#however I do not know what the reason behind my originally using it was

[void-kissed]

✨ for a random fact about aria? :3

..I mean, Aria is a self-insert rather than an OC, but- thank you anyway for this, friend!

(source: this post by dragonsmooch)

Send me ✨ for a random thing about one of my OCs! (Optional: You can specify one!) - I know I've mentioned this before, but I can never remember how widely it's known, so I'll say it again anyway. Aria is the self-insert I've had the longest as a proper "this is me, but with lore to fit the game world" self-insert, as well as being one of the self-inserts that's existed the longest overall (the few that may beat her would include Camille, Amber, and technically also Emily, but I don't tend to count her since she didn't have story until after I started selfshipping unlike the other two). She started out as my player character in KHUX, who I gave the lore of "uses darkness instead of light" right from the beginning of playing the game, but then the rest of her lore (such as her being a Heartless) came about from the start of 2018 onwards. Some of her story, like leaving her original party under bad circumstances, reflects how things actually went for me playing the game!

This means that Aria is who tends to be used as a placeholder for whenever I want to make a new self-insert for something, which is partially ironic considering that - by virtue of being from Kingdom Hearts - she could technically appear as herself in many other game worlds. Examples of self-inserts that started out as "Aria but in something else" that I can recall off the top of my head include Alectra (actually probably Lamia too - the two of them together kind of combine a lot of Aria's aspects, Alectra personality-wise and Lamia lore-wise), Telanthera, possibly Sapphire despite how different she now is?, I think Ardea, Catarina to some extent, maybe Echo, and most recently (and perhaps most obviously) Lorenza. By contrast, self-inserts that definitely didn't derive from Aria include Adriana, Calanthe, Citri (since she kind of derived from Calanthe), Emily, Seralune, Alise, and Amber.

Hopefully this worked as a fact! Thank you very much once again for sending this, friend!~

[javarium]

the door with the floral wreath | r. sukuna

when sukuna gets a new neighbor on the third floor of his apartment complex, he’s pleasantly surprised to see who it is behind the door with the floral wreath. her two cats on the other hand, are a massive fucking problem.

w — honestly nothing? save for fluff and some cussing, slowburn-ish, implied boxer & sorta rich! Sukuna, implied polyglot(ish)! reader, cat! Satoru and cat! Suguru and both cats being in love, cozy themed again (I can’t help it), the formatting of this “fic” was how it was in my brain so I’m sorry if it’s a lil strange haha, this apparently became longer than I originally anticipated lmao, reader is mentioned to be partially Japanese but no physical appearances are ultimately described, mild angst at the end

a/n: not apart of the ‘make me (yours)’ universe but it’s definitely inspired by it

🌸 When Sukuna wakes up on a Saturday morning and opens his front door to leave for his morning run, the last thing he expects to see is a floral wreath on the door opposite of his. That can only mean one thing: someone has moved in. But if someone has, then why hasn’t he seen or heard the furniture being moved in? These aren’t exactly the cheapest apartments, so did they just not have anything?

It was weird, to say the least.

🌸 However, three months pass before he gets to see who the person who’s behind the door across from his.

🌸 Sukuna gets back from his jog a little early, the light sprinkles of rain turning into a downpour. That’s when he sees you leaving your apartment, locking the door to leave. Unfortunately, you’re not paying too much attention to your surroundings, and you two nearly collide into one another at the top of the stairs.

You narrowly turn in time to place yourself flat against the wall to avoid the behemoth of a man that was your neighbor from running over you and sending you both down the stairs.

“I’m sorry,” came your instant apology.

“It’s fine,” follows his gruff reply.

But he knows he certainly wouldn’t mind running into you again. Just not where you two can fall down the stairs and potentially break your necks.

On a random day not too long after your initial run-in (and near subsequent dangerous tumble down some stairs), you two run into one another to get the mail at the front office.

You pop up behind him right after he opens his mailbox, staring up at him and his very impressive height and build and apparently scare him, because when you speak next, his shoulders jump. “Gosh, you’re tall. You must’ve played basketball or something in high school, yeah?”

He would’ve either been silent or retort something in an asshole tone like he was used to. He just didn’t like people.

He would’ve, if it wasn’t his cute neighbor.

“Volleyball,” he replies quietly. “Quit after graduation.”

You frown. “That sucks. You must’ve been good at it.”

“It was a pastime.”

“Sounds fun though,” you chirp, putting your own key into your mailbox. “I tried to get into sports, but uh, lack of things made it hard to do so. Did track for awhile, until my ribs couldn’t keep up.”

Sukuna lets out a snort but says nothing further. He goes to leave, but not before hearing, “G’bye, neighbor!”

Ah, shit. He hadn’t told you his name, had he?

Hopefully, there would be a next time.

🌸 Sukuna doesn’t see you again for another month or two after that, fate still having you two separated like an awful slowburn romance.

🌸 What he doesn’t like in particular is the fact you don’t know his name and he doesn’t know yours. He doesn’t like that; doesn’t like that he’s missed his chance to know you a little better. By his logic, he should know your name, have your phone number, and have at least had you on a date and in his bed at least once already.

🌸 Come early December, he hears your door begin to open and close a lot. It becomes annoying, very very annoying, very very quickly.

That goes on almost until Christmas time.

Until one day he manages to catch the little reasons why your door has been slamming shut so much.

Twerp Number One wriggles in his hold as he holds them both up to eye level. She grunts and huffs at him. “Put me down!”

To which he scoffs at. “And why should I do that?”

Just as Twerp Number Two decides to speak, your door opens. This time it’s you.

“You can let them down,” you say, clearly amused. “They’ve come for cookies.”

Sukuna grunts. “So that’s why they’re always slamming the door.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve tried to get them to stop. They are six, though.” As genuine as your apology is, Sukuna can see the little twinkle of mischievousness appear at the end of your sentence in defense of the two twerps.

“Mr. Sukuna is a big grump anyway!” the oddly-orange-haired girl says. “At least that’s what my mama says.”

“Nobara, you shouldn’t be calling people names,” you scold the girl. “Put them down so they can get some cookies and head back, please. I’m sure Nobara’s mom is wondering about them. Nobara, the white box is for you to take home.”

Sukuna begrudgingly obliges. Nobara and her friend barge inside your home. The door stays open thanks to a cold breeze, allowing for the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and cinnamon rolls to drift outside and into his nose. And damn does it smell nice.

“So, I finally know your name,” you muse.

“Ryomen Sukuna,” he says, half-correcting you, “but everyone just calls me by my first name.”

“I can see why,” you reply in a joking tone and smile. “But yeah… It fits you. I’m [Name], and pretty much the same: everyone calls me by my first name. Since my last name isn’t exactly normal, you know… Since I’m not inherently from Japan.”

Sukuna’s brows raise. “You’ve lived here before?” he asks.

“My mom is [part/full] Japanese,” you admit. And then to his surprise, you ramble on further, “I’ve popped around, uh, a few countries over the last several years of my life, Japan included. I’ve just… never stayed in one place to technically be from somewhere. I was born in the States, but… I don’t, uh, really feel like I actually am from there… Does that make any sense?”

“It does.” But he doesn’t go into his backstory in return. And thankfully, you don’t seem to mind, just about as much as you minded sharing such a part of your life to someone who’s technically nothing more than a stranger to you, not in the slightest.

Nobara pops back out with her friend, who’s just a touch older than her.

“Thank you for the cookies and cimmanom rolls, Miss [Name]!” Nobara says.

You don’t bother to correct her cute mistake. “You’re very welcome, Nobara. Now head home. Goodnight, girls.”

“Goodnight!”

You watch the girls descend, and when they’re out of sight, you listen carefully for the telltale of their first floor door closing. And when it thuds shut loud enough to wake everyone in the apartments in the block, you turn your attention back to the gigantic man that was your next door neighbor… Who’s attention was on your door, more than likely concentrating on the smell in your kitchen.

Your lips curl up and you prevent a giggle. “You want some?”

Your voice snaps him from his stupor. “What? Want what?”

“Some cookies and cimmanom rolls?” you question, cutely reiterating Nobara’s mistake.

“Uh…”

He takes too long to answer, so you decide for him. “I’ll get you some anyway.”

You go back inside, leaving him out in the cold. But you don’t take very long and come back out not even two minutes later with another white box and place it into his hands.

“Well,” you say, teeth chattering from the cold. “It’s nice finally knowing your name, neighbor. Maybe we’ll run into each other again soon… Goodnight.”

He barely gets out a “goodnight” before you close the door. Sukuna tosses his head back and settles for a heavy exhale rather than the audible sigh he knows you would’ve heard through your door.

Another fuck up. But at least he got some food out of it this time.

🌸 You both end up meeting each other a lot more often by “coincidence” after that, like fate has finally determined you’re allowed to see one another or something. (To him that just sounds stupid, until it comes out of your mouth.)

For Christmas, you end up gifting him a tin of popcorn and another box of sweets by leaving them at a front door with a cute handwritten note.

🌸 Gradually, the two of you begin to interact more, and naturally gravitate toward each other’s energy and finally getting to know one another; he’s over at your apartment most of the time, it’s cleaner and smells at lot more nice than his (in his opinion). It’s not that he’s dirty, he’s quite clean actually. It’s just that he prefers your apartment to his.

🌸 You find out that Sukuna is about ten years older than you, and was almost a volleyball player that almost went pro, had it not been for his father’s death. He lost all motivation for the sport, and eventually settled for doing numbers for his father’s company, taking up boxing as a side hobby. To which he was more than good at.

A year ago, he moved into these apartments, getting away from the corporate world had had dived into, opting to do things from home rather than in-person. His prior neighbors never stayed around for too long, not with the amount of noise coming from his apartment in the middle of the night. You’re honestly surprised the person below him hasn’t moved out yet either.

🌸 For Sukuna, he finds out that you almost didn’t get to graduate high school because of how much you’d been moving around. You’d gotten depression from leaving so many friends behind so often that you just made graduation by the skin of your teeth.

Now, you’re online for college, majoring in linguistics, all while working as a translator for a special needs school of Japanese children that are deaf. Through that, he finds out you speak several different languages as well.

God, your personality is just as sweet as the goodies you bake, huh?

🌸 There is one problem, however, when he comes over: your goddamn cats.

🌸 The white Maine Coon is for sure out to get him and make his life miserable, with his attempts at wooing you almost a failed attempt every single time. His name is Satoru, and he’s by far the most obnoxious cat he’s ever fucking met.

Why on Earth you’d give a cat a human name is beyond him. But the again, the fucking cat acts so human it’s disturbing — it almost kind of makes sense.

🌸 Satoru’s claws almost end up in his ass every time he walks through the front door. He can’t even stand openly, but has to stay against a wall or sit on the couch so the cat doesn’t get his claws into his backside. And he can tell that that damn cat has a smug-ass smirk on his face every time. How a cat can smirk, he’s unsure; but he just knows that the look on his face is the one of a smug little shithead that knows he’s gotten away with being a menace. Thankfully, you’re aware of his tendencies and can tell when he’s being more of an asshole than other times and get onto him.

🌸 The black Maine Coon, Suguru, isn’t as terrible, but he opts to creepily stare down at Sukuna from his cat tower rather than be proactive in his distaste. He studies him every second every time he comes over, paying attention to every single detail and movement Sukuna makes with you.

He’ll do things more subtly than his white counterpart, like “accidentally” wave his long, black fluffy tail into his cup of water you gave him. He’s just as much of a menace, although you don’t get onto him as often like the white one, because while you know Satoru is more of an extroverted menace, you just seemingly can’t see that Suguru is just as awful. (Mostly because you don’t actually see it.)

🌸 This goes on for months and months, Satoru scratching the behind of his pants as hard as he can to make it rip and getting white fur all over his clothes, and Suguru glaring down at him from his tower and putting his paws in Sukuna’s food. Although it becomes a little less as often because they’re seemingly growing used to him, as if they’re seeing that he actually makes you happy and finally get the sense that he isn’t just going to break your heart and throw you away.

🌸 And the growing approval of your cats seems to mean a lot to you.

“I picked them up off the streets,” you tell him after he asks about where you got the inseparable pair. “I found them as kittens in a cardboard box three years ago on the streets, drenched and matted in dirt and nasty water.”

You remember the day very clearly. It had just stopped raining, and just as you were about to head home, stopping at the vending machines before heading to your car, you heard animal-like cries of something small and weak. And sure enough, on the other side of the food machine, stuffed away in a tacky, ruined cardboard box, were two, rain-drenched kittens huddled together to keep warm.

That was the day you got two new cats, two new responsibilities. And although times got hard a few times, you’ve never regretted adopting them.

Sukuna gazes up at the two cats on the tower, sitting next to each other in the bed at the top. Their tails are intertwined, heads rubbing at each other’s necks lovingly. He would have never guessed that’s where you found them. From the looks of it, they he would’ve guessed they’d came from a pet store.

“So you’ve raised them since they were kittens,” Sukuna says. “They trust you with their lives. And looks like they love you unconditionally, too.”

“I’d like to think so,” you muse, sipping on your coffee. “Sometimes it doesn’t seem like it with how ornery they are.”

Sukuna keeps his eyes trained on the two cats in love. He’s slightly jealous, and no he’ll never admit it. He just hopes he can have that one day with you.

He just has to stop Satoru from ripping him a new one every time he comes through the door.

🌸 Your cats eventually grow fond of having him over, fond enough that they’re not being the usual mischievous selves when Sukuna puts his arm around your shoulders and tugs you closer to him when you invite him over for movie nights, not trying to bite his fingers off (Satoru) or sit between you both (Suguru).

🌸 After a year passes and you and Sukuna know each other, he finally gets to take you on a proper date after manning up. Although it’s not a restaurant date, since he knows you hate being looked at while eating. It’s a picnic by the ocean, with the weather nothing short of perfect.

🌸 Your attempts to leave your cats at home for said date, however, are fruitless, the pair determined to come with you and your now-boyfriend who declares himself as such after dessert just to piss off the pair of felines. Sukuna plants a big fat smooch on your lips, turning you into a giggly mess.

🌸 They in return, somehow find a stray kitten and plop it in his lap in return. The kitten isn’t as bad off as when you found Satoru and Suguru, but he’s just as scared. He immediately imprints on your oversized boyfriend, who secretly takes an instant liking to the orange-red (honestly a little pink, too) baby cat and becomes a cat dad.

Date not necessarily ruined. But definitely not what he had planned.

🌸 After a week of having, he fondly named the cat a human name — Yuuji, and the fur baby took just as much liking to it as his owner did him. You do have to teach him the ropes and warn your boyfriend that he’d better be ready to have some of his stuff deep-cleaned if Yuuji doesn’t get to the litter box in time.

Satoru and Suguru take to the kitten like two doting parents. And as much as they still kinda dislike your boyfriend taking you from them, they still help train him to use the litter box. (Long story short, they felt bad after seeing you cry after they’d tore up [and peed] all over your third couch and quit being as ornery as they used to be.)

A few months had passed since Sukuna got Yuuji plopped into his lap, since you two had become a couple. It was always amusing seeing your big boyfriend playing with such a small cat. Honestly, the cat looked like he was part tiger.

You feel overwhelmed with contentment. You have a good job, a wonderful boyfriend (who’s apparently secretly rich) who loves to give you kisses, and two cats who love you. You have enough now, so why was the universe trying to take that from you?

You don’t know how your ex got your number, but what you do know is that you have to tell Sukuna. No later than tomorrow.

You exhale. You can’t think about it. You’ll tell him. You’ll tell him tomorrow that your dyed blonde-haired ex wants to see you again. You’re hopefully of one thing though: that the moment your boyfriend meets your ex, you hope Sukuna has enough restraint to not beat the shit out of him.

“Baby, you okay?”

Sukuna’s brows are raised. One would miss the concern on his face if they didn’t know him as well as you do.

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m good.” Woman up, girl, you tell yourself. “I do have something to tell you later. Just… remind me before dinner.”

The concern becomes more evident on his face, which prompts you to walk to him and kiss him.

“It’s nothing serious… I don’t think. Don’t worry,” you reassure him, partially reassuring yourself. “What we should worry about is what’s for dinner,” you joke. “Don’t think I can eat those leftovers.”

“Goddamn, I’m sorry I put too much salt in it.”

You laugh, wanting this happiness to ever be trampled on. You’ll do what you can to protect and keep it.

taglist:

@vagabond-umlaut | @poe-daydreams | @heresan @thedovahqueen | @lotus-n-l0ve | @chiyoso | @miraclecherryblossomsblog | @unbreakableblueheaven | @marscatbutler | @vanillabloo | @wo-ming-bai | @visionsofmagic | @tohsri

[ao3commentoftheday]

As a volunteer, do you have anything to say about what the OTW did to bjorn?

