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#i have. so many thoughts just for the character progression of Pearl in the life series after session 2
ender1821 · 11 months
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…something about how the lonely witch once up in her tower, shunned by all, is now accompanied by almost everyone in her home
c!Pearl finally got what she would’ve wanted back in Double Life
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sootcrow · 1 month
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I’m gonna ask a bunch of narumistu shippers this but how do you think Iris would react seeing that happen? Also how would your dream Narumitsu wedding play out, and would pearl be invited? I just have so many questions! I also love your art!❤️❤️❤️
congrats on being my first anon haha! I’m honored to be up here with the other narumitsu artists considering I like just got here lmao
I don’t usually talk about these kinds of things of my own accord but I DO think about this literally all the time and I love thinking about character dynamics n stuff so I will take this as permission to talk about some of my thoughts lmao
Iris
If you’re talking about how Iris would react to narumitsu in general, I’ve got a lot of thoughts on the matter
All things considered and as sad as this sounds, I think iris is pretty familiar with this kind of feeling and would handle it well outwardly. Considering the time they spent together in college, I think she would be pretty familiar with Phoenix's feelings about miles and his plans about going into law on top of art, so it's probably not exactly completely unexpected to her
Iris may have had a lot of time to get over him, but also with all that time with zero contact with him until bridge to turnabout, she's never had to address her feelings until she's metaphorically and literally staring the issue right in the face.
Phoenix, on the other hand, is forced to confront this event and any lingering emotions and issues he had afterwards right away. That event was a MAJOR turning point for his whole life. He got accused of murder, he ate glass (cough), his girlfriend apparently hates him ???, he met Mia, and overall everything has been turned upside down for him. He can't just ignore it or forget about it or pretend nothing happened like Iris could, and by now, his feelings have dulled. They definitely both still have lingering feelings about each other, but both of them end up dealing with them in completely different ways
Iris is definitely going to be feeling a LOT of pain over both seeing him again and seeing him with someone else, regardless of how prepared for it she tells herself she is. It's human to hurt when you see someone you cared about move on from you to someone else. There's a lot of guilt and blame that she carries from the incident, ESPECIALLY when she has to confront her emotions and him face to face.
But Iris is not a petty person or a grudge holder, unlike Dahlia, and she cares a lot about Phoenix. She's also not an idiot. As much it makes her heart ache, she knows her chance has passed and that Phoenix has moved on, even if Iris is still working on that herself. She will heal with time. Despite everything, I think she is an incredibly strong person.
Though it's going to hurt (a lot), I think that regardless, she'd be really happy for them.
Wedding
In terms of a wedding I don't actually think about that all too much yet dfjkfhfs I haven't gotten anywhere past the pw trilogy so I don't actually know all too much about anything post-trials and tribulations yet. (despite that I do have a whole narumitsu progression timeline. aside from the pining that they both think is one sided, there is a whole lot of nothing until AFTER the 7 year gap. they don't actually get together until after that. god they are so infuriatingly slowburn i hate them)
Anyways as hilarious as I think "pearl is homophobic" is, she's still a kid. We can't completely fault a kid who doesn't know better and never really had the chance to learn. I think it'd take a lot of work on Maya's part to be able to give her a proper explanation (if nick tried to explain anything he'd just end up getting pearl-slapped and things would go nowhere probably, its all up to maya here), but I figure pearl eventually comes around with some help and is like SUPER involved in everything. Her passion for romance n stuff just gets switched to nick and edgeworth instead of maya and nick
Once I'm more familiar with all of the other characters and the events of post-pw trilogy I'll definitely have a lot more ideas
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igneouswyvern · 8 months
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Interrupting my usual posting to talk abt Cereza and the Lost Demon because I just beat the game today and I wanted to share my thoughts. Keep in mind I have never played a Bayonetta game in my life lmao
So first off the game is fucking fantastic. I had a wonderful time with it truly. The game is gorgeous to look at and it uses the storybook artstyle to its advantage and it is AWESOME. Nearly every area in the game had my jaw dropping cause it just looked so beautiful. In a similar vein the music was really good and I will definitely be going through the soundtrack for my playlist.
The gameplay is honestly really solid. Basically you control Cereza with the left stick, and use her actions with the L and ZL buttons, and you control Cheshire (the demon) with the right stick, and use his actions with the R and ZR buttons. The D-pad lets Cereza use one of four items and the face buttons control Cheshire's transformations. Controlling one character with each stick takes a while to get used to but it does work really well. The puzzles using this mechanic were really good too and I enjoyed them a lot. The combat can be a bit clunky at times but I think it works pretty well, using Cereza as a support character to hold the enemies in place while Cheshire wails on them. I will say it gets to be a bit of a slog towards the end of the game when every required Tir na nOg is an enemy gauntlet and none of them are puzzles, but it's not too bad.
I must say I wasn't expecting the game to be a metroidvania but it really is and a well-designed one at that. Getting blocked off by something you can't get through until you have a certain power and then coming back to it later is fun and looping back around or opening up shortcuts is always something I enjoy. The unfortunate part of this is that the game's map SUCKS ASS and the areas are very mazelike, so I had a lot of trouble trying to clean up items. I really wanted to finish off more of the skill tree before I beat the game but I wandered around in many areas and made very little progress with actually obtaining the items I could literally see just sitting on my map but couldn't figure out how to get to. If the map was better designed I probably would have gone for 100%.
Speaking of the skill tree, I liked it a lot. When I first saw it I thought it was gonna be tiny, but it actually expands twice more throughout the game. And I like that they don't let you get to the good stuff right off the bat, cause that means there are still cool upgrades to strive for by the end of the game. One thing I wish is that there were more upgrades that didn't cost Inferno Fruits/Moon Pearls cause when I have a fat stack of cash but cannot find a way to access the other items I need, it ends up being really frustrating.
As someone who has not played another Bayonetta game ever, I liked the plot a lot and I can confirm you don't need to play any other Bayo games to enjoy this one. It works really well as a standalone, and it establishes the lore and mechanics of the Bayonetta world pretty adequately without needing any background. It's also just a really heartwarming and fascinating plot. I cried at the end. I thought it was gonna be super basic and conventional but it did some really unexpected (for me at least) things in the end.
Tl;dr, if you like metroidvanias with cool artstyles I highly recommend it, whether or not you've played Bayonetta. I'd give it a solid 9.5/10.
A few more spoilery (and rambly) thoughts under the cut:
CHESHIRE AND CEREZA OH MY GOD MY HEART. Their friendship was so well done. The fact that you can SEE them growing closer in their animations together AUGH I love it so much. They try to go their own separate ways but they just can't do it without each other. Cereza is pretty helpless without Cheshire but he can't do it without her either. AUGH
I LOVED the Jabberwock sequence. Letting Cereza struggle with her own fear and then overcoming it and unlocking an ability that will allow them to defeat it and the confidence that comes with that. Meanwhile Cheshire realizing that he's not strong enough to beat it without her help and being deeply humbled by that fact. And when they team up to defeat this monster, this thing that has destroyed witch and faerie alike, and that Cereza was paralyzed with fear of and Cheshire almost got killed by, and we KILL it ONCE AND FOR ALL, it's so empowering and grand and awesome GOD.
And Cereza rejecting her teacher and every convention of being a witch and cutting her hair to save Cheshire. It's SUCH an impactful moment. It really shows how different she is. Everyone is telling her that demons are nothing but tools, to be used for the gain of a witch and then cast aside back to Inferno like they're nothing. But right from the start Cereza shows she's different. She refuses to use Cheshire as a tool, respecting him as a person and understanding that she has to get him back to Inferno because that's where he wants to be. She reasons with him, instead of controlling him. She works with him. She protects him, she sacrifices everything to save him. She is probably the only witch who has ever treated a demon like a person. GODDDDDDD
Okay onto the ending stuff. I remember as I was playing the game I was like "what if Morgana was a villain lol." And during the cutscene where Lukaon reveals his name I was like "this stuff sounds hella manipulative, it would be funny if he was the villain." But the story seemed pretty basic and formulaic and I kind of assumed the villain would be pretty boring. Like why would you fight the friendly person who's been guiding you through your whole journey? Why would your beloved teacher turn against you? But god, they really did it. And I LOVE that they did. Neither of these twist villains were a surprise to me, but that didn't make them less awesome.
The fight with Lukaon was super cool. I loved having to get all of Cheshire's transformations back, and then transforming into the Unbound form and getting a whole new awesome moveset was so freaking good. It was truly the culmination of everything we've accomplished, both in the fact that we get each transformation as an attack on the face buttons but also that Cereza and Cheshire control together, showing how they're a team.
Oh and kind of an aside but speaking of Lukaon I really liked that blue was always the color of the faeries, the color associated with evil. That's true for everything...except the tracks of the White Wolf. EXCEPT LUKAON/THE WHITE WOLF IS A FAERIE AND ENDS UP BEING OUR ENEMY (briefly). That just occurred to me but like THAT'S SO COOL I LOVE THE FORESHADOWING
The final fight with Morgana was hard as BALLS though. I got maybe three game overs in the whole game up until this point but it took me seven tries to beat Morgana. And of course I ran out of all my healing items and they didn't give them back. It was awesome to win but it felt like an odd difficulty spike right at the end though lol.
Man I'm not ashamed to say that I CRIED when Cheshire went back to Inferno. I was hoping against all odds that the two of them would stick together (ofc that wouldn't happen) but of course he had to go back. But their mutual promise to see each other again, to be stronger when they each meet? YEAAAHHHHHH THAT SHIT MADE ME CRY AUGH
Okay that's it. I saw this game in the direct last year and was quite intrigued by the artstyle and gameplay and decided to pick it up but I didn't think it was gonna be THIS good. It absolutely exceeded my expectations and I'm gonna be thinking about it for a while yet.
