#I couldn’t decide which expression and pose I liked better

[i-really-like-phrogs]

Pork Fiction doodles

[levshany]

how do I put this. Even those who actually track our blogs and are interested in our Aus can get a little confused about what's going on here. but I'll try to explain anyway

we already mentioned the crossover between Anarchists and Tandem and even DRAWED them once, back when Tandem was in development (and by the way, this crossover is canonical for both AUs). Now this story has been continued >:D

Here's some context: It so happened that the Colibri wanted to see what alternative timelines looked like and ran into the king and the jester. Phil was delighted with Colibri and wanted to flirt with them. Jester Collie was categorically against it. so he immediately possessed Phill and tried to fight Tandem. he didn’t succeed because his fusion with Phil is extremely unstable. and here we are

Initially, @angstyhikka and I just drew these three pages, but then @lasymit supported the idea and made a drabble which she allowed me to add to the post :3

------------------------------------

"Let go, bitch! I'm not done with you yet!"

The savage creature desperately squirmed in Philip’s hands. It grabbed onto him, trying to either break free or, on the contrary, rush closer, glaring furiously and baring its shark teeth.

He held the clumsy, collapsing fusion at arm's length and looked at it with slight disgust. His tandem with the Collector was a strange but harmonious union. And what was writhing in front of them right now was the direct antipode of the word harmony.

“Well, I am,” he said distantly.

And with his other hand he grabbed the one sitting inside the demon’s body. Under the flesh soaked in titan blood, he felt a soft essence, like rubber or hot wax. The Collector from this universe felt completely different to the touch.

He stretched them, pulling them away from each other, disentangling them from each other. Paradoxically, bodies that should repel each other by the nature of their forces, like unipolar magnets, clung to each other very stubbornly. But Philip was still stronger with the power of the Collector in his hands, power which he clearly used better than the local... king of demons...

“Ouuuuch ouuuuch,” a boy in the robes of a jester, painted in red and black, shrank on the ground, wrapping his arms around his own chest.

He was not at all like his Collector. Philip had never seen his friend's material body before. But he knew he looked different. For some reason he knew this for sure.

"Who pulls a guy out like that!? Fuck!!", the now-green demon yelled nearby. And he clutched his head painfully.

What Idiots. They vomited three times while chasing him. Philip did them a favor by stopping this outrage.

Now these two were lying helplessly at his feet, groaning and gasping, trying to catch their breath and come to their senses. Now they are separated.

"What were you trying to achieve?" His question was almost rhetorical.

"It wasn’t me, it was all him!" like a child, pointing a sharp, protruding finger towards the Collector, the demon yelled. "I didn’t want to fight at all!"—here he gazed up at Philip with some strange look and batted his eyelashes expressively—"I wanted something else– something more interesting."

"Ohh fuck off, Maggie! You traitor!" came the shout from the red Collector. Philip silently decided to call him the Jester and the demon, by analogy, the King. Philip had already guessed his name. But he couldn’t bring himself to call this savage by that name. Not even in his mind. 

He ignored the King's vague attempts to take a tempting pose while still lying on the ground and grinding his teeth from the headache. He turned to the Jester.

"So you're in charge?"

Judging by King's behavior, it would indeed be reckless to put him in charge. But, having always been the decision-maker when paired with the Collector, by right of being the adult, Philip is accustomed to his friend almost never taking the leading role unless circumstances require it. Like a couple of years ago...

“Nuh-uh,” the Jester raised himself up on his elbow and rubbed his chest, inhaling deeply, greedily. "We're bros! Equal rights and stuff."

And he twirled his funny yellow gloved hand in the air.

Something in the Jester’s words pricked Philip. He didn't fully understand what exactly.. Until the King said, in a dramatic whisper:

"I no longer have a brother. You’re dead to me!"

And Philip stood there, trying to remember that the air was not hard, dense lumps, that it did not clog in the throat and did not press in the chest with a dull phantom pain. Meanwhile these two idiots, after a couple moments of aggressive looks, laughed out loud.

“Yes, I would strangle such a brother,” the King squeezed out, wheezing and squinting through laughter, “with my own-"

And he bent over, swallowing the end of the sentence with a cough as the toe of a boot hit him in the stomach.

"Philip! Philip... They've had enough... He doesn't know what he's talking about."

Philip's cheek twitched.

"Ouch... bro, save me!" the King squeaked hoarsely.

And this completely infuriated Philip. He swung his foot again, this time at the face. But he was met by an elastic wall. And the ground under Colibri’s feet, along with all the space, suddenly curved.

If it weren't for years with the Collector in his head, he wouldn't have realized what happened. But now he clearly saw how a couple of dimensions were distorted, folding space into a loop. He suddenly found himself not between the King and the Jester, but at a considerable distance. And these two were already close together. The boy helped his “brother” get up from the ground; King was now leaning on Jester’s shoulders, clutching his stomach. Perhaps Philip miscalculated his strength a little. This happens sometimes... Especially when it comes to emotions.

“Hey! Hitting people who are down is against the rules,” the Jester frowned. "Give us a timeout!"

Philip felt his jaw tighten. How the nodules rolled across his face. But the flaring rage, as it often happened to him, went away as easily as it filled the air in his chest, leaving reddish streaks before his eyes and pulsating power in his fingertips.

“Get out of the way,” he let his hands glow slightly.

"Ohhhh, what about a last kiss, star boy?" the King whined, clinging to the Jester and trying to straighten up next to him, as if hoping to reach Philip from a distance of ten steps and still get the coveted—

A kiss? Seriously, what the hell? Philip directed a confused, irritated look that bore all these unspoken questions at the Jester. He awkwardly shrugged his sharp shoulders, caught in the King’s grip.

"Don’t be mad... Philip, right? Don't be mad at him, Philip. His Majesty has a reason to be an idiot. And he didn’t mean it out of malice about the ‘brother’ thing.”

Philip looked at the Jester more carefully. The collector in his head was silent. But Philip sensed something from him. Philip also noticed the King’s uncomprehending expression.

“What’s wrong with ‘brother’?” The King sounded surprised.

And then Philip understood. And his face froze.

Yes... yes, what need is there to remember such things? He himself tried to forget for a long time... If he succeeded, would he be the same now as the king in front of him?

Looking at this wretched shell of a “King” who’d forgotten everything important about himself and the loyal “Jester” still standing steadily at his side, the Collector in Philip’s head began to sob. They both, it seems, had the same thought. It’s scary to look at the reflection of a future that never happened.

The jester smiled at him guiltily- at both of them. And then he confidently and widely showed about fifty teeth to his King.

"People don’t like such familiarity, you fool! You can’t just kiss someone the first time you meet."

"But it's okay to fight them when you first meet?" Philip was indignant...

Yes, it's Philip. He cannot refuse to call this man by his own name. Philip himself could one day become such a “king.”

------------------------------------

also @kenku97 helped us with translation and added this comment, I gotta show it to you ;v;

"I thought “The collector in his head sobbed” needed more context for people who aren’t as tightly wrapped up in these AUs as we all are. To understand why Collie’s crying, you need to point out how Tandem Collie sees himself in the Jester. They’re both caring for a Philip who is forgetting himself and the people closest to him. Jester is living out Tandem Collie’s worst fear: what will happen when Philip can’t remember anything anymore? What will become of their friendship? And it’s bittersweet because the King and the Jester are still friends, even though the Jester basically had to start over from the beginning. Jester Collie is quietly carrying all of those memories inside his heart of a friend who has basically disappeared while still learning about and loving the brand new person his friend has become. It’s so sweet and so sad.😭"

that's pretty much all for now It’s hard to return to drawing after the holidays. and this is not even a new art you see, but last year’s. therefore this comic cannot be considered the first work of this year sadly

[eternal-kosmo-ghoul]

*°:⋆ₓₒ day 22. photography

.｡❅*⋆⍋*∞*｡ “forever ingrained”

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ — ❤︎ a new polaroid camera? vessel is getting a few ideas on what to do with it…

pairing: vessel x gn!reader

a/n: i want vessel to spread my legs open and go to town on me

cw: nsfw content. nude photo shoot. sexual poses, sexual touching/teasing. mutual masturbation

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

“if you keep posing like that i’m going to lose it.” —❤︎

┅✦┅

you’ve always been bold when it comes to self expression.

and you took great pride in it. not only did that kind of confidence give a major boost to your ego, but it also helped the people around you have better sense of worth, simply because they were marveled by the sheer amount of confidence you exuded. this was a trait that attracted your dark, mysterious partner, vessel— someone who was typically more reserved.

you both balanced each other out well. with you around, vessel has learned to slowly come out of his shell, and has even learned to open up more about personal problems so he can find the help he seeks. meanwhile, he balances out your overly-bold attitude with his calm, serene demeanor.

it was like a match made in heaven, really. you loved this man to no ends.

so for christmas, you wanted to do something extra memorable for him, something that you both would enjoy. this particular activity you had in mind, it catered to your extravagant personality, and it would give a lot of enjoyment for vessel too.

so that’s how you found yourself in this current situation.

“.. darling, can you spread your legs more a bit for me?” vessel asked in his usual suave tone. you nodded, and teasingly opened your bare legs for vessel to take in the sight.

he let out a silent curse underneath his breath, and brought the polaroid camera up to his face to snap another picture, capturing your naked form perfectly.

“precious.”

that’s right, for this year, you decided to spice up your bedroom life with vessel a bit, and organized a nude photo shoot for both yourself and him. you had prepped yourself accordingly for this little event you planned with your partner. even though you were naked, you took proper care to groom yourself perfectly, and made sure you looked like aphrodite had blessed you with a sexy body (which she most definitely did).

vessel had also gotten a new camera for the occasion, and all the photos he’s taken of you so far have been so naughty, but so beautiful at the same time. he always knew what angle to take the picture from, how you should’ve been posing, and how to perfectly capture the light reflecting off of your eyes.

he definitely was having fun with this.

“if you keep posing like that i’m going to lose it.” vessel said with a lustrous, hungry tone, shamelessly staring at your sex between your legs, which was up in full display for vessel to revel in.

this comment only made you smirk, and spread your legs further while you leaned back. “what? can’t handle what you’re seeing? i know you want a piece of this so badly.”

“you’re goddamn right i do. you just know how to tempt me like a damn succubus.” he replied, tone rough with need as he stared at your naked body.

vessel was also getting more bold with his own mannerisms too. he unapologetically got closer to you on multiple occasions, so his hand and/or arm could “accidentally” brush up against the sensitive parts of your body. he had also insisted that he helps you with posing, his touchy hands grabbing at any exposed flesh he can get his hands on. he couldn’t help it, your presence was just way too addicting for him.

and many of the poses you took were provocative in nature too. legs spread, hands all over your body, exposing the most delicate features of your form. you looked so hot, and vessel knew that all too well.

“you need to stop being so teasing.” vessel huffed out, taking another provocative picture of you while his hand was on your bare thigh.

“you’re tempting me with those sweet, seductive eyes of yours.”

you smirked at this.

“that’s the point, darling.”

vessel growled, out of pure lust too. he quickly snagged another picture of you posing sexually for him. the photo generated and vessel quickly added it to his little pile on the nightstand. he loves and cherishes every intimate moment he shares with you, and he’s glad that you decided to do something like this for your first christmas together. so of course, he needed to capture every moment he got for himself.

“we should do this again sometime soon.” vessel admitted, his fingers ghosting over your aching sex in a suggestive way while he stared down at you.

“we should.” you agreed, leaning back against the white bedsheets to lift your legs up while vessel took another lewd picture of you. “it could be our little tradition.”

vessel certainly wouldn’t oppose to that idea.

he felt himself getting harder and harder in his pants the more he took naughty pictures of you. he couldn’t help it. during one photo, you decided to take things up a notch, and slowly move your hand down between your legs to start self-pleasuring yourself. it was so hot, each one of your expressions and moans captured by vessel’s amazing camera.

the way you moaned so heavenly only made vessel more excited.

he dipped his hand into his pants and started stroking himself as he watched you masturbate. vessel couldn’t concentrate on the photo he was taking, because he was too invested in jerking himself off because of how goddamn sexy you were.

while vessel was giving himself a nice handjob. your fingers and hand quickly worked around your sweet spot, and your self-pleasure only increased while you moaned and whimpered loudly, not letting anything you were doing to go to waste.

watching you masturbate while he himself still has to recover from seeing you looking like a goddamn snack. it was so good… and vessel only stroked himself faster.

“fuck. you’re gonna make me cum, “ your passion and lust, caused peter to be admitted what he just tried to do.

“me too.” you replied, moving your hand faster. “cum with me, please.”

the two of you came on time, and at the same time too. vessel’s clothes were stained in his essence, while you made a mess of your own nude body. it was quite the sight to behold.

you looked so hot covered in your own and his cum. he needed to have a picture of that.

at the sound of a camera shutter, vessel smirked.

“you better sit still and look pretty for me, y/n.”

and sit still, look pretty, you did.

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

[the-himawari]

A3! Usui Masumi - Translation [SR] A Body That Captures Your Gaze (1/2)

*Please read disclaimer on blog; default name set as Izumi

---

Masumi: … (This isn’t right either… I can’t find a magazine that I can use as reference. I’m going to head home.)

Tsumugi: Oh my. Masumi-kun?

Masumi: Tsumugi?

Tsumugi: I don't bump into you in places like this very often. Were you looking for something?

Masumi: Yeah. But I couldn’t find what I was looking for, so I’m going home.

Tsumugi: I see. Same here. How about we head home together then?

-pause-

Tsumugi: By the way, I heard from Tasuku that you’re also going to be showing off your muscles in an upcoming magazine photoshoot. Is that right?

Masumi: Apparently. I’m not sure how much we’re going to show, but for me, I heard it’s going to be my abs.

Tsumugi: Oh, really? If I recall correctly, you’ve also been working on your muscles, haven’t you?

Masumi: Yeah. I asked Tasuku to come up with some muscle training regiments for me.

Tsumugi: But you weren’t working out this hard before, were you? Why did you decide to start?

Masumi: This all started after I heard about the time Director and Citron went to a body building competition together. She looked happy when she described how Citron participated and won the special judge’s award.

Tsumugi: Fufu. So the reason was Director after all.

Masumi: Of course it was. Otherwise, there’s no point going out of my way to ask for training menus to work on my muscles.

Tsumugi: That sounds like Masumi-kun, alright. Have you bulked up quite a bit from your workouts?

Masumi: It’s going. Sometimes I work on a hard regiment and sometimes not.

