occasionally put on her prom dress and strut around in it because it makes her feel good

- she isn’t very good at video games, but if challenged to a fighting game, she can’t say no

J 🐯

- uses she/her pronouns (trans women btw)

- experiences imposter syndrome quite frequently and when this happens, she will become more strict with her peers in hopes that the overcompensation will cause others to not question her authority or ability. This applies to both her time in the Elliot Manor and her time being the DD trio leader

- acted as Tessa’s main assistant at the manor, helping her keep on schedule and debriefing her on the days tasks. despite her attempts to keep Tessa on track, J found both herself and her human companion getting sucked into whatever nonsense Tessa wanted to do

- before Tessa repaired her, J had been originally discarded due to her unwelcoming attitude and overly strict demeanour

- J likes to draw but she doesn’t/didn’t often have the free time to sit down and doodle

- has the most difficulty remembering what happened at Elliot Manor since she is the most in line with her original programming

- is the main strategist of the DD trio

- would practice her monologues when she flew alone and would try them out on unsuspecting prey

- pitched the idea of keeping count of kills to V, which created a not so friendly competition between the two. N attempted to join but would forget to track how many kills he got during each hunt

- once on Copper-9, she found herself getting homesick fairly often. despite her workaholic tendencies, she misses the days of goofing off with Tessa

- J has a large skill set when it comes to her arsenal. V prefers her claws and blades while N prefers his blades and guns, but she doesn’t prefer one weapon over the other(s) because she is well versed in using all of them

That’s all for now!

　　　　　　　･:*+.\(( °ω° ))/.:+

[oneatlatime]

The Blue Spirit

Before we get into the episode, a couple of thoughts that have been rattling around my brain: -Last episode was heavy. I need jokes please. -it's been a while since I've seen a hybrid animal. I thought those were going to be a running gag. -It's been a while since there has been any gorgeous background art. -The last couple of episodes have really pushed Sokka and Katara to the background. I'm missing the ensemble style episodes.

Episode time!

It's Zhao. Hi asshole. Actually this conversation is touching on something I've been wondering about:

The fire nation has bigger fish to fry than a quarter-trained 12 year old.

If this whole episode happens at night time I'm going to really miss my CRT.

Zhao is now turbo asshole. Also there's a weird blue cat on his roof.

Imagine having a sick day on an Appa couch. Heavenly. And where are they hiding this time? Why is there a giant tapestry?

Looks like this won't be much of a Sokka episode.

Not going to be a Katara episode either. This is a novel way of benching your side characters.

How does airbending make you go faster? I could see earthbending making you faster, just by moving your running surface, but how does Aang do it?

I do like roadrunner shenenigannery.

Momo doesn't understand English confirmed. Also he has green-tinted vision? Do his irises coat his pupils? That would be weird.

Behold! A non-hydrid animal.

"It's been almost an hour and you haven't given the men an order." Ouch. Burn.

I'm not much of a Zuko fan, but even I have to admit that this is a sucky situation in a long line of sucky situations. You have to feel for him here.

Frog popsicles. Did not see that coming. Note the lack of hybridity.

Now he looks like those arrow guys.

Using aerial weaponry against an airbender seems really stupid. I guess they've got numbers one their side.

Is literally everybody in this world a professionally trained acrobat? Do all four nations include that in the school curriculum?

Compensating?

Could the action wait until morning please? I can't see.

Zhao doubling down on the asshole behaviour. Not cool. Keeping someone barely alive in captivity for as long as possible has to be some sort of war crime. Waging a war for a century against an entire planet is probably also a war crime, so again, bigger fish. There are assholes that are entertaining to watch and fun to root for, and assholes that are just plain mean. Zhao is now firmly in the latter category.

Poor Momo is trying his best. Zhao's right about there being no one to rescue Aang this time though. Even Appa's benched by babysitting duties.

The blue cat is back. Clinging to the underside of a moving cart using just your fingernails has got to be murder on the hands.

Good lord these guards are blind. This episode is too dark for me to see anything but I still saw blue cat guy hot foot it into the compound. His mask even has white parts.

Oh god he's monologuing. Blegh. Although convenient for blue cat guy. A desire to monologue may be Zhao's most consistent character trait.

Did the frogs do that?

The hallway-that-eats-our-guys just ate one of our guys. What should we do? How about send two more of our guys down the hallway-that-eats-our-guys? And leave only one to guard the door keeping the world's most powerful bender contained? Sounds good.

CAT.

He extinguished that guy! That gets funnier the more I think about it. All that fancy bending, years of training, and your fatal weakness is a bucket.

Exactly how many of those sword flourishes were necessary?

I like the blue cat's theme music. It's some sort of wind instrument, a bit kazoo-like, but it sounds a lot like this plastic toy trumpet I had as a kid that I'd play with whenever I was mad at my parents. I loved that thing, but it mysteriously vanished one day.

Blue cat is doing some seriously precision sword bending. Imagine if he'd missed? How do you live down cutting off the Avatar's hands and feet?

It WAS the frogs! Caught red- um. Footed? Do frogs have hands?

The return of One Man Army Aang.

Blue cat is surprisingly go with the flow for having just been catapulted dozens of feet without warning. Stuck the landing too. Sort of.

I'm sure there's some fascinating fight choreography going on at the moment but I CAN'T SEE IT.

Aang can briefly function as a load-bearing helicopter. Briefly.

So… how many of these guards are dead?

I am a dumb! How did I NOT see that coming? I am dumb! Much dumb!

Turns out there is one hairstyle worse than Zuko's usual.

In addition to roadrunnering, helicoptering, and ladderwalking, Aang can also carry someone taller and heavier than him at high speeds while fleeing the enemy. Is there anything airbending can't do?

Or maybe it was the frogs. Also I just realised that Fire Nation ships are shaped like Fire Nation shoes. I bet those shoes give you bunions.

Zuko was out for a WHILE. Might want to get that head wound checked out.

This hit unexpectedly hard. This episode's second surprisingly heavy scene. Can't they at least hug?

Was the kazoo-trumpet diagetic all along?

"Did you make any new friends?" "No. I don't think I did." Me:

Appa is your friend, not your toothbrush.

Final Thoughts

This was a character episode disguised as an action episode. Which I did not realise until I figured out that Blue cat man was Zuko all along.

Firebender Zuko has chihuahua energy. Blue Spirit Zuko has cat energy. Discuss.

Everyone needed a hug this episode. Including me. Except Zhao. Screw Zhao.

Zuko seems much more confident with those swords than he is with his fire. I don't mean to compare skill levels; I have no way of evaluating that. I mean he seems more sure of his movements with swords. Fire makes him shouty. Swords make him dance.

Can't really say much about Sokka and Katara this episode, although I do like that the reason they're out of commission is a direct consequence of last episode's exploits. Makes the through narrative feel more grounded if the small things as well as the large plot points have continuity/consequences.

Momo! Poor Momo. He really tried! Actually, I've been assuming, but is Momo a boy lemur?

I am utterly indifferent to the Arrow guys. Nice bit of stealthy worldbuilding, but I'll eat my hat if they ever recur.

This episode was The Storm part 2. Parallel angst threads concluding in the two mains staring contemplatively in silence after each other? Yep. Storm Part 2. This episode may have had even less humour than The Storm. I found the recurring frog jokes worked better than the Sokka and Katara are sick jokes.

I've been kind of nitpicky about this episode, but don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it. Kind of really ended on a downer though. It's also contributing to a growing suspicion of mine: would they pour all this development into Zuko, and set up a more powerful villain to take his place, if they meant for Zuko to stay the villain? The show started giving us insight into Zuko's character, and arguably a reason to pity him, at the same time as it gave us those things for Aang - The Southern Air Temple. This show has 60-some episodes. Would you humanise your villain in episode three if he was supposed to be the antagonist for the rest of the show's run? You could, but it would be a waste of writing energy. So what's going to happen? Is this war going to have three sides? I can't see Zuko fully switching sides, when his reasons for chasing Aang are so personal. Whatever Honour means in the fire nation, Zuko's only way to get it back seems to be capturing Aang. I can't think of anything Aang could give him that would be worth forever forfeiting his Honour.

I think this episode made the correct choice, in not having Zuko say anything when he wakes up in the forest with Aang. Like the end of the Southern Air Temple, and the end of (I think?) the Winter Solstice Part 2, some moments are enough - no dialogue needed. But - bear with me as I stray into fanfiction territory - wouldn't it be fascinating to hear the conversation Aang and Zuko might have had? And isn't it neat that Aang chose the conversational topic he did - not questioning why Zuko rescued him, but attempting to reach out? There was a choice made in his one-sided conversation with Zuko that I want to pick at. I can't put into words why I found that short scene so impactful. But I want to pick at it.

I'll be rewatching this episode on the CRT in my parents' basement when I can, because the brightness on my little laptop just does not go high enough. This episode was dark. Fittingly so, but still. I want to SEE.

[senjuushi]

Antique Gun Character Intros

Since a good few people have asked for this now, here's a character intro post covering the Rhodoknight Antiques! o3o Disclaimer that I do not know these characters anywhere near as well as I do the Moderns, and as a result, my takes are subject to change as I get a better feel for them. Still, I hope this post makes the Antiques more accessible to y'all and gets me some more requests for them... XD

. . .

This is Enfield. Outwardly, he appears to be polite, good-natured, and normal. He’s very much not that. A lot of Enfield’s character is shaped by his younger brother, Snider, whose terrible behavior and constant threats of remodeling Enfield to be “just like him” are a real handful to deal with. They deserve each other. Underneath his noble exterior, Enfield is a little freak. He’s obsessive, smothering, and neurotically desperate to be of use, with stalker-y tendencies and a bad habit of idol worship. He wants to be good and helpful, and he’ll do some highly disturbing things to accomplish that. His relationship with Snider also has a weird amount of tension... of the suspiciously suggestive variety.

. . .

This is Snider. He’s awful. Snider’s whole personality revolves around the fact that he really, REALLY doesn’t want to be a person. His belief that he’s still nothing more than a weapon leads him to a fixation on combat and an utter rejection of anything too human for his liking. This includes eating, sleeping, and bathing. His gun is a special case that was made right on the cusp of what separates a Modern and an Antique— and as a result, Snider is technically both. He can function as whichever side he chooses to and only defaults to Antique because that’s what he finds most useful. He’s Enfield’s younger brother, a directly adapted and functionally superior model of gun, and because of that, he’s constantly trying to “remodel” Enfield into the same type of gun. They have a weird relationship where Enfield babysits him, Snider is unfailingly bratty and threatening, and the suspicious levels of maybe-sexual tension are just plain weird. 

. . .

This is George. For the most part. He’s the embodiment of the “cheerful, stupid American” stereotype that’s so common in anime. An all-around sunshine boy, George is good-natured, friendly, sweet, and more than a little oblivious. His main issues come from the fact that he shares a body/gun with the “Brown Bess” personality (the poster boy of the first game). George feels inferior to Brown Bess in both his capabilities as a weapon and his value as an individual, and he repeatedly expresses a belief that everyone around him would rather have his counterpart in his place. Though he tries his best to be good and useful, he’s painfully aware that his existence is kind of a disappointment. He’s way too self-sacrificing for his own good. 

. . .

This is Kentucky. He’s more or less an overexcited puppy who REALLY wants to prove himself. Passionate, energetic, and with very little volume control, he’s somewhere between adorably earnest and annoyingly intense. He has a sort of one-sided rivalry with his older brother, Pennsylvania, where he’s aggressively trying to surpass his big bro... while Pennsylvania just wishes they could get along better. Kentucky is also pretty short-tempered; he’s perfectly respectful to his Master but ready to throw hands with other guns whenever the chance arises. He cares a lot about aesthetics and his appearance, wants Master’s attention desperately, and is definitely compensating for a lot of internal insecurity. 

. . .

This is Pennsylvania. He’s a laid-back guy with a love of hunting and the outdoors. The level-headed parallel to Kentucky’s hot-tempered enthusiasm, Pennsylvania is calm, independent, and a bit aloof. He can get caught up in his own way of doing things to the point of forgetting about others’ feelings, but he’s well-intentioned and generally kind. A reliable “big brother” type who looks after others, he very much seems like the type who’d willingly get hurt if it meant protecting someone he cares about. He doesn’t have a lot of pride in the sense of how he appears to others and is more concerned with doing what needs to be done than getting his way or looking good.

. . .

This is Charleville. He’s a sweet little guy who’s very damaged. In the game’s story, his previous Master (before the player owns him) is literally renting him out. For his healing abilities as an Antique, technically, but the more sexual implication is still very much there. Because of this renting out and his previous Master’s general mistreatment, Charleville has an intense fixation on purity, perfection, and being appealing to everyone around him. He’s delicate, gentle, polite, and affectionate, but also has a bad tendency of hiding any problems in an attempt not to bother people. He values his physical appearance and holds himself to a strict standard of behavior, though his more attention-seeking side does slip out from time to time. Charleville desperately wants to be loved, especially by his Master, but he’s convinced he has to be all but perfect to earn it. 

. . .

This is Chassepot. He’s Gras’s older brother and the source of MANY of Gras’s problems. Like Gras, Chassepot initially comes across as a polite, charming gentleman. That’s very intentional. He wants Master’s affection and approval desperately and does everything possible to come across as the kind of capable, pleasant person who his Master can rely on and be close to. Under that surface, though, Chassepot is dangerously prone to feelings of jealousy, inferiority, and comparing himself to others. He’s easily provoked and can have a violent temper with other guns, and his past failures haunt him endlessly. It’s likely that he has the same tendency for rabies as Gras, but is just better at keeping it contained... in the short term. We know from the previous game that Chassepot can snap, and when he does, it’s bad. 

. . .

This is Tabatiere. He’s a laid-back, inoffensive person who’s perfectly open about the fact that he’s meant for a support role, not the front lines. Usually functioning as Chassepot and Gras’s babysitter, Tabatiere sticks to the sidelines, minds his own business, and tries to be helpful where he can. He’s deeply insecure, however, and his self-esteem is so low that getting too much attention, even positive, makes him highly uncomfortable. He has the atmosphere of someone who willingly accepts anything bad that happens to him because he can’t imagine deserving better.

. . .

This is Dreyse. He’s an ultra-strict, ultra-serious sort who values rules, order, and hard work. Between his massive body and imposing personality, he comes across as highly intimidating... but he’s as respectful and obedient as can be when it comes to authority figures. Dreyse has high expectations of himself and his performance, to the point where he’ll accept nothing less than perfection. No matter what physical or emotional distress it causes him, he’ll do everything possible to fulfill his orders and succeed as a Musketeer. Deep down, he has a lot of guilt over his past and personal failings, and the only value he sees in himself is as a weapon and tool. Herme respects him massively, and the two are close in a kind of weird way. Dreyse ends up as his caretaker during Iron Days, for example.

. . .

This is Jitte. He has that kind of happy-go-lucky, easygoing personality where he’s both pleasant to be around and kind of a ditz. Very much “drunk goofy uncle” energy. When his self-esteem issues aren’t getting in the way, he can be quite affectionate (especially with Master). Sensitive, earnest, and emotional, Jitte has nothing but good intentions in mind with everything he does. He has the typical bizarre gun insecurity, though, and worries a lot about if he’s as useful and worthwhile as the other Musketeers around him. His gun also functions as a jitte, which is more or less an Edo-period police baton. Though he seems pretty carefree, Jitte is surprisingly hardworking and takes pride in being able to protect people. He’s very moral, with a strong sense of justice. 

. . .

This is Karl. He’s a dignified little man who, despite his youthful appearance, is the oldest gun in the series. As in, he’s from the early 1500s. A unique weapon who belonged to Emperor Charles V, Karl has a long and prestigious history, and he knows it. He’s proud and well-mannered, takes his status as a famous piece of history very seriously, and is quite concerned with how he appears and behaves in front of others. Showing weakness is hard for Karl. He does a lot to hide how lonely and weak he can be, including active attempts to remain aloof and relatively unattached to his Master. The most he can tolerate is a professional, weapon-and-wielder relationship, since anything else would be opening him up to even more loss. I think he’s also weak to stress and VERY bad at dealing with unfamiliar situations; being esteemed as a valuable relic for so long means that he’s pretty sheltered and more unused to physical pain than he wants to admit.

. . .

This is Lorenz. He’s kind of insufferable. The mad-scientist intellectual type, he has a massive ego and a superiority complex to match. His type of gun was made in both government and private factories, with the government factory-made ones being notably superior in function— and this Lorenz is one of those. Like a lot of the Antiques, he’s eager and insistent to prove that he’s a useful, high-quality tool, even and especially when that means making himself look good at others’ expense. He’s extremely loyal to Karl, to a kind of pathetic degree... and also absolutely terrified of Dreyse. That leads to the part where Lorenz is very much a coward who’s playing tough in the hopes no one will see through the farce. He’s easily agitated, neurotically stressed, and can’t stand things not going his way. 

. . .

This is Cutlery. He’s a little brat who has the typical bizarre-gun problem of pathetically low self-esteem. His gun is a weird one— it’s technically three guns disguised as pieces of silverware that were used on pirate ships as a covert weapon. Cutlery has a whole complex about how “cowardly” he is, and despite his prickly attitude and initial rudeness, he’s painfully shy, insecure, and unable to handle attention of any kind. He’s prone to idolizing people and desperately wants close relationships, but is too anxious, defensive, and afraid of being hated to open up to people without panicking. That said, he can be awfully needy and clingy once he’s attached. He also has a strong fixation on food, to the point where hoarding behavior and general food insecurity seem likely.

. . .

[thirstyforlulu]

Yandere Hellsing x Reader HCs? Including Millennium

Integra:

She’s a very possessive yandere

With her money and power, she has the means to get her hands on you

She’s good at playing cool, you won’t catch on for a while

Sure you notice that she never sends you on missions and that she’s always having you work near her office, but that’s just her being a good friend

When she decides to approach you romantically, she’s very forward

Around you she’s a touch starved animal, unlike her usual put together appearance

If you deny her feelings or try to run, get ready because she’s not giving up that easily

She’ll pull whatever strings she has to in order to find you

She’ll spend thousands bribing people or tracking you

Once she knows where you are, she’ll send Alucard to collect you

When she has you she’s very loving

She’ll want to constantly be touching you in some way

Usually that means sitting beside her while she works at her desk

As long as you’re good, she’ll let you wander the entirety of the manor

Since you tried to run she’s added all sorts of security measures so you can’t get out

Act up though and she will chain you to the wall in her office

“Y/N, your behavior has been deplorable lately and needs correcting.

Don’t give me those sad eyes, this is all your fault.”

Walter:

He’s a sneaky yandere

Very observant, he’ll learn your patterns and preferences

At the start he’ll leave you gifts like your favorite food or pretty flowers

He uses it as an excuse to get closer to you

He’s always offering to do favors for you, secretly lowering your defenses around him

He’s not the type to take anything from you but he will take the time to appreciate them

If you let him clean your room he’ll likely pause to sniff some clothes

You notice how much he knows about you but you just think he’s very observant

You don’t realize it’s due to his obsession

He’s the type to take more precautions

If you deny his advances he’ll lock you up somewhere, probably his room

He’ll get chains and a cage if necessary

If you really act up, he’ll lock you in the basement

The way you cling to him in fear after spending all night in the dark is addictive

His wires are always nearby

If you try to run you’ll only get a few steps out the door before the wires wrap you up and pull you back

He does his best not to hurt you, but if you struggle too much, a few cuts are inevitable

Seras:

She’s a very clingy yandere

She’ll want you on every mission she goes on

When you have free time she’ll take you out into the area nearby for some quality time

If you ever push her away, she gets angry

She’ll pout like a child then force her way into whatever it is you’re doing

At the time, she’ll act like it’s just a coincidence and you might even believe her

You’re not getting rid of her so easily

She’s also a very sweet yandere

If she feels she’s hurt your feelings she’ll go out of her way to get you presents or treat you nicely

Until you say you forgive her, she won’t stop pampering you

No one else is allowed near you, not even Integra

She’ll make excuses and do whatever it takes to keep you to herself

She would never kidnap you or lock you up because she hates to see you sad, but her “loving” behavior will be a trap in itself

Don’t forget that despite how cute she is, she’s still a powerful monster that can and will do what it takes to keep you

If that means making you one of her familiars then so be it

Alucard:

He’s a terrifying yandere

He can control you and the people around you, holding you captive

You’re not a stupid person, you know how easily he could end your life, so you tend to let it all happen

On the plus side, he’s very passionate and often brings you gifts

He’s such a smooth talker you’ll end up forgetting the terrifying threats he’s made in the past

Anyone who flirts with you will mysteriously disappear

Anyone who hurts you will turn up days later torn to shreds in a ditch

He would never do anything to hurt you, but that doesn’t stop him from making threats

“I could tear you apart just like that man from last week. I would love to hear your moans of anguish, but I’d prefer moans of pleasure.”

When you act out he manhandles you

He’ll press you against a wall and bite your neck to remind you of your place

He enjoys when you become complicit, but he likes when you’re occasionally act out

It gives him an excuse to punish you, which he always loves

After that, you’ll think twice before disobeying him

Millenium:

Jan:

Bro this man is already wild

When he sets his sights on you it’s go time

He won’t let anyone else near you or get to know you, not even his brother

He’ll threaten people, meeting them after work for overstepping their boundaries

He’s very touchy, like he’s trying to leave his scent all over you

Out in public, he’ll hang on you, showing others that you’re already taken

He’ll growl at people that look at you too long when passing by

He flicks a lot of people off, all the time but more so when he’s around you

He’s paranoid and doesn’t like anyone else around you, even friends

Clearly he’s a fan of body modification so if he can convince you he’ll want to get some kind of matching piercing/tattoo

If you get it, he’ll pay special attention to it any time you cuddle, running his fingers over it countless times

He can be very intense so he might yell at you, but when he sees the hurt look in your eyes he backs off

In his own weird way, he loves you and doesn’t want to see you hurting

But if he has to hurt you to keep you then so be it

Luke:

He’s not as subtle as he thinks he is

He tries to play it cool, but if someone tries to touch you he will blatantly smack their hand away

Always has an excuse to be around you and if he doesn’t, he’ll find one

He’s not as touchy as Jan, but he does like to hold your hand

You’ll feel his pinky brush against you before his hand completely envelops yours

His grip tightens when he sees you looking at others

Your attention is something he so desperately craves

He gives you every moment of his time and he wants you to do the same

If you’re ever in danger he’s there before anyone else even knows

It helps that he was already watching you

Be ready to compensate him

At first he’s just worried about you, but then once he knows you’re alright, he’ll start making demands

“You owe me for coming to your rescue dear. Or would you like me to toss you back? Maybe then you’ll beg me in such a cute way.”