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naris-606 · 2 months
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So I have these 2 Ocs, Verbannen, and Dee. They arnt too special, but theor world is. And so I thought it would be cool to put hermitcraft/life series guys into it!
I'm calling this AU, 'To Be Changed'. TBC. Short for, 'To be loved, is to be changed.'
Context: this world is set in kinda like the time of a dnd game. Kinda renaissance time, but not strictly. And in this world, the heavens above grant someone who's gone through hardship (often near death) in which they did not intend for that, or it was a selfless act, it will grant them animal traits corresponding with that hardship. A good example, Dee was doing magic to create a shield to save her city, but it backfired and burnt her all over. In response, she was granted traits of a rat since rats can be very loving, but they are often associated with death.
Jimmy was the first character I thought I'd tackle for this world. He's a canary blessed wizard in training.
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I'm not going to spill much of his backstory in case this gets popular and people want to see more, but his story is very deeply connected with Tango (because ranchers), and Grian! He's in an internship Grian started.
Next up is Grian himself! Who is a Bluejay blessed high wizard!
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(His eye is fine I just messed up) His backstory is connected to Martyn's, Mumbo's, and Pearl's. And probably many more, but I have yet to plan things out for them. He also started a wizarding internship to train future wizards! Everyone in the life series is in it in some way.
Third up is Scar! He's a lion blessed knight in training! And former con artist!
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(I'm still working on his design ;-; ) Hid backstory is connected with Grian, even if the two didn't meet until later. He's just helping put the city as a kight!
Fourth up is Tango! He's a slamander blessed alchemist!
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His backstory is connected deeply with Jimmy's. Unfortunately I don't know much about Tango, but he's cool!
Next up is Etho! He's a snake blessed highly respected toolsmith/mechanic/engineer/alchemist. Somthing along thoes lines. And former mercenary!
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(Work in progress design as well) His backstory is mostly solo, but there's plenty of room for others to join in! He's friends with Tango, Bdubs, and Joel!
Next up is Bdubs! He's an unblessed commission builder! (Who I have no art for) His backstory is a work in progress, but he is just a ball of chaos. And though he's not blessed, but if he were he'd be a rooster.
Next is Martyn, who's a bat blessed mid wizard. His background is deeply connected with Grian's, even if the two didn't meet till later.
Up next, Mumbo is an octopus blessed inventor! His backstory is deeply connected with Grian, and probably one of the lighter ones. And currently he works with Etho occasionally.
Joel is next! And he's a unblessed commission builder with Bdubs! He's married to Lizzie, and their backstories and current stories are deeply connected. He met Grian in a hardware store.
Along with Joel, is Lizzie! She's an axolotl blessed animal keeper! Her background is connected with Joel, and the reason for her blessing. She and Jimmy are friends, and she considers him a brother.
Next is Rendog! He's a wolf blessed noble, and his story is connected with Doc, and most of it still needs planned. He funds the internship! Doc and Martyn are probably the two keeping him from being a bad noble.
Last but not least for what I have written, is Pearl! She's a black witch moth blessed commission builder and ex-wizard. Her background is heavily connected with Grian's and close to Martyn's. Her and Grian are siblings!
Other than Doc and Xisuma, I don't have many plans for others. If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I'll gladly take them!
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For the ask meme, ❔Choose a random WIP and talk about it. 👻Is there a scene that you find intimidating that you have yet to write?
forget that this is like a full fortnight late, shhhhhh.
Choose a random WIP and talk about it.
Okay listen I don't know if it even counts as a WIP yet it's like half a scene that I haven't touched in months? But the sequel to rise to the tops of the trees is one that I really desperately want to get more work done on. Like, ok, it's already technically got a series even if there's only the one fic, and the SERIES summary is this:
In which Grian is a disabled avian shut-in, Pearl is determined to get him out of his own head, Scar is determined to get him the streaming audience he deserves, Doc is determined to improve his quality of life through cybernetic engineering, and the kids at his physio are determined to get on his last nerve.
Which y'know. It made me laugh. XD But the kids at his physio are some of the dsmp kids, and they're secondary to Grian's story but like. I'm really excited to play with their versions in this AU, because they're all disabled - the ones who are making appearances, anyway, except maybe Wilbur but I'm not even sure if he's going to make an actual appearance.
I just. they're not the central part of the story, except for how they're inexorably tied up in Grian's fresh grappling with disability, accessibility and mobility aids, and his relationship with his body, because they are dealing with a mix of disabilities that will at times mirror his own journey, and their progress and his progress interacts with each other and even if they're obnoxious little shits, they still Get Him in a way that he appreciates and they're his friends.
I just.I just really hope I can get more work done on it soon so I can publish it.
Is there a scene that you find intimidating that you have yet to write?
...I'm going to stay on theme and stick with this same fic, and say yes, there is a scene with a character talking with Grian about his relationship with mobility aids and his prosthetic and it's not even an important scene, precisely, because it's not about Grian's relationship with his body, it's literally just about listening to this kid who's having a lot of thoughts and feelings and is afraid that the people he loves won't accept or understand his choices about how he wants to handle his disability. And he's talking to Grian bc Grian's safe, and not invested, and doesn't know his family, and Grian's kind of grasping at straws trying to be supportive, but mostly the kid just needs to talk shit out.
I am terrified of this impending scene because I have so many emotions about it even if it isn't even the emotional core of the story, I just. It's important to me. So I'm just super anxious about pulling it off the way I want to.
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M(T)PJ: Characters
This is just a thing I figured I should write, to introduce my characters. First up, my Pokémon characters (shocker)! This is still a work in progress!
Blog Masterlist
Crystal Fairway/Pearl
Crystal's backstory is really my own history with Gen III up to Gen V games - LeafGreen, Pearl/Platinum, HeartGold, and Black. That being said, she starts out as a sixteen year old in these stories, having gone through the events of LG, P/Pt, and B but not the Team Plasma plot. They are largely underground while she wanders half of Unova. Things I deviated from my own playthrough of LG is that "Kevin," my real-life sibling, beat the Elite Four and Blue (Gary) literal years before me. In the story, Crystal beat them first, but Kevin came and usurped her and has been the reigning Champion ever since. I wanted Crystal to have that record in her history, but I wanted Kevin to hold the title of Indigo Champion.
So, who is Crystal? Physically, she is a girl with long brown hair and hazel eyes - guess why? She usually wears a grey vest over weather/season appropriate clothing - so, think tank tops in the sumer, T-shirts in the warmer halves of spring and fall with long-sleeves in the colder halves. I'm never really consistent with her pants/shorts, it depends on what I like in the moment. But the style is the same: black, with a yellow line down the side, and a Team Instinct patch/embroidered insignia located around the outside mid-thigh. Once Black came out, I really liked the look that the girl Trainer character had, and largely simplified the mental design I had for her off of things I actually own/owned (not including Instinct shorts, sadly).
Kevin Fairway
Kevin, while based on my brother in existing and history, is probably not very accurate to my own brother. I'm very bad at portraying people in my life into my stories, so Kevin is heavily inspired by my "Kevin" but is not necessarily based off of him. He played the counterpart games to mine, FireRed, Diamond, we both did Platinum, SoulSilver, and White. He also got a glitched Crystal cartridge, though it could not save it's game. I had imagined that Kevin and Crystal mostly travelled together, up until Unova, since really, when I think about it, that kind of accidentally mirrors what happened in real life. I don't know if he ever finished White past Zekrom - I never finished Black past Reshiram.
In some way, I kind of imagined Kevin as a mix between FireRed's Red, White's male character, and "Kevin" himself. I never really had a design in mind for Kevin, physically, other than typical Trainer gear (this is actually making me realize how little thought I put into the physical designs of characters). I might end up asking "Kevin" what his choice of outfit would be if he were to go on a Pokémon Journey, even though that's a silly thing to ask. I've also considered the Gen IV Ace Trainer design from both him and Crystal. His Pokémon that I write about are ones that he picked out for me from his own games, like I do for mine, so maybe he'll humor his weirdo sister a little further.
Lidin/???
Another character inspired by real life! Lidin is a stand-in for a good friend of both mine and "Kevin." He knew everything Pokémon, and I asked him so many questions about how to evolve certain Pokémon. This was before I was online, so he (and an incomplete pocket guide of Gen IV) was my only reliable source of Pokémon facts. In the story, he is the friendly rival of the Fairways (they were all rivals to each other). He met up with them in Cerulean City on their first trip while he had already gotten most of his Kanto Gym badges.
Like Kevin, Lidin never really had a set design in my mind. He was a kind of mix of the real-life friend of mine, but also of a few of the male player characters that I am familiar with. Unlike Kevin, he doesn't have any party Pokémon that I asked him to pick out; I know he played one of the Hoenn Gen III games, and had a Mudkip, and when he played one of the HG/SS, he had a Quilava. He does not (so far) appear in the story in any real confrontation sense where he has to use a party Pokémon, he is there for support.
Also, unlike "Kevin," "Lidin" may or may not know this character exists or that I have a Pokémon fanfiction at all. There is a chance he does, especially recently, since I had some bits and pieces up on an inactive dA, which he recently asked what the old username was for it. But I haven't ever directly told him about this.
Brandon
This is an antagonistic character I made up to help me limp through using canonical characters. Just as I have a hard time writing real people into my stories beyond inspiration, I have a hard time making canonical characters flexible and realistic and have them act in-character. He is one of Giovanni's Admins, so he has some sway and power within Team Rocket that is nothing to sneeze at.
Asked: Brandon's motivations
Pika
He is a Pikachu in the PMD: Explorers of Sky game. I have both Time and Sky, and both times, I have had Pika by my side. He is the partner Pokemon, he is an anxious little guy but he has determination enough to make up for it on occasion. He is learning to be confident and he cares about everyone being happy and doing well in life and in their goals! He's just a little guy :D
Kip
He is a Mudkip. I'll give the hint that his history is a bit of a mystery! However, he is a quiet Pokemon (not in Nature, just in general), and reserved, but also has a keen eye for details. He tries to help Pearl through some of the issues she goes through with relearning her history, and tries to keep the group more-or-less level-headed.