To begin with, I’m going to speak in generalities instead of specifics. This is for a couple of reasons. 1) I’ve been on hiatus from the OTW since August because my life got extremely complicated and volunteering wasn’t something I could continue doing right now. 2) As a result of my hiatus, I was not present for any of the events that transpired. This is simply my own opinion based on the available information, so you can feel free to disagree.

Now, as to your phrasing. You say “what the OTW did to bjorn” and I ask, “What did the OTW do to them?” From the meager information I’ve seen, all of which has been provided by bjorn themselves, they left the OTW of their own accord because they were unhappy with being talked to about their behaviour. This behaviour occurred in the OTW’s chat space which, for those of you who don’t know, is the OTW’s workspace. As a fully online organization, that platform is the equivalent of their office. 

bjorn was in that shared workspace, and they set their name to include the phrase “Palestine will be free.” Later, they changed it to “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” They were told that the first phrase made some people uncomfortable but that they were allowed to continue using it. They were told the second was unacceptable and that they should stop using it. bjorn chose to continue using the second phrasing.

Why is the second phrase seen as unacceptable? A quick google took me to the Anti Defamation League’s explanation of its antisemitism. That same google also provided me with Al Jazeera’s explanation of its complicated history. As a person who is neither Israeli nor Palestinian and as someone who hasn’t spent years studying the history of the region or the complexities of the conflict there, I’m comfortable with the idea that it’s a nuanced issue that different people will see in different ways, and I have personally decided that I should probably avoid using an expression whose interpretation varies so wildly.

Here, I will digress to remind everyone that the OTW is an international volunteer organization. That means there are volunteers there from all over the world - including Israel and Palestine. As far as I’m aware, bjorn is not from that region of the world.

So we have someone using a controversial phrase in a workplace setting where there are people who are immediately affected by the current conflict. My assumption is that they were not doing this to be intentionally aggressive. While I do recognize their name, there are nearly 1000 volunteers at the OTW so I’m afraid I don’t remember this one individual. I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here, however, and assume that they were not calling for the eradication of all Jews.

I can also, however, understand why anyone who has seen this same phrase used as a justification for terrorist attacks would have difficulty doing the same. 

From what I saw in the original post, bjorn was given a warning about their behaviour and then a more formal letter when it continued. CCAP (Constructive Corrective Action Procedure) has a pretty dystopian sound to it, but it’s basically just a conversation between a manager (Chair) and an employee (volunteer) when the employee has kinda messed up a little bit and the manager wants to get them back on track. If the CCAP goes well, then the volunteer is back in good standing and the situation can be put behind them. It’s only if the volunteer and their Chair are unable to get things back on track that the volunteer will be asked to leave the Org. As far as I know, that’s only happened a handful of times (but I’m no expert, and I’m still on hiatus so I can’t go and try to look things up)

bjorn apparently chose option #3, which is to leave the OTW rather than go through that process. That’s a perfectly fine decision to make, and I’m sure they’re not the first volunteer to do so. It was their choice, though. The OTW didn’t kick them out. The OTW didn’t force them out. The OTW told them “this is inappropriate behaviour in an international workplace setting,” and bjorn decided to leave rather than change that behaviour.

I have nothing against bjorn, and I hope their post-OTW life is a good one. However, I've seen posts that have been using bjorn's situation as a way to claim the OTW is a “Zionist organization.” I would like to remind everyone that the OTW is an organization dedicated to the preservation of fanworks. What role do people expect the OTW to take in an international negotiation between Israel and Palestine? How many international policy volunteers do people think they have, and which committee do people think they belong to? Technical Support? Communications?

I’m trending towards sarcasm here but it’s only because I can’t quite believe that there really are people who seem to believe that the OTW - again a fanwork preservation organization - is attempting to do anything at all with regards to an international conflict. 

If anyone out there hates the OTW, I encourage them to avoid OTW’s various projects and to decline the biannual opportunities to donate, but please don't generate or share conspiracy theories. There are more than enough of them going around already.

[hugsandchaos]

Seeing Double

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Summary: A ghost who looks a lot like Phantom comes to him in search of protection, and their newest member instantly agrees. He calls her his little sister, and sooner or later, Phantom also might end up with a new brother.

*bangs pots and pans together* @vixen-uchiha, @starlightcat04, @blueliac, @lenacraft, @admiralwidow, @fuckingfaraway, @little-apricot-orchard, @sithlordchimchnga, @buymeanewlaptopty, @deeterzz, @jaylaxyart99, @phant0mc1d3, @idiosolcrasy, @dehydrated-bread, @rubber-ducky-your-the-one, @randomenglishmajor, @mushroomymoss, I MADE MORE JUICE!!!

For the past few weeks, Danielle had been staying in the Cave. After explaining the full story to Red Tornado, some of the details unknown to them for some reason, and he spoke with Batman, their friend’s clone had been given permission to live there. As long as she trained and or some sort of education. This was definitely acceptable to both ghosts. Danielle had started training, and not just with Phantom, and her brother would teach her a thing or two when they weren’t training.

Most of his lessons consisted of scenarios where she’d need to try to patch herself up incase she needed to, which she apparently didn’t know as well as he did. It was interesting how similar ectoplasm was to blood when it came to wounds. She wasn’t allowed on missions, though. That should’ve been obvious, but it actually surprised Danielle. It took a bit of arguing and convincing from Phantom to get her to understand, but she reluctantly stayed behind. She was bitter for a while and took her training a little more seriously after that. Overall, she was a great addition to her friend group.

At the moment, it was around 8:02 PM and Danielle was helping Megan cook dinner. Phantom was doing some kind of assignment on the couch with Conner sitting on the opposite end of the couch. Danielle moved around to catch the items and put them on the counter as Megan used her telekinesis to pull them from the fridge and pantry. Danielle nearly missed grabbing the glass jar of sauce, but caught it and placed it down carefully.”And, that’s all we need!” Megan said. She turned around and smiled seeing the ingredients neatly placed on the island counter.”Thanks for your help, Danielle.” She said.

The young ghost smiled.”No sweat off my back. Now how is this one made?” She asked. She enjoyed watching Megan cook, as odd as the Martian thought it was, and she hadn’t seen her use this recipe yet. Megan took another look at the tablet.

She used her telekinesis to open a cabinet and pulled a medium bowl out of it. She set it on the table as she also got a measuring cup.”We need to stir the ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, and eggs in this bowl and then set it aside.” She said. Both her and Danielle started on that first step.

On the couch, it was pleasantly quiet. Both boys left each other to their thoughts. Phantom had a notebook in his lap and a textbook set on the arm of the couch. Both the textbook and his handwriting were in a language that Phantom just settled on calling “ghost speak” since he didn’t know what else to call it due to the actual name of the language being surprisingly difficult to translate to English. Megan took a really wild guess and said that it could be a difference between being dead and being alive that made the translation difficult.

Right now, he was focused on that while Conner took the time to think. He had some conflicted feelings about the situation. On one end, he was happy. He had someone to relate to a little better. He saw that there were actually people who had good relationships with their clones, even taking them under their wing. He was more convinced that there was a chance that if his original saw the way they interacted, he might do the same.

On the other hand, however, he was jealous. Conner didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but it was unfortunately true. He couldn’t even relate to Danielle on a level he wished he could because Phantom didn’t practically ignore her existence for her being his clone. It made him feel a little more alone than before. He also didn’t think that letting Superman meet Danielle was a good idea because Phantom was already mad at him because of what he said last time he was there.

He made the room’s temperature drop by around 20 degrees in a matter of seconds and didn’t take his eyes off the league member until he left. It was probably best to avoid both the argument that would undoubtedly happen between them and what he might say to Danielle if he found out she was also a clone.

“Are you okay?” Phantom spoke up. Conner blinked and turned to him.”Are you okay?” The ghost repeated. Conner nodded. This earned a look of suspicion from Phantom.

Oh. Right. The whole “smelling emotions” thing.

Conner briefly glanced back at the two girls chatting away, sharing stories about their experiences on Earth, then leaned in closer.”Are you going to let her meet Superman?” He asked in a hushed tone. Phantom’s gaze hardened.

He shook his head.”Absolutely not. I’d like to avoid it as much as possible.” He whispered. Conner was a little relieved to hear that. He opened his mouth again to tell him that he’d help him do that, but he was cut off.

“Hey, big bro? What happens if Megan eats ectoplasm?” Danielle called.

Phantom immediately shot up from the couch, knocking both his books and his pencil onto the floor.”No!!!” He instinctively shouted. He quickly flew over to Danielle and Megan to see if he needed to snatch anything from them. Megan laughed at him as he checked the counter. Conner couldn’t resist a small smile, either. It was pretty funny.

Danielle also laughed at him as Phantom realized there wasn’t any in the food or in their possession. He crossed his arms.”Ha, ha, very funny.” He said, obviously unimpressed. Danielle calmed down enough to speak.

“I know it’s funny! I wouldn’t actually give her ectoplasm.” She said. Phantom gave her a pretty disapproving look, but her smile didn’t falter.”I just wanted to annoy you.” She said. Phantom’s eyes widened and seemed more irritated than before. Danielle did her best not to laugh at him.

“You have five seconds to start running.” He said. The younger ghost quickly fled the room and Phantom waited, counting down from five out loud. Once he reached one, he went invisible and vanished from Megan’s and Conner’s sight.

Soon enough, they’d hear the pleading screams of a younger sibling being mercilessly chased by their older brother.

[guillotinebypierre]

Club culture was a crazy thing.

Especially in South Korea, where apparently young people only knew how to socialise if alcohol was involved.

Y/n was not a fan of clubs. Never had been and he had sworn to himself that he would never be a fan. Good thing the place they were going to was no club.

"Yo Y/n are you busy next weekend?", his friend Jongin asked him. Yes, THE Jongin, as in Kai from EXO.

Y/n worked as a photographer. A very good one at that. So good in fact, that Kai requested him to become his personal photographer after a fateful photoshoot for his solo debut, thus creating a somewhat surprising friendship. To Y/n, Jongin was just another regular dude who was a really nice person but could also be a fucking pain in the ass. He could, however, not deny that he enjoyed the behind the scenes looks he was able to get by knowing someone in the industry.

"No I'm free, all my schedules for photoshoots end on friday. Why'd you ask, though? You have something in mind?", Y/n asked while mindlessly scrolling through his Instagram home page.

"I was invited to a party, and I want you to come with me-"

"Jongin you know I don't do well with alcohol and clubs", Y/n cut him off.

"Dude, relax! It's not a club and nobody is gonna force alcohol down your throat. It's just a simple get together between me and my friends! Nothing over the top, I promise.", he reassured him.

This seemed like a trap. All of Y/n's alarms were ringing but, for whatever reason, he decided to go with it and agree.

And that brings us back to the start of the story. Y/n and Jongin sat in the back of a black limousine that was driving them to a huge mansion in a rather secluded, gated community a bit away from central Seoul. The area was quite beautiful, luxurious houses equipped with the most insane looking backyards, pools, basketball, tennis and football fields Y/n had ever seen before. Palm trees everywhere, something very out of character for Seoul. It was almost as if they had tried to mimic an American aesthetic or whatever.

The two men continued being driven up the seemingly never ending hill, Jongin being all giggly and basically jumping around in joy like a small child whose mother had just allowed him to eat candy for dinner. As the pair's chauffeur suddenly stopped the car, dread started filling Y/n's thoughts as he became self conscious and felt underdressed. He was wearing a simple outfit, consisting of a black Prada polo shirt that hugged his muscular chest and biceps while accentuating his small waist. He had on black dress pants with a designer belt and to top it all off some Prada loafers.

Jongin originally told him to dress casual but he still felt like, given the circles Jongin tends to hang out in, he should make himself presentable. They got out of the car and it was as if Y/n was shellshocked. They stood in a cul de sac, around them similar expensive limousines transporting all kinds of celebrities. Y/n looked around at the estate in front of him, loud music blasting out of the open windows and doors while atmospheric lights bathed the room in a sultry and sensual ambience.

He looked around once more, now acknowledging the people who were attending this 'party'. He saw members of NCT, people he was all too familiar with due to doing photoshoots for their most recent album. He also saw multiple girl groups, most noticeably Red Velvet and TWICE. The former of which he had known very well, the ladder of which being an almost unachievable dream of his as apparently JYPE had some kind of policy prohibiting them from hiring him due to him having worked with their 'rivals'.

"Dude are you just gonna stare or are you going to join me and get your ass inside?", Jongin said while smirking at him.

"What happened to the 'simple get together', Kai?"

This was a bad sign for Jongin. Y/n only ever used his stage name when he fucked up.

"Alright hear me out, I had to lie! You wouldn't have come otherwise and you would've missed out on so much fun man", Jongin tried to explain himself while pulling Y/n inside the mansion.

As they got inside Y/n immediately smelled the alcohol in the air, paired with the smell of greasy food, curtesy of the amount of pizzas and fried chicken laid out on the tables for the guests to eat. He hated to admit it but these celebrities sure knew how to throw a party.

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

The night picked up pace incredibly quickly, the onslaught of new guests apparently being over. It was going on full blast, drunk idols making out and laughing like maniacs wherever one would look. Y/n, still without a single ounce of alcohol inside his system, had lost sight of his friend. He thought that Jongin was either passed out drunk, getting laid or was kidnapped, and decided to just go outside and relax by the pool.

He stood at the edge of the backyard, overlooking the city, which was now only visible due to its skyscrapers and bright lights illuminating the dark sky. He sighed, battling himself mentally on whether to call it a day or not and just go home without Jongin before a raspy voice interrupted his thought process.

"I've never seen you before, at these kinds of parties, you know? Are you a newly debuted idol?"

"Oh no I'm not an idol at all, just a plus one-"

"Well Mr. Plus One, mind if I take the spot next to you?", she interrupted him.

"Sure"

She stepped up next to him, allowing him to take a clear look at her face and finally getting him to realise who he was talking to the whole time.

Hirai Momo. Momoring. The Dancing Mochine. Twice's Main Dancer. 1/3 of the JLine, whatever you want to call her.

"What's up tiger? Cat got your tongue?", she asked him as she turned to face him.

"No I just didn't expect to speak to someone like you tonight-"

"What's that supposed to mean", she asked fake insulted

"That I didn't expect to meet an A-lister tonight

She smiled at him, a small blush forming on her cheeks, either from his compliment or the alcohol being breathed in like air at this party.

The night continued like this for the pair as they got to know each other more and more. They had chemistry together, their conversation bouncing off each other naturally and progressing naturally, neither one feeling bored and reciprocating each other's energy. The sound of the party behind them seemingly drowned out as they only had eyes for each other.

"You know Mr. Plus-One-"

"It's Y/n. Y/n L/n. Nice to meet you Ms. Hirai-"

"You can call me Momo, handsome", Momo said while starring into his eyes.

"As I was saying, what did you do to get to this party? Whose plus one are you exactly?"

"Jongin. Or Kai, from EXO. His name depends on how angry I am at him"

"Makes sense now. Of course someone like him would be friends with a guy as hot as you. What do you do for a living, Y/n. Like how did you get to meet someone in the industry?"

"I'm a photographer. I met Jongin back when he was doing photoshoots for his solo debut. He liked my work so much that he requested for me to be his personal photographer and SM kinda started using me for all their artists. I actually tried applying for JYPE, too, but they rejected me because I worked with SM before. Seems quite petty if you ask me", Y/n replied while taking the last sip of his water.

"You're telling me that I could've gotten your number before if that old geezer didn't have an ego the size of Seoul? I swear to god he will pay for his sins.", Momo replied while laughing and smiling at Y/n.

"Who says that you'd get my number? Someone's confident", Y/n teased her while raising an eyebrow

"Oh please, Y/n. I could get you naked and fuck you right here in front of everyone in like 3 minutes if I wanted to", Momo replied while smirking at him.

The two had moved closer together a while ago and where now touching skin on skin while speaking to each other.

Y/n looked down at Momo and saw her bite her lip while eyeing him up and down, her eyes trailing his lips, then his eyes and back to his lips again.

"Are you currently seeing someone?", she asked while backing off and slowly walking towards the hot tub.

"Nah I'm single. I'm looking for someone right now but there haven't been that many that have caught my attention"

"Am I one if them?"

"I think you can answer that question yourself, Momo"

They soon arrived at the hot tub, Momo bending down and taking off her clothes, exposing her red lacy underwear to him. She looked over her shoulder, seeing as Y/n shamelessly stared at her thick ass, almost as if he was in a trance.

"Are you just gonna watch or do you care to join me, pretty boy?", Momo asked while getting inside the hot tub.

This seemed to shake those thoughts off of Y/n as he began stripping down to his underwear and joined Momo. She swam over to him, her hand immediately interlocking behind his neck as she sat on his lap. She looked him in the eyes, almost waiting for him to make the first move.

"I want to fuck you right now", Y/n said, boldness somehow taking over.

"Then fuck me, baby", Momo said before smashing her lips on his.

