#I still 100% want to hear people's recommendations

[itsajollyjester]

I've had a few people say I should try and read every translation of the Odyssey

I regret to inform you that I tried that and it ended in me reading none of them

[donutz]

Catnap x reader fluff Alphabet[1/8]

—☆You are a smiling critter in this, if u want to know which one(but don't know what animal or insect to pick) you could start out as a sheep!

Affection(How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

— Before Catnap became the not so nice Catnap, he was very affectionate

— You would be by yourself and he would cuddle against you, he can get embarrassed but only when people(or toys) point it out

— He was an absolute sweetheart, and still somewhat is

— Before, he would rub his head against you, hold your hand, purr, y’know the way cats show affection

— Now, since he’s much bigger, he curls around you, he knocks over stuff right in front of you(to him that’s affection), he shows you the dead bodies of toys and humans, somehow that’s also how he shows it, it’s like a gift I guess??

— Like how cats bring their owners a dead mice

— He still purrs around you, but it’s a really distinct sound, you have to lean in a lot to hear it

Best friend(How would they be as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

— Before, he would approach you from time to time and just stare, it’s kinda his way of saying hi

— Now, uhm.. Depending on how you acted before ‘it’ happened you would, A) Be dead or B) Be nearly dead, or not, depending if you’re a heretic to him

— Before, he would BARELLYYY approach you, and this is before! You have to do it yourself, he’s a silent kitten

— After, as in when he was a lot more distant from the other critters, it would start from you approaching him, he wouldn’t ever approach you 

Cuddles(Do they cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

—Yall, this a cat we’re talking about

— Of course he would! Not all cats like to cuddle but they do like resting on their owners lap for the rest of their life

— Especially when you’re sleeping!

— He would ask permission to, but that way is him just staring at you while you’re asleep

— It was happening so often that you had to just straight up tell him

— “Catnap”.

— “?”

— “If you ever want to cuddle up to me when I’m sleeping, you can do so. You don’t need to stare at me okay?”

— “Ok-ay”.

— You gave him a hug after that, no hard feelings!!

Domestic(Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

— His name is Catnap, he loves settling down!

— While watching people!

— I wouldn’t recommend letting Catnap cook

— Especially since he’s flammable

— Some of you might get what I mean

— When it comes to cleaning? I’d say he’s decent. He kinda falls asleep or just stares at the floor and gets distracted

Ending(If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

— Catnap is a little boy ^_^

— The only type of ‘break up’ is killing you or stop talking to you

Fiance(How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

— I don’t know about the commitment part but!! ^_^

— In the, “Let’s get married when we’re older!” way, like child way, he would not mind having a child marriage

— Like little ring pops instead of rings that cost $1k!

Gentle(How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

— Before, he would listen to anything you had to say! You’re sad? Tell him about it! If you want

— As gentle as possible physically, wouldn’t say it, but would do it, like he wouldn’t say he’d be as gentle with you as possible

— In front of others

— Now, he would listen, but if you’re riding on his back or something

— He needs to ‘take care’ of the place y’know?!

— Physically, he needs to try even harder to be gentle, like with his paws when he’s grabbing you

Hugs(Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

— He gets a little confused, but he will 100% accept it!

— He will have a big smile on his face!

— He mainly does it when he’s tired, but if he does it randomly it will be a quick one, or a long one, but that’s pretty rare

— His hugs are very comforting! Especially when you’re sad

— His lavender scent is the best.

— One time it made you fall asleep when you guys were having a long hug

I love you(How fast do they say the L-word?)

— RARE, THAT IS SO RARE

— You try your hardest to record it

— Before, if someone said to say it to you, he’d get a little shy but say it quietly

— He says it out of nowhere!

— You’re never able to catch it :(

— Now? Uhh, It’d take a few minutes but he’d muster it out eventually

Jealousy(How jealous do they get? What do they do when they're jealous?)

— I saw this headcanon in where he’d get jealous unless it was with DogDay and I HIGHLY agree with that(creds to lovelybee666, if you’re reading this on Wattpad, they’re on Tumblr ^_^)

— He can get jealous, depending on how the other person or toy interacts with you

— If they’re all touchy, he’ll drag you away when they’re not looking

— Then he just stares at you as if saying, “Explain. Now.”

— He’s not thattt possessive but he can get reallyyyy jealous

— Then you’ll ‘explain’ and he’ll just chill with you for an hour or so before you can go back to them

Kisses(What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

— Sooo since his mouth is permanently a smile I have no idea on how it happens

— But what I imagine is that he uses his top ‘lip’ and gives you a smooch like that

— He likes ‘kissing’ you on the cheek

— He sometimes ‘kisses’ you on the forehead but all you see(if you’re not closing your eyes) is just darkness

— He would like forehead kisses I think

— Makes him feel all special

— But after ‘it’, if you did do that he’d stand still for a sec then sit down and rub his gigantic head on you

Little ones(How are they around children?)

— Not in the ‘having kids way’ since it says little ones, but I don’t think he’d be very active with the kids

— Unless it’s time to sleep

— He’s like a night guard it’s kinda terrifying

Morning(How are mornings spent with them?)

— Catnap never knows if it’s morning.

— But there is kind of an alarm that ‘wakes him up’

— I know this isn’t morning like but he sleeps throughout the day

Night(How are nights spent with them?)

— Adding to what I said, he rarely sleeps at night

— But if he does, he’ll be so cuddly!

— It’s so cute

— He purrs in his sleep

Open(When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

— He wouldn’t

— If you asked?

— You’d have to ask a lot, before and after the incident

— It will take a long while for him to open up about everything

— It’s like how games slowly make certain parts to it so they can reveal more lore

Patience(How easily angered are they?)

— Can get angry if you actually ignored him

— He just stares at you if he gets angry, if he’s angry because of you

— You can kinda see it in his eyes

— Like you could be mad at him for killing nearly all the smiling critters and just ignore him

— He will follow you wherever you go, then you pick you up by the back of the neck with his mouth(somehow) and take you to the thing that he knows will make you happy

— After a while, he’ll take you to his sleeping area, y’know(unless you don’t) the one that’s on the right of you before you meet Dogday

— And then it’s time to sleep

Quizzes(How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

— Catnap will most likely remember everything about you

— His memory is very good

— You could mention your favorite color and he’ll remember it if you ask him, even 5 years later

— He'd rememeber every detail

Remember(What is their favorite moment in the relationship?)

— The time you still loved him even after the hour of joy.

Security(How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

— Very, he would see a tiny spike and use his paw to pry you away from it

— He’d pick you up from the back of your neck, use his paw, protect you with his body, or just absolutely destroy what would hurt you

— He wouldn’t mind you protecting him

— But please, he can do it himself

— I bet he won’t even get scared at a cucumber

Try(How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

— You guys don’t have dates

— But before, if you did, there would be a little table with a yarn knitted candle, with Catnap in a suit while you’re in whatever you wanna wear

— And then you start talking because Catnap is never the type to start conversations

— Anniversaries?

— “Ann-ver-sary..”

— “Huh?”

— He gave you a paper

— ‘Happy Aniversairy’

— His spelling was a little off but that was okay, plus he added little hearts!

— His gifts is dead stuff

— Or, your favorite objects!

— Like your favorite flowers, pencil, doll, anything he can find will be a gift!

Ugly(What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

— How he can just not interact with you for a whole day

— Having Dogday hung up even though you tell him everyday to stop having him there

— You’d do it yourself

— But both Catnap and Prototype won’t like that

— You don’t care about Prototype but you do for Catnap

— You’ve tried convincing Dogday to just side with the two

— Multiple times

— But Dogday always goes silent

Vanity(How concerned are they with their looks?)

— He does NOT care ^_^

Whole(Would they feel incomplete without you?)

— If he killed you, and you were someone really important to him, I’d think he’d be bummed for the longest time

— He’d even zone out when Prototype would be instructing him

Xtra(A random head cannon for them.)

— Love language is maybe slightly physical touch, but gift giving is his go to

Yuck(What are some things they wouldn't like, either in general or in a partner?)

— When you yell at him

— When you ignore him

— You going against Prototype

— How you ‘pester’ him about Dogday

Zzz(What is a sleep habit of theirs?)

— You know when he had his cardboard cutout? Yeah, he snores, loud.

— But it happens only sometimes

— Most of the time he’s purring

[bitch-for-bo]

The Better Brother (artist! Matsukawa x chubby fem reader) 18+

miss me? ;)

NSFW; MINORS GTF OUTTA HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!

TW: you're a cheater BUT you only cheat on a cheater asshole AND we support women's wrongs :))))

summary: Your fiancé leaves you across the ocean to sort out this whole 'wedding' thing all by yourself. Well.... lets just say that YOU get sorted out instead ;).

(((((((((loosely based on the movie Moonstruck (heavily recommend!!!!))))))))))

“Married?....... You want to get married?......to me?” 

You wondered what you looked like at the moment, you wondered if your eyes were bugging out of your head or if your jaw looked completely locked in its unhinged position.

 It definitely felt like they were. 

It felt like your whole world had just come crashing down around you. All because of those 4 little words. 

“Why not? You’ve taken care of me for the last 5 years, I want to take care of each other for the rest of our lives.” 

…..this wasn’t a part of your plan. 

You didn’t quite know what your life plan was…. But it definitely wasn’t this.

“Why now?” you whisper, noticing that for every second you didn’t answer your boyfriend with an ecstatic yes, another restaurant patron's eyes locked onto you. You could feel your face growing hot with embarrassment and yet you still couldn’t blindly accept this proposal, not without knowing why.

“Why not now?” he asked, taking your hands into his. You could see the sweat starting to form on his hairline, the anxiety of public rejection becoming apparent in his tone as you worked to avoid his gaze. 

Why not now? 

Does he not hear himself? Why not now?

“I just-” you stuttered out, taking your hands back into your own laps, wiping the moisture off your palms against your thighs. 

“-Just hear me out!” He cut you off, perhaps a bit too loudly as well, seeing as the crowd of nosy spectators seemed to be inconspicuously growing by the second. He looked frazzled, in fact, this might have been the most affected that you’d ever seen him. Usually, he was the cool-headed one, the blasé, jaded businessman. But now he sat, his voice raising with each word, face red with humiliation. He looked panicked, far too panicked for the situation. 

“My mother…” He started, clearing his throat, trying to collect himself before he could make a fool of himself in public. 

Ahh… his mother

you thought….. That was obviously why he was so panicked. That was why he was asking you this all of the sudden. 

His mother was pressuring him.

Well, the joke is on him, you’re not gonna give in just because of the wishes of his mother. 

“....My mother is dying.”  

If your eyes weren’t bulging out of your head before, they definitely were now. 

“w-What- when?..... Oh god….” you gasped, the guilt automatically washing over you as you watched your partner's face melt into worry, his brows knitting together as you brought your hands back onto the table to envelope his. 

“They called me this morning…. They asked me if I could fly back home to….. ya know?” 

“Of course..” you nodded, “you need to be with her right now…. Have you booked your flight yet? Should I try to book it now?” 

Now listen…. It was a serious situation. And a horrible one at that, and you were 100% devoted to getting your partner home to his dying mother. But you couldn’t deny that you were also trying to steer the conversation back away from marriage. 

But he wasn’t going to let you forget. 

“Darling please….” he sighed, squeezing your hands in his, “my mother, she once told me that all she wants in this world… all she wants… is to see me happy… to see me married. And I want you to marry me.” 

“God….” you sighed “I just….. You’re sure you want me?...” 

He nods, holding your gaze. 

It felt like his eyes were melting into your face. And if that wasn’t bad enough, there were still a good handful of people burning holes into your back. They were all expecting an answer. 

Not only that, they were expecting a particular answer. An answer you weren’t sure that you were ready to give.

But for god's sake, the man’s mother was dying, and he pretty much made it sound like her dying wish was for her son to marry. If you said no now you’d be a monster. 

Against your better judgment, you glanced around the restaurant, your eyes meeting the eager gazes of not only fellow patrons but staff as well.  God, was that a tray of champagne waiting??

After scanning the room, your eyes finally made it back to the man who just asked you to marry him. 

“Yes.” you whispered, offering him a small, unsure smile. 

A smile that he returned tenfold, announcing to the restaurant, “she said yes!” prompting applause and congratulatory champagne. 

He slipped the ring onto your finger, kissing your hands as you sat and watched him with that same small smile on your face. 

“Now of course, I’ll have to fly out to my mother, but we should get married as soon as possible.” He said, dropping your hands to take a long drink of champagne. “I trust you want to organize the wedding?”

So much was happening, staff was swarming around you, pouring drinks and grabbing your hand to inspect the ring, and the restaurant chatter had resumed, and somehow along the way a violinist had been called in to serenade you as well. 

You felt like your brain was being torn into 5 different pieces, all equally painful and all equally taxing.

You couldn’t even answer his question before he’d moved on in the conversation, rambling about flight times, how long he’d be staying, and who was going to fill in for him at work.

You were definitely overstimulated by the complete chaos surrounding you, but you told yourself it would be okay, that you could just zone out until he eventually tired and decided to drag the both of you home for the night. 

Were you ready to get married? Hell no! But what were you supposed to do? 

God, what would your parents say about this? Marrying a man nearly 20 years your senior. Did you love him? Of course!

….well…..maybe…… you definitely felt a strong connection with him……. so then what was this dread?

It was just anxiety. It had to be. After all, you had never planned to get married in the first place. You’d seen one too many marriages fail, one too many couples grow to hate each other and you’d sworn it off. 

It wasn’t that you hated marriage in particular, you’d seen plenty of happily married people, you suppose it was just the fact that in your mind, it was impossible for you to be one of those happily married people.

You’d never been good at relationships. In fact, your current relationship had been eerily long. Usually, something would’ve happened by now. You would’ve walked in on him cheating, or you would’ve woken up to all of his stuff gone. But that hadn’t happened yet. 

So maybe it was love, you told yourself. Maybe he was the love of your life and you were ready to get married. 

After all, 5 years is a crazy long time, right? 

Far too long to stay with a man you didn’t love……right?

What had you gotten yourself into? 

Within the week, your now fiance had booked a flight out to his home city, leaving you behind with a long wedding to-do list. 

On the positive side, after your initial dread spiral, you were feeling much better. You reminded yourself that everything happened for a reason and that there was no reason that your marriage couldn’t be any less fulfilling than the last five years had been.

You reminded yourself that your partner had stuck with you for five years, that kind of stuff doesn’t just happen to people who aren’t ready for marriage. 

Anyways, you felt much better….. Happy even. 

Your parents definitely could’ve taken the news of you marrying an older man…… better….. But at the end of the day, they admitted that as long as you were happy… they were too. 

In all honesty, you think that they were mostly just relieved that you found someone to marry you. 

Your family would never say it out loud, but you often thought that none of them believed you would ever find someone to be with. Deep down you felt like your parents always betted on your siblings for things like inlaws and grandchildren.

And you couldn’t blame them necessarily. You weren’t the conventional definition of beauty (a fact that all of your exes had brought to your attention sooner or later) and you definitely didn’t have low standards.