Ev
She is an Eevee, and she is another characetr based off of a real-life person! While I'm trying to nail down her personality a bit more, I do know that she, a) is very passionate about exploration, like Pika, b)is very knowledgeable, like Hex, and c) is very capable of handling herself. She has some insights, in the few chapters that she's been in for the PMD fic, into Pearl's situation, and some advice, and provides some questions that Pearl has to answer to herself. Like Kip, Ev is a bit more on the quiet side. Her backstory is a bit of a mystery, too! Though she isn't from the Grass Continent, where EoS is. She's from the Air Continent, if memory serves.
Hex
She is a Vulpix, and originally, she was going to be a different version of Crystal/Pearl. "Different Futures" was going to be one Crystal going back to her right dimension, and the other was her staying (but also being from a human dimension, I think that's how it went). I scrapped it early on, but I kept Hex as a character because I think she's fun!
She is the unofficial leader of Team PokeClan, made up of Pika, Kip, Pearl, Ev, and herself. She insists that no one is the leader, but she has the skills and intuition that shine really well when she leads them and takes charge. She will go to bat for her teammates, but she will also tell it how it is afterward, if it was wrong -- and she does, at one point.
Updated: April 30, 2023
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1kook · 4 years
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skirt chasers — drabble iv
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THIS IS A SKIRT CHASERS DRABBLE - FIND THE OTHERS HERE ! SUMMARY Jungkook was a man. A skirt chaser. He could only withstand so much torture before he broke, and seeing your gorgeous, smooth legs on display after so many weeks of starvation awoke an ancient being inside of him. WARNINGS JK POV!!!, attempted solo masturbation, k*ssing, jk’s extensive knowledge of pornos, grinding, cunnilingus, face sitting, spit kink, light choking, praise kink, self nipple play, a love for boobies, unprotected sex, use of the pull out method, i love u kink, its kinda hinted tht oc has a somnophilia kink? not rlly but tagging just in case -_- RATING m (18+) WC 6.3k this can't even classified as a drabble anymore wtf 
NOTES i have had this in my drafts since may 3. it is december 21. everyone point n laugh. anyway i very much love stimbo sc jk and i think he’s very cool so here’s a whopping 6k of the inner mechanisms of his big nerdy, college hottie brain <3
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He doesn’t notice you’ve drifted off until he’s three solid paragraphs into his semester-long research paper. “Babe, can you toss me my charger it’s over…” 
 Jungkook swears he’s gonna take every single one of those stupid skirts and burn them to ashes. They had done their duty well, had given him the girlfriend of his dreams, but now they were just pushing their luck. What was once the epitome of a cute and sweet girlfriend, has now become the bane of Jungkook’s existence. He loathed them, he hated them, he could go twenty million decades without ever seeing them again because the torture they inflicted upon him was borderline inhumane. 
 Holy fuck, he knew you were gorgeous— hello, he was your boyfriend, thinking you were gorgeous was very high on the list of requirements you searched for in someone of his position —but he’s absolutely positive that you’re probably the sexiest woman he’s ever seen in all his twenty-two years. And Jungkook’s seen a lot of porn. Like, a lot. 
He can’t help himself. Before Jungkook knows it, he’s rolling his desk chair over to where you’re sprawled across his bed, skin so soft where it presses against his pillow, lips so plush, and he’s pretty sure there’s a tiny, tiny droplet of drool begging to escape from between your puckered lips. Normally, he’d tease you to hell and back for this, knows how flustered you become when he catches you off guard, but today he lets it slide in favor of focusing on something else about your dozing form. 
It’s the soft curve of your hips from where you lay on your side, smooth legs tucked close to you, and that goddamn pleated skirt giving you absolutely no protection from the eyes of the world around you. Luckily, he made sure to lock the door to his room when you came over today. And he’s almost positive Taehyung isn’t home anyway. So there’s no potential roommate to see you here, cuddled against Jungkook’s teddy bear, blue lace panties tucked between your folds. 
They were his favorite. 
Adorable and soft, and he knows that particular style— the cheeky kind —is your preferred style, because it’s the one he sees almost every time the two of you fuck. Seamless, because you hate when they tug against your skin, and baby blue simply because it was your favorite color. He can’t recall the last time they had been so exposed like this. 
God, how many times had this same situation occurred? You dropping by to encourage him to do his homework, before eventually falling asleep and leaving him to his own devices. A lot of times, Jungkook guesses, because each and every time you wake up and nab one of his protein bars from the stash by his bed. Jungkook’s gone through four boxes in the last month. 
But how many times had this happened with you in a skirt? Never. This was a rarity. 
As the year progressed and yours and Jungkook’s relationship reached new levels of intimacy and adoration, Jungkook is sad to say the skirts had begun appearing less and less. It was winter and, unlike the furnace that was Jungkook’s body, he’s pretty sure you were a cold-blooded reptilian at this point, always leeching off of him for warmth. So since you couldn’t stand the cold, the skirts slowly faded into the background, replaced by Jungkook’s second favorite: the leggings. 
He was no complainer, Jungkook respected your decisions! He wasn’t going to pressure you into wearing those cute tiny skirts he loved so much just because it fueled some PornHub-esque fantasy in his brain, especially not as a harsh winter descended upon you and the days became colder. He would not risk a sick girlfriend in the name of a horndog daydream. 
But holy mother of pearl, Jungkook was a man. A skirt chaser. He could only withstand so much torture before he broke, and seeing your gorgeous, smooth legs on display after so many weeks of starvation awoke an ancient being inside of him. 
Sure he’d seen them every time you guys fucked— duh. But this was not the same. It was different, seeing the tender skin of your inner thigh when he knew you weren’t trying to, your skirt stuck between you and the bed as you shifted about. It was different, knowing he could so easily have you, just flip up the skirt and tug your underwear to the side, not having to worry about fighting your leggings or skinny jeans down your legs. It was different and it was good, so painstakingly good, to have you in the skirt, but the worst part was Jungkook couldn’t even do anything because you were fucking sleeping. 
He’d subconsciously pictured you like this for weeks, sprawled out on his sheets in the flimsiest clothing and ready for him to just slide right in, but Jungkook was a good boy—you’d told him as much just last week when he’d paid the bus fare for that ragtag group of teenagers, smiling up at him like he was your entire world. Was he sometimes a little too mean, a little too wild? Yes. But at his core, Jungkook lived for your praise. He couldn’t just stomp on that title you’d so lovingly bestowed upon him, a title he’d worked hard for since! 
Furthermore, even if Jungkook wasn’t a good boy, to touch you in your sleep just seemed wrong. You’d mentioned in passing once that you wouldn’t mind as long as it was him (“I’m yours,” you had purred at some party, hand crawling down his abdomen, “your doll, remember?”), but Jungkook couldn’t bring himself to when you were so vulnerable and just… not there. It wouldn’t feel right to use your body when you weren’t awake, and no amount of encouragement from you would change his mind. 
So he does what all good boys do and prepares himself for a quick, self-administered handfuck. 
Sue him, his girlfriend was hot!
It’d been a little over two weeks since the last time the two of you had fucked, and it was mostly his fault; clinicals and research papers had practically consumed what little free time he had in his schedule. And if Jungkook remembers correctly, he wouldn’t be that lucky this upcoming week either. Something tells him your period was approaching. 
Jungkook doesn’t know what type of sorcery you’ve done to him, but in the time you’ve been dating, it’s become increasingly more and more difficult to nut without you. Whether that be fucking you, listening to your voice, or just imagining your pretty face in his head, you held a monopoly over Jungkook’s libido, one that he feared you’d never let go. 
He had years stacked on years of browsing PornHub and Brazzers, can recall experiencing some of the craziest orgasms of his life while watching some girl get fucked. All things come to an end. Ever since he started dating you, not even his favorite video could make him hard anymore. Oh, how the great have fallen. 
But with your blue panties before him, his cock hardens by the minute, nearly doubles in size when you move about and sigh a heavenly sound. Frankly, he doesn’t feel bad jerking one off to the thought of you. You were his girlfriend! He knows that you know that you’re the main character of all his right-handed adventures, and you’re not going to be mad at him for jerking off to you now. In fact, Jungkook imagines you’d be mad if he’d woken you up just for some frenzied quickie. This way, he’s blowing off some steam and you’re getting an extra ten minutes of napping. Everyone wins. 
He’s barely tugged himself out of the confines of his sweats when a soft mumble of his name has his soul leaving his body. “Kook?” 
“Baby,” he exhales, immediately tucking himself back into his underwear before moving closer towards you. You roll onto your back, skirt useless as fuck, he thinks, as it sprawls around your waist. “What’s up?” he murmurs, voice gentle, a hand carding through the nape of your neck because that’s how you always wake him up. Jungkook would be a liar to say it wasn’t one of the best feelings in the world. 
You say something, but it’s a mess of gibberish and too quiet for him to understand, before turning on your side again and shuffling closer to him. Jungkook smiles, runs the tips of his fingers over your cheek, before moving to caress your back, massaging some feeling back into your muscles. Some more mumbled words, but this time he deciphers them as something along the lines of “c’mere.” 
He chuckles, ducking down to kiss your cheek. “Don’t wanna interrupt your nap, baby,” he hums. “Go back to sleep.” 
You whine in protest, suddenly catching his hand in yours. “Please,” you sigh, eyes fluttering open, but they’re unfocused as you gaze at him. Jungkook clenches his teeth. Technically he should be working on that twelve page research paper, and even just trying to jerk off right now would have been a huge setback. Crawling into bed with you, where you’re so sinfully laid out for him to take, would completely offset his plans until tomorrow. He had to be a responsible student here. 
