#I struggled with something at work that I've done for the first time while also constantly task switching

[venomouslilith]

.

[forgotten-daydreamer]

vent moment but my health is a bit worse than i let on, which is weird ik since it seems like complain about it all the time here, and apparently i also look sick, because two separate people in their 40s or 50s asked me, 24, if i needed their seat on the bus. kind of them. but humiliating nonetheless.

[loveesiren]

𝖡𝖾𝖺𝗎𝗍𝗂𝖿𝗎𝗅 𝖭𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍𝗆𝖺𝗋𝖾

Thanos x American!reader

a/n: hi my babies! so this is my first thanos (choi su-bong) fic i'm posting. however, i kind of wrote this as an aftermath of a little series i've been working on of them in the games. so, once i am done hating it and editing it, i will posit it! but i hope you guys enjoy this cute lil fluff. i suck at writing fluff tbh but i tried! xx also, t.o.p is my gwiyomiii, my honeyyyy, my angel babyyyyyyyyy! i'm so inlove with him so feel free to send requests!

synopsis: nightmares of the games still haunt Thanos a year later, but luckily Y/n will never leave his side.

warnings: language, fluff, very brief mention of sex if you squint

wc: 1.1k+

You couldn’t sleep. Insomnia had wrapped itself around your mind ever since surviving the games last year, a constant shadow in your otherwise bright new life. You had so much to be grateful for—making it out alive, the money that had saved you in more ways than one, and, of course, Su-Bong. Though, to this day, you still called him T. Your T.

Never in a million years would you have imagined living in a sleek penthouse in downtown Seoul with a man you fell in love with while playing deadly children’s games. Yet here you were, in a world that once seemed as unreachable as a dream: Thanos’ World. And you loved it.

The games had changed Thanos in ways you never thought possible. He quit the drugs, buried his oversized ego, and spent six months holed up in his apartment with only you for company. It was a metamorphosis you never expected but cherished deeply. When he finally emerged from that cocoon of self-reflection, he returned to music—his first true love. But this time, it wasn’t about sex, drugs, and wealth. His lyrics delved into the rawness of his childhood, the pain of his struggles, the weight of his dreams—and you. Always you. You were his muse.

Being with the Thanos, however, was far from simple. Going out with him was an ordeal, a gamble. Fans flocked to him wherever he went, now more than ever, since he’d announced his new album. He once thrived on the chaos, basking in the adoration of women throwing themselves at him and men idolizing him. He was a star, and he reveled in the glow. But now? Now the attention suffocated him. He avoided crowded places as much as he could, especially when you were by his side.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to show you off—God, he did. But the fear gnawed at him. What if something happened to you? What if someone hurt you? You’d already faced your fair share of vitriol when the media leaked that Thanos was dating some American girl. “American bitch,” they’d called you, throwing their venom your way in tabloids and comment sections. But the hate didn’t break you. If anything, it hardened your resolve.

You refused to let him hide away forever. When his anxiety tried to keep him tethered to the penthouse, you were the one who dragged him out into the world. You reminded him of what life outside these walls could offer, even if it wasn’t always kind. And slowly, piece by piece, you were helping him reclaim it.

You glanced over at Thanos, his peaceful face softened by sleep, his arm draped lazily over your bare thighs. Carefully, you lifted his arm and slipped out of bed, moving quietly so as not to disturb him. Padding toward the kitchen, you glanced at the clock: 2:30 a.m. Another sleepless night. You sighed, the weight of endless insomnia pressing down on you.

You set the kettle to boil, deciding tea wouldn’t cut it tonight. The staleness of the room felt suffocating. What you needed was air. Before stepping out to the balcony, you peeked into the bedroom again, reassured by the steady rise and fall of Thanos’ chest.

The view of Seoul stretched before you as you stepped outside. The city pulsed with quiet energy, its lights casting a warm glow against the dark sky. The faint scent of cherry blossoms drifted through the breeze, mingling with the night air and brushing your hair across your face. This view, this life—it was something you’d never take for granted.

Pulling out your phone, you typed a quick message to Se-mi.

y/n: You up?

Minutes passed before your phone buzzed with a reply.

Se-mi: Yeah. Can’t sleep?

y/n: The insomnia is never-ending.

Se-mi: I miss when we all lived together.

Your lips curved into a bittersweet smile. Memories of those first fragile weeks after escaping the games flooded your mind. The four of you��Thanos, Se-mi, Min-su, and you—crammed into your tiny apartment, clinging to each other for sanity. For weeks, you barely left the safety of those walls. Eventually, Thanos invited everyone to move in with him, but Se-mi and Min-su had decided it was time to go back to their families. The games had taught them how precious life was. That, and your shared space wasn’t exactly conducive to privacy—especially with how loud things could get between you and Thanos when you couldn’t keep your hands off of eachother.

y/n: I miss it too. I miss you. Shopping tomorrow?

Se-mi: You know I hate shopping.

y/n: But you love me, and T gave me his black card.

Se-mi: Spoiled brat.

y/n: See you tomorrow 🥰

Se-mi: Can’t wait ✌🏼

You smiled at her response, warmth spreading through you at the thought of reconnecting with your best friend. But the moment of peace was shattered by a sound from inside—faint whimpers carried through the air. Your heart clenched. Setting your tea down, you hurried back to the bedroom.

“T?” you called softly as you stepped inside.

No response. Only the faint cries that sent chills down your spine. You rushed to the bedside table and flicked on the lamp. Thanos was thrashing slightly, tears streaming down his cheeks, his hands grasping desperately at the empty space where you should have been.

“Fuck! NO!” he suddenly screamed, his voice hoarse with panic.

“T!” you gasped, climbing onto the bed and pulling him into your arms. “T, baby…” you murmured, your voice gentle but firm. “I’m here. I’m right here.”

His hand found your shirt, bunching the fabric in his fist as though clinging to reality. He fought against the demons clawing at him, his breaths ragged and uneven. Finally, his eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused at first, until they locked onto yours. His lip quivered as shame filled his expression.

“Hi, baby,” you whispered, brushing your thumb tenderly across his cheek to wipe away the tears. “You’re okay. I’m here.”

“Fuck…” he sighed, his voice trembling as he buried his face in your shirt. His shame was palpable, but you held him tightly, cradling him as though the weight of his nightmares could be eased by your embrace.

“Another nightmare?” you asked softly. He nodded wordlessly, slipping his hand into yours. He hated these moments. Hated the way his past still haunted him, dragging you into his darkness. But you didn’t mind. You’d made a decision long ago: this man was worth every struggle, every sleepless night. Some may say a few days isn’t enough time to know who is your person, but when your life is on the line, time has a way of fast-tracking love.

“M’sorry…” he mumbled, his voice muffled against your chest.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, T,” you reassured him, your fingers running soothingly through his hair. “You know I’ll always be right here.”

“Promise?” His voice was barely above a whisper, raw and vulnerable.

You kissed his forehead, tightening your arms around him. “Promise,” you said, and you meant it with every fiber of your being.

No taglist yet but if you'd like to be added to future fics, let me know! :)

© loveesiren 2025 - do not copy, translate, transfer, or repost my work without my permission. if you find my work on sites other than through links i've provided, please notify me.

[comicaurora]

Hey, sorry if you’ve been asked this before, but I have ADHD and I’ve been following your comic for years and just now have started to write my own comic (partially because you really inspired me). But I’m really struggling with staying on the project even when it’s boring and getting myself to work on it in the first place. Do you have any tips on how to keep your brain invested or just to make yourself do the work at all?

I have excellent news, I literally just figured out something really important about this.

So when you're an ADHD kiddo or otherwise have difficulty staying on task in a structured environment where Task is the Priority, the main way people try to MAKE you stay on task is by removing your access to anything that is not The Task. No phone, no TV, no doodling, no going outside, etc. In practice, this just makes us miserable because it takes the boredom that's always simmering around a 2 or 3 and cranks it all the way up to 11. In the same way that you would have difficulty staying on task if you were in physical pain, this crushing existential monotony makes it very difficult to work. The work might get done simply because you have no other options, but it will not be done quickly or well, and it will take a while to recover from how much it hurt.

What I realized earlier this week is I caught myself doing this to myself. I had 42 pages of background colors to do, and I thought to myself "this sounds really tedious, but I suppose I have nothing better I can do." And I realized what I'd just thought, and got very alarmed.

Because back when I was an ADHD kiddo imprisoned by school scheduling and a million little factors that keep children immobile and restrained, I couldn't stop thinking about how big and exciting the world was, and how much I wanted to be anywhere but here. When I was feeling really crushed in I'd pick a random spot on the maps on my wall and just imagine being there instead of my bedroom. This was the impetus behind almost all of my creative energy. I've said it before - anything is a prison if you can't leave, and being in a prison makes it easy to imagine how amazing things could be outside of it. Aurora's initial worldbuilding was forged in the crucible of fifth grade misery. My enthusiasm for art and my creative drive are inextricable from my sense of wonder and yearning for excitement in the real world. Not escapism, but appreciation. Wonders unimaginable are out there, and I gain just as much joy seeking them out as I do conjuring them up in my head and sharing them with all of you.

So now that I'm a grown-up with actual freedom in every way I've been able to get, the idea that I was staying on task by making myself believe the world was small and not worth seeing was extremely alarming. It could keep me on task for an afternoon, but at the cost of slowly extinguishing the thing that made me want to make art in the first place - the hunger to experience and draw inspiration from all the myriad complexities in the world.

So what I've been doing is I've been purposefully and intentionally taking excursions whenever I catch myself thinking "I could take a break but it wouldn't be worth it, it's the same outdoors as always, I'll be uncomfy and unproductive and tired." Because that is never true. Every time I've put down the stylus and gone out, I've been renewed in one way or another, and when I come back to comfort fully recharged I get a lot of shit done. Because it is easier to work on anything if you remember why you wanted to make it in the first place, and it is self-defeating misery to just lock yourself in with it and tell yourself you're a bad person if you can't get it done.

I honestly don't know how widely applicable this is. I have worse wanderlust than anyone I know, so for me this has always been modeled as imprisonment vs freedom. I've also been extremely lucky to find myself in a profession that lets me set my own pace on literally everything I do. But I genuinely believe that when it comes to making art with ADHD, you need to give yourself freedom to move laterally, not just in the direction of obvious forward progress. We don't think linearly in any other part of our lives - art is no different.

[hurtspideyparker]

After Peter takes Tony on a poor person's tour of New York City (Part 1), Tony decides to get some revenge by bringing the kid to California to see how the other side lives

First order of business: a tailored suit. Peter stands awkwardly while an elderly man takes his measurements and adjusts his posture. "Which side do you dress?" he asks. Peter's eyebrows crinkle, "um, I dress all my sides?" Tony snorts. "No Pete, he's asking which side your di—" "OH"

They take the private jet of course. "I've actually done this part you know Mr. Stark," he tells him smugly. "Yes I do know, Happy complained about it for 20 minutes after we dropped you off. Do you even have a passport?" "Nope!"

Tony's Audi R8 is waiting for them in the parking lot in all its hot red glory. Tony tosses Peter the keys. "Really!?" "All part of the experience kid. Wait till you get on those long Malibu roads, bet we can watch the sunset on the beach if you step on it."

Peter does in fact step on it. Tony regrets ever opening his mouth. "I thought you said you had your driver's license!" "I do! Well, learner's permit. Y'know Spider-Man stole a car once. It was awesome." Tony tightens his grip on the seat.

Tony makes him pull over when he sees an ice cream shop. Peter is very excited to get a cone, and Tony is very excited that Peter made it this far without driving off a cliff. (Peter is not allowed to drive again)

They walk along the beach while they eat, Peter rolls up his pants and wades barefoot into the shoreline waves. As much as Tony planned this trip to get revenge on Peter for the chaotic day in New York, he can't help but smile at the boy's contentment

-When they get to the mansion Peter takes it upon himself to look into every single room. "That's a linen closet." "IT'S THE SIZE OF MY BEDROOM."