Rip:

She does not care what other people think

She’ll ruin relationships to get closer to you

She’ll endanger her own job if it keeps you two apart

Doing favors is how she gets closer to you

Anytime you need something she’s there and ready to go

She’d leave in the middle of a mission if she hears you need help

Anyone causing you problems will be slaughtered and presented to you as a gift

“See y/n, I took off their heads just for you.”

She can get very aggressive especially if she thinks you’re denying her advances

She won’t hurt you, beyond a little pinch or so, but she’ll make threats

She’s very sadistic and would be willing to lock you up

Having you as a pet is actually an attractive idea to her

She’ll take good care of you wherever you’re locked up, but she won’t allow many freedoms

“Look at my pretty pet. How lucky am I.”

The Captain:

He’s like a pet, always following you around

He’ll growl at people he doesn’t like around you

His arms are always around you, keeping you close

No one else is allowed to tend to you after missions

When he’s patching you up, he’ll run his hands along your arms and legs, lovingly caressing your limbs

He’ll use that as an excuse to stay around you

Popping in to “check on you” at all hours

You won’t even know he’s come in until he’s sitting on the edge of your bed

He’s the type the would sit there for a moment watching you breathe

If he can, he’ll try to get you to be his assistant

If he can convince the higher ups that he needs one, he’ll do whatever he can

Then he’ll be around you even when he works and will be able to protect you

No one on the battlefield will be able to even get close to you

He’ll ignore his own tasks to protect you

He’s extremely loyal and obsessive

The Doctor

Oh man it is terrifying when he has his eye on someone

He views it like just another experiment, wanting to test and push you

He’ll have you coming to him for “examinations” all the time

He’d likely put a bug on you

Suddenly he knows things you don’t remember telling him, but you can’t prove anything

People you like start disappearing, people you had no idea he knew about

If he suspects you’re starting to catch on and trying to get away, he’ll start drugging you

Then you’ll have to come to him if you’re going to get better

While he’s treating you, he’ll trick you mentally manipulating you to grow closer to him

You’re going to think so highly of him, forgetting all the red flags you’d seen before

He is absolutely a gas lighter but he’s damn good at it

Even if you have experience with this stuff you won’t pick up on it

It’s a game of cat and mouse with him

The Major

He is not subtle and does not care

Your needs or emotions don’t matter to him

If you don’t respond well to his advances he will make terrible threats

If that doesn’t work he’ll take it a step further, allowing the ghouls to get close to taking a bite out of you

Torture is the next step

He doesn’t care about your mood, he has to have you

“Y/N, why do you fight so hard when you know I’m just going to hurt you again?”

He’ll want to do most of it by hand, but if he needs to he will get the others involved

“Would you like me to make a spectacle out of you? I think the others would enjoy that.”

Behave and he won’t hurt you

If he gets mad enough he’ll remove your arms and legs

You’ll become his good little doll, always on display for him

Like a bird in a cage, you’re his favorite display item

[sepublic]

Through the Looking Glass Ruins!!!!!

         …

         SO! Onto other things first…

         WRATH IS BRAXAS’ FATHER!??!!? HOLY SHIT, Wrath is a canonical dad, I’d always expressed my… OH MY GOD WRATH IS DAD! And of BRAXAS, that sweetie… How is Braxas such a sweetie with a father like HIM, also-

         Wrath was in casual wear? Either he has a day off, or he got fired by Belos/Kikimora after drawing Luz a map to Eda in Young Blood, Old Souls! Either way this guy has a sudden new level of NUANCE that I am reeling from, and yes I checked, that really is Wrath according to the credits! Dang this puts everything in a WHOLE new light…!

         AMITY HAIR OHMIGOD IT LOOKS SO ADORABLE SHE’S SELF-ACTUALIZING I AM FUCKING SCREAMING HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, it’s PINK and not green… They acknowledged it, Emira did! And they CHANGED IT I AM LOSING MY FUCKING MIND OVER THIS-

         She looks so BEAUTIFUL and I love the kind of foreshadowing with the bookends of our first shot of Amity having her hair down, and now it’s changed! And she looks adorable and EMIRA AND EDRIC BEING GREAT SIBLINGS I LOVE IT SO MUCH! This… THIS is everything I wanted! I was resigned to not much of them but HELL YEAH they’re being good siblings and we get a look at their rooms, we see them doing MAKEOVERS together this is everything from my favorite fanon content and MORE,

         Also Edric has a date?! Emira says ‘their’ mom… Unless the Golden Guard has a mom, DARN! Not gonna lie, I half-expected a big twist at the end that Edric was dating the Golden Guard, who was doing some sort of reconnaissance as his unrecognized normal self and/or screwing around with the Blights even further, but in a GENUINE sense… But then who knows Kikimora could be posing as GG’s ‘mom’, this is a stretch anyhow-

         JUST HELL YEAH Blight Twins! Blight Twins being sweet and mischievous and supportive of each other, Blight SIBLINGS being siblings, Emira being an older sister and giving advice! And AMITY, Amity mentioning how much Luz has changed stuff, I love that they acknowledge it openly how her life has completely shifted, and now… NOW…!

         No necklace! Red leggings! PINK HAIR?! Is this why Amity in the intro hasn’t been updated yet… She was getting TWO updates, so the animators decided to only animate a change after this final update?!

         King and Gus are also friends it seems, and they even recorded some fun together! I’m surprised at how much Bria and the others mock Gus’ illusion skills… Obviously Belos is kinda terrible but like; I don’t think he’d set aside an entire subset of magic into Illusions without reason! Also that nightmare trip… I LOVE IT, I love Gus applying the creativity of illusions in their ability to completely warp and distort someone’s sense of reality! And I called that dragon-thing being an illusion!

         A graveyard… I wonder if the Gallderstones (is that how it’s spelled) have any relevance or if they’re just neat? I hope Mattholomule and Gus help hide the Looking Glass Graveyard… Damn, that’s another Death reference with Gus, huh! Is it culminating in his respect for the dead, or will it continue further with Gus being a necromancer, or an Oracle who can commune with the deceased, and he has their respect as someone who treats them properly?!

         Also not to get dark but… What if all those Illusionists are dead because of Belos? I’m JUST SAYING…! And not gonna lie, every time someone insulted Illusions, I kept imagining the Illusion Head just suddenly waking up and feeling like there’s a disturbance in the force, as well as a weird compulsion to beat up some Glandus kids. It’d be even funnier if he had beef with the Construction, Plant, and Abomination Heads as well!

         Speaking of which, more confirmation on Construction Magic being related to earth! Glad to see Bria give us a look into that, which furthers my idea of Belos using construction magic… Also dang, Bria and the Glandus Kids really are the parallels/foils to the Detention kids! You’ve got the short ‘nice’ girl, the tall lanky kid, the furry… But the Glandus Kids start off looking nice and cool, but turn out to be rather nasty!

         Meanwhile the Detention Kids seem like bad news and delinquents, but no! They’re just demonized and actually very kind and chill! The Detention Kids are looked down upon, the Glandus Kids are appraised… The Detention Kids are dual-track, the Glandus Kids are singular; Glandus Kids from, well, GLANDUS, Detention Kids from Hexside… One’s ‘mischief’ is actually very neat and cool, the other’s is literal grave robbing.

         I guess that’s how the bleeding statues got past the censors- It’s technically just an illusion! Also more insight into how Glandus works with its Survival of the Fittest mentality, I wonder if we’ll get confirmation on which coven heads came from there, how that might influence them as adults…

         What is Glandus like, is it more whole-heartedly accepting of Belos’ rule, hence its harsh ideals? Was it made after Hexside? Does Bump hate it for being so cruel like that, or is it just school bias? And dang poor Mattholomule, I always had a feeling he sort of felt and knew that he wasn’t much, so he accepted and compensated by deliberately doing whatever he can for power…

         They confirmed he’s from Glandus, and I appreciate this new look at him! This new leaf turned… Hot take but he’s honestly not as bad as Boscha, his stint with Gus was a one-time thing that Gus was able to live with! And that seems pretty good to set them up as friends! Speaking of Boscha, Willow was injured by pixies? And the last time we heard of pixies, they belonged to Boscha and caused the school to get shut down… Did BOSCHA DO THIS I SWEAR SHE IS DEAD TO ME-

         (Also she’s mentioned in the credits for this episode but I don’t remember hearing her? I might’ve gotten distracted with so much other things.)

         Gus! I like the insight into his relationship with Illusions, and I appreciate how he’s considering other forms of magic… But this hesitation might just serve to reaffirm his believe in Illusions, which is okay! It’s all about choice… And yeah, it seems Gus also has a case of impostor syndrome like King, no wonder they get along so well! I love the glimpses into Gus’ house and the confirmation that he has a library card, no Perry though alas…!

         I appreciate how Gus feels overlooked, like he has no real substance, which is how his Illusions reflect a desire to draw attention, but also the idea that there’s nothing real beneath them… Again, very much like King! And Gus, he’s not a powerhouse like the rest, he’s SKILLED and smart, but strength isn’t his forte, it’s not brute force he operates on, but cleverness! Trickery, I like it…! It’s a nice callback to his last A-plot episode, SVSF, where instead of fighting Mattholomule physically, Gus’ solution is to think outside the box and pull the alarm!

         You go kid, not relying on brute strength but showing that some clever tricks and thinking are just as valid! Kinda wonder if this episode is lowkey a discussion on masculinity for young boys, especially with Gus growing older with puberty, though the latter is mostly because his actual VA grew… But maybe the writers rolled with that and incorporated it, or it’s just a very neat coincidence! Also, it is me or did Mattholomule’s voice change? And the gag that Gavin’s dad looks identical to him, even moreso because he’s NOT supposed to have a moustache… That’s great!

         Malphas! Love this reference to a classic demon, I wasn’t sure if Malphas was the librarian with glasses whom I’ve always headcanoned as a father figure to Amity… But maybe it’s actually this bird dude! He seems adept in Bard magic, and I love the reveal of his true crow appearance… Guess those theorists were right that the one-eyed figure is from the Forbidden Stacks! Also Malphas NOT COOL with Amity, but I’m glad Luz changed his mind, and I wonder how that adventure looked…

         Which- DAMN, the RSD with Luz! She looks so UTTERLY BROKEN when Amity mentions doing stupid things, and she didn’t mean it like that, but Luz just looks so completely shattered and you can tell she wants to cry but instead she bottles it up and tries to take it in stride, and that plays into her trying to overcompensate for her mistakes AGAIN… SOMEONE GET IT TO HER HEAD that she doesn’t need to! I’m scared for Luz, and I was SO scared this episode would end on a bad note…

         BUT DOAHLDdFAEONDKFHN LUMITY KISS LUMITY KISS! ONE-SIDED BUT THEY FINALLY FUCKING KNOW AND AMITY IS LIKE WHAAAAT AND I WAS WAITING FOR IT AND I COULD FEEL IT HAPPEN AND GAY KISS! GAY KISS ON-SCREEN!!! And the way Luz just FLOPS to the ground on her knees AAHJJFFKHGGK and no Alador nor Odalia to ruin this, UTTERLY PERFECT and the twins WATCHING OOOHHHHGGGG YYYEEAAAAHHH-

         This is EVERYTHING I ever wanted!

         What an AMAZING episode with wonderful characer beats and reveals! Again, Amity’s growth as a character, that brief insight into how Luz as a person is very chaotic and sometimes frustrating for Amity and forces her to reevaluate, but ultimately it’s good and Luz DOES try her best, and Amity clearly wanted to make things up for Luz and apologize, they’re BOTH doing things, just the little moments!

         Also, Alex Lawther voices Philip Wittebane! He has long hair and a vaguely british accent, he’s… He’s Belos isn’t he? And they got a new VA because having him voiced by Matthew Rhys would be really spoiler-y right? He’s got the long hair and he’s a nerd… And with how he talks of finding a way back home, maybe Belos really DOES just want to return home, after all? He talks of making a way back home…

         And we see a glimpse of the Portal, so it might’ve brought him there? Or did Philip succeed in making it, and that was his blueprint designs? Did he arrive by Titan’s Blood? What happened to the portal if it brought him there, or if he made it? Why the scar, why near Eda’s house, partially buried?

         Was it lost before he could finish his work, and Philip got side-tracked into something else… Perhaps going on a crusade, on behalf of a curse/demon that possessed him? A demon that killed King’s father…? Was the portal broken and he had to discard it, but then it naturally healed- Or did it just need to recharge, maybe Philip DID make it back home, WHAT IS THE ANSWER?! Is there some sort of doppelganger for Philip, is BELOS his doppelganger?! What is THIS WHAT-

         WHAT AN EPISODE!

[ateezmakemeweep]

line without a hook.

mingi x reader; lovers to strangers au

word count: 13k

angst, fluff (tw: mentions of death)

you could personally never understand one’s desire to run as far away from their hometown as they could.

maybe it’s because you’ve had the privilege of growing up in a beautiful, prosperous place, with cozy winters, amazing festivals and snowfalls on the frozen lake before spring came and melted it away.

maybe it’s because you have fond memories tied back to this picturesque place, shops and restaurants surrounding the lake in a way that almost seemed too magical to really exist.

you’ve met so many different people purely because of that sight, men and women of different cultures and backgrounds always so eager to take in your hometown’s natural beauty.

fortunately for you, the lake ran right through your yard and acted as a place of solace where you could get away from everything in the busy, touristy town.

a place you went when you were feeling happy, sad, angry or when, truthfully, you didn’t know how to feel.

it’s also where you first met your boyfriend, one of the many come and go visitors, who introduced himself as mingi.

except he had walked right through your backyard like he owned the place, a small smile on his handsome face as he took in the sight of the frozen water.

he looked at it with such wonder and fascination, like he’d never seen anything like it before in his life; and you can remember that night, even with how you’re feeling right now, that he looked at you the same way.

it’s the only thing that reminds you, at some point, you two must have really loved each other.

two years ago - december 13th

you were hunched over your desk finishing the last of your final essay, only a page left before you could throw every syllabus away and rejoice at having two months of winter break.

it was a chilly night but you couldn’t help but be outside on the porch, a big warm sweater and fuzzy socks on as you read over your work so far.

you’d gotten used to the sounds of nature, the chirping of birds, pitter patter of animal feet and even the loud, slightly terrifying barks of deer.

but the footsteps crunching on the leaves in your driveway definitely weren’t those of chipmunks or rabbits, your strained neck craning over to see a tall figure walking right past your porch and deep into your backyard.

strangely enough, whether it be the frigid temperatures getting to you or the stress of finishing this paper, you weren’t panicked; the man technically wasn’t even on your property, he was right outside of it along the grass that turned to decking.

so you continued to make revisions and edit your paper silently, your eyes fluttering up ever so often to check on the mysterious, tall figure. his shoulders were broad and his hair was messy, that much you could tell from your spot on the porch.

when five minutes past, then ten, then twenty, and he had still yet to move or realize he was in someone’s yard, you decided to investigate - because one, how long could he really stare at this frozen mass of water and two, your head was pounding from looking at this stupid document.

so without an ounce of fear or hesitation, you wrapped your sweater tighter around your body and made your way down to the man.

your slippers were loose so the last remaining bits of snow were seeping into your socks, a slight grimace on your face when the coldness touched your skin.

the sound of crunching snow caused him to turn around, his lips quirking up into a small smile when you came into view.

it was when you got closer that you saw just how attractive he was, pale skin that glowed, plump lips that were slightly chapped and messy hair that looked even better up close.

he looked different than most locals and tourists around here, many of them pastel wearing men who wouldn’t dare stick an earring in their skin.

but the man in front of you had a completely different vibe, earrings and chains and a gray t-shirt that stretched across his broad chest despite the freezing temperatures tonight.

a few minutes of silence pass, neither him nor you concerned about filling it; it seemed as if he could’ve stared at the lake just as long as you could’ve wondered why the hell he liked it so much.

“aren’t you cold?”

more silence passed and for a second you think maybe he didn’t hear your blurted out question.

but then you discover he did when he looked at you with a smirk, the snow crackling underneath him as he shifts to take in your big sweater and pink slippers.

“no.”

it’s a short and simple response but his voice is somehow incredibly warm, looking at you with a twinge of soft light in his eyes before he opens his mouth again.

“why? are you?”

a confused smile pulls at your lips as you shake your head, looking over his bare (muscular) arms conspicuously.

“no. but i’m not wearing a t-shirt in december.”

he sends a smile your way, his large body turning allowing you to fully take in just how big he is. you feel incredibly small next to him and it should probably make you nervous - a large, stranger unwelcomed in your yard and staring down at you.

but there’s a weird sense of tranquility over both of you in this moment, the moon shining off the frozen lake as his gaze meets yours.

“well that’s a good thing,” he hums, your eyebrow quirking up before he continues. “because i don’t have a jacket to give you.”

a surprised chuckle leaves your mouth that has a smile spreading across your face and he feels his own doing the same at the sight of it.

“what makes you think i’d take a jacket from a stranger?”

his eyebrow raises after a few seconds of pondering the rhetorical question, his large hand suddenly coming between your bodies.

“my name’s mingi. i’m staying a few houses over at my aunt’s for the holidays.”

your lips purse together as you wrack your brain for which neighbor it could possibly be, remembering that the woman who brought you left over lasagna for thanksgiving mentioned her nephew was coming for christmas and new years.

she didn’t mention that her nephew looked like this or that he went onto the property of anyone he pleased.

“i’m y/n,” you say, taking your smaller hand in his cold one before a teasing smiles crosses your face. “and we’re actually standing in my backyard. so thank you for trespassing so politely, mingi.”

his eyes widen as an embarrassed look crosses his face, the small hint of pink on his cheeks just as endearing as it is humorous.

“i- i’m so sorry, oh, my god,” he chuckles out, your cold hands still intertwined. “my aunt said i could take the first road i saw to get to the lake. that there was a better view down here than from her house.”

and you can see in his eyes the exact moment his next sentence came into his mind, like he thought it was gonna be the smoothest and coolest thing he’d ever said.

“and it looks like she was right.”

the loud laugh that bubbles out of you is uncontrollable, mingi’s quickly following as his cheeks turn even more pink.

“sorry, i couldn’t help myself,” he mumbles sheepishly, sounding completely unapologetic as he finally pulls his hand away from yours; you try not to think about how much colder your hand feels now, quickly sticking it in the pocket of your sweater to compensate.

“right,” you quip, a tiny giggle leaving you as you crane your neck to meet his gaze. “but really, you should probably get a jacket if you’re gonna be out here a lot. you don’t wanna get sick and it can get pretty cold here.”

“will do,” he hums, his eyes roaming yours and making your heart jump in your chest; he really is the most attractive person you’ve ever seen.

there’s a few beats of silence as he cranes his neck to look out at the lake, eyes roaming what seems like every piece of frozen ice and snowy tree surrounding it.

“my aunt actually told me people sometimes skate on it.”

“yeah,” you confirm with a nod, taking the time to look at the beauty you take for granted every day. “it’s thick enough this year. sometime we’re not allowed.”

“cool,” he says with a smile, a slight shiver running through him that makes you frown. “so... can i come back here to do that?” he asks, his eyes hopeful and soft as he looks at you. “or should i use the real path?”

your eyebrows pull together at his question, confusion covering your face but only meeting his cocky, playful one.

“are you asking if we can skate together?”

he bites down on his lip so he doesn’t smile larger, his tongue peeking out just before his teeth make contact.

“yeah,” he hums lowly, the deep tone of his voice sending butterflies through your stomach. “i guess i am.”

your lips quirk to the side as you weigh out the pros and cons.

you’re on your own a lot and definitely miss talking to someone.

he’s attractive and funny and seemingly nice enough.

you know his aunt and can easily confirm his story, the chances of him being a murderer who moseyed into town considerably low.

the only con you can think of is falling on your ass in front of him and even that it isn’t such a deal breaker.

so you smile at him and nod your head, a melodic “okay,” leaving your mouth that has him smiling back at you just as sweetly.

present day:

you knew going to this dinner with mingi was gonna end in disaster.

you were both too on edge after your fight this morning, past the point of screaming and yelling for hours that, now, you’ll exchange a few harsh words at each other before falling silent.

you’ve learned that the tense silence after a fight is worse than screaming and yelling.

at least with that, it seems as if there’s still some passion there. there’s words being exchanged and feelings coming to the surface that both people feel motivated enough to express.

but with the silence, you’re both bottling it up.

deeming it useless and letting it brew and brew and brew until one of you goes completely over the edge - and more often than not, that person is him.

the car ride over is no better, not even the radio playing to distract you both from the building tension in the air.

your friends know immediately that something is up, yunho eyeing mingi and san eyeing you; yunho, san, seonghwa, and wooyoung had been your friends since elementary school.

you’d been through a lot with them and have seen each other at all your highs and lows.

throughout your two-year relationship with mingi, him and yunho had grown especially close and it was sweet to see; you knew it was important for mingi to have another friend in a place he didn’t grow up in and you were genuinely happy they created a great friendship.

“hey guys!” wooyoung chirped happily, already chowing down on the chips and salsa in the middle of the table. “how is everyone?”

and like he’s almost oblivious to the tension in the room, mingi only mumbles a grumbled “fine,” before he starts happily babbling again. you try a little harder to put up on a happy front, giving wooyoung a small smile as you talk to him about your last semester of school.

as the dinner goes on, appetizers turning to meals and meals turning to alcohol, mingi downs sangria after sangria before he becomes a lot more chatty.