“I really gotta finish my paper…” he says, trying to let you down as gently as possible, flashing you an apologetic gaze. He thinks he has it in the bag, and your extended silence almost has him rolling back to his desk, when you suddenly snap into action. 
“But what about your dick,” you murmur, and Jungkook chokes. 
“My what—?” he splutters, voice a little too high. 
You say nothing, craning your neck to release a series of cracks, soft huffs leaving your lips. Jungkook’s on edge the whole time, eyes following the movement of your neck, the hypnotizing expanse of skin that bares itself to him. “Saw your hand down your pants,” you say, eyes blinking open, and though they’re droopy with sleep, at least you can hold them open this time. 
Jungkook laughs nervously, rubbing a hand against the back of his neck in embarrassment. “You saw that?” A soft hum. He wants to die. “Ah, baby, don’t worry about it. Know you’re tired, so just nap,” he sighs, caressing the back of your head once again, and he thinks he’s finally convinced you so he lets his guard down. 
You moan softly, and he’s almost entirely sure it’s one of those waking up types of sounds, the ones you make when you’re stretching around the bed in the morning. “Want your cock.” 
Jungkook swears he’ll die, right here, right now. 
He groans, lowers his head to rest on the mattress. “Jesus, fuck, baby,” he huffs, has to count to ten to will the stirring of his slowly hardening cock away for the second time that day. “Don’t say stuff like that when you’re half asleep, please.”
You ignore him, the hand that had been wrapped around his wrist tugging him closer. You barely succeed, muscles still so weak, but Jungkook humors you and rolls his chair right beside your head, where he ducks down to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Noooo,” you whine when he draws away too quickly. 
A laugh blossoms in his chest, and Jungkook proceeds to rain down a series of kisses on your pretty face before he can stop himself. You melt under his touch, his affection, and Jungkook adores the way your body is so soft and pliant like this, back arching towards him after he places a hand on your waist. 
“Come here,” you urge, voice a quiet plea. So soft, so needy. 
Jungkook malfunctions for just a second before he’s clambering over you on the bed, manhandling your body until you're both on your sides, facing each other, with you pressed tightly to his chest. Even with your hands brushing up and down his back in the way that sends every nerve in Jungkook’s body tingling, and your leg thrown over his hip, some stupid part of him convinces himself you’re just cold, trying to warm up after walking around campus in that tiny little skirt all day. He cuddles you as best as he can. 
And even with his dick twitching in his pants and his caveman instincts yelling at him to thrust up into your inviting core, Jungkook remains as professional as someone in a relationship can be when in bed with their lover. He’s so stuck on his self-control that he almost doesn’t hear the snort you muffle against his neck. 
“What are you doing?” you laugh, reaching up to pinch his cheek. Jungkook blinks, eyes wide like a doe caught in headlights. “Are we gonna fuck or what?”
He chokes. He doesn’t even try to muffle his reaction like other times, because the way you’re looking at him and the heel you press against the back of his thigh preoccupies his thoughts instead. Your hands are still tracing along his back, melting him with your dainty touches. “Baby?” you question after he’s been silent too long, distracted by the way you use that hooked leg to tug your bodies closer. 
“You… you’re still asleep,” Jungkook says, though it’s definitely a question. 
You scoff, a smile curling around your features. “Mm, definitely not asleep,” you tease, and shift to push him onto his back, wiggling on top of him until those baby blue panties are pressed against his quickly hardening member. “Why? Wanted to touch me when I was asleep?” you continue, and Jungkook’s eyes nearly burst out of their sockets. 
“No!” he exclaims, hands clutching your hips in alarm. He can tell he surprises you, because your eyes go wide for a brief second. “Never…” he mumbles afterwards, looking away from your imploring gaze. “Only like you when you’re awake.” 
You sigh, pressing a sweet kiss to his cheek that makes his heart flood with adoration for you. “You’re a good boy, Jungkook,” you say back, just as quietly. “A blueprint for the perfect man.” Another kiss, this time against the corner of his mouth that makes Jungkook’s hands twitch against your sides. 
A soft moan tears itself from his throat, fingers digging into your hips as you slowly roll them against him. The heat emanating from your core seeps past the thin barrier of his sweatpants, makes his cock twitch in his boxers. He knows how it feels inside of you, has your body memorized like the back of his hand. But it’s in moments like these that he finds himself aching for you, desperate to feel the fluttering walls of your pussy, the pitiful whimpers that fall from your kiss swollen lips. And, well. The skirt makes it all too easy.  
He places two hands on the backs of your thighs, runs them up until he’s pushing your skirt up over your waist. You pull away from his lips with a sneaky little smile, pointer finger stroking down the side of his face lazily. “Mm?” you tease, leaving a coy little peck against his mouth. “Now you wanna touch?” Jungkook rolls his eyes, snaps his teeth at your wandering finger when you draw it too close to his mouth. The giggle you let out is so damn precious, makes him want to put you in a glass case and never let anyone else touch you. Coincidentally, it also makes him want to rail you into the mattress until you cry. 
“I’ll fucking ruin you, doll,” he settles on murmuring, subtly pushing you down against him. A soft giggle. Jungkook knows it’s your favorite nickname, even if you won’t admit it. He's the only one allowed to call you it, something about his intentions being pure or whatever, he’s not really sure. Anyway, you’re still so cute and soft on top of him, blinking slowly and prettily, so he’s dragging it out a bit, hoping you’ll become more alert in a few more minutes. 
As sleepy as you may be, you never miss out on a chance to rile him up. “As if, doll,” you retort, his nickname for you rolling off your tongue seamlessly. It sounds heavenly, sparks this weird emotion in him that he never considered before. Him, a doll? No way. But there’s something about the sweet lilt of your voice, the starry-eyed gaze you level him with, that has him throwing all reservations aside. Put him on a shelf and call him Barbie, because he would be anything you wanted him to be. 
Anyway, Jungkook’s sappy thoughts last all of two seconds before he’s rolling you over, successfully trapping you beneath his body. “Oh, so scary,” you feign, hands fluttering to clutch at your chest. 
He glides his hands down your body, let’s them trail over your hip and down the side of your thigh. “Don’t get sassy with me,” he warns, thumb peeking beneath the hem of your skirt. Jungkook really wants to burn the piece of fabric this time, because after all that time it spent torturing him with its halfhearted attempts at covering you, it chooses now to do it properly. 
Hands are thrown around his shoulders, the overwhelming scent of your perfume and body wash tickling his nose when you pull him in for another kiss. “Or what?” you purr, irises swirling with lust. “Gonna use your manly man strength to hold me down?” 
He shushes you with a kiss, slow and languid just how you like. Your taste is familiar, feels like coming home, so Jungkook can’t be blamed for getting too carried away. It starts gentle— it always does. But then a tiny mewl gets stuck in your throat, the following moan swallowed by his tongue, and Jungkook nearly loses it. He nips at your bottom lip, waits patiently for you to open up for him, and when you do he wastes no time diving in. Your tongue against his is slick and wet, makes the most lewd sound. Your little sharp intakes of air fill the gaps, shuddery breaths that Jungkook takes as a good sign. 
He strikes while the iron is still hot. 
It’s amidst your lazy kissing that he secures his hands around your waist, two reassuring squeezes thrown your way before he’s abruptly rolling onto his back again. “Kook!” you squeal, clutching at the front of his shirt. A pouty frown paints your face, sleepy eyes narrowing him with a rather unimpressed look, tainted with the barest hints of confusion. 
Jungkook grins, reaching back to yank his pillow out from beneath his head. “On my face,” he commands suddenly, and you snort. 
“What?” you ask a little incredulously, leaning back to level him with an even more lost expression. “Since when do we do that?”
Jungkook shrugs. “Since I decided twenty seconds ago,” he answers rather bluntly. You still don’t look too convinced. It’s not a position the two of you have ever tried. You’re a little on the sappy side, always like to look at his face while you fuck, hold his cheeks in your palms, kiss him sweetly. On the one hand, Jungkook totally gets it; he’ll proudly admit that the sight of your orgasming face paired with your fantastic tits have done him many favors these past few months. 
However, Jungkook is a lover of head. Giving or receiving, it’s very high on his list of sexual acts and whoever invented oral deserved all the praise in the world. Not only did you look drop dead gorgeous with his cock in your mouth— tears trailing down your cheeks, drool clinging to the corners of your lips —but you also looked absolutely sexy receiving it. 
Kinda. 
Probably. 
Okay, so maybe Jungkook can’t really say, considering he always has a hard time catching a glimpse of your face when he’s down there licking and slurping your clit like a madman. Which is what leads him to this exact moment, an experiment weeks in the making. Jungkook has a theory that needs to be tested. “Please ride the fuck out of my face,” he tries, hoping the polite tone will win you over. 
He’s met with an eye roll. Still, you’re kinder than you let on. “Okay,” you give in, and Jungkook will remember your heroism for the rest of his life. “But only because being on top is empowering.” He just barely contains an over-enthusiastic fist pump into the air, settling on a rather modest smile that has you leaning down to kiss him again. You reach for the zipper on the side of your skirt. “Just let me—“
“The skirt stays on,” he says quickly, hand on your wrist to stop you from removing his most favorite article of clothing. 
“Baby,” you say, giving him a rather serious look. “It’ll cover your face.”
“It won’t,” he urges, reaching for the buttons on your blouse instead. Jungkook has had one too many encounters with tops like these, and has long since learned not to tear them apart like a crazed psycho. As much as he loves the sound of your buttons scattering across his bedroom floor, he can’t say he’s too fond of the scolding he inevitably gets afterwards. Anyway, the shirt comes off and so does your bra, leaving your tits in his face, tiny skirt on your hips. “Get up here,” he murmurs, ushering you up his body until your knees are pressing into the mattress right above his shoulders. 
If it was up to Jungkook, he would have just grabbed your hips and shoved his face against your pussy. Luckily, it’s not, and your common sense shines through just in time. “One sec,” you say, and then finally, finally, the blue panties come off. 