There are five guest rooms. One has a foosball table and mini fridge, another with a tv the size of a wall. there are two downstairs and two in a separate upstairs hallway. Tony tells Peter to pick whatever one he wants... he picks the room right across from Tony's (he should have expected that)

They hit LA the next day. "You didn't bring a hat or something?" "No, why?" Tony hands him a pair of his ostentatious sunglasses. "Borrow these." Peter wears them on their way to get lunch and it becomes clear very quickly why when within 20 minutes there are half a dozen paparazzi following them and snapping photos while yelling questions

"Mr. Stark who are you with?" "Stark what are your thoughts on the floods in Libya" "young man what is your name?" "hey kid how do you know Stark?" "Mr. Stark is this your illegitimate son?" "what does Ms. Potts think about your past sexual history?" "does this have anything to do with the child labour accusations against Stark industries?" Tony keeps his head up and continues walking down the street without pause when he speaks. "This young man is part of SI's intern program, and he's exceptional enough to work directly with me. No further questions please," and with that he grabs Peter's arm and pulls him into a cafe

"Woah," Peter says dizzily. "Yep." Tony replies simply

Tony orders them some sandwiches and smoothies—"14 dollars for a small?! What's it made of, gold?" Peter exclaims. Tony shrugs with a sip of the straw. "Probably, they put that stuff in everything nowadays. All it does is rack up the bill and stick to your teeth"

They don't spend too much time out before they need to go home and get ready for a charity gala. Tony watches in amusement as Peter struggles with his tie for five minutes before stepping in and tying it for him. He also puts on Peter's cufflinks for him. "These look expensive..." he examines the silver squares with a subtle P.P. monogram. "Meh, just six hundred." Peter balks while staring at the small accessory. "Mine were 3k," Tony says with a smirk, showing off his own cufflinks in a much more garish T.S. shape. Peter pales nauseously.

Peter sticks close to Tony in the large ballroom, shaking a dozen hands of old white men who all look the same and women who waddle around in their long dresses (Peter steps on one woman's train causing her to trip into a wobbly drunk woman, sending them both sprawling on the ground. Peter decides to inconspicuously speed walk away after brushing off the evidence of his footprint on the stiff fabric. Tony nearly gives him away with his laughter)

Peter grabs a glass of champagne at a waiter's offering, only to have it immediately taken from his hand by Tony. "Hey!" "you really thought I'd let you drink right in front of me?" Peter pauses. "Alcohol? I thought it was sparkling juice or something. Why'd the waiter give it to me, do I look 21 in a suit?" Tony scoffs at the hopeful flush to Peter's round cheeks. "Yeah no, but most aristocrats are alcoholics by 15 so the wait staff don't discriminate."

Tony orders him a virgin shirley temple from the bar and he's content

Peter later comes out of the bathroom with a stiff posture and quickly makes his way back to Tony. "Um, some people just offered me cocaine?" "did you take it?" "no..." "then we're good." Peter's eyebrows furrow as Tony moves on

"Here, you pick the amount," Tony says as he hands his checkbook and a pen to Peter. "Um, what is this for again?" Tony pauses. "Either youth literacy programs or LGBT suicide prevention." Peter shrugs and writes down 5000. Tony takes it back with a nod and then adds another zero

Tony doesn't say anything as Peter looks over the appetizers spread out on a white cloth table. Most of it is confusing or disgusting, and none of it looks very filling. He picks up something seemingly innocent, meat on a cracker. "I thought this was ham, but it's kind of greasy," he comments as he chews. Tony smirks at him. "It's foie gras." Peter stares at him blankly. "Duck or goose liver. They overfeed the birds to fatten them." Peter subtly spits it out into a cloth napkin that is way too nice to get dirty

They get burgers on the way home.

Later that evening Ned sends Peter a text with a TMZ article: Tony Stark and New Company Heir in LA. "You're in LA?!?? YOU'RE GONNA BE A CEO?" Peter face palms before texting back. "I'm boujee now Ned, don't talk to me again until your net worth is at least 3 mil"

[eldritchamy]

I think I've figured out a good way to articulate one of the reasons Human Domestication Guide is hitting for me in a way really not much else has done for a long time.

HDG is an inverse fandom.

Whereas a lot of fanfiction (maybe just for the sake of the pun we can expand outwards, wink, and call them "transformative works") takes at the core of its nature a specific character or group of characters, and then transplants (sorry, I had to) those characters into Alternate Universes in order to keep telling altered, revised, and original stories with those CHARACTERS, while changing everything else, HDG does the opposite.

It takes the SETTING as the core defining feature, and creates original CHARACTERS in order to tell original stories.

And that's really cool for reasons that, of course, ended up becoming another gigantic one of Amy's Patented Infodump Posts.

Most fanfiction gets to appeal to its audience because of the associations and attachments readers have for the CHARACTERS, and then create a new story from there without having to spend time setting up WHO THE STORY IS ABOUT for you. I don't say this as a bad thing, that's just the attraction. The readers bring their attachment to the characters WITH them before they start reading.

HDG gets to assume you understand the SETTING as a basic premise, and then tell new stories with original characters without having to hold your hand through as much of the set up work, because you already know the SETTING going in.

So instead of discovering how the characters you know relate to a world you don't (and to each other within that context), you get stories where you get to discover who the characters ARE, in the context of a world you already understand.

It's not "what does a different setting do to these characters." It's "how do different people navigate this setting."

You get to meet and learn and identify with the CHARACTERS because you see how they as unique people react to a set premise.

So much of what I've read so far has done exceptional work establishing who the characters are, even making MINOR characters within the story feel like fleshed out people.

You'd think in a setting that takes at face value the premise of humanity being subjugated and doted on by a species that uses mind control drugs to turn them into docile, obedient pets, the stories would struggle a bit with sameness as the individuality of the characters failed to shine through or were inevitably suppressed over the course of the plot.

In practice, it seems like almost the OPPOSITE is true.

The Affini always win. But every character chooses to lose to them in a different way that speaks to who they are as people.

Getting to explore these unique stories through the eyes of unique characters seems like it's making it EASIER to latch on to what makes THESE characters the focus of the stories being told.

And so far the stories being told are fucking great, and have such a huge range to them.

The original story for the setting is a VERY non consensual medfet/drug play subjugation story where Elvira (captain of a ship for the Free Terran feralist rebellion) is ABSOLUTELY brought into domestication by force (at first), and we get to see the PROCESS of her being broken down and becoming something new over the course of (what we later learn has been ONLY) about three weeks. She's not the same person she was at the start of the story. At all. She's been utterly replaced by a new identity and personality that the old version of her would never have accepted. (Also it's kinda hot that it's actually good for her, and that she very much DOES end up happier for it. She's still Elvira. But she's safe, and she's loved.)

That's a pretty specific vibe for a story.

But the next story I read in the setting takes place over the course of several hours in-universe, and basically follows a dysfunctional, clearly neurodivergent woman stagnating in the limbo of having been failed by capitalism (or in her mind, failing at it) and having mixed feelings about the staggeringly powerful alien civilization that is currently part way through conquering her planet and its people.

The story starts off when she's so hungry after scraping through what scant, nutritionless garbage she was able to find in the capitalist dystopia that it finally overrides her fear, and she goes to the border of Affini-controlled territory in her city. She figures, they're going to do whatever they're going to do to the rest of the city within a few days anyway, so there's no sense pretending whatever outcome she's walking into wasn't inevitable, and even if it's not as good as the Affini promise, at least it's not what she's been stuck in. Fear of sameness finally becomes more traumatic than fear of change.

She proceeds to go on an adorable lesbian grocery date with a 10 foot tall plant that gently flirts with her while remaining very firm that all of this human's needs CAN and SHOULD and WILL be taken care of FOR her from now on, and it's OKAY that she has trouble focusing because it's OKAY that some people need more help than others.

She spends several chapters experiencing repeated Lesbian Bluescreens because of this sweet, doting alien who insists it's no trouble at all and she's happy to help. Then said alien takes her back to her apartment on the human side to make sure she feels safe getting there through the anti-Affini protests, and then in a matter of minutes she has cleaned this girl's entire disaster of an apartment and promised to cook her a nice Terran pizza.

Then the girl has a lesbian panic attack while coming to terms with how much misery she didn't have to be living with, and whether this future isn't exactly what she always hoped for and more, so the alien offers to give her some alien drugs to calm her down, and her now fuzzy brain accidentally crumbles under the weight of all the secret petplay fantasies that have been turning her face red all morning and she accidentally calls the alien "Mistress", and then she goes home to THEIR place back in Affini territory with her new owner and gets absolutely spoiled until she falls asleep feeling safe and loved for the first time in her life.

COMPLETE tonal shift from the original story, but the LOGIC of the story is fully consistent with the setting. It's just a different character responding to that setting in a different way.

The range of what's possible is ENORMOUS.

I went from there to "two humans captured at different times struggle to find their way back to each other and end up with neural implants plugged into each other's brains by their shared Mistress, and the feedback loop helps them domesticate EACH OTHER" and then from there to a mostly historical context story about an Affini who lived for almost 300,000 years and how she feels about the Compact's role in everything they've done to the universe.

And then I got to read "I have to pretend to be a good little floret maid at an Affini Compact hotel because that's my Genius Spy Cover WHOOPS it turns out being a maid means getting teased and played with a lot WHOOPS, OHHhhh NOOOoo~ I'VE BEEN TURNED INTO A FREE USE HYPNO DOLL because EVERYONE KNEW I WAS A SPY THE WHOLE TIME, I'm going to resolve my mixed feelings by erotically betraying my co-conspirator so we can be floret girlfriends together," which was cute, funny, and INCREDIBLY hot.

Seriously, chapter 10 of that story. Holy FUCK. I think my brain has turned fully inside out. I had a DREAM kinda like it afterwards that I wish I could remember more of.

I guess my point is HDG is less like a fandom and more like DND.

It's a shared universe of collaborative storytelling, even if any individual work within it was made by one person.

You get to play within a core set of rules for how the setting works, but the stories that can come out of playing by those rules are so incredible and diverse and interesting, and I'm really enjoying getting to explore all of that within the context of a basic premise that has absolutely grabbed most of my kinks by the throat, stared menacingly into my eyes, and smirked knowingly.

Also it's INCREDIBLY queer and very obviously made specifically for gay autistic trans women who take progesterone, so I guess just like the rest of the little Terrans, I never stood a chance.

[revvethasmythh]

listen, now that everything is said and done i'm going to say something i've been thinking but not outright saying for the past nearly four years. frankly, imogen and laudna's relationship is a pale shadow of caleb and veth's and if you really sit and think about it, it's outright embarrassing for the former party. it's like if you saw a beautiful piece of art and tried to emulate it and then the only thing you managed to jot down that was the same was the basic shape and you never added any color when the color was the most important part. imogen and laudna's relationship is formed out of almost the exact same origins (troubled mage who needs to keep a distance from regular society joins up with monstrous misfit with a traumatic backstory and become each other's most important person while traveling place-to-place because they keep getting into trouble in cities). the difference is, genuinely, how much more colorful and lived in caleb and veth's story feels. they met in a podunk county jail and worked together to break out of the place, stayed together for practical reasons (straight-up survival) and then out of genuine friendship. they were hobos in the woods together. they cuddled on the side of the roads on cold nights together. they were genuinely each other's sole lifeline because they were the type of people no one in the world cared about in a very real, visceral way. they were also con artists, and sam and liam worked together to come up with an entire booklet of different cons they used to survive, which come into play surprisingly often during the campaign (Modern Literature, famously, but also Mother's Love and Money Pot featured).

comparatively, we know next to nothing about what imogen and laudna's lives looked like after leaving gelvaan, and the Incident™️ that sent them running in the first place remains amorphous and random no matter how many times the story is told or whatever extra details get added. the people of gelvaan found laudna to be a generically threatening presence (because of her fun-scary appearance and/or kooky-fun-scary behavior) and picked up their torches and pitchforks to run her out of town. imogen heard her thoughts and found them so beautiful she nearly killed two of the townspeople she grew up with the defend her and then they fled into the night together. and that's it. what did they do for two entire years after that? i don't know! neither do you. they don't appear to have struggled for money like caleb and veth did, there's no reference to hard-living, no real reference to what jobs they took to stay afloat, no mention of the practical realities of living as homeless nomads, no mention of towns and cities they'd visited and how those places impacted them. nothing. empty. no color. how did their relationship develop? also don't know! they seem to have slotted together perfectly as friends with no conflict for years before slotting together perfectly as lovers while batting aside all attempts at conflict later. done and dusted, that's the relationship, and people have the gall to call caleb and veth's successor relationship 'soulmatism' when it doesn't hold a candle to what the original offered.