“oh, shit, there he is,” wooyoung smiles happily, a drunken flush to his face as he pokes his arm playfully. “you were scaring me for a hot second. looking all pissed off and shit.”

“that’s because i was pissed off. still am, if i’m being honest, woo,” mingi says, a conniving hint in his tone as he finishes the last of his drink.

your eyes immediately move to him and you’re quick to narrow them, hoping and praying he doesn’t start round two in this public restaurant right now; but apparently, that’s exactly what he plans on doing.

“what’s with the face, y/n?”

mingi spits your name out like it’s the last thing he wants to say, a quietly snapped “nothing,” leaving your mouth.

san and yunho look to each other immediately, concern on both their faces as they feel the tension start creeping back up.

they knew something was wrong the second you both came in, have known things have been off between you two for months, and it was even more obvious when you immediately took the seats a few spots away from each other.

“nothing?” he asks, his voice deep and gravely due to his anger and the alcohol. “because it sure looks like you wanna say something.”

“i don’t have anything to say to you.”

“you never do, do you, babe?” he asks, his humorless laugh and vindictive tone making your skin prickle.

“did you even miss me?”

your eyes meet his from across the table when he finally speaks, your eyebrow raising as you two stare at each other blankly.

he had left two nights ago after telling you he needed space, not hearing a word from him until he came barreling through the door just a few moments ago at seven a.m.

you’d just gotten up to make yourself coffee, plagued with worry and upset over your fight and his lack of communication.

“maybe if you looked at your phone, you’d know.”

because how could he think you wouldn’t miss him? how could he think you’re actually okay with him leaving after every fight? not hearing from him for a day or two while you stay in this apartment and let your mind go off into every worst case scenario.

a humorless laugh can only leave him as he shakes his head.

“of course you’re putting the blame back on me. i just can’t make you happy, can i, y/n?”

“you staying after a fight would make me happy. but of course, you can’t do that for me, can you?”

he doesn’t say anything and instead just clenches his jaw painfully tight.

you watch it tick dangerously and instead of feeling anger or sadness, you just feel utterly defeated; you don’t know how many times you guys have had this exact conversation.

a fight will happen.

he yells, you cry.

you just want him to see your tears and obvious pain and stop the yelling.

hold you and kiss your hair and mumble that you guys are gonna figure this out and get passed it.

he leaves, you stay silent.

he just wants you to fight for him a little.

call him out on his shit and prove to his insecure self that you still love and care for him, even though he’s a dick. ask him to please stay because he wants to figure this out and get passed it.

but then he comes back and you’re both okay for a bit, just for the cycle to repeat itself over and over.

“is that why you leave, mingi?” you speak again, looking at him curiously as you shake your head. 

“make me sit here and worry about you for days, while you purposely ignore me, just so i can tell you i miss you? is that what you want?”

the words are on the tip of his tongue. that yes, that’s exactly what he wants from you.

but the words are also on the tip of your tongue. that you want his first instinct to be to stay. to stay here and talk things out with you before immediately jumping up to flee.

he wants you to tell him you miss him but you want him to tell you he loves you, that he loves you enough to stay when you guys fight; but right now, neither of you are even sure if that’s true anymore.

“i don’t know about y/n, you guys,” mingi says suddenly at dinner, the drunken slur to his voice evident to everyone. “i love her but sometimes.... i think i actually fucking hate her.”

you feel your heart sink when those words leave his mouth, your face dropping just as the boys call out his name roughly.

“mingi, what the fuck,” san growls from across the table; but the boy is completely unbothered, shrugging his broad shoulders as he looks directly at you.

“how ‘bout you, babe? how do you feel about me?” he asks, leaned back against his chair like he’s completely calm, cool and collected.

“i’m not having this discussion with you right now.”

“you never want to have this discussion,” he mocks, the anger and rage in his eyes only making your blood boil even more. 

“i’m getting tired of it, y/n. i’m getting tired of all this shit.”

his voice is raising and you’re becoming increasingly embarrassed, knowing that the last place for this blowout fight is in front of your friends in a public setting.

“mingi, this really isn’t the place to-”

“shut up, yunho, we’re gonna finally-”

but you’re not intending on doing anything, already feeling humiliated and belittled as you get up from your seat and walk toward the door.

you leave your bag and jacket so the boys know you’re not leaving, hoping and praying that your drunk asshole of a boyfriend follows you outside; and sure enough, two minutes later, you smell his familiar cologne when the door opens.

neither of you say anything for the first few seconds, him leaned against the wall and you facing him with your hands on your hips.

“what’s your problem?”

it’s the first thing you think to ask, looking at him with such concern and defeat in your eyes. 

you hope he can see it but you’re sure he can’t, far too absorbed in whatever he’s been going through for the past few months to notice.

“i don’t have a problem.”

“you obviously do,” you snap, your voice raising as you take a step closer to him.

“you just embarrassed me in front of everyone and you’re acting like a fucking child. we could’ve had this conversation at the house instead of not speaking for days.”

“why? so you could just turn shit around on me or ignore what i’m saying?” he snaps back, raising an eyebrow as he looks down at you. “maybe we need an outside source to listen.”

“not our friends, mingi, and not at a public dinner when you’re getting drunk.”

“you always have an answer for everything, don’t you?” he snaps, his jaw clenching and eyes flaring as he continues to peer down at you.

“and it’s always on me. when we tried to talk this morning, you blew me off, too, y/n. it’s like you don’t ever wanna have this discussion.”

“because i don’t know what you want me to say, mingi. how many times do i have to repeat myself and tell you i don’t know what you want from me?”

“have you ever thought that maybe that’s the fucking problem, y/n? that after all of this, you still don’t know what i want from you? are you fucking stupid?”

“are you fucking stupid?” you yell back, the suppressed anger and rage you knew was brewing boiling over right here and now.

“you want me to tell you that i miss you when you leave every other week, mingi? why would i tell someone that who could give a shit? i could tell you i miss you or that i’ll miss you and you’ll still fucking leave me.”

“how do you know?” he snaps, “you’ve never tried!”

“i’ve never tried?” you yelp, tears of frustration burning your eyes as you look at him.

“what’s me texting you when you leave like a little bitch every single time? or me obviously worrying when you pull that stupid shit over and over? i’ve been trying mingi and you don’t care! you leave me crying alone every single time!”

he meets your gaze with fire in his eyes and you can only stare back with tears in yours, waiting for him to scream something before he decides to kick over the metal garbage can a few feet away from you.

you watch as it clatters against the side walk, a loud, deep “fuck!” leaving him as you watch him blankly. his chest is heaving and you can tell he doesn’t know what to do with himself right now but you also don’t know anymore.

because you’re shaking inside and out and feel like you wanna throw up, knowing that right now you both look like the worst type of couple; but it’s nothing compared to how you feel, how even though you don’t want to, you can’t stop yourself from acting out on these negative feelings.

“and if i never try, mingi, then just leave again,” you say, tears blurring your vision and a lump growing in your throat. “you can stay and come home with me tonight. or you can leave. at this point, i’m too tired to care.”

you weren’t surprised to go home alone that night.

watch as seonghwa and yunho helped your boyfriend to their car and promised that he’d be back in a few days; you were only able to sleep soundly that night because you knew he was safe with them.

but it didn’t stop you from crying yourself to sleep that night, the night after that and the night after that for the next week; the same would’ve probably happened the next night, too, at least for a little bit, had you not heard your front door open just after midnight.

you were getting in one last episode of your drama when mingi returned home, craning your neck back to see him lazily kicking off his shoes at the front door.

his head looked up to meet your gaze, the glow of the tv hitting him just enough to tell you he looked like shit.

he had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was tousled messily, like he hadn’t washed it since you last saw him. his face was sunken and pale as if he’d been away in the wild for months opposed to his friend’s house for just a little over a week.

but when he’s away from you, this is what happens each and every time - he can’t sleep or eat or function properly.

he’s only plagued with the thought of you, memories running through his mind or constantly wondering what you’re doing. if you’re safe and feeling okay or if something bad is gonna happen to you because he’s not there.

the couch dips next to you before you feel his skin graze yours, a quietly mumbled “hey,” like he just came in from work casually spoken through the air.

you crane your neck up at him to look in his sunken eyes, an uncontrollable frown on your face as you swipe your finger across his purple skin.

it’s the softest touch he’s received in a week and he’s missed it more than he cares to admit. shutting his eyes and smiling slightly when he hears you mumble “hi” back.

you bask in each other’s comfort and warmth for the rest of the episode in silence, your head resting on his shoulder and his arm wound tightly around you until the tv screen falls black.

you two walk into bed and he pulls you down with him, your head falling to his chest and his hands in your hair. you moan against him sleepily and it’s a sound he’s missed so dearly, tightening his hold on you as he feels his body immediately relax.

you’re both completely comfortable and at ease, days of worrying finally calmed as you’re beside one another again.

but even with this comfort, even with the familiar feel of each other’s skin and warmth soothing both of you, you know it won’t be enough.

because you still don’t say you missed him and he still doesn’t tell you he loves you.

a year and 11 months ago - january 10th

you weren’t sure if it was possible to fall in love in less than a month but it really felt as if you and mingi did.

from the moment you saw him two days after your initial meeting, skating together and braving the frozen lake together, your connection was immediate.

you’d spent everyday with each other, frolicking through the town in the afternoon before going back to your house at night.

you usually spent it cuddled up on the couch or making food in your kitchen, his arms wrapping around your waist before tossing you up on the counter playfully.

“you didn’t strike me as a chef,” you tell him, watching him stir a pot of noodles with a content look on his face.

“well, i didn’t strike you as a rapper either,” he says, a smirk on his face as a giggle leaves your mouth.

you learned that mingi was an aspiring rapper, him and his friend hongjoong trying to get their foot in the door for the past year. you listened to a few of their songs and even got a live performance from him, your eyes wide and cheeks flushed as you watched him.

in a fit of absolute astonishment, because you didn’t think mingi could get any more attractive, you blurted out that he didn’t seem like a rapper. that his personality was too “cute and charming” despite the deep growl to his raps and voice.

“i told you just personality wise,” you whine with a pout, reaching your hand out to squeeze his arm reassuringly. “but appearance wise, absolutely. you’re very tough. very cool looking. i’m scared of you.”

“you’re making this a lot worse for yourself, baby,” he hums lowly, another giggle leaving your mouth as you bite down on your lip.

“did your friend hear back from that producer yet?” you ask him curiously, your legs criss-crossed as you sit on the counter and peer up at him.

he looks over to see you staring at him all wide-eyed and interested, a soft, happy glint in your gaze that makes his heart pull in his chest.

he hasn’t even known you for a month but he’s never been this happy before.

he’s never had anyone be there for him the way you’ve been, dedicating their time to him and being so actively interested and supportive of his decisions; it also doesn’t help that you’re the most beautiful person he’s ever met, both inside and out, that made him extend his trip a week longer.

he couldn’t imagine saying goodbye to you yet and he’s still not sure if he can; he’s grown incredibly attached to you and it’s something he’s never felt before.

something all consuming and magical that’s making him incredibly vulnerable.

“not yet,” he mumbles, his eyes roaming your face.

your eyebrows pull together when you notice the way he’s looking at you, soft and sweet with a fondness that makes your heart flutter dangerously.

“why are you looking at me like that?”

a smile crosses his face as he lowers the heat on the stove, caging your body in and cocking his head to the side. he bites down on his lip when he sees your eyes widen, a large hand coming up to push pieces of hair out of your face.

“because i’m happy i met you.”

a small, touched smile pulls at your lips as you peer up at him, raising your own hand to smooth out the chain around his neck.

your fingers brush against his warm skin and it’s like there’s electricity coursing through both of you, your bodies close and hot breath wafting together.

“i’m happy i met you too, mingi.”

his heart soars at the way you say his name, eyes falling to your lips as he presses himself closer to you. you push yourself against the cabinets, swallowing the lump in your throat when you follow his gaze.

your tongue peeks out to lick over them unconsciously, your own eyes falling to his lips. you feel your stomach swoop dangerously, wanting so badly to feel them on yours - they’re one of the first things you noticed about him.

“y/n?”

“hm?” you hum, your eyes lingering on his mouth before hazily meeting his eyes; and there you see it, the soft intensity you’ve yet to grow used to.

you’ve seen this look from him more times than you can remember despite the short time you’ve known each other.

on the lake when you two were skating, grasping each other’s hands and giggling as you tried to keep yourselves from falling back.

in town when your hands bumped and you’d stop dead in your tracks to look at each other, completely unaware of the people around you giving each other knowing looks.

on the couch when you’d allow your head to rest on his shoulder, cuddling closer to him because the weather is really cold for january and you need body heat.

but it’s never been as strong as it now.

your heart’s never been beating this fast and you haven’t been able to feel his own pounding against his chest. probably because he was nervous to ask-

“can i kiss you?”

neither of you can remember what happened after he uttered those words.

just that one minute, he said it and the next, your mouths were connected. parting on one another’s as he completely caged your body with his.

your arms wound around his neck and he hummed contently against your mouth, slipping his tongue in when you started playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

he had half the mind to turn off the stove before carrying you to the couch, your legs wound tightly around his waist as every hint of desire and want overtook you.

he plopped himself down as you situated yourself on his lap, lips never disconnecting. you moaned against him when you felt his body underneath yours, tongues colliding and mouths pulled into smiles.

his hands gripped onto your hips gently, pulling your body closer to his as your kisses grew hungrier and more intense.

you finally pulled apart for air with heaving chests and red, puffy lips, your eyes meeting and every hint of vulnerability and longing in them.

“i’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” he finally says softly, almost whispering it in fear that someone else would hear.

but this house is empty. it always is and it has been for quite some time.

until you met him and he completely changed your life.

now there were two pairs of shoes at the door and two empty cups in the sink. there was someone to talk to and someone to be in the silence with.

because you’ve learned over this past month that even a silence with someone else is way better than the silence of being alone.

“me... me too,” you admit shyly, a warm blush creeping up on your face. “i’m... really, really happy you’re here, mingi.”

his eyes widen when he sees tears well up in your eyes, his mouth pulled into a frown as he brings his hands to your face.

but you only shake your head before he can comment on it, placing your hand atop his before connecting your lips again.

he meets the kiss with the fervor you need, everything about it soft and sweet and passionate. like you guys know time is running out and you need to fit it all in.

“that producer got back to me and wants to meet in person so you’ll be home next week, yeah?” hongjoong asked mingi over the phone, the boy laid out on his bed a few days later.

he can only keep replaying the memory of you in his mind, the tone of your voice and the teary look in your eye when you told him how happy you were that he’s been here.

there was a certain type of sadness behind you that he hasn’t been able to shake, making it incredibly hard for him to pick a day to just pack up his car and go.

“i... uh. i don’t know, yet.”

“what?” hongjoong asked.

him and mingi had been waiting to meet producers for months, getting either put on a list or straight up rejected. and now when they have a chance, “you don’t know yet?”

mingi licks over his lips as he hears the disbelief in his friend’s voice, knowing that hongjoong won’t be able to believe this. they’ve been waiting for this moment ever since they were in high school and had the dream of rapping as a duo.

he was only supposed to be here for a few days and now it was almost a month. what could possibly be keeping him there? what could possibly have made mingi-

“what could you possibly not know, mingi? we’ve been waiting for this moment for years. you even extended your trip for a bullshit reason thinking i’d really buy it.”

“okay but my aunt really did need help around the house...” he mumbles because yes, she needed help around the house as she redid her bathroom but she was quick to hire professionals so, technically not a lie.

“so what, what’s your excuse this time? did you meet some chick?”

there’s a silence that stretches over the phone for what feels like hours, mingi attempting to find any words before hongjoong lets out a loud groan.

“a girl? mingi, are you fucking kidding me?”

“i really like her, hongjoong,” mingi tells his friend, a sweet genuineness and innocence in his deep tone. “i really, really like her and i... i don’t think i can leave her yet.”

he reluctantly opens up to hongjoong about you, telling him that you’re in school and live alone in this quiet little lake town. that you and him have been spending every second together and he’s never felt this way about anyone before.

“i’m happy for you, man, i really am,” hongjoong says, never having heard his friend talk like this before. “but i mean... is she worth changing your plans? what the hell is there for you?”

he wants to say that you. you’re there.

the girl he’s known for less than a month but has gotten him so tight around her finger - and once he leaves, will still be here.

except she’ll be within the walls of her house all alone again, in a town based off people coming and going where she’s never seemed to have a stable relationship with anyone.

where she now knows what it’s like to spend every day with someone and look forward to their company every morning and night. spend hours talking until the sun rises and sleep until it’s dark out.

“i wouldn’t be changing my plans that much. i still have our music, hongjoong. we can still do shit even if i live here.”

“live there?!? hongjoong blurts out, “you’ve been there for a less than a month, dude, that’s fucking crazy. you’ve barely know her and you’re gonna move there?”

“i can’t leave her.”

he didn’t think at the time that it was crazy. he didn’t think he’d ever come to regret that decision because, at the time, he really couldn’t imagine leaving you.

he couldn’t picture himself hugging you goodbye and telling you that you’d keep in touch via texting and facetime.

he couldn’t picture going back home with a genuine smile on his face when it felt as if he left behind something, someone, would could make him the happiest he’s ever felt.

he couldn’t picture that he’d ever come to resent you because when he told you he was gonna consider staying in town longer, a bit more permanently, the smile that lit up your face was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“really?” you smile, jumping up from your spot on the couch and running over to him.

you’re so smiley and happy and bouncy until you’re not, your face dropping ever so slightly when you look over his face.

“but wait... what about the producer? did he ever answer?”

“he did. hongjoong’s meeting with him tomorrow.”

your eyes widen at the news but he’s quick to cut you off, bend down and press a long, lingering kiss to your lips before scooping you up into his arms.

“but i told him there was something better for me here.”

present day:

he wasn’t sure when the resentment started.

he just knew that, one minute he loved you, and the next, he started to question everything.

it could’ve been from seeing hongjoong’s success, album after album and talk of him all over social media right in his face every day.

it could’ve been his lack of success, pursuing a music degree via online school while still keeping up with his previously established career as a rapper; it was enough to get the bills paid and keep his name lingering around but that’s all it was now.

it could’ve been that all of his passion was gone and he blamed you for that; because if it weren’t for you, he’d be with hongjoong now. he’d be making money and feeling inspired and at the peak of his creativity and motivation.

but he loves you, right? he loves you more than he’s loved anyone in the world and he made the right decision.

“sometimes i question if i made the right decision.”

it was a relativity quiet night for you and mingi, the past few days calm and uneventful, so you knew a fight was bound to happen soon.

and with that statement, it seemed as if the night was quickly headed in that direction.

“what do you mean?” you ask, looking up from your textbook.

he was sat on the love seat opposite you, computer in his lap and a beer on the side table as he watched you. he’d been wordlessly watching you all night and you hadn’t been sure what to make of it.

now, you can see, he might’ve been watching you with disdain.

“i mean i sometimes wonder if i made the right decision in staying here. just... so quickly not accepting that producer’s offer with hongjoong’s.”

his words hurt you more than you let on, your stomach sinking and knotting as you let his words sink in.

you had asked him for weeks after he made that decision if he was sure.

if something he worked so hard on and something he looked forward to for so long was something was worth giving up.

and anytime you asked, he’d say the same thing.

“you’re worth it.”

you wonder now if he said it so many times to qualm your ever present worries or to convince himself. tell himself over and over again that, yes this girl is worth staying here and no, i won’t come to resent her.

it’s something you worried about in the beginning but faded with time.

because your love grew stronger and you both became more secure. your relationship was the closest thing to perfect you’d ever experienced.

but not now.

now it’s a fucking disaster.  

“where did that even come from?”

you can hear to your own ears how shaky and unsure your voice sounds. it’s filling you with as much shame as it does embarrassment, knowing that you can’t even talk to your own boyfriend openly and honestly.

without feeling upset, like you know you have to walk on eggshells or can’t express how much he’s been hurting you.

“i don’t know, i’ve just been thinking,” he hums, taking a swig of his beer as he adjusts himself on the couch.

you don’t know what to say so you don’t say anything, only humming lowly as you nod your head.

you lick over your lips as you look back down uncomfortably, blankly staring at the words of your textbook. your brain can’t absorb any of the terms or phrases on the page, the sinking, awful feeling in your stomach taking over.

you can’t even remember how long you’ve felt like this.

when butterflies turned to this gut wrenching, awful feeling.

like the feeling before a plane takes off or you have a presentation to do or when the one person you’ve loved in this world has decided they don’t want you anymore.

“i stayed for you.”

the words you feared hearing pierce the air and you hold back a shaky breath, biting the inside of your cheek so harshly you’re hit with the metallic taste blood.

you look up and see his eyes narrowed in on you, tears burning the back of yours as you beg them not to fall.

because you can’t keep crying in front of him just for him to ignore you. to just watch you lose it with a blank look in his eyes, instead of holding you or attempting to soothe you.

“i couldn’t leave you alone in your house,” he begins, like the words he’s rationalizing in his head are coming out of his mouth uncontrollably.

“i wasn’t ready to leave you yet and i didn’t even think twice about how i would feel in the future. because i was so fucking consumed by you, y/n.”

there’s an obvious and palpable pain in his voice and it makes your gut wrench even more; you hate that he’s in pain but you’re in pain, too. you were in pain before him and now you’re in pain because of him.

“i’m still consumed by you but i feel...angry now. i feel so fucking angry, y/n, and i don’t know why. i don’t know if i’m mad at you or myself but i know i stayed for you. if i never met you, i never would’ve stayed here and now i feel like i’m stuck.”

“but i never asked you to stay, mingi,” you whimper out, the tears quickly coming to the surface.

they’re a mix of sadness and frustration, because it hurts so much hearing this, the obvious regret in his words, but it also makes you mad - that was his choice and his choice alone.

and it’s like he knows that too. because he doesn’t say anything in response, just continues to stare at you with a look in his eye that breaks your heart.

“i asked you so many times if you were okay with doing that,” you begin after moments of silence, your teary, wet gaze meeting his. “i asked you again and again because i knew you’d come to regret it.”