Tsumugi: I suppose I’ll be able to see the results of your efforts in the magazine that's coming out. I’m looking forward to it.

-pause-

Tsumugi: We’re home.

Izumi: Ah, these photos of Muku-kun are great! He has a certain allure, doesn’t he?

Masumi: ! Director’s voice…

*runs off*

Tsumugi: Ah, Masumi-kun. Wait for me!

-pause-

Kazunari: They're legit such a bomb photos!

Omi: I agree. These poses were Muku’s suggestions.

Masumi: What are you talking about?

Tsumugi: Are those photos?

Kazunari: Ah, if it isn’t Massu and Tsumutsumu!

Izumi: Welcome back!

Masumi: I’m home.

Izumi: We were just selecting which bromide of Muku-kun to sell this time.

Kazunari: Lookie, isn’t this one to die for? Mukkun’s pose is killing it!

Tsumugi: You’re right. He looks cool with his sharp expression too.

Masumi: You just mentioned that Muku's pictures look alluring… Do you like these types of poses or something?

Izumi: Well, there’s no doubt I thought he looked charming. But I wouldn’t say that I specifically like the poses themselves. Both Muku-kun’s poses and expressions in his photos fit the concept perfectly. That’s what's great about them.

Masumi: (The concept…) I got it.

*runs off*

Izumi: Huh!? Masumi-kun? What do you mean you got it…!?

-pause-

Muku: Umm, so you have something to ask me… Ah! Could it be that you want to talk about love!?

Masumi: No, not today. That’s not what this is about.

Muku: Ah, okay then…

Masumi: I’m going to be showing my abs in an upcoming magazine photoshoot. But… considering the concept, I probably shouldn’t just show them off. I think it’d be better if I looked more alluring. So if you have any books that might be helpful for those kinds of poses, let me know.

Muku: Eh!? You’re asking me about that? I think it would be better to ask Azu-nee to teach you things like that though…

Masumi: I’m asking you. Director looked at your bromides and said they were “alluring”.

Muku: Director-san said that…? Alright, understood. In that case, please leave it to me!

Masumi: Yeah. Thanks.

---

| next

[internetgiraffekid1673]

I spent the entirety of this week reading BatFam comics and it DID NOT help the brainrot go away. I’ll make an extended rambling post about it later, but for now that means it’s time for Robin #2! Have some Red Hood! No, I didn’t read any Red Hood stuff, I just have an order in my head for how I’m drawing these idiots!

Initial traces with half-baked backdrop! Sooooo, Jason has two commonly used costumes, and I think it kinda just depends on the writer which one he gets (someone tell me if there is any rhyme or reason to which one is used). And sometimes they even mix and match like giving him the full helmet, but short sleeves and a vest. I couldn’t decide which one I liked better till I drew them a couple times, so you get both! On the one hand, I really like costume number #2, since it actually HAS a Red Hood and it allows for more expressiveness in his face. But, on the other hand I also really like the long sleeves and the biker jacket look, and it makes more sense practically to wear a full headed helmet.

Make it a chibi! Here, I do any remaining stylization by using my trace as a reference for a free handed drawing. For my style, that means make them chibi and make them precious. I don’t care if he’s an angry murderer, he is also a cute baby because that’s just how I draw. This is also when I really got a feel for what it’s like to draw each costume. By the time I was done, I had made a decision.

Characterization pose! Yup, I went with Biker Red Hood. I’m a real sucker for superhero costumes that are actually just really iconic plainclothes, so a really cool custom bike helmet, cargo pants, and a leather jacket are my vibe! I might still oscillate between the two in future drawings depending on what I need for that specific one, but anything with, like, a continuity will use this Red Hood. Like in the Nightwing post, the Red Hood text is traced.

A quick note about the scars: I know Jason got dumped in the Lazarus pit, but I think even before he accumulated a billion new scars by hanging out in the League of Assassins and then being a mob boss, it probably didn’t have enough time or juice to fix his old injuries. Too much power went to fixing his brain and all the injuries accrued from clawing out of his own grave and then bumming it on the streets of Gotham. I specifically included some head trauma from Crowbar and the Batarang scar from the incident in Under The Red Hood which still haven’t read and probably won’t get to for a while. I am also an advocate for the autopsy scar if I ever draw him with that much chest showing.

Finally, I mentioned in the tags for the last post that I colored Dick a little more brown because he is Romani, and that my Jason and my Damian are also not white. I head-cannon Jason as either half Latino or half Brazilian, and I tried to reflect that here.

Nightwing Edition Here!

[koyagifs]

Facade of Perfection

pairing: San x reader au: ex lovers to lovers genre: angst but happy ending summary: san asked to meet up wanting to get you back. warnings: mentions of cheating, swearing, pregnancy a/n: unedited

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

──･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.────

There you and San sat at the restaurant, swirling the cup of wine as you both sat there in silence. The soft clinking of glasses and the distant hum of conversation created a cozy backdrop. You glanced at San, who seemed lost in thought, his brow slightly furrowed. The warm light from the overhead lamps cast a gentle glow on his face, highlighting the tension in the moment.

“Penny for your thoughts?” you finally broke the silence, lifting your glass to take a sip.

San looked up, a hint of surprise in his eyes, and smiled faintly. "I'm just surprised you agreed to meet me"

You hummed, " well, you still haven't signed the papers and Hongjoong and I broke up. A mutual agreeing"

San raised an eyebrow, a mix of curiosity and hope flashing across his face. “Sorry to hear about Hongjoong”

You shrugged, " like i said, it was a mutual break up. Now, why did you ask to meet hm?"

San hesitated for a moment, his fingers tracing the rim of the glass. “I wanted to talk about… everything, I guess. I know things have been complicated between us.”

You leaned back, taking a sip of wine to give them a moment. A small chuckle leaving your lips. " oh yes, complicated"

" so complicated that you decided to cheat on me"

San winced at you words, the atmosphere shifted instantly, the warmth replaced by an uncomfortable tension. San’s expression fell, and he looked down at their glass, the humor draining from the moment.

“Look, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” San said quietly, their voice barely above a whisper. “It was a mistake—a moment of weakness.”

You felt a mix of frustration and hurt rising within you. “A mistake that changed everything. "

“Everything,” you echoed, your voice tight. “I thought we had something real, San. And then… this.”

San ran a hand through their hair, looking genuinely pained. “I know I messed up. I didn’t think about the consequences at the time. I was selfish.”

“Selfish?” You couldn’t hide the disbelief in your voice. “That’s an understatement. You didn’t just hurt me; you shattered my trust.”

San looked up, eyes filled with regret. “I understand. I wish I could take it back. But I want to be honest now. I want to fix this.”

You took a moment to collect your thoughts, the weight of their words hanging heavy between you. “It’s not just about wanting to fix things. Trust takes time to rebuild. Do you really think we can get back to where we were?”

San nodded, determination in their eyes. “I believe we can. But it has to start with me being completely open. No more hiding.”

You studied their expression, searching for sincerity. “If we’re going to try, I need to know you’re committed to this. No more mistakes.”

“I promise,” San said earnestly. “I want to be better for you—if you’ll give me the chance.”

The tension hung in the air, but beneath it, you sensed a flicker of possibility. The wine cup now empty was placed on the table. San reached out for your hands, taking them into his.

" yn... i can never forgive myself for breaking your trust. What i did - i did it out of spite, which i know i shouldn't have done."

You felt the warmth of San’s hands enveloping yours, grounding you in the moment. “Spite?” you repeated, the word heavy with meaning. “That’s a hard truth to swallow.”

San’s gaze dropped for a moment, the weight of regret evident on their face. “I know. I was angry and confused, and instead of talking to you, I made a terrible choice. I thought it would make me feel better, but it only made things worse.”

You took a deep breath, processing his words. “ do you know how hard it was to pose with you? To act like everything was okay between us? San we basically faked our relationship - hell, no one still knows we're started our divorce process!"

San grip tighten on your hands, " i know - i was so focus on not disappointing our families that i neglected you in the process."

You sighed, laying back into your seat as you looked at San. " i'll talk to my lawyer about dropping the divorce. "

San’s eyes widened, a mixture of surprise and relief washing over his face. You held your hand up, " i'm expecting you to be by the house sunday San. We'll go on a date, publicly."

San nodded his head, "i'm expecting you to also break up with your mistress"

" she's been gone, the day you left with Hongjoong was when i broke it off with her"

You nodded, standing up. San placed a few bills before he stood up at well, holding his hand out for you to grab.

" I'll see you Sunday"

──･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ.────

" i think this color would suit the nursey better, don't you think honey?"

San turned to you, a smile placed on his lip as he nodded his head. He walked towards you, placing a hand on your swollen belly that now carries his future daughter.

You felt a warmth spread through you as San's hand rested gently on your belly. “I think you’re right,” he said, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “Soft pastels will make the nursery feel so calm and welcoming.”

You glanced at the swatches spread out on the table, each color reminding you of the little one you were about to welcome. “I just want her to feel safe and loved in her space.”

San nodded, his smile widening. “She will, especially with you as her mom. You have such a beautiful vision for her room.”

You felt a flutter of joy at his words. “And you’ll be a wonderful dad, too. I can already see you reading her bedtime stories.”

“Definitely,” he said, a playful glint in his eyes. He squatted, his face now at your belly. He placed fluttering kisses, the smile on your face evident of pure happiness. You placed a hand on his hair, brushing away a few strain as he muttered loving words to your belly.

“Let’s make it perfect for her,” you said, your heart swelling with love.

“Together,” San replied, leaning in to press a soft kiss on your forehead. “We’re building our family, and I can’t wait to start this new chapter with you.”

In that moment, everything felt right.

[featherymalignancy]

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 for IVV and I will love you forever 🥰😜❤️

Tell Nes I’m sorry,” Elain said. “For ruining her big night.”

“You haven’t ruined anything,” Cash assured her. “And I know she can be overbearing at times, but try to be patient with her. She just wants you to be happy, is all.”

“I just wish she understood how intimidating she can be. She makes Gray nervous, and he gets weird when he’s nervous.”

Cash couldn’t help himself this time.

“If he really plans to go to law school, it might not be bad practice for him. I get the impression from your sister that litigation isn’t for the faint of heart.”

Elain rolled her eyes, but at least some of the tension had melted from her expression as she said, “that’s dangerously close to a lecture, and we both know it.”

“Fair enough, Cash said, grinning as he rose to his feet. “All I’m saying is that if Graysen thinks Nesta is a lot, he ought to try Eris Vanserra on for size.”

Elain’s cheeks flamed scarlet at Eris’s mention, and Cash felt his irritation reigniting.

“What are the odds that he’s going to be there tonight?” Elain asked, nose wrinkling. “He’s always impossible to shake when I don’t have some sort of buffer.”

“Unfortunately I’d say the odds are pretty high, but say the word and I will be your buffer.”

Elain worried at her plush lower lip, and Cash mentally kicked himself for adding to her troubles. He should have known better than to mention Vanserra in this house.

“Unfortunately he knows your Nesta’s boyfriend, which, in his mind, means you don’t pose a competitive threat,” Elain said, sounding resigned.

“How about this then,” Cash said, unable to fully keep the menace out of his voice. “You say the word and I knock his head off his fucking shoulders.”

Elain laughed, eyes a little brighter now.

“Thank you for the offer, but don’t worry about me. I know Nesta doesn’t think so, but I am a grown woman; I can fight my own battles.”

Cash didn’t doubt it, but he found himself tempted to mention that if she didn’t want him to play buffer, he knew someone coming tonight who’d likely be more than willing. In the end he decided to keep his mouth shut, not wanting to undermine Elain’s agency by suggesting she needed someone to play knight in shining armor. Still...

ITKYK 😈💖….

[timeagainreviews]

The Monster Makeovers of Modern Who

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I would get back into the swing of things and talk about some monsters! No, not Rishi Sunak. Of course, I mean the monsters we actually enjoy! Daleks! Cybermen! And other horrors from the beyond that don’t try and turn trans people into scapegoats for their lack of policy. They say what you really mean- EXTERMINATE! Honesty, transparency, efficiency. Words so alien these days they belong only in Doctor Who! Mr Sunak, you’re so vain. You probably think this blog is about you. But it’s really about fashion. Specifically- makeovers!

I’ve been interested in filmmaking ever since Levar Burton took us to the set of Star Trek on Reading Rainbow. Like Doctor Who, “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” had its own makeover to attempt. They needed to establish a new look from the original series, while still implying continuity. Whole teams came together to reimagine the look of the ship’s interior, the look of the aliens, both classic and new, and even how the characters should dress. It’s truly inspiring to see these crews at work. These passionate people did their best with the available budget and resources. That said, I plan to deconstruct some of the makeovers of modern Doctor Who villains on an aesthetic and (at times) narrative level.  It’s just a bit of levity for the horrors of Halloween, so let’s have some fun.

While the topic of updating classic baddies remains subjective, I’d like to think I’ve highlighted ways in which it can be objective. There are no hard rules to the process, but perhaps there are guidelines. I’ve noted a list of classic Doctor Who monsters that have since returned in the new series to discuss which designs I feel were successful and which ones missed the mark. Some of the criticisms I express will already be known to you. The Paradigm Daleks were notoriously reviled amongst fans. But hopefully. some of my opinions may surprise you. I’ve decided to exclude certain redesigns like the Movellans due to their lack of screen time. And while the Ood and Minotaur are cousins of the Sensorites and Nimon respectively, they’re technically not a proper redesign. I will however be covering the cousins of the Silurians- Homo-Reptilia, as they are very much meant to serve the same purpose. I’m presenting this list in alphabetical order, but some creatures will be listed together as a subspecies of another. Buckle up because this is going to be a long one!

Autons

As a child growing up in 90s Kansas, one of my favourite places to visit was the mall. The mall my grandpa used to take me to was known for its extravagant features. One of my favourite things, however, was a clothing store that used mannequins that interacted with the space around them. I don’t mean they moved, but rather that they were dynamically posed. My favourite leaned against the shop window with the palm of its hand. I had never seen that sort of display before. It made them feel as though they were merging into the real world. They were hip if not a touch creepy. I couldn’t tell you the name of the store, but I remember those mannequins. And aside from a granite finish, they looked like the Autons from 2005’s debut episode “Rose.”

Had the Autons returned looking like 70’s mannequins, they would still look creepy. But it would evoke more of a kitschy retro shop than something from a London high street. The creepiness of the Autons isn’t anachronistic, but rather in being timely. The less we notice them, the better. They wear their mundanity like a tiger wears stripes. You only noticed it move when it’s ready. This is a roundabout way for me to say they are brilliantly redesigned. They look modern, and you wouldn’t even notice them if you weren’t predisposed to Doctor Who. They’re exactly the featureless dummy you expect to see in a shop window. The moment their hand gun opens, you would be taken by complete surprise.