which was, to be clear, endless complexity. i can't tell you how to define it, and i don't think the character's themselves could define it if they tried. sam went into the campaign intending to lean into a familial relationship and quickly realized that wasn't the vibe, course-corrected into veth having a crush on caleb--something sam has said developed fairly early in the campaign.* liam went into the relationship not intending to care about her nearly as much as he ended up doing, then spent the early campaign eps grappling with just how suddenly important she was to him, to the point that, in the face of her potentially dying in episode 20, liam says to sam, "do you want to make my character turn evil already?"** both were surprised at how tightly their characters clung to each other, and developed a deeply caring, highly insular dynamic where they were suspicious of outsiders and desperately guarded each other. with full retrospect, both went into the relationship intending to use each other (caleb for general usefulness/protection and veth, obviously, hoping caleb could change her back one day), then found such deep and tender care that they became each other's worlds. for a time. until nott became veth and veth had a husband and it sent their relationship into a tailspin because no matter how you frame the relationship, caleb clearly felt his feelings for her and the way they behaved together stepped over the line of how one should act with a married woman. after that, he is terrified of the idea that he might not have a place in her life and works so hard to create opportunities to insinuate himself into her present and future (teleportation spells so she can travel home quickly and still return to the group, making room for her family in the tower so she can stay with him, offering to tutor luc in magic to stay in her life, etc). veth gets her body and her life back but fears returning home will be lackluster compared to what she's experienced with the group, starts falling out of love with her husband, and has intense extra-martial feelings for caleb that are canonical. their relationship morphs and changes constantly throughout the campaign, and the one thing about their dynamic that never changes is how deeply and truly they love each other. you want to talk about soulmatism? them being the two party members with fake names who's real names share aspects of each other ("Bren" and "Brenatto") both from small-town dwendalian empire who's lives have been deeply impacted by meddling of the cerberus assembly (veth's in adulthood, caleb's in childhood) and who's deepest traumas are respectively fire and water does the trick for me.

so why is one so popular and the other, particularly as a romantic ship, very much is not? it would be obtuse of me not to immediately point to the fact that imogen and laudna are two pretty, skinny white women who claim to have deliciously little agency in their own stories and provide a blank enough canvas that the relationship can be whatever you want it to be. there's a reason there's so many AU fics for them, after all. caleb and veth on the other hand would center first a relationship between the handsome white fandom-popular sadboi and *checks notes* a self-described ugly, unfeminine goblin with deep neuroses and later a short, fat brown woman who also happens to be a young mother from a small country town. popular fandom, tragically, will almost always turn away from dealing with complexity of the latter for the empty calories of the former regardless of the quality gap between the two. if anything, watching the popularity of imogen and laudna's relationship has cemented my opinion that if veth had been different (either a man or a generically attractive white woman or someone more conventionally pretty just in general), widobrave would have been a massively popular ship, and i think it would have been regardless of veth's marriage. people can forgive a lot to write about their two generically attractive favorites getting together. they're a lot less forgiving for an ugly goblin or a fat, brown young mother, though.

tldr: reject modernity, embrace tradition. ship widobrave

*Talks Machina for C2E88, VOD no longer available, but a paraphrase of the quote can be found here **(2:09:30 on the YouTube VOD).

[moonlighthcandmore]

Blind Tim AU

Ok, I've been thinking about blind Tim AU way more than I should have. Sorry if this feels weird, or off since I haven't done this before, but this is basically going to be a dump about my AU idea.

Tim got blinded while he was Robin, but before he worked with almost anyone other than Batman. Batman tried to bench him, and didn't want to let me work ever again, but we all know how Tim is. Once he figures out how to live his new normal, he started working, simultaneously staying away from Bruce so he can't stop him while rubbing it in Bruce's face that he's doing it. It's a learning curve to try to figure out how to beat criminals, but he finds ways around every hurtle like a true Robin.

When he started working with the YJ, he didn't tell them that he was blind, and none of them caught on for a long time while they were just working together, and not spending time together outside of work. He works so seamlessly, because he's learned how, and built himself personalized gear to help. So the very first time they all meet up to do something after a mission, they decide to watch a movie. They're all still in costume, but Tim gets his white cane before coming back. They're all confused, but too scared to ask. They end up spending the entire time whispering about it, and not paying attention to the movie. Especially since he wasn't paying attention, so he ended up getting hit in the face with the bag of gummy worms that Bart threw at him. He doesn't notice their inner turmoil since he's gotten four hours of sleep in the same amount of days, and is struggling to stay awake.

Eventually he starts working with the batfamily again too since Bruce gets over himself, and realizes that he can't stop Tim either way. Dick is a lot more supportive, and Damian is more cautiously curious since he's met a lot of people that can work past disabilities. There also wasn't a power struggle for him since Tim wasn't working with Bruce anymore anyway. Tim is working with a lot of organizations that help disabled people in Gotham, especially the ones that have been disabled by the rogues, but can't afford to go somewhere safer to get treatment. Damian begins helping him, and getting involved with every event that Tim puts together.

Anyway, enough of my rambling, I'll probably post more about this, but feel free to let me know if you want to see more of this AU!

[northern-passage]

what have i been up to?

i decided to do a little check-in type post just to let you all know what i've been working on. i know things have been quiet here, mainly because i'm just not as active on social media as i used to be (but especially here)

i have been working on tnp, though. i've been rewriting chapter 2 (what was previously chapter 1) and i know a lot of people complain about rewrites but the fact was simply that i had written myself into a corner; when it comes to IF, when you have a lot of stats and branching and variations to track, you get to a point where it simply does not make sense to try and force it, and i really needed to go back and fix my coding and cut a lot of variables. which is what i've been doing, and many of you have seen how that's changed the game so far with the rewritten prologue (now chapter 1).

with that in mind, i've also done a lot of worldbuilding. again, you've seen some of this if you saw the pantheon post i made a while ago (though some of that has changed already, too, along with more edits to chapter 1 😅) and i've put a lot more thought into the setting, how the world "works" and the different relationships between countries and cultures, etc.

i will be yapping about all of that under the cut if you're interested, but if not, just know i am still working on the game. i do not have an estimated timeline for an update, but i am trying very hard to get chapter 2 out this year.

anyways, my rambling:

one of the main changes will be how Gael and Adrania function. Gael and Adrania remain similar in essence but the relationship has changed, as has the source of their hostilities. i've also put a lot more thought into the way gender roles would work in this world, something that i've previously been a bit wishy-washy on. reading more fantasy and studying lectures on the craft and understanding the way oppression works in the real world has allowed me to brainstorm a better, more realized world with tnp.

that being said, i still stand by my original goal with this project, which is that i'm not really interested in writing violent/graphic misogyny, transphobia, or homophobia. but i am interested in exploring the way empires hold power, and for tnp, that has always been through money and trade. even in the very first iterations, the major cities like blackwater and king's harbor are designed with very clear and purposeful class divides, i've just put a lot more thought into how this would actually work.

and there is also the influence of the gods; when your major religious figurehead is revered as a "mother," as well as the enforcer of justice, what does that mean for the world and the women in it? when you have gods that are genderless or genderfluid, how does that change societies perception of trans people, and gender as a whole?

i struggled when i started tnp about how to depict gender in this world, and originally i simply chose not to give it much thought, and i used a lot of anachronisms rather than actually trying to explore what transness and gender within the context of tnp would look like (i think this was my biggest mistake with Lea at the start. if you remember that you're a real one lol). and i think that's a cop out and simply not how any society would work. Adrania is an empire; people will be forced to comply to various roles and expectations in order for this empire to retain control.

so this led me to 1. reimplement the tolls, something that was present in my very first draft but got scrapped before publishing for the first time. it's easy to control people when you have papers and tolls to track them (or restrict their movements if they don't have the "correct" papers). 2. expand on the relationship between Gael and Adrania. where did these two countries come from? when did they split? how has Adrania managed to grow in power while Gael has not? and how has the plague exacerbated the hostilities? etc. we'll see a lot of this explained in the next chapter (as well as some edits made to chapter 1 again), with Adrania's trade agreements and how they exclude Gael specifically.

and finally, what gender roles are people expected to play within society? if Adrania's main god is a woman (okay, a wolf, but you get it) and a mother and also known to be a ruthless dispenser of justice, what does this mean for Adranian men and women? if their god of death is genderless and also commonly represented as a god of dreams and transitions (from life to death and wakefulness to dreams and from one gender to another or beyond) how does this impact the trans people in this world? if the god of war and harvest is sometimes a woman and sometimes a man, who benefits from elevating one depiction over the other?

lots of fun questions! which i think has led to some interesting changes in the game which makes the world feel more real. it also gives me a reason (not that i "needed" one but, ya know *gestures vaguely*) for all of the women i have in combat leadership roles: Keres, Hadrien, and Merry, just to name a few, and why someone like Redwine would be disliked and challenged as a political, landowning leader instead (and ultimately replaced by a man). while all the warrior gods are women (Wolfmother, the Moon, Stormbringer), Adrania emphasizes the male depiction of the Sun, which leads to this divide of men seeking landownership and more administrative political roles, versus women who, outside of motherhood, make careers as generals and captains and knights.

with trans people, there are similar expectations, of course, but they are also pushed towards more spiritual roles due to their perceived kinship with the death god as well as the Sun (and this also means that while motherhood is revered in this world, there is a looser definition here than in our world, due to transness being acknowledged, accepted, and an integral part of society. what "motherhood" is and what it means to people will be explored heavily in game, you just have to trust me on this one!) obviously there is a real history of trans people being seen this way, and it's something i've turned over in my head for a while. beyond the spiritual, though, trans people are seen in every other role as well, and we'll see some trans people who have little to no relationship with religion or the death god (like Merry, Lea, Clementine, Rodrick, and Rafe) and others that have an actively hostile relationship with it (Noel. lol) and including the potentially trans mc, we see a diverse depiction of trans people, as hunters and watchers and captains and healers and bards, etc. i'm hoping this still gives a well-rounded, multi-faceted look at how trans people live in this world without pigeonholing them solely as "divine oracles," or othering them from their cis counterparts.

overall, i feel that i've matured as a writer since i started tnp and i want that to reflect in the world as well. rereading the original demo made me cringe and a lot of it just felt very childish and flat, and i feel like i really didn't have a strong enough grasp on the fantasy genre, nor the skills and knowledge required to do proper, intensive worldbuilding at the time. now i think the story and setting and characters have grown a lot and i'm more capable and confident to do the things that past me couldn't. anyways thanks for reading all this, this post was just an excuse for me to talk about everything because i'm dying keeping it all to myself LOL. i look forward to catching back up to chapter 3 and finally sharing it all with you eventually!

[onbearfeet]

In Which the Wizard School Books Are a Hammer

Okay. I'm gonna tell this story once, and only once, because I think it might help people who are struggling to finally, FINALLY boot J.K. Rowling from their lives.

I can't precisely say I sympathize, but I definitely know how you feel, because I have already had to do this dance with someone I guarantee you've never heard of. I've had all the feelings you've had. I had to find a way through all by myself, and now I'm going to help you so you have an easier time. Okay? Okay.

Content warning: discussion of child sexual abuse (mentioned but not described in detail).

So there's this writer. I refuse to speak or write his name these days, so we'll call him Evil Bob. ("Bob" is my default placeholder name, and this Bob is evil.) Evil Bob was a damn good writer and, frankly, an underappreciated one in his time. I picked up a few of his projects out of the bargain bin on impulse when I was about 12, and after that he was one of my names to conjure with. If Evil Bob had written it, I wanted to read it. He had a kind of perfect workman's style--he did a lot of things pretty well, and he did them in such a way that a bright 12-year-old could see how the trick was done. I learned a lot of basic writerly technique from Evil Bob--things about dialogue and pacing and how to convey character through action and lots of other stuff. Evil Bob unlocked something in my brain, and I really blossomed as a young writer by applying the lessons of his work.

Evil Bob's fiction started to fall off in popularity eventually, so he switched to nonfiction and wrote a damn good history book that won a lot of awards. I read it in college. The man could really interview, I tell you what.

I even got to interview Evil Bob myself, eventually. I was working for a small magazine that wanted to publish an article about a certain minority group's representation in a certain fiction genre, and Evil Bob had written one of the seminal works in that niche, so I tracked down his contact info, called him up, and we had a lovely hourlong chat. He was kind and gracious and funny and --

Yeah, this is where you learn why I named him Evil Bob.