“i’m not saying i regret it, i’m just saying i-”

“you’re saying you stayed here for me like it’s my fault,” you say, shaking your head as tears leak from your eyes and down your cheek. “like i asked you to and like meeting me was your downfall. but i never told you to and i would’ve never ever expected you to.”

“what, so i was just supposed to leave you alone?” mingi growls lowly, emotion behind his tone that’s almost masked by the brashness.

he can’t help but feel all of this coming up, all of these feelings he’s been going through these past months and making him a completely different person.

“why would i have left you when i knew i loved you?”

neither of you focused on loved being past tense, probably because it’s a fact both of you know by now.

“i didn’t want anything else but you in that moment.”

“do you want a prize, mingi?” you snap, every defensive and defeated emotion coursing through your veins.

“you could’ve left me alone. you could’ve just left the way you wished you did so fucking badly. you would’ve saved yourself all of this obvious regret.”

“you think i regret staying with you?” he asks, his voice low and deep as he rises from the chair.

his frame is tall and broad and looming as he walks closer to you, standing over your chair as you sit there and stare up at him. his eyes roam your face and he follows the few tears rolling down your cheeks, his hands stiffly hanging at his sides.

he used to hate seeing you cry.

it used to make him wanna destroy whatever was hurting you. he used to kiss your tears away and wouldn’t let you leave his arms until you were smiling and laughing again.

“well, what do you call this?” you whimper quietly, sniffling and stuffy and feeling small tears stream down your face.

“you basically said if it weren’t for me, you’d be happier with your life. and i... i was so happy when you decided to stay, mingi, i’m not gonna lie to you. i was so happy because i knew we would love each other so much,” you whimper out, the knot in your throat making it difficult to speak.

“but i also knew that one day, you would probably regret it and resent me. it’s why i asked you over and over and over again. because i was so scared this was gonna happen.”

his mouth grows dry as he licks over his lips, a burning behind his eyes as he hears your voice break. he’s quick to shake his head and blink away the tears, though, because he knows if he starts crying, he’s never gonna stop.

“i thought you would leave with me eventually,” he’s finally able to get out, his throat clogged and voice gruff as he voices his innermost thoughts and wishes.

you compromised for him once, why wouldn’t you do it again?

“i thought if you actually loved me the way you claimed to, you’d be able to go.”

“well, i was always honest with you about that too,” you murmur, feeling utterly defeated and guilty as you meet mingi’s glossy eyes. “you know i never intend on leaving.”

a year and 5 months ago - june 19th

he learned about your parents accident on the 4th year anniversary of their death.

he had noticed that week you were especially gloomy, a sad look in your eye and the fake smile on your face making him cling to you just a bit more than usual.

and apparently, you had noticed too.

“mingi, are you okay?”

the words were muffled against his shirt, your face pressed against his chest as the two of you lay on the couch. his hand had been running up and down your back gently all night, like he’d been trying to calm you without any words.

like he knew there was something wrong, even though you hadn’t said a word.

his eyebrows pull together in confusion, placing his fingers under your chin. he lifts your face as his eyes search yours, that sad look behind them masked by a soft curiosity.

you’re trying to hide your pain because you think he’s hurting and that alone only makes him even more sad.

“of course i am, baby. but are you okay?”

you can’t find it in you to say yes so you only nod shyly, a small smile gracing your face as you look at him.

his eyes are full of such warmth and love that it makes tears prick behind your eyes, dropping your gaze quickly as you bury your face back in his chest.

the movement causes him to swallow nervously, adams apple bobbing as he presses his lips to the top of your head.

he knows something’s wrong. he knows something’s very wrong but he doesn’t know what happened or what’s brought this on.

“you can tell me anything,” he mumbles against your hair, his arms wrapped tightly around your body. “you know that, right?”

because he also noticed that you started seeming off when he mentioned moving in together, looking at apartments in town for himself before getting the idea to live with you.

you guys are already together all the time, it only made sense for you two to live together as well.

but he could tell immediately the idea unsettled you, you clutching desperately on to him as you muttered that you’d think about it.

at first, he would’ve assumed you didn’t wanna go that far with him. that it was too serious a commitment and you were completely uncomfortable with that.

but it was the way you were clinging to him, burying your face in his chest like you were begging him not to leave you that made him realize something deeper was going.

it’s why he dropped it at first. looked for apartments on his own with the idea that, best case scenario, you’d move in with him too.

could that be what’s wrong right now? you dealing with moving in with him and fears coming from that? or something else entirely?

he just knows that when he starts to hear you cry quietly into his chest, he needs to know what’s been wrong because he hates seeing you like this.

“hey, hey, hey,” his deep voice mumbles, large hands pulling you from his chest and wiping at your face. “what happened, baby? what’s wrong?”

and since you started crying about this, remembering the day and the circumstances around it so well, you won’t be able to stop. you can only continue to cry into him, tiny sobs wracking your body as you clutched onto him tightly.

“i... i can’t.”

you couldn’t talk, you couldn’t breathe, you couldn’t tell him, he wasn’t sure.

that’s why he shook his head and pulled you back into his chest, the warm safe place you’ve come to know so well and usually calmed you whenever you needed.

“i don’t know what’s wrong but i promise you’ll be okay,” you hear him mumble against your head, his hand running up and down your back gently. “i’ll try to help you in any way i can, baby, but i’m gonna need to know what’s wrong.”

but he can’t help you bring back your dead parents.

he can’t help you time travel the way you so desperately wish you could to tell yourself not to go on that senior trip.

that if you didn’t go, your parents never would’ve driven you to the airport and they never would’ve gotten in the car accident that took their life on the way back.

you’d spent a week in a foreign country while they spent a week in the hospital, your aunt and grandparents dealing with the repercussions before you came back and said your goodbyes in a dingy, hospital room.

mingi doesn’t know how long you both sat there in silence, your cries muffled against his chest and his arms wound tightly around you.

he loosened his hold immediately when he felt you try to pull away, watching as you stared at him, wiped your eyes and told him everything.

“my parents died four years ago, today.”

he watches with soft, sympathetic eyes and a breaking heart as you tell him about your guilt.

how if you just decided to stay home after weeks of begging them to go, they’d still be here.

“they didn’t have the money but i begged them for weeks, mingi,” you tell him, tears in your eyes and voice thick with emotion. 

“i wanted to go so badly because all my friends were going and i was too selfish to see they really couldn’t afford it.”

he can tell you’re not done talking so he only presses his lips together and grasps your hand tightly. squeezes it reassuringly as his thumb gently rubs back and forth against your skin.

“they both worked overtime for two weeks straight and gave me the money the last day it was due. and i barely thanked them,” you remember, the scene you’ve replayed in your mind hundreds of times flashing yet again.

you jumped up from the couch and snatched the money from their hands, throwing your arms around them in a quick hug before screaming your thanks and running up to your room to tell your friends.

“a drunk diver hit them on their way home from the airport and the doctors couldn’t believe they both didn’t die on impact. a-and no one in my family could even call me so i said my goodbyes when i got home, in the hospital.”

you look to mingi with tears streaming down your cheeks and you see wetness in his own eyes, his hand grasping onto yours tight.

“i couldn’t even talk to them one last time. or hear their voices. i don’t even know if they heard me.”

your voice breaks off after that, not being able to handle recounting this after years of staying silent about it; he’s the first person you’ve talked to about this besides the counselor you saw a few months after their death.

he pulls you in his lap and wraps his arms tightly around you, rocking you back and forth as he presses his lips to your head.

your eyes are closed tight as you focus on his breathing and soft murmurs. his deep, full voice muttering sweet nothings and quiet reassurances.

that your parents did hear you and they loved you till the end.

that it was no one’s fault but the driver who decided to get in a car after getting drunk.

that you shouldn’t put any blame on yourself, because your parents would want you to be happy and thriving.

“i know but it’s just hard,” you tell him, you teary face pulling away from his wet chest.

you look around the living room full of books and wooden furniture, a family portrait hung above a cluttered-filled desk; it was taken when you were ten and you remember hating that day because you had to wear an uncomfortable dress and tights.

“i don’t know how i’m ever gonna leave this place,” you voice aloud to him, one of the many concerns that muddled your mind when you started deciding on college or jobs or moving in with your perfect boyfriend of almost a year.

“it’s the last thing i have of them. i don’t... i don’t know if i’d be ever to leave this place, mingi.”

not after what happened last time.

not wanting to leave the house you grew up in to strangers who would create more happy memories and replace the ones you made with your own parents.

his face contorts into one of sympathy and pain, his heart breaking as the obvious guilt and dread is in your eyes.

he’d always seen a bit of torment behind them but you were always able to smile.

laugh with him and tease him and push whatever demons he knew you had aside; but he started seeing it again when he mentioned moving in, fear and anxiety and discomfort that he hated to even see behind your eyes.

“i don’t know how that will effect us, it’s something i’ve thought about a lot recently,” you confess quietly, playing with the edge of the blanket nervously. “especially when you mentioned us moving in together. i... i want to, so bad, because i love you and i think it’d be fun. but... i can’t leave.”

your tears start up again and a frown crosses mingi’s face, his body hovering over yours as he takes your face in his big hands.

he wipes at the tears threatening to slide down your cheeks before placing his lips on your head, breathing slowly and calmly against you as his warm breath wafts over you.

“baby, i understand completely, i really do,” he says, everything making sense now but... “but i don’t think your parents would want you to... limit your life like this.”

because you obviously had an interest in seeing the world. you obviously wanted to see different places and cultures and sights in the world that even your precious little town doesn’t hold.

but he can see tonight isn’t the night you’re gonna see that, if the way you shake your head and bury yourself back in his chest doesn’t show that.

and because he loved you more than anything else in the world, he understood it. held you and kissed you and made sure you knew he’d be by your side in whatever way you needed.

it was with his patience and love and unconditional support that you were able to live with him. keep your parents house as a sense of security but slowly move yourself out of it.

leaving a toothbrush at the apartment, a few sets of clothes, some shampoos and soaps until one night, you were waking up and falling asleep with him every morning and night.

present day:

the fight that ended you and mingi was over a trip to disney.

something meant to be so childish and fun and innocent morphing into a blowout, gut-wrenching fight that left the two of distraught.

hit both of you with the realization that whatever you once had had fizzled out and turned so horribly toxic, you were both losing yourselves.

it had started with yunho, san and wooyoung planning the trip, mingi over their house one day after the tension in the apartment got too much. he had scoffed when san mentioned it at first, wondering what business they had as college going twenty-somethings booking a trip to disney.

“it’ll be sweet!” san said, “we could go to the parks for a few days, everyone loves roller coasters! and then we can drive down to the beach, go surfing and go to bars and shit. it’d be so much fun, guys.”

and the more all of them thought about it, the more excited they got. looking at flights and car rentals and getting all their swim suits in order - that was until mingi came back home a day later and informed you of these plans.

“me and the guys were talking about booking a trip to disney,” was the first thing he said to you. not a hello or how are you or sorry for leaving and making you worry for a week.

“oh?” you hummed quietly, looking up from your spot at the kitchen sink; you’d made breakfast for two just in case he came home early but it was another serving of eggs and bacon in the trash.

“yeah, so is that something you’d wanna do?”

there’s something off about his tone that you immediately pick up on. snippy and on edge and defensive, like he’s already fully prepared to break out into a fight.

because he already knows you won’t do it. you won’t leave the 70 mile radius you’ve trapped yourself nor will you even try to go out of your comfort zone for him and you or anyone else.

and quite frankly, he’s grown really fucking sick of it. call him selfish or call him someone looking out for you, someone who knows this type of living isn’t normal, he can’t deal with it anymore.

“i... well i mean...how would we get there? and when?”

“we were looking at flights three weeks from now,” he says, carefully observing your face with slightly cold eyes. carefully waiting for the next hint of a breakdown he’s not gonna properly respond to.

you bite the inside of your cheek as panic starts to stir in your chest.

you haven’t been anywhere since the accident. you’ve gotten yourself so used to this environment that going anywhere else seems terrifying.

but you’ve seen how bad things will happen when you try to venture out. you left to do the same and it cost your parents your life - who’s to say you wouldn’t get your karma soon?

leave mingi without a girlfriend he doesn’t even care about anymore or your grandparents without a granddaughter you can’t help but feel they blame for their child’s death.

tears are quick to prick your eyes as you try to push down all of these feelings, looking down at the floor in a move mingi already knows is dismissive.

you hear him scoff and it sends a flurry of emotions through you, not even needing to lift your head to know he’s shaking his head.

“figures,” he hums lowly, making extra noise as he puts down his bag or plops down on the dining room chair. “i don’t know why i bothered asking.”

“mingi...” you begin breathlessly, guilt and shame and sorrow filling you.

“no, y/n.”

his voice is firm and hard and makes you meet his gaze, the look he’s throwing you icy and completely empty. he’s done and you’re done and there’s basically a ticking time bomb between you two.

“you didn’t even let me give you an answer.”

“because i know what it’s gonna be!” he roars, feeling stupid for getting excited when he knew damn well you wouldn’t be able to leave. “i know you’re gonna make up some bullshit excuse about school or work or money and you’re gonna say no.”

you can’t say anything because you know he’s right. but what he doesn’t know is that you’re trying. you try every day and every week and every month to push yourself out of your comfort zone and it just doesn’t work.

you’ve tried going away with him and you’ve tried expanding your horizons - you’e even moved out of your parents house to live with him. but it’s hard when you’re constantly reminded by the fact that your decisions ended a life.

while it was technically the drunk driver’s fault, your survivors guilt heavily outweighs that. intrusive thought after intrusive thought until you start to question why you’re even still here, too.

“i’m trying, mingi,” you say, your voice shaky and defeated. “i’m trying but you don’t even see that.”

“how are you trying?” he asks, watching your dejected form a few feet away from him. “you haven’t done anything different since you moved in with me. we’ve been living the same life for the past two years, y/n.”

but you just remember how patient he was when you first tried moving in. how he was so patient and kind and gentle and was everything you needed him to be.

but he can just remember how much he loved you. how patient and understanding he was, not fully grasping the severity of what happened to you and how incapable he was of dealing with it.

“i’m... so fucking sick of it. i’ve grown to be so sick of you and i hate that, y/n. i hate feeling like this but it’s the truth.”

“and you don’t think i am?” you blurt out, the dam of tears breaking as you hear him say those specific words to you - i’ve grown to be so sick of you.

your frame is smaller and fragile and you’re like a shell of the person you were when you first met as you make your way up to him, looking over him with all the pain and exhaustion in your eyes.

“you don’t think i’m sick of feeling this way? of seeing how much you obviously hate me and are over this when i can’t stop feeling this way? because i’m sorry it’s been inconveniencing you, mingi, but it’s been ruining me, too. sometimes i can’t even believe i’m still here.”

the last part of your sentence stirs something in him but he can only focus on your broken state. watching as you grow weaker and weaker because of him.

“you haven’t even been helping me,” you suddenly say, words quiet and soft-spoke but filled with an obvious hurt. “i... i don’t know why you’d even wanna go on a trip with me because we’d just fight, mingi. we’d just fight and i’d cry and you’d leave me. th-that’s what we keep doing.”

tears burn the back of his eyes, a knot growing in his stomach so big it feels like he’s about to puke.

“because i don’t know what to do anymore, y/n,” he say, his voice less harsh but still holding a certain degree of bite. “i tried so hard with you and nothing seems to work. i loved you, i still love you, and i was there for you and i tried so hard with you but... i don’t know how to help you.”

“you think yelling is the way? or leaving me is the way?” you laugh out manically, tears rolling down your face that you desperately try to reach out and wipe. “you’re sick of me but i’m sick of you, too. i’m sick of feeling this way and i’m so fucking sick of thinking you still love me.”

“you don’t think i love you?” he asks, rising from his chair and making his way over to you. 

his looming height should make you nervous, the way he’s looking down at you and threatening to trap you against the counter should make you nervous, but it doesn’t.

because coming to terms with this right here is the worst part. the conversation you’ve been avoiding for months and the obvious change in what you two have become.

“i don’t,” you say, finally meeting his gaze and seeing hurt and anger swirl behind them. they used to hold such a sweet softness that would sometimes make you feel better, even if just for a little bit.

“because even if you do, you’re still sick of me, right?”

one year ago:

“what if you get sick of me?”

the newest compromise had been his family coming here to meet you.

you and mingi had booked refundable tickets for a week in his hometown, a part of you wanting to desperately prove you could do something for him. something that would make him happy and maybe prove you love him a little more than you can convey.

but the second you got on the highway to the airport, you knew you weren’t gonna be able to.

memories played through your mind of you in the backseat of your parents car, laughing and talking with them as you promised to be careful and take a lot of pictures with them.

hearing them tell you they loved you and were so happy you were able to go after all.

and then you’d looked to the other side and see in your mind a car hitting the other. spinning out and smacking into the divider as an eruption of fire, car parts and the chaotic screeching of breaks echoed through the air.

mingi had to pull over to calm you down, bring you back to the real world in the form of hugging you close to his body and his hand running through your hair.

“i’m- i’m sorry, mingi, i’m sorry, i-”

“sh, you don’t have to apologize, baby, there’s nothing to apologize for,” he hums against your head, pulling you over the console to rock you gently in his lap.

he was warm and broad and soft spoken and everything about him made you feel safe. you couldn’t grasp at the time how or why he was so understanding and sweet but you didn’t even wanna question it.

because he was the one thing in your life that made you feel okay. that you had him and he had you and there was nothing that could be that bad if you had each other still. 

he didn’t let go of your hand once as pulled onto the highway, got off the exit and made his way back home.

he guided you back into the apartment and told you to go lay down and that he’d be there in a second. 

he cancelled the flight and called his mom, telling her you guys got rained out and that, if it was okay, he’d pay for them to fly out here next week.

the bed dips a few moments later, broad strong arms wrapping around your waist before you’re pulled into his chest.

it was after a few silent minutes stretched between you two, the calming rise and fall of his chest against your back, your small voice pierced the air.

“i’m sorry, mingi.”

he could tell you were gonna cry before you even started, turning you in his arms as he pulled you closer to him.

“baby, i already told you you don’t have to-”

“but i do,” you cut him off, lower lip trembling and stomach knotting guiltily. 

“i... i don’t think this is normal, mingi. i should be able to move on with my life and travel somewhere. i wanted to go so badly and meet your mom but i-” your voice breaks as tears fill your eyes and you try to catch the breath threatening to suffocate you.

“i’m scared i’m gonna be like this forever,” you say quietly, looking up and meeting his soft, sweet gaze. “i’m scared i’m gonna be like this forever and you’re gonna become tired of it.”

“baby... that’s never gonna happen,” he assures you, voice gentle but firm as he runs his fingers through your hair.

“and you’re not gonna be like this forever. we can get you help. and i can help you,” he says, his eyes looking into yours with such a raw honesty and love. “i... don’t really know how but i’ll do whatever it takes.”

“what if it’s not enough?” you ask, because at the time it’s like you knew just how bad this was gonna get. that even with as low as you felt then, it wasn’t even rock bottom.

“what if you get sick of me?”

“i won’t,” he reassures, pressing a long, lingering kiss to your head before settling you onto his chest carefully. “that’ll never happen because i love you, y/n. and i always will.”

present day:

in a turn of events, you were the one who left after that. 

came right to the place you first met, except now the lake isn’t frozen over and the late-afternoon sun had just set.

his words were too harsh and reminded you too much of his broken promises.

you felt too weak and pathetic and completely hopeless, the tense silence so horribly loud between you two you left without a word; and he hadn’t said anything either.

and now, as you sit at the spot you’ve always come to and found solace in, you can feel why he was always so hurt when you didn’t ask him to stay. because even though you were fighting and even though you both hurt each other, you wanted him to ask you to stay.

to please not go because that would’ve been the last possible way for you both to see there was something still there - even though it’s plain to see there isn’t.

too many fights and too many words have been said. too many lapses of silence and too many unspoken thoughts that now when uttered are just hurting both of you.

you’re both too hurt and you both have too many things to sort through that you can’t do together. 

one second you were staring down at the lake, your own broken reflection staring back as your feet hung in the water, and the next you couldn’t see. tears flooded your vision and sobs wracked through your body, loud, ugly, horrific sobs that you’ve been holding back for far too long.

you cry because you know it’s over with him, you know it’s been over for a while, but now it all feels real. 

you cry because you know you need some help to get past all of the guilt you feel, how if you don’t get help, you’re never gonna leave this town and see what else is out there.

you cry because you don’t even know where to start and know, even though it hurts, you have to do it alone.

you’re so lost in your thoughts and the way your cries echo through the yard that you don’t hear footsteps approach you.

you don’t even know anyone’s behind you until someone bends down and pulls you into their broad, warm chest. a chest you know far too well and a body that hasn’t held you like this in what feels like forever.

he knew you’d be here and he couldn’t stop his legs from jumping in the car and coming to see you after you left. half because he knew this had to happen and half because he was far too scared for you to be out here like this.

he knew what conversation was gonna follow but he knew had to hold you one last time. he missed holding you and he missed wiping your tears away.

“i don’t know what happened to us, mingi,” you whimper into his chest, the tears that have been building behind his eyes finally coming to the surface.

he doesn’t know what happened either. he doesn’t know when or where you guys went wrong or when you stopped talking to each other. he doesn’t know when he stopped loving you in such a way that was all consuming, where he knew he’d do anything and everything for you.

“i don’t... i don’t think this is working. i don’t know what to do but i know i can’t do this anymore.”

“i don’t know what happened either, baby,” he mumbles against your head, his words wobbly and wet as he tightens his hold on you. it feels as if every part of is heart is breaking, for the way he’s neglected you and the way your crying against him.