This meant that you forever lived in a limbo of never being “good enough” or “pretty enough” but never being willing to settle. So where did that leave you? 

Alone. 

Alone until you found your fiance. 

To be honest, it was rough at first. He was this bigshot investor that was only slightly younger than your father and for some reason, he’d taken an interest in you, his (used to be) intern. 

At first, you ignored the attention, young and uncomfortable with the idea that an older man could find you desirable. In your field, you were used to all of the finance bros, who wanted you in the bedroom but never in public.

But slowly, as he managed to worm his way into your daily schedule, you found yourself warming up to him. He’d walk past your desk each day, sometimes leaving you a coffee with a little winking face drawn on the side, sometimes he would smooze as you took the elevator with him, but most of the time it was him just making small comments along the lines of “you take care of me so well,” or “I’m lucky to have you looking out for me” which slowly transitioned into “i love the way you take care of me” and “am I lucky enough to take you to dinner” 

Before you knew it, five years had passed. And while you’d technically never defined your relationship in words, or moved in with each other, or even met each other's families, you still thought of yourselves as dating…. well……engaged now. 

You looked down at the to-do list that sat on the cafe table. Most of it was fairly straightforward, arrange the flowers, get the caterer, cake-tasting, wine-tasting, the list went on.

The one bullet point on the list that definitely wasn’t straightforward was the last one. 

Invite Matsukawa 

Apparently, your beloved fiance had an estranged brother. A younger brother whom he hadn’t spoken to for the last 10 years. 

An estranged brother that you were in charge of tracking down and inviting to your wedding. 

What could possibly go wrong? 

He was a fucking mortician. 

That's what could go wrong. 

Your fiance had given you a little bit of background on his brother, and from the sounds of it, he seemed to be a fairly normal person. But come on…. How many normal people were morticians? 

But nevertheless, you had told your fiance that you would do it. You would do it so that he could reunite with his brother and restore their relationship. Would it be a little weird for you? Yes. But it seemed that recently you’d been kicked out of your comfort zone, and apparently weren’t allowed back in. 

So you’d looked up the address to the funeral home Matsukawa worked at, and decided that your goal for the day was to somehow convince him to come to his brother’s wedding. 

Now all you had to do was work up the nerve to go in and actually talk to him. 

You glanced out of the cafe’s window at the funeral home. 

It’s not like it was overwhelmingly off-putting. It looked crisp and clean, a great place to bring your recently lost loved one……. But that didn’t mean it didn’t still give you the heebie-jeebies. 

You looked back down at your coffee. There was probably only a sip or two left, which meant that you could no longer put this off. 

Hesitantly, you left the coffee shop, holding your almost empty coffee cup as a shield of sorts as you approached the front doors of the funeral home. 

You opened the doors. 

It was quiet.

As to be expected. 

You walked up to the empty reception desk, inspecting it for some kind of bell or button to alert someone of your arrival, but much to your dismay there was no such thing. 

You looked around you, there wasn’t much to see in the lobby area, an expensive-looking rug, a nice velvet-covered loveseat, and a couple of potted plants…. Other than that there really wasn’t-

“-Fucking christ!” you gasped, jumping at the sight of a man's disembodied head peering through an open cut out in the wall.

You clutched your chest, trying to recover as he simply watched you, not even bothering to move. All the man did was grin at you, having the audacity to chuckle at your display of fright. 

“Shit…” you breathed, turning your back to the man while trying to regain the quickly diminishing confidence that you had, you know, the confidence that was barely there to begin with. 

A couple of deep breaths later, you decided that you felt stable enough to face the mystery man again. Now that the initial surprise/fear had passed, only dread and a smidge of anger remained. 

Like, who the fuck would do that?? For all they know, you were a prospecting customer who’d just lost a loved one and you were greeted with the harrowing sight of a man’s head in a window. 

You turned around, not sure if you should demand an apology, or issue one, when you were greeted with the sight of perhaps the prettiest man you’d ever seen. 

Yes, he was the same weird man that had literally just pretended to be a severed head, but hey… first impressions were rough. 

You opened your mouth to speak, still unsure of what to say, but thankfully, he spoke first. 

“Sorry about that, it’s never gone over well and yet I keep trying.” 

Wow his voice was deep, but not deep like ‘trying to be deep’ or even like ‘just woke up deep’ it was just… deep. 

It was nice. 

You were engaged. 

Why was that so hard to remember? 

You let out a small laugh before clearing your throat. 

“Well, it was… interesting, I’ll give you that.” 

He gave you another lopsided grin, but said nothing, forcing you to try and remember why you walked into the building in the first place. 

Fiance’s brother. Right. 

“Anyways, I’m here today because I’m looking for Maksukawa, is he working today?”

“Is something wrong” he asked, a much more acceptable mask of professionalism slipping over his features. You shifted from heel to heel, wondering if you should really tell this man about your fiance’s private family life. 

“Nope, just here to talk with him.” you settled on that. Surely you wouldn't be asked for more. 

“How do you know him?” 

Of fucking course you’d be asked for more. Because having things go your way is just too much to ask. 

“Oh, I’m just his brother’s fiance.” you said, trying to keep your voice light and unworried. 

But as soon as you said it, the man’s eyebrows shot up and his jaw (which was gorgeously sharp) became set. 

And while that reaction was a little weird, and definitely raised a little suspicion, you decided to ignore it and press forward. 

“You see, I’m here to invite him to the wedding on behalf of my fiance.” You took a step closer to the desk that the man had retreated behind as you said it, trying your best to keep your shoulders squared and the pep in your step. 

“He’s not interested.” the man, who had been nothing if not good-natured up till now, turned away, affirming your suspicions. 

“You’re Matsukawa aren’t you?” 

He ignored you and instead turned to head back through a set of swinging doors behind him, leaving you slack jawed and speechless. 

Your partner had warned you of his brother’s standoffishness, but when you’d asked about why they hadn’t talked in 10 years, you received no clear answer. But judging by the way Matsukawa just left you in the dust, something big must’ve happened. 

Nevertheless, you weren’t one to step down from a fight, no matter how scared or uncomfortable you were, so you followed him through the back doors into a little room with lockers lining the wall.

“I’m right, right? You’re Matsukawa?” 

His back was facing you as he closed the door to his locker, his shoulders were definitely tensed but not nearly as much as one would expect considering the fact you were definitely not allowed back here, a rule which you rudely defied. 

“My friends call me Issei.”

“Okay Issei, I’m here to-” 

He turned towards you, his eyes flicking over your body once, before cutting you off. 

“I said my friends, not some kid who's marrying my bastard brother.” 

Once again, your jaw dropped. What the fuck was it about these brothers making you at a complete loss for words? 

“Excuse me?” 

Seriously, did their mother not raise them properly? 

Their mother. That’s why you were there. Their mother is dying and her dying wish was for her son to be married. 

You didn’t give him a chance to respond before continuing before you lost your nerve. 

“Listen, I’m just here to invite you to the wedding. I’m not sure what went down between you and your brother, but I do know that he wants you at our wedding. Anyways, he’s family and family forgives each other, so please just take this.” 

You held out the RSVP invitation to Issei, you set your jaw firmly and squared yourself in front of him, showing him that you wouldn’t tuck your tail and run. 

He looked you up and down again. You tried not to focus on how his gaze made your stomach flip and your ears burn. 

“How old are you?” He asked, his eyes landing on the invitation pinched between your prettily manicured fingers. 

“Does it matter?” 

Issei’s eyes traveled up your wrist to your arm, then shoulder, then neck, before finally landing on your face. He grinned at the look on your face, because while it was clear you were trying to keep a fire in your eyes, you were just about as intimidating as a puppy. 

“It does.” 

“Can I ask why?”

Issei took a step forward, narrowing the distance between the two of you until there was only a couple of inches. 

“Because I know how old my brother is, and I wanna know why a girl who was in diapers when he was joining a frat is standing in front of me, saying she’s his fiance.” 

Your eyes, which had been locked on his, standing your ground, flicked to the ground. 

“So what is it, the money? The house? Did he accidentally knock you up? Let me guess, he’s your boss and you just wanted to stay his favorite, you didn’t even mean to get that drunk at the company party. Is that it? Or did you-” 

Before you knew what was happening, you’d already reached your hand between the two of you and slapped Issei across the face. 

For the first time since you’d met him, that stupid grin was gone, and in its place a look of surprise. You spoke before he could.

“Listen here,” you said in a low tone, trying to keep your voice from shaking due to the adrenaline flooding through your body,

“You don’t know me. You’ve never met me, never talked to me, and you sure as hell have never gotten close enough for me to disclose jack shit to you, much less how I met and got involved with your brother. I get that you guys don’t like each other, but that is no fucking reason to get pissy with me. In fact, how dare you talk about me like that? It doesn’t matter if your brother wronged you a thousand times over, you have no right to talk to me in that disgusting manner.” 

You stopped to take a breath, closing your eyes so that you wouldn’t see Issei and chicken out of your speech.

“Now. I’m leaving, and I’m leaving you with the invitation to this stupid fucking wedding. You can come or not, I don’t care. Goodbye.” 

Before he could respond you turned on your heel and fled back through the set of double doors, back into the safety of the main lobby. Once you were on the street again, you let yourself slow down, releasing the breath you’d been subconsciously holding. 

You couldn’t believe that you’d done that, it was almost like you’d blacked out. You really couldn't even remember what you’d said. Oh god, hopefully you didn’t say anything too rash. 

Even if Issei deserved it, he was your partner’s brother…..

….maybe you were too harsh. 

You scolded yourself as you walked down the street, trying as best as you could not to look like a crazy person, muttering to yourself as you made your way back to your apartment.

The guilt and worry of what you’d said and how you’d behaved was eating at you. Did Issei deserve to be slapped? Yes! 100 fucking percent he deserved it. 

But still…. 

If he hated his brother before you’d done that, he most definitely hated him even more now. 

Maybe, you thought as you laid down to sleep, you could try and go by the funeral home tomorrow to smooth things over. 

Maybe you could use the stress of the wedding as an excuse to why you’d slapped him, yeah…that was a good idea. 

…or at least the best idea you had.

And while you tossed and turned with guilt over slapping your fiance's younger, very good-looking brother, Issei was in a similar boat.

Well… kind of. 

He didn’t necessarily feel guilty over how he treated you. He was just being honest, there was no way in hell he’d attend his lousy brother’s wedding, that bastard could apologize a thousand times over for what he’d done and Issei still wouldn’t forgive him. 

No, what he did feel guilty about though is the fact that he pretty much blew any chance he had of seeing you again. 

If Issei was a better person he’d feel guilty about his feelings for you, fortunately he never claimed to be one. 

He’d given up on sleeping hours ago, the only thing that closing his eyes got him was visions of you. The look on your face when you scolded him, the sting that your palm had left against his jaw. 

And christ your body….

If Issei had believed in God, you were definitely her. 

He could drown in you if you’d only let him.

So without any other way to soothe himself or fall asleep, he drank. A little too much if he’s being honest. So much that he didn’t even care when his neighbors slammed on his walls to tell him to turn his records down. 

He preferred to sulk this way. That was what he was doing, sulking over a beautiful woman that he’d never see again, over a woman who was going to marry his brother, his enemy. 

And as the night went on, the bottle of booze in his hand emptied further, until he nearly saw double as he worked on anything to distract himself from thoughts of you. 

Perhaps when he said you were God he meant the opposite, God could never plague him like you were. You were a devil, a devil committed to his devil brother…. The thought made him feel a little better. Not much of course. 

He eventually called into work, leaving some half-ass excuse on their answering machine as to why he wouldn’t be coming in that day, before dragging himself to bed. He was drunk enough to sleep, but not drunk enough to escape dreams of you.

The next morning, bright and early, you stood outside of the funeral home with two fresh coffees in hand and an optimistic smile on your face. Today was the day that you would convince Issei to come to the wedding if it was the last thing you did. 

To be honest, you were completely ready to give up and tell your fiance that his brother had died some terrible death within the last 10 years, but as soon as you’d heard his voice over the phone, asking if you’d been able to convince Issei yet, you chickened out of it. 

You didn’t know if you were just feeling extra sentimental or if it was your fiance whining about how now that his mother is dying, family is the most important thing, but you now stood on the sidewalk in front of Issei’s workplace with a renewed vigor and immovable stubbornness. 

You walked into the building, scanning the lobby, making sure that Issei wasn’t pretending to be a floating head again. 

You frowned at the sight of an empty lobby, walking slowly up to the desk as if you were expecting the gorgeous mortician to jump out at you at any moment. 

“Hello?” you called out, trying to crane your neck to look through the small windows of the double set of doors that you’d been through yesterday. 

“Hi there!” you heard a new voice come from a different direction. 

When you turned your head, you were slightly disappointed to find an unfamiliar young woman, dressed in black, smiling as she walked behind the desk to help you. 

“Hello,” you replied, trying to hide your disappointment with a small smile, “I’m looking for Matsukawa, is he here?” 

“He actually called in sick today, I’m sorry.” 

Your shoulders must’ve sagged a little because the woman looked at you curiously, her eyebrow raising.

“Can I ask why you’re asking for him?” 

“Oh it’s nothing,” you sighed, “I’m just engaged to his brother and I’m supposed to convince him to come to the wedding. We got off on the wrong foot yesterday so I thought I’d swing by today and try again.” 

The look of shock on the woman’s face was enough to make you straighten your back and hold your coffee a little closer to your body. She must’ve noticed your discomfort as she quickly apologized. 

“Sorry, I just totally didn’t expect that to be the reason…. I feel really bad telling you this, but I don’t think you should waste any time on that. Issei hates his brother.” 

So Issei’s coworker knows what happened but you don’t? Was your fiance trying to set you up for failure???

“Well, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened?” 

A look came over the woman’s face, that look that says ‘I’m not supposed to be talking about this, but I absolutely LOVE talking about it’. She leaned over the counter, gesturing you to lean in closer. 

“Ten years ago, Issei was engaged to this woman, beautiful girl, a real pretty lady, they’d met in school and decided to get married young so they could start having kids. So one day, Issei gets off work a little early, so he decides to surprise her at her place, and what does he find when he gets there? His brother, buck-naked in her bed.” 

“No!” you gasped, horrified at the image of your fiance home-wrecking his brother. 

“Yes! So Issei’s pissed right? Screaming and throwing shit everywhere, his fiance’s crying, the neighbors are yelling, and what does his brother do?” 

The look of suspense on your face was prominent enough to make the woman behind the desk grin as she paused in dramatic effect. 

“He tells Issei that it’s been going on for months and that they’re running off together.” 

“What?” you scoff, leaning back away from the woman in awe. 

You couldn’t believe what you’d heard. Is that really the kind of man you were about to marry? 

“Worst part about it, is that since Issei’s so much younger than his brother, the girl wasn’t any older than 20 while Issei’s brother was nearly thirty six!”

“So what happened?” You asked, feeling slightly faint at the overwhelming amount of information you’d received. 

“Nothing, Issei was heart broken, his brother ran off with his girl and there was nothing he could do about it. That’s why they haven't talked in 10 years. And from the sound of it, the whole family took the brother’s side so now Issei doesn't talk to them either.” 