A benefit of the Autons coming first alphabetically is that it allows me an opportunity early on to address performance. Because like they say- looks aren’t everything. A Doctor Who baddie is so much more than a costume. And a minor sticking point for me is that the Autons can seem as though they hired a bunch of pop-lockers to stand around in sweaty suits. I’m reminded of the movie theatre scene from “Human Traffic,” where the employees mechanically go about their work. It’s a small grievance, but I wish they would have created a less familiar form of movement than the robot. They’re a hivemind and yet each dancer is doing their own form of popping. I know it costs time and money to do, but it would have been cool to see those dancers come up with a more alien system of movement. It’s not as though the ballet dancers chosen to portray the Weeping Angels were performing pirouettes. 

This problem persisted into the Moffat era with Roman Autons. While they were under the impression that they were human, they moved about and spoke like humans. But the moment the Nestine consciousness takes root, their bodies move into a sort of robotic marching. Suddenly whirring can be heard from alien actuators and servos that make no sense for living plastic. Once again, it feels as though they would rather speak in a familiar voice of filmmaking than create one. We all know that little android sounds and robotic movements mean they’re mindless automatons, hell it’s the root of Auton. But the idea of living plastic is so much weirder than a robot. I would love to see them lean more into that.

Cybermen/Cybermats/10th Planet Cybermen

Having started my foray into Doctor Who with Paul McGann and then moving on to the 2005 series, most of the baddies on this list were brand new to me. When I did finally work my way to classic Doctor Who, I was a bit surprised to find the early Cybermen leaned more into the “men,” aspect of their name. Not only were they more articulate than repeating “Delete,” ad nauseum, but their bodies were less robotic. They moved like men. The Cybermen may be the first time I looked at a Doctor Who villain and thought “Oh the old versions were much better.”

This isn’t to say that I disliked the RTD Cybermen, but rather, I find classic Cybermen more effective. While the Cybus Cybermen felt dangerous and militaristic, they lack the humanity present in the Tenth Planet Cybermen. They remind me of the zombies from Return of the Living Dead- they’re smarter, faster, and they feel like the reanimated body of a dead person. You do get glimpses of this in these Cybermen, like in “The Pandorica Opens,” where you see a Cyberhead open to reveal a rotting human skull. The glimpses of the conversion process also imply a deeper dread of body horror.

I would argue that the Moffat era understood the walking dead aspect of the Cybermen better than the Davies era. In “Dark Water/Death in Heaven,” Moffat even pays homage to Return of the Living Dead by reanimating a graveyard of corpses with tainted rain. By this time, the look of the Cybermen had been streamlined from their Cybus look to their svelt “Nightmare in Silver,” look. I liked this redesign as it reminded me of the 80’s Cybermen with their silver space boots. They look more like men than robots. This slimmed-down look was realised even further in the Chibnall era, while also going for a more classic head style. As much as that era of the show disappointed me, its Cybermen were fantastic.

Not every Cyberman update aimed to reinvent their look, however. The updated look for the Tenth Planet Cybermen in “World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls,” merely added detail to their original appearance. Much like the Type 40 TARDIS the 12th Doctor steals from Gallifrey, the idea was to modernise the look for the high-definition cameras of the modern age. Because of this, these Cybermen may be my favourite of the modern era. It was a risky choice to change their bare hands to flesh-tone gloves, but I understand the decision. I had always liked that the Tenth Planet Cybermen’s hands were bare skin. Historically, hands are one of the hardest things to reproduce in robotics. It also felt that the Cybermen’s hands were the last remaining vestige of their humanity. None of this is lost with the inclusion of gloves. These Cybermen are a nightmare to behold. They languish in physical pain, calling out for solace. The conversion process is still traumatic and bloody. They are horrific.

Another element of the Cybermen that was updated for the new series were the Cybermats. The look of the Cybermats, much like the Cybermen, has always changed, so it’s hard to feel too precious about a redesign. And their appearance in “Closing Time,” is no different. I’ve always liked the look of the modern Cybermat. Their eye shape is a pleasing nod to the Cybermen’s eyes while also calling back to their original appearance. Their segmented tails give an armoured appearance which evokes small creatures like armadillos and insects. My only real complaint about these little munchers would be their very organic teeth. I always figured the “mat” part of their name was meant to be a play on “rat,” so if you were to give them teeth at all, why not rat teeth? What tiny creature was converted to make these little abominations? In the classic series, I never really thought of Cybermats having anything organic about them. You could argue that the Cybermats from “Revenge of the Cybermen,” were snakelike, but I never really thought of them as organic. Regardless, I’m now trolling eBay for one of the 1:1 replicas they sold. 

Daleks/Davros

Before their return in 2005, the Daleks made the briefest of cameos in the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie, sort of. Since we only ever hear their voices, we have no idea what the Daleks would have looked like. Judging by those voices, it’s safe to say they probably would have been a bit of a departure from their general appearance throughout classic Doctor Who. Especially when you consider that adaptations in the ‘90s were known to go for new extremes in design. That’s not to say they would have been bad. The Eighth Doctor’s cathedral-like TARDIS interior was a far cry from the brightly lit round things of the ‘80s TARDISes, and it’s probably my favourite interior. But there is no denying it would be challenging to redesign the universe’s most iconic monsters.

By this measure, I consider the black and bronze Daleks of the RTD era to be a stonking success. Their redesign is mostly effective because it doesn’t aim to reinvent the wheel. It maintains the overall silhouette of the Dalek in a way that makes it immediately recognisable. The changes we do see feel utilitarian, lending these Daleks a tanky quality. You can imagine these Daleks as a product of war. They’re reinforced for battle and feel powerful. Honestly, zero notes. I can’t find a single area for improvement. They even look good in other colours and attachments. Even the mutant inside the casing was given some much-needed continuity in appearance. Where the mutant of the classic series often changed in appearance, it’s now established that Daleks are one-eyed brain squids under all that metal. Simple as can be. No need to change anything.

Enter the Paradigm Daleks. As I said above, the Paradigm Daleks aren’t exactly well-received by the fandom, and not without good reason. I’ve seen at least four different Mighty Morphin’ Power Daleks mash-ups of their big reveal in “Victory of the Daleks.” But is being a big colourful hate machine that bad? I will admit, their silhouette is a bit chonky, giving them bumble-bee bums. But their eye stalks look lethal and their voice modulation fills me with dread down to my stomach. The creepy goat eye nestled in the end of an eyestalk that looks like it would cut to the touch is a great change. I also really like the idea of them having different roles indicated by colour rank. What the hell is an Eternal Dalek? I still want to know. 

The biggest issue with the Paradigm Dalek redesign is that unlike it’s predecessor, it seems to miss what is actually scary about Daleks. For starters, Daleks have no concept of elegance, so why the clean lines on the casing? Those neck louvres (that’s what I’m calling them), are far too stylised. Gone is their tank-like appearance, save for their brutal eyestalks. They made them taller as to appear more formidable, which further bolsters why they miss the mark. If you can’t make an hate-filled monster covered in armour scary, the problem isn’t height, it’s writing. Also, we stan a short king in this house.

It’s hard to take the Chibnall-era Dalek redesigns too seriously, because neither of them ever felt like they were meant to be permanent. One was meant to look like a Dalek made of scrap metal, because it was, while the other was the bi-product of two evil forces- the Daleks and the Tories. The “Revolution” Daleks do look a bit like a bootleg toy of a Dalek you could win at a fun fair. Or the result of an AI prompt for the word Dalek. Regardless, they’re fit for purpose and don’t affect my opinion one way or the other. If they had stuck around, I may feel a bit different.

Not to be excluded from the redesign process is the Daleks’ crazed creator- Davros. By the end of the classic era, Davros had a bit of a Rickety Cricket thing going where every time we see him, he’s progressively more mutilated. In the end, he was just a Futurama-style head in a jar. The Davros of the new series is back to a more classic silhouette. His one arm has returned as a cybernetic limb, while the other remains suspiciously under his keyboard. Typing one-handed eh Dave? He’s been given some gimp leather to wear, and his chair has taken on the same armoured look of the Davies Daleks. Much like the mutant inside the casing, Davros has been given a baseline appearance and it's an effective one. Couple that with Julian Bleach’s perfect performance, and you’ve got another success.

Ice Warriors

Who doesn’t love a good Ice Warrior? They’re forever cool (no pun intended). While not always villainous, they are fierce and formidable. They’re also a bit weird. The original Ice Warriors stood taller than your average Doctor Who alien. And there is something about their deep green carapace that feels believable. These battle-hardened reptiles wore their outer shells like armour. At the joints of these plated segments sprang tufts of fur. From a costuming perspective, these patches would have been used to hide seams and add points of visual interest for the average black-and-white television. From a narrative perspective, the hair only added to their weirdness. In short, I like the classic Ice Warriors very much.

The Ice Warriors are also the first classic baddie redesign I had to wait to see. By the time I had started watching Doctor Who, Matt Smith was filming series six. The Ice Warriors don’t make their return until series seven, which gave me ample opportunity to imagine what they would look like. What we got was bang on what I had hoped for. They leaned into the weird and won in a big way. When “Cold War,” aired, there was a bit of contention about the reveal of an Ice Warrior outside of its armour. Perhaps it’s because their helmets possess a sort of Judge Dredd quality that in turn causes people to think you can’t show Ice Warriors without their helmets. But they’re going full Stallone and it’s fine. Dare I say it’s even a bit cool? 

A sticking point for me on the redesign was the lack of their stupid Lego Minifigure hands, which I love. But when you see their long skinny fingers reaching with their claws out, you might need to give the suit some fingers as well. Their reptilian aspects are also celebrated in their redesign. The Empress is a ferocious take on the look of the commander rank Ice Warriors. I said in my review of “Empress of Mars,” that the guns that turn people into cubes were a bit silly, and I still feel that way. And sure, I would have appreciated the odd "Ssss," at the beginning of an S word. But in the end, they allowed the Ice Warriors to shine for what they are, and that’s all that matters.

The Macra

One of my least favourite Pokémon designs is Raichu. You have Pikachu, an almost perfect marriage of form and cuteness. How do you improve on such a design? You can’t. This is why Raichu’s little curly-Q ear tufts and embellished lines look less like an evolution, and more like someone who didn’t know how to stop drawing Pikachu. Or when to stop spelling bananana. You just can’t improve on perfection. Now you’re probably wondering two things right now- 

Why the drive-by on Raichu?

What does this have to do with the Macra?

To answer the second question- “absolutely nothing.” And that’s the point. There was no perfection to mess up in the case of the Macra. The originals looked like a pile of playground equipment. The only place to go was up. First order on the list- does it look like a giant crab? Yes. List over.

Changing the Macra by devolving them into dumb beasts only adds to this winning revamp. Why were they at the bottom of the motorway of New New York? Had their nefarious plot backfired reducing them to mere monsters? It’s a great little incorporation of characters lesser showrunners would have called "embarrassing." I love the Macra. I love that they didn’t overdo the Macra. I love that they don’t tell us everything. Whatever crab rave they had going on down there will be lost to time. Or until Big Finish takes a crack at it.

The Mara

I will admit, this one is a bit of a cheat. It’s one of two on this list that you may think of as a cheat. But hey, they brought the Mara back in the web short “The Passenger,” for the season 20 Blu-ray release. I’m counting it! I’m also counting it because the Mara have been updated not once, but twice to a modern CGI standard. Plus it gives me a chance to talk about “Snakedance,” which I will always relish.

The practice of replacing old footage with newer CGI is not without its detractors. George Lucas released the special edition of the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997 and people are still arguing about it. I’m in two minds about it myself. I like some of the changes they’ve made to Star Wars, ‘60s Star Trek, and even Doctor Who. I dream of the day when they take a crack at Babylon 5. But it also has its limitations. I would be upset if they updated the model shots of Scaroth’s ship in “City of Death.” But in the case of a goofy pink snake puppet? Fine by me.

That is not to say I don’t find the snake puppets of both “Kinda,” and “Snakedance,” charming. They certainly are. But they’re also so very distracting. There’s the suspension of disbelief and then there’s the stifling of laughter. If you can get past the snake, you will see both “Kinda,” and “Snakedance,” for what they are- some of the best of Classic Doctor Who. The CGI snake does exactly that and nothing more. It’s not even a fancy CGI model. Someone probably downloaded a rattlesnake asset and coloured it pink, and that’s absolutely fine. It’s another Macra situation. Does it look more “snake,” than “snek?” Yes. List over.

The Nestine Consciousness

In the words of Vito Corleone- “Look how they massacred my boy!” Ok, maybe massacred is a bit harsh. But even by series one standards, that CGI pool of molten plastic is pretty damn awful. I say this with a handful of caveats. Yes, this was essentially a pilot for the relaunch of the series. Yes, the production crew was brand new. No, the budget wasn’t huge. You could probably list more reasons, but my point is made. They did their best.

I don’t need to ask why an amorphous blob was easier to depict than a giant space squid. Hell, it was too expensive in the '70s. We only ever saw it’s tentacles back then! I had to use Andrew Skilleter’s illustration from the Target novelisation of “Terror of the Autons.” Mostly because the show never shows the entire squid and also because Skilleter owns! But the kid who grew up on ‘90s Nickelodeon and Beetlejuice in me will never think of a pool of goo as an upgrade from a space squid. It’s just not gonna happen.

As returning readers may have noticed, in the “rad vs. trad,” debate, I have always sided with rad. I like Doctor Who a bit weird. So weird that I am arguing that something is weirder than a glowing vat of sentient plastic. But here I am. The beauty is that RTD explained the change as a devolved form of the Nestine Consciousness. Maybe it was temporary. The squid may return yet! Furthermore, Doctor Who audiences have been watching Talking Tree and Raccoon movies in the intervening years. People are more open to weird these days. Add a bigger budget and we may see the comeback of the cosmic cephalopod!

Rutans

This is the other entry on this list that you may feel is a bit of a cheat. The above illustration on the right comes from an official Doctor Who video game titled “The Gunpowder Plot.” It is a redesign of the Rutan Host for the Matt Smith era. Seeing as their new design is meant to represent the style of the modern series, I’m counting it.