And then it’s just Jungkook and your glistening pussy. 
“Holy fuck,” he groans, taking the opportunity to wrap his arms around your thighs. You squeak when he pulls you closer, hand instinctively reaching for the front of your skirt to hold away from his face. The view from here is heavenly, just your swollen clit, gorgeous tits, and shy face. 
The muscles in your thighs are a little stiff. Or maybe you’re just nervous. Jungkook isn’t sure, all he knows is that it takes one encouraging tug for you to finally sit on his face. He doesn’t even register the surprised gasp that leaves your throat because he’s too busy tasting your pussy from an all new position. And it’s absolutely amazing. 
Something about the position, having you carefully poised above him, does something to Jungkook. He likes to think he knows your body inside and out, knows what makes you melt and what makes you scream. He knows just how to lap at your cunt until you’re cumming, and how many fingers it takes for you to really feel it. But it’s like having you in this position changes all of that, rearranges all the tidbits of information Jungkook has spent months collecting. 
(Jungkook is a meticulous man; he’s got a near perfect GPA right now that was the direct result of his carefully crafted note-taking techniques. Whether or not he abused the power of his perfectionist learning abilities to master the mechanisms of his girlfriend’s libido was no one's business but his own.) 
One kitten lick against your swollen pearl makes you buck forward, clit brushing against his nose. Jungkook can’t remember you ever doing that on the first lick. “O- oh my—,” you cry, all airy and whiny. Your hand is pressed to the wall behind his bed, the other bunching the front of your skirt just above your mound. He’s rather happy to learn that, just as he’d hypothesized, this position does give him a better view of you. 
He’s graced with the sight of your face, twisted up in pleasure. It’s the stereotypical eyes squeezed shut, lip caught between your teeth look. But there’s something different about it knowing that he’s gotten this reaction out of you with his mouth alone. 
Jungkook quickly repositions you over him, tugging you back until his tongue is lined up with the front of your slit. You’re so warm down here, make him feel like he’s drowning with your heady scent alone. Tentatively, he lets his tongue dip between your folds, the very tip nudging your swollen clit. A moan tears itself from your throat, the hand that had been flush against the wall suddenly jumping forward to bury itself in his hair. “Oh- oh, fuck,” you shiver, hips jolting forward once more. 
You taste good on his tongue, the arousal that coats your lips is sticky and sweet. When he laps his tongue along your folds, quivering hole to stiffened bud, you let out a sob that resonates deeply within Jungkook. And also Jungkook’s cock, which stirs beneath his trousers in excitement. What was once the focus of his mission, a quick handfuck to sedate himself before finishing his research paper, has long since been forgotten. It’s for the greater good, he tells himself, blinking up at you from between your thighs. 
Eye contact lasts for exactly three seconds before you’re looking away bashfully, the fist clutching at your skirt trembling against your tummy. You’re so fucking pretty, Jungkook’s heart can’t take it. 
And so he sets out on a mission to make you cum as soon as possible, abandoning his slow kitten licks in favor of suctioning his lips around your clit. “Kook,” you wail, tugging at his hair. Whether you do it purposely or not, Jungkook is a little shocked by how good the pain feels. It’s not an emotion he can ponder long, because then you’re using that same grip in his hair to tilt his head backwards, jerkily moving over him. 
It’s rough and sudden, the buck against his face, but Jungkook loves it. The drag of your pussy against his lips, the wet glide of your juices smearing across his chin and Cupid’s bow. It all feels so good, and the fact Jungkook is getting a front row seat to the absolutely torn look on your face is just the cherry on top. 
Jungkook has seen you make a lot of faces. He’s seen you shiver and drool as he nails you into your bed. He’s seen you sniffle and sob as he slowly fucks you in a rose petal filled bubble bath (a six month anniversary special planned by yours truly). He’s even seen your mirrored reflection fall apart as you bounced away on his lap in front of a mirror. 
He’s never seen you like this before. 
Needy and desperate, moaning his name softly, practically humping his face in your greed. Tiny skirt clutched against your waist, tits bouncing as you hurriedly grind against him. He has half the mind to burn this scene into his eyelids for the rest of his life. 
He’s given up on doing anything with his tongue, simply sticking it out for you to do as you wish. Normally, he’s not a huge fan of letting you do things yourself. After all, Jungkook was your boyfriend. Making you cum was his job. But you’re moving so fast, so frantic, in your mission to cum. So Jungkook sits back and lets you go to town on his mouth as a series of moans spill from your lips. 
And then something unforgivable happens. 
Jungkook will admit it: he’s staring at you almost a little too dreamily, heart eyes and all. He thinks you’re fucking hot, taste like heaven and have these absolutely delicious boobs bouncing up and down. He’s a little distracted by your glorious figure that he doesn’t notice one crucial bit of information. 
Your hand. 
The desperate need to cum has your muscles weakening, thighs moving at a latent pace, and, much to Jungkook’s horror, hands trembling. It’s your own pleasure that lets the unimaginable happen: your skirt flutters down. Your grip on it loosens and before Jungkook knows it, the sight of your pretty face and nice tits are gone, snatched away before his very eyes. Even your wet cunt is impossible to see, his world suddenly shrouded in darkness. 
Leave it to Jungkook to foil his own horny plan with, well, his horniness. If only he wasn’t so hopelessly in love with the image of you in skirts. Maybe then he could bask in the beauty that was you riding his face. 
He acts fast, reaching for the material before he can miss out on anything. But the angle is weird, and without Jungkook’s hands holding your hips, you’re left weakly rolling forward instead. And he’s not the only one frustrated with this turn of events, your face quickly returning to its normal composed form as you level him with a frown. “Everything okay?” you pant. 
Everything was not okay, but Jungkook isn’t sure how to tell you that without ruining this delicate moment. So he tries to show you with actions instead, releasing the skirt he’s got in his fist and letting it flutter over his face again. You giggle. “I told you so.” 
It takes more willpower than he’d like to admit to pull away from your wet folds, pulling off with a lewd sound that has you biting your lip as you gaze down at him. “I told you so,” he mimics, a little mean but you don’t take it to heart. “Hold your skirt up.” 
You hum, the grip on his hair loosening as you push away his dark locks instead. “Mmmm,” you hum. “No.”
“No?” he repeats, actually really scandalized. Okay, so he’s a little spoiled when it comes to you— it’s not his fault! You made him like this, conditioned him to think that you would always give into his every whim because you were just so sweet and considerate and wanted him to be happy. And Jungkook also wants you to be happy, and in his opinion, being happy right now means having him fuck your pretty brains out for ever getting sassy with him. 
“I don’t listen to men,” you tease, followed by a cute little nod, skin still a little warm from your looming orgasm. Jungkook takes advantage of your tiny moment of weakness, and strikes like a viper.
A girlish squeal leaves your lips, hands stretching outwards as he knocks you backwards onto the mattress. “Jungkook,” you gasp, sprawled out artfully, beautifully, over his sheets now. He doesn’t waste a second longer, crawling over your body until you’re a shivering mess beneath him. 
Hand against your throat, the other blindly reaching for the front of his sweatpants. “What is it, doll?” he drawls meanly, reveling in the way your eyes roll back when his newly-freed cock lands against your slit. A choked gasp leaves your throat, lashes fluttering wildly until Jungkook loosens his grip. 
You’ve done a nice job riling yourself up, lips squelching wet and loose when he runs the tip of his cock along them. Your knees are pulled up for him, spread perfectly for him to fit between. You’re so good for him, Jungkook feels a little bad for how hard he’s going to fuck you now. 
The sympathy doesn’t last long.  
Once upon a time, you had been the epitome of a cute and sweet girlfriend. Had picked him up from class, encouraged him to do his homework, wore these cute little skirts around campus. Deep down inside, Jungkook knew everyone else was jealous of him— you were just so pretty and cute, a girl straight out of everyone’s dreams. 
Until he sunk his horny claws into you. Jungkook will be the first to admit he spends a little too much time browsing porn sites— he’s a man, cut him some slack —which had never caused him any problems before. Even when the two of you were just friends (pining ones at that), you had never seemed even remotely affected by his extensive pornographical knowledge. It was a known fact among your friend group that Jungkook’s best friend was his right hand. 
But then, of course, you started dating Jungkook and it was like a save file of all his horniest fantasies was downloaded directly into your brain. Which leads him to this. 
“Spit in my mouth,” you shiver, got these huge, watery eyes pointed his way. His cock twitches. 
There’s a little groan that tears itself from his throat when he leans forward, cock sliding along your folds, to grasp your chin between his fingers. “Open,” he commands, and you do. Your lower lip quivers, tongue pressed against it as you wait for Jungkook to spit down your mouth. He can’t say he regrets letting you peek through his porn stash, not when it leads to this, you whimpering at the hot glob of saliva he shoots down your throat. “Filthy,” he pants, memorizing the movement of your throat when you swallow like the good girl you are. 
Before he can write another twelve sonnets about that dazed look on your face, he’s roughly grabbing at your thigh. You whine, limbs so pliant beneath his touch, letting him hike your knee over his forearm as he tugs you closer. “Fuck,” he groans, reaching down to align himself with your quivering hole. You’re still so wet, make the most lewd sound when he sinks into you. Not that Jungkook really hears it, the sound of your strained moans practically drowning everything else out. 
“Fuck,” you cry, one hand clutching at his forearm, the other toying with your breast. It’s a magnificent sight, and Jungkook is suddenly feeling a little cocky when he realizes he’s the only one who gets to see this. It’s this presumptuous nature that fuels the first round of thrusts into your cunt, fast and full. He makes sure you feel every inch of him, tip to base, as he pistons his hips forward. “J— Jungkook,” you pant, back arching beneath him. 