A few years ago, people in Evil Bob's old fiction genre started circulating a list of, shall we say, disgraced writers in the field. Think of it like a MeToo list. The list got passed around every time a new name was added, and at a certain point, after a much more famous name had just been added to it, the list crossed my feed for the first time in a while. I dutifully scanned down it in case there was anyone on it I'd missed; after all, I attended conventions for this genre, and some of these fuckers were on the list for assaulting fans like me, so I wanted to know who to watch out for.

And there, in the middle of the list, was Evil Bob.

Weird, I thought. Evil Bob had seemed chill when I spoke to him, and usually, being 22 with big boobs (as I was when I interviewed him) brought out the perv in these guys if there was any perv to bring out. Well, maybe this was something else--maybe he used a slur on an old tape or something. I googled.

It was something else, all right.

As I sat there googling, Evil Bob was sitting in a federal prison a thousand miles away. He was there because, according to his Wikipedia page, he had been convicted of having so many CSA images on his hard drive that the judge in his case became physically ill. Honestly, I want to know where he got a hard drive that big in the year he was arrested, but I absolutely will not be asking him.

Evil Bob was EVIL. Fuck the carceral state, but also never let that particular dude near kids or a computer again.

So now I had a problem. I was going to stop buying Evil Bob's stuff, obviously--I would drop the man like a hot potato--but I couldn't so easily remove his influence on me. I'll never be 12 years old and digging through the quarter bin at the used bookshop again. There's no way to re-learn the foundations of my artform without Evil Bob. The bastard is part of me, whether I like it or not. He's left his fingerprints on my brain. And while I have negative interest in creating my own criminal hard drive, it's a little hard to shake the irrational guilt (especially since I had been raised in a high-control religious environment where any contact with sin could permanently stain one's soul, and Evil Bob's writing was part of how I escaped, and--you get the idea). I couldn't shed the stink of Evil Bob. I'd written that article. I was covered in the fuckin' ooze.

I'll spare you the six months of angst and self-flagellation. I've been to therapy since this happened. Here's what I eventually decided:

Evil Bob is like a hammer.

My dad gave me an old hammer when I moved out, along with some other miscellaneous hand tools in a paper bag. I bought a toolbox, I put the tools in it, and I use them when I need tools. My dad is an asshole who abused his children, but a hammer is a hammer. Scratch the previous owner's name off the handle, and you can build a pretty fine house with it.

What I learned from Evil Bob are the tools of a trade, and tools are not inherently evil. He taught me how to put sentences together--but I decide what my sentences say. He showed me how to convey character--but I choose what I'm conveying. He made me a writer--but I'm the one writing now.

So I still use Evil Bob's tools, with his name scoured off. I still teach some of those lessons, but he's the one source I don't cite. Oh, that dialogue hack? I picked it up in grad school, pinky swear. Here, let me share it with you for free, with no credit or compensation to the bastard who taught it to me.

I won't pretend Evil Bob wasn't an influence on my younger self, but you'll never hear me speak his legal name. I was one of the few people who really counted themselves fans of his work ... and he'll never get a whisper of a hint of that support from me again. I guarantee you won't be able to track him down from this post, and that's just the way I like it. There's a reason I haven't identified what genre he wrote in, or what his seminal fiction work was about, or whom he interviewed for that prizewinning book.

Damnatio memoriae, motherfucker. This is my hammer now, and it always has been.

So how do we give JKR the Evil Bob treatment?

Unfortunately, the Terf Queen has a larger media presence than Evil Bob ever did. One sad ex-Potterhead won't be able to erase her from culture. But there's a lot more than one of you, isn't there?

The thing is, cultural trends fade faster than you expect. Plenty of celebrities and famous artists of your parents' generation are nobodies now, and it's usually because their work spoke to your parents but not to you. I once witnessed my brother trying to read his sons a 1912 book about Spanish naval history as a bedtime story, and let me tell you, it did not go over well. Some art burns hot and bright and then it burns OUT.

The Potterheads are the parents now. Imagine how easy it would be to just ... stop talking about her. Stop buying the merch. Don't watch the new TV show or play the new game. Don't tell people you used to be a fan--not because you ought to be ashamed, but because you're not going to give her the satisfaction of saying her name. And when your kids ask about your tattoo, just tell them not to get blackout drunk in college.

Damnatio memoriae, motherfucker.

And if you feel the need to explain where you learned your kindness and courage, your unshakable loyalty to your friends (especially the trans ones), your hope in the face of overwhelming darkness ...

... why, that's your hammer. And it always has been.

[junkissed]

can't get you out of my head

member — fwb!vernon x f reader genre — smut, like a little tiny bit of angst? with a happy ending word count — 2.4k synopsis — so what if calling your fuck buddy every other day is a little excessive? maybe you're just in love with him. smut warnings — descriptions of female anatomy, lots and lots of kissing, some dacryphilia, multiple orgasms, begging, creampie warnings — vernon is called hansol - i don't usually do that but just go with it; vernon is kind of a sweetheart tbh this ended up being pretty soft notes — june is back !! i've really been struggling to write these past few months so i'm actually super proud that i was able to sit down and write this as fast as i did. i can't promise another fic anytime soon or any kind of consistent uploads, but i hope you enjoy this meager offering! thanks for the support even while i've been gone :) also this is based on a dream i had about vernon the other day and i could not stop thinking about it it was driving me crazy, so everyone say thank you to my brain or the sandman or whoever put that idea in my dreams because this fic is a result of it. if there are mistakes pls ignore i wrote this at 2am

the thing you remember most about hansol is his lips.

the first time you kissed him was like opening a door to a world you'd never known existed. your past hookups had been terrible kissers, or even worse—hadn't even tried to kiss you at all. you were sick of the boring, underwhelming sex with men who couldn't care less if you got off or not. but some god or being in the universe must've been looking out for you, because finding hansol was nothing short of a miracle.

it was so good, you weren't even that embarrassed when you'd desperately texted him a couple of nights later, practically begging him to come over and fuck you again. he was burned into your brain, the feeling of his mouth locked with yours seared so deep in your memory you couldn't erase him if you tried, but it wasn't exactly like you wanted to. 

he hadn't explicitly said you would only be a one night stand, but you usually didn't hang around the same guy for too long, and he didn't really seem like the commitment type anyway. but when you find something this good, you don't let it go, and somehow you both knew that whatever this was, it was too good to pass up on.

so it wasn't really a surprise when you found yourself on his couch, straddling his lap in the late hours of the night for the third time this week. 

like you remembered, his lips were warm and soft, his cheek brushing against yours as you melted into him. you could kiss him for hours and not notice the time passing at all, so focused on the rhythm of his mouth working you up more than anything you'd done with any man you'd slept with before.

the heat of his hands resting on your hips sends shivers up and down your spine, unconsciously arching towards him as his tongue pushes into your mouth.

one gentle hand travels carefully up beneath your shirt, tracing the skin of your stomach before stopping at your breast, your heartbeat racing beneath his palm.

your breath is hot on his cheek as you readjust your position, slipping your knees onto either side of his hips and sinking down to straddle his lap. your clothed cunt throbs as he presses his bulge against the inside of your thigh, and you don't hold back the open-mouthed moan that escapes you as his other hand quickly reaches up to angle your jaw and guide your lips back to his.

you push your hips down a little harder on him and his nails dig into your breast. his grip tightens a little as his hips cant up against you, desperate for more pressure against his strained cock.

your eyelids flutter as his other hand tilts your chin upwards, finally breaking away from your mouth only to reattach his lips at the base of your jaw. his tongue laves over your skin before he starts to suck, and you shiver when he pulls back and cold air hits the wet patch of spit on your neck.

you have to focus hard not to drool when you open your eyes and catch a glimpse of his face, lust-glazed eyes staring up at you through his long, thick lashes, his intense gaze fixed on you.

if you ever get past this weird in-between stage of talking but not talking, maybe you'll tell him how jealous you are of his beautiful, natural eyelashes. if you ever actually get to have a conversation with him outside of calling to hook up, maybe you'll tell him how nice his lips are. you'll tell him how soft his hands are and how he's by far the best person you've ever slept with, leaps and bounds better than all the rest, and—

before you fully realize what's happening, you feel your shirt being pulled over your head and hansol's lips have made their way down to your chest. without a sound his hands roam your body, fingers drawing invisible lines over your bare skin and leaving trails of goosebumps with every touch.

he doesn't talk much during sex, or maybe you just don't know each other well enough yet for him to have much to say. aside from the way he occasionally murmurs about how perfect you are — an oddly intimate thing to say to someone who's just a friend with benefits, but coming from him it sounds so casual — the only words you ever get out of him are curses and whimpered pleas.

the only words he ever gets out of you are shamelessly begging him, please kiss me again, please, hansol; and you're always too far gone to care about how whiny you sound, because you need his lips on you so fucking bad you think you might just die without them. but he always obliges, quickening the speed of his thrusts and wrapping his arms around you tighter so he can kiss you deeper, until your lips are numb and you can still feel the weight of him holding you even hours after he's gone.

so maybe you do have a teeny tiny crush on hansol. anyone in their right mind would, and when he's finished with you tonight you're sure you won't have much mind left to even think about it. certainly this is a problem for another day, a day when you'll inevitably call him again so he can make you lose your mind all over again and you won't have to think about how much you like him, and you'll continue like that for who knows how long. 

maybe he'll get bored of you, or find someone else, or move to another city too far for you to justify travelling for a relationship that isn't even a relationship…

… but then he lets out a little groan and you fall back into reality, the reality where you've been making out with him for the past half hour and he quietly but confidently lets you know if he doesn't get his dick out soon he's definitely going to cum in his pants and not only will it make him look like a loser but he also won't get to fuck you, which is the whole reason you asked him to meet up tonight, right?

well, yeah, you guess, but a part of you knows there's more to it than that. but that's not really a conversation for right now.

you lean down to press another chaste kiss against those lips that you can't stop thinking about, and your fingers pull his t-shirt over his head before finding their way down to the button at the top of his jeans.

you've had his cock inside you more times than you think you deserve, but still your stomach bubbles with excitement as he lifts his hips and shimmies out of his pants, the outline against his briefs more than enough to make your mouth water before he slips those off, too.

for tonight, you're the recipient of his undivided attention. you alone get to have him and his perfect cock all to yourself; maybe not forever, but for right now, and that's all you really need.

he presses his hand against his bulge, eyes squeezed shut in pleasure as you stand up from his lap to kick off your pants and underwear.

you must have been taking too long for his liking, though, because as soon as you're fully nude his hands tug impatiently at your waist and pull you back down onto him. 

he lets out a heavy sigh, the head of his cock pressed deliciously against your clit as you start to rock your hips back and forth.

but before long his hands bring you to a stop and he lets out his usual string of pleas to let him fuck you, and now it's your turn to sigh in relief as he pushes into you, the stretch so natural like he was the only one who was made to sit you on his lap.

he doesn't move right away. he never moves right away, whether to give you a chance to adjust or maybe because he himself can't handle the feeling. either way, you always struggle to take in a shaky breath as your walls flutter around him, perfectly thick and long that you could probably cum untouched like this if you sat there for long enough.

but as badly as you want to never move and let him cockwarm you for hours, he always eventually moves. 

he starts out slow, just a few inches at a time, a gentle in and out that's almost romantic until you feel like you can breathe normally again— right before he knocks the breath out of you, increasing his pace until the room is filled with the loud sounds of skin against skin.

he always fucks you like it's been months since he's came, even though you know for a fact it was last thursday and all over your stomach. all you can do now is hang onto his broad shoulders for dear life, nails scratching helplessly at his muscles as he carries you up and over the edge, pushing you into the first of many orgasms tonight.

sometimes he'll make a comment about how wet you get when he fucks you like this, rough and fast as he pounds into you like there's no tomorrow. and that's when you'll agree, yes you love it so much, yes he's so good, yes you need more and please, please keep going.

if it were anyone else they'd probably smirk at that, satisfied with the momentary boost to their ego. but that's what you love about hansol, is that he's not anyone else: he'll take those words and use them to somehow fuck you even rougher and even faster, so rough and so fast that sometimes tears will start to roll down your cheeks, and that's usually about when you start begging him to kiss you.