You wondered if you looked like a gaping fish at the moment as you grappled with yourself, trying to find words to say. You couldn't believe that your fiance could do something so heinous. 

He stole the love of his brother’s life, and obviously it never went further than an affair because he’d never even mentioned his ex to you.

Of course, now that you thought about it, he didn’t mention much of anything to you. 

The woman must’ve seen the turmoil on your face and taken pity on you because she reached under the desk and pulled a sticky pad and pen out and started jotting things down. 

“Anyways, I’m just gonna give you his address, it’s not too far from here. Swing by if you're brave enough, but now that you know the history, you can’t blame him if he doesn’t wanna talk to you.” 

You nodded and thanked her as she handed you the sticky note. 

“Now that I know, the only thing I feel is guilty about how I treated him yesterday.” you looked up at the woman, offering a grateful smile “thank you for telling me.” 

She waved you off as you began leaving the lobby, “Don’t mention it, I hope everything works out the way it should!” 

With one last thank you, you left the funeral home and started off down the street towards Issei’s apartment. With the newfound knowledge of the brother’s history you now realized that asking Issei to come to the wedding was like asking him to reopen old wounds.

And hell, with what you just found out you weren’t sure you wanted to marry this guy anymore. You know what they say, once a cheater, always a cheater. Could you really trust that he hadn’t done the exact same to you in the last five years? 

Anyways, the very least you could do now was apologize to Issei and hope that the two of you could treat this like water under the bridge. 

So that’s where you’d gotten to where you were. Sitting at his kitchen table as you watched him nurse his hangover with the coffee you brought him and a plate of breakfast that you’d cooked for him. 

You watched as he poked at the eggs with his fork. 

“Sorry, I didn’t know how you liked them.” you apologized, your voice coming out much squeakier than indentinded. But based on the fact that you were sitting across from perhaps the most gorgeous man you’d ever met who still had bed head and was only sporting a loose fitting pair of black sweatpants, you’d say you were doing pretty good at keeping your voice calm. 

“No, they’re good… thank you..” Issei muttered, keeping his eyes on his plate. He couldn’t look up at you right  now. 

The first thing he’d woken up to this morning was you knocking on his door, and normally that wouldn't have been so bad. In fact, he could think of few things better than the sight of a pretty girl waiting for him on his doorstep. The only reason he didn’t enjoy your early morning visit was because it gave him no time to take care of his raging morning wood, which was significantly worse than usual thanks to you being the star of his dreams the night before. 

He glanced up from his plate, trying to sneak a glance at you as you concerned yourself with the view from his kitchen window.

You were even more stunning in the morning light, the sun outlining the soft curve of your chin as you smiled at the city's skyline.

He looked back down at his breakfast, not nearly as appetizing as the sight sitting across from him. 

“Anyways,” you said, breaking the silence as you watched him near the end of his breakfast, clearing the plate of the last slice of toast. “I wanted to come by and apologize for how I acted yesterday, I was-” 

Before you could even finish the apology, he held a hand up to stop you. 

“Don’t even mention it, I was out of line.” 

You frowned as he got up to put his plate in the sink behind him. 

“Okay….” you said, unsure of how to approach the next topic, “well, I also wanted to talk to you about the wedding,” 

As soon as the word ‘wedding’ came out of your mouth you saw his (very nicely built) back tense. So you rushed to finish the sentence as fast as you could to prevent him from completely shutting you out. 

“But-more-importantly-I-wanted-to-apologize-for-what-your-brother-did-to-you…”

“What?” 

You saw the tick in his jaw and the stern look on his face as he turned towards you. You couldn't help but shrink in on yourself a little, this was the first time you’d seen him as anything but aloof, and to say it was… intimidating… was an understatement. 

Hot?.... Yes definitely… but also very intimidating. 

“Why would you apologize for that?” 

It was a fair question, especially considering that you were also starting to have the sneaking suspicion that you were a victim of infidelity as well. Just because you never caught it, doesn’t mean it never happened.

“I just-” 

“-You know what,” he cut you off, holding a palm up to you, “why don’t you let me get cleaned up a little and then I can take you somewhere a little nicer to talk about this.” 

Your eyes widened and you felt your face start to heat up at the idea of “going somewhere” to “talk” with this man. 

You dreaded what he meant by ‘clean up’, the idea that he’d be showering with only a door or a room, at most, between you was making you ashamedly wet. 

You could only pray that Issei didn’t notice the way you unconsciously squirmed in your seat.

And lucky for you, he didn’t. He was far too busy trying to figure out how to get himself to his bathroom without you noticing the sizable tent he could feel beginning to pitch. The only thing helping calm him down from being in the same room as you was the painful reminder that you were his brother’s fiance, along with the mention of what his brother had done to him 10 years ago. 

“Okay. I’ll just wait here” you said, nodding as you focused your gaze on your lap, desperately trying to hide your look of embarrassment from Issei as he walked past you to his bedroom. 

He closed the door with some kind of ‘make yourself at home’ comment, but once again, you were too preoccupied with your own arousal and ergo embarrassment to reply.

It was only when you’d calmed down a bit did you get up and explore the living room of his apartment. You were surprised to find it littered with not only human anatomy books and atlases (which was to be expected considering his career) but also with books filled with art, and even sketchbooks filled with what you assumed to be his own drawings. 

In fact, now that you were looking closer, you could tell that Issei was something of an artist as well, the biggest hint being an easel and half-painted canvas in the corner of the room. 

You couldn't help yourself, and went to inspect the work. When you got closer you could see the faint sketch lines on the canvas, and when you looked up from the painting to the window that it faced you saw the pieces of paper taped to the window, references for the painting. 

You wanted to say that the painting of the woman was embarrassing. You wanted to say that the sketches of her nude body were scandalous, but you couldn't help but fixate on the beauty of Issei’s work. 

The drawings made you feel warm inside, they made you feel seen. 

If you squinted, the woman in the drawings almost looked like what you saw when you looked in the mirror. Of course you’d never seen anyone like yourself depicted in any art, so the feeling was definitely new but for some reason, you couldn't stop the warmth that started in your chest from traveling down to rest between your thighs. 

And the more you looked at the drawings, the worse it got, as you noticed more sketches, some having the plus size woman drawn in different lewd poses, her curves almost highlighted due to the morning light coming through the paper. 

You got so lost in the art that it almost felt like you were the woman in the drawings and that you could feel Issei watching you… memorizing your shape so that he could sketch you. 

Your whole body was on fire as your fingers brushed against the papers on the window, tracing the figures outlines with one hand while gliding across your own outline with the other. 

Normally you wouldn’t be caught dead acting like this, but it was like Issei’s work had you in a trance. The art mixed with the idea that there was a wet and very naked Issei less than 20 feet away from you had gone straight to your head, almost making you dizzy. 

You didn’t know how long you’d been looking at the sketches, and you definitely hadn’t known that Issei had walked out of his bedroom to find you staring at his work a couple of minutes ago. 

He knew that he should’ve at least tried to hide all of the shameless drawings of you, for god’s sake he’d only met you for 10 minutes yesterday. But you had haunted him, the only way he was able to sleep last night was after drawing you in all of the poses he longed to see you in. 

So he stood silently in the doorway, watching as you traced his work, did you not realize it was you that he had drawn? Unless you were some sort of exhibitionist, you’d never be okay with some strange man you’d just met drawing you, much less drawing you as a nude model. 

He let it go on for another minute or two, he wanted to let himself memorize your body again, he didn't know if he’d ever have another chance to see you and he’d be damned if he let his painting go unfinished. But even as he watched you, committing your shape to memory, he couldn’t help the nagging desire to touch you, he told himself that he wanted to feel you because it’d make his art better, he told himself there was no other motive. 

He watched you finally move to the painting, watching you, he feared that if he let you continue you’d recognize yourself seeing as the painting held more color and detail. 

“What do you think of it?” He asked, making you gasp as you jumped and whirled around to face him. 

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to snoop!” your eyes were wide and panicked, and yet he didn’t see any hint of recognition in them, hopefully meaning you still were unaware that you were the art’s model. 

“Don’t apologize…. But please… I want to know what you think.” 

You shyly turned back towards the canvas, not brave enough to compliment him to his face. 

“It’s beautiful… you’re really good.” you breathed, the heat almost unbearable now that he was in the room. 

“Only as good as my model.” he chuckled.

“Well she’s beautiful.” you complimented. 

You were ashamed to admit the twinge of jealousy you felt towards the model. You had to remember that you were engaged…. Well at least for now….. in a week…. who knows?

“I think so too.” Issei mumbled from behind you, you could hear him moving but you still didn’t have the courage to turn back around. 

You’d hoped that Issei couldn’t detect your arousal, but, of course, he could. What kind of artist would he be if he couldn’t observe? How else would he have looked at you close enough to paint you after just one meeting? 

That said, Issei was more than pleased to know that you wanted him just as urgently as he needed you. He wondered if you’d lost sleep over it like him. Even at the risk of sounding naive or rash he wanted to ask you if you’d thought of him last night, as you walked home alone, as you slipped on your night clothes, as you drifted off to sleep. 

He felt like a love-sick puppy, a feeling he hadn’t let himself feel ever since the love of his life walked out on him. Of course, with you standing in front of him who knows if she’s truly been his soulmate. If she had been his soulmate then why did you make him feel like this? 

“Do you-” the words died on your tongue as you turned to find Issei directly behind you. The two of you were now close enough for him to see the way your breath caught in your chest. 

You knew you should’ve stepped back, even risked knocking over the painting to get away, but it felt like your feet were superglued to the floor. You could hear Issei’s heart pounding in his chest as he looked down at you, staring into your eyes as you couldn’t help but stare back. 

“Don’t you recognize her?” he whispered, his eyes darting down to your lips. 

“I’m sorry?” 

Your voice was barely audible, but at least it wasn’t shaking as Issei rested his hands on our shoulders and guided you to turn back towards the painting. 

“Isn’t she familiar?” 

His lips were right next to your right ear now, his breath warm as it tickled your jaw. 

You stayed silent as you tried to focus on the artwork, somewhere deep inside, you knew exactly where this was going, but you had no power to stop it. You didn’t even think you wanted to. 

“I don’t know” you mumbled, squeezing your eyes shut as you felt Issei’s palms travel down your sides to rest on your waist, his fingers digging into your skin ever so slightly. 

“Look again.” he urged, placing his teeth over your pulse, scraping the skin as he started to massage your hips. 

You forced your eyes open, your vision feeling unfocused as you tried to search for familiarity in the lines. It was only when Issei turned your body away from the painting, causing your eyes to drift to the full length mirror propped against a bookshelf, that you gasped in realization. 

It was you. 

And holy shit was that hot. 

You felt Issei grin against your skin, that grin you’d seen him constantly sporting since he’d met you, and you couldn’t stop the quiet whine from leaving your chest. 

You pressed yourself back into him, feeling him pressed against the curve of your ass, making him groan. 

“Fuck…” he hissed, his hips jerked at the unexpected pressure, making you giggle in response.

He backed away from you, grinning to himself when you spun around, your lips downturned in disappointment. 

“Come with me to bed.” He said, taking your hand in his. 

You raised your eyebrow at him, a small smile coming over your face.

This morning was all the push you’d needed to break things off with his brother. You had definitely made up your mind to that. Plus…. even if Issei wasn’t looking for revenge against his brother… you were. 

But still… that didn’t mean you didn’t want Issei to work for it. 

“Hmm… why should I?” you teased, following his lead as he backed into his bedroom. 

The grin never dropped from his face, if anything it got more confident. He knew he had you in the palm of your hand, but he also knew that you had him in the palm of yours. 

“You really gonna make me beg for it sweetheart?” he asked, pulling you against him and switching your places. You bit your lip as you felt the bed pressing up against the backs of your legs. 

You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him down till his face was level with yours.

“You would look good on your knees.” you whispered, your lips brushing his. 

You felt him twitch against your hip as he cursed under his breath, looking away from your eyes. 

Issei knew he needed to pace himself, if you kept teasing him like that this would be over before it started and he definitely couldn’t have that happening. 

“Wait, what’re you- hey!” you gasped as Issei pushed you back to where you were sitting on the edge of the bed. “What are you doing?” you asked as you cautiously watched him lower himself to his knees, his hands spreading your legs to let him kneel between your thighs. 

“I thought you wanted me to beg…” he teased, laying his cheek against the inside of one of your spread thighs as he looked up at you. 

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. Your brain was short wiring at the sight of the dark haired man kneeling between your legs, his hands were so big, his fingers gripping your calves, coaxing you to spread your legs further for him. 

You said nothing as you tangled your fingers through his hair, pulling softly to force his gaze up to yours. 

His face was red and his pupils blown out, the sight was so erotic you thought you’d cum on the spot. You didn’t know anyone could ever find you this attractive, but as he let out a quiet whine, staring at you through half-lidded eyes, you realized a scary thought. 

The thought that this man might want you even more than you wanted him. 

“please…” he mumbled, pressing his head into your hand, willing you to guide him where he so desperately wanted to be. “...wanna taste you…”

You felt like you’d taken a nine-iron to the chest. But god did you feel powerful. 

You tightened your grip on his hair, as you felt him work off your pants, pulling your soaked panties off with them, biting his lip at the feeling of the damp spot in the center of them. 

“You’re so pretty….” you sighed, letting him go to rake your fingers over his scalp, “You wanna eat me out?” 

He nodded, his tongue wetting his lips as he practically drooled over the sight of your bare cunt. 

He wanted to paint you like this, spread out for him like a fucking masterpiece. But that would have to wait.

He could feel his head weeping against the front of his sweatpants, he’d (thankfully) gone commando in hopes of being where he was now, unfortunately that meant the feeling of the fleece lining was unbearable as he tried to ignore it, focusing on your pleasure first. 

Without another word, you laced your fingers back through his hair and pushed his head down between your legs, gasping as you felt his lips quickly attach to your clit, wrapping around it and sucking, making your thighs snap shut around his head. 

“fuck….” you gasped, obviously not expecting that overwhelming intensity right out of the gate.

Issei just moaned into you, bucking his hips at the feeling of your thighs pressed against his ears, he ran his hands up your legs to your stomach, guiding you to lay down on your back before hiking your knees over his shoulders. 

And despite your position above him, you were completely powerless to his touch, leaning when he told you to, hesitantly opening your legs back up to allow him greater access. 

When Issei felt your thighs loosen around his head he nearly cried, but he would have your legs wrapped around his head again, for now he needed to bring you to orgasm as fast as possible.

He pushed you further back onto the bed, helping you lay on your back as he repositioned himself between your legs, his hips pressing his hardened cock into the bedsheets. 

His lips pressed to the insides of your thighs, sucking bruises into the skin as your fingers grasped at the sheets behind you.

“You’re so pretty” he muttered into your skin, looking up at you in awe as your chest heaved. 

You doubt that you looked any kind of attractive right now, and yet Issei stared up at you like a sinner to a priestess. 

“Please…” you gasped, your back arching away from the bed.