“i’m sorry i can’t help you. i wanted to so fucking badly but now... i just, i can’t, baby.”

you cry harder as you shake your head against him, feeling him plop down and pull you into his arms tighter.

it feels every bit as heartbreaking and upsetting as you both knew it’d be. it’s probably why you guys put it off for so long. because even though you feel the love you used to feel, you both know nothing will change.

he’ll resent you and you’ll resent him right back.

he’ll say he stayed for you and tried to help you and you’ll say you never asked him to do any of it.

you both sit there and cry and hold each other until the sky falls dark and air turns crisp, the moon reflecting off the lake in a way that hasn’t changed in two years.

but everything’s changed between you both and it’s too heartbreakingly obvious.

“i’ll miss you,” you mumbled to him.

because you know he’s gonna go on and do all the great things he’s wanted to. move out of this town and pursue whatever dreams he put off for you, the girl he once loved more than anything.

“i love you,” he confesses quietly against your head. “i really really did love you.”

because he knows he still does, he knows he always will, but it’s not something either of you can bear to hear right now.

you both have said what the other needed to hear and when you guys part tonight, maybe you’ll finally start feeling better. fix yourselves and the damage you’ve caused each other and maybe reunite when the universe deems it right.

two and a half years later:

it had always been your dream to see the northern lights.

something about them had always fascinated you, how they almost didn’t see real or were just a figment of fake editing that would only ever be seen in photos.

but you had an overwhelming need to see them before your very eyes. see the sight before you and marvel in just how truly fascinating and beautiful it was.

so that’s exactly what you did.

you wrote down a list of all the places you wanted to see: the egyptian pyramids, the great wall of china, the taj mahal, the eiffel tower, all of the sights that you knew in order to see, you’d have to leave the perfect little town you loved so much.

it took a lot of attempts, a lot of tears and anxiety and frantic calls to your therapist, but finally, you were able to do it.

it was the third to last place on your 6-month journey around the world, jet lag getting to you immensely but an extremely fulfilling pride and excitement within you.

you were able to do it. see the sights and meet hundreds of different people and experience all the things you convinced yourself you didn’t need or want. 

and you didn’t have a single regret until this very moment. 

because the rookie mistake you made within this amazing, journey of self-discovery around the world was not investing in a parka.

the biting temperatures of alaska were surely getting to you right now, your glove covered hands over your ears as you trekked through the snow with other groups of (properly dressed) tourists during the aurora season.

you found yourself in a snowy, freezing field, tall evergreen trees above your heads as you waited patiently for the sky to change perfectly, a buzzing excitement and low chatter from the people around you.

footsteps crunching on snow filled your ears from every direction, your eyes on the trees and large sky above you. a harsh gust of wind whipped past you and you let out a tiny squeal, your hands shooting up to your red, wind-burnt face.

you could hear a quiet, low chuckle beside you, something about the strangely familiar sound sending a whoosh of butterflies through your stomach. you didn’t understand them at that moment, ignoring your bodies odd reaction and keeping your eyes focused on the sky. 

it took hearing his voice, the same one you’d fallen in love with in your own backyard, for your eyes widen and quickly look over the snowy vast of land surrounding you.

mingi stepped in front of you, eyes full of amusement and pride and even disbelief, looking over your face with the same type of a fascination he had when he first met you.  

“aren’t you cold?”

inspired by: line without a hook by ricky montgomery, ty tiktok

tag list: @mochibabycakes @atinyarmyx1 @middle-of-a-wonshua-sandwich @chrryhwa @baekhvuns @marksflvr @bunbaebae @markleeyeosang @inkigayeo​ @nlost21​ @toffee-hwa​ @hyunjeansuniverse​ @cherryeonii​

[chicoriii]

Season 4, Episode 4 - Mr Pigeon 72

I have no idea where to start. This episode has some good things and some extremely stupid.

Marinette isn't still completely fine, but I prefer when she deals with it through being hyperactive than being a whining crybaby.

I know people don't agree with me, but personally I don't buy the whole revealing identity to Alya. It's not a problem with Alya herself, I would say the same about every single character who is not named Alix Kubdel at this point of the story. I haven't written anything in my post about Gang of Secrets, because I thought it would be undone in some way at the start of the next episode. The creators did nothing to explain why revealing identity of Ladybug to anyone was super dangerous and would result in a catastrophe in seasons 1-3 and the first two episodes of S4, but it's magically fine in episode 3. Only Alix made sense to me, as she will be the rabbit Miraculous holder, so she is destined to discover identities of everyone sooner or later and Marinette is aware of that. While it's not necessary to learn identity of anyone to other temporary Miraculous wielders, including Alya. Also that reveal hasn't been foreshadowed in season 3, while the show usually does it, especially if it's about something as important as that! More, in late S3, it's been shown that Alya still can't resist to not talking about Marinette's love life with Nino, despite she asked her to not do it. Now the girl, who is overly excited about superhero stuff, has no problems with even accidental revealing anything to Nino or someone else. She's even "stealing" Bunnix line that she's great at keeping secrets (sorry but you, the creators, haven't shown us that she's indeed is before!). This is why I think that reveal hasn't been planned before they started writing season 4.

But okay, I can deal with it, even if I don't buy it, but things these happened in Mr. Pigeon 72 are even more inconsistent with previous seasons. I have been worried about it, so it doesn't surprised me. For some reason Guardian related-things that have been kept in a secret before from everyone minus current Guardian and the future Guardian, are now fine being done in front of Kwamis (remember, they haven't been allowed to learn about making potions before!) and a civilian who is just a temporal Miraculous holder, not someone who is supposed to be trained to be a new Guardian. You can say - new Guardian, new rules, but why? Marinette has been portrayed as someone who respect authorities, she has never questioned any Fu's rules. It wasn't even said in the episode that she's going to change the rules. I hate that the writers don't even bother to explain us what's going on. Probably they don't bother about consistency, they think the audience is going to be too excited about Alya knowing Ladybug's identity and helping Marinette to question anything about it? How Alya could be allowed to learn the Guardian secrets? She is just best friend of the protagonist, she is not one of the main characters to get that special treatment. I makes zero sense to me. Especially since Su-Han will be introduced in episode 6 and he should help Marinette with understanding the Grimoire, Alya isn't necessary here for any other reason than fanservice.

In my opinion the way how they discovering how to make charms that protects from akumasitation was the most stupid thing that happened this season and one of the most in the whole show. Marinette who is the new Guardiand and portrayed as someone extreme intelligent and creative couldn't find the solution for days, but Alya with zero training magically discovered it in a few hours at worst. And when she told her the solution in not even very clear way, Ladybug did it immediately with no effort. That was so anticlimactic. At least the animation was fine, but other aspects of it was just a big disappointment, and I was looking forward for it. Thank goodness it's just the beginning of the season, I hope later important events of the season will be better written and portrayed.

Also I find it absurd that Rena Rough is walking with a page from the Grimoire like it's just an ordinary book and she's talking about it in front of a random civilian, like things that are written there are nothing special. She or Ladybug are not careful about Miraculous lore anymore. Not to mention that they are giving hints that Rena is very close to Ladybug in public, suspiciously close. And now with them being too careless, that's not hard to suspect that Rena Rouge is someone very close to Ladybug, maybe even as a civilian. Shadow Moth knows Rena Rouge's identity, and it's easy to him to learn who is Alya Cesaire's best friend if he doesn't know it yet, after all his son is in the class with her. Marinette has always been super careful and serious about her duties before, why that sudden change with zero explanation? It's just very out of character to her in my opinion.

I didn't like the akuma battle either, it's now the worst fight of the season in my opinion. It was so short and felt very lazy. I only liked that Plagg got some action and interaction with Ladybug (though it should be suspicious for her that he managed to reach to her that fast). He should be aware now that Alya knows Ladybug's identity but he acts like nothing happened. Not a word about it being unfair towards his kid or something, weird.

Thankfully the rest of the episode is generally more or less fun to me. It was nice to see Marinette and Kagami interacting again. I loved Kagami in the episode, although it was a bit weird to me that she isn't seemed to be affected by her breaking up with Adrien. Like her crush was very shallow, so she managed to recover herself from it very quickly. While it's been shown that Luka is hurt, despite Lukanette always seemed to be much more shallow than Adrigami in my opinion. But maybe it's because she's so down to earth, so being less emotional makes sense for her character. I liked how her attitude was opposite to Marinette's hyperactive: "No, I don't want to be in a relationship with Adrien again, he disappointed me, just let me live!!!". And she's another character who said that Marinette and Adrien are made for each other. I'm not surprised that Kagami sees it now when she tried to be with him and that didn't work. She's observant, sees more than many other characters. It seems she's an Adrienette shipper now. It's also good that her issue with Adrien wasn't resolved that easily and too fast. They need more time, but I'm sure they will be friends again.

So, we've gotten shirtless Adrien. I remember seeing a tweet of Thomas in which he answered to a question if there will be a beach episode and he said we will get something similar. I wonder if he meant this episode. Oh, they just remembered that Adrien is supposed to be allergic to feathers. It seems Adrien has allergic reactions only when it's somewhat related to the plot. When it's not, he's completely fine.

The reference to the famous Umbrella Scene™ out of nowhere in a random episode? It probably means something. I can see "reverse crush" supporters interpreting it as a proof to their theory, especially since this time Adrien did something clumsy and Marinette is laughing because of it (actually both of them). Or maybe because it's the first episode of season 4 with Marinette and Adrien interactions, they decided to be that much gracious for Adrienette fans, to compensate lack of it in the first three episodes. Oh wow, Marinette managed to propose spending more time together to Adrien without stuttering. Probably because she has done it spontaneously. Marinette is the most nervous when she's planning and thinking what could go wrong too much. This time she had no time to it, so it went more smoothly. It's like they building development of their relationship, but it didn't seem in Guiltrip (that's episode 11 chronologically) that something changed.

Seeing screenshot above, you can easily imagine how great friends they could be, being very comfortable around each other and laughing together, if not Marinette's anxiety. We need Adrienette development so much to get more moments like this.

Oh and I just realized that it's also one of the veeeeery few episodes with no real Ladynoir at all (the only other one I remember is Style Queen). So if there was no Adrienette it would be an episode without interactions of two main characters at all (although we almost got Ladrien). It could be another reason why this episode is that nice for Adrien and Marinette ship.

After seeing overly excited Marinette dancing in the rain, I can't believe she can manage completely give up on Adrien. It doesn't look like this at all.

Also we've seen three photos of Adrien wearing THAT scarf. It could not mean nothing different that foreshadowing that he's going to discover the truth about it somewhere this season. But I have no idea what Ladybug's mask with shining eyes could mean.

I don't know what to think about the episode. Despite absurd Guardian-related things, I still liked it much more than Gang of Secrets, but I have no idea if I generally enjoyed it more than other episodes of this season or not. At least it's an episode without stupid drama, which is amazing.

---------

I'm currently less active on social media, because my internet connection is very unstable, it often works very slowly to the point I'm not patient enough to visit Tumblr. Also I block spoiler tags again, because I don't want to see spoilers from the episodes those are going to be released very soon, as I feel that they reveal too much to me once more. We're currently in a marathon of the new episodes and since watching them is the more more enjoyable, the less I know about them, I decided to try avoid spoilers as much as I can. The only bad thing is that I can't be read discussions about the new episodes, reblog them and adding something from me until Optigami will be aired.

[nurvuss]

I Watched the First Episode of Every New Spring 2021 Anime Airing on Crunchyroll

Hey, are you like me, and feeling like you're not getting the most out of your Crunchyroll subscription? Sure, there's stuff on there that you know you like. But whenever I look at the big long list of simulcasting shows, my eyes glaze over and I don't even know where to begin.

I wanted to change my habits and see if there were any shining gems that I should be watching. So, as per the title, I watched the first episode of every new Spring 2021 anime on Crunchyroll. And guess what? There’s a lot of crap! But indeed, there’s some stuff that’s worth your time.

Some clarification: I've only watched shows that began their first season in April 2021.

Backflip!!

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The Lowdown

As Futaba Shotaro comes to the end of middle school, his interest in baseball has begun to wane. Soon he notices the Ao High Boys Gymnastic Club and becomes enthralled, especially after seeing them perform. Once he learns they're down two members, he chooses to sign up and pursue the art of gymnastics. The club is also joined by Misato Ryoya, a star solo gymnast looking to expand his technique through teamwork.

Our Thoughts

Pretty formulaic shoujo sports anime: you've got your himbo, your thug, your ladies' man, your stoic guy, with Shotaro rounding out the cast as the shy and awkward audience surrogate. It looks wholesome enough, and the choreographed routines employ CG in a way that's quite convincing without being hideous.

Who It's For

Fans of  FREE, or Yuri!!! on Ice, or any similar shows about cute boys who succeed at athletic feats. 

Borscht Rating

Burning Kabaddi

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The Lowdown

Legendary high school soccer star Yoigoshi Tatsuya has given up on sports! That is, until he's blackmailed to join the high school kabaddi team, under threat of his online persona being leaked to the entire school. Although Tatsuya initially writes kabaddi off as stupid, the unexpected happens as he begins to have fun.

Our Thoughts

Kabaddi is kinda like competitive tag, or dodgeball but with your body instead of a ball. Burning Kabaddi is basically the shounen alternative to Backflip!! above, replete with nosebleeds, pratfalls, and dudes punching each other. The main cast don't seem to like each other very much; that probably changes as the show goes on but at first blush it's a dynamic I always find annoying.

Who it's For

Fans of Haikyuu!!? Maybe?

Borscht Rating

CARDFIGHT!! VANGUARD overDress

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The Lowdown

The newest series based on Bushiroad's collectible card game, featuring character designs by the beloved collective CLAMP. Petit middle schooler Yu-Yu just doesn't know how to say no. As his older students dress him in drag to use as live makeup practice, he suffers a panic attack and flees into the streets. After being accosted by a pickup artist, he's befriended by Megumi, who invites him to witness a Cardfight match at the local abandoned amusement park. However, Yu-yu is too shy to tell Megumi he's actually a boy…

Our Thoughts

What an unexpectedly weird concept for a show about a card game. Our hero spends the whole episode in drag, whimpering and simpering at the sight of any conflict. Then they show off the latest series of cards, which all seem to be giant buff knights with names like "Bad Steve" and "Violent Bruce". Your guess is as good as mine.

Who it's For

Cardfight!! lovers, Japanese gender studies majors, or the most desperate fujoshi. 

Borscht Rating

Cestvs: The Roman Fighter

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The Lowdown

The year is 54AD, and Nero has taken the throne as the youngest emperor of Rome. At the bottom of the population, Cestvs is a young slave training to be a colosseum boxer. Reluctant, his only choice is to fight or die.

Our Thoughts

Seeing Nero depicted as a gentle little twink is pretty funny. It's also pretty funny that the central character is named after a Roman boxing glove. The animation style transitions to some very uncanny CG when a major fight takes place, and I didn't like that one bit! This seems like a pretty average tournament anime but with a historical setting. It's currently unknown if any of these dudes are fucking each other. I'm gonna say probably.

Who It's For

The venn-diagram of Greco-Roman history buffs and lovers of tournament series?

Borscht Rating

Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro!

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The Lowdown:

Hachioji Naoto is a nerdy, introverted student who spends his time studying and avoiding socialising. When pages from the fantasy manga he's drawing fall out of his bookbag, they catch the attention of a younger student named Nagatoro Hayase. Nagatoro begins to tease Naoto for his otaku interests and awkward demeanour, peppered with some suggestive flirting.

Our Thoughts:

What would you do if a younger girl flirted with you? Would you cry? Piss your pants maybe? Maybe shit and cum? Don't Toy With Me… attempts to barely conceal its BDSM fantasy with its comedic elements, but it's incredibly apparent as Nagatoro always wipes away Naoto's tears as a sort of aftercare. It's like a lighter, comedic version of Aku no Hana, but lacking any of the ponderings or danger that made that work so special.

Who It's For: 

People who search Pornhub for "bratty sister femdom".

Borscht Rating:

86 Eighty-Six

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The Lowdown

The Republic of San Magnolia and the Giad Empire, have been at war for nearly a decade. Using advanced military technology, the frontlines are fought by giant mecha drones called Juggernauts, controlled remotely by Handlers. Major Vladilena Mirizé is one of the military's most talented Handlers in the 1st District, and one who is constantly teased by her peers for the humanity and empathy she shows her squadron. The government line is that drone warfare has kept casualties to zero, but unbeknownst to the public these "drones'' are piloted by 86ers—the lowest class of citizens, forced to live in military internment camps in San Magnolia's 86th District.

Our Thoughts

This is incredibly my kind of thing. We've got a dual narrative being set up here: Vladilena as the kind, reluctant officer of a fascist regime, and the Bad Company-esque antics of her new ragtag squad, Spearhead. The first episode is split pretty evenly between the two, with each story converging at the end as Vladilena "meets" Spearhead for the first time through her comms station. It's an explosive and enticing first episode, and I can't wait to watch more of it.

Who It's For

Fans of Fullmetal Alchemist, Psycho-Pass, Gundam, or any number of anti-imperialist war stories.

Borscht Rating

Fairy Ranmaru

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The Lowdown

In a quiet corner of the city sits Bar F, a modest drinking establishment staffed entirely by five hot young men. Unbeknownst to the general population, these men are a crack team of fairies sent to the human world to gather the latent energy of "attachment". They do this by solving the problems of young women, taking their hearts in the process.

Our Thoughts

Hubba hubba, a little something for the ladies! It's Weiẞ Kreuz with a bar instead of a flower shop, fairies instead of assassins, and some pretty revealing outfits. There's definitely a little Persona 5 inspiration here too, from the punctuating phrase "Take your Heart!" to many of the visual cues. Make of that what you will.

Who It's For

Fans of Weiẞ Kreuz, slash fic authors.

Borscht Rating

Farewell, My Dear Cramer

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The Lowdown

Onda Nozomi was once the star player of her middle school football team. Completely unmatched, she no longer plays as there's no opponent she deems to be on her level. Meanwhile Suou Sumire far outpaces her teammates, causing her frustration. By a twist of fate, these two girls find themselves joining the scrappy Warabi Seinan High School FC as they begin to learn the value of teamwork and friendship.

Our Thoughts

I don't know sports. And I really don't know football. I had to look up what the title meant, and now I barely know who Dettmar Cramer is. I'm really not the best person to judge this, but it seems like a pretty good female-driven sports anime. 

Who It's For

Fans of Ace o Nerae! or other sports manga/anime about those ever burning bonds between young teammates.

Borscht Rating

Gloomy, the Naughty Grizzly

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The Lowdown:

Pitty lives with his pet Gloomy, a massive pink bear. Can a boy and a bear truly get along?

Our Thoughts:

This is a series of minute-long gag episodes in which Gloomy mauls Pitty and blood squirts everywhere. It's definitely meant to be a morbid parody of Sanrio or San-X; it might be a Rilakkuma parody in particular? Gloomy is the kind of thing you might laugh at if it came on in between shows, but it's pretty slight to go through the trouble of putting on.

Who It's For:

Gag anime fans with one minute to spare.

Borscht Rating:

Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway

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The Lowdown

After a night of drinking in Tokyo, slovenly salaryman Yoshida encounters a teenage runaway sitting under a lamppost. She offers to sleep with him in return for letting her spend the night in his apartment. Yoshida refuses her offer but allows her to stay. The next morning the girl, Sayu, reveals she's travelled all the way from Hokkaido, sleeping with random men in return for lodging and money. Feeling responsible for her safety, Yoshida agrees for Sayu to stay indefinitely in return for handling household chores.

Our Thoughts

This is kind of the inverse of Koikimo (see below), but without a scumbag character and from a male perspective. It's not nearly as nauseating as that show, but it's still a fantasy about living with a busty teenage girl.

Who It's For

Libertarians.

Borscht Rating

I've Been Killing Slimes For 300 Years And Maxed Out My Level

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The Lowdown: 

Office lady Aizawa Azusa dies of overwork in her early 20s, and finds herself standing before a lecherous goddess. Allowed a wish as compensation for her untimely demise, Azusa wishes for an endless life of leisure. The goddess reincarnates her as a 17-year-old immortal witch in an RPG-coded fantasy world. Thrilled, Azusa lazes about, brewing potions for her neighbouring villagers, and kills a small amount of slimes each day to supplement her income. After doing this every day for 300 years, she inadvertently finds herself at Level 99. Her peaceful life is soon upended as adventurers and dragons come from miles around to challenge the legendary witch.

Our Thoughts:

I'm not really an isekai fan, and that goes double for series which aren't set in an RPG, yet use RPG mechanics. Levelling up, grinding stats, min-maxing, as if it's a part of the fabric of the setting. I don't get it. I like watching numbers go up as much as the next dork, but I don't need to watch numbers go up in absolutely every piece of media I consume. Just play a fucking video game, Jesus Christ almighty.

I thought this might be setting up a fun series in which a layabout is reluctantly called upon to undertake a dangerous quest, but I don't think that's what's going on at all. When the red dragon Laika wrecks Azusa's house, she transforms into a cute young girl and the two begin living together, teaching each other the pros and cons of hard work and slothfulness respectively. The trajectory of the series might be as laid back as its protagonist in the end, which, ultimately, would be fitting.

Who It's For:

Isekai fans, slice-of-life fans. The twain have met!

Borscht Rating:

Joran: The Princess of Snow and Blood

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The Lowdown

In alternative history Japan the Meiji Period continued well into the 1930s, and the ongoing Tokugawa Shogunate has brought technological prosperity to the nation through a magical energy source called the Dragon's Vein. Sawa Yukimura runs a bookshop where she lives with her little sister by day, but by night she's an assassin for Nue, the shogunate's secret police. As the terrorist group Kuchinawa deploys transforming beasts in an attempt to topple the shogunate, Nue springs into action with their own abilities.

Our Thoughts

There are a lot of concepts competing here, and a few too many flashy transformation sequences for my taste, but I'm really into it! Nue are made up of sex workers and street musicians, often overlooked and therefore easily able to blend in. There's a supernatural Standalone Complex vibe to how the team operates, and they're almost assuredly on the wrong side. Worth a shot!

Who It's For

Fans of alternate history science fiction, Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, Demon Slayer.