you can't help it. the way he bounces you so effortlessly on his cock, his lips parted and beads of sweat trickling down his neck, you need him bad. you want to be closer to him, closer than you know is physically possible but damn if you won't try anyway.

throwing your hands around his neck and falling against his chest, tears still streaming from your eyes as you plead with him, repeating his name over and over and over like you've lost your mind and he's the only thing left. in all honesty, maybe he is.

he quietly shushes you and tilts his chin up to capture your lips in the kiss you so badly crave, and it's everything you need and more and somehow still not enough but you can't think straight anymore when his cock is hitting you just right and his mouth is also just right and each vein, each curve, each ridge, drags perfectly along your walls and he's splitting you open and goddamn you are ruined for anybody else.

you feel like you're skirting in and out of consciousness when you cum again, squeezing around his cock so tight that even his powerful thrusts can't continue at their current pace.

it isn't long before he lets go too, holding you flush against his body as he fills you up, painting your insides white with a breathy moan, and in a weird way it makes you feel kind of proud.

you both sit there for a moment, panting as you start to come down.

without even standing up you already know your legs are jell-o, but you don't really have time to think about that as hansol lifts you off his lap and sets you carefully on the couch, leaving you with another kiss before he stands up and disappears down the hall, returning seconds later with a towel that looks suspiciously new.

you'd asked him about his bathroom towels last time you'd been over at his place. a mismatched collection of white and brown and aquamarine that he'd taken with him when he'd moved out of his parent's house, he said, he'd never really had a reason to buy a set of his own. 

the grey cloth in his hand now that he uses to gently wipe between your legs is one you don't remember seeing.

he finishes and you want him to kiss you again, but you're too shy to ask now so he leaves you again with just a kind smile this time.

you've put most of your wrinkled clothes back on by the time he comes back. he offers to drive you home every time afterwards, but you always insisted you were fine, already feeling like you'd overstayed your welcome.

this time he doesn't offer, though, just quietly sits down next to you to pull on his own clothes until you're both fully dressed.

he speaks before the awkward silence has time to set in.

"have you been seeing anybody else?" he asks, and it's probably the longest sentence he's spoken to you outside of when he's fucking you.

it takes you a couple seconds to say no. god, you sound like a loser, but you couldn't lie to him. since the very first time with hansol the thought of seeing anyone besides him hadn't even crossed your mind. just like you thought; ruined.

it takes him a couple seconds to reply, too. 

"good," he says, and you could almost swear his cheeks are pinker than usual as he admits that he hasn't been with anyone, either. "could we keep it that way?"

your breath catches a little. "yeah?"

"yeah," he answers. "whatever… this is, i like it. and i like you."

and just like that, things make sense. 

"maybe, would you, y'know, wanna stay this time?" he asks, and you can't hide the grin on your face as you lean over and kiss him again, your answer evident in the way your hand falls against his warm chest and your fingers weave gently through his hair.

everything is so simple with hansol.

i hope you enjoyed this!! if you did, consider reblogging or leaving a comment or an ask :) it shows me this is something people want to see more of, and knowing people like this makes me want to write more of it! thanks for reading!!

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[kitsunexgari]

Summary: You have been dating In-ho for quite awhile, and though things are amazing, there’s one fantasy you’ve always wanted to try. Something a bit darker than usual. One night he surprises you with your darkest desires. Tags: Edge Play, Torture, Fear play, Dom/Sub, Restraints, Consensual but pretty insane. Knife play, spanking, fingering, face fucking, orgasm denial, forced orgasms, humiliation, degradation, dirty talk, Read with Caution. Notes: This story is definitely not for everyone and may contain elements that people aren’t entirely happy with. Please read with caution. This story is for adult entertainment only. 

You have been dating In-ho for quite a long time now and both of you get along amazingly. Luckily when it all started you were both into the same things, wanted to explore the same concepts and eventually went from normal BDSM into edge play. Your sex life was anything but boring or vanilla but there was something in the back of your mind you always wanted to try. 

He always seemed kind of hesitant telling you that you wouldn't like it, that the fantasy was better than the reality. Not that he was really being dismissive or rude, just concerned that it could be too intense and scare you a bit too much. You reminded him that you had a safe word so if it got that way then it wouldn't matter but he didn't seem too keen on it. You figured that maybe he was right and you could live without that fantasy at least for now.

Still every time you entered the house alone it was on your mind. The thought of some intruder grabbing you, taking you somewhere “against your will” and forcing you into submission. Of course, the fantasy was for In-ho to do this while pretending to be someone else, and also, you knew he could because of who he was. You could see how it may not interest him, basically asking for him to “work” and also have sex with you but it never left the back of your mind.

In-ho had been out of town for a bit for work and you were returning from your own job. As you head into the kitchen to heat up some leftover food from the night before you are grabbed from behind. A knife presses into your throat as a hand covers your mouth. You scream and struggle until you realize you recognize this hold, you recognize this scent, you know exactly what and who this is even if you never expected it in a million years. Your heart is still pounding because he doesn't seem very keen on breaking the immersion of this fantasy despite your reaction.

"All alone?" He growls in your ear. 

"Yes I-" 

"SHUT UP!" he snarls, the knife pressing into your skin sharply cutting it just a bit. You hiss with pain but your body shivers with pleasure, completely stunned he's using a real knife but you have no complaints. He's done things like this before and you've always loved the little marks he's left to signify how much he owns you. "I know exactly what I'm going to do with you, little girl." 

You can feel him as he rubs against you a bit, how aroused he is already. You are a bit stunned as he always made it seem as if this scenario didn't interest him in the slightest but it is now clear that he'd been lying to you about it. He leans in and bites at your neck roughly, on the other side, as he keeps the knife pressed where it's already being held before he reaches up and grabs you by the hair yanking your head back so you are forced to look up at him at a nearly impossible angle.

"We are going to have a lot of fun," He grins. The switchblade he's holding is pocketed and you are pulled by your hair into the next room where he quickly pins you face first into a wall. "Such a pretty little cocktease you know I've been watching you for awhile." He grabs your ass, squeezing it painfully hard before yanking your arms behind your back and tying them at the wrists with some annoyingly rough and irritating rope but that just adds to the rest of the sensations that he is providing you. 

"Please-" 

"Please what? Do you think I fucking care what a little fuck toy like you wants? No...you're mine now and I will do what ever I please and you will do what I fucking say...got it?" He snaps though he doesn't give you any actual time to answer before he lifts you and throws you over his shoulder roughly. You squeal, not expecting that at all but he pays no attention to it. You are far too small and powerless to fight him, even if you actually wanted to, and now your arms are restrained behind your back making any effort futile. You kick your legs a bit which really only earns you a slap to your ass. Then another, then another. He's not being gentle either, in fact, he's using as much force as possible and it's harder than it's ever been. You are sure it will bruise but the idea of that only makes you wet. 

"Please...sir I don't want-" 

"The fuck did I just say about what you want?" He snarls and heads up the stairs with you. "Who's even gonna stop me, that weak little boyfriend of yours? Yes...I know." 

"He's-" 

"Oh no bitch...I'm your Daddy tonight." He cuts you off. You enter the bedroom and he throws you onto the bed with very little regard for your feelings, almost as if you are just a sex doll there for his pleasure. He looks you over with a gleam in his eye. The switchblade is once again removed from his back pocket. You whine and back up on the bed but there isn't much you can do with your hands tied like they are. The blade pops up and he joins you, crawling over you to hold the knife right where you can see it. Your eyes naturally focus on the weapon in his hand. "Going to be a good girl?" 

"Y-Yes..." You breathe but he slaps you roughly and then grabs your chin forcing you to look right back at him. 

"YES. WHAT?" He demands. 

"Y-Yes...Daddy." You whimper. 

"That's a good girl," He replies in a voice that is as sinister as it is soothing. He runs his tongue over the knife lewdly before he moves the blade down to your blouse, using it to slowly and meticulously pop off each button until he has it open. His strange grin gets even bigger when your breasts are partially exposed but he wastes no time cutting the bra open from the front to release them. "Fuck..." He leans in, starting to lick over your chest, seemingly making sure to leave behind as much saliva as he possibly can. 

"Please!" You beg pathetically, though what you really want is his cock you also don't know what kind of punishment you will get for not cooperating or what he'll do to you if you start begging like a pathetic little whore. 

"PLEASE! PLEASE HELP ME!" He taunts in a mocking voice before using the knife to make a cut across the top of your breasts, nothing that will scar or bleed too much but enough to sting. You cry out in pain and look away from him before he grabs your hair and turns your head back to look at him, roughly, and spits in your eyes. "You better start acting like the whore you are for him, you think I don't know huh? Bet you suck his cock real good little girl." 

"I...I don't-" 

"You don't what? I know what girls like you do...what you want...you fucking whore." He accuses moving the blade he's been using to your lips. "Give it a kiss...for Daddy." You whine and try to shy away but he persists until you have no choice but to kiss the blade. He laughs before violently stabbing the knife into the wall right by your head. Not expecting that you scream loudly, that seemed like a close call. 

"FUCK!" You yell then shy away from him as you notice that he didn't like a scream that loud in his face. 

"Fuck? Is that what you want? Thought you did, glad to see you're coming around on this." He grins. He pats your face roughly as if you are some sort of idiot lap dog before running his hand roughly up your thigh and under your skirt to your panties. "Looks like someone's hot and wet for Daddy..." He teases. You thrust up towards his hand and can't help but moan. He growls, shoving your panties aside to get two fingers in there roughly. You moan again and he leans in, capturing your mouth in a sloppy wet kiss. It seems he's intentionally being awful at this which only really makes it better.

"You think I'm really going to let you cum like this huh? Before me? Before DADDY?" He asks. You look at him, dumbfounded, then shake your head no slightly. He laughs, removes the fingers from your cunt and jams them into your mouth roughly, making you choke and gag, his other hand holding the back of your head in place so you can't possibly get away from this. "Think again...Daddy cums first and then maybe if you make it real good he'll let you cum too. Got that?" He pulls his fingers from your mouth and you gasp and cough trying to get your breath back. 

"Y-es Daddy...of course..." You pant. 

"Now...show me how you suck his cock." He tells you. He grabs your ankle and slides you down until you are on your back. Getting over you he unbuttons then unzips his pants, getting them down only far enough to get his cock out. He straddles you so he's right over your face, stroking himself a few times but he's already incredibly hard. Dripping precum. HIs hand moves to your jaw to pry it open before he jams himself in there angling his body in just the right way that he slips into your throat if you like it or not. "Oh yeah...fuck...that's a good little girl bet you don't ever let Daddy do this do you? No, you're too fucking good for that shit...stuck up little spoiled princess..." He's panting and even growling like an animal as he starts to fuck your throat almost as brutally as he'd fuck your cunt. It's restrained, of course, but it's still pretty rough. Not that you care, he hasn't ever done this before and you are in absolute heaven being used in such a fashion. 

"That's right...you're nothing but a dirty little bitch huh? I know you’re nice and fucking ready for me aren't you? But you aren't getting this cock...no you're just getting my cum going to take it like a good girl and like it." He pants and speeds up a bit. You know the best thing to do here is just relax and take it but luckily at this angle it makes it much easier for him to do what he's doing and keeps the gagging and choking to the minimum. You are already an expert at deep throating so that was never a problem but he's never attempted to literally fuck your throat. His groans are loud, coupled with angry almost feral growls as he continues his assault. Every so often he pulls back just enough to make sure you can get in a few gasps of air before going back to it until his hand grips at your hair tightly, yanking it back. 

He lets out an almost glorious roar as he cums but he makes sure to move back to get it in your mouth and then stroke the rest of it over your face and hair. You swallow when you get the chance, gasping loudly as you don't expect the rest of it. He smiles and sits back, admiring his work before he grabs your throat and shoves you until you are sitting up and looking him in the eyes as much as you can through the cum he left on your face.

"You pretend like you don't know what you're doing but you fucking know...I know all about girls like you. Get up." He snaps. All you can do is nod and scramble to your feet the moment he releases you. He gets up as well, tucking his cock away as you feel a sad pang that you won't be getting fucked with that tonight and yet, it'll still all be worth it, you are sure whatever he's about to do will make up for that. Grabbing your hair again he forces you down to bend over the bed. You struggle with your restraints and he shoves your skirt up over your hips to expose you from behind. He pulls the belt from his pants easily enough and lashes you a few times roughly. 