They kissed, nay it was more like they tried sucking each other's face off, tongues battling for dominance as neither wanted to back down. Their hands roamed around each other's bodies, Y/n finding his way towards Momo's ass while Momo dug her nails into his wide back, marking her territory.

The pair continued making out as they explored their needs, pleasure taking over both of them as lust dictated their every move. Not wanting to lose any time, Momo unhooked her bra, throwing it away somewhere before pushing her panties to the side and fishing out Y/n's dick out of his underwear. She stroked his cock, getting it hard before aligning the tip and slamming herself down onto his length.

She underestimated how much she could take, closing her eyes in a mixture of pleasure and pain, before biting down onto his shoulder and taking a few moments to relax. Y/n felt her body on top of his as Momo slowly accustomed to his length and thickness before starting to ride him. She moved her hips in an expert way as she threw it back on him, her walls clamping down onto him with each lap she completed riding on top of him. He was so deep inside him that it drove her insane.

Momo leaned down, moaning and groaning into Y/n's ears as her face reddened even more, rivalling her underwear. She viciously rode him, her climax coming closer and closer as if it was inching towards a goal line, her moans becoming more sporadic and breathy rather than drawn out and controlled. Her ample breasts bounced as her breathing quickened, her pussy becoming tighter and tighter around Y/n before she let out one more loud scream in ecstasy and fell down on top of him. Y/n came, too, his cum dripping out and overflowing out of Momo's pussy as the pair caught their breath.

"Do- Do you happen to have a camera with you, Y/n?", Momo suddenly asked.

"Just my phone, why'd you ask?", he replied.

"We need to get a room. Follow me pretty boy"

The lovers jumped out of the hot tub, oblivious to the few idols who were sober enough to witness and register what had just occurred in front of them, before walking inside the mansion and up the stairs. The second floor of the house was somehow even more luxurious than the first one, expensive paintings and vases littered around the walls and floors, a red carpet going all the way to a big double door.

Momo limped towards the door, her legs being almost like jelly, before throwing the doors open and revealing a large king sized bed. She turned around and gestured for Y/n to close and lock the door before jumping on him and kissing him hungrily again.

Y/n walked forward, falling with Momo onto the bed before taking his lips and kissing, biting and licking every part of her body. Just as he was about to go down on her, however, she pulled his hair and said to him

"I've had enough foreplay, fuck me already"

Y/n took his dick, aligned it with her wet snatch and inserted it in her. Her back arched immediately, mouth forming an 'O' shape as her hands reached around to grab literally anything for support. He slowly picked up his pace, moving his hips while also applying force and slamming inside her, fucking her like he had some pain inside him.

Suddenly, he turner around, pushing her head down and having her ass up, before grabbing a fistful of her hair and taking out his phone. He hit record, the phone now picking up on the loud moans, in contrast to the quiet and breathy ones she had let out earlier in the hot tub, these ones seemed like they were for the entirety of Seoul to hear, so everyone knew who this dick belonged to. Y/n pulled her hair, making Momo look at him before letting go and going to town on her ass cheeks, slapping each of them with vigour as the skin rippled and the recoil moved like the waves in a still body of water after being disturbed. Her moans grew louder and more frantic, her eyes forming tears of pleasure as she once again tightened around his base and came with a lot scream of pleasure.

Momo took a few moments to regain her composure, before finding almost superhuman strength and flipping both of them over so now she was on top, riding Y/n like a Harley. She looked him in the eyes, a hungry expression on her face. Her juices flowed down her thighs, souvenirs of her prior climaxes as she began riding him without falling off. She decided to get nasty with him, spitting into his mouth before inserting her tongue in and playing with it, exchanging saliva with Y/n.

Her hips, once again, moved in a circular motion as she felt every single piece of her lovers dick, her insides memorising every vein, every inch stretching her out like nothing had before. Sweat beads trickled down her forehead, the two of them coated in a layer of it as the exercise tired them out. Her hands were on his abs for stability, her head thrown into the air as she felt things she had never felt before.

Y/n started feeling like his climax was coming soon, the boiling sensation in his core greeting him as he watched Momo's breast bounce around while she jumped up and down on him, impaling herself with his dick.

"Momo I'm close."

"Alright pull out, I want it on my face"

He pulled out of her, Momo going onto her knees while sticking her tongue out, her fingers playing with her pussy and nipples as Y/n stroked his cock, the visual imagery becoming too much as he soon erupted in a geyser of hot, white, thick and sticky semen that covered Momo's entire face.

Y/n fell back onto the bed as Momo scooped the cum up with her fingers and put it in her mouth. She walked, or rather wobbled, around before grabbing a towel and cleaning her face. She then, too, fell back into the bed and almost immediately fell asleep after cuddling with Y/n.

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

The next morning Y/n woke up relatively early, stretching his arms before realising that he was alone in bed. He looked towards the table in the centre of the room and found a note.

"Hey handsome,

this is Momo. Thank you for giving me the best night of my life. Unfortunately, I had schedules so I left early, but I would love to see you again. I left you my number at the bottom of the page and I hope to hear from you soon.

P.S. I will speak to JYP about hiring your fine ass for a photoshoot for TWICE.

take care, tiger

love, Momo xoxo"

Y/n smiled to himself before pocketing the note and walking downstairs, finding Jongin passed out on a coach surrounded by other drunk idols. He picked Jongins phone up and called for the manager to get him.

"I swear he will be the death of me"

[skyclan-funny-name-squad]

Okay wow I was not expecting my kittypet fae post to take off overnight like this, but I'm glad you all like it! I've been thinking about kittypet culture so this is what I think is the reasoning behind the beliefs.

Kittypets are often well groomed and well fed no matter the season, while wild cats are often groomed there's a softness to kittypet pelts that you don't find in wild pelts. Along with pretty accessories that a wild cat would have no clue what they are like bows. As such they start to seem a bit uncanny valley because they look like you but not Quite. Especially because of more purebred cats who have brighter pelts or unusual colors or strange muzzles or weird ears. Which helps spread the thought that kittypets aren't fully cats, but something similar, something different but the same. Firestar as a purebred orange cat is just a lot naturally brighter or vivid then the more muted oranges that appear in the wild, and that scares cats.

Kittypets also like to share with their wild friends, they see their friend skinny and cold and want to bring them inside where they can get food and get warm. So they tend to offer it pretty often, however cats that do this start to get used to the ease of food and warmth of the den and find it harder to stay wild or to stay away from twolegs. Some kittypets may even aid twolegs in trapping their friends for the sake of protecting their friends from the harsh outdoors. Which everyone knows once you've bonded with a twoleg whether you want to or not your transformation into one of them is nearly complete.

Kittypet food is also meant to fill a cat as its been fine-tuned to fit the needs of a cat so even if a cat doesn't think it tastes as good as mouse, it still fills them in ways they may struggle to get with hunting. So cats that risk taking a bit start to go back for more, especially in harder hunting series. Sure sparrow may be a bit tastier but if its a sparrow once a week during leafbare or kittypet food every day, cats are going to be tempted.

With kittypets not being in a war culture and often just chilling beyond mild spats means there's more room for other activities like a lot more gossip and stories, news travels fast between cats because kittypets are horrendous gossips which means if you fuck over a kittypet, every other kittypet is going to hear about it and shame you for it. To clan cats it's shocking because kittypet news travels throughout an entire twolegplace and even beyond it thanks to some kittypets that travel in like trucks and stuff, so it can seem like despite being nowhere near the original kittypet, everyone still magically knows how you messed up. This extends to their friends as well, if you beat up a cat that the kittypets consider a friend over a border dispute all the kittypets are going to be like "hey why'd you do that that was mean" and potentially chase you away.

Now for names is something I think is interesting because kittypets are never really like "my names Mouse but the twolegs call me Mittens" so clearly twoleg names have some priority here for kittypets, while the significance of this can very between whatever you want really, its clearly important. So if you get taken in by a twoleg to heal a wound and the twoleg starts calling you Pants, then suddenly all the kittypets call you by that name. No matter how much you insist your name is Twigpounce, you're Pants now. Plus if you're actively stuck with kittypets, you'll start going by Pants as well. Thus the kittypet's steal your name.

Cats that come back from twolegs always come back changed, from how they talk, to how they walk, to what food they eat, to the things they say. They can still shake off the influence and return to the wild, but they'll always be a bit off, a bit different. Everyone knows Tallstar was pet-touched a long time ago from how he acts, but everyone politely doesn't bring it up.

Avoid kittypets! They're tricksters that look like us but they're liars with their fake mice and fake warmth! Do not trust! They aren't true cats! They're something different! Something more dangerous! Do not be tricked!

Also Longtail still throws down with Rusty because he's an idiot and also probably hoping that this will make the scary fae child leave his clan alone.

[vodika-vibes]

Just One Date

Summary: You're a Military Doctor attached to the 212, and you've come to consider Commander Cody as a friend. Turns out, that he sees you a little bit more.

Pairing: Commander Cody x F!Reader

Word Count: 1333

Warnings: Cody makes suggestive jokes, and gets whacked with pillows and has a hand slapped over his mouth for it.

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni

A/N: HAPPY 2224 Day! I came up with this idea at 5:30 this morning when I originally woke up and when I remembered what today was. There might, possibly, be a sequel where the date actually happens. It depends on people's reactions to this one.

You’ve been a civilian employee to the GAR since you were old enough to enlist. The military wasn’t exactly your “dream” career, but it got you away from your incredibly toxic family, and it paid you to go to medical school.

And, really, at the time the odds of there actually being a war was slim to non-existent.

Jokes on you, the war started 6 months after you graduated and you found yourself bouncing from military base to military base, before finally getting assigned to The Negotiator, under General Obi-Wan Kenobi and Commander Cody.

The Commander is everything you’ve ever wanted in a Senior Officer, respectful and professional when the situation calls for it, but more than happy to share jokes with you when you’re not working.

The General, however, is a walking migraine.

At this point, you’re beginning to think that your job would be easier if you were assigned to literally any other battalion.

“General Kenobi,” You say as you pinch the bridge of your nose, “Did you, perhaps, skip your basic first aid lessons as a child?”

Helix, working on Commander Cody at the bed behind you, doesn’t bother to muffle his laughter, but you tune him out with the ease of long practice, instead pinning your General with an accusing glare.

“Well,” General Kenobi rubs his chin thoughtfully, “I was a very busy padawan-”

“So, perhaps, you skipped the basic first aid classes that say when you get stabbed, do not remove the stabbing implement?” You interrupt.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that I skipped the lessons-” He demures.

“And your reasoning for ignoring Commander Cody’s very reasonable order to not remove the knife from your thigh?” You ask.

“...uh…I was in shock?”

You smile. It’s a nice smile, and you’re pleased to see General Kenobi slump on the hospital bed, “Well, since you ignored your Commander’s very reasonable, and correct, order. You’re going to spend the next three days in a bacta tank.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to use bacta tanks as a punishment.” General Kenobi says thoughtfully.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to argue with me.” You counter with a roll of your eyes. “Relax, General. It’s not a punishment. You’re more injured than you look. And maybe you can get some sleep if I drug you enough.”

General Kenobi sputters, “Commander! Are you hearing this?”

“Hm? What? I’m not listening.” Cody says with a sly smirk.

“Well, there you have it. The Commander’s on my side.” You say brightly, as you spin to grab a syringe of the sedative that was especially formulated for Jedi. “Good night, General.”

“This is mutiny,” General Kenobi says with a frown.

“Yes, yes. I know.” You inject the liquid into his IV, “We’ll see you in a couple of days.” The older man slowly drifts off to sleep, and you pass the General over to the men who can get him into a bacta tank easier than you.

And then you spin on your heel and move over to Commander Cody, who’s laying on his hospital bed very peacefully, a small grin playing on his lips. “What’s wrong with you?” You ask, as you grab his file and scan it.

“Well, I was blown up, mesh’la.” Commander Cody says blandly.

“Well, that was silly of you. Why would you do something like that?”

“I woke up this morning and thought, ‘how can I make my medics pull their hair out today?’ and decided that getting blown up was the best way to go about it.”

You smother your laugh and glance at him, “One of these days Helix is actually going to kill you.”

“But you’ll protect me won’t you?”

“Of course.” You wink at him, “Everyone knows I’m the scary one.” You scan his record for a moment, and then favor him with a smile, “Aside from some bumps and bruises, you look totally fine.”

He grins at you, “So you like how I look, do you?”

You sigh, “Commander, that joke got old within a week of working with any of you.”

Cody just laughs and sits up, “Come on, Doc. I won’t tell. We both know that I’m the most handsome.”

“One of these days,” You counter as you set your hands on your hips, “I’m going to buy a box of chocolates and address it to ‘the most handsome man in the 212’ just to see who wins.”

“Aww, mesh’la, you don’t have to buy me chocolates.”

“Ooh, someone’s cocky.”

“You have no idea.” He flashes a boyish grin, “I could show you, if you like.”

You squint at him, “What?”

“Just how cocky I am.” Cody clarifies with a sly grin.

Your jaw drops and your face burns, before you grab the thin pillow and smack him with it, “Behave!”

Cody laughs, as he fends off the pillow, “What? I just repeated what you said. It’s not my fault that your brain lives in the gutter.”

“Rude. Rude!” You huff, “I changed my mind, I’m not going to protect you from Helix. RIP Commander Cody. I knew you well.”

“C’mon mesh’la,” He teases, “Having a dirty mind is a boon. Well, I think. Especially if it’s dirty about me.” Cody reaches out and lightly grips your hips, tugging you closer.

You scowl at him, though it’s really more of a pout, “You know, there are almost 2 million men identical to you-”

“Yeah, yeah. But you don’t have dirty thoughts about them.” Cody replies confidently.

“You’re so sure of that?”

“Yup.”

You shake your head, “Come on, Commander. You’re hardly a mind-reader.”

“I don’t have to be. I see how you look at me.” He says with a smirk.

“And how do I look at you?” You ask sarcastically.

Cody’s smirk grows into an amused grin, “Like you wanna drag me into a supply closet and ri-” You slam your hands over his mouth.

“Okay! Thank you!” You yelp, your face burning. “Why do people think you’re the mature one?” You bemoan.

“Because I play the part well,” He says smugly, his voice muffled by your hand. 

“Can I remove my hand or are you still going to try and embarrass me?” You ask.

“I like it when you get all embarrassed, it’s cute.” Cody replies before he pulls your hands away from his mouth, and then presses them to the bed next to him without releasing them.

“Hm, you seem to have forgotten to release my hands.” You say dryly.

“I didn’t forget. I did it on purpose.” He says, his dark eyes scanning your face.

“And why would you do that?”

“Go on a date with me.” Cody says.

You blink at him, startled. “I beg your pardon?”

“One date,” He clarifies, “That’s all I’m asking for.”

“Commander-”

“Cody.” He interrupts, his gaze serious, “One night. Let me show you how good we could be together.”

You avert your gaze for a second, and you know that he can feel your heart racing with how he’s holding your hands still. “Commander, we’re not going to be returning to Coruscant for several months-”

“Cody, and I don’t care. I can woo you even on the Negotiator. Give me a chance.”

“And if we don’t go well together at the end of the night? What then?”

“We’re going to be great,” Cody counters, “But, if,” He rolls his eyes, “For some reason, we don’t work out, then nothing will change.”

“Com-”

He tugs your wrists so that you topple against him, “Cody. My name isn’t that hard, is it?”

“...Cody.” You finally say with a sigh, though there’s a small smile playing on your lips, “I suppose, since you’re so eager, I can agree to a single night.”

“There's going to be more than one.” Cody says confidently. 

You hum thoughtfully, “Prove it.”

He grins at you boyishly, “I can do that. I already have the whole thing planned.”

“...How?” You ask, exasperated.

“I’m very good at what I do.” He replies smugly.

[hamiltonaf]

A happy ending but one that he has to work at

Friends with Benefits | Kylian Mbappé

Pairing: Kylian Mbappé x Female Reader

Word Count: 2.8K

Warnings: Sexual theme

A/N: Hello my loves ! This was supposed to be posted over the weekend but got delayed because I didn’t know how to end this. This is the original request. I hope you guys enjoy !

Also, requests are open .xx

(Y/F/N) - Your Friend’s Name

It’s match day, which calls for my routine meet up with Kylian - we meet for most of his matches and sometimes we don’t. I’m always the reason when we don’t meet on match days because I’m trying my best to avoid him, but I’m failing miserably. Don’t get me wrong, he’s beyond amazing but I broke our rule.

We’re friends with benefits - everyone knows how it goes and what’s the end result, but yet people still believe they’ll never catch feelings. It’s always one person, the deal turns sour and that’s the end of the relationship. I guess I’ll be the cause of that.

I never attended his matches because firstly I’m not his girlfriend and secondly, we both have to be as low-key as possible. Our meet ups usually go with me going over to his place, watch the match from there, no matter the result we have some fun when he gets back and either I’ll spend the night or leave as soon as I can.