You take it so well, walls sucking him in every time he draws back out. “I’ve got you, doll,” he moans, hiking your leg further over his shoulder. Every roll of his hips has your tits bouncing back and forth, lower lip as well with the dopey, open-mouthed look you got on for him. And the damned skirt that got him here, fucking you with a punishing pace, sits perfectly around your waist. He has half the mind to take it off for you, briefly wonders if it hurts, but just looking at it reminds him of about thirty-seven pornos he’s seen. So it stays on, works alongside your lovestruck face to actively rewrite all those pornos anew with you starring in them instead. 
It sure helps when you start your usual mindless babbling. “I love you,” you gasp, face screwed up in pleasure. “I- I love you so much.” 
He’s contemplating doing a study on you and your weird mid-fuck confessions. You do this a lot, and while Jungkook doesn’t mind, it sure does leave him curious. “Love you too, baby,” he says anyway, repositioning his arms so he can hold your waist with both hands. 
“Really?” you ask, voice so whiny, eyes brimming with tears. From emotion or your need to cum, Jungkooks not sure. (Hence the need for a study!) 
Another brutal thrust that has you moaning loudly. “Really,” he reassures you, glancing down to watch his cock sink into your hole as he picks up the pace. Your arms are practically limbless, and his stomach is beginning to feel tight. The end was soon. “Love your pretty little face.”
Another whine, your fingers pulling at your pebbled nipples. “M- My pretty face?” you whimper, blink these long lashes up at him. They make Jungkook go a little mad, bring on a wave of jackhammer thrusts that cut your moans into choppy little cries instead. 
“Prettiest girl I know,” he groans, not once stopping the movement of his hips. You’re quivering like a leaf beneath him, your entire body locking up as Jungkook guides you toward orgasm. “A fucking doll, baby— so beautiful for me,” he praises. 
It’s exactly what you want to hear— secretly, Jungkook hypothesizes that you’re a little bit of an attention whore —crying out when he slows to a grind against you. Each roll of his hips has him rubbing over your swollen bud, leaves you trembling until you’re eventually unraveling beneath him. “Oh- Oh, fuck— Jungkook—“ you sob, writhing beneath him as you cream his cock. 
Your tits look amazing, nipples stiff from your arousal and all the attention you’d been giving them. Your features soften, gasps framed by your pillowy lips. As Jungkook has said before, your pretty face was the most dangerous weapon. 
He manages a few more pistons of his hips, mostly for reputation sake, before he’s eventually pulling out. His right hand, once the sole hero of his solo sessions, makes a valiant return now as he jacks himself off over you. It takes a few harsh pulls of his cock until he’s spurting his jizz over you, painting your tummy and your tits in white ribbons of cum. You flinch, a tiny whimper leaving your throat at the mess he makes. “Fuck,” he groans one last time. 
When it’s over, you have the audacity to shyly pull down the front of your skirt. As if your tits aren’t out and about, but Jungkook pretends he doesn’t see it. Instead, he channels his energy into peppering your face in kisses. “Best girl,” he praises, even though he knows you hate the nickname. “My beautiful feminist queen.” 
A pinch against his cheek. It hurts like hell, but he endures it for now, still very much in love with your performance today. “Get me a towel,” you huffily ask, uncomfortable with the jizz sticking to your tummy, as if he didn’t spit in your mouth a few minutes ago. 
His research paper is waiting for him at his desk, the materials he’d spent weeks collecting waiting to be typed up. But his girlfriend is so soft and sleepy, asking him to stay for another nap. 
There was never a choice.
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raibebe · 4 years
Text
Of needles and seduction
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Genre: Fluff and smut Words: 15.2k Prompt: Johnny tattoo shop AU featuring best friends Yangyang and Jaemin Warnings: contains smut, Daddy-kink, size-kink, mentions of mirror-sex
A/N: This is very self-indulgent, I’m sorry. While I do have piercings myself, I know next to nothing about tattoos, so I’m sorry if anything is inaccurate. Also I don’t advise what some characters in this are doing for yourself. Just a quick special thanks to @burtonized​ who has listened to me ramble about this story and Johnny and helped me write this by giving me ideas and support. Thank you darling! This fic is a beast, I have never written anything this long,it’s insane. If smut isn’t for you, you can stop reading after the phone call and still have a pretty decent story. If you feel like, you’ve seen this post before, you might have. I deleted the original one because tumblr decided to delete it from the tags.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” You asked for what you felt was the tenth time in the past five minutes. “It’s going to be fine. The shop is clean and sanitary,” your friend Yangyang groaned while running his hands through his messy, blonde hair. It was getting way too long, hanging low into his eyes. “I’m just saying that this doesn’t seem like a safe place,” you mumbled but followed your hyper friend through a more than dubious looking side street of Itaewon. “Jaemin got his piercings done in the same shop and those healed just fine, stop being a baby,” the blonde said while rolling his eyes. He quickly checked his phone for the address of the (probably illegal) piercing and tattoo shop and took a sharp turn into an even shadier looking street. “I still don’t get while you need me to come with you when you want to get your nipples pierced for god knows what of a stupid reason.” “It’s easy,” Yangyang grinned at you, “Ten said I wouldn’t dare to do it. And I’m going to prove him wrong and you’re going to document the progress.” “Do you ever listen to yourself talk? You’re literally paying someone to stab you into your nipples to shove a piece of metal through it just to prove a point.” “It’s just one nipple though.” “How does that make it any better, Yangyang?” You deadpanned. Your friend groaned again. “I knew I should have taken Guanheng with me. He would have been supportive.” “He would also be supportive of getting ‘I love Tacos’ tattooed on your ass.” “He would,” Yangyang agreed with an exaggerated dreamy look on his face. “What a madlad.”
You sighed but couldn’t help smiling at his antics. You had befriended the hyper exchange student when you had been assigned to be partners for a group project for your mandarin class. Yangyang had only taken the class for extra credit and easy good grades while you were struggling like crazy and had seriously questioned all your life choices that had let to you taking the class. (But mostly you regretted listening to Renjun who had convinced you it would be an easy class.) The group project turned out to be rather easy when you had a native speaker as your partner and you had become fond of the younger student, staying in touch with him and helping him find his way around the big campus. If you had known that he was a package deal with a bunch of other equally hyper and questionably crazy exchange students, you might have thought a little longer about keeping in touch after the project was over. But who were you kidding, the other boys and Yangyang were incredibly dear to you and if Kun had his regular morning coffee, the others weren’t even that chaotic.
“That’s it,” Yangyang suddenly exclaimed, pointing at a small beat up looking wooden door that looked like it was ready to fall out of the doorway any second. But a little green neon sign that hang next to it flashed the word “open” onto the street indicating that a shop must be hiding behind it. Your arguably best friend quickly grabbed your hand as if he had been sensing that you were about to complain again and dragged you into the shop. A little bell jingled quietly when Yangyang closed the door behind you two. You took a deep breath to calm your nerves (hell you weren’t even the one to get stabbed with a needle) and took a look around the small room. It was small and poorly lit and every free space on the walls was plastered with drawings and photos of both freshly done and healed tattoos. You had to admit that whoever had done those had done a good job, they looked really neat. You guessed that at least two artists must be working in the shop. A good portion of the art were very neat black and white works (some looking freakishly realistic) while others were very vibrant and artistic.
With a confident bounce in his step, Yangyang went up to the counter to a man with wild bubblegum pink hair wearing a black tank top that showed off the ink on his arms and torso, all kept in black except for a deep red rose on the side of his neck. His eyes were lined with dark eyeliner, making them seem like dark bottomless orbs, and they were fixed to the screen of a laptop that was covered in stickers that were a wild mixture of cute characters and various rock and hip-hop bands. “And what brings you here?” The man asked with a surprisingly deep voice, turning his head towards your friend. “A friend of mine told me I could get pierced here,” Yangyang spoke, his hands fumbling with the loose threads of his sweater. “And if that was the case, what would you want to get pierced?” “My nipple.” At that the other man raised one of his perfectly arched eyebrows. “People usually start off with getting an earring or something.” “Go hard or go home,” Yangyang grinned, making the other man snort. “If you have 70.000 Won in cash, I can look if one of the piercers is free.” When your friend got out his worn wallet and put a couple of bills onto the counter, the other man smiled for the first time. It didn’t quite fit his whole dark punk aesthetic but you couldn’t deny that he was really good looking.
“Don’t run away now kiddo, I’ll see if someone is free,” he grinned, “I’m Taeyong by the way.” When he disappeared behind a curtain made out of pearls into the back, Yangyang turned towards you with the biggest smile on his face. “I told you it was going to be fine.” You just hummed nonchalantly, still not entirely supportive of the whole idea. “One of the guys is ready in a bit,” Taeyong said when he came back to the main room. “Are you getting anything?” He asked, looking at you. “Oh no, she’s a scaredy-cat, just here for moral support and to document that I actually did it,” your friend answered for you. Your face immediately heated up under the intense gaze of the pink haired tattoo artist. “Too bad,” he just shrugged. “So technically you need to sign stuff for legal issues and whatnot. But since this place doesn’t exactly exist on records, we’re skipping that part. You’re not on drugs or any meds, right?” “I’m not,” Yangyang shook his head, making his hair flop back into his face. “Any issues with fainting or other medical conditions?”   “Nope.”   “Great. Had a good meal before coming here?” “I had breakfast,” Yangyang shrugged. “You had a slice of cold pizza from yesterday,” you groaned. “That I ate in the morning, therefore it’s breakfast,” he argued. “Well in that case,” Taeyong interrupted your bickering and threw a granola bar into Yangyang’s hands, “Eat that and let your girlfriend treat you to some proper food afterwards.” Before the blonde could deny anything, you had already opened your mouth to tell the other man that in fact you weren’t dating.