As redesigns go, this one had a lot of wiggle room. Usually only mentioned by name, the only time we ever got to see a Rutan onscreen was “The Horror of Fang Rock.” Throughout most of the story, the Rutan looks like a quenelle of green jelly sloughing slowly up the stairs of a lighthouse. When I was five, my trip to Cocoa Beach was cut short due to an outbreak of jellyfish. The one I almost stepped on with my bare foot looked a lot like that. It’s not hard for me to imagine a little green blob as dangerous.

It feels almost too perfect then that the Rutan redesign would land somewhere in the vicinity of a jellyfish. While they are capable of shapeshifting, tentacles do add to their base physical prowess. You can imagine one of them holding their own against a Sontaran. You can imagine one wrapped around one of their potato noggins and it being lights out. Whoever worked on that game has done the show a favour if they ever bring the Rutans back. Green electric jellyfish will do just fine.

Sea Devils

Back when I reviewed “Legend of the Sea Devils,” I mused that it followed the tradition of Sea Devils stories being “not very interesting.” So it came as a bit of a shock to me back in June when Doctor Who Magazine readers ranked it the eighth-best story of the Pertwee era. What were they seeing that I wasn’t? Because by my standards, it’s about two episodes too long. My thought is that people love it mainly for two reasons- cool vehicles and the Sea Devils themselves. Much like the St Paul’s Cathedral shot from “The Invasion,” the shot of the Sea Devils emerging from the sea is doing most of the heavy lifting. Such is the legacy of effective imagery.

The element of the Sea Devils’ look that has aged the poorest has to be their netted tunics. They look dingy and cheap. I imagine on some level, they helped, as Adam Savage would say, “hide the crimes,” of the costume department. The costumes weren’t playing on camera so maybe they added the netting. I’m just speculating here. After all, their cousins, the SIlurians, walked around in the buff. The next time we see the Sea Devils in “Warriors of the Deep,” they’re decked out in a sort of Samauri attire. Just because they lived underwater doesn’t mean the Sea Devils were unaffected by Feudal Japan. Nobody seems to have cared about this change in costuming. Or perhaps they were busy recoiling from the Myrka. The Silurians remained true to their nudist lifestyle.

Other than the Daleks and the Weeping Angels with Paul Dano’s face of the Chibnall era, I rather liked most of its character redesigns. I particularly liked the Sea Devils. I like that they kept their big fishy eyes and turtle beaks. And did you catch that adorable Baby Sea Devil from “Defenders of Earth?” That thing looks like a cross between Grogu and my own pet tortoise and I would kill for it. Like the Dalek update of the Davies era, they kept the silhouette intact and simply gave it a more believable appearance. Are the eyes a bit more cartoony? Yes. Is that fantastic? Also yes.

The major change to the look of the Sea Devils are their costumes. They’re a sort of mash-up of Asian influences with little references to the netting of their first appearance. If you’re a big fan of the Sea Devils, I think it would be hard to complain about their appearance here. Their bismuth-encrusted swords are a nice addition (just don’t let them touch your skin). You can imagine them as swashbuckling monsters who once ruled the sea. Now if only someone could come along and give them a proper adventure to star in!

Silurians

Much like the Royal Family, Doctor Who writers get a lot of leeway out of the word “cousin.” It covers a multitude of sins. Such is the case when dealing with the Silurians and their cousins- Homoreptila. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it line of dialogue that I unfortunately missed the first time around. I was too busy blinking in disbelief at how depressing Broadchurch with lizards could be. It wasn’t until revisiting the two-part story “The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood,” that I finally heard the line explaining the discrepancy.

Why that matters is that it’s the reason I had a two-year chip on my shoulder about the Silurian redesign. This isn’t to say I thought they looked bad. The makeup job on the modern Silurians is very good. They just don’t look like Silurians. It bothered me because one of the things I liked about Doctor Who is that it often set itself apart from Star Trek. Star Trek aliens are more often than not- rather humanoid. This has always felt like a storytelling device more than anything. Less makeup equals more of the actor’s performance shining through. Doctor Who, on the other hand, asks its viewers to see something relatable in something inhuman. You can still make this complaint against “The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood,” because it does feel like they wanted you to see the human inside the Silurian costume. They couldn’t resist the Spielbergian desire to give the lizards soulful human eyes. 

Any design change seems to stem directly from this need, so it feels difficult to judge them otherwise. Even their dehumanising masks were more of a measure to save money on facial prosthetics, though they do add an air of mystery. Those black-eyed masks were downright exciting until they took them off to reveal a very human face. Had they gone with those masks as their faces, I might have been able to overlook the exclusion of their third eye. It would have been very easy to modernise as well. Many reptiles and amphibians have what is known as a parietal eye on top of their heads. They can even sense fluctuations in light. Incorporating one into the design would have been very easy. That said, the ridges on their heads are in keeping with their original design and very striking. Especially on Madame Vastra.

Along with their masks, these Silurians are different in that they are no longer nudists. They now wear clothes. It makes sense that they did this. Their new humanoid appearance makes clothing essential. No need to adapt “The Lusty Argonian Maid,” for television. The costumes aren’t bad either. The netting feels like yet another call-back to their other cousins- the Sea Devils. Even their new guns do a good job echoing the disc-shaped guns the Sea Devils carried but with the aesthetics of the modern era. All in all, this redesign is fine, but I still yearn to see a proper Silurian in the modern style.

Sontarans

Tumblr user “zagreus-eats-your-bread,” once said of the Chibnall era Sontarans- “Big fan of the redesign. They finally look like absolute shit again. He looks like a knee.” While to some, that sounds like faint praise, I couldn’t agree with their sentiment more. The Sontarans looked awful in classic Doctor Who and I love them for that. There was something unsettling about the way Linx’s tongue would pulsate in “The Time Warrior.” The whiskers poking from his brow and mottled face only added to his vile appearance. His helmet towered over others as he sized them up. A striking foe if there ever was one.

It’s odd then, that the Davies era decided to make the Sontarans squat in stature. They even explain that it is due to the high gravity of Sontar that they’re so short. Their bodies developed for load-bearing. It made sense narratively and wasn’t really a problem. Like I said above- we stan a short king. The problems arose sometime in the Moffat era. The Sontarans had gone from dynamite in a small package to comic relief. I hesitate to blame Strax, but he is when this started to happen.

Cynicism is likely the cause. Writers looked at the Sontarans and said “Ha, potato head and a short body!” One of the fiercest races in Doctor Who history was reduced to an army too stupid to realise that an invisible tank left them completely visible inside. It’s like when people think of the Daleks as embarrassing because they look like pepper pots and completely ignore the fact that they’re also genocidal maniacs. This is why I appreciated Chris Chibnall’s desire to add some ferocity back into the Sontarans. Their stature had returned to that of the classic look, which is fine. Unlike the Daleks, there was a precedent for a tall Sontaran. And yes, they looked like shit again. We could see the Sontarans as a threat once more. Oh, they’re stuck in an off-license eating chocolate like Augustus Gloop? Oh. Right.

Time Lords

I hemmed and hawed about whether I should include these guys or not. Do I add the Master while I’m at it? But in the end, many Time Lords are monsters and they too received a makeover. Though it isn’t much of one. In fact, I once read that aspects of their costumes were reused from the classic series. You could argue that their biggest redesign happened somewhere between their first appearance in “The War Games,” and “The Deadly Assassin.” They started out looking like a cult that formed in the basement of an Apple Store. But somewhere along the line, they got seriously into collars. It was the ‘70s after all. People’s shirts were 30% collar back then.

Sadly, while the overall look of the ‘70s Time Lords carried on into the modern era, they abandoned their love for colour. Rassilon being the Regina George of Time Lord society decided that we only wear red on Wednesdays. And seeing as they’re time travellers, it’s always Wednesday somewhere! So the Time Lords left their saffron and purple robes at the cleaners. Even the citizens of Gallifrey are shown in “The Day of the Doctor,” wearing variations of red and white. Everyone fell in line and fashion suffered.

When we see the Time Lords in “The Timeless Children,” they’re now wearing very stylish Cyberman headgear. Their red hoods have now been replaced with gold numbers laser-cut with Gallifreyan writing. I would call it a fashion breakthrough if not for the fact that everyone was still decked out in drab silver. I don’t want to see the Time Lords again until they take a page from the Fifteenth Doctor’s book and learn to diversify their wardrobe. Yas hunty! Werk!

Zygons

If you’ve not been to Neil Cole’s Museum of Classic Sci-fi in Hexham, you should do yourself a favour and change that. It’s a great day out, and if you’re lucky, Neil might even be available to chat. Something I learned when talking to Neil is that he has some rather strong opinions about the redesign of the Zygons. Primarily, their head shape. Throughout this article, I’ve praised some of the redesigns for their adherence to the basic silhouette of the baddies. If you were to show me either version of a Zygon in a silhouette I would identify them both as Zygons, but dammit Neil, you’re right. The head just isn’t right.

Initially, I thought it was the mouth shape, which is definitely different. When they redesigned the Zygons for “The Day of the Doctor,” my thought was “What happened to their kitty cat faces?” You may not see it, but I have always looked at classic Zygons and thought “Aw, there’s a Mister Kitty!” And they replaced their little button nose and philtrum with a set of far more human features. Seriously Moffat, what is it with you? They’re aliens! Let orange squid men covered in suckers have cat faces!

The top-heavy ridge of their heads gave them a sort of lumbering look, which may have been the impetus to change them. The Zygons of the 50th anniversary needed to do a fair bit of running. But it also detracts from the iconic lines that made them so striking back in 1975. Below the neck, the design choices make a lot of sense. Like the Ice Warriors, the goal seemed to be to add more texture and detail. The ribs seem more defined as do the suckers. Even their bio-tech devices are appropriately slimy and detailed. When they find Kate Stewart in that purple bubbly skin poncho, none of us are offering to trade places with her. Unless that’s your thing. Don’t let me yuck your yum.

My main qualm with the modern Zygon is less with their design and more with their physiology. The Zygons have always been squidgy shapeshifters. But since when do they turn people into smouldering balls of staticky hair? They tried to explain that this was a new development of technology, so why is one of the refugee Zygons able to use it on himself? It’s not as though the Zygon’s body is not already teeming with venomous stingers. If you’ve ever read Mark Morris’ “The Bodysnatchers,” you’ll know exactly what I mean. Mark does such a good job delving into the physiology of the Zygons that he set the standard by which I judge all future Zygon depictions. It’s seriously great stuff.

Aaaaand we're done! Phew! This one took a long time for me to write. I wanted to return with a bit of a long one because I haven't written anything in a while. My sister came to visit from July to August, so I had been very busy. Then I got ill, yadda yadda yadda. Expect to see more of me soon as I plan to cover the 60th Anniversary Specials and beyond. I may even review some classic Doctor Who in the meantime! Stay safe and take care!

[gunilslaugh]

5 +1 Oh Seungmin

Oh Seungmin/O.de

Summary: 5 times Seungmin tried to confess his feelings for you, but things keep going wrong and the 1 time things went right.

WC: 2.156k

Warning:grammar

1: It was late at night when you found yourself casually strolling around a park with Seungmin at your side. Despite the fact that these late night walks usually came at the expense of your sleep you never seemed to care. In fact they were some of the moments with Seungmin you cherished the most. Seungmin thought this way too, which is why it seemed like a perfect way for him to confess. He thought about it all week. What outfit he was gonna wear. It had to be casual enough for a late night stroll, but have some style at the same time. How he was gonna ask you to take a walk with him. Spontaneous would be fun, but what if you actually need sleep that night and couldn’t go? Seungmin decided it was best to ask you the day before, so his plan could go smoothly. He even pre planned the route around the park, so he could confess to you where the moonlight was diffused by tree leaves and the stars reflected in the little pond, the “perfect” spot. As you guys were approaching the “perfect” spot, Seungmin was going over his confession speech in his head one last time, making sure he wouldn’t miss a single detail.

“This part of the park is so pretty,” you say, admiring the beauty of the park's nature. Seungmin smiles at your words, they only confirmed that he thought right. This is the perfect spot.

“Yeah it is, especially at night, it’s why I like walking here,” Sungmin spoke as he too admired the surrounding view.

“We should walk here more often,”

“Then we will,” he says with a firm nod coming to stand directly in front of you. Reaching for your hand Seungmin begins to talk.

“Y/n I-”

“MEOW!!!” A sudden cat cries out as it darts out of  a tree. Succeeding in scaring the crap out of both Seungmin and you. You two begin to laugh, recovering from the unforeseen fright. 

“What were you gonna say?” You ask. 

“Oh uh? I don’t remember, guess that cat scared it out of my head,” Seungmin laughs lightly. He can’t confess now the moment is ruined. He’ll confess again later, someplace without scary, interrupting cats.

2: Seungmin liked to ask your opinion on the lyrics he writes. Whether or not you know about music, he likes to hear your perspective. That’s why he felt like a genius when he found a way to translate his feelings for you into lyrics that didn’t sound too sappy, cliche or cringey. Now all he had to do was show you. It should’ve been the easier part, but alas it seems like the odds aren't in Seungmin’s favor. First he had to practically pry you away from Jiseok who was asking your opinion on which poses/facial expressions were better. Second there was Jooyeon who just had to talk to you about the latest episode of a show the both of you watch. Seungmin could do nothing but wait for the tangent you both excitedly broke into to end. Not understanding about half of what you two were saying. Finally just as he was about to steal you away into a studio.

“Y/n, Seungmin!” Wanna grab lunch?” Jungsu asks. Seungmin sighs

“Yes, let’s go,” You respond all too quickly, pulling Seungmin by the arm away from the studio.

‘So close’ Seungmin thinks as he’s forced to walk away, but now he’s determined. After lunch there will be no more interruptions.

You’re back in the studio. Seungmin just shut the door and began to set up his synthesizer. He began to play the beginning notes, when all of a sudden.

“Seungmin!” Jiseok opens the door. “Gunil is looking for you,” 

“Alright. What does he need?”

“Don’t know he just told me to get you,”

“Ok. I’ll be right back,” Seungmin tells you before he goes to find out what Gunil needs. When he arrived back to you he showed you a different song. Deciding to abandon ship. There had been too many interruptions by his members today and he didn’t want to risk anything. He’ll confess again some other time. A place where his members aren’t.

3: You and Seungmin found yourselves at a little cafe that both of you liked. The atmosphere was cozy. The gentle classical music they played over the speakers was relaxing.  Sitting in your usual corner, sipping your drinks and sharing a chocolate croissant. This place felt like a little break from life. Just the two of you in your own little corner, your own little world. Seungmin thought that this place would be nice too. You both cherished it, confessing here would just make it even more cherishable. 