"Such a pretty little cunt...nice ass too...bet he loves that." He snarls and strikes you again causing another scream. "FUCKING THANK YOUR DADDY FOR TEACHING YOU A LESSON BITCH!" 

"T-Thank...Thank you Daddy! I deserve this!" You yell back without thinking. 

"Deserve it...for...what?" He demands punctuating the last two words with the most brutal slaps yet. You are sure he has broken the skin there and you become more positive as the belt drops and he grabs your ass again, squeezing it tightly. You scream.

"Thank you Daddy! I...I deserve this for being such a horrible...cockteasing...slut!" You sob, mostly because you are so desperate to cum it's painful and he's only denying you the pleasure you seek. He chuckles and slaps your cunt with his hand next as it is in the perfect position for that with how you are bent over the bed. For whatever reason, that's enough to send you over the edge to your climax. You squeal and writhe against the bed, pulling at the restraints around your wrists roughly. 

"Oh....no no little girl no one gave you permission to do that, you cum when Daddy tells you to cum," He breathes in a deliciously evil voice. His fingers penetrate you again, roughly but knowing exactly what you like. You squeal, as you are hypersensitive right now but he doesn't show any signs of relenting. He starts to use his thumb to stimulate your clit. You scream in pleasure and in pain almost unable to catch your breath, struggling to get away from him just as much as you struggle for more stimulation your body doesn't really know what it wants. "Aww is the poor little slut tired of cumming already?" 

"DADDY!" You screech but it doesn't matter, a moment later you a climaxing again and again, against your will but fuck...is it amazing. Pain, ecstasy, everything combined into one until you are certain you will pass out. Seemingly only after he's milked your body for every last orgasm it can possibly get he stops and removes his hand. He pats your ass gently and picks you up in his arms kissing your forehead. 

"You okay?" He asks softly. You glance up at him lazily, noticing his playful grin despite all his protests about not wanting to do this before you can see how proud he is of his own performance, and yours as well. 

"Yes," You whisper, "Thank you." 

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up." He says, then carries you towards the bathroom. You don't think you've ever experienced anything so intense with him before and you are grateful that this is the type of thing you two can share and enjoy together. 

[platinumink]

Headcanon Vol.2: Odysseus had unruly hair in his youth but grew out of it but Telemachus now has to deal with it and Ody helps his son and it all ends in a beautiful hurt/comfort moment

Not as good as my other headcanons for this fandom but I really do think about situations where Telemachus is just struggling to tidy his hair which is just going crazy all of the time and is about to give up when Odysseus strolls into the bathing area and notices his sons struggles.

Not wanting to embarrass him any further after the whole clothes stealing shenanigans, he simply nods in hello and does his thing with cleaning himself. When he's done, he notices that Telemachus is still not any closer to figuring out his hair so he comes over and mentions how he also had impossible-to-deal-with hair and age and growing it out (the added weight) helped with it's upkeep but he did have some tricks he learned to aid the issue.

So he tells his son about it who becomes completely enraptured in the story, not wanting to miss a single word his dad tells him. Telemachus asks for tips and Ody asks if it would be okay to show him and his son agrees.

Ody spends the next hour ir so explaining hair care for curly hair to his son, going over herb tinctures and oils he can use to make his hair submit to his will without damaging it as well as special brushes and movements that help with detangling and finally braids that help with the right curl forming overnight. It becomes a whole thing with them and even though Telemachus gets the hang of it very quickly, he keeps on asking his dad to do it for him and Ody is bever going to decline because quality time with his dearly missed son is everything to him.

So during their hair care moments, they talk about each others days, what they were going to do the day after and eventually, Ody feels confortable enough to confide in his son as well about his Odyssey (hehe) and they things he went through and had to do and Telemachus is then there for him, reassuring him and comforting him as well.

Eventually Telemachus does his dads hair as well so they can spend even more time together.

Penelope does know about this because of course Ody had to tell her all about how much he loves his son and how much he enjoys their new father son bonding moments, but one day, when she enters the bathing area earlier than usual, she sees the two of them and observes their little time together. She does not intervene because while she also loves her son deeply, she will allow her husband to have this time for himself to catch up on all of the lost time.

I also imagine their time together always ends with them touching foreheads (because I am a sucker for those between parents and their kids), hugging and Ody kissing his sons hair. They then always leave the baths together before Telemachus artives at his room first where they hug again and wish each other a restful night and then Ody leaves fir his own room and lies down beside his wife, talks with her just as long about their days and then they fall asleep in each others arms thoigh Odys head is 100% on Penelopes chest to hear her heartbeat because he has still trauma from Calypsos bullshit and needs it to convince himself that he is home.

He then sleeps, thinking about his family.

And now i've brough myself to tears yet again. 😭🩵

Also if anyone wants to write or draw something with this, you of course have my full permission. Just tag me please, I want to say thank you and admire your work 😭🙏🏻🩵

[cosmousee]

𝓖𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓵𝓮 𝓦𝓱𝓲𝓼𝓹𝓮𝓻𝓼 𝓕𝓻𝓸𝓶 𝓢𝓹𝓲𝓻𝓲𝓽 😇💌

Hey everybody! I am back from yet another hiatus (I will stop doing that I swear).

Hope you all are doing well~

Today’s reading is on gentle whispers from spirit. Now it can be anyone, the universe, the spirits, the Gods, your ancestors, whatever you believe in. Just call upon them while choosing your pile and yeah~

Lets get on with the reading, and remember whatever doesn’t resonate, pass it on<3

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Dang, pile 1, it feels like you’ve been going through so much and for a while now. Like it feels like a never ending cycle of some shit which is always going on and you can’t catch a break.

You might feel you got a breather for one day and you feel that nice, we had a good day today and then your day ends up with something or the other happening and then you’re in that cycle all over again.

Feels so much like my past month, so, bestie, I really get you.

There’s so much, you might have been in constant fight or flight mode, having to put so much effort and time and your mind in order to do a task. And ofcourse life doesn’t let you do one task at a time, its constant multitasking and its not easy.

Having to source your own energy to sustain yourself every. Single. Day. oh my god. Even as I type this I can feel the tiredness, but still the zeal to get the work done, the fire in your hearts, that whatever happens you want to do the things you love. This might be a clash between many of your own passion projects, or you know just even life, that you find time to work on your art, your story, your side business and then also find time to do laundry.

Its been constant juggling, constant heartache, headache, you name it, for a while now.

The very first image spirit showed me was a fireplace. You know those ones you sit in front of during winters, sipping a cup of hot chocolate, or coffee or whatever.

Spirit wants you to realise that you’ve done enough, you’ve spent enough. Its time for you to take rest, take a breather. And chill for like a good few days. Of course hard work has its own place, but that does not mean that you’ll burn yourself out.

And if you feel that you know, you HAVE to toil away at the thing only then you’ll achieve things in life, my dear, please take a seat, and a blanket and your choice of drink (its fine if its alcohol because I totally get it–but responsible consumption).

This past week, spirit got real with me and went, “You’re not supposed to struggle so much, you’re not supposed to be uncomfortable so much.” They were teaching me that when things get difficult, sometimes it’s best to just remove yourself from that situation and go to a better place. Its as simple as saying ‘I deserve better’ and then just yeet yourself from there. I know its easier said than done, and I've fought with spirit alot on this, and I still do. Because even I feel that you gotta go past the uncomfortable to grow.

But sometimes the discomfort is there just to teach you that there is comfort if you just ask for it, if you just look for it. If you just say that you deserve to live comfortably it’ll be there. You’ll just have to take that decision, make that call, ask for help and you shall receive it. And you’ll receive it in such intensity and you'll be so dumbfounded that why were you suffering so much.

I yap alot and I dont stop here you might have to read so many things and just–yeah. On the ending note I just want to say that spirit really wants you to take care of yourself, pushing yourself to achieve things is one thing, but spirit doesn’t want you to live in extremely uncomfortable situations. You’re their literal baby and I know they can be difficult sometimes, to teach you things, but they always look out for you too. (I can feel my guides being like ‘told you so’, doesn’t change the fact that y’all get on my nerves so much)

Wish you well pile 1 <3

That’s all I have for you today! Thank you so much for reading🎀🌻Please let me know what resonated I love hearing from y'all<3

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Pile 2

Pile 2, spirit is so so so proud of you, your journey, how far you’ve come.

They are so happy and so proud of the things you’ve done. And it feels like its literally everything, it can literally just be the way you’ve done your hair and they’re like “You’re doing amazing sweetie!” and they have their camera on and they’re recording you.

I mean in my head it feels like, you woke up, you are so tired, but you still made your bed before you leave for the day, and SPIRIT IS LIKE HOLY SHIT MY BABY MADE THEIR BED with literal tears in their eyes.

They see you, they acknowledge you and they are just in awe of you and what ever you are doing. It’s literally like you don’t have to be Alexander The Great or you know, do some out of the universe type of shit to get them to be proud of you.

Its just unconditional love and support. You defended yourself against someone who was being mean to you, and you felt a little bad about it?

I can literally see spirit, with their arms crossed, and they are nodding like “Exactly my child! This is exactly what you should do!”.

So spirit is with you, every, single, step of the way, remember that.

Also, they mean to tell you that there is greater happiness, greater contentment waiting for you if you open your heart to it.

You might as well just be happy where you are, and spirit has no problem with it. They’re just letting you know, that if you want and you need, just open your heart and there’s gonna be a whole new world for you.

(see I asked for gentle whispers and this might be the gentle part, and in reality they might be pushing the fuck out of you to go follow that path and drop signs left, right and centre. So I thought of putting this out there)

Im saying this because I had this imagery of a person just putting their hand on their heart and closing their eyes and just beams of strings emerge out of their heart. Your heart will tell you where to go if you listen to it and if you want it.

Spirit is being real as well, once you open your heart and many opportunities pour in and it’ll be hectic, it’ll be draining, it can feel as if you’ve been working the whole day and you just come back and you just sleep. Like you lay on the bed and in a second you’re out cold and this repeats every day. Because when you do things your heart desires it takes SO MUCH of your energy.

Okay so this can be sort of a confirmation for some of y’all as well who have listened to their heart and are on the path. Because you’re getting so tired you might feel that you’ve done something wrong.

You haven’t.

This will go on for a while till it settles. You might feel a bit sad that you don’t have much energy to put elsewhere or whatever. But it isn’t for long. Your spiritual team is always there cheering you on and being so very proud of you. Keep going and do well~ I am also so very proud of you cuties<3

Wish you well pile 2 <3

That’s all I have for you today! Thank you so much for reading🎀🌻Please let me know what resonated I love hearing from y'all<3

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Pile 3

Dear pile 3, how long has it been since you’ve taken a slow, refreshing walk? When was the last time you’ve actually felt your thoughts were slow, when you could actually think instead of your thoughts going a hundred miles per hour?

Hold your horses guys.

Spirit is telling you to be gentle with yourselves, to “chill” as they just said. They’re telling you that life is not going anywhere, you may feel that just because. You may feel that because you’re trying to see where you are in reference to others.

But look at yourself, just at yourself, and your life. You’re at the right place my sweetheart, be in no hurry. There’s no rush. If you stop and you feel, you’ll get the cool breeze on your face, gently passing through the strands of your hair. You’ll smell the fresh grass, you’ll feel the cool air, the sun and you’ll be very content.

Give yourself a break. At least a short one.

I know realistically and practically you might have a proper job and you’ll be like “I HAVE A SPREADSHEET DUE TONIGHT AND YOU’RE TELLING ME TO CHILL?!”

And honestly, I get you, because even I have so many things due tomorrow…and I haven’t even started and its like 11:51pm at my place right now.

Its okay. Its fine even if you take a break for 5 minutes. But let it be a break. Let your brain rest. Treat it as your leisure time. And if you can take a longer break then even better.

Chill out, bake some cookies man, listen to music. Just doom scroll. Hustle is a joke, its a prank and its better to stay the fuck away from it. False urgency is NOT REAL.

Honestly, take a break and not just because of that. You’ll realise how much more productive you are after that. When I was doing my undergraduate in psychology, we had this concept of insight learning. Its basically that when you cannot figure out a solution, just let it be. Go do something else and your subconscious will have an answer ready in an instant.