“Sure, sorry for assuming,” he shrugged and sat back behind the counter, taking out an iPad and began drawing something, probably a tattoo design. “Nervous yet?” You asked Yangyang who was uncharacteristically quiet while munching on the granola bar. “Shit, I’m really doing this,” he replied, exhaling shakily. “You don’t actually have to, Yangyang,” you tried to comfort him. “And let Ten just get away like that? No way. I am doing this. I’m not his little baby Yangyang anymore,” he said like the stubborn child he was. You could just sigh and roll your eyes at him. “He might have just been joking, you know?” “One does not simply challenge Liu Yangyang like that and not expect consequences.” “Kun is going to actually flip and pop a vein,” you tried to reason with your friend for a last time. Kun was doing a lot of coordination work for the exchange students with a Chinese background and had taken on almost a fatherly role for the younger students that hadn’t been in Korea for long. And even though Ten wasn’t even that much younger than Kun, he almost lost his otherwise calm composure when the Thai boy had announced that he successfully had pierced his ear by himself yet again after he had convinced a poor med student to smuggle some equipment for him. And from there the situation had somehow escalated into Ten daring Yangyang to get a nipple piercing. “Well he can’t do anything about it once it’s done. We’ll just make sure he’s with someone who can call an ambulance if he ends up having an aneurism.”
“Someone still wants their nipple pierced?” A new voice interrupted your conversation and a tall man with dark inky hair came into the room, making the pearls of the curtain clink against each other. One side of his head was shaved while the longer hair on the other side framed his handsome face beautifully. He was wearing a loose black T-shirt paired with ripped jeans with almost as many holes as there was fabric that hugged his long legs perfectly, showing that he had also ink on his legs. From his lobe dangled a little silver chain and of course his arms were covered in intricate designs, one arm strictly black ink while the other sported some colorful pieces as well. In the center of his plush lower lip sat a black ring and just beneath his left eye two little silver balls were reflecting the low light. You couldn’t deny that the man looked absolutely stunning despite his unusual appearance.
“Yes, me,” Yangyang eagerly answered the man’s question and walked towards him, tugging you with him. “Too bad,” the piercer grinned cheekily and winked in your direction, making your heart flutter in your chest and heat rise to your face, before he extended a big hand to shake Yangyang’s much smaller one. “I’m Johnny,” he introduced himself before leading you both into a smaller room in the back with a simple black padded bench in the middle of the room and a desk tucked into a corner. The walls were plastered with art and photos like the main room, showing that Johnny apparently was able to pull off a bunch of different tattoo styles. He seemed to have a thing for florals and roses though. The only free space was taken up by a full body mirror at the opposite wall. Johnny sat down on the little stool that was standing by the desk and motioned for Yangyang to sit on the bench while you sat down in the only other chair in the room, made of worn looking black leather.
“Let me see your chest before we start this whole thing,” Johnny spoke to your friend after he had grabbed a pair of silver framed glasses that sat low on his elegant nose and slipped on a fresh pair of black gloves. With only slightly trembling hands, Yangyang pulled his sweater over his head, keeping his hands buried in the fabric. “Looks good to me. Left or right one?” “Ehrm, I haven’t really thought about it,” he confessed. Johnny chuckled. “Spontaneous decision to get your nipple pierced?” “He does it to prove a point to a friend,” you supplied before Yangyang had the chance to answer. “Seems like a valid reason,” the tattoo artist grinned, “You play guitar or anything where the strap could irritate the new piercing?” “Just the violin,” Yangyang supplied, demonstrating how he would hold his instrument. “Then I’d suggest we go for the left one,” Johnny concluded, grabbing a bunch of stuff he needed. “Is it going to hurt badly?” “No idea, mine aren’t pierced.” “The first one is fine,” another voice chimed into the conversation and a pink mess of hair appeared in the doorway. “My client is there and Jaehyun isn’t back from his break yet, have an open ear for the door.” Johnny just hummed but it seemed enough to satisfy Taeyong who disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared.
“You ready?” Johnny asked one last time. Yangyang took a deep but shaky breath and nodded. “You better film this so Ten knows it’s real,” he said, holding out his phone towards you. Rolling your eyes, you got up from your actually really comfortable chair and took the phone from your best friend’s hands while Johnny disinfected Yangyang’s nipple and drew two little circles where the bar would go through it before grabbing a small mirror to show him. “Let’s do this,” your best friend nodded and you pressed record. “It’ll be quick,” Johnny promised, disinfecting one last time before he grabbed a pair of tongs to hold the nipple in place and freed a needle from a foil package. “I’ll count to three and then I’ll start, alright?” “A-Alright.” “Last time to chicken out.” “No, I’m doing this,” Yangyang gritted out, closing his eyes. After that everything happened really fast: Johnny counted to three and steadily pushed the needle through Yangyang’s nipple, who bit his lip hard. He then let the needle dangle from the nipple while freeing a little barbell from another foil package to insert it through the canal he just had made. “And that’s it,” he announced when he secured the little balls on either side of the barbell. You ended the recording when Yangyang left out the breath he had been holding in. “Now no sports, especially no swimming or sexual activities for a while. Clean it well and don’t worry if it gets sore, that’s normal. It can take a while to heal, so be patient and don’t let it get infected. You can get a smaller barbell or a ring once it’s healed. Just come back to get it changed to be safe.” “Fuck I really did that,” Yangyang cursed and looked down to his chest, “I think I need a minute before I can get up.”
“Take your time, I don’t have any clients for another half an hour,” Johnny reassured him, putting the used materials into the trash. “Just please don’t vomit all over the floor or hit your head while fainting.” “That has happened before?” You asked, eyes wide. “Not on me but it’s not unheard of. You sure you don’t want anything?” he asked, turning towards you. His silver framed glasses had slid down his nose a little and you couldn’t deny that the man looked really hot, looking at you from beneath his lashes. “She’s too scared,” Yangyang teased. He couldn’t feel too bad if he still could do that then. “Too bad, I think you would really suit a little conch or something,” the piercer motioned around his own ear to indicate what piercing he meant. “A conch?” You asked, turning towards the mirror to try to imagine it. “Wait let me show you.” Johnny quickly got up to search through the drawers of his desk before he pulled out a little box with a bunch of jewelry, grabbing a small hoop. He stood behind you in front of the mirror. “Hold still for me,” he breathed and bend down to push your hair behind your ear before he carefully put the fake piercing in place. For a moment you could swear that time had stopped. You felt his breath fanning over your skin gently and could smell the intoxicating smell of his cologne. You were so close to each other, you were sure that if you turned your head, your noses would brush against each other. But before you could do anything stupid, Johnny pulled back and gently turned your head so you could see the little silver ring. “I think I could put an even smaller one if you wanted,” he said, watching you through the mirror with an intense gaze from his dark eyes. “I’ve never thought about getting a piercing,” you admitted shyly. While you did get your lobes pierced when you were a child, you never thought of it much. “It looks good. Not so much like daddy’s good girl anymore,” the piercer grinned. You almost choked on air when the words left his plush lips, feeling the heat rush to your cheeks.
“How much?” “For you I’ll do it for free, darling,” he grinned, running a hand through his thick dark hair, making his muscles shift beneath his inked skin. While your brain was still short-circuiting from the nickname, Yangyang seemed to be back to 100%, destroying whatever the atmosphere between you and the tattoo artist just was. “Are you really going to say no to a free piercing, dude?” You could just groan and roll your eyes at your best friend. “Stop calling me dude, Yangyang.” “Only if you get that piercing.” “That’s blackmailing.” “Just do it, it won’t even hurt right?” “It’s just a bit of pressure,” Johnny assured you, his lips curled into a smile. “I can always take it out if I don’t end up liking it,” you thought out aloud. “The beauty of temporary body modifications,” Johnny sighed before he stepped in front of you to take the fake piercing off again. With his face so close to yours again, your eyes traveled over the little silver balls beneath his left eye, over his elegant nose down to the black ring in his lower lip and you briefly wondered what it would feel like to kiss him. “So what will it be?” You looked over to your best friend who had put his hoodie back on and nodded his head enthusiastically, making his fluffy hair flop into his eyes. He really needed a haircut.
“Alright, let’s do this,” you decided. “That’s what I like to hear,” Johnny grinned and moved to get his stuff ready. “Need me to hold your hand?” Yangyang grinned when you took his place on the bench. “I wouldn’t want to contaminate you with girl germs,” you teased, sticking your tongue out at him. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind some girl germs if they’re coming from such a pretty girl,” Johnny cut in when he rolled back over on his stool, his glasses pushed back up his nose again. You couldn’t even fight the heat that crept onto your face at his words, he sure could feel it radiating off your cheeks from where his gloved hands were touching your skin. “I’ll do it where I placed the fake one, just with a smaller ring, alright?” He spoke softly when he disinfected your ear. You could just nod, anxiety taking over, making your heart race and skin prickle. When you heard the plastic bag that held the sterile needle rip, you pressed your eyes shut and balled your hands to fists. “Take a deep breath for me, doll,” Johnny mumbled, gently caressing your skin where he had grabbed your face to stabilize you. “In and out.” You shakily did as he asked you, his low voice comforting and calming your anxiety a lot. “Now you breathe in and let me count to three, then you gently release that breath. Can you do that for me, darling?” “Yeah,” you breathed, eyes still closed so you missed the soft smile on Johnny’s face. “Alright, deep breath in. One, two, three,” the pain of the needle piercing through your skin made you clench your fists harder, “And breathe out.” You tried your best to release the breath evenly until the pressure of the needle was just a low thudding. “You’re doing great, darling,” the handsome piercer reassured you, “I’ll just push the ring through and we’re all done here. Take another breath for me.” This time the feeling wasn’t as painful, just a really uncomfortable feeling of pressure. “All done, pretty,” Johnny concluded, clicking the ring closed. “Open your eyes.”