Borscht Rating

Koikimo: Koi to Yobu ni wa Kimochi Warui ("It's Disgusting to Call This Love")

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The Lowdown

Amakusa Ryo is a womanizing salaryman concerned with nothing but his own base desires. As he slips on the train station stairs one morning, he's saved by the swift action of Arima Ichika, a kind-hearted high schooler. When it turns out Ichika is friends with Ryo's younger sister Riou, he decides she's his soulmate, and begins to pursue her no matter how many times she refuses him. Comedy ensues!

Our Thoughts

Yeah, OK groomer.

Alright look, Korikimo is written by a woman and told from Ichika's perspective, so this is obviously meant to be a lighthearted "older man" shoujou romance. As an older man, all I saw were the adventures of a paedophile and the teenager he's stalking. Fuck off.

Who it's For

There's probably other stuff like this, right? If you like that, here you go.

Borscht Rating

Let's Make a Mug, Too

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The Lowdown

After the death of her mother, Himeno and her father relocate from bustling Tokyo to quiet Tajimi City in Gifu Prefecture. The former salaryman opens a quiet cafe using the remarkable mugs made by his late wife, while Himeno follows in her mother's footsteps and joins the school pottery club. Although her first project ends in disaster, Himeno makes fast friends with the eccentric pottery enthusiasts who make up the club.

Our Thoughts

It's no Eizouken, but I guess it's probably not meant to be. I'm not a big iyashikei genre fan, but if that's your thing, you might enjoy the wholesome non-adventures of three girls trying to make a mug. It's worth noting these episodes are only about 12 minutes long, with the remaining runtime segmented into live action episodes where the voice actresses tour Tajimi and unconvincingly pretend to be interested in Gifu's famous mino-yaki pottery. I think this must be a tie-in with a local tourist board. 

Who It's For

People who enjoy stuff like Aria, actually.

Borscht Rating

OddTaxi

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The Lowdown

In a Tokyo populated by anthropomorphic animals, a solemn walrus named Odokawa spends his nights driving his cab around the bustling metropolis, spending his free time drinking with his pals. Odokawa soon finds his quiet life disrupted by a caper involving a missing girl, some crooked cops, and the animal yakuza. 

Our Thoughts

A deft blend of working class slice-of-life with mystery, cute animals, and striking visual design. OddTaxi might be the sleeper hit of Spring 2021.

Who It's For

Fans of existentialist film noir with absurdist comedy, Polar Bear Cafe, walrus lovers.

Borscht Rating

Osamake: Romcom Where The Childhood Friend Won't Lose

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The Lowdown

Suehiro Maruo Sueharu Maru has his heart set on Shirokusa Kachi, the hottest girl in school. When she begins dating a young actor, Sueharu confides in his childhood friend Kuroha Shida, who's openly in love with him and he rejected in the past. Kuroha suggests the two get revenge on Shirokusa by pretending to be in love. Will Sueharu fall in love with Kuroha for real, making her dreams come true?

Our Thoughts

Give me a fucking break.

Who It's For

I don't know and I don't care.

Borscht Rating

SD Gundam World Heroes

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The Lowdown

The newest instalment of the SD Gundam media-mix franchise. In a world populated by super deform mecha, a burning meteor lands in the middle of Captain City. From it launches a terrible mechanized beast: Naughty Lion. When the police are powerless to stop it, a crack team led by Zhuge Liang Gundam and Liu Bei Gundam sorties to bring Naughty Lion to justice. When the beast stops rampaging, it transforms into Sun Wukong Gundam, a youthful amnesiac mecha horrified at the destruction he wrought. The Three Kingdoms Gundams welcome Sun Wukong into the fold to make sense of this mysterious event.

Our Thoughts

I'm an 80s kid, I know a 30-minute toy commercial when I see one.

No, seriously though, I'm aware of SD Gundam's merchandising—they're cute designs, and I even used to have a bunch of the gum rubber mini figurines. I've played the SD Great War Super Famicom games, they're fun! This is a vehicle to get kids hyped up about the latest toys, which are...based on  a hodgepodge of Journey to the West and Romance of the Three Kingdoms this year? There's even a little SD Guan Yu Gundam with a big long beard!

I kinda wanted to like the idea of a bearded robot, but the mechas are super busy and overdesigned. I guess there's only so much you can do to make your next series of toys bigger and better, so these guys are all decked out in gold accents, capes, horns, and antlers, and half the time I couldn't parse what I was seeing.

I'm so glad I don't have to watch any more of this. 

Who It's For

Very, *very* young mecha fans.

Borscht Rating

Seven Knights Revolution: Hero Successor

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The Lowdown

Long ago, the Dark God Nestra ruled the world through fear. Standing against him were the Seven Knights, seven brave warriors chosen by the Light Goddess Serrass. With their powers combined, Nestra was defeated and the lands returned to peace. Hundreds of years later the wicked Physis Cult seeks to revive Nestra, summoning undead beasts to ravage the countryside. With the Seven Knights long dead, the Granseed Academy has risen to train the next wave of heroes to combat this threat. Using special cards, the students of Granseed are able to call upon the power of the Seven Knights to guide them in battle.

Our Thoughts

As soon as the opening started with its transforming heroes and lovingly depicted weapon cards, I realised this must be based on a mobile game. Indeed, this is based on a free-to-play gacha from Korean developer Netmarble. Even before I was able to confirm this, Hero Successor failed to draw me in, eschewing details on the nature of its world in lieu of a glamourised marketing push for its source material. What's here is incredibly slight, and likely to be of little interest to anyone who isn't deep into this game.

Who It's For

Seven Knights whales, I guess.

Borscht Rating

Those Snow White Notes

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The Lowdown

Sawamura Setsu mourns the death of his grandfather Matsugorou, a talented shamisen player who refused to pass his secrets on. Not knowing what else to do, he leaves his remote village for Tokyo, taking nothing but his shamisen along with him. Soon he finds himself wrapped up in the complicated life of aspiring actress Yuna and her scuzzy rockstar boyfriend Taketo. When Setsu opens for Taketo's band, he stuns the audience with the raw emotion of his playing. However, his heart is still tumultuous. 

Our Thoughts

An entertaining first episode of a speciality music series, which is the kind of thing I have a place in my heart for. I couldn't shake the feeling of some latent misogyny that suggested the role of a woman is to inspire a tortured artist, but I might be wrong. The final few minutes take a twist by introducing Setsu's weird, horny mother who seems to have her own personal SWAT team, and it looks like the series becomes a more conventional high school anime from episode 2 onwards. Don't know about that!

Who It's For

Fans of Kids on the Slope, Sound of the Sky.

Borscht Rating

Tokyo Revengers

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The Lowdown

Former delinquent Takemichi is unsatisfied with the way his life turned out, living alone in a paper-thin apartment and working a minimum wage job under a boss who doesn't respect him. When watching the news one evening, he learns that his highschool sweetheart Hinata was killed, alongside her little brother. On the way to work the next morning, Takemichi falls in front of an oncoming train and wakes up 12 years in the past. Armed with foreknowledge, he attempts to turn his life around and save his onetime lover.

Our Thoughts

This is drawing from a lot of sources; the whole train sequence is lifted straight from Gantz, while the story itself initially seems like a Life on Mars kind of deal. In fact, Tokyo Revengers sees Takemichi jump back and forth between the present and the past, seemingly making small changes until he achieves his desired outcome. It feels like a very video gamey depiction of time travel, and one that's not super interesting.

Who It's For

Steins;Gate fans, maybe? Delinquent manga (Shonan Junai Gumi, Crows, etc.) fans, maybe? It's pretty self-serious compared to any of those.

Borscht Rating

To Your Eternity

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The Lowdown

An immortal being in the form of an orb falls to earth and becomes a stone. Years pass, an ice age sets in, and a white wolf stumbles onto the tundra and dies. The orb, able to take the form of anything that leaves a strong impression on it, transforms into the wolf and slowly learns how to use its newfound ambulatory body. The creature treks back through the tundra where it meets a boy living alone, after the rest of his village left in search of a better life. The boy recognises the wolf as his beloved pet, Johann, and the two begin living together in the harsh, lonely wastes.

Our Thoughts

I'm being a little coy with the synopsis here, and there's a major shake-up at the end of this debut episode. This one's based on a manga by the critically acclaimed Yoshitoki Ooima (A Silent Voice), and it's a depressing, compelling, and exciting start to a series. Lots of potential here!

Who It's For

Fans of NieR, Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, Last Exile, Kino's Journey.

Borscht Rating

So, there you have it. I'm hoping this will be of use to anyone who experiences a similar sense of dread when faced with so many choices. Maybe we’ll do this again during the Summer 2021 anime season.

Also, please don't get mad at me if I'm snarky about your new favourite show! It’s just TV and I'm a big idiot anyway.

[pepperpills]

The Harvest - RE8 Fanfic

The Harvest

A Resident Evil 8 fan fiction by Joana

Karl Heisenberg x Female Reader

Notes: heey, so here is Part III, hope you all enjoy it! i'm thinking of starting a new story soon, once this is ended, probably focusing more on world building and Karl and reader relationship hehe

Warning: NSFW content

Part I - Destiny (1) Part I - Destiny (2) Part II - The Lord

Part III – The Hunt

Getting to know the factory turned out to be a fantastic experience. You had never seem so many different paraphernalia in your live, the closer you had ever got to that was when you were a child poking around your dad’s storeroom, but there were only some tools, agriculture products and inherited ornaments from your cabin family – these last ones were your absolute favourite.

Heisenberg’s factory, on the other hand, was full of interesting things, some of them you had no idea what were used for. You even found a suspicious “torture” room, but couldn’t dig into it, once he was nearby. Still, you found his journals narrating his experiments, his audio reports and some guide books on mechanics that had you intrigued for a long time while reading them. He was a madman, you were convinced, but at the same time, that secluded part of you was growing a little each day you explored his life.

Lord Heisenberg was nicer and quieter than you would imagine. He basically lived in his various offices across the factory, mostly he would be trying new mechanisms on bodies and seeing how they reacted with the Cadou, the strange parasite the villagers mentioned only on rare and veiled conversations. As far as it wasn’t you, or your family, lying cold on one of the stretchers, you didn’t care. As a matter of fact, you felt tempted to try some things with the gears yourself as you deepen your studies in his books.

At your first days there, you got worried you would have to share the bed with him, which would be much more proximity than you had ever had with another person. The man had already seen your half naked and that was enough. However, he didn’t sleep there with you and you wondered why, once he so enthusiastically mocked you about it when you arrived. Actually, you started doubting he ever slept at all.

You were still a bit scared, though, never knowing if he would play a prank on you, so you were very careful to avoid him for a while - that didn’t endure –, believing you should give him space to get used to your presence after the mood he got into after your reception.

He was disturbed, indeed. His work was getting closer to a crucial point that involved Mother Miranda. He musted be discreet, but it was proving to be a real trial with Soldats activating and running around as lost beasts. Also, having you around actually gave him a new problem.

Lord Heisenberg would walk around the factory looking for material, testing the Soldats and cursing a lot, some of these swearwords you didn’t even know, but started liking how he used them, almost cartoonish. It was never directed to you, of course. He acted like you weren’t there most of the time, in others, when he was more chilled, with less work to do, he asked “how is the mess at the wing, buttercup?” laughing at you blushing at his indiscreet platonic flirts.

You had to find your way around the factory. That place was a labyrinth and a map would come handy, so you drew it on some clean papers you found lying around, loving not to get lost anymore. You hadn’t been face-to-face to one of his creations yet, just saw them on the production lines on the overview of the factory and on some specific rooms. You also avoided it due to fear.

He told you where the wing to be cleaned was and you found it after an hour. It was so incredibly packed with mechanical parts that you could barely come inside to take a look. Huffing, you thought that he could solve that without moving a muscle. It made you mad, but also made you wonder what you were doing there. You cleaned it anyway, as it was your duty and used that waste to build some minor projects.

At the end of your expedient, your hands were orange because of the rusty irons you were moving all day long and you had little cuts here and there, but nothing really bad. As it was going, it wouldn’t take long for you to finish cleaning and could even decorate it for him, making it feel more like home to you too.

You were liking it there. Of course, it was dusty, grey, sometimes rusty and hot all the time, but it was also very different from everything. Once you said goodbye to the cabins, then to the Village and maybe being away from Miranda’s dominance made you feel lighter.

You found some red fabric lying around somewhere, appearing to be forgotten, made some nature sketches on blank papers and put yellow lights on the bedroom and on Karl’s soon-to-be new working room. It looked cosy. You hoped he would appreciate it when he met the reformed wing, until then, you would keep quiet not to bother him.

Though, shortly after you finished decorating the bedroom, an event destroyed your plans of avoiding Heisenberg. On your daily route to what you would now call your wing, you crossed the kitchen and found an overcoat-less Karl trying to prepare a sandwich. He had any chef’s nightmare happening in that place. There were blunt knives flying around, a metal cup chasing the kettle spilling hot coffee all over the floor as he tried to open a bottle of whiskey and, finally, hot coffee hit Heisenberg’s chest and he screamed and cursed like a sore animal.

“FUCK!” He thundered, his word echoing in the corridor where you stood.

You couldn’t ignore that scene even if you tried. You were getting tired of not talking to him, you lived together now and all your few friends were slowly becoming distant memories. You would be happy to hear his voice, something else than gears rumble, even if it was cursing your predecessors.

As a powerful person, he would try to use his powers to do simple things and do a real mess instead. You felt compelled to give him some support, maybe it was a part of your mother’s care for others that lived in you too. You entered the kitchen headstrong, holding a laugh at his misery looks. Now he was stroking his shirt with a cloth and only noticed you when you were getting around the island.

You didn’t know, however, he never “never noticed” you. He felt your presence at the corridor before you saw him and he felt ashamed of you seeing him failing at a stupid task, and so forth his reaction was to be boorish.

“What?” He asked in a rude tone.

“Just let me help.” You offered, placing your hand in the air between you two. It wasn’t really an offer, you were just being polite, you would help him one way or another, you would have your small talk, but he wouldn’t give up so easily. “Please.” You asked, making the sweeter voice you could.

He huffed and threw the wet cloth on the sink. You took another cloth from one of the drawers – you were getting used to the utensils’ places –, wet it a little with water and looked at him, your head slightly tilted to the right.

“What is it, kitten?” Heisenberg questioned, roughly playful then.

“It is your shirt.” You pointed.

“Yes, it is dirty. Weren’t you trying to help?” He started to lose patience.

“Yeah, I am. It is just… You will have to take it off.” You let it out unpretentiously, although in your mind you were revengeful.

“Oh.” He understood and immediately took it off with so much easiness you wondered how many times he did that when you were so uncertain of it at your first day.

You had never seem him shirtless. To be quite sincere, you hadn’t seen many shirtless men in your life. The Village was a very cold town, once it was deep into a forest in the mountains, so even in the summer there wasn’t a hot weather, so people tended to keep their clothes on. Because of this, when he took it off you instantly blushed at his scarred chest.

He has what you would call a dad body. It isn’t really sinewy, although still very strong with thick arms and defined muscles. He has some belly, which means he isn’t a skinny person, but he isn’t fat also. And maybe you took too long looking at him like that and feeling weird feelings you would think about later that night.

“You’re almost drooling there, buttercup.” He teased you and when you quickly, but gently, started cleaning his chest with the cloth, so you wouldn’t have to answer, he gave up a deliciously loud laugh.

You laughed with him, making him laugh even harder. You didn’t want to admit it, but you liked it, this casual connection between you two. The laugh died a gradual death and you started moving you hand on his chest, feeling its warmth below the cloth. You could almost swear his breathing was getting faster and you saw he was biting his lips, maybe because you were taking too long. You didn’t want to finish, but you both know there wasn’t much coffee on him anyway.

You put the cloth with the other one in the sink and as you watered them, you saw him going to get his shirt that had been laying on the island.

“No, no, no.” You said, taking it from his hands kind brusquely, making him confused. “I need to wash these.”

“I see.” He said, raising his hands to show he wouldn’t try again, as a peace offer that made you grin.

“I can finish your sandwich for you, it will only take a minute.” You added, embarrassed to be so bossy with him.

“I will be at my office.” He told you and left without looking back.

You thought he got mad at you because of the shirt situation. It made you sad, you started having a nice approach. To compensate you made him a really good sandwich with the meat and vegetables you found in the refrigerator. Searching for food there you considered asking him to go see the Duke and buy supplies, maybe even hunt, because you didn’t have enough provisions. Anyway, you also prepared the coffee, poured a glass of cowboy whisky – sipped one, two or three times yourself – and cleaned what was there to be cleaned. It took more than one minute, but less than teen.

You were heading to his office when you heard a muffled noise. It sounded guttural and made you shiver. Electricity running through your body, making you feel hopelessly exposed, only that countered by the alcohol it felt good. You stepped carefully as you got closer to the door. You considered not knocking, but the noise made you knock.

“Just…” He gasped. “Leave it at the door, please.” Heisenberg was painting, but he asking “please” was what made up your mind, that politeness wasn’t usual, so you did what he requested.

You wanted to be around him on that day, but chose to respect his privacy. You didn’t imagine that his mind was blowing with you, he desperately wanted to continue the kitchen talk, but couldn’t give himself the chance once he was so close to perfecting the Soldats.

To ease your thoughts, as you were no longer requested at the factory, you tested your stealth skills and slipped to the forest behind it, caring your bow and arrows determinedly.

You were familiar with that area as you have hunted all around the Village, thus, you knew where to go to find good preys. It was by the lake were the deer stopped to drink water. It was far from the factory entrance, but again, you knew exactly what you were doing. When approaching the lake, you climbed a tree and waited.

It didn’t take long until a lonely deer appeared, unsuspicious. It leaned its head so it could reach the water level and started drinking it. You positioned one arrow, held your breath and did the physics magic. The arrow nailed its left eye. It didn’t scream, it was over very quickly.

You climbed the tree down, came closer to the body and tied it with the rope you brough from the factory. Your way back wasn’t effortless, you were slower due to the extra weight and the lycans sensed its blood, their sounds were all around you. They wouldn’t hurt your, though, somehow, they knew you were with Heisenberg.

It was past four in the afternoon when you reached the factory, panting with the effort of bringing the deer. Heisenberg was poking around for something in his front yard. He noticed you just as you appeared in his peripherical vision. He walked towards you, with an intrigued expression that transformed into an impressed one when he saw the deer.

“Some gifts you have there, kitten, ain’t gonna lie.” He commented, squatting to take a good look at the animal. “How did you do that?” It was clear he didn’t mean to offend, quite the opposite, he was genuinely curious.

“A girl has her secrets.” You answered, when you finally stop panting, shrugging when internally you are fulfilled someone knew about you hunting and didn’t seem mad at you.

He wasn’t even angry you left the factory without his permission, which made you happier. He stood below you with the animal for a few seconds more, than got up on his feed, laid his hands on your shoulders, well, on your skin hunting jacket, and said “You are really something, kitten.”

You fell for his words. You never wanted to feel that dependant on someone’s appreciation for you, but with him it was lighter. Karl took the weight of the world off your shoulders by bringing you there and kind off supporting you even though you had only spent little more than a month together.

“Thank you, my lord.” You spoke.

“Stop it. Call me Karl.” He said roughly, but good hearted. “Now, do you know how to clean this deer?” Heisenberg asked.

Usually, Duke would do it for you, although you knew the theory, you hadn’t much practice.

“I was hoping you could help me with it, Karl.” You suggested, toasting him a malicious smile.

“For fuck’s sake.” But he cursed laughing.

He cleaned this table at the garage and disposed the deer there. You helped him doing the messy job, learning with him what you only saw the Duke doing. It wasn’t pretty, but you were comforted by his presence and obstinacy. He probably did it often as it showed, but didn’t bother to take it slower so he could teach you.

Heisenberg enjoyed that night more than you could imagine. He didn’t care for the Soldats, they could wait, it was nice being around you for a change, not running away from your hair, your smile, your presence. For the first time in his life, he actually had someone who wanted to be around him.

Later your prepared venison, demi-glace, potatoes, a fresh arugula salad and both of your enjoyed dinner at the kitchen island with bottles of dark beer. He was funny, he was tripping over words a little, due to the alcohol, but his stories, oh man… He was a real brat. You told him about the cabins and the hunting. He listened carefully, never judging you and laughed at your silly manners, at your etiquette and, over all, loved your cook.

He slept in the bed with you, tired, amused and drunk, he sunk in his dreams. You stayed up a bit longer, resisting your lazy eyes temptations just to appreciate his scent, it would smell like burned wood.