Besides the fun of friends with benefits, we actually grew to be quite good friends I would say over the time of us meeting. We’d spend our time in bed talking about his matches or other personal things that he’d want to get off his chest and I would be his confidant. Likewise, I felt comfortable to share things in my life with him as well that I’d usually not tell just anyone. It just felt right in the moment and we’d both just forget the whole reason behind why we were in bed together in the first place.

Tonight it’s AC Milan vs PSG. I got dressed and just before leaving, I gave myself one last look in the mirror - tonight I need to confess.

I let myself into his house and got comfortable whilst watching the match, but of course that didn’t last long because I was already up on my feet yelling at the TV screen.

The time between post match and Kylian coming home felt so quick since I wasn’t paying attention to the time. I heard his footsteps and him attempting to unlock the door, I suddenly felt a shiver run through my spine and my hands had started to get clammy. I’m not ready.

“(Y/N)!” He called as he entered. “In the lounge” I answered. “I got here as soon I could. I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day. I missed you” he smiled as he approached me and pulled me by my waist against his chest. “Congrats on the win today!” I smiled as I placed my hands on his chest. “Thanks, well, you’re just what I needed after that” he grinned as he placed his finger under my chin and pulled me in for a kiss.

I couldn’t help but kiss him back. Our lips moved in sync and it started to get heated by the second as my arms wrapped around his neck whilst his hands trailed down my neck. He broke away from my lips as his kisses trailed down my neck. His hands were about to start unbuttoning my shirt until reality slapped me in the face. “Kylian. Wait” I said as I placed my hands on his. “What ! What’s wrong ? Did I do something ?” He asked concerned. “No no…I just uhm… I wanted us to talk about something first” I hesitantly said.

“Okay let’s talk” he said as we both sat next to each other on the couch. Time to cut to the chase. “This needs to stop.”

“Wait, what ? But why ? What did I do ?” “It’s not you. It’s me” I sighed and looked down at my fingers. “What do you mean ?” He asked “This has been going on for 3 months. It started off great and don’t get me wrong, it still is. However, we had an agreement that if one of us breaks the rule then we have to come clean about it. Unfortunately I can’t continue living a lie much longer. It hurts me every time just being nothing but a fling….I caught feelings, Kylian” my heart was racing uncontrollably.

He remained silent before taking a deep breath. “Look (Y/N) these last 3 months were amazing, but I’m sorry I can’t say the same about catching feelings. I’m not really interested in being in a relationship right now because I’m focused on football. I can’t get distracted right now” he carelessly said. I pressed my lips together in hopes that the emotional side of me will go away. “I know this changes everything, but I mean if you still want to be friends with benefits then I’m fine with that. If you don’t and want to walk out of this now, I won’t stop you” he said. I can’t believe him right now. I just felt like curling myself into a ball and crying my eyes out.

“Wow… I’m just a distraction huh ? I think I’m gonna just go” I cleared my throat as I stood up. “Wait (Y/N) I didn’t mean it like that, I mean I don’t have the time to be in a relationship right now. I just want to have fun” he said as he stood up. “Good to know that I don’t fit in the agenda” I faked a smile before walking over to grab my bag. “(Y/N) don’t be like that. We can move past this. Just stay” he grabbed a hold of my hand to stop me.

“I think this is for the best. I can’t continue living a lie and how long do we expect to keep this going ?” I said lastly before pulling my hand away from him. “(Y/N) let’s talk it out” he said as he followed me to the door. “Kylian. You’re already making this harder for me. Just stop. Let this all be in the past” I took a deep breath and paused. “Good luck on your career. I wish you nothing but the best” I said lastly before closing the door and leaving.

I didn’t even realise I was crying until a tear fell on the screen of my phone. I made it back home, thankfully, immediately dressed down and got myself some ice cream to eat my sorrows away whilst watching a sad movie.

Kylian tried calling numerous times and even sent me countless messages but I chose to ignore it. All good things come to an end, as fun as friends with benefits was…eventually one of us would have to pull out of that phase to get into a real relationship for our future. He may not be concerned about getting serious right now but I sure as hell am. It shatters me that he didn’t feel anything in these 3 months we’ve been together - it was just lust for him I guess. So all those late nights where we were being honest and confided in each other was just a waste…

It’s been a week since I last saw Kylian physically, it was hard not to see him when he’s all over my social media even though I unfollowed so many accounts. Besides that, he still attempted to call and message me numerous times apologising but I just left him on read.

(Y/F/N) had came over after ages, she was a mutual friend of both Kylian and I, all she knew was that we were somewhat seeing each other. We left out the part that we were in a situationship. She actually took notice of my absence in Kylian’s life because according to her, he changed in the past week. I wasn’t buying it, I just assumed she was siding with him. I told her that us seeing each other didn’t work because he didn’t have genuine feelings like I did.

My depression was apparently very much evident that her mood had switched to sympathising with me. She acted quick to change my mood, she thought the best remedy for my depression was to move on. I couldn’t agree more. She surprised me when she said that she could picture me dating a friend of hers named, Carlos, if not Kylian then he was apparently the first runner up. Upon hearing the name, I was already keen on moving on in hopes that maybe I’ll finally get a happy ending.

Later in the afternoon after (Y/F/N) left, there was a knock at the door. I answered it and was greeted by a delivery guy. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N) ?” He asked. “Yes ? That’s me” I furrowed my brows. “These are for you” he said as he motioned to the massive bouquet of red roses that was placed beside him. “Oh wow” I said under my breath. “Yeah, you got yourself a lucky man. Have a good day !” He greeted me before he left. I was stood speechless at the door. The bouquet was so heavy, I struggled to even place it onto the counter top. My eyes searched for a card but I found absolutely nothing. Maybe it’s from Carlos after (Y/F/N) put in a word for me.

(Y/F/N) had suggested that Carlos, myself and her have a friendly dinner tonight to get to know each other a bit and so we both don’t feel uncomfortable just yet. I know (Y/F/N) is trying to help, but at the same time I don’t want to go on a date with this guy if he ends up being a bore or even worse, arrogant.

I had a shower, did my hair and makeup before slipping into my dress, and heels. I grabbed my bag and phone before leaving as my Uber arrived.

Luckily they were already there so I didn’t have to awkwardly wait alone. I mentioned (Y/F/N)’s name for the reservation and was escorted inside to where they were seated. “Hello !” I greeted enthusiastically. (Y/F/N) ran over to hug me first before breaking away and introducing Carlos. “Carlos, (Y/N). (Y/N), Carlos” she motioned. “You’re even more beautiful in person” he said as he kissed the back of my hand. “Oh.. well thank you” i felt the heat rush to my cheeks. “You’re welcome” (Y/F/N) said lowly to me.

As we all got seated, (Y/F/N) and Carlos were across me. I was just about to place my bag on the empty seat beside me until I heard that all too familiar voice. “Sorry I’m late.” You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Well finally” Carlos said as he then stood up to shake his hand. “Hey bestie” (Y/F/N) said as she stood up to greet him as well. His eyes were on me the entire time, not even breaking eye contact when he hugged (Y/F/N).

“Chérie” he said lowly enough for only me to hear. “Kylian” I said as I faked a smile and stood up to greet him. As petty as I wanted to be, I didn’t want Carlos to question the tension. Kylian took advantage of the situation as he placed his hand on my lower back and pulled me in for a hug before kissing my cheeks. How lovely, he’s sitting next to me.

Dinner was going well as Carlos opened up about himself and happened to ask me a lot of questions about myself, up until Kylian placed his hand on my thigh. My body froze and I felt goosebumps form on my skin. I placed my hand on top of his to swat his hand away, but of course a few seconds later he does the same thing again with his hand even higher up my thigh. When his fingers were close to my inner thigh, I quickly excused myself, “Would you guys excuse me” I smiled before abruptly standing up and walking towards the bathroom.

Before I could even get to the entrance of the bathroom, I was pulled by my arm and had my back against a corner wall. “What the-“ I said till I saw Kylian’s face. “Can you leave me alone and let me go ?” I said as I pulled my arm away from his. “You’re ignoring me for the past week and I wanted to talk to you” he said. “Well this is obviously not the place or the time, excuse me” I said as I tried to walk away. He grabbed me by my waist and pulled me back against the wall. I hate to admit that i have butterflies and it felt like my skin was burning when he touched me.

“What is it ?” I asked as I crossed my arms over my chest. “You look so beautiful, it’s distracting” he smirked. “Thank you ?” I furrowed my brows in confusion. “Just hear me out.. I know I was wrong and I’m so sorry for not even wanting to give us a try. Since you’ve been away, I felt so empty and it was so obvious that you were missing from my life, I didn’t realise how you completed me. I missed talking to you about literally anything, I missed having you by my side and waking up to your beautiful face. I need you (Y/N) because I love you” he said. I stood speechless. Someone pinch me. “Ow !” I rubbed my arm. “You said to pinch you” he shrugged. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”

“So chérie, will you forgive me and give us a chance ?” He asked hopeful. “I need some time Kylian. This all happened so quickly. I have so many unanswered questions that-“ “Okay then ask me a question !” He said. “We’re wasting too much of time, they’re gonna get suspicious” I said as I started walking. “By the way did you like the roses ?” He asked. I stopped in my tracks, “That was you ?” I asked in shock. “Why are you surprised ?” He asked. “Well firstly you didn’t send a note and secondly, I assumed it was Carlos” I shrugged. He seemed to get annoyed by the mention of Carlos’ name as he walked ahead of me without another word. “Ky !” I called for him.

Luckily Carlos and (Y/F/N) didn’t question how long we were gone, I guess they were so caught up in their own conversation because they didn’t even notice Kylian and I when we were back. Kylian was distant for the rest of the evening and luckily dinner was cut short since Carlos had to go. Turns out (Y/F/N) was leaving with Carlos so that just leaves Kylian and I alone. “Are you coming over to my place ?” He asked. “For what ?” I raised a brow. “To talk things out and besides that..I have a surprise for you” he grinned. “You know I hate surprises” I rolled my eyes. “I’m aware that’s the only thing that could convince you to come with me” he said proud. “I really hate you” I shook my head as I followed him to the car.

Once we got to his place, it felt weird knowing that I was once coming here so often to not coming at all. “Okay close your eyes” he said when we were at the door. “But why ?” I asked. “You’re so stubborn, you’re ruining my surprise” he shook his head as he placed his hand over my eyes. He used his other hand to guide me into the house, I could envision where everything was with my eyes close. “Kylian, you’re scaring me” I said as I took small steps. “Almost there” he said lowly. “Okay..open now” he said. I blinked my eyes open to see the house decorated in candles and a trail of roses.

“Oh my gosh” I said lowly. “Do you like it ?” He asked. “Ky, I didn’t know you had this in you” I said in awe. “I’m offended that you don’t think I’m romantic” he shook his head. “I mean deep down I knew you were but I didn’t think that I’d get to see that side of you” I pouted. “Well, you surely got the romantic side of me. I’ve never done this for anyone and I wanted you to feel special, especially to make up for the past week. These are just small things, you deserve better chérie” he sighed. “I think I got exactly what I need right here” I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck. Instinctively he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him against his chest.

“I really love you. I never thought I could miss someone so much until you were gone. I deserved being left on read” he laughed. “You sure did.. I think I should’ve sent the roses back as well” I teased. “Okay now that would be pushing it, I would’ve been heart broken for the rest of my life” he pouted. “You would feel my pain” I smiled. “I already felt your pain when you already moved onto Carlos” he rolled his eyes. “You didn’t even give me a chance to move on. You crashed our friends date, you played with my mind by placing your hand on my thigh and calling me pet names when you normally call me-“ He cut me off by placing his lips on mine. “You’re talking too much” he said in between kisses as it got heated.

[misctf]

The Reversal Agents

Detective Hart sighed as a young man struggled against his restraints and the firm grasp of his supervisor, Detective Philips. It was supposed to be a routine case: Frank Grimes, a 32-year old male and serial transformee was masquerading as a 22-year college senior and frat president. Not the worst illegal transformation Hart had seen in his few years as a member of the Department of Affairs Related to Transformation- hell he questioned if any of this was necessary. But Frank had at least 24 counts of illegal transformations against him and so it was time for the department to step in. Originally, the department was founded to reverse involuntary transformations, or ones that were deemed disruptive- hence the nickname “the reversal agents”. Minor transformations like this though? Hart didn’t fully understand.

“Alright Frank, I’m sure you know the drill.” Philips said, emotionless, “We’re going to...”

“I’m not Frank!” The young jock said angrily, “My name is Jared Wilson! I have no idea who the fuck Frank is.”

Hart stepped in, “Right... Okay Jared, we have reason to believe that...”

“Let me talk to my parents! Or a lawyer!” Jared insisted, “People can vouch for me. My bros, my girlfriend, fuck dude you can’t do this! I have no idea what any of you are talking about.”

“Look, our technology has a high success rate of picking up residual signs of transformation. You can cut the act, Frank.” Hart was getting annoyed, usually the perp would break by now. Yeah it sucked going back to their original body, but usually voluntary transformees just accepted it.

“You never fucking scanned me, dude!” Jared insisted, “You just abducted me out of nowhere!” Hart frowned, “You gotta believe me! That Philips guy, he has it out for me. His son rushed our frat, didn’t make the cut. He’s out to get me!” Philips face remained unchanged.

Hart scoffed at the notion, “Look, no more games.” He pulled out his residual detection scanner, quickly scanning Jared. However, after a few seconds the machine read “No Transformation Detected”, “What the...”

“Scanner must be broken.” Detective Philips stated calmly, “Frank transformed many times. Causes the scanners to read unreliably.” Hart nodded, he wasn’t aware of that fact, but given that Philips started when the department was founded, he had no reason to disagree.

Jared for his part, couldn’t believe this was happening, the fear evident in his eyes. He wanted to run, resist, whatever he could do, but his restraints prevented him. He continued to plead with them, but it all fell on deaf ears. He tensed up as he read the sign on a large metal door: “Reversal Chamber”.

“Wait no, please!” Jared insisted, “I’m me! You can’t do this!” But he was thrown into the room, and the door slammed behind him. He looked around desperately, trying to look for an escape. But the room was windowless, the walls adorned with scanners, tubes, and metallic arms.

Meanwhile, Detectives Hart and Philips entered the control room, where they were able to view Jared through a one-way window. As Hart watched the panicked young man, he felt like something was wrong.  

“We’ll be using a template model of Frank. I’ve added some things too. He’ll never wants to use transformation technology again.”  

Hart raised an eyebrow. Template models were questionably ethical- they were not true reversals per se. Instead of reversing a transformation, it forced a transformation into the preprogramed template, “Sir, only the district manager can approve a template model, did you...”

“I’d stop asking questions, detective.” Philips said, turning to Hart, “Just enjoy the show.” The older officer pressed a button and a loud automated voice reverberated through the room “Reversal to Begin.”

Jared for his part was terrified. He watched as his handcuffs came undone, and at this point, he ran over to bang on the door. But to his shock, a few metal arms came down and grabbed him, hoisting him into the air where he could see himself in the reflection of the metal room. He let out a yelp as they ripped his clothing off, leaving him naked.

“Wait stop!” He called out desperately, tugging at the metal arms that suspended him in the air.  

He watched as a few scanners moved and positioned themselves around his toned legs. The young man felt a strange sensation as the muscle in his legs seemed to slowly atrophy. His impressive calves became diminished and filled with fat as they plumped up. The light hair on them darkened and grew thicker. He grunted as the scanners slowly moved up his legs, ensuring the no part of them remained unchanged.

‘Who the fuck was this guy?’ Jared thought, a strange sensation emanating from his legs. They felt heavier, almost more tired. Jared could feel the extra years of age and lack of exercise. And that terrified him. As a runner and lacrosse player, fitness was an essential part of his life.

It was at this point though that several clamps shot out from the walls and wrapped themselves around his impressive arms. A saddle-like device also emerged from below him and slowly wrapped itself around his cock, balls, and ass. He let out a groan as the saddle tightened around his member, releasing small waves of pleasure. Meanwhile, the part around his ass began jabbing several small needles into the muscles. Again, the muscles there seemed to atrophy and instead fill with fat, causing his perky ass to jiggle with only slight movement.

‘Why... why does this feel so good.’ Jared thought, letting out a small moan as the machine continued to manipulate his cock and balls.

At the same time, the clamps that had covered his arms began to work their magic. He felt a strong compressive force in his biceps and triceps, as the toned muscle there slowly dwindled away. With each compressive force, more and more of the muscle vanished, while needles injected a substance that promoted fat growth. His forearms were similarly not spared, as they too became less impressive, while the hair on them grew longer and darker. Finally, the clamps came undone, his once impressive arms were no more. Despite the pleasure that he was experiencing, the young jock’s eyes were filled with terror at the loss of all his hard work. He was beginning to understand the type of man he was becoming- and it was the very type of guy he had lived his life not wanting to be.