So taking a break doesn’t mean you aren’t still working. Your brain will, in its subconscious. That is literally its job. So even though you are doom scrolling, your brain is working at it backend. You just have to convince your conscious brain that yeah this break is essential and anyways the backend is at its job right wink wink

Don’t be afraid to take your time, things will work out well for you. Don’t burn yourself out okay? It takes so much to get back on your feet once you get burnout. (been there done that way too many times).

Even if you feel this was unrealistic of them to ask you to take breaks, I hope you just try. Maybe start for like 3 minutes with a timer on and then if you feel it worked, then you can always increase it!

Wish you well pile 3 <3

That’s all I have for you today! Thank you so much for reading🎀🌻Please let me know what resonated I love hearing from y'all<3

[yuurei20]

how muscle is the boy and who the most buff because i think silver gym clothes is lying

Hello hello! Thank you so much for this question! I have been hoping to talk about this for so long ⚔️

There is something special about the school uniform and gym clothes cards 👀

Summary 1) Sprites do not always visually represent what is actually happening in the game 2) Yana does not have full control over what can appear as sprites 3) Yana illustrated the gym clothes and school uniform cards from start to finish by herself!

Details/Sources 1) There is sometimes a disconnect between what the sprites are doing and what is actually happening in the stories, as the limits of the medium mean that they can only portray so much.

We will be told via dialogue that what is actually happening is different from what we're seeing on screen, which is where the "novel" part of "visual novel" has to do some heavy lifting.

(above: We are told that Idia is riding Ortho, Jack has tanned and Kalim is wearing glasses, without anything represented visually.)

This is also true of Silver being unusually well-muscled, with characters referencing such repeatedly! (especially in Book 7, for spoiler-reasons that cannot be shared on this blog)

(Ortho: "Silver is also incredibly built!")

In a vignette Silver explains he was able to beat a man in an arm-wrestling contest who had successfully beaten several "burly" members of Savanaclaw:

"All of Ruggie's burly friends had tried, but each lost within seconds. At first the owner went easy on me. Worried he would hurt me, he said. But once he realized I was no pushover, he stopped holding back...It was no easy feat, but all their encouragement helped me eke out a victory."

As for how Silver can possibly be so well-muscled, he explains it is from life with Lilia:

"I've never really struggled with anything involving physical fitness...my daily life back home was training enough. Drawing river water, chopping firewood...Chasing around the animals who lived nearby must have helped strengthen my legs as well...once I stalled while climbing a sheer cliff, and (Lilia) climbed right up beside me to show me how it should be done."

2) In a tweet posted on 2020/5/12 Yana talks about submitting her idea for Crowley to be wearing a vacation outfit in Book 4, despite expecting it to be rejected.

So it seems that she does not have complete control over how the sprites look: she designs the characters but is maybe not doing the game development work of physically implementing them, and there are others who can approve of or reject her ideas based on in-game limitations.

Was a canon-accurate Silver sprite maybe one of those rejections?

Effort was even made to give Silver muscle in the 2nd anniversary PV, so it does seem to be an important point.

3) We do not know too many details about the team that is helping Yana with card illustrations but we know they have been there from the beginning, with the recently released English-version of the first visual book (called "The official art book" in English) providing translations of Yana's notes to the colorists for the ceremonial robes and labwear art.

(Above: hand-written notes seen on Kalim's labwear and ceremonial robes base art)

She also references a graphic artist in her 2020 interview for the Magical Archives:

"As for the illustrations, this was my first time having my original drawings cleaned up by a graphic artist. I am a very rough draftsman by nature, and I make overall corrections before a piece is complete. No matter how careful I am in my original drawings, sometimes details get confused, so whenever I receive a draft back from the graphic artist, I become a useless original artist who is constantly going back to say, ‘I am so sorry, but can you please make these corrections?’" - Toboso Yana (Magical Archives game guide)

But the gym clothes and school uniforms (the original batch of R cards) were different: Yana says she did them all by herself from start to finish, as they were going to be most people's first introductions to the characters.

Disney Twisted-Wonderland has been released today.  ・Character design ・Main scenario creation ・Card illustration (all rarities / including finishing for the R cards) ・Supervision of personal scenarios (writing several as well) I handled everything above. I hope you enjoy it! - Toboso Yana (Twitter, 2020/5/8)

I felt that the initial R school uniforms and sportswear cards are special, as they are likely to be the first introductions to these characters, so I was in charge of them all. I am grateful to have been trusted with them. - Toboso Yana (Twitter, 2020/4/13)

So there we are! 🥳

If anything we can maybe consider the base card art for the gym clothes and school uniforms as more "canon" than the sprite designs of those same characters, even though the sprites are what we're used to seeing, as card art is not being forced to change the characters' appearances in order to fit the limitations of Live 2D sprites ⚔️ Maybe!

(The sprites have this same issue with height! In the game Epel is made taller while Malleus is made shorter, in order to fit his horns in the screen.)

[thatfrailsoul]

– If you love me, then love me from the heart

tarot pick a pile reading ( → 1, 2, 3 )

pictures from pinterest → one, two, three

Slow down for a moment. Give your conscious mind a moment of rest, allow it to step back. Instead, listen to your subconscious mind, to that inner voice, to the intuition that is guiding you to the pile in which your message hides. A message about the love that your heart is longing for. The one that you are hoping to find…

This is our third reading from our divinatory jukebox, inspired by possibly one of the most beautiful songs that I've ever heard - "Yağmur Yağar Taş Üstüne" by Mustafa Güzel and Batuhan Fırat (feat. Belkıs Güzel). I'm so deeply grateful for the person that suggested this song and gave us the possibility not only to discover it, but also to have such a deep and tender message through this reading. It is difficult to find the correct translation for this song, but I strongly encourage you to listen and read it, as it is simply magical in the softest way. I will leave you the links that were recommended to me here, in case you would like to listen to it. And if you would like to see a pick a pile reading inspired by your favourite song, you can discover more about how to participate here↓♡!

♪♡♪ Divinatory Jukebox ♪♡♪

P.s. This is my first attempt at a longer reading, so if you feel comfortable please let me know in the comments what you think of it! If you prefer the shorter ones, if there is any aspect of the reading that makes it difficult for you to read it, or in case you will take a look at the extended version of this reading, if you would prefer to have something more specific in the additional messages of our readings - I will cherish your opinion and use it to get better with each post!♡

– Pile One,

{ The love that you are longing for }

the magician, the seven of swords, the page of coins

Love… you so often consider it just a feeling. A feeling that after all these years alive you still can really connect only to your own self. To you who seems to be the only one to feel it. To give it. While all that others do is receive it from you. Giving you back some gratitude perhaps, but never something that feels like what you gave them. Nothing that really fills in that part of you that was emptied for them… Making you really wonder if perhaps you got it wrong for all this time, if what you considered love never was it. If you imagined and expected it to be more, made it be more. Giving others much more than any person could ever give you in return, more than you ever should've done…

All that attention, that care, that genuine dedication that you put in, time after time, for every soul that was close, going out of your way to be there, right by their side for whatever might come… But still standing alone when facing your hardships, your difficult moments. Only you on the first line, out there in the cold, just you against this world… You genuinely never thought that this is what love would be. You expected something different from what you always received from others before. A complete opposite of having to do everything on your own, of that fear of what will happen to you if one day things in your life won't work anymore. You thought that it should be different from that because you know for sure that all those years of struggle alone never had even a bit of love in them, not from the people that were all that time around and close to you, but never did anything to help you, apart from telling you that this is how it works and that you should grow and take care of yourself on your own.

You alway imagined it, in those dark and painful nights, a hug, a caressing hand, a soft voice that assures you that everything will be okay, that it won't be forever this way, that you are not alone but you will always have them… So you did your best to be deserving, manifesting those tender and loving ways through your own self. Through the way you looked after others, the way you cared for them. Not only knowing that this is the right way to treat others, the way you genuinely want to be, but that it will be also worth it, that you will one day feel the love you gave, through others that will do the same… But it never came. You never saw your reflection in them, you never saw that part of your heart that you gave away being nourished and taken care of… it was always mostly just appreciated in the moment. And forgotten. Or worst, taken advantage of by expecting or asking more. So after all these tears, all the days dedicated to others instead of yourself, all your prayers for help and support, just a little comfort, that you never received because they are too busy to take a moment to give you back that love that you never declined them…. You started to think that you are in the wrong. That the love you always waited for is just a dream that the real concept of love can’t live up to. No matter how much you can look for it or want it. It is simply not something possible. And you are asking for too much.

{ What this is all for }

the judgement, the ace of swords, the lovers

This world, this life in general… has a really unique way of helping us to learn, of guiding us in or through the right direction and path, of letting us know that everything will be alright… Their language is so different from ours that we really struggle to understand it, those words that come in the form of pure feelings directly from within us. The ones that we should trust the most but never do so. Especially when it comes to love, something that we so much idealise, something that we have so much desire for.

Your heart is so sincerely tired, it went through so many betrayals and wounds inflicted by those that you tried to love. To the point that it simply feels that heaviness, that weight of this experience that you never really wanted to begin with. So you feel like you are ready for something else, for that love that you did all of this for, if it even exists at all. But are you really sure of it..? Of knowing so well the person that you would like to have by your side each day, their character, their behaviour, their values? Are you sure that you really did look for them and not just anyone who seemed to be able to love? Are you sure that you really know your worth and the one of your love, how one must love you in order to really give you all that your heart needs and wants? Or did you think that you knew it before, and now you are settling for much less than you are deserving of, because of the overwhelming loneliness and fear that it will be this way for the rest of your days unless you accept whatever one gives you in return? Are you sure that you are remaining loyal to your own self and your soul, instead of trying to “sell” it to whoever is close and good enough?

Because, even though perhaps you are not doing it consciously, but you are changing. Little by little. Not in terms of who you are, but in the ones of who you allow others to consider you. Leaving it up to them to decide how much you deserve, what is the worth of your love and care that you give them after letting them in, where only the most sincere, genuine and trustworthy should belong. You just give them your all. Every single time. Without any limit or hesitation. Not even when all that you receive is another rude phrase, some judgement, coldness and distance once they got up and healed thanks to your love. You just do it. For everyone. Not choosing carefully, but treating every soul as the right one. And not in a good sense. Instead, you are not listening anymore to your own intuition or feelings, not trusting your own mind that recognises the things that are too off. You are just rushing in this hunt for “the one” as the time passes and you feel more and more scared and alone. You are throwing yourself at every possible connection, all in, wandering each time that it goes wrong what you did too little or too much of. And not realising anymore that it is not about how you love, if it is in the right way or the wrong one… But rather who you choose, even force yourself, to love. And how they are simply not the right one, no matter how much you sacrifice of your own values and preferences, just to make them fit in the place that it is not theirs to hold.

All these bad endings, failures, mistakes that you consider yours to be responsible for… Are just a natural consequence of you settling for less than you really desire and need in order to feel loved. All that sadness, that loneliness… are only your subconscious, your own heart that you willingly ignored at first, but that after some time managed to be heard by you, letting you know that the way you are treated, the crumbs that you accept, will never truly be enough.