[reliciron]

Planet Misery Scale as Rated by a Long-suffering Cathar

Hutta – Smells horrible. Made him want to die every time he stepped outside. Poisoned mud in fur is a special kind of hell. 1/10

Dromund Kass – Wet and rainy = Constantly damp fur = Irritable Cathar. It’s dark though, which is nice on the eyes, and the jungle smells nice and fairly uncontaminated. Treatment from Imperials gets worse, due to the lingering scent of wet dog. 6/10

Balmorra – Toxic clouds and radioactive waste in parts must be avoided but otherwise not terrible. Constant sound of gunfire and explosions hurts the ears though. 5/10

Nar Shaddaa – NEON AND THUMPING MUSIC. Seriously, after 5 minutes on the strip he wants to crawl in a dark room and hide for a week. Everything smells bad, not Hutta bad, but still gross. Literally the only good thing about it is that there’s no mud or rain. 4/10

Tatooine – Miserable hot. Fur makes it extremely difficult to cool down. Palms and feet sweat but can’t compensate. End up panting like a stupid animal. Sun still manages to burn skin where fur is thin. Skin peels and fills fur with dandruff-like flakes for days. Need to take regular breaks in cantina or ship to cool down fully or risk heat stroke. 2/10

Alderaan – Nicest place yet BY FAR. Killik goo is nasty though, and the pheromones in their nests make him dizzy. A mask is a must. 8/10

Taris – More poisoned mud. Filthy smelling monsters. Somehow the entire planet still manages to smell like death even after several hundred years. 1/10

Quesh – Worst possible smell. Literally can’t breath without a mask because the air burns his nose, the brief exposure to the air he had gave him a sinus infection. MORE poison mud. 0/10

Hoth – Freezing ass cold, BUT minimal offensive odors. Too cold for the snow to easily melt, so not very wet. Fur is actually a boon here. 7/10

Belsavis – Cool air, doesn’t smell all that bad outside. Noise is irritating but not unbearable. 5/10

Voss – Dark Heart feels… weird, but otherwise Voss is beautiful, dry, and relatively quiet. 7/10

Corellia – Another noisy warzone. Lots of smoke and gunfire, burns his nose and feels like his ears are ringing for days afterward. 6/10

Ilum – Hoth 2. Crystals and ice look pretty. 7/10

Makeb – Vibrations from the constant ground quakes are unnerving. And of course there’s the whole destruction of the planet business. Hard to really enjoy the sights like that. 4/10

Manaan – Fucking. Water. Planet. Doesn’t even have the decency to have a beach. 3/10

Rakata Prime – More water, but the beach and jungle mostly made up for it. Smelled nice. Fighting a rancor and being shot at by a capitol ship kinda put a damper on it though. 6/10

Rishi – Same as Rakata, except the constant reek of body odor in Raider’s Cove is disgusting. 5/10

Yavin 4 – Weird Force stuff. Makes his hackles permanently raised the entire time he’s there. Keeps glaring for no reason. Jungle’s really nice, but the rain sucks. 5/10

Ziost – Same unsettling Force stuff as Yavin, except worse, like a buzz beneath his skin. Whole damn place smells like smoke, blood, and charred flesh, keeps making him gag. 2/10

Zakuul – Depends on which level. Upper level smells too clean. Old World’s mostly normal, about what you’d expect for a large ‘civilized’ city. Breaktown reeks. Swamp’s disgusting, constant mud and filthy water, rotting plant matter. Reminds him of places he’d rather forget. 4/10

Odessen – Really nice. Finally a planet with enough sense to be quiet, cool, and mostly not-wet. Only drawback are the fUCKING SHADE STALKERS!!! 9/10

Is there such a thing as a perfect 10/10? No. Is it because Agent Talin is grumpy and picky? Yes.

[katcadecascade]

The One Thing You Can’t Replace (ORV fic)

Summary: Shin Yoosung wakes up in tears. She will not grieve over a man who can still be saved. All she has to do is make everyone remember Kim Dokja.

Chapter One: As the World Caves In 

“Okay, everyone calm down.”

“No, no, no, Ahjussi!”

“You have a plan. Of course you do, good… But about this?”

“Well I have never seen this scenario before actually.”

“Oh god, there’s a countdown!”

“We can overcome this scenario. We just have to work together like always… Why are you all staring at me like that?”

“Bastard, you can’t be this stupid.”

“Hmm?”

“The one thing we can’t…”

“Yes I can read too and just because we’re caught off guard doesn’t mean we can’t figure it out. We just have to be smart and find out what exactly is missing when this starts.”

“…”

“Ahjussi…”

[00:05 Before Scenario Begins]

“Hey, there’s no need to cry, Shin Yoosung.”

“Ahjussi, please… please don’t…”

[00:03]

“Don’t what? I’m not going any-“

[00:00]

[Sub-Scenario: The One Thing You Can’t Replace has begun!]

   Shin Yoosung wakes up in tears.

She rubs the wetness off her cheeks in almost a painful pace but it doesn’t matter. Nothing compares to the giant ache in her heart. Dread spreads throughout her core as she looks around the room.

It’s her room obviously, a bit messy with clothes and books tossed around. There’s that animal fur smell that she is immune to but Lee Jihye always complains about when the older girl comes around. At one side of the room is her most cherished possessions.

Small animal tanks for the little frog and other small creatures she picked up. Then there are the bigger tanks that Lee Hyunsung had set up for her bigger creatures, like the tentacle monster. From the trail of water droplets, it seems like it crawled up the ceiling to perch on top of her closet.

Shin Yoosung rushed over to the tanks. For three years she did this routine, wake up only to immediately pay attention to the beasts she has gathered for two reasons.

The first is that she is a responsible beast tamer. Of course, she’ll take good care of them.

The second reason is to see if any of them could actually be…

Fresh tears erupt from the girl.

Each tank has a nameplate, craved with the unorthodox names she given them.

[Frog Who Could’ve Been _ Ahjussi]

[Elephant Monster Who Was Almost _ Ahjussi]

[Tentacle Monster Who Unfortunately Wasn’t _ Ahjussi]

They were all missing his name.

Her hands are tightly curled together, digging nails into the skin as another wave of tears pour in. It drips onto her shirt and it’s the same shirt she wore when the scenario started. Shin Yoosung knows that because she wanted to wear an outfit to match him. When she announced so his face was red but his smile was so big and Shin Yoosung wants him to smile more.

Him.

His name is missing.

He was gone for three years and they just got him back until that scenario sprang up on them.

“Shin Yoosung?”

She never noticed the door opened and before Lee Gilyoung could ask more worries, Shin Yoosung launched herself at her best friend.

“Did you forget him?” She asks with a crazed desperation, clutching onto his shoulders. She hasn’t held him so tight since they confronted the chimera underneath Paradise. “Ahjussi, Lee Gilyoung, please tell me you remember him!”

For the most part, Lee Gilyoung is utterally confused and scared of his weeping friend. That is until she said one word.

“Ahjussi?” He repeated with a daze. An odd look passes over his eyes, as if he’s having a mental crisis from sharing a mental link with a dying insect.

When he gets like this, Shin Yoosung knows to lead him over to sit on the bed in case he collapses.

“Ahjussi,” Lee Gilyoung mutters again, this time recognition sparks in his eyes. He is entirely alert and aware and now tears are falling from his eyes. “Shin Yoosung, the scenario!”

The message popped up above their heads, beaconed to their distress and awareness of the current event.

 [Sub-Scenario: The One Thing You Can’t Replace

Clear Condition: Something irreplaceable has been forgotten by the world. Participants of scenario must identify it without the help of nonparticipants. (2/9) participants have recovered the identity.

Time Limit: 12 Hours

Compensation: Retrieval of the irreplaceable thing.

Failure: The irreplaceable thing will fade from existence]

 The two kids paled at the failure consequences.

Immediately they ran out the door, nearly tripping over a tentacle.

Shin Yoosung normally would apologize whenever that happens but not now. Not when the one thing she can never replace might lose his existence.

“Hey, why are you to running?” Someone up ahead calls out to them, unknowingly becoming their target. “If Noona sees you she’s going to blame it on me and hey!”

The two kids do not drop their speed and tackle Lee Jihye to the floor.

“Lee Jihye,” Shin Yoosung rushes, “we’re in a scenario.”

The older girl shoves them off her to stand in a battle stance, pulling out her sword, “What, is something attacking the Master’s Industrial Complex?”

Shin Yoosung shakes her head, “No, we lost memories of someone.”

Sheathing her sword, Lee Jihye mutters, “Lame.”

Lee Gilyoung worriedly asks, “What did you say before? The name of this Industrial Complex?”

“Yoo Jonghyuk’s Industrial Complex,” she answers with a bored expression, “Hey are you two trying to prank me? What kind of scenario gives us amnesia?”

“Do you remember Ahjussi?” Shin Yoosung tries this method again since it worked so well with Lee Gilyoung.

It doesn’t work a second time.

“Ahjussi? You mean Lee Hyunsung?”

Seeing the pure confusion on Lee Jihye is really tormenting Shin Yoosung. She knows that out of everyone in the party, he is not Lee Jihye’s favorite person. Yet she does care in her own way, something about being the admiral of a huge ship of him and her Master.

Is this the point of the scenario, have everyone forget except Shin Yoosung and see how painful it is to ever dare live in a life without him?

Shin Yoosung knows that in the main party, she met him last. In that three-year period of heartache, she learned how the others meet this irreplaceable person.

He saved them one way or another.

He always had a risky plan that succeeded.

He was thoughtful and compassionate and…

Lee Gilyoung steps up to Lee Jihye.

“Play rock paper scissors with me,” he demanded with one fist readily above an open palm.

While Shin Yoosung was lost in her internal misery, Lee Gilyoung was also thinking deeply.

She recognizes that calculating glint in his eyes. Shin Yoosung knows who exactly he picked up that express from.

“Huh, that’s a weird change of topic,” Lee Jihye scratches her head. She shrugs and mirrors his hands. “You know that I’m very good at this game.”

“No you aren’t,” Lee Gilyoung said proudly.

“Tsk.”

They play one round. Lee Jihye throws down scissors and Lee Gilyoung throws down rock.

“Ahjussi also choose rock the first time,” he said calmly as his eyes tear up. “You played against him so many times and lost nearly all of them.”

A jab like that usually enrages Lee Jihye but right now, she is frozen. Her hands loosen up, falling to her sides as she stares at Lee Gilyoung.

“The Theater Dungeon,” she utters weakly. Then Lee Jihye laughs too sharply, smiling too pained, “He must have cheated.” Bizarre ranges of emotions quickly flash through her face, making her look a little crazy until she rubs her cheeks and snaps back into a fierce frown, “What did we do yesterday?”

In their rushed morning, Shin Yoosung didn’t recall everything, just the important bits like the fact that they were going to forget the one thing they can’t replace.

“We finished a monster hunting scenario and on the way back here this scenario came up.” Lee Gilyoung summed up and pointed at the scenario message log that appeared.

It updated.

 [(3/9) participants have recovered the identity.]

 Lee Jihye narrows her eyes at it, hesitantly muttering, “Nine?”

“We have to get to the others.”

Shin Yoosung did not wait for her friends as she dashes through the Industrial Complex to find the other party members. Lee Gilyoung is at her side but not Lee Jihye.

Instead, they hear her shout away, “I’ll find Master!”

It’s likely their best course of action. There is no time to waste.

 [Time Remaining: 11 Hours]

[twoidiotwriters1]

Pure Blood 20 (Sirius Black x F!Oc)

A/N: Omg,I can't believe we're already in chapter 20, the good is coming

Words: 1,760

Masterlist

Chapter 19 / Chapter 21

Sirius

Yesterday

"You owe me some chocolate frogs, Padfoot," says James, lying down on his bed.

"I don't think so, Prongs. That bet wasn't fair, how could I know that bird was going to attack me?”

"Maybe because you threw rocks at him," adds Peter, and I wince.

Remus enters the room then, the boy walks in with a huge smile all the way to his bed, takes off his sweater and sits on the mattress in front of mine. The three of us are silent as we watch him, waiting for some other reaction. I told them what had happened with Persephone, omitting the fact that he was crying and… the hug.

James sits on the edge of his bed and looks at Remus.

"And well?” That makes him react, but his smile doesn't fade.

"Hello guys. How’d it go? ” I frown.

"Good," says Peter. "But I think it was better for you," he says, trying to joke, but James throws him a shirt to quiet him down.

“Yes, you're right, Pete. It was better than I thought,” Remus replies, slightly red.

"How was your date with... Trixie?" I say, trying to control myself. His face flushes even more.

“I know you don't like her, Padfoot, but I did well, she's a very- wait, how did you know that?” The spell seems to have broken.

"Someone told me,” I lean against the wooden pillar of his bed and cross my arms.

“Oh. Well… yes, it was great, we have many things in common and–”

"Remus, I love you and you know it,” James interrupts him before he gives the details. "I think you're the smartest of the four, but right now you're being an idiot." Remus looks at him confused.

“Are you on his side too? C’mon James, they don't even know her…”

“Listen," I reply. “I may not be the best person to say this, because of my stupid decisions, but…” I approach him. “Why did you leave Persephone?”

"What are you talking ab-" His eyes widen "Holy shit!” He hits his forehead.

"There it is, he finally realized," applauds James.

“Shit, I was supposed to go with her.”

"Didn't you really remember?" I ask.

"No shit, I'm the worst person in the world," He says as he gets up. "I have to talk to her…” He opens the door, but before he could get out, I grab his shirt and he turns.

"It's late, Moony, talk to her tomorrow.”

He sighs and nods, before closing the door a meow stops me. A small cat’s sitting in front of our room.

"How strange…” I don't pay attention and close the door.

"Surely she hates me," he complains.

"No, she's just upset," I say without thinking and he watches me.

"You talked to her?" He asks surprised and I feel shivers run through my body.

"Eh, yes, something like that, she seemed annoyed.”

"I'm an idiot.”

"We agree on that," adds James.

"Okay, now tell us, how did it go with Trixie?" Peter asks and I complain covering my ears.

"I don't want to know what you do with the devil!”

Night came as we argued and joked.

———————————————————————————

Today.

"Does that mean I now have an excuse to hit Snivellus?" I ask, patting her red hair.

"I thought you didn't need one to do it," Lily replies, blowing her nose.

"I need it, now I can say that it was for your honor.” My words make her laugh.

"I still can't believe our friendship is over," she says as she sits down on the floor resting her head on my shoulder.

"Welcome to the Club,” I say sighing.

"I don't think we're in the same club, Persephone," I frown.

"What are you talking about?”

"I know you’ll deny everything, but your relationship with Sirius has changed, you don’t argue like before.”

"That's because of the truce, you know about the plan–“

"If you say so…”

"Anyway, do you want to go to the lake to eat? I'm hungry,” We get up at the same time.

"Surely everyone knows now what happened," she says, wiping her tears away.

“Let them think what they want, Lily. You can't force them to never talk about you, the only thing we can do is ignore them, but if someone dares to hurt you, rest assured that you have a whole group of bodyguards-”

She laughs. "Who would say that after so many fights, we would become friends?"

I Sigh. "Yes, everything is out of balance…”

I feel a chill when I remember the hug with Sirius, but I don't say anything.

We both walk to the large dining room and just as I head over to the Slytherin table, she stops me and offers me a place at her table.

"You want the balance to fall apart, right?" Lily rolls her eyes.

"Don't exaggerate, come on," she says. We sit down with her friends, they all ask if she’s okay and Lily only answers that they will talk later, I’d also be uncomfortable with something like that.

We ate and talked about everything, the relationship with them was friendly, we are not best friends, but I’m comfortable, everything’s better when Jenna joins. After a few minutes, I was already preparing to leave, but a new person stopped me. Trixie sits across from me with a huge smile.

"May I speak to you, Persephone?" I clench my teeth.

"No thanks, I want to live," she giggles, causing a chill.

"Always so funny! But I think it's important that we talk, it's about Remus.”

I raise an eyebrow.

"Did you kill him already or what?" I feel a pinch on my left arm and I complain looking at Lily. Then I sigh. "What do you want?"

"Oh no, I meant talking in a more private place,” She looks at the girls. "I don't want to offend them, it's just that this is a bit embarrassing topic…”

"Don't worry, Persephone will go with you" Jenna says giving me orders. I grimace and get up.

We both leave the large dining room and walk a few hallways.

“Here. I don't intend to be in a secret place where you can hide my body without witnesses.”

She sighs but keeps smiling.

“Listen, I'm not stupid, I know that since the last time we saw each other many years ago, things were not right. But you have to understand that we are no longer girls and I don't think I deserve your bad attitude.”

Well shit. I was not expecting this.

"Still, I don't expect us to be as close friends as before, I know you have your group and I have mine, but our paths are perhaps coming together again," She adds, blushing a little. "Remus is a very cute boy and I don't think I've ever had such a strong connection with anyone, he listens to me and-"

"Stop there I- I don't want to know,” I stir uneasily. "I was supposed to go with him to Hogsmeade yesterday, but he left me standing because of you.”

"I know.”

"And it's not fair- wait- you knew?"

"Yes. He’s quite sorry. When I saw him at the entrance of the school, he was very happy and we started talking, he never mentioned that he was waiting for you, I found out later I- I'm sorry.”

"What?" This I was really not expecting it.

“I’m very sorry for what happened, if I had known… sorry, Persephone. What I least want is to give you reasons to hate me.”

On the one hand, I am very surprised, and on the other I don’t know whether to believe her. Before I could reply, Remus reaches our side.

"Percy, can we talk?"

They both look at each other and smile for a few seconds, but then they came back to me.

"What you did to me, Lupin, you’ll have to compensate. Trixie,” She waits anxiously. “May it never happen again.”

"I promise," She says, smiling, "I'll leave you alone, see you, Remi." She kisses his cheek and leaves.

"I'm really sorry. I completely forgot- it wasn't on purpose- I know what you think, but I'm not like Sirius,” He speaks so fast that I barely understand, so I cover his mouth with my hand.

"Okay, I accept your apology, but I warn you that if it happens again, I will not hesitate to turn you into a worm, understand?" He nods and pulls my hand away.

"So you're not upset anymore?" I shake my head.

“Remus," I say nervously "Do you really like Trixie?"

The boy blushes and runs a hand over his hair.

“Yes, I think so…”

I sigh.

“Just… be careful.”

—————————————————————

"What will you wear for the big party of important people?" Jenna asks surprising me.

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," I shrug. "My mother will surely send me something. She wants to control everything.”

"At least she has good taste," I nod. "I understand why you like going out to the gardens so much, it's relaxing," She says, lying down on the grass.

Suddenly a small orange bird perches on the book that I put aside. I laugh and look at the animal. Its colors are very bright, I have never seen a bird like that.

"Hey, how do you feel about the whole Trix and Lupin thing?" Adds my friend.

"I don't know, it's weird.”

"Wait, odd that it's with Trix, or that Remus has a girlfriend?"

“Girlfriend? No. Ha! No.”

Jenna laughs out loud.

"What is so funny?"

“You're jealous!”

"What!? Of course not!”

“Yes you are!”

"No, don't say stupid things. I'm only worried about him, Trixie is a bad person -or at least she was- agh! I don't know, but I'm not jealous, I don't see Remus as more than a friend.”

"Hey, it's not bad that you like Lupin, actually, of the four I like him the most.”

“Stop."

"I'm just saying, don't be mad," She says defending herself.

"I can't see Remus that way,” I bend my legs and rest my chin on my knees.

"You would make a nice couple," She adds, making me growl. “Although, I've seen progress with Black…”

"Do you want to stop pairing me with all of them?"

"Hey, it's not my fault! You have a history and somehow, we always end up talking about one of them.”

"I wish I could meet someone else…”

"That would break Lupin and Black's hearts."

"Jenna!"

My scream causes the bird to fly away.

Taglist:

@treestarrrrrrrr  @siriuslysirius1107      @thagreenmoon @madmaiden2890    @ren-ela  @avipshamitra   @auroraawrites @findzelda  @lizlil @siriusmuch   @chloe-geoghegan1 @reverse-hxlland  @may-rapp @the-specific-oceans​

@bloodorangemoonlight

@littledeadgirlwalking​

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 111

111

Lance had Keith tucked up in his lap, Coran way ahead of him by sending through the ultrasound video. Technology was scary, he’d recorded it, yet in the time it took for them to get home, he’d already received the photos with the measurements and a copy of the video like it was nothing. Keith want to hold him, but Lance was happy with the three blankets over his shoulders between him and the sofa, plus he was doubly happy having Keith there kind of as a protector between him, their baby, and the rest of the world. Pidge and Hunk wanted to make plans for the camping trip, more like snoop if they asked him for the truth, Lance banning them from driving over to see them in this weather, he’d head down tomorrow if things cleared up. Yeah. He was paranoid. Keith hadn’t pried into his paranoia, Lance holding back telling him that stemmed from a nightmare he’d had over losing his two best friends to the snow. He’d tell Keith, but only if he asked.

Watching the ultrasound on repeat, Lance couldn’t get used to the background noises. There was something not quite there, his heart telling him it was the racing heart of their baby. He felt the same as Keith did, that fear that lingered like the fear that lingered after that near miss. With his chin on Keith’s shoulder, he could watch the scan all day now that he was needing to pee

“You okay?”

Keith hadn’t said much, watching the screen as intently as Lance

“Yeah... I still... it’s... wow”

His boyfriend was so eloquent

“You know, we need a name for them so we stop calling them “it””

“People name them? Like before they come out?”

“Some people even have names picked out before they fall pregnant. I suppose “squirt” is the obvious one”

Keith hummed, mind more on the video than the conversation

“Not squirt. That’s how we got them in the first place”

Okay, maybe he was paying more attention than Lance was giving him credit for

“Lots of people go with “bean”. I don’t know...”

“Let me think about it”

“Yeah. That’s probably the smartest idea... ultrasounds look so weird. Like what’s all the grey? I mean, obviously is like inside me and all, but it looks like we’re watching a bad fish film”

“I was thinking the same thing but thought I must be stupid”

Lance melted, nuzzling into Keith

“You are not stupid. This is new territory for both of us. If anything I’m the stupid one for not realising I was pregnant”

Keith leaned his head back against Lance’s shoulder, looking to him with a soft smile

“You’re not stupid. Maybe... we could name it something like “Macaroon”? I mean... if I’m an anger loaf and you’re an idiot crumpet... I don’t know what a crumpet and a loaf make together”

Lance didn’t know why he found Keith saying “Macaroon” so funny. His big bag boyfriend definitely had a hidden sweet tooth

“You’re laughing at me”

“I’m laughing at the word “Macaroon”. There’s a macaroon floating around in my stomach”

His boyfriend snorted

“Okay, point taken. Not “Macaroon””

“Noooo. Let me have this... it’ll be like the longest I’ve kept down food in 37 years”

“You are pretty bad at keeping food down”

“Don’t blame me. I have no control over this body. Sometimes even water gets thrown back up, other times it doesn’t... it’s weird”

“It’s fine. You should eat though”

“But the baby”

“The Macaroon needs food... the idiot crumpet needs food to feed the Macaroon”

Lance snorted at his boyfriend

“If I’m feeding something, then shouldn’t it be like an animal. Like a guppy in all those fish?”

“You’ve been spending too much time on the internet”

“I can’t deny that... alright, I know you’re going to be bossy until I eat. I’ll have a shake now then a nap with my macaroon maker”

“Do you want to try blood in the shake? See if that keeps it down longer?”

Lance tensed. Keith was trying to be sweet, but he didn’t want him going out his way, or making him uncomfortable with his dietary requirements

“I... uh...”