“Please! Stop this!” He called out desperately, “I swear, I’m me! I’m Jared!” But his pleas were futile.

He let out a grunt as the saddle around his privates came undone and he could finally appreciate the damage that was done there. His previously well-groomed member was covered in a dense layer of pubes, which had already begun emitting a powerful musk, causing him to gag. But on top of that, it appeared that both his cock and balls had shrunk considerably, while he could appreciate the heftiness of his new jiggly ass. But before he could fully come to terms with these changes, a few of the arms began massaging his abdomen. At the same time, another started spraying a foul smelling liquid across his toned abs and chest, causing Jared to scrunch his nose.

“Woah!” He called out in surprise as he was forced to raise his arms.

He watched as the foul smelling liquid was also sprayed into his pits, the liquid being quickly absorbed. And that’s when he started feeling it. An intense itching seemed to course through his abs, chest, and pits. He could only watch as his treasure trail started to darken at first with more hair, until it final began moving upwards along his abdomen. At the same time, lighter hairs formed around his thicker treasure trail, also following up along his abdomen. Eventually, the hair reached his chest, where it exploded across his firm pecs. It darkened rapidly, until becoming curly and twisted, moving up until it reached his neckline. His pits were no exception as the hair there became thicker and darker, emitting a musk equal in intensity as the one from his ungroomed pubes.

“Fuck!” Jared cursed, feeling tears stinging at the corner of his eyes. This was too much. All of this was too much. He didn’t want any of this- and the frustration was only mounting as the detectives continued to ignore him.

Jared let out a grunt as he felt a strange pressure building in his abdomen. The metal arms grabbed and pulled on his hairy abs, and the young man could only watch as the hands filled with his fat. And it didn’t seem to stop. As they continued to pull, more and more fat pushed his abdomen out. His abs were long gone by this point, and much to his horror, the hands didn’t seem to be stopping. Further and further, his new gut seemed to push out more and more. When the hands did release his gut, it jiggled and slumped down due to gravity. At the same time, his firm pecs softened and only pushed out with new jiggly fat. Jared at this point became fully aware of just how tired and out of shape his new body was. The thought of running or engaging in the physical activity his old body was used to just didn’t seem to be something this body would be capable of. He could only let out a frustrated grunt at this point- maybe just maybe he could find a way out of this. If he finished the transformation, he could lawyer up and prove his case. He was confident he could overcome this.

Meanwhile, Hart and Philips watched as the machine continued its process. Clamps had come down and began working on Jared’s face, adding some fat and spraying the hair growth serum. Hart watched as a beard grew across the former jock’s face and piercings were inserted along his nose and ears. Having had enough, he turned to Philips.

“Sir, something seems off about the whole thing. My scanner didn’t pick up any changes and this isn’t how a voluntary transformee usually acts”

“Detective Hart, are you questioning me?” Philips replied sternly. Hart shook his head, “Good.”

They continued to watch as the machine finished making the changes to Jared. With the last few physical changes made to his formerly chiseled face, the scanners and hands went back into rest mode. Before them now stood a perfect copy of Frank, something that Detective Hart felt mixed about. Something was surely wrong. But before he could say anything, he watched as Philips pressed another button. A pair of goggles slowly approached Jared’s face.

“Hey now, those are for mental realignment. You need the director’s permission to use those.” Hart said, taken aback, “And if this was a suspected voluntary transformation, there shouldn’t be a need for...”

“Are you going to report me, detective?” Philips asked.

“Sir, something is wrong with all this. Jared mentioned your son not making it into his frat. Is this some kind of...”

“So what? What would you tell the boss, eh? That I struck a deal with the real Frank? That I’m turning Jared into Frank and will let the real Frank live Jared’s life as frat president, just as long as he accepts my kid? Who would believe that?” Philips chuckled and turned to Hart, “Remember, insubordination has consequences, right Detective Hart? Wouldn’t want anything happening to you out there.” Hart gulped and nodded, watching as the mental realignment technology fastened to Jared’s head.

Jared felt the goggles fasten to his head, unsure of what was to come. But just as they became fixed to his head, his vision became filled with multiple images. He didn’t understand what they were, but as he focused, he could see images of a life he never lived. Dropping out of school, living in his mom’s basement, finding a more successful boyfriend, and moving in with the man he loved. Memories of a lifetime playing videogames for hours, failing his high school classes, eating junk food, and discovering he was gay seemed to become his reality. Jared didn’t understand what these images were supposed to be doing and he focused on his own memories, but as the images flashed faster and faster before his eyes, it was becoming difficult to ignore. More intimate details of his... no Frank’s life flashed before his eyes. Images of pleasing his boyfriend in all kinds of ways, how hot he found the other man, and the desires to do even more with the man started forcing themselves into his brain.

“No... not my life...” Jared mumbled as the images continued to flash.

They were so quick, so powerful... each image repeated over and over again, strange spirals appearing behind them. And as those images flashed, Jared could feel the memories become real- the physical sensations of each detail reverberating through his body. The first time he sucked a dick, the first time he bottomed, each of those intimate memories becoming more and more real to him. He licked his lips at these new sensations, and moaned when he remembered the night his boyfriend had fucked him. And as more details of Frank’s life flashed before his eyes, Jared became content. It didn’t necessarily feel like he was being overwritten, but more of an acceptance... an understanding that the images and feelings were in reality his life. Maybe once he liked sports, had a girlfriend, and wanted to graduate college... but now, that life and those memories, simply weren’t of interest to him. Grooming was always so much work, exercising and keeping his body in shape was stressful, and his girlfriend would always nag him. He was happy with the idea of sitting on the couch, eating and drinking all day, and waiting for his boyfriend to come home for a fun night. And as a small smile formed on Jared’s new face, the former college frat president happily accepted that his life was now that of Frank Grimes- his life as Jared Wilson was just a distant memory...

Afterwards, Frank collected his clothing and met the two detectives in a separate room. They were informing him about the process, something about being banned from using transformation technology, but Frank couldn’t understand why he’d ever want to use it anyway. He was perfectly content with his life and his loving boyfriend. The detectives were nice enough to drop him off at his apartment, and Frank quickly got ready. He showered, enjoying the warm water on his body. He slapped his gut and grinned- Cole was into bigger guys and with the way he was going, he wondered how large he could get. And when Cole finally did walk in, Frank ran over to him, kissing him deeply.

“Never leave me like that again babe.” Cole said, staring deeply into Frank’s eyes, “It’s always so tough when you go on your little adventures.”

Frank grinned, “Don’t you worry.” He said leaning in for another kiss, “I’m happy where I am.”

And as their clothes were thrown to the side and the sensual night went on, Frank couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Memories of his life as Jared were still there- all the girls he hooked up with, the nights studying, and all the days practicing on the field. It all seemed so stressful looking back, perhaps he should thank the reversal agents for their help. He wondered what the old him would’ve thought about this. But as he guided Cole’s dick into his mouth, Frank couldn’t care less.

[galedekarios]

Hi!! Hope I am not bothering you (if so please feel free to ignore!) with a Gale lore question, but I figured you're the person on tumblr who would most likely know given all the cool shit you've been posting, but do we have any idea *where* gale was when he got snatched by the mindflayers? I can't seem to find a straight answer about most of the companions, but there seems to be a fairly straight forward answer for most of them except Gale (and Astarion to some extent) I know he had his year of solitude that he seemed to have left willingly and from what Tara says about Waterdeep it doesnt seem like they had a massive nautiloid attack the city a la the opening. I figured he either left Waterdeep in search of more items to sate the orb/protect the city in case of rupturing and was taken there or he was just maybe beaten over the head and abducted in the city by one of the few Absolutists that are in Waterdeep.

thank you for your message! i really appreciate your words.

sadly, there is no indication at all where precisely gale was before the events of the game take place.

i've collected some pieces of the puzzle, however, that i thought are relevant to at least paint a broad picture of what likely happened:

gale is well aware of how unstable the orb is. when he escapes the nautiloid, his first thought is that the illithid tadpole is very likely to have adverse effects on it:

he has lived with the orb for about a year or longer, knowing well what its effect might be. i have wondered often just why gale would know so much about ceremorphosis before the game starts. perhaps the devs just needed another exposition machine, which is likely, too, of course.

but considering the very real and very present danger of the orb, i think it's also likely that in his desperation to find a way to heal himself, reading up as much as he could on everything that even resembled some sort of solution, gale perhaps even read up on ceremorphosis, before deciding that it's just not viable, that it would do more harm to than good.

i think it might be in line with the same reasoning as to why the player can bring up the nightsong to gale as a possible solution to the orb.

2. gale is aware just catastrophic the consequences of the orb being unleashed are. when gale goes to rest in his origin playthrough, sleep will not find him and once more, his thoughts turn towards the orb first:

it's likely that this is why we find him staring into the flames playing a custom protag. these two scenes seem to mirror each other.

3. we also learn from the same dialogue two important things: that gale made tara promise to stay in waterdeep, concerned for her safety. we also learn from his conversation with tara that he is not only concerned about her safety, but his mother's as well and that he left her behind in waterdeep as well:

morena isn't aware of what her son tried to do. he kept it from her. not only had he disappointed her faith in him and his talents, now, with the orb, he was actively putting her in mortal peril. along with everyone else in the city.

from a later dialogue we also learn that gale is afraid of bringing shame to his family name:

player: So, your last name is Dekarios? gale: It is. Courtesy of my mother, the inimitable, dare I say it sometimes unavoidable, Morena Dekarios. It's been so long since I've used it. 'Gale Dekarios' cuts a poor figure next to the wizarding prowess of 'Gale of Waterdeep.' player: You're right. Just 'Gale' is better. gale: I agree. And on the plus side, if I get myself into any truly cataclysmic straits during the remainder of our journey, my family name will go untarnished.

we also learn that while news of the absolute seems to have reached waterdeep, tara doesn't seem to think that they have infiltrated waterdeep yet. which in turn means that waterdeep wasn't affected in the same way baldur's gate and other cities and regions were.

4. the next morning, gale can have the following conversation with tara:

"you left the tower in such a hurry you didn't leave an address." is what stands out to me here.

what exactly did make gale leave so suddenly?

was it a particularly bad flare-up of the orb? i think it might be likely because i also found this line in the files:

player: i fail to see why you need me to help you this. you've done fine without me so far. gale: A fair point - however, until recently I was able to rely on a supply of artefacts stored in my tower in Waterdeep. A supply that has now run dry. The reality of the matter is that a lone wizard with a chronic impairment such as my own is not in the most ideal of situations with regards to self-defence. The manner of artefacts I need are not often found waiting patiently on a shop-keep's shelf. One usually has to lift them delicately from trap-filled tombs or prise them from the hands of violent ne'erdowells.

so not only does this validate the fact that gale indeed suffers from chronic pain due to his condition even more, it also clearly states that he had nothing left in his possession to treat his condition anymore.

(as an aside, larian really did the seriousness of his condition a grave disservice here on a multitude at levels and this is another point where the narrative is at odds with the game mechanics of the full release. in ea, it truly required great artefacts (the sword of justice blessed by tyr or even the idol of silvanus) to soothe the orb.)

so to bring all of these points together, this is what i believe:

i think gale left waterdeep in a hurry after he felt the orb destabilising.

having no artefacts great power left, staying was no longer an option, lest he puts his mother (and waterdeep itself even) at great risk. he hurriedly packed what he could.

i assume tara was there and that it was then that he made her promise to stay because he didn't want to put his longest (and now only) friend at risk, too. perhaps he also felt better knowing that tara would be there for morena.

i think he was abducted while on the road, trying to find information about artefacts of great power and perhaps even setting out himself to acquire them.

[jaegeraether]

Sunsets and footballers (Part 34)

Lucy Bronze x Reader (32)

Masterlist (other parts here)

That was not what she’d expected at all. YFN had done her research and put her own puzzle pieces together, though her theory had missed the mark by a significant amount.

“I know what you’re thinking.”

YFN couldn’t even close her mouth.

She walked closer, lightly treading with elegance as if to not scare her away. When she was close, her eyes lingered on the scar cutting her eyebrow with empathy.

YFN managed to find herself and cleared her throat. “Your misdirection was very believable.”

“I was worried the voice would give it away.” She said almost shyly. Her voice was more regal now, less…common? Clever.

YFN’s relief must have been clear, and she didn’t realise herself just how worried she’d been. “And my misdirection was not entirely untrue…” She gestured around her. “This is her house.”

They were standing in the house of JK Rowling. The woman she’d assumed she was meeting. It all made sense, didn’t it? Joe. Lumos. When she’d originally started researching the company, she’d come across the other Lumos, the charity founded by Joe. Though, she made sure to not hold any assumptions going into their meeting.

“Why her?” She asked, knowing it was a little rude to do so. “Why hide behind someone the public hates so vehemently?”

“I needed someone with power, someone rich, someone people could believe had the capabilities of doing so.”

“So Lumos is a branch of her company?”

“No…it’s my company, my money. I spoke to Joe about the idea of using her as a bit of an alias, as well as using the same name as her charity.”

“But…why hide at all?” She really didn’t understand. She was wealthy, powerful and beyond all else… “People adore you.”

“I thought about it, trust me. But how would that look, having me try to lift the women’s game? It would look like a publicity stunt, like they needed me when they don’t. I need them to show that they can do it themselves. They have the motivation, the will, the support and now they have you. At least, I still hope they do?”

YFN was fully aware now that up until this point, she’d been disillusioned as to the identity of ‘Joe’, right down to the reason that she’d chosen her. She was a writer. Exactly what Joe herself would have done. This was a better scenario, though the fact that her guise was the infamous author would not be well received. She didn’t try to understand the complexities of it all. Looking beyond all of that, she knew that the person she’d spoken to on the phone was genuinely passionate. Caring. Hard-working. She understood that she had been a victim of her title and knew deep down that they could accomplish incredible things together.

“They still do...”

“Tea is prepared in the estate room, ma’am.” Benjamin interrupted politely.

“There’s hot chocolate too, YFN.” She promised with a lovely smile that begged to be photographed.

How did she know?

“Thanks, Kate.”

“Cath, please. Only the media calls me Kate.”

“Did you ever have any intention of meeting me?”

To her credit, Catherine was very similar the person she was presented as in public, however the more time they spent together, the more liberated she became with her thoughts. YFN realised how much of a burden it must have been, stuck under the thumb of royal obligation and public expectation, though in this room, there were just the two of them.

“No,” she allowed herself a little smirk as she took a sip of tea. “No, my intention was most definitely to stay invisible in this. And besides you, I plan to keep it that way.”

“You’re not worried about Mark?”

“I knew that hiding behind Joe would mean the possibility of people assuming she was directing this, and furthermore that she would have enemies try to pull her down. She did warn me about Mark. He’s…persistent.”

“A business rival I’m assuming?”

“I believe Joe managed to ruffle his feathers a little with a business deal a few years back. She said he’s forever since been adamant to undermine her achievements, and to make matters worse, he doesn’t care that Lumos is a charity. See, I originally assumed we’d be safe if I created a company with the same name, because who would attack a charity? As it turns out, Mark would.”

“And I’m guessing the idea of you having a personal conversation with him to quietly nip this in the bud is out of the question?”

“Indubitably.”

YFN bit her lip as she thought about the situation she found herself in. She wanted to ask if her husband knew, but knew it was the wrong question for the conversation. What Catherine was doing was separate from that. Separate from her life as a royal, as a mother, as a leader.

“No, William doesn’t know.”

YFN’s eyes shot up to find Catherine’s. David wasn’t wrong, she was intelligent. She had those rare gifts of intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence, the types that YFN felt she also had; the ability to truly understand herself and other people. It was perfect for Catherine’s main role, really.

“A personal project then?”

“Of sorts.”

“With…very high ambitions?”

“Yes.”

The conversation was quick witted and much more was being said in the words they didn’t vocalise.

“I’m Australian, so forgive my lack of knowledge…but I wasn’t aware you were so passionate about football?”

“It does tend to be William’s passion more than mine, however I do love sport. And while football may not be my favourite, it is England’s favourite, and it’s where the change needs to happen first.”

First? Her eyebrows raised. “You plan on expanding Lumos to other sports?”

“Gradually, yes. The focus begins on all things football and will grow to encapsulate all female sport.”

“Not male sports?”

“Potentially in the future, if we ever reach equivalence, however that is not my intention. My main goal is to focus on the female perspective. I find sport to be one of the largest places of gender inequality and male dominance. It’s going to be a tough field to make change.”

YFN couldn't help but feel that her choice of JK Rowling as a hidden alias was detrimental to her success. Catherine read her thoughts again, she seemed to be good at that.