“Shhhh… I know…” he whispered, his mouth traveling back to your core, his tongue dipping between your folds, making you practically cry for more. 

Issei’s brows were knit together, all of his being focused on not cumming in his pants from your taste. He wanted more…. he needed more. 

“please…” he whimpered “...can I use my fingers?”

“N-mhm- yes..yes-please….” you gasped, crying out because as soon as you said it two of his fingers bullied their way into your pussy. 

You cried from the burn of it, which melted into moans as his lips soothed your clit while his fingers curled inside of you. 

It was gentle at first, he settled on warming you up to his fingers, gently pulling and pushing them in and out of you, kissing your clit with each plea or whine. 

But as soon as he felt you relax, it started. He began with just sissoring his fingers inside of you, wanting to stretch you out for his cock before you came.

But as soon as you whimpered the words “..’m close Issei..” he abandoned all patience, pressing his fingers into your g-spot as he scraped his teeth against your clit, making you cry out. 

You tried to close your legs around his head again, but he caught one of your thighs with his free hand and pressed it back down against the bed, forcing you to stay open for him. 

You tossed your head against the sheets, whining how good it was as Issei buried his fingers into you again and again, pushing at your g-spot until you felt you high coming towards you like a freight train. 

“Fuck…-gonna cum…Issei, ‘m gonna cum…” 

“Shit..” Issei moaned against your clit, making you jerk against his face, your stomach clenching at the vibrations it sends through your body.

“come on, Sweetheart…. I want you to cum from my fingers…..please…” 

Issei  leaned back to watch your face as you came, feeling his cock twitch desperately in his pants at the sight of you gasping for air as your legs twitched beside his head. 

You couldn’t form a single thought as you felt the wave of your orgasm wash over you, making your mind fuzzy as tears threatened to fall down your face. 

Issei worked you through your orgasm, whispering praise against your thighs as he pressed his thumbs into your hips, massaging his fingers into the curve of your ass. 

Eventually he worked his way back up your body until his chest covered yours and his hips ground against your thigh, reminding you that this was very much, not over. 

Issei could look at you forever. If he thought you were beautiful before, you were absolutely breathtaking now, basking in the aftershocks of your orgasm. 

God he needed you. He was convinced he’d need you for the rest of his life. 

Still breathless from your high, you hooked a hand around the back of Issei’s neck and pulled him towards you, catching his lips in yours. 

He moaned as your fingers pressed into his nape, encouraging him to deepen the kiss, forcing you to taste yourself on his tongue. He could feel his brain getting fuzzier by the second, he wanted to cum.

 bad. 

And you could tell with the way he tried to angle his hips away from you, trying to create the least amount of friction against himself as possible. 

It was almost cute in a way, it’d been a while since someone needed you this badly, like a hormonal teenager. The only reason it wasn’t cute was because you needed him just as badly. You were ready for him now, your core twitching at the thought of it. 

Before Issei knew what had happened, you flipped the two of you around, pinning him to the mattress as your ass rested dangerously snug against his clothed cock. 

“Wai-” he started but you cut him off, pressing one of your perfectly manicured nails to his lips. 

“It's my turn to have fun.” you said, offering a playful wink before crawling back down the bed to come face to face with his erection. 

You could tell that it was painful by now, the only thing preventing it from standing to its full potential was his sweatpants.

Issei thanked god they were black, he’d leaked so much pre by now it probably looked like he already lost it. 

Not that you would’ve minded, in fact you were face to face with his tent wishing the pants were gray for that exact reason.

You decided not to be cruel and pulled his pants down, trying (and failing) to hide your surprise when he finally sprang free. 

“Fuck…” Issei gasped above you, his fingers gripping his bedsheets, trying not to cum from the look in your eyes.

“You’re so pretty Issei…” you swooned, he winced as your fingers wrapped around him, making you giggle. “Such a pretty boy…” you gave an experimental tug, biting your lip when his hips jumped off of the bed and a whimper slipped out of him. 

“Do you want me to help you feel good, pretty?” 

Issei could feel his face burn in humiliation as he nodded feverishly, he couldn’t help it, he’d do whatever you told him to no matter how embarrassing, for you, he’d do it. 

You moaned as you took him into your mouth, your hand using his precum to stroke what couldn’t fit. 

“Fuck…” Issei whined, his hips twitching out of his control with the way you worked him. 

He felt like he couldn't breathe, and you only made it worse as you came off of him, only to turn your focus downwards, wrapping your tongue around his balls, taking them into your mouth. 

“Shit… wai-fuck…”  

You went back to his head, swiping your tongue across the slit, flicking your wrist as you stroked him closer to his high. You knew that he was close by the way his knuckles were white, gripping the sheets as he gasped and panted above you, begging you to slow down. 

He really did look so pretty like this, biting his bottom lip while he tried not to cum too soon. It suited him much better than that stupid fucking smirk he always had on. 

“Come on Issei…” you coaxed, your hand quickening its pace as his breathing grew even more ragged, “show me how good you feel…” 

Issei made the mistake of peering down at your face, you were staring at him through your lashes, biting your lip as you grinned. That’s what made him lose it, the sight of you making him grunt and shake as he released, whimpering as you made a show of catching it on your tongue.

“What a good boy…” you praised, licking up anything that managed to land on his pelvis, enjoying the feeling of his hips shaking beneath your taste buds. 

“It’s too bad though…” you said, sticking your bottom lip out in a fake pout as you sat back on your knees watching as Issei’s head raised off the bed to look at you, “‘cause I’m not tired yet.” 

You giggled as Issei’s head dropped back down with a groan, he obviously knew where this was going. 

You crawled back over him, positioning your hips over his, stroking him, trying to get him hard again. 

“Wait” he pleaded, 2 minutes, that’s all he needed and then he could do it again, he just needed two minutes. 

You decided to be nice and settled on just grinding against him. 

“you’re no fun.” you mumbled, leaning down to leave your own bite marks, something you didn’t doubt he’d done to you already.

You settled on his chest, admiring how soft his skin was, you bit into it, surprised at how hard the muscle was below. 

Yes, you knew that he was really fucking built when you saw him in just his sweatpants, you even knew he was built when you saw just how broad his shoulders looked in his nicely tailored work suit, but you were surprised just how strong he felt under your fingertips. 

Maybe it was the fact he’d let you take control this whole time that made you for some reason think that he couldn't pin you down if he wanted to, but now you knew, he definitely could. 

And god was that a tempting image. 

Knowing that he could easily overpower you, could easily force your face into the mattress as he fucked you, but chose to listen to you so nicely was so fucking attractive.

You felt yourself tighten around nothing, keening as your clit caught against the head of his cock when you rubbed yourself against him. 

“So good…” you moaned, resting your forehead against his chest, grinding down on his cock.

Issei decided he’d had enough, he was ready whether his dick was hard again or not. Which it was. How could it not be with you on top of him? He could feel your arousal, it made it almost impossible not to just slip his cock into you.

“Please….” he breathed, “...fuck please….” 

You giggled from your place above him, leaning back to where you sat against his hips, comfortably sat with him wedged between your thighs. 

“Come on Issei….how should I know what you want me to do?….” 

Issei just whined beneath you, his body practically shaking under your touch. You brought your hands up to rest on his chest rather than the sheets on either side of his head. 

“Please…..” he gasped again, his toes curling into the sheets when your prettily manicured nails circled his nipples. 

You just grinned, dragging your hands up his neck, circling to his nape to hold his head, forcing him to look into your half-lidded eyes. 

You leaned down towards him, grinding down onto him as you placed pecks on his face, starting from the edge of his lips… then to the arch of his nose… and finally up across his jaw, landing next to his left ear. 

“What honey….” you cooed, loving the way you could feel his chest heaving beneath yours as you pressed your tits to him, as if his brain had melted already. 

Issei whined, pressing his eyes closed, trying not to cum like a fucking loser before he even had the chance to be inside of you. 

“.... you want some pussy, Baby?...” 

“Oh fuck…. Please-please-please…. want it so bad…” Issei whimpered, his fingers leaving the sheets to grip the fat of your hips, undoubtedly hard enough to bruise. 

You would’ve laughed if it wasn’t so pathetic. 

Without another word, you reached under you, and all in one go grabbed his cock and slid onto it, gasping as you took it to the hilt on the first try. 

Issei’s vision went white as he felt you press yourself down onto him, the pulse of your cunt around him making him dizzy, making him whip his head away, trying to hide from you as he let out a choked sob, along with stuttered, breathy ‘thank you’s.

“Fuck baby…” you groaned, reaching back up to cradle issei’s face with your hands, “.....feel you in my fucking throat….” 

“..yeah?..... can I move…fuck-please…” Issei pleaded, making you wince with the force that his nails were digging into your hips. 

“Fuck…” you dropped your head down, pressing your face into the nook of his neck, trying to stay strong, trying to stay in control as you felt your brain going fuzzy and your tummy turn to jelly. “...yes… please fuck me-ahh-” 

You weren’t even able to finish the sentence before Issei’s hips started snapping into you from underneath, the force of his thrusts bouncing you against his chest. You moaned, feeling the air getting repeatedly knocked out of your lungs. 

“Shit- slow-slow down Issei…” you winced out, the feeling of him slamming into you so fast was too much too early. If he kept going like this you’d both be done in no time. 

“not so much baby…” you said again, trying to catch Issei’s attention after failing the first time, but unfortunately for you he was long gone, the only thing on his mind was pounding into you until you came all over his cock. 

Issei couldn’t even hear you as you begged once more for him to slow down, he coudln’t hear anything over the sounds of his own moans and grunts paired with his hard breaths and of course the wet sounds of your cunt as he fucked into you like a fucking rabbit in rut. 

He swore to god that there was nothing better than this, than the sound of you moaning above him as he drilled into you, his hands gripping the swell of your ass as you bounced on his cock. 

It wasn’t long before you gave up on trying to take it slow, releasing yourself to the pleasure of Issei’s cock pushing at your walls while you cried into his neck, whimpering encouragement into his skin, trying your best to meet his thrusts. 

“Oh my goddd….” you gasped after a particularly hard thrust, feeling his tip ram against your cervix when he adjusted you on top of him, bringing his heels up to dig into the mattress to allow him to fuck you even harder. 

Your chest was no longer resting against his as the new angle forced you to lean back, barely giving you time to bring your arms behind you to support yourself as he used you. 

Issei almost cried at the new position, not only because now he could push into you faster and harder, but because now with every thrust he could watch the way your tits bounced and your eyes rolled back into your head. 

He could feel the itch of his orgasm starting in his gut, making him panic at the thought of this ending, at the thought of you getting up and walking out of his life after he scares you away with his intensity. Incidentally, the panic is also what allowed him to finally tune back into his surroundings, tune back into anything other than the feeling of your cunt squeezing him. 

“Isseiiiii…” he heard you beg, your voice further ripping him out of his trance, he stilled inside of you, despite every fiber of his being saying not to.

It was only when he stopped that he noticed the way your arms were shaking under you, threatening to give out. 

“Fuck…” he said, scrambing to sit up further on the bed, wrapping his arms around your torso to pull you into him, allowing your arms to take a much needed break as he pulled your weight properly into his lap. “I’m sorry…” he whispered against your shoulder, “fuck ‘m sorry…. you just feel so good…” 

He let you catch your breath, whispering apologies as he sucked more marks into your skin, his hips grinding his pelvis against your clit, making you gasp and keen as his tip rubbed against your g-spot inside of you. 

This was almost worse than when he was moving, yeah it felt good, fuck it felt so good that you could barely remember your name, much less the reason you’d wanted him to slow down, but if he continued like this you knew you’d finish for a second time, and while you really wanted to finish, you wanted him to finish inside of you first. 

“Issei…” you moaned, leaning away from him to look into his eyes, your cunt tightening around him at the sight of his blown out pupils and red cheeks, making him whine. “Issei let me lay down Baby…” 

He nodded aimlessly, his eyes focused only on your tits as you slid off of him, laying down beside him, hoping he’d take the hint to climb over you and continue. 

Thankfully he did, or at least got half of the hint. He climbed over you, his forearms framing your face as he resumed grinding himself against you, his cock slick with your arousal as it continued gliding between the folds of your pussy, the tip catching your clit with every stroke, making you both shake against each other. 

“...ngh- please baby….” Issei whined against your neck, “...please lemme fuck….” 

Your head was thrown back against the sheets, as you moaned out for him, wrapping your arms down and around him, raking your nails against his lower back, making him shiver and whine against you. 

“Go ahead baby…” you urged, spreading your legs further for him, “...make me cum” 

That was all Issei needed to resume the godless pace he’d set earlier, lining himself up with your hole before hammering you further into the mattress. 

You gasped below him, once again feeling him deep enough to wonder if he’d somehow broken your cervix with the power behind his thrusts. 

He was drunk on you, whining a repetitive ‘yes, yes, yes’ into your skin before you decidedly to shut him up, gripping his hair and guiding his mouth to one of your nipples. 

You both moaned as he latched on, sucking hard enough to make your walls squeeze, practically choking his dick as he continued humping into you like a love-sick puppy. You could feel him twitching inside of you, telling you that he was also close. 

“Fuck issei…” you begged, pressing his face closer to your chest, smothering him with your tits as he moaned and jerked into you. 

At this point your couldn’t tell who was fucking who, with the way your hips were arching off of the mattress to meet his thrusts, making you both cry as his cock dragged against your insides perfectly. 

“Fuck Issei, ‘m close…” you breathed, intentionally squeezing his cock, trying to get him to cum before you fell off that cliff.

 He pulled himself off of your chest just long enough to whimper “fuck-me too baby…” before sending whiny vibrations back through your body as he licked and bit at your tits. 

“Yeah?” you asked, “you gonna ask me if you can cum inside?” 

You felt him jerk inside of you at the thought. 

“D’ you wanna cum inside Issei?” you whispered into his ear, biting your lip as he nodded against you, his mouth never leaving your nipple but a pathetic whine coming out of the back of his throat as his thrusts started getting messy and out of sync. 

You could both tell that the other was close, and while Issei desperately wanted to make you cum first, you both knew that he wasn’t the one in charge right now. 

Issei fucked into you with a continuous stream of ‘please’ coming from his lips between each pant, his thrusts were getting sharper and off beat as he felt his balls starting to pull up, getting ready to shoot his load into you. But he was determined, he wanted to feel you creaming around his cock before he finally filled you. 

But of course, you had other plans, your fingers reaching down to dig your nails into his ass cheeks, helping him keep the tempo of his hips slamming into you steady. Your cunt felt so fucking good for him, warm and tight and twitching as your release threatened to rear its head. 

It was a silent battle of who’d break first, until you took his earlobe between your teeth and whispered into his ear. 

“come on issei, give me your cum…. Please…” 

That finally pushed him over the edge, making him cry against your chest as he tried to pull himself out of you to finish, thinking that you were just saying to finish inside to make him cum.

But as soon as you felt him try to pull out, you dug your nails deeper into the skin of his ass, pressing his body flush to yours as you felt the ropes of his cum start filling you up. 