Those endings, those coincidences that are never in your favour, those interferences in your connections from the outside world… are just its efforts to protect you and communicate with you, trying to show you that refusing your own standards is not what can help you find them, that right person that you can truly feel safe and understood with… Adapting to another person and changing, it is not what will make them love you like you want. It will only keep you stuck in a play pretend. Put you in situations and relationships that you won’t feel appreciated and cherished in. It will consume you from inside out, slowly but surely, just because that one time you believed more others, than your own self that always knew what was best and right for you, what you really wanted to feel and who you wanted to have with you…

The time already passed, you already got through so much. You can’t do anything about it, and it is alright. But you can do yourself a favour and listen again to your own heart, before following that overwhelming fear and anxiety of being left alone in the cold and the dark. Your heart, your love, they are unique. But not at all the only ones. There is a soul, out there, that is your perfect reflection, someone who resonates so much with your ways of feeling love. And you can and will find them. The moment you stop seeing all that happened and you went through as the mistakes you made, ways that you can be better by being more or less… And start to see them as simply were and when the things didn't feel right for your heart, for who you are. Because those things that you felt the lack of, or perhaps as though it is just too much, are the ones that you need to hold onto, to look for in others. Instead of ignoring them, just so you can fit in the perfect version of love of someone and they can accept you, even though you are not theirs to love…

Although it seems so easy to do through words… We know too well that sometimes it is not enough to just choose to listen to our heart more. It is not always enough when we, in a certain way, forget its language, when we are not able anymore to comprehend it and separate it from the voice of our mind that we learned to follow… For this reason, there is an additional message for you, if you want to, in our extended version of this reading. What you need to know and remember as you continue on this journey, in this search of the right person for you, but also of the confidence and trust in your own heart, that will be the things that will change everything about the situation in which you are now.♡↓

{ a little message for you }

—

– Pile Two,

{ The love that you are longing for }

the wheel of fortune, the sun, the devil

It happened so many times… So often you felt overwhelmed, completely overtaken, by the life of someone you loved… Their problems, their difficulties, their fears that became yours. Yours to resolve, yours to take care of, yours to endure, even though you never could really influence them, not the things that depended on their actions, their decisions. Not when it was something that was purely theirs to create, destroy and live… It happened so many times, truly. You felt so often the urge to be there for someone, just because you knew them, just because you saw their struggle and couldn't help but to try to save them. Because this is what everyone deserves, yes… But with those that had a special place in your heart, those that you felt so close to you, so needed as the air you breathe, there never was a chance for you to say no. Not when your heart so ardently fought for them each day, no matter if it was your battle, your victory to take or not.

One by one they took a part of your life from you, gladly accepting your love, your support and help. And leaving it all to you, to your heart and mind that never were supposed to live so many lives, go through so many situations and emotions, bear so many consequences that were coming from actions that simply weren't yours. And they took it from you. That time and energy, the courage and strength that otherwise would have gone to you, to your own healing, growth and protection. They took it all from you and, worst of all, they were able to do so thanks to you. You who gave it to them, all that you had, in the name of the love that you felt. You that not even once regretted it. Not in the moment at least…

They took so much from you, making you get used to it, to have so little, to give away so much… That now, for once, you want to find someone different. Someone who will not take advantage of your heart. Someone who will understand that, no matter how much you want and try, it is not the right thing to leave it all up to you, to handle their life… Someone who, for once, just knows more, knows better. Someone who can teach you, gently, softly, as they protect you from your own self, from your own urge to disintegrate yourself for the happiness and safety of someone else.

For once… you want to be overwhelmed by someone's joy, their hope, their desire to be here and to live this life. Their strength to choose to see the best aspects of the things. Their strength to be patient, to have faith, to believe that everything will work out in the end. For once you want to receive that strength, not to give it away. For once you want to be protected, guided, as you trust someone who doesn't expect you to lead the way out of the darkness of their days…

It might sound selfish to some, so entitled to look for someone who has it all figured out, who has better and more control of their life… But you are simply tired. And a little lost, if one can say the truth. Tired of figuring everything out constantly, keeping others above the water, as they push you down, never thinking of the air they are taking away from you. It’s not about an easier life, about receiving constant help or guidance, leaving it up to others to make the choice for you… It is about just wanting to have something that is left for your own self too. A little time, a little love, that you can give yourself without being afraid that in the meantime someone would get upset or hurt. You just want to be able to take care of yourself too, not only of those that you love, of your connections, of your situations, that seem to be destroyed each moment you are not looking after them. You just want to have someone that is by your side, living their life, instead of living yours that becomes so scarily about them, their necessities, their dreams, their worry and losses. You just want someone to learn from, or together, how to live this life in the most right and healthy, loving way. Not to teach it. While you yourself don't have any idea of how you are still here, how you made it until now every day.

{ Will you ever find someone like them }

the justice, the eight of wands, the queen of wands

This new and almost desperate desire in your heart now, might feel a lot like frustration, the last realisation of how things should've been when everything already happened, when it is too late to change them… But instead of a tragic end, it is more of a hopeful and promising beginning. The one that you are creating with your each thought, with each moment of understanding of what it is that you really want to feel, when sharing your love. The taste of it, the feeling, the emotions it can give you. With each found answer in your heart you are changing your life, much more than you expect now. Because it really is all about your choices. Your decision of who you will be accepting into your life from now on.

There is a part of you that is growing, getting stronger, preparing to be vigilant and serious about its duty: the one to protect your heart. One little thought created by the tiredness, the sadness of all that you endured… was enough to move the waves of the whole world, of the reality around you. Of who will be brought right to you, and who will be pulled back, not being the right ones. Changing your connections one step, one person at a time. Giving you back the right to decide for yourself, making you remember that you can in fact do it, you can choose the ones dear to your heart.

And it won’t be delusion, entitlement, selfishness, or any sort of limit that you will put on your heart… It will be just you, all grown up, who will now know that it is okay to not take it all on yourself, whatever and whoever comes, because of the fear of what not doing it will cause. It will be your understanding that people can and will make it through on their own, even if they are so afraid or feel incapable of facing their life right now. And it will be also your acceptance that not every story you hear is yours to live, to feel, to make sure it has a good ending. Not everyone is yours to protect and help. Not everyone has the right to come before your own self.

It might be a change that will take its time to settle in, especially in your heart that is just so full of love. Love that you didn't give yourself for so long, pouring it all in the needing hands of those by your side. But it will happen. It will feel safe and right, to allow yourself to choose how much the realities of others influence your life. And as you will go through it, as you will seek that courage and strength… It will be enough to remember that everything will be okay. Even in those moments of uncertainty, it will be enough to hold on tight to the message that we will receive, if you want to, in the extended version of this reading. A message about how you can and will change your life.♡↓

{ a little message for you }

—

– Pile Three,

{ The love that you are longing for }

the ten of wands, the star, the death

It is so difficult to need to explain yourself, your actions, your urges, your reactions. It is tiring to open up your mind and your heart sharing them with others, again and again. Just for them to not understand it, to not pay the slightest of attention, to not take it seriously, all those things that are still consuming your soul… It just feels so useless to go through it, to come out of your comfort zone so hopeful that they would be that right person… only to see them walk away, who scared, who uncomfortable, who deluded or bored. Leaving you feeling like a poor seller who is unable to demonstrate the worth of your broken, lived, soul. When you don't even want to do it in the first place. When it is so ridiculous that you need constantly and so fiercely to defend or explain your wounds, as if they didn't already hurt enough.

It just consumes you. Consumes your every desire to go out there, interact and try to connect with people, creating with such dedication a relationship that - you know it too well - will just be destroyed. By your own past, your own frail soul that is too difficult for others to manage, to use or control. Too delicate to do anything with it without hurting it more.

Deep down you know that not every single person you met was truly so evil at their core. But it still hurts you like hell, being rejected, just put aside, simply because of the way you feel so strongly and deeply every detail about this world. Just because you have more depth to your feelings, more power to the emotions that simply overwhelm you, good or bad, every single bit of them that fills you whole. And that you welcome and feel completely, still remembering how cold and dark it was when there weren't any emotions in you at all.

It just would've been much easier, for once, to not have the need to defend yourself, the way you became. If for once the one in front of you focused on who you are now, and not on who you were or who you could become if only you suppress your soul. Because you changed, yes, and it might be sad to not have that spark that others adored so much about you anymore. But the you who survived still and always deserves the same admiration and love, perhaps even more, after all that you were able to endure. This you who is so different is still you. The you who gave you the strength and courage to face it all. The you who shouldn't at all be forced to explain yourself to those that can't even do one thing: just listen to you, hear you truly, at least for once.

Because it is not so difficult, in the end, to just accept someone and love them for the way they are, without any if or but. You know it well, because you always did it and always do with everyone that is close to you. But while they can be themselves, knowing that they will be truly safe with you, their every wound that will be taken care of without any judgement or expectation to receive something in return… You are always asked to be less or more. To hide your pain, to be more joyful. To not react too much to the things that hurt you. To, instead, be more understanding and patient, accepting, of the ways of others. Even though they never tolerate yours.

So you remain here, among so many of them but still feeling so lonely, so trapped, exactly like it used to feel before. You still are being hurt, even though you had so much courage in not hiding yourself, your scars. Even though you learned to have the needed strength to stand your ground when others didn't see that they were stepping on your heart… And you still hope. That one day, somewhere and someone, for once will just feel drawn to you. Not a memory of you or your potential change. Just someone who, for once, is gentle and kind in their ways. Not because you asked them to, not because they were forced by your tears… But just because they are connected enough to their own heart. Enough to recognise the painfully familiar stories behind your tired and scared eyes. Just one person, just one single time would be enough. Just one single moment in which you would feel loved and cherished the way you are, even with all those fears and doubts that everyone has always something to say about. Just one true and genuine connection. One single chance for your heart to find again the hope that you, exactly the way you are now after all your battles, not less not more, will be enough.

{ You are not in the wrong }

the page of coins, the strength, the six of cups

Finally standing up for yourself, taking your defence, pushing back those that don't make you anymore feel safe… it took a lot of courage, especially when every decision that was already hard enough was also met with judgement, with pure rage, just because for once you weren't ready to be there for someone else. But while you thought that the worst part will be this, finding the strength to prioritise yourself, the most difficult part revealed itself to be resisting the urge to take all your words back, bowing your head, surrendering to discourses of others about how you shouldn't ever do that again, and coming back to your old and consumed self, asking it to endure it once again. But this time with the full awareness of how it is wrong, to give away so much of you, remaining with so little that it is never enough to take care of your own heart and mind…

You are resisting it now with all your strength, but the single thought that they might be right, that you are indeed acting too selfishly, is already enough to shake you to your core, to fill you with the pure terror that you might be becoming one of those that hurt you, coming down to their level without realising what you've done.

But you are not. I promise you. There is nothing wrong in putting yourself first for once. There are no mistakes when you are acting from your heart, from the pure desire to protect yourself now that you are realising that it all just has been too much. You are not the villain here, even if perhaps there isn't one among them either. There is no evil in knowing what you deserve and want, and not accepting nothing less from others, even if they so perfectly mask it with words like “It is the way I love”, “This is the best for you, the best you can ever find or hope for”...

You’ve endured a lot, so much that it is truly non conceivable and admissible that someone belittles it. That someone doesn't give it the importance and incredibly powerful and heart wrenching meaning that you surviving all of that holds. Don't stop for them, for their fears that you will change. Because it has already happened, in the good and in the bad. And if someone can't accept and respect the new you, if they, even in the name of their love, can't accept you… then it is okay. There will be someone else. Someone else who will meet you, get to know you, and learn to appreciate and cherish you for the way you are now, not a memory of who you were.

It might be sad to let go of some people, to lose some connections. It might be frustrating to see their absolute conviction that you are the one in the wrong… But you are tired now, you feel weak after needing to fight against them again and again just to protect yourself… so don't waste your last remaining energy on them, on proving them wrong when they already ended this story as it is more convenient for them in their head. Let them go. Let them be. Not to allow them to think that they are right. But for your own self and to give you that space and time to rest and recover, to take care of yourself.

This world is vast, there are so many of us. Remaining now for a moment alone… doesn't at all condemn you to have all the days of your life lonely and cold. It is just a phase, just a precious moment that will sign a new step in your growth, in how much you consider your own worth and protect yourself at all costs. People come and go. Some are good and some are not. But you are unique, you are the only one you have, the most important person that you need to love and take care of. Even if it means to not accept the love of others, simply because it is so different from what you are longing for. Even if it means to reject the company that you so much want, because they never offer it genuinely but only when it is so convenient and needed for them.

Times will change, you'll start new journeys, go through different paths that will align with others, new and completely different persons. And you'll create new connections, better ones. Better because of the ways and motives of those that will come closer. Better because you will be much more rested, healed and confident after this focus on yourself and this pause. Better because there won't be any play pretend, endurance or feelings that will be ignored. It will be better. Simply because you will learn from your mistakes, you will grow. And so will those that you will let go of, but not at your own expense and endurance of the way your heart hurts for them. Because they might not realise it now, they might be so convinced that you are the one hurting them… but you are making the best decision not only for your own self, but even for them. You are giving all of you a new chance. A chance that you for sure will take and use it to nourish a new beginning in your life, new connections that will love you, cherish you, protect you at all costs. Exactly like it should be between truly loving souls.

And if it feels still a little too overwhelming, a little too scary and unsure, the decision to put yourself first… There is a little message about the future, at what it holds, in our extended version of this reading, right here, if you want or feel the need to hear more.♡↓

{ a little message for you }

—

_