“Joe…is a friend. I’m unsure of your opinion in the matter but I don’t agree with her opinions and I did think that using her would only be of benefit to her if people had dug deep enough to assume she was behind it. “

She wanted the best for Joe, even at the sacrifice of a little face. Even after her controversial opinions. The admiration must have been written on her face from Catherine’s returning look.

“And Joe did also help me choose you.”

“That explains a query of mine. I’m a writer, first and foremost.”

“Please don’t think that I only chose you because it’s what Joe would have done. It’s not. I looked into you and your work meticulously. It took me a long time to find you, and it wasn’t just for your work as a writer. It was the way you interviewed people, the way you approach questioning, your ability to be both affable and determined. You know exactly what you want, and how to get it without sacrificing the comfortability of the people you speak to.”

It was the nicest compliment she’d ever received, and she felt herself blushing a little. Catherine put down her tea.

“Also, I found some of your photography. I understand you moved away from it and over to the publication side of your previous workplace. Photography happens to be a passion of mine. I believe it to be an important artform, and it did motivate me towards pursuing this project. Without it, I wouldn’t be here with you. I’d be off with the other duties that are required of me.”

Catherine had studied Art History, if YFN remembered correctly. It began making even more sense.

“What…is the timeline you had in mind?”

“The only timeline I’ve considered so far is that of football. I want us to have coverage of all of it by the end of next year. I hope that it’s a fully run operation by then, and we can expand into tennis and cricket.”

The hot chocolate did its job then and YFN yawned so hard, she worried she was being rude.

Catherine gave a polite chuckle.

“It’s getting late. We have a few days to talk this over more, Joe is in the US for another week, and I’ve managed to wriggle out of some royal engagements for the next few days. Shall we pick it up tomorrow?”

Things had begun to come even more into focus the next day after they’d spoken a little more. It was her passion project, and one that YFN felt honoured to be a part of. The only people who were aware of it were her Lumos management, Joe, several staff, and now YFN. Catherine’s management team for Lumos was kept small and tight, and their main jobs were not limited to networking throughout the sports, optimising their business and even planning for the future of the company.

In the early morning, they’d all taken a meeting together in the conference room on Zoom. As the meeting began, YFN was surprised to see a few of the individuals had been people she’d met at the charity event. Catherine really did have people everywhere.

“It’s a good thing that it became a necessity to meet.” Catherine admitted. “I think now that we know each other better and you can fully see our goals, we’re going to benefit from it.”

YFN agreed with that. And now that she realised just how much influence, wealth and power were behind the company, her confidence grew as well as her appetite for more.

The meeting went for hours with so many points of business that YFN didn’t really understand. Luckily, they hadn’t expected her to, as her focus was primarily on the actual product they were providing. She hadn’t realised just how much effort went into the secrecy of a company, or the background decisions, compromises, and discussions that she’d previously thought of as trivialities.

The money of course would be noticed by William who knew his wife had a passion project, but didn’t know what. It was her baby. The way she led her group made that very, very clear, and although she wasn’t used to running a company, she was so well-read and had educated herself so well that she wasn’t just a figurehead, she was leading them and not afraid to ask questions to the more experienced businesspeople.

The meeting became interesting when the team unanimously agreed on the expansion of the employees after their successful first round and had already had many candidates lined up which they filtered through together. Catherine encouraged YFN to get involved in that as she actually worked on the ground with them and managed them.

Following that, management went back onto other business details and Catherine used the opportunity to give YFN a phone very similar to her own, and it was purely set up to work with her and the management team. No wonder why she’d always been so quick at replying and holding that boundary between Lumos and her other duties, she’d had an entirely separate phone for it.

With the need for more people, came the eventual agreement for an office space. London made sense as it was central, and most games would be there. They’d already acquired the space and were just waiting for the final go-ahead which Catherine gave that approval for. YFN was grateful that the discussions moved onto design and architecture, furniture and parking which gave her the perfect opportunity to decide how to use the multiple sets of cutlery with her different lunch dishes.

Catherine had laughed at that, and it was warming to see her so relaxed outside of the public eye.

Listening to them talk about the office, she was pleased to see that it wasn’t too far from Lucy’s apartment, knowing it would be convenient, though she knew it would be best for her to stay central in Birmingham for the meantime, just until they became a lot busier. She could deal with the drive until then. Besides, she wondered if Leah and Jordan would be back together anyways. Thinking of that, she messaged Jordan.

YFN: Where's my update??

She was at training so didn’t expect a response until that night, however.

“…background checks.”

YFN’s head shot up. They were talking about background checks for the employees they were deciding on. She wondered how in depth they would be and didn’t have to wonder for long as they began to discuss them in depth. Her eyes widened knowing that they must have done the exact same for her. Catherine noticed that.

“It’s standard procedure, I’m sure you can understand.”

She nodded. Of course, she could understand. They wouldn’t let anyone sit next to or run a business with the future Queen of England.

The day dragged on, though Catherine had made sure they all had several breaks and took the time to show YFN around Joe’s property. It truly was beautiful, yet she couldn’t miss the amount of security who were wandering around the estate, a few with their eyes on the pair.

“Can you…understand why I’m wanting to stay a silent figure in all of this?” She asked gently as they wandered through the garden. It was actually a day of decent weather, the sun poking through the clouds.

“I can, and I respect it. I’m also glad we’ve met. Everything makes much more sense now.”

“Fantastic. Now I know we’ve already agreed to keep this between just us, however there’s Lucy, correct?”

YFN nodded. She didn’t like the idea of keeping anything from her.

Catherine stopped and turned to her, taking her hands gently. She was taller than the little Australian of course, even more so with heels. “YFN…I know what it’s like to have to keep secrets. It’s not fun. I’ve seen it tear relationships and families apart…”

They way she held her eyes and spoke was so… motherly. So royal-like. Beyond that, she could see the pain in her eyes and she wondered just how much this woman had been through.

“I’m okay with you telling Lucy. I don't want your relationship to be affected, and I trust your judgement, but please stress to her to importance of secrecy. One leak and all that we’re trying to accomplish disappears.”

YFN relaxed a little. She could tell Lucy.

“Thank you, Cath. I really appreciate that.”

They were just settling down to dinner when Catherine was pulled aside for a phone call. Their meeting had ended shortly before that, YFN full up on information and motivation for the upcoming work she had to do. She worried a little about Barcelona.

Dory: We may have had sex. Then I cried and kicked her out at 10pm.

YFN choked on mashed potato. How had she managed to choke on the least chokeable form of potato?

YFN: What?!

Dory: When are you home?

Catherine walked back in then looking a little stressed and apologetic.

“I’m so sorry, duty calls back in London. I’m afraid we’ll have to cut this trip short. You’re more than welcome to stay here another day...”

“That’s okay, I can leave tomorrow if that works.”

It did work. Catherine finished her dinner and left apologetically and this time, with a gentle, motherly hug and promises of a bright future working together. It was strange being left in the large house alone with just Benjamin and a few staff wandering around. Her phone buzzed and it was her flight change being emailed, a change to tomorrow morning. YFN checked in and then replied to Jordan.

YFN: I’ll be home midday tomorrow.

She pocketed her phone. Another buzz. She pulled it back out.

Lucy: Hi, little one. Can I call?

[vyl3tpwny]

Music Genres

When I was kid, you would have probably heard me say something like “I don’t believe in genre labels”. To a degree, there is still something about that sentiment that I agree with; I don’t think you can really put music and styles of music in neat little boxes. But otherwise, I was pretty much wrong about everything else.

Let’s go over that.

pictured: Mala, one of the godfathers of roots Dubstep

—

To be blunt, “genre” isn’t just about approximating what a song sounds like. If you say “I love pop music”, that honestly doesn’t mean much. The more specific you get, the more you will approach something someone can imagine like “I like experimental progressive noise pop music”. Ok, I can start to imagine things that likely approach what you're talking about, but even then it will usually not help someone fully understand what something truly is. In categorizing and approximating music styles, genres only go so far. So what makes them important then?

Well, not to say that approximating a style when describing an artist to someone is a bad thing or that doing so isn’t meant to be valued, but it’s hardly the only reason these labels exist. Importantly, “genre” helps establish culture, history, and a musical identity. So when you're trying to tell someone you're listening to a "progressive rock” project, you’re not just imagining odd time-signatures and complex riffs, you’re also meant to understand and consider that whatever is being described as to you has some sort of relevance or importance with regards to the history behind progressive rock; the culture of college bands in the UK, the sound that the punk movement revolted against, the progression of musical storytelling in rock music since the late 60’s and early 70’s, stuff like that. There’s a distinct culture and history you can pinpoint and understand when you describe something as being progressive rock and you can’t just go around calling any complex electric guitar oriented music "progressive rock" unless it has those specific ties as well as understanding and iteration of the roots.

pictured: Genesis, because progressive rock mention

—

Genre labels help to clarify what kind of culture and histories a music project is being associated itself with and where a lot of its inspiration comes from. This is much more compelling reason for underlining the importance of genre labels and why they should be used correctly.

So, there is something I need to get off my chest then. There are a lot of misuses of genre labels all over the place, especially online. And I’m not talking about saying something is “Alternative Rock” when it’s clearly some kind of “Folk Rock” record instead. What I’m talking about is something like “Dubstep”.

Even as recent as a few years ago, I started personally reclaiming the term “Dubstep” as a genre label to describe any bass-adjacent music. At the time I did this, I thought it was cool, because the term Dubstep had been dubbed (pun intended) to be cringeworthy lexicon to some people. And while I feel that’s a noble reason to reclaim something like that, because some weirdos think it's cringe, in this case I actually think it’s wrong.

The term “Brostep” has been used to describe any non-roots bass-oriented music that originates from the proper roots Dubstep. It’s a term I didn’t like FOREVER, especially because the phrase was derived as a generalization of the kind of people who tend to listen to it. However, I actually think that Brostep is a title that people should be more comfortable and confident with labeling things as.

The original Dubstep came as a result of Jamaican immigrants bringing Dub music to the UK, which then fused with the remnants of 2-Step Garage which was prominent in the 90’s just years prior. Timbah.On.Toast made a great video called All My Homies Hate Skrillex and it is a really good breakdown of what separates roots Dubstep from the Americanized Brostep, which came after it. I think everyone knows by now that I have a deep, deep love for EDM based Broste and I am the biggest Skrillex fangirl alive. So being both a Brostep and Skrillex superfan, please understand that I think the video is one of the most important things you can watch as an EDM enjoyer.

Conflating the term Dubstep with things that aren’t actually Dubstep is honestly a slap in the face to all of the pioneers of Dub and Dubstep, which famously were both pretty much ENTIRELY invented by black people. I think it’s fair to say that incorrectly labeling music in this way has racist implications. It dishonours and twists the legacy of the music. You can find og Dubstep to listen to on the RYM Ultimate Box Set > Dubstep page. Check some of that out, then listen to some 2010, 2011 Skrillex and see how different things really went.

It confused me at first when I was a teenager, I didn't understand why so many people hated Skrillex back in the day. I came to realize so much of the hate wasn’t even really with regards music itself, but the total lack of understanding or care for the roots of the genre, which all of his work was founded upon and he then subsequently bastardized without caring at all. It was pure disrespect, it was practically cultural erasure and so many people will now only know of Dubstep as “that Skrillex transformer screech music”. Yeah. It actually fucking sucks.

But there is a LONG history of black music being erased from history and being undermined, whether entirely intentional or due to systemic unawareness.

I saw a post the other day talking about how it sucks that so much music is just lumped into being “video game music” when so much of this stuff has deep roots and cultural significance. The first example pointed how a lot of acid jazz music is just described as “Persona music” by the layperson now. Meanwhile, Acid Jazz as a genre is a huge development on things like roots jazz, disco, funk, and hip hop music. You know. All genres that were invented by black people. Fascinating, right?

Jungle music was also mentioned. And this one is very particular for me. Jungle music, when not being generalized as "PS1 Music", is often just called drum & bass or breakcore (also please Google the difference between breakbeat and breakcore, thanks) which are all fundamentally misunderstanding what Jungle music even is. Much of Jungle music, AS MANY THINGS DO, finds VERY prominent roots in Reggae, Dub, and sound system culture in Jamaica as well as countless other prominently black communities in the UK.

But it doesn’t stop there.

If you’re unfamiliar, there is a genre called “IDM”, otherwise known as Intelligent Dance Music. When I was a kid, and I first heard that word, I immediately was like “that is the most pretentious, stupid thing I’ve ever heard”. Eventually as I grew up, I just stopped thinking about that and started referring to more music as IDM. This style of music is generally characterized with “complexity” and being “not much danceable”. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the music that is called IDM, I do think there’s everything wrong with the term IDM, intelligent dance music.

When asked how he feels about being labeled as an IDM artist, Aphex Twin responded:

"I just think it's really funny to have terms like that. It's [basically] saying 'this is intelligent and everything else is STUPID.' It's really nasty to everyone else's music."

pictured: Aphex Twin, the funnyman himself

—

I think most people would agree with this sentiment. It’s so strange to call one kind of music “intelligent”, out of the hundreds of thousands of genres out there. But let’s bring this back to Jungle music. The reality is that IDM started to become a term around the same time that Jungle music became prominent, in the 90's. Both styles of music are complex, introspective, skittery, and chaotic (but refined and often disciplined) genres. Except, of these two, Jungle music was the one pioneered primarily by black artists. IDM was a sort in competition with Jungle. To therefore call IDM “intelligent” in comparison to Jungle music ... well. I don’t feel like I really have to explain why that’s fucked up.

A lot of people have proposed different names for IDM. A quick look on reddit yields things like “Experimental Electronic” and “Brain Dance” (which was coined by Aphex Twin's label). Me personally, the term “Electro-Prog” comes to mind. Sounds cool.

Similar conversations are presently being had about the term “Riddim”. This brings us back to the dubstep side of this discussion again. Riddim, as an EDM genre, is an offshoot of Brostep music that focuses a lot on repetition over the downbeat, maintaining an insanely distorted sound design, a lot more than the average Brostep song. However, the term “riddim” originates — yet again — from the Jamaican Patois for “rhythm”. And Riddim as a musical style in Jamaica is actually more associated with things like dancehall and reggae, rather than the commercialized "Riddim" that is several hundred times removed from its own roots.

Last year, musician INFEKT proposed that what most EDM listeners call “riddim” should be referred to instead as “Trench” in an article on their website. This proposed name is derived from Getter’s use of the term on his 2014 record “Trenchlords Vol. 1”. I don’t personally know how much I resonate with the term, but whatever the consensus is, I don’t think we should be conflating a westernized, commercialized, and EDM-centric genre like this to Jamaican roots music. Over and over again, it seems that black music is constantly overwritten by developments like this, so I think more care needs to be taken in not allowing that to happen.

As a side note, a lot of people online seem very keen on appropriating Jamaican Patois quite often? There are so many examples of this. When the term “Bomboclaat” started making the rounds on Twitter a few years ago, so many white people were quick to either talk wildly about the term and trend or otherwise start saying it as well. There was a fucking article that sought to answer “The Bomboclaat >> Meme << Meaning Explained”, like they’re not dissecting an element of Jamaican slang lol. Then there was a period of time where people were constantly saying things like “On Jah?” as a stand-in for “On God?” even though this, again, is Jamaican Patois. And even now, you have tons and tons of non-black people going everywhere being like “what is blud waffling about?”, the phrase “blud” ONCE AGAIN also being Jamaican in origin.

I shouldn’t even have to explain what makes these kinds of appropriations weird and messed up. But black people lose jobs and are denied basic things in life over their hair styles, their expressions and slang, and so many other things that a white person can just appropriate and face zero consequences whatsoever for.

That aside, aside. Understanding and labeling genres correctly is such a big part of music history and highlighting and preserving cultures worldwide. When efforts are made to undermine the meaning of a genre label or otherwise use it incorrectly, so much damage is done to the communities and people groups that innovate and pioneer this art to begin with.

For these reasons, I will gladly use the term Brostep. I will happily call things Electro-Prog. And when you talk about genres like Jungle and Dubstep, say it with your whole chest. Be proud of the human race, show respect and love for the people who have forged the greatest parts of music with their bare hands. We will always stand on the shoulders of giants as musicians, so instead of pretending you yourself are the giant, build monuments and maintain the history of these people. You as an artist are nothing without them.

pictured: Augustus Pablo, one of the most important innovators of Dub. Without him, and without many of his contemporaries, I would reckon that half or more of all modern music would simply not exist.

CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS FINAL SECTION, THERE ARE LIKE LOTS OF STRANGE SLURS AND RACIST VIBES.

—

One last thing I wanna mention, this is slightly tangential but I think it's relevant to this conversation. It's always weird how lots of websites categorize things like this:

From Big Fish Audio... "G**sy*? "World/Ethnic Loops & Samples"? What the fuck are you talking about. Seems like racism to me.