“Fuck… oh my god….” Issei gasped against you, his legs jerking and abs flexing against you as he felt you milking him dry. 

The feeling of his cum pushed you into your release as well, making you throw your head back, mouth open as a silent moan ripped through you, your back arching as you felt yourself gushing, your mixed release dripping down your ass and Issei’s balls, no doubt soaking into Issei’s sheets. 

Even if Issei said something to you right then, you didn’t hear it, it was like you lost all ability to do anything other than stare at the ceiling, feeling the waves of your orgasm rocking through your body. 

And Issei honestly wasn’t much better, laying against your chest as his hips twitched in the aftermath, making you whine below him as his softening tip rubbed his cum into your raw walls. 

Eventually though, Issei came back to, pushing himself back up onto his forearms to make sure you were ok. He just found you staring at his ceiling, your mind still blank and fucked out. 

He brought a hand up, brushing your hair out of your face, kissing from your lips to your forehead, whispering ‘thank you’s’ and ‘you did so good for me’s’ as he gently pulled out and left to get a cloth to clean you up. 

Somewhere along the process of Issei dragging the warm cloth across your skin, you remembered to feel self conscious due to the light streaming in through the bedroom window’s blinds. 

Issei just tsked at your attempts to cover yourself with your hands, did you miss the last hour? He was fucking obsessed with you. You were fucking perfect to him. Fuck, not just to him, you were just perfect. 

“Stop.” he grumbled, pulling your hand away from your stomach and replacing it with his own, gripping the plush of it between his fingers, groaning when you whined and jerked against him. 

You just rolled your eyes, obviously it was pointless to argue with the man who’d just sucked your tits and gave you probably the strongest orgasm of your life. 

“Whatever” you groaned, trying to push him away from you so you could at least retreat to the bathroom. Another plan, which he gladly spoiled as he latched onto you even tighter, abandoning the washcloth and opting to kiss across your neck, trying to distract you from the thought of leaving. 

“Come on….” he whispered into your neck, pulling your body against him, groaning at the softness of it, “come take a shower with me… and then….” he reached down to your tits, tracing their outline again with his fingers. 

“And then let me draw you again…” 

“What am I gonna tell your brother?” you asked, hoping to kill the mood to at least be able to slip from Issei’s grasp, enough to let you leave both of the brothers’ lives without doing more damage. 

But Issei just laughed, still tightening his hold on you, forcing you to stay with him in bed. 

“Just tell him the truth” 

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” you said, side-eyeing Issei, watching him grin down at you with that familiar grin. 

“That you’re gonna marry the better brother.” 

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

*blows dust off of microphone*

hope you liked it bestie!!!!! tell me whatcha thought <3 <3<3<3

[ao3-shenanigans]

Hi! Just a thing I wrote in honor of Comment Day. Maybe you might want to read/share it?

Every writer I have never known a writer is always happy to get positive feedback, but some readers believe if they leave kudos or a comment, they’re bothering the writer. Here’s a comparison that might explain why that isn’t the case.

Imagine that the fanfic is a play, and the author has worked really hard on the whole thing: costumes, scenery, the plot, characterization, everything. It’s opening night. The stage manager (AO3) gives the author the headcount (hit number) of the audience (the readers). The writer is now able to imagine 10 or 100 or 1000 people sitting in the audience, watching what they have created. While a big number is fantastic, most writers are thrilled anyone wants to see what they’ve made.

When the play is over, the writer comes out to take a bow.  One hundred people are in the audience.

Two people clap (left a kudos).

Everyone else gets up and walks out in silence.

Obviously, the writer is happy these two people clapped, but they’re also thinking, “Did… did the other 98 people hate it? Were those pity claps? Was it that bad?”

That’s what’s happening on AO3. A fantastic single-chapter fic will get over a thousand hits and wind up with maybe 5 to 10% of those readers leaving kudos. The other 90% could include people re-reading, and numbers get more complicated with multichapter fics since readers can leave kudos only once.

But essentially, a lot of readers see a fic as being more like a movie, where the audience just leaves at the end. It’s even harder for an “older” fic (“older” can sometimes be applied to fics posted only a month ago), where the “play” has been running a while, the author is still there doing everything, but now people decide since it’s not new, there’s no point in showing they liked it.

Maybe one in a hundred readers, sometimes fewer, leaves a written comment. This is like hearing someone in that theater cheering. If it’s a piece of feedback that’s more detailed than a keysmash or an “I like this,” that person is giving the author a standing ovation. And if someone recommends the fic somewhere, maybe saying so in a comment, it’s like getting a rave review on the cover of the New York Times!

All of these are happy things. Kudos, comments of any length, recs, all of them make an author’s day shiny and happy. They’re absolutely fantastic! No writer is bothered by anyone doing these things.

Maybe you’re still thinking, okay, I can see I’m not bothering the writer, but does just writing “I really enjoyed this fic” do anything?

Yes. Because there are the other, less happy responses. Some comments might be demands, making the comment less about thanking the writer and more turning it into a to do list for them. Some authors see their work has been bookmarked only to realize it has a note like “this is awful” or “TLDR” or “started okay but was stupid by the end.” The default for bookmarks is everyone can see them. Finally, anyone who has written fic for any length of time has dealt with flames. These aren’t constructive criticism; they’re flat out abuse, ranging from name calling to highly detailed insults that are the exact reverse of a long, happy comment. Authors look in their email, see someone has commented on their fic, and are thrilled, only to read the comment and be told they are worthless, stupid, untalented. Everyone gets these sometimes, and writers should ignore them, but most of us have sometimes cried over them. Picture that same theater full of silent people, with one or two people clapping, and suddenly someone stands up and starts booing and hurling rotten tomatoes on stage. Readers might not even know it’s happening since writers usually delete those comments. But they still sting.

Kudos and compliments are not annoying anyone. Flames, on the other hand, are awful. The difference is the polite reader who chooses to say nothing out of shyness backs away from doing something that will make the writer happy, while the rude reader actively goes out of their way to make the writer unhappy.

I’ve been in fandom quite a while. Interaction has dropped since the old days, and it’s even dropped off over time at AO3. I’m not sure why, unless it’s that readers regard hits as being like views on TikTok. Since TikTok’s algorithm chooses what will show up more often in people’s feeds based on views, that makes some sense there, but AO3 doesn’t do that. There is no popularity contest writers are winning through views. Unless you tell them, they may think you hated what they wrote and that the flames are the genuine overall reaction.

The moral? If you love something, or even like it, show the writer some appreciation. The second it takes to leave a kudos might make them feel happy the whole day.

Comments and Kudos are probably some of the best gifts to give your favorite artists and storytellers (they’re free and easy too!)

[ravenbloodshot]

Pick a Card- Your True Personality

1

2-3

4

5

Instructions: Take a deep breath, and get rid of all thoughts. Then choose a number or decide by looking at the photo, I don't recommend choosing a pile based off your liking for the celeb in the photos, but do as your heart desires. Let's hope your heart steers you to the right pile

Pile 1:

This most definitely is the pile that attracts a lot of PAC veterans (aka ppl who follow a lot of PAC readers). I'm getting the vibe that you may seek a lot of validation from not only people in your life but from PAC's as well, you can get really offended by negative traits that come up in these types of readings and also likely hate all forms of criticism. You are the type to romanticize life and have an inflated ego, thinking of yourself as on a higher pedestal than others. You guys are above average in the looks department and tend to get what you want using your looks/charm. Your not going to have much trouble attracting a romantic partner, but you will have problems making them stay. You can become quite violent and hysterical when you don't get your way and that can turn your partners off. It's as if ppl will find you attractive but once they get to know you, think your batshit crazy and wish to get going asap. I'm definitely getting the vibe that you act high and mighty and like your the queen/king bee out of deep insecurities. Like a person that gets told their pretty/handsome so they go along with that but lowkey live life not 100% sure that's the case. Not calling you a bully but I do see some case of that, if your not a bully could be that you were a victim of bullying or bullied others in the past. Either way you have some aggressive, bullying ways about you.

You may not hold a healthy view of love, believing that it's your partners duty to love and care for you but you don't have to particularly do anything for them. It's the energy of a person who's married to someone completely unconditionally in love with them, while they're just there for the money/gifts. I do think you take good care of yourself (going to the gym, nails done, hair done, skin care on point, closet full of clothes your size and also smaller sizes that your working out to eventually fit into etc...). Your likely single and not happy about it, although you'll never truly admit it to yourself and neither would you to your friends.

This is the pile that has dealt with a lot of heartbreak and may have turned to a selfish but self conscious attitude to cope with it.

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Pile 2:

Ooooo, very passionate and powerful. Im seeing a duality with the feminine and masculine energy (remind me of Ryujin). You guys may be my favorite, I just get this warm tingly feeling and this random burst of energy (If I could meet with you irl, ik I would love you 💕❤ )

You are very elegant and sophisticated, giving rich girl vibes and if not rich you strive to be (and not in the way almost all ppl strive to be rich but I actually feel like you have set plans in place for yourself, your not fucking around when it comes to you getting what you want). I'm getting this real sense of knowing who you are and what you want so your quite easy to understand, you may speak bluntly and get to the point. The femininity I mentioned before shows itself in how you care for others, you protect your loved ones and you won't hesitate to stand up for those weaker than you or just in a worse off position. It's like yeah you know your Queen bee but you don't think your above others in and of itself , you just know your above certain ideas/actions of others (I mentioned this queen bee energy for pile 1, but they seemed more 'fake it till you make it' types while you seem more relaxed and confident in your own crown and still willing to fix other's crowns). Now for the masculine energy. I keep hearing the saying "I rule with a iron fist", so you guys may be quite stubborn and set in your ways. I'm also seeing a bit of a temper, you guys give such Taurus vibes, but it takes a while for it to really show its head. I don't think you blow up for every little thing but once your temper ignites, there's no putting out the flames until the fire runs its course (I'm seeing Canadian fires, how terrible and drawn out they were, it's the same as your temper).You do hold this view of "I deserve.....", which can help you to have the confidence to go after who/what you want but when your entitlement is extreme/irrational, you can come off as just a pushy asshole.

You definitely have this healing vibe to you along with this innocent love of animals, plushies, kids and all things cute and cuddly. You may talk to your pets (if you don't own a pet, you should, they will bring you a deep sense of peace/happiness). You love to feel like you've fixed people and things, you can become obsessed with helping ppl get out of their troubles and try to tend to their mental/physical health. One thing I will say is I think your the type to love the chase in relationships (you may become obsessed with being with a person who doesn't want you).

Last thing is , you can be quite the chaos bringer. I'm seeing some type of trolling on social media, if not trolling, you could just be quite aggressive with how you write on social media. I'm seeing a lot of hidden actions and secret accounts 😏

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Pile 3:

This pile has the energy of air signs. Your the type to overanalyze and over think everything. Even when it comes to things that you say, you may think about your words quite carefully before you say them. You may be an empath or bc you analyze ppl so intensely, you can pick up on others emotions/intentions and change the way you speak to fit others state of being (for an example: if a friend was in a depressive state and quite down and out, you would know better than to try to joke around, you would communicate with more kindness in your tone and try to be understanding). You can be quite humble and the humanitarian, wishing to do good for others/society (you have the energy of a therapist).

Your sarcastic and witty, quick with the comebacks and yk how to roast ppl (lol). You could have been a victim of bullying or just grew up in a tough environment and later you learned to stick up for yourself by using your words (insulting your bullies, roasting them etc...). Your words are very powerful, likely magical. Your the type to speak things into existence, so if I were you, I would be careful with what I say (which i think you do anyways, I'm just putting this out to warn you). I do see you can be quite vengeful and you have a mindset of "I'll get them before they get me". This makes you very defensive and hostile at times. Not just that but you have some jealousy issues.

You could be dealing with a break up and your heart is not open to love rn. I do think you do try to stay in a positive mindset but you could end up hiding your pain behind your laughs and smiles. Not really the type of person to deal with your emotional pain head on. You don't like to stay in one place for too long, preferring to move/travel often.

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Pile 4:

You are very much in your power and know your worth. You could be after an unconventional career that many have told you that it could never come to be but you do as you wish not as your told. I'm seeing that your quite an attractive and sexy person, very well shaped body as well (could be quite curvaceous or your obsessed with having curves) but either way you look good. You command a lot of respect and admiration from others. A lot of ppl wish to be you, look like you, or have you. Your very talented in some kind of musical sense, your likely gifted at singing (or your voice is quite enchanting). You express yourself well, a lot of ppl feel compelled by you and the way you speak (you could live in a country where your accent is different from most). You definitely have the power and the influence to get what you want, it's giving 7 rings by Ariana Grande, " I see it, I like, I want it, I got it" 💅.

I do think you could be too attached to your looks though, it's like you believe if you gain too much weight or you don't keep/get the curves you desire, Noone would find you attractive. I also see some idolizing of others bodies as well (keep off of social media as much as possible, its okay to post yourself but try not to scroll mindlessly. That fake social media shit gets to you and messes with your spirit). You may have been on your own since a young age, having to learn how to navigate the world and its evils/goods on your own. Your very independent due to this and also street smart.

Your in a stage of your life where you may be sleeping around a lot, playing seductive games, being flirtatious and plainly dating. Your likely viewing love as a game rn, and not taking anyone too serious. (If you are wanting to be more serious with love and attract a committed partner, refrain from sex when you date, your an enticing person so your partner will drive themself crazy trying to please and be with you). Most of you in this pile are just having/looking for fun though so that only pertains to a few of you.

Unfortunately, you may be the type to get into a lot of relationships in which your partner cheats or turns out to be pyscho. This may be the reason why I don't think you believe in 'true + unconditional love' (could be parental issues, childhood trauma as well). Your romantic relationships will be the thing in this lifetime that bring you the most headaches and loneliness

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Pile 5:

I got a vibe that this pile will attract a lot of fans of Niki instead of ppl who actually feels this pile will resonate to them, so those who picked this pile.

Turn around

Inhale

Exhale

Pick a pile

Welcome.

Okay. I feel like your quite young, probably in highschool or college. You've been through a lot in your life, in which at times you've felt abandoned or ostracized. But I think those experiences have made a stronger, more resilient you. You don't play a victim in life (even if you once were) and you don't encourage others in your life to hold onto victim hood as well. You know that you have to persevere through obstacles, not stay stuck in a pity party. You do have some codependency issues, you can be too clingy and hold onto others too tight. You fear others would leave you. You fear disappointing the ones you love. (I feel like you were "the nail that stuck out and was promptly hammered in"). So I think you may have anxiety about standing out too much or appearing too different from others. You have problems with understanding and respecting others boundaries (I just keep seeing an image of you holding onto a person, with strong grip, as they struggle to push you off). Instead of making ppl feel free and relaxed around you, you could make them feel uncomfortable.

Your a very book smart person. You have a fascination with unique things that most ppl would never think about and you come up with the most creative ideas. I think your more of a hoarder of knowledge and that you feel uncomfortable sharing your ideas with others, likely afraid they would laugh at you or say the idea is worthless. I feel like your not entirely moving forward with your life, your still haunted by your past. You could even recall voices of those who've insulted you or said very discouraging things to you and that can cause you to hesitate a lot in life.