“You have chocolate on your mouth,” he informed you. You simply lean your face a bit across the table.

“Wipe it for me then,” you casually say. Thus he does just that. Grabbing a napkin and gently wiping away the chocolate from your face.

“There,” Seungmin pulls his hand away, crumpling up the napkin as he does.

“Thanks,” Right as he’s about to continue feeling like it was the right time to just confess.

“Y/n!” A voice happily shouts. You turn in the direction of the voice. Eyes lightening up when you notice that it’s your friend.

“Y/f/n! What are you doing here?” Greeting them with a quick hug before sitting back down.

“I was just grabbing a drink before my shift starts.” They respond by glancing over at Seungmin. “And who is this?”

“This is my friend Seungmin,” 

“Oh. this is the Seungmin,” Your friend said, shooting you a knowing look. You shoot them a look that says “stop”. “Nice to meet you I’m y/f/n,” 

“Oh this is the y/f/n,” Seungmin mimics the tone of voice your friend used prior. “Nice to meet you too,” he sticks out his hand for them to shake. 

“Well I have work to get to so you guys have fun.” your friend tells before leaving.  You laugh lightly at your friends' antics hoping that Seungmin either didn’t notice or doesn’t bring up the glances you and your friend exchange or what they meant by him being the Seungmin. Seungmin did notice, however he didn't say anything. Instead he uses it as a fuel of confidence for the next time he plans to confess.

4: Seungmin is currently walking you back home after you both spent the day together. Standing so close that your arms and hands brush against one anothers. 

“That cloud looks like a turkey,” you point out, bringing up your arm and sticking out your pointer finger in the direction of the cloud.

“I think that’s offensive to turkeys,” Seungmin jokes after seeing the cloud you were talking about.

“Hey! No it’s not, look. There’s the head and the neck,” you draw out with your finger. “Then there’s it’s body and the tail,” you finish tracing the cloud. 

“I think it got into an unfortunate accident,” 

“Or maybe you’re just uncreative,”

“Aye that’s going a bit far now,”

“Fine, sorry, but you’re definitely no cloud expert,”

“You got me there,” Falling back into a comfortable silence as you continued on your walk back home. Seungmin took this silence as time to go over his confession in his head. He’s done it a million times, but it never seemed good enough to him. What if you thought it was too lackluster, or overly sappy. He wanted it to be memorable, yet natural, maybe make your heart skip a beat, but nothing over the top. Just as he began to feel confident in his words there was a loud thunder. A sudden downpour of rain had started to fall. Seungmin quickly grabbed your hand and led you over to a spot safe from the rain. 

“How did that literally come out of nowhere?” he says as he wipes off the rain from his clothes.

“It’s cause you disrespected the turkey,” 

“Turkey I’m sorry!” Seungmin proclaims, causing you both to laugh. The two of you wait out the sudden rain storm. Thankfully it didn’t take long for it to clear up. Seungmin finished walking you home waiting for you to shut the door before going on his way. “Man, even nature is against me,” he thinks while sighing. Why was it so hard for him to have a good opportunity to tell you that he liked you?

5: You were currently curled up next to Seungmin on the couch in your living room as you guys were having a movie night. Snacks laid out on the coffee table in front of you. A fluffy blanket draped over yours and Seungmin’s laps. He had his arm wrapped around your shoulder gently stroking your hair as your head leaned on his shoulder. Frankly you weren’t paying much attention to the movie playing on the t.v. It was merely background noise as you basked in the warmth of Seungmin. 

Now, Seungmin wasn’t paying attention to the movie either. He was also basking in your warmth that radiated off you from where you were curled into his side. Focused on the texture of your hair beneath his fingers. Hyper aware of the way your shoulder ever so slightly moved with each breath you took. It was moments like these that made Seungmin forget that he hasn't confessed yet. They just felt so domestic, as if you two were already a couple. That’s why he thought. “Why not just confess now?”

“Y/n I have something that I need to tell you?” Seungmin says softly.

“Hmm?” You hum from his shoulder. Your eyes have fallen closed by this point.

“Well, I’ve been trying to say this for a while now actually,” he pauses slightly, taking a breath before continuing. “ I like you, like romantically and I  want to be with you,” he confesses. The sound of the t.v now being the only sound in the room as he waits for your response. Your response was all but a soft snore. Causing Seungmin to look down at your figure beside him, now noticing that you have fallen asleep. A sigh escapes from his lips. Well at least he got the words out this time. If only you could have heard them. He’ll just have to add this to the list of things to be mindful of for the next time he confesses. 

+1: Seungmin’s schedule was free for the weekend. The both of you decided that it would be nice to go on a little hiking trip. After picking a trail that wasn’t too far to travel to for a day trip. After making sure that you had all the materials you needed the two of you headed out. Following arriving at the trail site you double checked that you had everything. Then proceeded down the path. 

“It’s nice to get away from the city every once and a while,” Seungmin states.

“Yeah, it’s nice to get some fresh air and forget about work for a bit,” you respond

“I think the nature is prettier out here too, it feels more natural,” he laughs at the end.

“Nature in its natural state, who would’ve thought,” you joke. 

Seungmin looks around at the nature surrounding the both of you and he realizes some things. One, there are no scary, interrupting cats here. Two, his members are nowhere near here. Three, none of your friends are around here either, at least he hopes. Four, the weather is nice, the sky is clear without a cloud in sight. Five, you are definitely not at risk of falling asleep. It was “perfect”. There was nothing that he could foresee that would interrupt him now. It was another chance and he was gonna take it.

“Y/n?” Seungmin calls your attention.

“Yeah,”

“I have something to tell you,”

“What is it?” you ask. He comes closer to you grasping both of your hands in his.

“I like you….romantically,” he’s finally done it and it feels like a weight was lifted off of his shoulders, but now the weight of waiting for your response seemed to be suffocating him. Seungmin still finds the courage to look you in the eyes. He sees a smile on your face. You use your connected hands to pull him into a hug.

“I like you too,” you confess, wrapping your arms around him even tighter. Seungmin then firmly wraps his arms around your waist before lifting you up and twirling you around. You lightly shriek at his sudden action. He sets you down, pulling away from the hug with pure happiness radiating off of him. You reach out and grab his hand, interlacing your fingers together. 

It may have taken him six tries, but he would do it all again, because at the end of the day he finally could say you were a couple.

[crispycrunchyyummers]

Sigzai week 2023 Day 1 fanfic~

..............................................................................................................................

It was starting to get chilly outside, which meant it was the perfect time to snuggle up inside with that special someone. And that’s exactly what Dazai planned on doing. He wasn’t a huge touchy-feely person, but he couldn’t resist that adorable flustered expression Sigma made when he cuddled up to the two-tone haired man. He decided to set everything up perfectly, and his plan was already underway. Dazai made sure to eat, cook (burn), or give away all their food so that Sigma would get irritated and leave to get groceries. He would be outside in the freezing cold, so the cozy bed Dazai was now making would be so much more inviting to him. That's where he was now, collecting all the pillows and blankets around the house to make his futon nice and cozy for the two of them.

They’re relationship was… undefined, to put it in simple terms. Dazai did love Sigma, as much as he was capable of loving another person. But he also loved Chuuya, which posed several obvious and not so obvious problems. He knew that Sigma and Chuuya loved him back, though they wouldn’t admit it and Dazai didn’t exactly understand why they loved him. And they had never come close to talking about their relationship, which Dazai was honestly thankful for. He’d rather just enjoy the perks without the complications. 

Jiggling keys and the sound of the front door opening snapped Dazai out of his thoughts, turning his head to see Sigma. He was shivering despite being layered up in all his adorable winter clothes, which were different shades of pinks and purples. His hair was all messed up from the scarf wrapped snugly around his neck, covering his mouth and enunciating his red frostbitten nose. His cheeks were red and his expression was a frustrated frown, holding the groceries in his mitten covered hands. He looked absolutely adorable, Dazai just wanted to scoop him up and feed him hot chocolate and cookies until he felt better. Is this what love feels like? 

“Ah Candy you’re home!” He says, happily skipping over to Sigma who was frowning at the nickname Dazai insisted on using. “No thanks to you.” he mumbled, feeling agitated from the cold. “Aww don’t be like that.” Dazai hums, taking the groceries from him and putting them on the table. “I have a surprise for you~” he says, skipping over to Sigma again, taking his hand and pulling him to the bedroom. “Hey! What are you doing?” Sigma says, too cold and tired to fight Dazai’s pulling. “You’ll see!” He says as he finally gets to the comfy snuggle area he made. “... What is this?” Sigma asks, looking at the bed, then at Dazai, who was smiling happily, like he was proud of himself somehow. “It's a comfy snuggle area” he responds. 

“Snuggling area? For what?” Sigma asks nervously, to which Dazai just giggles. “You know what it's for Candy.” With that, Dazai suddenly snakes his arms around Sigma and starts to take off his jacket and scarf. Sigma’s face immediately turns red which is exactly the reaction Dazai wanted, and the encouragement he needed to continue. “Dazai- stop!!” Sigma shouts, sounding mildly panicked before Dazai pushes him down on the bed and lays next to him. Next thing he knows, Dazai has his arms around him with the blanket covering them. “This is the surprise.” Dazai whispers, snuggling his face into Sigma's neck. Sigma blushes and moves his head to look at Dazai, not quite wanting to move away from him. “This is it?” He asks cautiously. “Mhm, don’t sound so surprised. Unless you want something more~.” Dazai says with a smirk, Sigma looks away, his blush deepening. 

They stayed silent for a while, Dazai’s face buried in Sigma’s neck as he looked away, trying to control his blush and racing heart. He was worried, worried that Dazai would use this to take advantage of him. He didn’t really exactly know why, perhaps because of his old “family” at the DOA. But during the moment of silence, with Dazai steady breaths on Sigma’s neck, he felt… safe. He slowly started to relax, leaning into Dazai touch, closing his eyes. Feeling this, Dazai smiles and pulls Sigma closer, taking a peek at his cute blushing face. Sigma wrapped his arms around Dazai and buried his face in Dazai’s chest, feeling the warmth spread all throughout him. 

“Are you comfortable like this?” Dazai asks, holding Sigma close, enjoying the heat their bodies are making. “Yeah” He whispers, nuzzling closer to Dazai like a small kitten. Dazai starts to blush as he looks down at Sigma, his adorable face red with blush, his calm gray eyes closed peacefully, his pretty pink lips chapped from the cold outside. Dazai's heart races at the perfect sight before him, oh God he really loves Sigma. He pulls him closer and gives him a tender kiss on the cheek, to which Sigma blushes in reaction. 

“Thank you for doing this for me Osamu.” He whispers, then builds all his courage up, and leans forward, kissing Dazai’s lips gently. His face immediately turns bright red and he looks down at Sigma in shock. “D-Dazai? Are you okay?” Sigma asks, his face turning red from embarrassment. Dazai doesn’t respond, it seems he’s simply stopped working from the kiss. “Say something! You’re freaking me out!” Sigma says, hiding his face in Dazai’s chest. After a moment, Dazai suddenly pulls Sigma as close as he can and hides his face in the crook of Sigma’s neck, intertwining his legs with Sigma’s. Sigma blushes and his eyes widen slightly in surprise, but he soon hugs Dazai gently, resting his mouth on Dazai’s shoulder. “I love you too Dazai…”

..............................................................................................................................

@sigzaiweek

[specialinterestshows]

A continuation of my Rhea Ripley x lady!reader fic.

Warnings for this section: Dirty talk

-

Absolute Smokeshow (Part 28 of ?): Siren Song (Caught In A Riptide)

Drying yourself off, you walk over to your closet to put on another outfit. Securing the towel over your chest, you use both hands to peruse your selection of clean clothes, smiling as you glance at your bandaged knuckles. Thinking of Rhea, you listen to the steady sound of the shower for a moment and swear you can hear faint singing. You shake your head, now concerned you hadn’t slept as well as you’d thought and might be hearing things as a result.

Grabbing a few things you thought would look good together, you turn to set them on your bed so you can get dressed carefully. By the time you’re fully clothed, the sound of the water has stopped and you’re sure you hear something this time. You walk past the bathroom door, listening intently and manage to catch Rhea singing “sweet dreams are made of this.” Suddenly, the handle begins to turn and you scramble over to sit on the couch, wincing at the pain as you habitually try to cross your ankles.

The singing had stopped as soon as the door opened, changing instead to humming for a few bars as Rhea rounded the corner. Wrapped in a towel, hair still dripping, she sees you and immediately walks over to give you a kiss.

“How are you feeling?” she was referring to your injuries, but you decided to share more.

“Lucky to have spent the last few days together,” - you give her a kiss - “less than thrilled that you’re leaving, but overall? So happy to know I’m going to see you again, eventually.”

Rhea smiles, leaning in for a kiss you pucker your lips for, but lands on your nose instead.

“I meant your hand and ankle,” she says, genuine concern on her face, “Are the bandages too tight?”

“They’re perfect,” you assure her, “Thank you.”

Rhea visibly relaxes and gives you one more peck before walking over to her suitcase. Your eyes follow her as she crouches in front of the mess of clothes, looking for something to wear for the day.

“Might as well give up the search now,” you say, feeling clever, “I guarantee there’s nothing in there that’ll make you look better than you do naked.”

Rhea playfully threw a shirt in your direction, making you giggle as it landed nearby. After laying out a few pieces of clothing, she let her towel fall in one smooth motion, winking as you watch her.

“Unfair,” you complain in response to her wiggling her hips, a slightly sadistic grin on her face. Fidgeting with your phone, you decide to ask, “Mind if I get a picture? I don’t have any nudes of yours.”

“Go for it,” Rhea says, posing for you. Opening your camera app, you snap a photo, biting your lip. Looking up from the phone, you realize that, gorgeous as she was on camera, the image couldn’t possibly compare to reality.

After she was dressed, Rhea took out a makeup bag and sat next to you on the couch.

“Music?” you offer, setting it up once you get a nod in response. Sitting back down, you stretch out on the couch, legs laying across Rhea’s lap. She gives your thigh a gentle squeeze before continuing with her routine. Looking on, you were impressed with how quickly she put the look together - though not entirely surprised she was so good with her hands. What struck you most was the speed and steadiness with which she did her eyeliner, movements lining up to the beat of the music. The space on her cheek she usually saved to represent the Judgment Day or Dominik was instead given a small heart this time, making yours skip a beat.

“You’re looking at me like I just performed some kind of magic,” Rhea laughs once she’s done, seeing your baffled expression.