On Loopmasters they have a "World" section. Any Americanized genre gets its own category, but the entire continents of Africa and Asia as well as the country of India and region of the Middle East (which are part of Asia, hope this helps btw) and lastly South America are stuffed into the nebulous "World Label". Seems like racism to me. Are you telling me you weirdos can't figure out a better way to represent these things?

But then Psy Trance gets its whole entire own category? Aren't there only like five people who listen to Psy Trance? /hj . But like come on.

Shoutout to WA Productions for categorizing a universe of suspiciously mostly black music as """Urban"""". And this company is a dime a dozen, hundreds of corpos do this shit.

East fucking West, what is this dude. There is a racism happening, I just know it. Please give me a count of how many poc are on payroll at your company, I am so curious.

And while we're at it, East West, what is this. Tell me. Fucking tell me.

Thanks for reading.

[godbirdart]

You don’t have to answer this question as it’s probably dumb to ask…but do you know what platform(s) would be a good starting point? Particularly for original content rather then fanart? I heard deviantart is a good place where alot of ppl got there start on but there’s lots of art thrives and such.

don't even worry, it's not dumb at all! it's hard to gauge where to Begin in the vast hellscape that is the online world. i do get this question [and some adjacent questions] often so please allow me to use your ask as an excuse to post a few of my site rankings for various art things!!

for reference, these are the sites I'll be addressing because i have used them at some point within the last year. please note: my information on Cohost and Itaku specifically may be out of date as I haven't used them in a long while. naturally, this is all solely my perspective. i run both a furry/original content account and an anime/fanart account on most of these sites and run them reasonably independently from one another. these rankings are based on how well each account fares on each site.

I will be talking about Patreon and Ko-Fi as if people will only be posting paywalled content there. you Can publicly post on both sites, but for the sake of this post i'm only going to treat them as paywalled sites since well, that's kind of their purpose.

POSTING ART IN GENERAL

the A-tier list sites here are the ones that are most practical, with a decent member presence and little to no algorithms impairing your reach. the only sites here with any sort of algorithm are tumblr and deviantart, but i feel they don't ruin your reach that much.

B-tier list is mostly centered around popularity. there are massive audiences on both masto and twitter. twitter can be really good if you're posting certain content. mastodon has countless instances [read: servers / subdomains, however you want to call them] that can help narrow down an audience and like-minded people. for example, i use mastodon.art whereas many furries may use meow.social. you Can be discovered by people on other servers than yours.

C-tier has been sorted in accordance to audience. this is solely in my experience, but not a lot of new people are flocking to cohost and itaku. we also just hate facebook in this house and i will never give a facebook products a high rating.

F-tier: if you are a new or growing artist, putting your art behind a paywall or making it a chat platform exclusive thing can really hinder your growth. you can still do this of course, but you won't get as many eyes on your work as you would on a public gallery. threads is there solely due to privacy issues that Cannot be overlooked. i will not recommend it.

POSTING ORIGINAL CONTENT / CHARACTERS / NON-FANWORKS

here's how i'd grade these sites for posting Original content, characters, stories, etc. your best sites will likely be furaffinity, deviantart, and tumblr. i've put these three here for their tag use, discoverability, and audience presence. tumblr can be a little glitchy with its tags, but they DO function.

A-tier is entirely centered around audience presence. these sites are great for showing off your work, but they don't have the same population as the S-tier. mastodon can be good as the quieter instances give you more discoverability. bluesky has been THRIVING when it comes to the furry community as of late [i'm personally on there daily] - the only reason i don't put it as S-tier is because it's invite-only AND you need to rely on your work being found through the Feeds feature if you aren't an already established artist.

B-tier: useful, but population may hinder your growth. toyhouse is GREAT for posting your original characters and stories, but it is invite-only and not necessarily gallery-focused [it can be USED for a gallery, but it's not the main purpose]. you can also post stories and lore to toyhouse. discord and telegram are Good, but again it can be hard to gain an audience through sites that require invites.

C-tier: it is DIFFICULT to grow on paywalled sites with original content. cohost [to my knowledge] has been stagnating with the release of bluesky.

F-tier: threads sucks, the end.

POSTING FANWORK, FANFIC, FANDOM CONTENT IN GENERAL

S-tier here is sorted because of audience presence. while twitter does suck, i'm finding a LOT of success there with fanart. tumblr is The fandom site of course. furaffinity is great for a surprising range of fanart that isn't exclusive to furry, and deviantart's Groups feature is still going strong which can give you that extra exposure.

A-tier is: fans Go here, but the population or algorithm can make things tricky. instagram is good for fanwork but the algorithm and the speed that things are posted there can make discoverability an uphill battle. patreon; if you make comics or art with fan characters [especially 18+ content lmao] you can grow pretty rapidly there. patreon, like any other paywalled site, should be a secondary site and not your Primary posting location. artfol and pillowfort are still growing. pillowfort has a Communities feature - sort of like deviantart groups - that you can submit your art to which gives you that extra exposure. artfol is just a nice gallery site and the tagging system is,, decent enough. a little confusing because the tag system looks up keywords in posts and titles First, you have to tab over to hashtag searching specifically.

B-tier: invite only and audience reach. again, bluesky relies on your art to be picked up in Feeds, as there's currently no tag search. inkblot is growing but has a decent audience. ko-fi isn't as known as patreon for exclusive content but it's still a good site. mastodon has tagging that makes discoverability easier, but mastodon and its many servers can make things confusing for some people. itaku's not as commonly used so it may be harder to gain new eyes there once you establish yourself.

C-tier: posting fanart to these sites Can Work. toyhouse focuses on posting and sorting original characters, so treating it as a gallery site won't get your far fast. it isn't impossible to grow as an artist there, but the site isn't intended for fanart posting. i cannot say much on cohost here. telegram and discord, again, it's harder for people to discover you out of the blue unless you mention your server / channel on another site.

F-tier: fuck threads.

lastly, to address thieves,

thieves are gonna be everywhere. i'm sorry to say, but there will always be shitty people. i recommend the following:

watermark your art. not in the corner, don't just sign in one spot, place a Huge translucent watermark over the WHOLE art. i recommend making it a colour gradient too instead of one solid colour or greyscale.

also: sign your goddamned art! put your username on there!

post a low resolution when sharing online. less than 1200px wide or tall. 72dpi. JPEG format. keep the high res privately for yourself.

add a subtle noise filter over your art. it doesn't have to be high opacity, and it'll make your art a little grainy, but it's good for fucking with AI bots and ruining any print quality potential.

i hope this offers some insight! if you have a different experience on these sites, please feel free to add your testimonial in the replies or reblogs! not every artist is going to have the same experience and growth rate.

[crystal-moon-101]

A while ago I had made up a Zak for each day of the week to match Zak Saturday and Monday for fun, and because I wanted to give Zak some more AU similar to how Ben gets a lot of them. So not only do they all have different last names, but each have their own backstories and colour theming! So I hope you enjoy my little AU concepts.

-Zak Saturday-

Classic original Zak. I decided to draw them all when they're 11, start of the series vibes. So that's why he doesn't look like the ways I normally draw him currently, since those are when he's 14. Nothing different with his design here, beyond still giving him those vivid orange eyes.

-Zak Sunday-

Also known as Zak Argost, having been taken in by the man after he had a certain encounter with Zak's parents, resulting in their deaths. When Argost found the young toddler, seeing the start of Zak's power, he was happy enough to take the child with him and use his powers to his benefit. Due to being taken when he was very young, Zak doesn't remember his parents at all, fully believing in anything Argost tells him, the only family he has. So he happily helps his guardian in keeping cryptids tamed during Weird World shows, or during trips to learn about them, even if Argost puts Zak in more danger than he should. Due to his appearances on Weird World, Zak is a celebrity of sorts, even if he doesn't get to go out often. Argost also gives him a lot of gifts, keeping the child in a positive mood to keep him under his thumb. So Zak truly believes that Argost cares about him.

Though things start to turn when Argost finally decides it's time to hunt down Kur and take his powers, hiring Van Rook and Doyle on the mission. This leads to Zak and Doyle getting to know each other, with Doyle feeling protective over this random kid for some reason. Eventually this leads to him taking Zak away when this whole Kur business gets out of hand. While Doyle can't seem to convince Zak that Argost doesn't care about him, the pair do at least agree to try and find Kur first, Zak worried that even Argost shouldn't handle such powers. However, only time will tell if the pair discover the truth behind their unknown family history.

-Zak Monday-

The good old twisted gremlin of a child, Zak Monday and his family were a result of the smoke mirror. They come from a world that twists the very nature of people, a poor reflection of their negative aspects. If you're naive, then your mirror self is incredible dumb. If you're a bit of a perfectionist, then your mirror self is a control freak. And Zak Monday represents the twisted doubts of Zak feeling like a monster, so why have any doubts when you can be the monster?

I decided to change Zak Monday a bit to have the green eyes and green shirt with his own logo, cause I liked the idea that after his first appearance, they switch back to what they're suppose to look like. But other than that I kept the concept of him looking just like Zak, minus the inverted hair colour.

-Zak Tuesday-

The young naga is the son of Rani Nagi. Born solely to have Kur's soul enter and be a host, but whoops! Looks like Kur's memories aren't there, but that wasn't going to stop Rani Nagi, who thinks if she keeps at her plans, eventually her son will become the old cryptid king she once knew. Even going as far as to solely call her child Kur, who secretly calls himself Zak due to him often watching humans in the shadow, curious about them and wanting a name for himself. Zak Tuesday has a lot of identity issues, not helped by his mother's teachings towards him, ignoring all his dreams and personal thoughts. Eventually he just got really good at lying rather than convincing Rani Nagi.

However, the young cryptid prince is suddenly kidnapped by Argost one day, as he figured out where Kur's soul was currently living. Zak knew he would have died that day if not for Drew and Doc recusing him, having been chasing Argost over this Kur situation. Though they're a little surprise that upon meeting the new Kur, they find it's just a young naga who really doesn't know who he is. At first Doc and Drew didn't know what to do with him, but Zak begged them to not send him back home, and let him stay at their place until he could figure things out. He wasn't foolish, he knew the nagas were planning a war, and he wasn't keen on being the face of it all. So now the Tuesdays just have a snake living around the house, but they can't exactly complain as he is a well mannered guest at least. And perhaps the house doesn't feel so lonely with him around either.

-Zak Wednesday-

Some of you might recognize this one, but this Zak is from my old Zur AU, where Kur was reborn via the Kur Stone due to it being an egg, and Zak is a dragon that shapes between human form and dragon form. I decided to update him, making him Zak Wednesday now, with a pink theme! I also decided that instead of Kur being reborn, I wanted to shake things up a bit and have it that Zak was directly Kur's son. His mother is unknown, and as Kur saw how the world was at the time, he put Zak's egg into a stasis situation until it was discovered again. After saving it from Argost, the egg hatched among the secret scientist, leading to them chasing the child of Kur. But upon using his shapeshifting abilities to look like a child of Drew and Doc, they just couldn't help but adopt him on the spot, siting there was no sense in blaming Kur's son over what happened years ago.

The growing dragon is very playful with a cheeky personality. He exhibits a lot of draconic behaviors, with a wild and free spirit. He is aware of his family history, but he doesn't like to think about it, unsure in how to view his father based on the stories he's heard. Besides, Doc and Drew are his parents, and that's all that matter to him. Though perhaps this sudden appearance by Argost, claiming he was going to far Zak's father, has been a bit rattling to deal with.

-Zak Thursday-

When Kur knew he was going to die, and also knew his soul wasn't able to live the mortal realm, he made plans to make it so his reborn self would both be born in hopefully a better time, and be without his memories. It was better that way, so that his new self could live a lovely life without the sins from his past. But that didn't exactly pan out properly, as Kur was reborn and sadly remembers everything. It took him a while to understand this growing up, his young human mind not processing it until he was roughly 7-8, and even then he needed time to think about it. And now he's a depressed 11 year old who now has to be stuck with the fact his plan didn't work, unable to run away from the person he once was. Doc and Drew found out the truth when Zak tried running away one day, their son sitting them down and telling them the truth in hopes they'd just leave him, it would be better that way. But to his surprise they disagreed, as he was still their son, Kur or Zak, and it would be too dangerous to leave him alone.

So now Zak lives with his parents? Are they really his parents? The family keeping this dark secret to themself, even from the other scientists. Doc and Drew still reach out to their son, doing their best to connect with him, but he can't help but push them away. He doesn't deserve this, and they deserve better. However, their secret might come out after Argost stole the Kur Stone and now hunts for Kur, not realizing the truth right in front of him. So now the family tries to get the stones back, wanting to protecting Zak/Kur from others finding out. Doesn't help that he has to go through being a child again with such dark memories lingering in his head, feeling tired and overwhelmed with the world. Hasn't he suffered enough?

-Zak Friday -

In a world where Kur and cryptids successfully wiped out humans, the king ruled the lands for a while after, before one day he mysteriously vanished. Many concluded that he had died somehow, the details unknown, but this lead to a prophecy that one day their king would return, leading to many claiming to be him, or praying that they will be him for the power and wealth. In this universe, Zak and his family are all cryptids, with Zak being a a Chuvash Dragon, Drew and Doyle are Epimeliads, and Doc is a Gargoyle (Other characters are also cryptids in this timeline). Zak is a serpent like dragon that breathes fire, as a very twistable body, and can freely shapeshift. He's heard about the legend of Kur returning, but frankly he thinks they don't need him, even if the cryptid world has been shattered without a king for years now.

But when a yeti named Argost claims that Kur is back, being backed up by the Nagas, everyone starts to gossip and run around trying to figure out who the new Kur is. So maybe it's best that Zak doesn't tell the whole world about his sudden new powers to control and communicate any fellow cryptid is walks by.

[dean-winchesters-clit]

Okay y’all, we need to talk about the OFMD season 2 trailer

Or, lack thereof.

Listen, I’m also frustrated. I want some sort of update too, something concrete that we can sink our teeth into. However, I think the memeing may be going a little too far. Let me offer some words of comfort.

I understand that the first season of Our Flag Means Death was only in post-production for about six months before releasing. I understand that it’s been almost seven months and we’ve gotten no news, I get it. But, we have been promised a bigger, bolder, more extravagant second season. Samba has also mentioned that the VFX artists are working very hard to finish the effects for season 2.

And - to tangent off of that - the VFX houses working on the show are absolutely SPECTACULAR. We’re talking about the people behind the effects in the recent Dune movies, Black Mirror, and THE FUCKING BOYS. If we have to wait for THOSE GUYS to finish season 2 before we get any update, I will gladly wait for as long as it takes because the effects will be out of this fucking world.

However, I think that the biggest reason for this lack of news is actually due to the desired release date. I am in no way 100% an expert, but I did go to college for filmmaking for five years, so I know what I’m talking about to an extent. I know with absolute certainty that the date a film/tv series is released is incredibly important to its success.

Yes, it is true that they would have needed to release the second season before May 9th in order for it to have been eligible for consideration at this year’s Emmy’s. HOWEVER, it is possible that they knew the show would not be ready before the cutoff for the 2023 Emmys, so they are aiming for next year’s Emmys. My theory is that we will get some sort of teaser by the end of August or beginning of September and that the show will premiere in late 2023 or early 2024.

The biggest times to release any sort of film or series come during the summer or around the winter holidays. This is why we have summer blockbusters and why Disney released some of their most widely popular animated movies during the month of November. These are times when people have a lot of time off work or when kids are out of school/college and are more likely to go to the movies or watch tv.

However, things have changed in recent years with streaming services. I think it’s likely that the second season may air in the “dead” month of January when lots of streaming services will post original series or movies since nothing big tends to be playing in movie theaters at that time.

Just be patient, my loves. I do not foresee us getting the second season before the summer is over. There could be a million reasons why we have yet to hear anything concrete about season 2. I think it’s very likely that everyone has signed NDAs that are keeping them from spilling any news until HBO gives them the go ahead. And don’t forget that there’s a MASSIVE strike going on that could be halting the progress of the production of season 2. Be patient, stop hounding the actors and creators for information that they can’t give us, and go write/read some goddamn fanfiction to pass the time.

TL;DR: There are 3 main reasons why the second season could be taking so long. 1: It’s just not fucking ready yet 2: They have a late 2023/early 2024 release date in mind 3: The Writers Strike has ground everything to a halt. Just be patient and enjoy some fanworks while you wait.

[ashensgrotto]

Never Had a Friend (Like Me) - Part 2

Original art piece by pfbatakopd on twitter (Used only for Header. Do NOT REPOST ORIGINAL ART)

Part 1 Part 2 (You Are Here) Part 3

YandereSoulmate! AU:

Part 1 (Am I Feeling Love?)