I think this the ppl in this pile may be more sensitive and I want to make sure you don't feel hated or like I'm just another person confirming your own worst thoughts. I'm here to tell you to MOVE FORWARD in your life, don't let the haters win, don't hide yourself away. Prosper like the beautiful flower you are and always will be. 🌻

[cripplecharacters]

Okay, I have many disabled characters. All kinds: blind, deaf, autistic, dwarfism, wheelchair users both ambulatory and non-ambulatory, etc. Main characters and minor. I even have multiple characters with the same disability!

One of my characters I kinda wonder if he's a stereotype. 1: he's totally blind (zero light perception) and is my only totally blind character thus far (other blind characters have some level of vision) 2: he does have the superhuman hearing trope AND he has the pure white eyes stereotypically associated with blind characters even though he was born blind and doesn't have cataracts. The thing is... The superhuman hearing and pure white eyes are a trait of the made up fantasy race/culture/species he belongs to. They ALL have them, and almost all of the other members we see in the story are not blind.

Full disclosure: we don't currently have blind mods and I'm just trying my best here. I heavily recommend you check out @blindbeta's blog for a better insight!

Hi!

It's great that you have multiple disabled characters already! That certainly helps here, as well as just being nice to see :-)

1: he's totally blind

While this is the main representation of blindness and is "over-represented" (in quotes because it's in comparison only of course), just having someone be totally blind wouldn't be a stereotype. It happens, just in 10-15% of blind people rather than 100% which is what a lot of people think. But as you said, you have other blind characters who still have some amount of sight left. I believe that you're completely fine here. It's great to represent blindness as the wide spectrum that it is!

2: he does have the superhuman hearing trope AND he has the pure white eyes

This on the other hand does go into some common tropes that don't really reflect reality. If you want this character to be blind, it's a bit tricky. First thing, it's important to establish that it's a species characteristic and not because he's blind. It would be helpful if you had sighted characters of his kind introduced before or alongside him. Same thing for having other blind characters without white eyes etc. appear in the story before him! Other than that, make sure to show him with aids that blind people use. Just because he can hear well doesn't mean he knows where the edge of the staircase is or magically knows what's written in a book. It shouldn't make his blindness irrelevant.

Finally and most importantly, here's a link to a post by blindbeta who talks about echolocation as a trope. They happen to mention the difference between human vs non-human creatures using it which is very relevant here! I highly recommend you give it a read.

If you want to be safer, you can also have a second character with no light perception who's human (or other species that doesn't have super hearing or white eyes)!

Lastly, I know this wasn't the point of the ask, but: cataracts don't really make your eyes completely white. They mostly cover the pupil (because they affect the lens), not the whole eye. You might have been thinking of corneal blindness (caused most commonly by River blindness, a parasitic condition) which makes the pupil and iris lighter, but still it's not like they're absent nor that the whole thing is sclera-white.

I hope this helps!

mod Sasza

[crees-a]

How do you draw perspective and form so well? I’m having a lot of trouble trying to make my characters more 3D! They look pancaked!

Well I’m not a teacher and I’m not sure if any of this would help you but I still decided to show how I do this

I think we all at some point heard about importance of simple shapes in drawings… But hear me out, they’re like 100 times even MORE important than you think. And trust me, there’s a good reason why they make us draw fruits and jugs in art schools

I wasn’t sure how to explain forms but then I realized that to me a good from is a form that has clear line of action. It’s a line that basically shows the directing of your character’s pose. When I draw I rarely start with a head. Instead, I usually start with torso or hips because these body parts are the best at showing direction of an action. Once I figured out how I want my line of action to look like, I can add more complexity as a counterweight to make the shape even more interesting and pleasing to look at

This page is pretty self-explanatory. When drawing in perspective you should remember that even the most complex shapes are just many simple shapes stacked on each other. The key to understanding how they look in perspective are ellipses so I would recommend to learn about them more, there is plenty of information in google… I also understand that there are people that just can’t imagine 3D objects in their head so I’d suggest making little cylinders out of paper or clay so you could use them as references :3

And the last important thing is practice, of course. I’m also still learning many things and I know that there’s no such thing as perfection in art. But I see my progress and that’s the best part

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

This week we begin our farewell to two brilliant shows and welcome a newcomer. Of the shows airing now, all but one are streaming weekly on Gaga and the other is available via fansub.

Takara's Treasure

gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses This was the final week for the main story (don’t despair, we get a special episode next week), and the show wrapped up our core romance arc beautifully. At its heart this is a simple story between two boys seeking connection and working up the confidence to pursue what they want without fear. We spent the first half of the show grounded in Taishin’s country mouse in the big city journey, and the second slowly peeling back Takara’s layers until we understood just how mutual their affection is. I was so impressed with the show’s steady, patient approach to revealing this character to us, and I love that through knowing and liking Taishin (perhaps even more than 100%), Takara is getting more comfortable with himself, reaching for what he wants, and having genuine moments of joy. I’m also excited for him to get to know Taishin’s family and feel some of the warmth and support he’s been missing. Looking forward to whatever glimpse of their future the show gives us next week.

Happy of the End

gif by @putterphubase

We knew this one was going to be dark, and hoo boy is it. Content warnings for the first two episodes:

Assault, child abandonment, childhood sexual slavery, domestic abuse, family violence, human trafficking, rape, sexual exploitation

We meet our main characters this week and learn the basics of their backstories (though there are still gaps that I expect will be filled in later on). Both of these men have lived hard lives, and it shows. They are not particularly good people, neither of them responds normally to the situations they find themselves in, their emotional wavelengths are often odd, and there is a recklessness to their behavior that speaks to a kind of ambivalence about survival. They recognize something in each other that draws them together, but even as they share their stories and spend time together, there are barriers between them. This story has a fairly bleak worldview, so I don’t expect it will follow the usual romance beats and I’m not counting on a happy ending. @bengiyo pointed out that the show seems to be narrated from a future perspective after the relationship ends, and @illgiveyouahint said the show feels “gently hopeless” which I think is a rather apt description of its tone.

This show is beautifully shot and feels steady and clear about its subject matter, but its themes are not for everyone. Proceed with caution, and ask for content warnings if you need them—I expect there will be difficult content in every episode. This one is dropping two episodes a week on Gaga, and there is also a fansub ongoing from @isaksbestpillow. Siiri’s subs will likely be more accurate, but I recommend at least background streaming on Gaga to make sure the show gets the official views.

I Hear the Sunspot

gif by @heretherebedork

I have already talked plenty about my current feelings of frustration with this show, so I won’t belabor the point. This week Taichi dropped out of university to go work full time at his new job despite his friends’ protests, we got a long Maya flashback and another instance of her clashing with Taichi, Kohei and Taichi continued to not say anything honest to each other as they said their goodbyes, and Kohei confessed without Taichi processing it yet again. The final episode appears to include a time skip, and then maybe they will have the conversation we’ve been waiting on for six weeks. Fingers crossed the finale makes all of this time spent in stasis feel worth it.

Note: I have to get this up early today due to my travel schedule, and at time of posting episode 7 of Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding was not yet available with English subs. I imagine @isaksbestpillow will post sometime soon and I will share when it goes up and include final thoughts in next week’s round up.

Tagging @bengiyo for the anime update.

[catgirlforeskin]

"even the most gentle suggestions that trying out other games could be good." ^ .... ?? "We should round up everyone who still likes DnD 5e and hold their faces down into hot coals until the smell of charred melting flesh suffocates our noses! Who’s with me!" "an rpg so alien to the design philosophy of DnD that hearing it makes cr fans’ heads explode into tf2 gore giblets" & you keep saying that you'd give people a list of other ttrpg's to play... and you don't. you just shit on stuff and whine. i don't even like dnd anymore because all the manuals are "big" but insubstantial and wizards of the coast are greedy and making the game worse.. but it doesn't mean you have to be rude to the people who still enjoy it.

You’re right, we don’t have to be rude to people who still enjoy 5e. We have to kill them

I’ve had several posts about other systems to play, usually as answers to asks I’ve gotten, if tumblr search worked better you could look on my blog quite easily. But for posterity’s sake…

Crunchier games:

-most similar to DnD 5e: Pathfinder 2e. All rules free online, extremely popular

-faster, high stakes cinematic combat with more flexibility in setting: Mythras

-apocalyptic survival exploration with good gun-based combat: Twilight 2000 4e. Easily reskinned for other settings that keep the same thematic core

-people will get mad if I don’t mention Lancer, it’s a mech game, I just think it’s okay personally.

Pf2e and Lancer are combat as sport while mythras and t2000 are more combat as war (explainer here)

Lighter Games:

-OSR: Old School Renaissance, this is a school of RPGs based on original DnD and adventuring with fragile characters defined by gear instead of abilities who should always fight dirty and creatively, trying to outwit opponents instead of engaging head-on. Mausritter and Dragonbane are my current favs, but there’s hundreds of games in this genre of all different kinds of themes. Favors GM rulings over written rules⭐️Great for people who already play 5e in a much more freeform style⭐️

-PbtA: Powered by the Apocalypse, a school of RPGs based on Apocalypse World. Strong mechanical support for collaboratively making your story at the table. ⭐️Great for people who prefer roleplay and narrative⭐️. People often recommend Dungeon World because it’s similar to old dnd, personally I just think it’s okay. Current fav is The Sword, the Crown, and the Unspeakable Power for Game of Thrones feeling stories, Fellowship is good for LotR style fantasy. Hundreds of games in this genre and the subgenre Forged in the Dark (FitD) for games based on Blades in the Dark. Current fav is Rebel Crown.

Closing thoughts:

-Umm suck me off :)

-Free League Publishing makes a ton of rpgs and pretty much all of them are good, I highly recommend anything they do. FIST is a fun osr and pbta hybrid. Riddle of Steel and its successors are cool rpgs trying to simulate real sword fights unfortunately mostly made by reactionary dipshits. There’s tons of unique rules light stuff outside of OSR or PbtA design space as well, go on the various rpg subreddits, go to rpg blogs, go to itch.io and explore. r/rpg is a great resource and I’ve learned about so many good systems from it.

-I hope this one shows up when searching my blog for rpg posts in the future so silly people don’t go “you never recommend games you’re just a HATER!” I love to hate but it’s slightly more fun to play good rpgs with friends than it is to be a hater online. Oh my god I didn’t even mention GMless games, good lord uhhh check out Quiet Year and The Zone okay love you all bye bye I want 100 5e player scalps xoxo

[flippinpancakes64]

the cullens with a vampire hunter reader that will NOT harm the Cullens?

The Cullens with a Vampire Hunter! Reader

Writing this as I’m waiting for food at the Texas Roadhouse lol

Also I watched Longlegs today talk about a weird ass movie. It was good though, I would recommend it if you're into weird horror.

Thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy!

Edward:

He doesn’t trust you at first

Instantly, he knows what you are

He can hear your thoughts and how you intend to harm vampires

He warns the family about you

You had heard about a family of vampires who didn’t harm people, but you didn’t believe it

You were convinced that it had to all be an elaborate lie

But when you see one of them in public, it's instantly obvious

The golden eyes, the calm demeanor, etc.

He takes a while to warm up to you, he still doesn't trust you entirely

But when some opposing vampires come into the area and you fight with the Cullens, he stands corrected

He helps you fight other vampires lol

He doesn't like them either

He follows you all around the world to go hunting

He loves it

Alice:

She sees you coming in a vision

She sees you holding a vampire's head as they wither away into smoke

And then she sees a flash of you crossing the line into whatever town they are in

She warns everyone that you are coming

And when you arrive, you almost get into a battle

But then you see that the Cullens are different

In the moment that you hesitate and choose not to attack, Alice gets a flash of the two of you together in the future

She declares that you're not a threat

She trusts you fully from the beginning

She gets a bit wary just because she's worried that if Jasper slips at all that you might attack him

Just reassure her that you won't <3

Jasper:

You had been tailing him for a while through the college campus

He didn't know who you were or what you wanted

All you knew was that he was far too beautiful and graceful to be human

But one day you sat next to him in the cafeteria and you saw his newly golden eyes from him having just fed yesterday

He could feel the shock from you

When he turned to fully look at you it was like he could feel the connection

After you two talk for a while, he learns that you're a vampire hunter

He gets a bit nervous after that

I feel like he's probably run into some trouble with hunters before

So yeah he's a bit scared

He takes a while to warm up to you

But after you reassure him multiple times that you are not a threat to him or his family, he relaxes

He also tells you about all of his troubles with cravings

He feels so much better that you're so patient with him

Rosalie:

Yeah she doesn't trust you at all

She's already not a huge fan of humans

But someone who poses a threat to her family who she will never admit that she cares about? Yeah no

She will be the last one to warm up to you guaranteed

And it will take a while

She needs to be 100% certain that you aren't gonna hurt them

I feel like it would take one last big push for her to really start trusting you

Like an attack from a rogue vampire that you help fight

That will kick into her mind that you really do care and mean no harm

After that she hangs out with you a bit more

But don't expect too much

At least not a first

Just give her time, she'll come around

Emmett:

He's one of the quickest to trust you

I feel like after a couple of days of you not trying to kill them he's like "good enough for me"

He's just really curious about how you do it

I mean, it takes him a bit of force to kill a vampire, so how does a human do it

He wants to go hunting with you

He just thinks it's fun

Every once in a while, it's very rewarding to pick on someone your own size

He would make jokes about your profession if you ever say he's annoying you

"Emmett. Stop tapping my head, I'm busy"

"Or what? You gonna kill me?"

And then he acts shocked when you hit him on the head

Esme:

She's very worried

The last thing she wants is danger to come to her family

But at her core she is a loving and accepting person

So it doesn't take her long to warm up to you

She is still pretty wary around you, she doesn't truly know what to expect after all

But having you around is a pretty big comfort to her

Just knowing that there's one more person who's able to defend each other should the need arise

She is also very curious about what exactly it is that you do, but she does not want to be a part of that

Not her cup of tea

Carlisle:

Another one who has encountered vampire hunters before

Only, the last ones he interacted with didn't care that he didn't hurt humans, they just wanted him dead

So it's a very pleasant surprise when you don't instantly try to kill him

You explain that you heard rumors of a big vampire clan that was completely docile and you needed to see it for yourself

He's very curious to hear about all of your adventures

But he's also not going to go hunting with you

He has other things to do

He does trust you pretty early on, though

His thought process is that if you wanted to try to kill them then you would have done it already

And Edward or Alice would have told him something's up

Vampire! Bella:

She's pretty extreme

When you first show up and reveal what you are, she is ready to attack no questions asked

But as soon as Edward and Alice confirm that you're not a threat, she is instantly your bestie

In like a casual way though

She's so curious, she wants to know everything

She becomes attached at the hip for a while

And yes she does want to go kick some vampire ass with you

She's so down

[littlewigglers]

Okay I’ve never asked on tumblr but I just found your page and I’m OBSESSED!!! I want to get/make a Vivarium/bioterrarium for millipedes and isopods and I can’t WAIT!! Please please if you have any advice at all, I’d love to hear it! Where to get supplies, the buggies themselves, how to handle them, what do you do if they get sick, how much space to they need for how many there are, etc? Your buggy babies are so cute!!