“Do you mean to tell me that what you just did wasn’t witchcraft?” you ask, half joking. You’d never done makeup that good that quickly before.

“It’s what I do most days,” she says, shrugging, “Not that big a deal.”

“You’re going to have to teach me sometime,” you say, still impressed.

“Or I could just do your makeup,” she counters, smiling.

A very particular image appeared in your mind of you lying down on the bed, Rhea straddling your lap, face just above yours. Having to stay perfectly still with her on top of you, her eyes never leaving your face as she did your makeup.

“Both?” you ask hopefully, making her laugh.

“Sounds like a good excuse to look at you more,” Rhea says in a voice that makes you melt.

“How much time to we have?” you check, wondering what you might be able to get away with before she has to leave.

“Should start heading to the airport in less than an hour,” Rhea sighs, looking at the time, groaning, “Guess I should start stuffing all my shit back in the suitcase.”

“Let me help,” you offer, standing up, “I can gather up all the kinky items from my bedroom.”

“Good girl,” she says, reminding you of every other time she had said it and making you shiver, “Do it quick enough and we might have time to continue what we started in the shower.”

[end part twenty-eight of ?]

Part 29: https://www.tumblr.com/specialinterestshows/726219197322035200/absolute-smokeshow-part-29-of-good-bi-for

-

Tag List (thank you!)

@cherryberryshine , @littlemiss-fanficlover , @elisewithak , @babybatlover , @girlofpink

[silkflovvers]

Humbly knocking on your door again for some of those Lucbedo wips 🙏

I will happily welcome you in and treat you to a meal~

This one is sort of cheating because I did technically post it before, but in screenshot form and then deleted it. But it deserves to be shared again, I think.

"Modern AU Version 2 WIP 2/??"

Rating: General Audiences Ship: Lucbedo Tags: Modern AU, Single Father Diluc, Teacher/Artist Albedo, Established Relationship, Proposal

The overwhelming flood of thoughts and emotions crashed over him in a shockingly cold wave as he watched Diluc, Razor clinging to one arm while the other hand was held tight in Klee’s little fist. His pants were rolled halfway up to his knees. The man has the smallest, softest smile on his face as Klee splashed happily beside him like she was still the hyperactive six-year-old he first met. The shallow layer of water beneath them reflected the sweet scene with crystal clarity. Even with a light gray sky, Klee’s laughter was brighter than any ray of sunlight could ever hope to be. 

Words trapped themselves in his throat as Razor reached out to her with sparkling eyes. Diluc, as careful as possible, pulled off his rain boots and helped him step back into the water. It barely reached the boy’s ankles and made his eyes grow wide. They haven’t had the chance to play like this in so long. 

“Razor! Razor! Watch this!” The little girl giggled excitedly before hopping a short distance away and stomping her feet, which sent a spray of clear water around her. Diluc’s son balled his little fists in amazement and copied her. A wide smile appeared on his face along with an odd little garbled laugh that squeaked and wheezed.

The hypothetical ring on Albedo’s finger made itself known like phantom pains of a missing limb. Catching a glimpse of Diluc’s naked ring finger as he tied up his child’s unruly hair only deepened the ache. When the redhead stood up, Klee took Razor’s hand in hers and danced through the shallow water with him in a chorus of laughter. Diluc watched them with warmth in his eyes and Razor’s boots dangling from his hand.

Before Albedo could realize what he was doing, he felt the water soak through his pants at the knee. His eyes were trained on the upside down clone of Diluc. Surprise burst across the redhead’s usual stony expression once he noticed Albedo’s change of pose. Bright turquoise rose to meet rubies with a shaky exhale. They stared at each other, frozen. He couldn’t hear a thing over the sound of his beating heart. It thumped and rattled like it was ready to leap from his thoracic cavity.

Diluc blinked slowly, several times, lips parted, cheeks warming under the desaturated light. A young girl gasped and giggled, maybe it was Klee. The purple rubber boots slipped from his fingers and splashed water up the side of his leg. He glanced down at them, but snapped his eyes back to Albedo, visibly deciding the boots weren’t important right now.

“Now?” Diluc whispered, yet Albedo heard it with absolute clarity.

The blond nodded and sucked in another breath. The pose felt strange without a ring box to hold. Buried in a sock drawer wasn’t the most convenient location for it to be right now, but better safe than lost.

“Albedo, are you sure?” The man searched his lover’s face for hesitation, but he didn’t find any. 

“I’m sure. I’m ready now.”

“You’re ready.” Diluc repeated, a smile tugging at his lips.

“I’m ready to succumb to performative acts of affection.” Albedo laughed softly.

“Albedo–“

Diluc’s words were cut off as the blond stood and stepped closer. His pants leg clung to his knee. A firm hand grasped his wrist and reeled him in. Next thing Albedo knew, a pair of warm hands held his face as Diluc kissed him. 

And if I said there was a part 2 that had never been posted before? Check the link below for the never before seen part two 👀

Access Full WIP Here

✤ How to access R18 posts: All R18/NSFW Posts available on Poipiku are locked behind passwords, a sign in requirement and an R18 warning. To access, you must log in to Poipiku (you can do this by setting up an account by email or by connecting your Twitter), and enter the correct password. Password hint can be found below. Posts that are not R18/NSFW are accessible without a password.

✤ Who can access R18 posts?: Only people over 18 years of age should be accessing my R18 works. I ask for you to respect my boundaries and stay away from my R18 posts on Poipiku if you are not 18 years of age or older. I don’t care how mature you are or how “vanilla” the post may be. I do not want children in places they are not allowed to be in. Posts meant for an audience of people who are 18 and older, are not meant for people younger than 18 years of age. That’s all there is to it. Respect my boundaries and I will respect yours.

✤ Password Hint: What is Albedo’s Geo Construct called in the English translation of the game? Type out the full name in lower case letters to access R18/NSFW posts.

[ilanorgratvol]

Rough tempest they will raise - Part 10

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Part 8 Part 9

After several days of preparation, the group was finally ready to head out for reconnaissance at the Moon Towers. The idea of continuing to pose as followers of the Absolute to infiltrate deeper into the cult was as brilliant as it was insane and dangerous. But, in the absence of other alternatives, the group of misfortuned comrades decided to stick with this plan.

Talia was descending from the second floor, adjusting her vest, when Gale came up to meet her and lightly touched her hand:

"Not today."

"What nonsense. Everyone is going - I am too," - Talia continued to lace up her vest, which she usually wore over her shirt.

"As useful as your skills might be to us, you can't go. Let's just say, it takes a certain quality, not widely available these days, to pass as one of their own in this twisted place," - he grimaced, bringing a finger to his temple, - "Besides, you're needed here. After what happened with Isobel, someone needs to stay here in case Thorm tries to kidnap her again. And I don't know anyone better suited for that role than you."

"Don't start, Gale! Why not just tell the truth, that you simply don't want me underfoot," - Talia snapped, throwing her backpack on the floor, realizing that arguing was pointless.

"I'm no saint. I have many sins to my name, but lying is not one of them," - the wizard frowned, -  "And speaking of the truth, when were you going to tell me that your deal with Elminster was called off?"

Talia's expression shifted from anger to surprise, and then to a sullen acknowledgment: 

"You're well-informed, aren't you?" - she retorted, her tone tinged with bitterness.

Gale's eyes softened slightly: 

"I'm just being logical. The orb is stable, albeit temporarily, which makes your part of the deal quite literally unachievable."

Talia sighed, her frustration fading into resignation. She hadn't planned on telling the wizard about how her last conversation with Elminster had ended. This agreement was the only thing that stopped her in Gale's eyes from leaving their group and returning to the search for her brother, and admitting that there was something bigger behind it was not in her plans. Not now, when the wizard couldn’t take his eyes off that omnipresent redhead, whose voice sliced through the tavern's silence each evening, attempting to lift the spirits of the residing harpists and tieflings.

“You know full well that the Absolute threatens not only these lands. Whatever or whoever is behind all this clearly aims not just to settle in the towers and rule these lands. Something big is brewing...,” - Talia tried to change the subject, - "If it plans to destroy the world as I know it, it's in my interest to ensure this group of weirdos does everything correctly."

The wizard nodded slightly in response, thoughtfully, as if expecting a different answer, then concluded:

“Do as I ask, please.”

Talia glanced away in displeasure for a moment, then looked at Gale and nodded, sighing:

"Fine. But if you dare follow Mystra’s order and blow yourself up while I’m not around, I’ll fetch you from the afterlife and the wrath of your goddess will seem like a blessing to you."

He just smirked slightly: 

"Don’t worry. If it comes to that, I’ll make sure you’re holding my hand..."

"Promises, promises," - Talia waved dismissively, - "Go on. Your skills, such as they are, wizard, are needed elsewhere."

“Oh... So that’s what you think of me...,” - Gale placed his hand on his heart.

"You said it yourself, only the truth," - Talia smiled as she saw him and the rest of the group leave the tavern.

Thus began the agonizing days of waiting for news. Each time they returned from the towers to rest at the tavern, bringing a new batch of information about the Absolute and the events unfolding around them, the faces of the companions reflected less confidence in their abilities and more despair. No longer were there evenings spent at the bar with mutual jests and conversations. Each night, exhausted, they returned to the light of Selûne’s blessing, only to disperse to their rooms and collapse onto their beds, hoping to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Gale grew darker and more melancholic by the day. He increasingly preferred to shut himself in his room, alone with his thoughts, or to spend time on the shore of the lake near the tavern, where no one could disturb him. It seemed the inevitability of his fate had finally fully caught up with him, and the wizard, however initially glad he had been for the company after a year confined in his tower, could find solace only in bitter solitude, away from sympathetic glances and Tav’s dwindling attempts to persuade him otherwise.

The fate of the abducted tieflings also remained unknown, and each evening Rolan watched the group returning from the towers in hope, only to quickly return to the false comfort found at the bottom of a bottle.

But finally, one evening, everything changed. Talia was sitting on the balcony, keeping company to Isobel, when a bright flash streaked across the sky toward the towers, momentarily illuminating the cursed sky.

“It can’t be a star or a meteor…” - Talia frowned, rising from her chair.

“I thought for a second…” - Isobel peered into the sky, hoping to see the flash again. Then she returned to maintaining the protective shield, sighing, - “It must be an echo of one of your friends’ spells. Nothing more…”

“I doubt it…” - Talia leaned on the balcony railing, gazing into the sky and the lake’s surface below. For a while, her eyes saw nothing but the all-consuming cursed darkness that had become familiar, but then…

“Are those… boats?” - Talia noticed people approaching the tavern’s dock. The lanterns and torches had been prudently extinguished, so they could only be seen when they were very close to the pier.

Talia left Isobel’s room and dashed down the stairs just as the tavern's back doors swung open, and through them entered a small group of very weary, worn, but happy tieflings. Talia involuntarily smiled, noticing Cal and Lia among them. She was about to rush down the stairs to greet them but stopped herself just in time, noticing Rolan, who coldly welcomed the twins. It seemed like only a second before their greeting escalated into an argument and then, just as quickly, the argument turned into warm embraces.

Following the tieflings, the rest of the companions entered through the tavern door. Talia’s eyes followed Gale, who, without raising his eyes, walked through the animated crowd to the opposite exit of the tavern, heading to his usual place of solitude by the lake. Talia quietly followed him, trying not to reveal her presence.

She found him near the shore, on a secluded meadow hidden by dense foliage and overgrown with grass. He sat on a small blanket, leaning back on his hands, his gaze fixed on the sky, where, to Talia’s surprise, a aurora borelias of clearly magical origin stretched across the sky.

She quietly emerged from her hiding spot and approached the wizard: 

"Good job." 

He jerked slightly in surprise, turning toward the voice: 

"Oh, this... it's my little project, while I'm still capable of something..." 

"That flash in the sky - was that your doing too?" - Talia sat down next to him. 

"That was merely the daughter of Selûne, whom Shadowheart freed today from centuries of bondage. My magic had nothing to do with it." 

"Oh, just that..." - the sorceress smirked, glancing at the wizard and eliciting a light chuckle in response. 

"Wizards and their egos..." - Gale shrugged, trying to keep his composure.

Talia smiled, shifting her gaze back to the sky:

"Did you do this for Tav?"

"Just a little gesture to show the feelings of an old lonely wizard. The curse is still present of course - just veiled and at arm’s length for now. Not a trick I can repeat often…" - he sighed heavily, leaning his arms on his knees before him, slightly hunched as if hiding from the outside world. He nervously fiddled with his fingers, - "But clearly she's one who's more interested in quantity than quality..."

"Halsin, right?" - the sorceress sympathetically placed her hand on his shoulder, barely concealing the warm feeling spreading through her chest.

"Bloody Halsin!" - the wizard irritably jumped to his feet, clenching his fists.

"What can I say..." - the sorceress followed him, barely holding back a smile, - "the elf can certainly boast big... ears." - a light chuckle escaped her mouth nonetheless.

Gale paced a little, visibly trying to shake off his irritation:

"I suppose everyone has their... talents," - he said, half-heartedly trying to find humor in his own discomfort.

"Seriously, how are you feeling?"

"Lost, humiliated, lonely..." - he cast a glance at the sky and gave a bitter smile, - "Nothing I haven't been familiar with before."

He pondered for a second, then continued:

"This may be my last night alive. I wanted it to be under a canopy of beauty and wonder..." - his look was filled again with that bitter irony about himself and what awaited him at the end.

The sorceress grabbed his hand, forcing him to turn towards her and look at her. She irrationally hoped that somehow the wizard might change his mind, but it seemed the more time he spent alone with his thoughts, the deeper he convinced himself of the inevitability of his fate, ordained by his goddess:

"Is this truly what you want?! To die for the promise of Mystra's forgiveness?"

"Babe or crone, coward or hero, death is assured. Mystra's forgiveness is not. If you knew the end was near, would you not want to ensure it had meaning?"

Talia scoffed, releasing his hand:

"Of course! In fighting against what seems invincible. In trying to overcome what seems insurmountable. What meaning are you trying to find in your own death?! You will find nothing but oblivion!" - Her voice slightly broke at the end, betraying her emotions.

He reached forward, seeking her hand again:

"I don't want to argue and fight today," - he took her hand in his, stepping closer, - "I wasn't expecting company tonight, but yours is welcome. Most welcome, to be honest."

"Gale, we need to discuss this while..."

"Shh..." - the wizard stopped her mid-sentence, - "All you need to do tonight is allow me to thank you for what you've done for me."