“It’s okay... I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m not going to be grossed out”

“It’s blood”

“Babe, you drink blood all the time. I might not like the taste, but it’s something you need”

“I never really... I’m still getting used to being able to feed without hiding it”

He’d drank a few times in front of Pidge and Hunk, before overthinking about how they’d be uncomfortable watching him eat. Keith, Shiro, Curtis, Matt, and Rieva, were all different because they were used to this world

“Let me make you a shake. I’ll use a little of my blood...”

Not this again

“Babe. No”

“Not a lot...”

“You can’t”

“Lance, I want to. You’re scared over my blood, so I think maybe we can try just a bit in your shakes and see if that helps them stay down longer”

Keith broke his heart bringing up his jealousy over a strangers blood in his system. To Lance it was food now. He’d fed for so long on blood bags. Nameless blood bags. Sources responsibly, without the donor being harmed. They were of course compensated well too... He honestly feared too much fresh blood in his system would make him an arrogant arsehole. Yeah. He’d fed on Keith... when he’d had to. Keith’s blood was... easily very addictive. He didn’t taste like blood bag blood. He wanted Keith to feel connected with their baby. Not feeling inferior, like Lance was cheating on him repeatedly. He didn’t want to say yes, but for Keith... he couldn’t deny him. He couldn’t deny him anything... the words stuck in his throat... He wasn’t that kind of vampire...

“Lance, let yourself rely on me”

“I do. I need you understand who hard it is still to accept blood from you. Bags are like eating a well seasoned steak that’s cooled enough to lose its tenderness. Humans are like eating that steak while it’s still part of the cow... and knowing you can have the whole thing if you really want it. My teeth cut your lips when we kiss to much... so it’s not I haven’t tasted your blood a lot. Your blood tastes good... You are good. Good not food”

“You sound like you’re deflecting”

“I’m not trying to deflect. Fine. Think of it as having too much coffee”

“You can never have too much coffee. I don’t mean like a lot of blood, just a little bit, and just to see if it helps keep food down for you and the baby. I’ll use some from a bag if you’re going to be this upset”

“I’m not upset. You being hurt would upset... and we don’t know how I’ll react to the scent of blood... If you’re so set on trying this, then wait until Shiro is home”

Keith’s safety was his priority. As the pregnancy progressed he feared he’d need more blood to keep up...

“Fine. But you’re having your shake”

“Only if you finally show me what this secret thing is”

“Deal”

Well fuck. Keith agreed far too readily.

*

Keith secret turned out to be a letter from Krolia. Though Lance liked to keep things neat and tidy, he respected that there were certain things he shouldn’t be touching or moving, the things on Keith’s desk being one of those cases. He also never touched his boyfriend’s phone or laptop with Keith’s nagging, respecting his boyfriend’s privacy. He knew Keith sometimes messaged their friends privately, and Lance like Keith feeling comfortable doing so. He wasn’t going to be that kind of controlling partner who had to know everything and didn’t trust their partner enough to let them have their own secrets.

Keith forced him into his lap this time. Sitting on the sofa again, Lance sipped his shake slowly, trying to do draw out eating in the hopes if he kept eating it’d take longer to come back up. The blood with the vanilla wasn’t the best flavour combination, Lance didn’t really know how to describe it. Blood lasted like blood to him, but it wasn’t gross tasting like it was to humans. It was only gross tasting now thanks to the vanilla flavour in the shake powder. Opening the envelope, Keith’s hands were shaking

“Babe, it’s okay. We don’t have to rush”

“I’ve had this for like a month now... I need to face it... before Krolia finds out we’re having a baby”

Honestly, if Krolia told him she knew, Lance wouldn’t be surprised. Allura had probably noticed the change in his quintessence... Though Krolia didn’t have fae powers, she was at VOLTRON a lot. Like a whole lot. She easily could have snuck into Coran’s office and found out, or intercepted lab results. Heck, the Blades had 4 werewolves who were probably smarter about this than Matt and Rieva

“We can still take it slow”

“I’ve been thinking about it for weeks... She... I don’t know...”

“Maybe you don’t dislike her as much as you thought?”

“She’s not the same here as she was in Rome”

“That’s good. Noticing that, that’s okay. I’m not trying to pressure you, but if you’ve been thinking it’s time for a while now, maybe it’s time to read this letter?”

Krolia usually tried to say hello to Keith, or to him if she saw them. She wasn’t shooting him, a good sign that he was still in the clear with her, although it could be thanks to the Blade’s being busy. Lance had tried to forget the briefing room board and all the scraps of information on it, trying not to cross the lines or belittle their work... even if it solving the question of where Sendak was would be great. He’d loved to be able to rub in their face as revenge for not telling them about Antok.

Dropping the envelope into his lap, Keith separated the pages, photos falling out. The letter from Krolia was roughly two pages long, Lance noticing immediately that Krolia had enclosed a copy of the photo she’d shown him on his birthday

“Dad...”

The letter was no longer important. Lance taking them from Keith as Keith tried to hold both the letter and the photo at once resulting in the page crumpling. Turning the photo over, Krolia had written on the back

“Keith aged 5 months”. She’d stayed longer than Lance thought. Keith seemed to think it was more a “pop and run” kind of deal. Turning the photo back over, his boyfriend’s tears started soaking into Lance’s borrowed long sleeve shirt

“I think that’s my dad... and my mum”

Lance stared at the photo. Keith’s parents couldn’t have been much older than Keith when the photo was taken. Damn if Keith didn’t have some good looking genes in his family tree. Lance nearly pointing out that Keith’s dad was as hot as his son, then stopping himself him short thanks to thinking of how Keith had lost his father in a fire

“I... I forgot his face... I had a photo at some point but... God. What kind of a son forgets his dad’s face?”

“The kind of son who loses him far too soon. What are the other ones?”

Keith sniffled loudly, his hands shaking harder as he took three attempts to pick up the the other two photos

“God... is that me?”

Young Keith was holding his hippo, the photo older and taken from a distance... Hanging off his dad’s arm, Keith was wearing the biggest smile Lance had ever seen. Both hands holding around the arm in the photo, with his hippo barely gripped as he hung in the air. Lance wasn’t sure for sure it was his dad’s arm, but an educated guess would say it was

“Yeah, that’s you. I’d recognise those knobbly knees anywhere”

“I don’t remember this at all”

“Check the back”

The back read “Keith aged 5”. One of Krolia’s friends must have taken it, or one of the Blades, or even of one Lance’s father’s friends.

The third photo was a photo of a photo. The photo used when Keith’s father had died in the house fire. Keith’s dad really was very good looking, especially in his fancy firefighter uniform

“How did she have these?”

“She said she never stopped wanting to know you. She probably had hunters or friends take photos... I know you’re probably not going to be happy, but she showed me that one of you guys together. She says it’s her good luck charm. She’s proud of you... I’m not trying to interfere here, but I don’t think there was a time that you weren’t in her thoughts”

Keith sniffled hard, Lance moving to kiss his cheek

“Hey, I’m here for you”

“I... what do I tell her? I didn’t get it. She and Shiro tried to tell me and I didn’t get how you could leave your baby behind... and now you’re pregnant, I finally fucking get it. I wasn’t brave enough to read this sooner... she... she’s been respecting my boundaries more and more...”

“You kind of wanted to talk to her before you found about the baby and now you’re worried maybe she’ll only be concerned with listening to what you have to say about it?”

“I couldn’t have faced her if I hadn’t come here. You helped me so much... and she... she walks all over everything. She butts into my life. She shot you. She gets on with everyone else... but she’s... at the Blade of Marmora Headquarters she was terrifying. Like... a walking statue made of gold. Something you shouldn’t be approaching. I felt like she was always looking down at me... I hated it. I fought so hard to carve out my own space but that didn’t matter with her there. She didn’t even come when I nearly got killed. I was pretty desperate, hitchhiking and trying to get to the cabin. Caught a lift and it turned out someone let slip Krolia had a son. No idea who or how they know me. They tracked me down, assuming I was running back to dad’s shack. They were so nice that I thought I was being careful. Shiro was tracking them tracking me. I nearly became dinner. He shot out the windows, flooded the place with light and took me away... I didn’t even know I was in danger until they showed their faces and fangs...”

“You’re both lucky”

Keith would have been lunch. There was clearly more to the story, which Keith had left out

“He knew what he was doing. I had no idea. I thought I was a freak of nature that maybe deserved it. I can’t believe... dad...”

He got what Keith was saying. He tried so hard to find a way back to his dad and now he had part of him returned

“He looks so much like you... You even have that same crease in the corner of your eyes when you smile”

“Do you think so?”

“Babe, yeah. You two against each other photo wise, people would think you’re brothers”

“I can’t believe she had these”

Lance wasn’t sure Krolia had had them. He was secretly sure that out there there would be a file on Keith filled with photos and reports on Keith growing up

“I think she probably always wanted to show you... but that’s okay. Because you weren’t ready before. You made to feel worthless by worthless people instead of being confident enough to see how much you are truly loved. I know it’s hard. When so many people are mean to you, you feel like people complimenting you are only doing so because they’re either lying or laughing behind your back at how dumb you are for believing them. I get paranoid like that too”

“I don’t know what to tell her. You saw me today. I panicked at the idea of Kolivan knowing. I panicked at the idea of be treated differently... I don’t want to be given special treatment...”

“You’re not as weak as you believe you are. If they still see you as weak, then they’re morons. You were in a fucking accident and still cared more about your bike than you”

“I think that just makes me slightly stupid”

Keith bike was still at VOLTRON. Lance assumed it was being fixed, but Keith seemed pretty down about it still. His boyfriend would probably be working on it more if he didn’t have him to worry about

“Nah. I’m shitting myself over you getting back on that death trap, but that’s what you want to do. Your brave. The world hurt you, and lately you’ve showing your face more. I really like it. You keep moving forward and that makes you strong. Your father was so proud of you. I can see it in his eyes. He loved you so much babe. He’d be even prouder if he’d got to see who you grew into. That stuff in the middle, that doesn’t make you a bad person... in his last moments I’m sure all he was hoping for was your safety and your happiness”

“I’m sorry... I think maybe I... I think I need to talk to Krolia”

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything at all. You talking with her is what you need. Again, I’m not pushing, but when we talked... she’s desperate to know you. She loves you. You’re loved very much”

“I want to see the others too...”

Lance nodded

“Tomorrow. If the snow let’s up we’ll head there tomorrow. I miss them too”

“I didn’t think I’d ever miss a bunch of people”

Lance chuckled at his boyfriend

“That’s because we know the coolest and weirdest bunch of people. You’re in with the cool kids, babe”

“And you’re sounding like Shiro”

“Hey, it’s not my fault. I’m totally allowed to be lame when I feel like it”

“You feel like an ice block again”

“I’m thinking of taking a trip to the fridge just to warm up”

“Or we could go to bed��

Lance blinked half a dozen times. Keith didn’t mean that... like that...

“Yeah. More blankets and snuggles sound good”

“Who said anything about snuggles?”

“Me, right now”

“I suppose that can be arranged. I want to make copies of these photos. I don’t ever want to lose them”

“We’ll work that out... like we work everything else out”

Keith kissed his hair

“We make a good team”

“That we do”

[halequeenjas]

Donating to the Family || Jared & Jasmine

TIMING: Current PARTIES: @themidnightfarmer & @halequeenjas SUMMARY: Jared volunteers to remove the chickcharneys from Jasmine’s attic. Things don’t go as smoothly as Jasmine would have liked.

Despite his recent reservations about his skills in actually caring for the creatures in his protection, Jared had decided that ANYONE was better than pest or animal control. He arrived with what he hoped translated into a polite smile, and a cardboard box. The nymph knocked and waited patiently, his hands clasped behind his back swaying to music playing in his head that had been on the radio on the drive over. He mumbled to himself a little as he waited as well, a mixture of the lyrics of the song and a few random thoughts. When the door opened he was on the tail end of a comment to himself mixed with a song lyric and he couldn’t stop himself finishing off before greeting Jasmine. “I should advertise as animal control ah ah ah ah stayin aliiive. Hello!”

Whether the guy who offered to come get the freaky birds out of her basement was a hunter or some sort of other supernatural enthusiast hardly mattered to Jasmine. She wanted these little shits out of her house without anyone getting seriously injured. It was hardly a lot to ask for, but then again, this was White Crest. A handful of years ago, she’d give anything to leave, now she couldn’t imagine it. Discovering what she was made her realize she was needed here even if her heart pleaded for the always eyeball free, California sun. When she opened the door to a random man on the internet, she carefully studied him. He didn’t appear overly tough by any measure. Hell, he was even a bit awkward. “I mean, good song, but weird greeting. You haven’t been drinking have you?” 

The dark circles under his eyes were hard to cover over as Jared was unused to doing such with his usual glamour. This meant that his exhaustion was clear on his face. He wilted a little and chuckled at her words in the hopes that it would smooth over the weird moment. He just wasn’t able to get his brain to cooperate properly lately. “No not drinking, sorry just...songs get caught in my head I guess.” He fibbed lightly before peaking past her, stooping at the same time to lift the cardboard box into his arms. He very much hoped to come across as far more normal than he had initially. “So you have birds in your attic? Any holes in the eves I can patch up for you or do you tend to have windows open around the house? This season is a risky time to have windows open I’m afraid. Fledgling season and all.”

This guy did not look so hot right about now. Jasmine could tell he was exhausted so she wasn’t entirely sure why he volunteered to come grab the birds. He must have really liked those things which was weird in itself. “Right,” she said slowly and realized she vaguely recognized him from Bea’s birthday party which meant he couldn’t be that bad… even if he was a little odd. He had to be one of Luce’s friends. “I’m going to pretend that makes sense for the sake of getting these birds out of my home.” She stood off to the side and allowed him into her home. Hopefully, she wouldn’t come to regret that decision as she eyes his choice of supplies. “I didn’t exactly climb up, so I’m not sure about holes, but I did have the window open the other day. Noted on it being their season.” She led him over to the attic entrance. “So this is how you get up there. Do you need a ladder or anything?” 

He entered her home, careful to take in his surroundings and make sure his cardboard box didn’t knock anything over. Jared followed her to the hatch into the attic and shook his head. “Don’t need a full ladder, do you have a stool or something?” He was tall enough he’d be able to grab onto the edges and pull himself up, he just didn’t trust not looking unnaturally strong if he was to push the hatch out of the way with just his finger tips. His strength was far more than he looked, but that wasn’t natural for a human so it was best to compensate a little. “Will you be able to pass the box up to me? Or are you planning to come up as well?” He didn’t know if he hoped she’d come so he’d stay aware of himself, or if she shouldn’t just in case she saw something suspicious. The nymph had been struggling with his glamour in his exhaustion as it was. 

While she had a ladder, she had never personally used it and wasn’t too keen on dragging it out. Jasmine was relieved when Jared asked for a step stool and quickly went to go fetch it out of her kitchen. She came back and set it up just below the attic. “Okay, there you go,” she stated and looked up at the attic. She could hear the stupid bird things up there and was eager to have them out of her house. “Yeah, I can pass it up to you. I have no intention of getting anywhere near them,” she answered as her nose scrunched up in disgust. Outside of Diamond, who was currently stowed away in her bedroom, she wasn’t too big on animals. It dawned on her those things were pooping up there and she let out a sigh. She’d have to have the cleaning lady hit the attic this weekend which was definitely going to cost extra. “Just let me know if you need anything, okay? I’ll be right here.” 

The nymph pulled a head torch out from his back pocket and pulled the band over his head before stepping up and reaching to move the hatch. Jared pulled himself up into the attic easily, only grunting with effort for Jasmine's benefit. Once up he held his hands out for the box, feeling the gaze of the birds on his back as he did so. Once he had it in his reach he was instantly hit with a wave of dread. The attic wasn’t as clear as it could be, and there seemed to be a lot to both trip on or hit your head. It made for difficult herding he was sure. He paused just looking into the dim air. Trying to count the creatures he could see. The fledgelings had already hopped out of their nest which was bad news for catching them and trying to persuade their father to follow. He crawled away from the hatch as he made his decision. Jasmine was sure to hate it. But he could maybe play it off. He was out of sight up here so he switched his head torch off for a second. He slammed his hand against a beam and yelped before rushing the birds so that they’d beeline for the only source of light. And there they went falling out of the hatch.

Jasmine had an uneasy feeling as she watched Jared pull himself up into her attic. All she wanted was to get rid of these birds and have her home remain in the immaculate condition she always kept it in. Already, it seemed like he was making quite the ruckus up there as she heard a large bang. She didn’t like this one bit and she sat there with her arms crossed over her chest as she waited for Jared to emerge with the weird birds in his cardboard box. “Come on,” she whispered quietly to herself and almost immediately regretted when she saw the birds falling through the hatch and onto the very expensive rug she had lining her hallway. She let out a shriek and quickly shuffled away from the now very angry looking birds. “What the hell,” she practically screeched as Jared fell through with them, “Get these things out of here!” 

The nymph wasted no time answering her yells, he hit the floor in the hall and managed to catch the most dazed bird in his hand and pop it into the box he’d dragged down after him. Jared folded over the top and motioned to Jasmine to make sure it didn’t push it’s way out before he tore after the other two. Fledgelings weren’t all that fast on their feet yet, and they had little space in the hallway to spread untested wings either. SO with a quick motion the second bird was in his grasp. The father would be the hardest, it was unfortunate that the critter appeared to have shoved it’s way into another room. “Moving back to Jasmine he plastered on an embarrassed and rueful smile hoping to win some points back with the no doubt fuming woman. “Got bitten.” he lied. “Tripped on their nest and they took off. Sorry about that. But two down, and only the one to go.” He let his voice lilt to gain favour. “The door at the end of the hall.”

Jasmine was decidedly not amused with how this bird collection was going. One was at least stowed away in the box as he fell, but another was darting down her hallway. It hardly seemed professional he’d gotten bitten, but then again, he was a farmer not pest control. Still, she wasn’t thrilled. “Bitten, right,” she said with an air of annoyance in her voice, “Just get them out of here, please!” The last one was heading down her hall toward her office and dread filled her. Why hadn’t she closed her doors before this process? Had she been disillusioned to think this Jared could successfully just scoop the mean birds out of her basement. She let out an exasperated sigh and bolted for the doors. She did her best to close them all off, but the little bugger beat her to her office. “Shit,” she screamed out, “Get off of that rug! Get that thing out of my office!” 

Jared was thankful he hadn’t ACTUALLY been bitten, but it was a small victory, hopefully the chickcharnies wouldn’t open wide enough that Jasmine was able to see the full set of human like teeth in their mouths. But then again in this town with so many deniers, it wasn’t guaranteed that she would recognise it as odd enough to remember anyway. She took off as he managed to trap the second into the box securely and turn back around. The little ball of feathers rocketed into her office and her scream of annoyance made the nymph wince. High pitched like that wouldn’t be very calming for the birds. He shushed her gently, trying not to be rude but also hurrying to peak into her office with his finger on his lips. “Too much noise and you’ll spook him into a cu- something manic.” He was definitely losing his edge, he’d almost admitted to the cursing ability of the birds. He pushed past the awkward stumble in his wording and pushed the door slowly open all the way. “Does the window open? We could herd him out? He’ll hear the cries of the little ones once I’m outside, might be better than catching him.”

At this point, Jasmine was fuming. His mistake led to the stupid magic birds falling out of her attic and he was shushing her? In her home? Seriously? The glare on her face showcased her dissatisfaction with his bird collecting abilities. “Fine,” she huffed with arms crossed over her chest in annoyance. The way he cut himself off did at least indicate he knew these birds were of the supernatural variety. If there wasn’t one likely about to drop a deuce in her office, she’d be a lot more inclined to ask how he knew about this kind of stuff anyway, but right now, her precious metal chair and imported wooden desk were far higher on her priority list. When he suggested she opened the window, she looked at him dumbfounded. “Are you seriously suggesting that I go in there with crazy bird,” she asked with the shock evident in her voice. “Ugh,” she grumbled, “I’ll open the damn window. He better not ruin this jacket, it’s Gucci!” As he went outside, she made her way into the office and did her best to take quiet steps. The last thing she wanted was to attract its attention. She snuck by and carefully opened the window before darting out of her office and to the front door to see if this Jared guy’s plan worked. 

If she’d been looking for a professional, Jared most certainly was not. But he wouldn’t apologise. He didn’t really have much consideration for her things, his main goal was extracting the poor critters without the threat that animal control would pose to them after all. He would however look as apologetic as he could. He didn’t directly want to upset her, she just definitely wasn’t his biggest concern. The nymph and Jasmine were on completely different wavelengths and it showed almost down to the dust on their clothes. Jared was a farmer, he owned exactly nothing designer, and if he had he’d have sold it already. Jasmine was on a completely different path and it was curious to him, but he didn’t spare her more than a passing curious thought. She agreed to open the window and he thundered outside, whispering a soft word to the fledgelings in the box before he shuffled them uncomfortably. They both started to cry, and sure enough within the office their father grew agitated and made his flightpath out of the window and circled above the nymph. He smiled and raised a hand to Jasmine standing in the doorway. “He’ll follow me and the kids home from above I’d say. The nest will be abandoned, but I’d have someone take it away, maybe dust up there or something.” Jared only belatedly realizing it was a small slight on the state of her attic and his face reflected this as he cringed and moved to his truck parked illegally in the street. 

This was a disaster. If this didn’t work, Jasmine swore she was going to slap this kid. She didn’t care if he was Lucinda’s weird friend or not, her house was a mess now. She’d have to call Kristy over for an emergency cleaning. Her arms were still crossed haughtily over her chest as she stood on her front porch watching Jared with the birds. The last bird was now fluttering outside the window to get its babies back and Jasmine wanted no part of that. “Right, right. Just please get them out of here, I’ll message you again for your Venmo. I’m not getting anywhere near you or the birds while this guy is pissed, thanks.” Thankfully, he was already going toward his truck with the birds in tow. As annoyed as she was, she was grateful to have her house to herself following this ordeal. No more weird birds that probably had some weird powers. Those were Jared’s problems now. “Hope they do well on the farm or whatever,” she said with a wave and hoped he’d be on his way with the little demons.