Part 2 (Protective)

Part 3A & Part 3B (Poor Unfortunate Souls)

Characters: Azul Ashengrotto X F!Reader

Word Count: 9,105

Synopsis: A chance for redemption comes in the form of a wish…

Author’s Notes: Ok, here we go. I received an anonymous message in my inbox for the next part of the Yandere!Soulmate series and I was actually going to work on it - but with the arrival of GloMas, working on the next part of ‘Raison D’être,’ wanting to finish “Weren’t You Aware, Angelfish?”, AND the holidays, time got away from me and I forgot about Scarabia’s segment for a short while. 

However, because you all seem to enjoy this and want to know if the tako has redeemed himself - I figured I would work to get this part done. Now, warning - Pompefiore’s part is going to take a bit of time to complete because I will have to wiggle my way through my memory bank and replay a few parts of it (which is approx 76 chapters in length for those players who haven’t made it that far into the game yet) since I’m working so deep into Ignihyde’s chapter right now (which is a doozy - I’m still in chapter 67-tower 1, oof help).

This one is also going to be split into three parts - I promise it will not be a long wait for the second & third parts as this is my Christmas gift to all of my readers <3

Thank you all for your continued support!

Warnings are as follows: yandere behaviors, manipulation, imprisonment, & hypnosis

***

… Mister Kalim, sir, have a wish? Or two? Or Three?

I’m on the job, you big nabob.

You ain’t never had a friend like me.

***

“Well done, Jade,” Azul praised, “How did the ‘talk’ with Kalim go?”

It was the first night of being in Scarabia in the vacant room the Grim and (Y/N) had originally been held hostage in. Apparently, it was routine in Scarabia to have all of the students locked within their dorm rooms - hence the reason as to why the concept was foreign to both Grim and (Y/N) as the two of them never felt the need to lock their doors at night (though Azul did while (Y/N) had lived in Octavinelle for security purposes - but he would never tell her to begin with.)

True to his word, Azul started sniffing around straight away, using Jade to talk to Kalim while he and Floyd distracted Jamil with a game of mancala.

“It was just as you expected, I’m afraid,” Jade answered, placing his hands behind his back as he gave his report, “It’s very likely that Kalim is being magically mind-controlled to make him act out erratically.”

“That would explain the sea otter’s rapid changes in behavior,” Floyd nodded in agreement.

“But how is that even possible?” Grim asked.

“Grim, that’s like asking how you can stomach twenty cans of tuna in twenty minutes,” (Y/N) answered, looking toward the trio, “I’m assuming it’s similar to your ultimate magic, Jade.”

“To an extent, yes,” Jade nodded in agreement, “The closest you might get would be with Ruggie’s ‘Laugh with Me.’ That ultimate magic allows Ruggie to manipulate a person’s body to do what he wants them to. There’s also hypnosis magic that works in the same sense, but it takes control of a target’s mind and requires a far higher degree of skill and power. Very few mages are even capable of using it because of the amount of skill required to even cast it.”

“You gotta have skills and power on par with Azul for that,” Floyd added.

“But even I would be hard-pressed to control living creatures with their own egos like humans,” Azul argued, “I still prefer to give them the chance to think it over before signing one of my deals.”

“But I doubt anyone in Scarabia is half as good as you, Azul,” Grim piped up, “Even Kalim’s big signature is just a glorified waterspout…”

“Grim, ‘Oasis Maker’ is a very talented frame of magic,” (Y/N) sighed, looking at the others, “Though, I do agree… even Jamil’s score levels are relatively average on the school’s grading scale.”

“I wouldn’t be too hasty to make assumptions,” Azul chidded, “There’s an old saying in the sea that we have in the sea which states ‘a clever hawk hides its talons.’”

“So the brings us to the big question, who’s controllin’ sea otter and why?” Floyd asked.

“I’m afraid I won’t be much help there,” Jade shook his head, “I couldn’t get any answers from him.”

“Speaking of which,” (Y/n) asked suddenly, “What exactly… does your signature spell do?”

“Oh? Have you seen it before?” Grim asked curiously.

“Only once - I think we had a patron at the lounge that was behaving quite, um… indecently?” you admit, “It was like he suddenly just spilled what was on his mind as soon as Jade got close to him.”

Jade sighs, “My unique magic is one that would make most people guarded around me if they knew what it did, specifically - I’m not a fan of revealing it, but (Y/n) hit it pretty hard on the nose. It’s called ‘Shock the Heart’ - it allows me to force the truth out of a target that might be hiding something. The drawback is that the spell can only be used once on a target - once I use it, I can’t use it on them again, and it only works on those with a weak mental vulnerability or loosely guarded minds. Those like Azul who are weary, or have high resistance to magic, are effective against the spell - hence my signature spell is very limited in scope.”

“It works great on guys cowerin’ in fear or bawlin’ like babies,” Floyd grinned, showing off his row of sharp teeth.

“The way those two smile scare the daylights outta me,” Grim looked at you, “I still can’t believe you lived with these three for three months!”

“They’re not that bad,” you mumble under your breath, “...mostly.”

Azul coughed, “Jade, what were you able to find out? If anything?”

“Kalim’s always been the type to open up to others - it’s one of the reasons why he was selected to be the headwarden. Thus, my spell worked on him flawlessly - however, when I asked him if he knew the name of the student using hypnosis magic on him and if he would tell me, he claimed that he must never tell anyone. He made some sort of promise to this student long ago, so he couldn’t reveal it.”

“Oh how hysterical!” Azul snorted, “Your signature spell was thwarted by Kalim’s strength of character!”

“It would seem that way,” Jade admitted.

“And here I thought the sea otter would sing like a canary,” Floyd hit his hand over his forehead, “Just when you think you know a guy!”

“...I would assume that it’s a promise he keeps close to his heart,” you think out loud.

Azul looks at you, eyes widening, “(Y/N)! You genius angelfish! That’s it!”

“What’s it?” you ask.

“I have an idea,” Azul answered, “I have a hunch at who our little serpent schemer is… and how to pull him out of hiding, but first - Floyd, I’ll need your help.”

“My help?” Floyd looked flabbergasted.

“Yes, I need to borrow your signature spell.”

Jade, Floyd, Grim, and you blinked in surprise.

“Azul, pardon me for asking,” Jade spoke after a moment of stunned silence, “but why in the world are you asking for Floyd’s ‘Bind the Heart’?”

“Because I intend on using myself as bait,” Azul answered.

“Azul! You can’t!” you could contain yourself at the thought of Azul stepping in harm’s way.

“(Y/n), listen to me,” Azul took your hand, “This won’t be like the last time, I promise. I’m one of the strongest mages here right now, so I have to do this. Floyd’s ‘Bind the Heart’ will allow me the protection from hypnosis when we have to face off against our little viper. I don’t intend on him gaining control over anyone any longer - not even you.”

“I hate to admit it, but Azul is right,” Floyd answered, scratching the back of his head, “As much as I hate to admit, it would give us an advantage as well.”

“What do you mean, Floyd?” Jade asked.

“I’m always goin’ off about how great my signature spell is an’ showin’ it,” Floyd shrugged his shoulder, “So, if I swap something with Azul an’ give him my signature spell - no one will know that he has it, least of all our target.”

“But you’ll have to feign ignorance, all of you,” Azul answered, “If you can’t, this trap won’t work - this is the one shot we have.”

“Alright, though I’m not really seeing where this is going…” Grim sighed, resting his paws on his hips.

“You will eventually, Grim,” Azul answered, “Now, Floyd. Are you ready? I’ll give you something that will be an adequate replacement for the time being.”

“Sure, octy - whenever you’re ready.”

“How many times must I…? Never mind.”

Azul closed his eyes and took a deep breath as magic began to gather around him.

“The song ceases, the sun sets… I extend my benevolent hand to you poor unfortunate souls… Now, to business! It’s a Deal!”

***

Azul always knew how to practice patience - it was something he learned over the years during his searches for his soulmate. He may have been desperate during his childhood years, searching every day and night for that special someone that was destined to stay by his side, but that didn’t change the fact that he was preparing for this moment specifically.

All day, Azul kept one eye on his target, watching them as he, Floyd, and Jade began to slowly rile him up with their constant assistance toward Kalim - helping the Scarabia housewarden with memorization spells, training routines, and homework that had been assigned over the holiday weekend, keeping him busy and away from the one person who was to be held responsible for the mess the dorm was now in. By mid-afternoon, the trap was set and Azul walked down the hall towards the kitchens with the suspect beside him.

“The students' completion rate for these assignments is up fifteen percent from yesterday,” Azul commented amicably, “Those are some statistically significant results, in my opinion. Believe it or not, (Y/N) and Grim both told me that Kalim was going through some rough patches, his mood swings pretty drastic - even compared to Floyd’s… but he’s been acting pretty calm since we arrived. Isn’t it wonderful that Kalim’s regained the faith of Scarabia’s students, Jamil?”

“...No. No, it isn’t,” Jamil hissed quietly.

“It’s not?” Azul feigned surprise.

“No offense, but I can’t let you people stay in Scarabia any longer,” Jamil stopped and glared at Azul hard, “It’s time you went back under the sea.”

‘Got you,’ Azul thought before asking, “Where did this come from, Jamil? Have I done something to offend you?”

“...You made eye contact with me. Fool,” Jamil’s wicked grin spread across his features, “The one you behold is your master. When I ask you a question, you will answer. When I give you a command, you will assent. Snake Whisper.”

Azul felt the magic coiling around him, a small murmur of ‘Bind the Heart’ rejected the magic - now… it was time to play.

Azul feigned pain until he could see you and Jade hiding out of the corner of his eye, making sure that the two of you could see everything - his cell phone held securely in Jade’s grip as the stream began. He feigned falling into Jamil’s magic, opening his eyes to reveal Jamil’s control over his mind and body. He slightly slumped his shoulders, giving the illusion that he was no longer in control.

As he did so, Jamil began to rant - playing right into the octomer’s hands

“Because of you, all my carefully laid plans have gone up in smoke! All I needed was a little more nudging from those two dimwits and the students would’ve kicked Kalim out,” Jamil growled, “Do you have any idea how much painstaking effort I put into laying the groundwork for that?”

Azul did not respond, though he wanted to give a few choice words to Jamil about calling his sweet angelfish a ‘dimwit’ - but he would have to wait for that.

“Azul - you returned all your contractually stolen powers back to their rightful owners recently, right?” Jamil asked suddenly.

“Yes, master,” Azul responded, thinking, ‘Where are you going with… ah, I see…’

“Tch. So much for using you as my own personal genie of the lamp,” Jamil scoffed, reaching up and rubbing his chin, “Your unique magic is quite a valuable asset… but it would be hard to keep you controlled long-term.”

“Master,” Azul’s voice spoke up, “I remember the contents of the contracts.”

“What?” Jamil looked at Azul in surprise.

“I remember all the secrets of the people I made contracts with - their troubles, their weakness, their desires.”

“What a… twisted collection. I see I made the right choice not to make friends with you,” Jamil smiled cruelly, “Tell me, does this intellectual cache of yours include the headmage’s secrets?”

Azul grinned internally, baiting Jamil even more, “Of course, master. I know one thing he would never want others to learn. Do you wish to know his secret?”

“Oh, abso-lutely!” Jamil’s smile broadened, “Once I have the headmage’s weakness in my grasp, I’ll finally be free. I’ll kick Kalim out of school and become Scarabia’s housewarden myself!”

“... And there we have it.”

Azul watched, a knowing smirk appearing on his face as Jamil whipped around to face Jade, his face contorted in confusion.

“So you finally show your true colors!” Grim pressed his paws onto his hips as he glared up at Jamil from between you and Jade, “I bet you thought you were real slick, pullin’ the wool over our eyes!”

“H-how… how much..?”

“All of it,” you answered, “Start to finish.”

“And live streamed to the world from Azul’s smartphone,” Jade waved the phone at Jamil as footsteps entered the hallway with many Scarabia students appearing, “Azul’s Magicam livestream presently had five thousand active viewers. It’s currently trending under the topic: ‘A Certain Magicians’ School’s Dirty Little Secret’.”

Voices began echoing around Jamil, the students of the Scarabia dorm demanding to know the truth and why Jamil - their own vice warden - would deceive them.

“Y-you… you’ve got it all wrong!” Jamil shouted, his fear and apprehensiveness growing.

“Don’t even try to talk your way out of this one,” Jade folded his arms across his chest, “The mind control magic you used on Azul is hard evidence.”

Everyone looked at Azul - who kept his silent slumped state, continuing to pretend to be under Jamil’s magic still.

“Jamil, it’s been you all along,” Jade continued, pulling everyone’s attention back to him, “You’ve been using your signature spell on Kalim and making him throw Scarabia into chaos!”

Jamil tsked, smearing, “I was trying to avoid escalating matters, but you leave me no choice - Azul, I command you! Subdue and restrain them all!”

“Yes, master,” Azul answered, taking a step forward.

You took a step back with Jade, Grim darting behind you as you looked at Azul pleading, momentarily forgetting that Azul wasn’t really under Jamil’s power, “Azul, no. You don’t want to do this. Please! Snap out of it!”

“Pleading with him won’t help you, (Y/N)!” Jamil laughed, “He’s my loyal minion now.”

‘And… now,’ Azul took another step forward, before spinning around and pointing his cane at Jamil, “You wish I was.”

“What?!”

Azul looked over his shoulder and winked at you, relieved to see your smile as he turned his attention back toward Jamil, “You told me the funniest thing earlier - allow me to return the favor. You think I’m an arrogant mage, but you were sorely mistaken. An embarrassing misjudgment for the vice warden of Scarabia - the dorm that is supposed to embody the spirit of mindfulness.”

“I know I made eye contact with you! I had you in my control!”

“Please, I’m a competent mage and you know it,” Azul frowned, keeping his cane pointed at Jamil, “I always prepare for the eventualities before I act - right Floyd?”

“I think you let your guard down a little too soon there, sea snake,” Floyd appeared, his voice sounding more baritone than before - almost like a tuba was speaking.

Azul snickered softly as your eyebrows raised up into your hairline, “That’s… what you exchanged with Floyd for his signature spell?”

“Pretty cool, huh?” Floyd said with a grin.

“Shall I explain it?” Azul asked, keeping his focus on Jamil, “In exchange for a vocal adjustment, Floyd gave me his unique magic, ‘Bind the Heart’ - it jams or blocks an opponent’s magic and diverts it elsewhere. Hence - I used it to evade your mind spell, then pretended to be in your hold and got you to spill your intentions while you gloated.”

Jamil gritted his teeth, glaring at them as Kalim appeared, the housewarden asking politely to tell him that it was true, that Jamil would never do anything like that, that it was just blackout spells because of how tired he was. But the silence from the vice warden was short-lived.

Azul felt you stiffen beside him, your hand suddenly gripping Azul’s overcoat, “(Y/N)? What’s wrong?”

You met his gaze and Azul knew.

An overblot was approaching.

He turned to Jade and Floyd, “Jade, Floyd, ready yourselves.”

“The one you behold is your master… When I ask you a question, you will answer. When I give you a command, you will assent! Snake Whisper!”

At Jamil’s command, the Scarabia dorm turned on its guests and its headwarden.

Azul was quick to pull you and Grim behind him as a shield of water protected the three of you from a rain of fire, “Mediocre, nothing! He’s easily one of the top mages in the entire school - to say nothing of Scarabia.”

Floyd grumbled, “I keep squeezin’ em but they keep gettin’ back up - are they zombies or somethin’?”

“That’s just part of ‘Snake Whisper’,” you explain, as if your eyes are seeing the internal workings of the spell, “It forces a target to continue to obey the commands - like a puppet on a string. Even though they might feel pain and are internally trying to avoid as well as fight the spell, their minds and bodies are not completely their own anymore.”

“Jamil! Please stop!” Kalim begged as he blocked an attack, “You can have what you want! You can be the housewarden! I’ll go home to my family!”

“What? You thought that would work? My spell won’t be broken so easily,” Jamil snickered as black ink and heavy energy surrounded him, “Not as long as you exist in this world… Kalim.”

“Jamil! You’re courting danger!” Jade begged, eyes widening, “If you keep using your signature spell, you’ll exceed you blot tolerance-”

“SHUT UP AND DON’T ORDER ME AROUND!”

The air became heavy as a dark shadow came over Scarabia. Azul pulled you closer as several dark shapes began to shift - the housewarden of Octavinelle watching in horror as a creature appeared before them. Hovering above the ground in ancient Viziar garb of black and red was Jamil, cloaked in darkness with hair that now took on the shapes of small black vipers - a dark shadow that took on the form of a dark genie hovering behind him, as if awaiting his command.

“He’s overblotted!” Azul gritted his teeth, “The negative energy is swelling up… Everyone! Steel yourselves!”

“I have no need for an incompetent king or a con artist,” the twisted voice of Jamil spoke, “Your personality flaws give me ADEQUATE cause… to send you packing on a one-way trip to the ends of the earth! So long! Ex-Housewarden Kalim! A-hahahahaha!”

The next thing Azul knew, he was airborne.