"I didn't..."

"Tally..."

The sorceress paused for a moment, realizing how he had addressed her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, nodding:

"Fine. What do you have in mind?"

"For tonight, forget the Absolute, the quests, and the curses. Let’s just be two souls enjoying the ephemeral beauty of a world that still has wonders to show us," - Gale said, gently releasing her hand and stepping back, now smiling, - "I don't have much to offer, given our circumstances, nothing but my mind. But I dare hope, that will be enough," - he began slowly moving his hands, preparing to cast a spell, - "I want you to close your eyes. Can you do that for me?"

Talia crossed her arms skeptically: 

"What are you planning to do?"

Gale slightly smiled, not stopping his hand movements: 

"I had hoped I'd earned your trust, given all we've been through together, but since that's the case... I want to give you one evening. A place where you were once happy. Where your heart and soul once found peace and tranquility."

"An illusion?" - Talia frowned.

Gale nodded reluctantly: 

"Basically, yes. But please... indulge me in my reverence, for once."

Talia closed her eyes uncertainly: 

“To create such an illusion, you need a reference that I cannot provide. I don’t know when I was happy enough for it to have imprinted itself so strongly in my memory.”

He didn’t respond immediately. Talia heard the faint rustle of steps on grass, and then his warm breath on her face and gentle fingers on her temples: 

“What do you take me for, a third-year student?” - Talia was about to open her eyes, but he stopped her, - “Stay still, relax. Our minds are a whirlpool of thoughts and feelings, often too complex for us to untangle ourselves. But someone who knows where to look…”

Talia felt a familiar tingling on her skin - the Weave enveloped them like a giant cotton blanket, creating an impenetrable shell around them. She stood motionless, enjoying his steady breath on her cheek.

“This is... unexpected,” - the wizard finally spoke again. His hands returned to their usual position along his body.

Talia slowly opened her eyes. They were standing in the middle of his library. The setting sun, as before, penetrated through the windows and the open balcony, illuminating the room with warm light. Books and scrolls were scattered around exactly as they had left them before leaving the tower. On the desk, there were two mugs of hot coffee, as if they had just been carefully prepared.

“I thought you said this was supposed to be my favorite place, not yours,” - Talia frowned, though she couldn’t help but notice the detailed accuracy of the illusion he had created. Everything felt real - the smells, the sensations, the feelings…

“It is. Yours. I’m sure of it,” - Gale approached the table, gently running his fingers over it as if greeting an old friend, then turned back to her, smiling softly, - “You don't need to explain anything. Just enjoy another warm evening alone with books and their misfortunate master. I like to believe that this, even if just for a fleeting moment, made you happy.”

"Gale, I..." - Talia didn't know what to say. Not because she didn't know how to wrap her feelings and emotions into words, but because she couldn't comprehend what she was feeling at that moment at all. 

"Your coffee," - the wizard extended one of the cups to her. 

The sorceress gratefully took it into her hands and took a sip. God, it seemed like it had been so long, almost as if it were another lifetime. Could it be that this old library, this sharp coffee, this damned scent of the sea ingrained in the walls, and him - the wizard with an immeasurably huge ego and an equally large heart - was what had filled her life with meaning for the first time in many years?

Gale, seemingly lost in his thoughts, walked out to the balcony. He leaned slightly on the railing, peering into the distance at the illusory sea where similarly illusory ships disappeared into the sunset. The sun reflected in his brown eyes, turning them almost golden. His hair fluttered slightly in the wind.

Talia approached him, gazing into his face, trying to discern what he was feeling. The wizard sighed heavily and melancholically, not taking his eyes off the horizon:

"I used to think that the main purpose, the meaning of life, was to strive for perfection, for greatness… for power..." - he turned his gaze to the sorceress, - "You've made me think otherwise."

“I wouldn’t say that perfection and greatness are bad things...” - Talia tilted her head thoughtfully.

“You know what I mean.”

“Of course, I know...” - She set her cup down on the table and then firmly took his hand, joining him in gazing out at the horizon.

The wizard squeezed her hand in return, remaining silent. They stood together in silence for a while, each lost in their thoughts, the gentle breeze tugging at their clothes. The fading light painted the sky in shades of orange and purple, the illusionary sea below reflecting the dramatic colors…

[voraciousvore]

Big Corp Inc. (8/43)

Chapter 8: Consequences

Candy was horribly sore all over when she woke up the next morning. Her feet, particularly her heels, had blisters and sores and red rub marks, not to mention the swelling. Clearly, there was no way she’d be wearing those high heels today. In fact, her whole work outfit was thoroughly disgusting, reeking like the inside of a Giant’s mouth mixed with stale coffee. She had been so tired, she hadn’t bothered to do a load of laundry to freshen them up for her next workday. She would need to find alternate clothing options.

Candy had to admit, though, that she was clean and dry. She had the luxury of a shower, a bed, and a safe, dry place to sleep. She wouldn’t get any of those amenities living out on the street. She decided she’d try going to work again. Perhaps her crazy day yesterday had just been a fluke. Plus, she was still alive and unharmed. Her fears may have been magnified in the moment, but she felt better after having some distance from the Giant workplace. She didn’t think she’d really get eaten by a Giant. If Giants were in the habit of gobbling up humans, they wouldn’t hire humans at Giant businesses, right? 

She scrounged through her closet to find clothing that at least somewhat resembled her work clothes. She didn’t have any shirts that were so low-cut, or skirts that short, but she did the best she could. After bandaging up her feet, she slipped on plushy socks with her trusty old sneakers, which were far more comfortable to walk in. She packed up a lunch and ventured forth, ready to face the day. 

The morning was crisp and bright after the evening rain. The air had a fresh smell to it that invigorated Candy. She began her commute without the usual trepidation, admiring how all the Giant buildings glistened in the morning sun. Maybe wearing her own clothes made her feel like a normal person in control of herself, rather than a sexy doll for her Giant boss to play with. 

Her stomach twisted up when she was reminded of her boss. He had mentioned previously that the work uniform was required, but there was no way for her to wear those trashed clothes now. Besides, with her miniscule form, the shoes were simply not practical. She couldn’t walk miles and miles in heels. She prayed he would have some understanding, but thus far he had been quite callous to her needs, to the point of cruelty and perversion. He was remarkably self-centered, to say the least. Candy hoped she wasn’t inviting his wrath to strike her down. 

Her initial optimism was draining away, to be replaced with dread. She wasn’t sure if he was just joking when he referred to punishment, but what if he wasn’t? What sort of punishments would he inflict on her for breaking his rules? Candy felt sick when imagining potential scenarios. She would have to try to lie low and avoid him if at all possible, but her close proximity to his office would pose a challenge. 

Thankfully, Candy made it all the way to the third floor without incident. She was lucky in her elevator adventure today, and managed to hitch a ride without having to ask for help or draw attention to herself. She waved to Bianca as she trekked to her desk. Bianca waved back with a smile, but her expression turned to horror when she saw what Candy was wearing. 

“Candy!” the Giantess hissed. “What are you doing? Why aren’t you wearing the uniform?” Glancing around nervously, she scooped Candy up off the floor and darted into the privacy of her own cubicle so the little human wouldn’t be spotted. 

Candy was startled from the sudden jarring movements but replied, “My work clothes were trashed yesterday so I couldn’t wear them.” The tight feeling in her gut grew worse when she saw Bianca was obviously panicking. 

“Shit,” Bianca mumbled. “Shit shit shit. We need to fix you up before the boss sees you.” She rifled through her desk drawer until she found a gigantic pair of scissors. The blades were massive, long, and sharp. 

“Whoa! What are you doing with those?” Candy cried out, taking a step back. 

“We need to modify your clothes. Maybe if you get lucky, Mr. Hardon won’t notice, or he’ll forgive your mistake if he sees you tried to rectify it,” Bianca explained. “Now hold still while I cut. I don’t want to accidentally slice you up.” 

Candy paled. “Is… is this really necessary?” She squeaked in fear and jumped back as the Giantess lowered the huge blades near her neck. “No no no, we can’t do it this way, you’ll cut my head off!” 

Bianca furrowed her brow in thought. “How about I’ll mark your clothes with a pen where we’ll need to cut them, and then you can take them off and I’ll modify them that way?” Candy found this arrangement acceptable, so she allowed Bianca to draw on her clothes with a felt-tip pen. She took off her shirt and watched as Bianca hacked off a big chunk of it with her scissors. She put on the shred of a shirt she had left, which barely covered her bra. Next went her skirt, which required at least a good six inches sliced off the bottom. As the Giantess cut through the fabric, both women started as they heard Mr. Hardon dangerously close by. 

“Bianca!” Mr. Hardon sang. “Biancaaaa!” Seconds before he emerged from around the corner, the Giantess grabbed Candy and without a second to lose stuffed her in her cleavage so she wouldn’t be seen.  

Bianca tried to act casual as she felt Candy squirming to get in a more comfortable position while sandwiched between her giant boobs. “What’s up?” she asked innocently, covering up her jiggling breasts with her arm while twirling a strand of her long black hair around her finger. 

“Since you’re right by the elevator, I figured I’d ask you. Have you seen that little caramel-flavored cutie around the office anywhere? Mr. Hardon questioned. “She’s going to be late if she doesn’t show up soon, and then I might have to give her a spanking!” He chuckled and winked. Bianca felt Candy go rigid with fear against her warm flesh. 

“Oh, you mean Candy? Um... I think she went to the break room. With how small she is, I hope she didn’t get lost on her way there, haha!” Bianca lied. 

“Never fear, if she’s lost I’ll be her Giant knight in shining armor and rescue her!” Mr. Hardon skipped off, calling, “Caaaaandy! Where are you, sweet little snack of mine?” 

Bianca sighed with relief and fished around in her enormous bra until she found Candy and pulled her out. “Sorry about that, Candy,” she apologized. “I didn’t have time to think of a better hiding spot.” 

“It’s... it’s okay,” Candy gasped, flustered. “At least you bought me some time.” Bianca set her on the desk so she could put on her newly modified skirt. “How do I look?” 

Bianca scrutinized her outfit. “It’s a bit rough, but better than before. We can’t do anything about your shoes, but maybe with your feet being so small, he won’t notice. He’s more into tits and ass anyways.” She gently lifted Candy up and placed her in her palm. “Here, I’ll take you to your desk so you don’t have to walk so far.” 

“Thanks for looking out for me, Bianca,” Candy said, leaning against her fingers. “I’d be in serious trouble without you!” 

“Of course! Us ladies have to stick together when we’re up against a monster like Dick Hardon!” Bianca proclaimed. “Although, don’t let him hear you call him Dick, he really doesn’t like that! Even if the name suits him, and everybody calls him that behind his back.” She giggled, and Candy joined in. “Good luck today, Candy.” She placed the human on her desk, then snuck off to her own cubicle before the boss caught sight of her. Candy booted up her computer and got to work. Confident that she had dodged another disaster, she typed with enthusiasm, dancing over the keys with her pen tips. Her arms were sore, but she was determined to get ahead today. She couldn’t afford any more mistakes. 

She became so absorbed in her tasks, in fact, that she failed to notice the inevitable approach of her Giant boss, until his dark shadow graced her desk again. She paused in her effort to drag her mouse across the mousepad and gazed up at his towering form nervously. 

“Candy,” he said in a serious tone. “I’m glad to see you.” She looked up at him but didn’t say anything, waiting to see what he wanted from her. He sat his enormous bulk in the Giant chair and leaned his elbow on the desk, with his chin resting on his hand. Without being conscious of her action, Candy backed up a step. “I was a little worried, when I didn’t see you this morning, that I scared you off.” 

Candy fidgeted with her hands. “I have to admit, I had some serious reservations about coming back. I almost didn’t, but I decided to give this place another chance.” She didn’t directly acknowledge the incident that had occurred yesterday, when he had been gross enough to lick her from her knees to her forehead. The whole thing was just too bizarre for her to talk about out loud. He seemed like he was on the cusp of apologizing; if he did, Candy decided she might be inclined to forgive him and sweep it all under the rug, with the condition that he restrain his urges from then on. 

Mr. Hardon, however, did not have a shred of integrity in his heart to offer any sort of apology for his intrusive, lascivious behavior. He believed himself to be entitled to do as he pleased within his kingdom of the third floor of Big Corp Inc., where he was lord and master over all. The women all belonged to him, in his eyes. He cupped his huge hand around Candy and drew her in closer. She stiffened but couldn’t resist against his superior strength and size. As he moved his head down to get a closer look at her, he squinted and frowned. 

“What’s with your outfit? That’s not the work uniform.” Candy froze up. He had noticed. “And those shoes... didn’t I tell you those weren’t appropriate for the office, and I didn’t want to see them again? Are you deliberately disobeying me?” His eyes narrowed and his lips curled. 

Candy gulped. “No, Mr. Hardon, I can explain-” She didn’t get a chance to finish as his huge fingers coiled around her, smothering her with the force of his iron grip. 

“Candy, I’m going to have to punish you!” he declared, his voice raising with anger. She writhed fruitlessly in his fist, too out of breath to make a sound. His fingers were crushing her lungs. He stood up out of his chair. From her position in the boss’s fist, Candy happened to spot Ronny a few desks over, sneering hideously at her with sadistic satisfaction. He knew what was coming next. Candy was terrified. Mr. Hardon transported her into his office, slamming the door behind him. 

Chapter 9

First Chapter

[wrienne]

My Cheating, Amnesic Fiancé

Chapter 13: New Lodging

“What’s happening?”

A male voice whispered almost directly behind you. You hadn’t noticed Jungkook rising and having approached you, and you almost bumped into him as you whipped about in surprise. You reacted at his shadowy shape instinctively, though fortunately, his reflexes were quick enough to get him out of harm's way.

“Do you always have to punch things?” he asked indignantly after he had dodged your fist.

“Don’t you know better than to sneak up on me?” you parried. “I gave you a nosebleed when we were on that Halloween event a couple years ago with our parents and you scared the living crap out of me.”

He furrowed his brows. “I don’t remember that,” he said.

His tone wavered only slightly, but it was enough for you to understand that the continuously rising fear he felt at not being able to recall something was tearing into him again. You pursed your lips, reprimanding yourself at your lack of tact, then shook your head. “I have pictures, I think. I can show you them later.”

“What’s outside?”

Your eyes narrowed in anger. “Paparazzi,” you almost spat. “An army of them.”

“Why are they here?”