First off thank you! I love all my little guys as well <3

I ramble kinda a lot so I'll put this under a read more.

For advice I'm still very much a novice when it comes to keeping but I'll tell you what I can!

For tanks I got my glass ones second hand or ones made my the store I buy used to buy my millipedes from, you'd be surprised how cheap you can get a nice big one! For Acrylic THESE are the ones I've had the best luck with not warping BUT they sometimes have kinda blurry parts on the plastic, but still I'd say good for the price if you can't afford glass. I tape up some of the ventilation holes to keep more moisture in.

For soil that ISN'T bought from a specialist stores(Sometimes I can't afford it) I use Peat free compost, paired with leaves and rot wood I buy off ebay stores that sell bug/reptile products, I mix them together with some water and leave them in a tub for 1 week to soften up the leaves. Some people go out and get their own leaves and wood but I'm not really in an area to do that so I can't give advice on that. It's important to keep it moist BUT NOT WET!

Heat mat! You want one to put on the SIDE of the tank and not under it, just one would be enough. I have a timer plug for mine so they're on a few hours a day on and off all day. If you REALLY wanna spoil them then I've seen a few people use reptile headlamps.

For moss and plants I again just buy it off ebay in sheets and give it a cheap over to make sure there are no hitchhikers on it before I put it in the tank. It needs watered and looked after for a while for it to take to the tank. Carpet moss is mostly for looks while sphagnum moss is used to keep moisture in areas and should be water/sprayed often. I have a little fern plant in my tank rn they seem to leave alone. I know a lot of people use fake plants as well for decor!

You should make a point to put a little temp and humidity monitor in your set-ups as well. The special reptile ones can be expensive so I just but the little ones you put in rooms and have had no issues with them.

Don't forget to give them hides! Cork wood/bark or coconut shells are nice and cheap. You can also use man made items just make sure they can handle the moisture and aren't made of anything toxic to your new friends. Also give them little sticks and things to climb up on. Just make sure the lid is secured so they can't escape.

For food I just use kitchen scraps like carrot peel, cucumber, apples and melon, give them a cuttlefish bone and some dried tiny shrimps in small amounts once a week or so, but you can also use fish flacks instead. But remember! Leaf litter and rot wood is meant to be their main diet for most species.

For the millipedes I would recommend Ivory millipedes as a good starter one, they're lovely in colour and are often up top, hardy as well, and usually you can get them captive bred which I've had much higher survival rates with vs wild caught. For each species you'll have to look up their needs yourself though, there isn't a 100% catch all set up for all species. Woodlice/isopods I'd suggest dairy cows as they're lovely and also very easy to get a hold of. I will say species of Armadillidium(roly poly/pill bugs) are my fave and I'm very biased and want 500 of them.

For handling just be gentle! I wear gloves in a lot of my videos but that because I've incredibly sensitive skin and can't stand soil under my nails. The worse they can do to you is them staining your skin(not all species), or give you a little nibble. Make sure if you're handling to wash your hands off BUT be careful what hand soaps you use! Wash hands after as well some can be toxic to bugs from what I've heard.

For tank size hmm that's hard, usually you want soil as deep as their body but that can be hard, 10-15cm is what I aim for my BIG boys and 7-10cm for my others, deeper is better but sometimes you'll also just never see them again! You'll want a tank at least a few times longer than your pets body or at least big enough for them to filly stretch out in if you get really big millipedes like giants and a 120cm tank is just kinda unrealistic haha.

I do not have a lot of advice for if they get sick sadly, it's kinda of hard to tell honestly and usually when you can it's too late. I would just say don't beat yourself up too much if some pass away sometimes bugs just do that especially if you don't know their history.

Where to get them depends on where you're from and what you want. A ton of reptile/specialist stores will have wild caught which isn't great but they will have the largest range of species and usually also sell all the stuff you need to tank care of them. Ebay is where I've gotten most of my captive bred and I just message people if I've questions about their bugs there.

I think that's everything I can think of,

Again I'm a big novice when it comes to bugs, @onenicebugperday and @crevicedwelling likely know way more than me, though idk if they're open to questions but they likely already have a lot of info on their blogs.

[foxglovegames]

Trouble Comes Twice - the Postmortem

We celebrated Trouble Comes Twice's anniversary around a month ago! We'd hoped to post this postmortem back then as well, but it's taken us a moment to find the right words haha.

Anyway, we hope that this postmortem can give our players and other visual novel devs some insight into what the development process looked like for us. It's also a great way for us to look back at what went well and what went less well.

We'll be taking about the ideation phase, our (lack of) marketing for the Kickstarter, and also sharing (what we can) on our earnings from the game!

Coming up with Trouble Comes Twice

The original tone of Trouble Comes Twice was a lot more comedic and packed to the brim with anime tropes we enjoy. Most didn't make it into the final game, but some stayed and evolved e.g. all of the love interests are based on popular visual novel archetypes - the childhood friend, the tomboy, the shy girl, and the bad boy. 

Some, like Cameron and Zoe, changed a lot from their concept while Adrian and Stephanie stayed quite loyal to our original ideas of them. Cameron's character actually underwent the most changes after the initial reception to the demo, where a lot of people felt like he was too much of an ass haha. (Fortunately, he became a fan favorite when we dropped the new demo!)

The premise with the bet was something we invented to create some drama and establish a common plot thread throughout each route. Honestly, looking back, we would probably have approached the bet differently if we wrote it today and a lot of our pre-planning was... clumsy, at best. Still, it was a labor of love and I'll never forget the fun and excitement we had everyday balling ideas for the characters and coming up with their designs.

As Melli and I are just writers with limited coding experience, we worked with a past game jam friend to code the GUI and set up the base for the game (though the actual scripting was done by us and Melli put everything together in the end). Our biggest expenses pre- and post-demo was the character art and CGs, meanwhile we relied on free music and BG packs to save money.

Why a bisexual romcom?

So, this was sort of a no-brainer to us. We had decided right from the start that both twins could date both the male and female love interests, and (at the time) we feel that a lot of similar games had playersexual MCs rather than established bisexual/pansexual MCs. While playersexual charas are also awesome, we wanted to write a romcom where the main cast are always queer regardless of who you end up romancing. 

At the same time, bi/pan people don't all approach romantic relationships the same way e.g. Cameron is confident and has experience dating people of all genders, while Adrian's demi and Jace still struggles a bit with his attraction towards men. We know that some of our players felt like that made certain routes less romantic than others and we hear you on that feedback and have 100% taken it into consideration for our future romance games. But anyway, that was our thought process behind Trouble Comes Twice's romance dynamics!

Preparing for Kickstarter & the actual Campaign

Our Kickstarter launched at the start of August and let me tell you, we were nowhere near as prepared as we should have been. 😭 We hadn't set up a Steam page yet, we were trailer-less, and we only had a couple of hundred followers across our socials at best. I feel that there's a lot more successful Kickstarter projects to refer to and even a lot of marketing guides and advice now, but mostly it's on us for not researching more. 

The Kickstarter campaign did surprisingly well despite the lack of promotion and only having a rough alpha demo - we were even able to double our goal! - but we  wouldn't recommend what we did for other devs.

You should invest time into making a good demo, spend time building an interested audience before launching your campaign, and research so you've got some kind of marketing plan. We were lucky with word-of-mouth and that other visual novel devs with larger followings helped share our game, but we should have made more effort reaching out to bloggers, streamers, and game sites. Some crowdfunding successes may seem like they came out of nowhere and were just pure luck, but there's usually a lot of grinding behind-the-scenes that you don't notice.

The post-Kickstarter era, at least for us, was the harder bit. We now had 353 loyal backers who had expectations based on promises we had made and we had to make sure we met those expectations while also staying true to our wants as the devs. It was a learning process for sure, but we're fairly proud that we always did our best to keep our backers in the loop. It's frustrating to write an update explaining that the game has been delayed again, but backers are more open to being understanding than you think as long as you communicate!

A tip we'd give to new devs considering Kickstarter: Don't overestimate what you can do, but overestimate what you need. There's always hidden costs, unexpected taxes/fees, and other unknown obstacles that might eat up your budget. In our case, we made enough to make the game as planned, but had to change CG artists around halfway through development which meant our original budget didn't cut it anymore. Fortunately, we had earned a decent amount from our Patreon and pre-orders that we were able to use to complete the CGs, but that isn't always going to be an option for everyone and that also meant we were unable to use that money ourselves. (We didn't take any money from the original Kickstarter campaign, so whatever was earned through patreon and pre-sales was our only "salary" at the time.) 

Writing the game

Writing is, for obvious reasons, one of the most important parts of a visual novel. Melli wrote Jace's routes and I wrote Hazel's routes, which removed some pressure off our shoulders compared to trying to write over 300,000 words all on our own. 

It's fun working with another writer, but there are also some unique issues and considerations that come up when you're writing a game with two protagonists split between two writers. Especially because at the time, there weren't many visual novels with a similar set up to refer to.

The main things we learned, were:

Consistency. We wanted each couple to have their own dynamic, but the characterization needs to remain consistent between routes. You don't want Adrian in Jace's route to feel like a totally different character in Hazel's route. Additionally, we had to be careful that the tone and writing style of the protagonists' POVs still felt like you were playing the same game. Some routes can be more comedic than others, but we've got a problem if Hazel's routes are all (unintentionally) more serious/angsty in tone than Jace's or vice versa.

Watch out for your word count! Longer does not always equal better and writing eight routes, we had to put some restrictions in place. Even when writing on your own, it can be tough to guess how long your story should be, and it was important to us that the routes were roughly the same length so that none felt more "canon" than the other. However, with two writers who have different writing styles and ways of planning, it was tricky to compare our outlines and we struggled at times when it came to matching each other's word counts. Moving forward, we're probably going to be more lenient when it comes to word counts - some routes have to be longer than others, it doesn't mean that route is automatically more "important". We're also doing more regular meetings and frequent check-ins to make sure we're on the same page. In the future, we hope that should save us a lot of trouble when it comes to pacing! 🙈

Balancing your own wants with the wants of your players. In theory, these overlap most of the time. But making a commercial game (that people had already "bought" through the Kickstarter), there is some pressure when it comes to meeting certain expectations. We can't always just write what we want and assume everyone else is going to love it, but we also don't want to neglect what we personally like. We had a survey for the beta where we were able to get regular feedback and a lot of helpful advice. We definitely want to continue with surveys in the future - they are a great way to gather opinions from different players and figure out what works versus what doesn't! 

We took on too many tasks outside writing that distracted us. This bit is sort of inevitable for indie devs like us. 😅 Working with a limited budget and limited resources, you just end up having to wear a lot of hats! We think we did quite well sharing these duties though, and moving forward (thanks to you guys) we can afford more hands on deck to help us out. 

Marketing

The bane of every indie game dev's existence... although secretly, I kind of enjoy marketing but don't tell anyone that!

Having learned a thing or two from promoting the Kickstarter, we spent more time researching games marketing but in the end, trial and error was the best teacher.

As we got closer to the release date, we were posting almost daily on social media and grew our Twitter to over eight thousand followers. We didn't have any viral posts, but we saw a consistent growing interest in our game and it was such a motivation boost to see comments from potential players being excited for the game. We know a lot of devs have said that Twitter didn't help their game much but according to our stats, a decent number of our players found us through the platform. 

We saw less success here on Tumblr. Perhaps we haven't cracked the code here yet or maybe we're just comparing our numbers from Twitter unfairly! We're not hung up about it though, we love it here because it feels easier to connect with our followers and other devs there, and it's nice because we're able to write longer posts like this one! 💓

Aside from posting on social media, we reached out to several streamers and some bloggers prior to release to send them free game keys. 

We also commissioned some art from other artists to share, as we obviously couldn't reveal ALL our CGs before the release lol and visual posts tend to do a lot better in our experience. It was so much fun to see the characters in other art styles and we hope we can afford to commission guest art pieces a lot more frequently in the future!

In hindsight, we definitely regret not releasing a trailer sooner! We underestimated how much interest a good trailer could garner and delayed setting up our Steam page because of it. Steam was the platform where we sold the most copies and most of our buyers found the game through Steam itself.

Also, posting your trailer on youtube adds another site where you're promoting your game so there's really no reason not to get that trailer done as soon as you can. 

Final Notes

After the initial stress, we were pretty happy with our release! Although there were some things we would go back and change if we could,  that's just the nature of these kind of things. For the most part, we're proud of what we achieved and happy that we have learnt so much from Trouble Comes Twice that we can take into consideration for future projects.

We can't share exact numbers, but we wanted to open up a bit about our earnings for the game to help other aspiring devs: As of writing this, Trouble Comes Twice has earned close to 85,000 euros. This counts our profits from 2020 to now (the Kickstarter, Patreon, pre-sales, and actual sales). Removing fees, taxes, the salaries of our talented artists and other freelancers, as well as the money invested into our next game, our personal pockets did not see anything close to those numbers. But we're super proud of how much our little game has made and so grateful that it's allowed us more creative freedom with our next title! 

So, what's next?

You might have heard but for the past year, we've slowly been working on the demo and upcoming announcement for our next visual novel:

A 17+ supernatural neon-noir romance game about monsters, love, and other horrors. 

Play as vampire detective Circe (female protagonist) or hellhound cop Dante (male protagonist) and delve into the mysteries of North Haven, where demons, vampires, and supernaturals hide in plain sight among humans.

The game features six routes, with three romance options available to each protagonist. Dante only has male romances and Circe has both male and female romances. 

The game tackles a darker, more angsty tone compared to Trouble Comes Twice. Still, we hope that those who decide to check it out will enjoy it! We plan to announce the game this coming Autumn. Follow our Twitter (we're still not calling it X sorry) or Tumblr to stay up to date.

[musicfranchisetournament]

propaganda under the cut !!

paradox live :

ive seen my friends talk about it and also theres this really pretty girl i thibk her name is anne? i wanna kiss her mwah

The world is set in the future where the hip hop artists have these cool Phantom Metals that produce cool illusions as they perform with the downside of the performers reliving their worst trauma after using it. Every group has their own theme, aesthetic, and music style Every character has canon trauma which perfect for angst Found family It's still going on They do April Fools on the fandom every year (2024 being an ad for a cat game)

charisma house :

genuinely what the fuck. i don't think i've seen a song franchise as bonkers as charisma house and i doubt i ever will. it's so entertaining and the characters are all unhinged in the best way possible. none of them are 100% good people at the end of the day and i think this just makes the whole ordeal even funnier. are you kidding me you have some random 19 yo who invites people to go live in a random house one day and they just go. the songs are so so good (most of the time. stares at my two exceptions) and whenever it's a full group song? they're always parodies of another common popular song which is so funny to me every time i hear them. i love charisma house and will defend it to the days end

It's so silly and entertaining:) the songs are sick and super catchy . The visuals are super unique .. and the concept of these eccentric crazy guys all living in a house together with the power of charisma has some super hilarious interactions.  Also charisma is the power that can save the world.. and if these guys get too overpowered with their charisma they go through yugioh style transformations and break out into song... so there is that little detail<3

they're just ordinary guys. music part aside the story is funny until it gets serious and then it's funny AND heartwrenching. music part?? group songs are based on nursery rhymes and they fucking suck but also go so hard. their solo songs all have their own genres and they're so. Aodhajhfhdhfbd Stream viva la liberation. 