“I’m not sure, though I do have an idea.” You went to your phone and made a specific Google-search with keywords like “Jungkook” and “accident”. You shook your head at the headlines that popped up, then muttered, “Your accident has been publicized. All the news sites want to know the juicy details about the Bangtan Boys’ ‘Golden Maknae’.”

Nobody had written about amnesia. Yet.

“‘Bangtan Boys’?” echoed Jungkook, raising his brows. “‘Golden Maknae’?”

“That’s your group and you, in respective order,” you said overly cheerily as you began pacing back and forth, trying to hatch a plan of action. You and Jungkook needed to get away from AMC as soon as possible, before more than just journalists would cluster the area. If curious individuals or zealous fans would start flocking there in addition to the press, you and Jungkook could be stuck for who knows how long. Not to mention, the two of you together wouldn’t conjure a particularly suitable image. The rumors surrounding you were obnoxious and annoying enough - especially considering the truth they once had posed - and now that he had cheated on you with Park Yi-Jae, you really did not want to be associated with Jeon Jungkook in any romantic way.

And of course, the most important part - the idiot was amnesic.

“Why ‘Golden’?”

“Don’t ask me,” you answered, perhaps unnecessarily harshly. “I mean, I don’t know. Nothing that rings a bell?”

“No.”

“Great,” you said sarcastically as you continued your brooding.

“Shit,” murmured Jungkook while peering through the blinds just as you had, albeit a bit higher up. He really had grown tall. “Why are they so many?”

“Didn’t I tell you this yesterday? You’re the biggest Kpop group at the moment. Everyone wants a piece of you.”

“It cannot be. I don’t believe it.”

There it was again. The fear. The fear of what had been, what he couldn’t wrap his mind around, what he didn’t know, yet affected him altogether. It flared stronger this time, changing Jungkook’s expression, voice - his whole demeanor, actually.

You couldn’t stand seeing him like that. Vulnerable, and so very alone.

“Get ready,” you told him as you began texting Jong-Yeol, then deleted everything you had written, deciding instead to call him. “We’ll be out of here soon.”

Jungkook looked at you, his features solemn. He had managed to restrain most of his dread, but you saw it brewing, struggling to break free again underneath his guise. And his eyes couldn’t lie to you. “Where are we going?”

“To our place,” you replied, your phone squeezed between your shoulder and your ear as you got into your boots. “My parents and yours are in Osaka at the moment, which probably is the reason why you haven’t been able to call yours. Though…” You frowned suddenly as you remembered what your parents had told you the day before. “...I think they might be within the borders. At least they were trying to find plane tickets back since yesterday noon.”

But where were they? Shouldn’t his parents already have gotten to the hospital by now? You might need to swallow your pride and hurt and call your parents later in the day in order to find out.

“Anyway,” you went on, redialing Jong-Yeol since he hadn’t answered you before the answering machine caught. “It also means we should have until Saturday to figure out where else you can live. Your parents don’t have a steady place in Seoul, right?”

Jungkook had been tying the laces of his brand boots when he looked up, a light frown tugging at his countenance. “Why can’t I just stay with you?”

“As much as it would make things easier,” you said, trying your best not to consider the sliver of warmth in your chest at his question, “I honestly think we might kill one another if we stay together at the same place for too long. Too long, meaning more than a day or two.”

“Want to make it a challenge?”

You regarded him closely, but his expression was unreadable. “Don’t want to sleep by yourself, do we?” you tried, curious of what reaction your taunt might produce. “Are you scared of the dark or something?”

“It’s not that, I--” He interrupted himself and averted his gaze. “Never mind.”

“No, tell me,” you insisted, though as softly as you could. You straightened and tried to catch his eyes.

He stood and inhaled deeply. “It’s just that--”

“(Y/F/N)?”

You regrettably had to hold up a finger to silence Jungkook. Did Jong-Yeol really have to answer his phone just when you thought you might hear something important about Jungkook, and from the source himself?

“I’m at Asan Medical Center,” you said as you turned away from Jungkook. “Could you be ready to pick us up outside the Starbucks just south from here? By the crossing you cussed out a taxi driver, who almost drove into our car? We’ll be there in ten.”

“‘We’?” repeated Jong-Yeol bemusedly, his tired voice immediately sharpening. “What ‘we’?”

“Jungkook and I,” you said while shrugging on your jacket. “The media have gotten hold of the accident and are just outside the hospital doors. We need to get him home, unseen, before the situation worsens”.

“Got it,” he said. “But I hope you’ve spoken to your parents about this.”

“Of course,” you lied.

“I’ll be there in fifteen.”

After gathering all your stuff, you went to discharge Jungkook at the front desk with help of the documents you had signed yesterday. You asked the nurse or administrator - or whatever her job title was accurately called - where you could find a more discreet way out of the hospital. She wouldn’t help you, eyeing Jungkook suspiciously, and the two of you found yourself stuck in the waiting room of AMC. You considered finding Doctor Lee, but found that her working hours ran from midday to late evening that day from a passing nurse. It wasn’t until you returned from a quick bathroom visit when you ran into the cleaning lady, who had kindly helped you dispose of Jungkook’s fried chicken. She helped you and Jungkook get out of a staff-only door at the side of the building, and you thanked her dearly. Soon you found yourself jogging down the street toward the Starbucks you had in mind, away from Asan Medical Center, with Jungkook by your side.

“Where’s your jacket?” you suddenly wondered as you noticed Jungkook wearing only the clothes you had brought him. It was really cold outside, probably below zero degrees Celsius, and you saw his skin pale in the chilly atmosphere.

“I don’t know,” he said. Both of your breaths escaped in white puffs. “Amnesic, you know.”

“I would have offered mine,” you began, “but it’s probably a bit small.”

“No, keep it,” said Jungkook in a neutral tone. “I wouldn’t want you to get a cold because of me.”

You snorted, even though you felt your heart rate increase. Though that might simply be because you were exercising, an act you tried to convince yourself to do more often. “What a gentleman.”

“Anything for you,” he said sarcastically, though a slight smile blunted the impact his tone would have had.

Even though you were aware that it was a joke of the simplest, most basic nature, you couldn’t help but smile back. And though it should have felt wrong, so very wrong in all kinds of ways, it didn’t. You didn’t know what that meant.

But he really shouldn’t say things like that.

You had spent your whole life in the heart of Seoul, and knew it well enough even around Asan Medical Center to be able to find the Starbucks. Also, in an emergency case, there was something as easy as Google Maps. Jong-Yeol found the two of you freezing by the time he arrived outside the shop, four minutes after you. You had offered Jungkook your gloves and a scarf you had stuffed into your purse, but it hardly helped against Seoul’s relentless winter gales. He was still pale and shivering in the car, though by the time you two reached your parents apartment, he at least didn’t look like a corpse anymore.

“I need to shower,” said Jungkook immediately as he took off your gloves and the scarf and placed them on a tiny bench you had in the hall. “I feel disgusting.”

“Be my guest,” you said while taking off your jacket and boots.

“I--”

“The first door to the left,” you told him.

Jungkook chuckled. “You waited for that,” he said.

“Not at all.” You saw a pile of canvas bags with his shoes and the body bag you had stuffed with his clothes occupy the hallway. You had instructed Jong-Yeol to merely dump them at your place yesterday, and now you needed to figure out where to put it all. Your parents apartment was expensive, needlessly expensive to be fair, and though it was spacious, it only had two bedrooms. When your parents had bought the place two years ago, the other two bedrooms had been refurnished and remodeled at your parents command into an extra office space and a relaxation room for your mother.

While pondering where Jungkook could put his stuff, you hadn’t noticed him not moving for a while. It wasn’t until he murmured something that you found him staring at himself in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors lining the western wall of the hallway.

“Is this really me?”

Jungkook was touching his face hesitantly, his brown, familiar eyes rounding in surprise as his fingers trailed the shape of his mouth, cheekbones, forehead and finally, jawline. He blinked, hard, but seemed just as surprised as before when he spotted his reflection. You couldn’t even imagine how it must have felt, seeing oneself after five years of blankness. He had grown up to be a good-looking guy, you couldn’t lie about that. And his years within the appearance-obsessed music industry had made him take extra care of his looks, melding him into the lean, beautiful youth you had witnessed on stage the day before yesterday.

You fleetingly wondered how it felt to touch his face.

“Yeah,” you then replied nonchalantly, approaching him. You managed to stop from blushing, but only barely by the time his gaze darted to you as you slowly entered his line of sight. “You grew up to become really ugly. Sorry - oh, and welcome to the club.”

“At least I have a big nose,” he said with a smile as he checked his profile. “And I grew.”

“You’ve always had a big nose,” you said, then frowned. “Didn’t you go to the bathroom even once in the hospital? How could you not have seen yourself before this?”

“They were changing the mirrors, I think,” he said. “All of them were removed.” He pulled slightly at his cheeks, and then his earlobes, which were adorned with silver earrings. “I didn’t think I would look like this when I grew up.”

“You can admire yourself later,” you told him, moving past him to get to the kitchen. The screen on the microwave said 6:19, which was around the normal time you rose every morning. “Get out of the shower in eight and I might have some oatmeal to share with you.”

“Oatmeal? Really?” You heard his smile bleed into his voice. “How old are you?”

“The same age as you,” you said grumpily as you rummaged your cupboards for the necessary ingredients. “Which means, if it’s sufficient for me, it’s sufficient for you.”

“Not really. But since you’re making me breakfast, I guess I have no choice but to humbly agree.”

You snorted. “That’s right.”

You thought you heard him chuckle again as he disappeared into the bathroom. Abruptly, you realized you hadn’t seen him smile, least of all heard him chuckle with you… ever. Okay, that might be a bit of a cruel estimate, but you frankly couldn’t conjure to mind the last time he hadn’t been absolutely infuriating or just straight up rude to you. As much as you hated to admit it, a small part of you couldn’t help but like the amnesic version of Jeon Jungkook more than his real self.

The self where he had cheated on you.

You were done with the oatmeal and had poured up some juice for both of you by the time you heard the bathroom door unlock. You placed each of your servings onto the island overhang and was just about to sit on the bar stool closest to you when you heard naked feet pad into the kitchen.

You frowned. When had Jungkook had the time to change? And how did he know his clothes were in the body bag?

“How did you know--” you began as you glanced over your shoulder.

And then you choked.

Because Jeon Jungkook had just walked into your kitchen - practically naked.

[nadeisdiary]

Edgar Valden X Hana Miyuki

.01

Hana was a beautiful woman who’s artist abilities blew everyone away, at least until Edgar Valden came along.

Not only was Hana’s face pretty, her personality was as well. She was bright, friendly, compassionate… all of those— which is why she quickly decided to greet him and his family.

Hana was rich, very, very rich. And so was Edgar, they were bound to get along then right? Haha… nah.

Edgar was stubborn and didn’t want anything to do with Hana. But Hana was stubborn as well. She kept coming over to Edgar’s house and spent time with him, eventually, he began warming up.

By warming up— I mean he began hating her around 2% less.

One day, he asked Hana to let him draw her which Hana happily agreed to, oh, how foolish of her.

She posed for a very long time and was very pleased with the portrait Edgar made of her, too pleased. His art was outstanding, much more than hers had ever been. She must have made a strange expression because Edgar asked her if something was wrong, which she replied .. “Oh, of course not! You’re very skilled, Valden. I am very impressed!” She said, earning a slight eye roll from Edgar.

Hana was a bit nervous at how good his art was but she couldn’t help herself falling for him, just a bit.

She adored his company, more than anything. She never spoke of her feelings towards him of anyone… anyone besides her older sister and her maid.

Her sister was Sumire Miyuki, a kind and funny soul. She believed Hana should make a move and that all would go well for her.

Her maid, however.. believed otherwise. Vanya Minsky believed her feelings were foolish and that romance would only damage her career as a famous artist. Hana was disappointed because Vanya had been her closest friend since she was a toddler.

Vanya and Sumire never got along, they were quite opposite of each other. Sumire’s appearance was very different than her parents, she was very tall, she had long and wavy blonde hair and green eyes, an upturned nose and a very prominent passion for dance.

Vanya was a medium height, she has gray shoulder length hair and blue eyes along with a button nose.

Hana, however, was unique compared to the both of them. She has straight black hair and bangs she keeps to the side, Hana has ocular albinism which makes her eyes appear pinkish gray. she’s quite short and has a symmetrical face.

Her childlike appearance caused her— let’s just say unpleasant experiences. But that’s not important right now! Hana had began losing fame, everyone was focused on Edgar’s art and how skilled he was.

Hana was angry, but she still loved him although it was unrequited. She could never be as mad as her parents were though, they were beyond furious. Her mother— Aia Miyuki lectured her and scolded her for not doing better. Her father spoke as well, but there was a cold and uneasy feeling around him.

Sumire comforted Hana as much as she could, Hana cried in her arms many times, every time she was brushed off by those who used to be her dearest fans. Hana was so focused on being cared for by Sumire that she didn’t notice Vanya was feeling rather excluded.

One day, Sumire began acting… off. It seemed like no one noticed it besides Hana. Suddenly on a beautiful afternoon at sunset, Sumire spoke. “I don’t feel well, I think I’ll go take a nap. Don’t enter, please.” Hana nodded her head and continued with her day.

Edgar had gone away, Hana stopped painting. She stopped finding a purpose in it after she was moved to second best. She had locked herself in her house for a very long time, although Edgar had stopped by many times… she never responded to his knocks on her door.

Hana didn’t know where Edgar went or why he went there, she didn’t care to listen.

A day has passed and Hana saw no sign of her sister, she grew worried. She was suddenly taken over by a feeling of anxiety and fear.

She gently opened the door… Sumire was hanging. Hana tried everything she could to save her but she knew her attempts weren’t doing anything.

Sumire’s death killed Hana Miyuki, Hana was forced to find solace in Vanya… but something had snapped. Her parents decided to blame her for Sumire’s fate without any reason.

Hana killed them, both of them. She lived in a house with their rotting corpses and was surprised when a few days later, she was invited to a manor. She would go underneath the title of “Artist” and Vanya received an invitation letter as well.

The “Maid” and “Artist” headed to the manor, on their way there.. Vanya had realized just how much her friend had changed. Her beautiful and silky black hair was greasy and unkept, her pinkish gray eyes were dull and full of rage.

——

They arrived at the manor.

Hana was uneasy, she hated being around so many strangers now. She sat down at a dining table along with Vanya as that’s where all the people were.

They were met with curious faces and they felt everyone staring into their souls— but Hana recognized a familiar face. Edgar Valden, so that’s where you’ve gone.

She shot him a dirty glare and he looked back at her with pure shock.