Funny gay people living in a house together and all their songs parody children's songs, and all their music videos are like Cocomelon on crack. They're funny and they have a lovely found family dynamic. Very silly guys, I'm so normal about them.

Never in my life have i seen a piece of media change me this much as a person while doing the bare minimum. Perhaps the fact that it is the bare minimum and i still fell for it regardless says more about its power than any words could ever begin to describe. So utterly ridiculous in the most perfect way possible and so weirdly deep in also the best way possible but without forgetting its still fucking ridiculous. The appeal of Charisma House is that its Charisma House, and that same thing manages to be both its strength and its weakness, but its weakness is so grand it ends up becoming a strength, and perhaps its biggest strength by far. Talking about Charisma House makes me feel insane emotions because you cant describe it as good but you still know fully well its not bad either despite that being the easiest way to describe it. Sooner than later after so many episodes you'll end up realizing you have fell in its trap. Once you start caring. Once you start analyzing the miniscule tid bits of plot. Once all of that starts occurring you will soon come to realize you have been another victim of the mystical power Charisma House has on every single person that watches it. Or perhaps you just dont fucking care after 5 episodes and you leave it at that. This is perhaps the best option for everyone in the world. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone but the fact that i still do from time to time is because i want everyone else in the world to experience the unknown horrors of this media project until each and every one of them realize they have fallen down a hole they will never be able to escape. also Awwwww ohsebso cute i like ohse aaawwwww so cute 😍

[esotericpluto]

your psychic abilities

from left to right; intuitively choose the pile you feel more connected to. To make it easier, you can take a deep breathe, close your eyes and ask for guidance to your deities or guides. These are all general messages, so just take what resonates and leave what doesn't. This reading is timeless. If it resonates, feedback is always appreciated and motivates to keep doing pick a card readings. You can donate here.

pile 1

I'm getting clairvoyance 100% for most, if not all of you who chose this pile. If you are not yet aware of your clairvoyance, this means you still have some a bit of stuff to go through in order to develop it, but that developing the early stages will be quite easy for you.

Clairvoyance can come in many forms. For some of you, I feel like it will come mainly in dreams. You will be able to see entities trying to communicate through your dreams, you will see a lot of dream related symbolisms delivering you messages and guidance or straight up seeing the future through it. If it has ever happened to you to dream about something, even if small, than that happens, that is a sign of your clairvoyance.

For some of you, I'm also getting that you might develop it to see images related to your messages or straight up seeing some images of your future that will be sent to you by your guides as warnings, so pay attention to that.

I see some people may be able to see auras or even, in some cases, when developed enough, to see spirits. For people who will be able to see spirits, this could be only through your mind but I do feel like a small minority here might be able to see them as they would see another human being. For those people, I recommend using protection spells/sigils and protective elements and to try to keep your energy clear. Learning how to control the ability will take a while, but it should be done to protect you as seeing spirits all the time would not be the healthiest for you.

I feel like a good way for you to develop this will be starting guided meditations and guided visualizations exercises. Trying to astral project and lucid dream for some of you can also be really useful, especially if you have the dream related abilities. Looking at art and trying to interpret it, as well as scrying in mirrors, water or crystal balls can also help you develop these skills. I feel like for some of you, putting your feet in salt water can also really help.

I see some of you will be able to help people with their past lives too, by accessing them and seeing them.

pile 2

I see your powers are talking and potentially hearing too for some of you. The hearing would count as clairaudience.

The talking here feels like you have a true power to heal people through your words. You might be able to communicate with animals and/or make them understand you somehow, the same can go for children and babies.

I see like some of you are able to guide lost spirits to the afterlife with your words and prayers, so you can use this ability to help them.

Overall, I feel like your prayers and affirmations are really powerful, almost working like a charm or spell. You should research about chants, prayers, affirmations and incsntations as they will help you a lot and manifest the things you want very quickly, even if all you want is something like protection. Your gift also works for others, so you can use this anility to help others.

I feel like you can work on developing your hearing senses. You might be someone with a good hearing in general. You will be able to channel messages from your guides and other people's guides and these messages will help you. Trust the messages that you receive as they will keep you safe.

You might also hear some interference in technology or music stopping/not playing properly when spirits are around. You might also sometimes hear frequencies or music that isn't coming from earth. This is also a way for spirits to communicate with you.

Some of you might also be gifted in speaking publicly or know how to use words very well when talking to other people in general. I feel like you know how to get what you want out of conversations with people and easily make them feel understood and calm.

Some of you also have this gift extend to nature, trees, flowers. You might have a green thumb because of this, as your energy and words can help plants grow beautifully. Have you seen that experiment of how plants grow when you talk positively towards them vs. how plants grow when you talk negatively to them? This is similar to it in a way.

Ways for you to develop these gifts would be listening to music, not neccessarily the music you always listen to, but those vibrational music videos you can find on youtube, as it will help you a lot to clear your mind and allow entities to talk to you. Volunteering at an animal shelter could also really help you, as well as spending time with nature. I feel like meditating can also help you a lot amd you could use those "communicate with guides" meditations, as that will train you to communicate with them and receive messages. Looking at yourself in the mirror, for some reason, can also help, especially if you affirm good things while doing so.

pile 3

I see most of you can be really talented when it comes to telepathy and able to know what someone else is feeling/thinking. Clair wise, I'm feeling clairsentience and claircognizance the most here.

I also feel like some of you are really talented spell casters and witches. You would really benefit from channeling strong spiritual energies or settong your intentions through spells or general rituals/offerings.

I am seeing many of you can teach people how to improve themselves or other valuable lessons in life. Some of you could even have a karma bringer quality to you and a lot of wisdom that was granted by guides and ancestors who protect you.

I feel like with your intuition, clairsentience and claircognizance, you might be really good at figuring out people's intentions and true personas and are rarely ever wrong about it. You are good with energies and usually are able to decipher them with time. Some of you could also be mediums and communicate with spirits or really good astrologers.

I feel like some of you could be great at divination and tarot reading, so that could be something to consider or work on expanding. I feel like you will find some decks that you really connect with, I mainly am seeing a deck with a black cover and maybe with witchy vibes, but it might change for some of you.

I also feel like some of you will feel some affinity with aquatic animals, maybe even with mythological ones like sirens, selkies, mermaids. This could also mean that you have a great talent for charming and seducing others using your energy.

I'm feeling like readings books about spirituality, psychic abilities and divination will help you a lot to take the first steps to develop this. I feel like lighting up a candle and focusing on the flame until you feel in a trance can also help you to achieve deeper meditative states and your intuition. For some of you, this can also be done by looking into the sea or water in general. Plants can lift up your mood and energy, so consider getting a plant if you don't have one yet. You can also try telepathy exercises and reading for people to train your abilities.

[floofeh-purpi]

Getting Isekai'd?! (Part 4)

Sagau! Genshin Fatui x Gn! Reader (ft. Your bsf)

『Beloved fluffball/s mentioned below! 💜』

@justmare @mc-cos-charm

YEY NEW FLUFFBALL, HIII!!!

☆

Sidenote: CUS ITS BEEN RAINING IN MAINLA HINDI KABA NILALAMIG?! (Song reference lol) 😫

Warnings: Cursing, grammatical/spelling errors, my delulu-ahh brain forgot to write english isnt my first language and im too lazy to edit the other warnings again, me probably switching the povs alot because... yeah, filipino reader maybe speaking tagalog and bisaya, mentions of you having a wound on one of your feet, blood, author's shitty attempts at making you laugh.

【Part 3】

☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆

You eventually woke up from your nap coma with a sore ass throat and a somehow still fully batteried phone. "Ok, how the fuck is my phone still 100%?! 😰 But atleast I dont have to wait 2 hours to charge my phone lmao." You mused out inside your head cus you'd say it out loud ur throat would even more sore than it already fucking is.

"I should've bought a water bottle with me earlier... ☹" You thought as you putted your phone inside one of the pockets of your pajamas and slowly went downstairs and went to the kitchen.

You sneaked into the kitchen undetected by guests. Because all you wanted to do right now was sleep again rest. Anygays, you gobbled the entire glass of water within one go and putted the glass into the sink. "Nah, y/b/f/n's gonna wash them dishes today lmao." You thought before you plugged your earphones into your phone and listened to your playlist while humming softly to the song before going upstairs.

☆

The harbingers heard someone humming in where they assumed is the kitchen before someone passed by the living room still humming and with a tiny-ahh smile going upstairs. "Oh my~ Who was that beautiful person~?" Asked the Damselette. Its true though, you were the prettiest person y/b/f/n met. "That was Y/n. :)" The harbingers and the Tsaritsa's eyes widened at that name. But are still in denial because they need to confirm just one more thing. Denial, denial, denial IS a river in Eygpt 💀🙌

☆

You eeked mentally when your playlist started playing 'Good Looking by Suki Waterhouse' (Recommend listening to it 10000/10) since you dont have spotify premium and you ran out of skips. 😔

You sat down on the chair infront of your desk, which was messier than dogshit. "Omfg im too lazy to clean it up rn 😭🙌" you thought before you grabbed some paper that you totally didnt rip out from y/b/f/n's notebook like 2 days ago before yall were isekai'd and started drawing basically a city. Aka the city you lived in before this fiasco happened.

*Insert your drawing here cus I cant find anything that was close to my imagination 🥲*

After you finished drawing, you gave your arms a very well needed stretch you desperately needed that shit after sitting down with a posture looking like a fucking shrimp if you looked at what you looked like in the side for 3 fucking hours while your earphones were still playing music, "Finally done, im tired again lmao" you thought before you slept on your chair like when its math class 💔 because you were too fucking sleepy to even get out of your chair its comfier that those damned armchairs you'd sleep on during math class. 💀

But then, your foot accidentally hitted the leg of the table so fucking hard, that it caused the sleepiness in you to go *poof* "PUTANG INA NING LAMESA 👹" (Fuck this table) you yelled loud enough for only yourself to hear you held back your tendency to scream out filipino curses loud enough for the entire damn universe to hear you because... well, the people downstairs... Are downstairs...—

You felt your atoms and dna coursing inside you still shaking at the collision of your foot and the table, whats even worse is that the foot was the one that was wounded, which made the pain all the fucking worse.

"Bandages be damned. I need to fucking change these little shits. Bweshet nih. 😔" You cursed out loud as your throat wasnt as sore as earlier we call it mineral water for a reason /jk, you made your way into your bathroom while not walking normally.

♤

You were just drinking some water in kitchen peacefully, and of course your clumsy ass hand somewhat slipped and you accidentally dropped it onto the floor... and your foot. You winced at shards of bloodied glass digging into the flesh of your foot as sat on the nearest chair while y/b/f/n tended to your wound/s OHMIGASH KILIG NAKO AYIEEEEEEE!!!!!

♤ (End of flashback)

You got some bandages which were fortunately on the sink from the last time you changed your bandages and forgetting to put it back to its original place AGAIN, but you didnt give a shit rn. But as soon as you unwrapped your bandages, instead of the crimson blood you were expecting to see on your wound, the blood was... golden.

"...What the fuck?"

☆

YEY FINISHED PART 4!!! My hands are tired from holding the phone but its ok ❤

Filipino readers where u at? 😭

【Part 5】

Published: June 30 2024. 10:38pm.

[penelope-joy]

methods; 5 senses method;

Many shifting methods focus primarily on intense concentration, visualization, and simply believing you are in your Desired Reality (DR). However, they often fall short by telling you to believe without explaining how to actually cultivate that belief—much like mentioning a strange fact without providing the science behind it. Let me break down the method for you, step by step, and explain why it makes more sense than traditional methods

||*. Step 1: small meditations throughout the day

During the day, take a few moments for brief meditations, which can be as short or long as you like. I usually do mine in a quiet place where I won’t be distracted, and they typically last around 2 minutes. Find a comfortable position—whether sitting, standing, or lying down—and begin by focusing on your surroundings.

Observe what you see: What textures do the objects around you have? What colors are they? Is there anything unique about them?

You can ask yourself any questions you find helpful; I usually use these. After observing, turn your attention to your other four senses. Focus on each one and remember the details. Here are some questions to guide your reflection:

||*. Smell

What do you smell? Is the smell nostalgic? Do you know this smell? Can you describe it? Do you like it?

||*. Touch

What are you touching? How does your body feel? What's the surface of the things your touchibg like? Is the surface warm, hot or neutral? Taste (I usually skip this one since I'm not eating anything) What does it taste like? Does it taste good? Do you often taste this?

||*. Hearing

What do you hear? Are there any background noises? Does the soun disturb you? Is it something you hear often? Do you like the sound? Is it relaxing? Are there any people talking? Once you are done, you can move and go on with your day. I will explain more later of why we had to do this, but it helps you realize the difference between your cr and dr, and helps you know when you're surroundings are changing whilst shifting.

||*. Step 2: SUBLIMINALS SUBLIMINALS SUBLIMINALS!

Play a subliminal that matches your DR. When you’re ready to shift, lie on your back, then adjust to the position you would likely wake up in your DR, while remaining on your back. It may seem tricky, but essentially, you want to replicate the position you’d be in if you were already in your DR, just while lying on your back. Begin counting until you experience significant shifting symptoms—this could be up to 50, 100, 300, or any number you choose. Intermingle detaching and identity affirmations with your counting; while regular affirmations can be used, these two are particularly effective for this method. Stay completely still. The subliminal will assist with affirmations and visualization. Lying on your back can enhance vividness in dreams, which is why it’s recommended for shifting. Counting helps you enter the "mind awake, body asleep" state necessary for shifting. Using detaching and identity affirmations will aid in separating from your current reality and embodying your DR self.

||*. Step 3: 5 senses

Now that you’ve finished counting and are experiencing many symptoms, repeat the process from Step One, but focus on elements of your Desired Reality. For example, if your DR is the sandy beaches of Pabu, imagine yourself waking up there.

I see the white sand glistens under the sun, the clear turquoise water teems with colorful fish, and palm trees sway in the breeze, making it look like a scene straight out of a dream. I can smell (what you scripted you would smell in your dr) I can hear the sound of waves gently crashing on the shore mixes with the soft rustle of palm leaves swaying in the breeze, creating a soothing backdrop of natural harmony. I can feel the sand, warm and soft underfoot, like a fine, comforting blanket, while the cool, clear water gently brushes against my skin,.

After completing these steps, you should begin to notice more shifting symptoms and feel your surroundings start to change. Begin using affirmations like "I have shifted" or "I am on the planet of Pabu," and continue repeating these while vividly visualizing your new location. Then, either let yourself drift off to sleep or open your eyes to see if you’ve successfully shifted.