When you did open your eyes again, he held the little hand mirror from before in his still gloved hands so you could see the little ring that sat against your ear now. The skin was a bright red and you could feel your pulse throb around the metal but it actually fit the shape of your ear really nicely. “Thank you,” you smiled at Johnny. “It’s been a pleasure,” he winked before gathering the used needle and tissues to throw them away. “Take good care of it and try to not sleep on that side for a couple of nights and it will be healed in no time.” “Let’s go home, big baby,” Yangyang chirped in, already on his feet to leave the room. “I’m starving.” “There’s a good ramen shop a little up the street, not too expensive either,” Johnny recommended.
“Thanks for the piercings, man,” your best friend thanked the artist when he took you back to the main room. “No big deal,” Johnny shrugged and sat down where Taeyong had sat before, putting his long legs up on the counter. “Well, have a nice day, maybe we’ll come back for more some time,” Yangyang grinned, opening the door to leave the shop. “Oh I’m sure you will,” the artist replied, locking eyes with you before winking. “Take good care of that piercing, doll. You know where you have to come to if you want more.” You nodded shyly before bowing to the man. “Thank you, Johnny.” “I’ll see you again,” it wasn’t a question. Somehow you and him both knew that this wouldn’t be the last time you would step into the shady tattoo shop.
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The next time that you found yourself in the shady streets of Itaewon came faster than you had thought. This time you were accompanying Jaemin to his tattoo appointment after Jeno had ditched him because he had to take over a shift at the cat café he worked at. (That poor boy had to take antihistamines before every shift because of his allergies but couldn’t resist the charm of the kittens.)   “You’re a lifesaver seriously,” the hyper boy repeated while jumping up and down excitedly, “Sitting still for hours on end is really so boring if you have no one to talk to.” “Can’t you talk to your artist?” You asked confused. “He threatened to stab me with the tattoo gun the last time when I was trying to talk to him while he worked,” Jaemin pouted. You could only imagine how irritating Jaemin and his moods could be to someone who wasn’t used to him. Ever since he had decided that he wanted to commit to what he had dubbed a soft punk look, he had been going to the shop somewhat regularly to start a collection of tattoos and piercings. It had started a year ago when he first had dyed his hair to a light blue color. Shortly after that he had first gotten his ears and then his nose pierced. The two lip rings in his lower lip were his newest addition as far as piercings went. The tattoos came a little later. After much consideration he had made the decision to start a floral piece on his arm, the center would be a hummingbird, all with black ink for now.
After a little bit of Instagram stalking you had easily identified the intricate flowers that adored Jaemin’s upper arm as Johnny’s work and the thought of seeing the handsome tattoo artist again had made your heart beat faster in your chest. Not that Jaemin needed to know that you weren’t coming with him for his sake but rather because of your desire to see the dark haired flirty man again.   You had been thinking about his dark eyes behind his silver framed glasses and how he scrunched his eyebrows when he was concentrating a lot for the last weeks. (Not that you had replayed the video of him piercing Yangyang an unhealthy amount of times or anything…) Every time you took care of your new piercing it reminded you of how his fingers felt on your skin and how his deep voice had gently guided you through everything. Not to forget how easily the pet names had rolled from his lips. And oh god his lips… His Instagram account featured a good amount of pictures of himself both casual and while working and the way his plush lips would curl into a confident smirk did things to your heart. His latest update had been the actual death of yours though. It had shown the new tattoo he had gotten recently: It was an intricate eagle that spread over his muscled chest, the feathers of the wings blending seamlessly into the other art covering his strong shoulders and biceps. Did you already mention that he was freaking shirtless in the picture? And that he was hiding a seriously ripped body beneath the wide T-Shirt he wore the last time you were at the shop? So to say that your thoughts had started to spiral after seeing that post was a little understated.
You still felt a little uneasy when you followed Jaemin through the backstreets of Itaewon but when the shabby door with the neon green ‘open’ sign came in sight, you felt the feeling disappear, only for it to be replaced with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Jaemin grinned widely when he pushed the door open and his good mood was always infectious, a smile creeping on your lips. This time a new man sat at the counter, lazily rocking back and forth on the chair with his phone in his hand. His hair was dark and hung into his eyes and he wore a dark, long sleeved hoodie, so you couldn’t see if he had as many tattoos as his colleagues but if the tattoos on his hands and neck were any indication, he must be pretty covered as well. You recognized the rose on the back of his hand from one of Johnny’s Instagram posts. When the man looked up, you saw that he didn’t only have tattoos but piercings as well: In his lower lip sat two rings right next to each other, a ring dangled from his nose and two little silver balls sat in the hollows of his dimples that showed when he smiled at Jaemin. “Back for more?” He asked with a deep, rumbling voice and got up to greet Jaemin properly, bumping their shoulders together. “Got an appointment with Johnny for my sleeve,” the blue haired boy replied. “I see the snake bites healed well.” “Done by the best piercer of the shop.” “You know it,” the man laughed, throwing an arm around Jaemin. “Brought your girlfriend?” “I’m just a friend,” you quickly corrected the piercer. (Why couldn’t you just platonically join a friend for his tattoo session?) “Alright, just a friend, I’m Jaehyun. Johnny should be ready by now. You know the way?” Jaemin nodded and pulled you with him to Johnny’s room.
When Jaemin pulled the curtain to the room open, you weren’t prepared for what you were seeing: Johnny was standing in front of the full length mirror with his black button up shirt unbuttoned, applying cream to his still tender looking eagle tattoo on his chest, making his beautiful sunkissed skin glisten. “You’re early, Jaem,” he spoke. “Jaehyun said you were already ready,” the blue haired boy shrugged and plopped down onto the black bench. “Oh you brought company,” Johnny turned around when he spotted you and grinned, “I knew you’d come back, doll. How’s your piercing healing?” You had to summon all your strength to rip your eyes from Johnny’s strong and glistening chest to meet his dark eyes. “It’s fine as far as I know, doesn’t hurt anymore,” you stumbled across your words. Couldn’t he just button his shirt back up? “Let me see.” Before you could protest he had made two big steps and was right in front of you, the intoxicating smell of his perfume filling your senses. He gently tucked your hair back to have a look at the piercing and you swore you could feel electricity buzz beneath your skin where he had touched you. “You took great care of it, darling. Not regretting it yet?” “No, I like it.” I like you. The words had laid on your tongue but you managed to swallow them back down.
“Stop flirting with her, I’m the one paying for your attention,” Jaemin whined from where he was sitting. You of course immediately felt all your blood rush to your head but Johnny just chuckled. “I haven’t seen any cash yet, boy.” The tattoo artist gave you a last wink before turning towards his actual client, buttoning his shirt back up but leaving the last two buttons unbuttoned, letting the head of the eagle just barely poke out. Taking a deep breath you sat down in the worn leather chair while Jaemin handed Johnny a bunch of bills that the taller quickly counted. “Alright, I’m all yours for the next five hours or so,” he grinned, “You saw the drafts I sent you?” Jaemin nodded while he took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his T-Shirt to expose the ink on his arm. It was already beautiful even though it wasn’t even halfway done. The hummingbird was still missing its shading and he hung in the air for now, the flowers and leaves stopping above its head. “Yeah, I’m still not sure about the color though. Can’t we just do more flowers instead?” “Sure but the inner arm and near the elbow is going to hurt like a bitch. So it’s either that or you let me color that hummingbird.” Jaemin groaned dramatically, turning his arm to look into the mirror. “He does look weird just half-finished like that.” “So color it is?” Johnny asked while rolling up the sleeves of his shirt a bit, exposing his own tattoos: A snake like dragon curled around his entire right arm, kept in all black ink. “I really liked that green-blue watercolor thing you sent,” Jaemin supplied when he turned to lie down. “Right, then I’ll do some flowers directly surrounding the bird and color that thing.” He snapped his black gloves on and turned to prepare his machine and the colors.
“Come closer with that stupid chair,” Jaemin whined, making grabby hands at you. After Johnny nodded, you pushed the chair closer with great effort. “Are you going to whine for the whole time?” You groaned but smiled fondly at your friend. “Most likely,” Johnny answered instead of Jaemin and rolled over on his little stool, his silver framed glasses back on his nose and a pen between his lips. “I’ll freehand a bunch of flowers first to make sure they fit around that little guy nicely.” “And I thought you liked putting others in pain,” Jaemin joked when Johnny adjusted a little lamp and began to draw flower after flower. It was really fascinating how quick his hand drew delicate petals and leaves, filling up the space around the hummingbird. “Oh if I put others in pain, they usually like it,” he grinned, his voice dropping an octave. You almost choked on plain air and had to try to mask it as coughing but if the way Johnny’s eyes twinkled was any indication, he had seen right through it and dared to be smug about it. “Wow my third appointment and we’re already talking about kinks?” “Sorry Jaem, not interested,” the artist laughed, “I’m more into cute girls.” He leaned back to examine his drawing, throwing you another quick wink. You barely held in a squeak. He really wasn’t even trying to be subtle about his flirting anymore. “Ready for the big gun?” “Oh dick jokes now, nice,” Jaemin chuckled while you were sure your head was about to explode from how much blood was collecting in there. You covered your hot cheeks with your hands in a hopeless attempt to cool them. “Oh look Johnny, she’s getting shy already.” “I haven’t even started yet, baby.” That was it. This man was going to be the death of you. You really didn’t need to know what it sounded like when he spoke those words that were dripping with honey. “Why did I agree to come with you?” You groaned, hiding your face in your hands. “Because you missed me”, Johnny said at the same time as Jaemin said: “Because you’re a good friend.”
After a beat of silence in which Johnny arranged his actual tattoo gun and Jaemin stared at you while his smile grew bigger and bigger, he asked: “Now which one is it?” “I’m not answering that,” you mumbled from beneath your fingers. “No answer is an answer as well,” Jaemin singsang but luckily the low buzzing of the tattoo machine saved you from any further embarrassment… For now…   “Now hold still or I’ll actually stab you,” Johnny warned before he dipped the needle into black ink and began to trace the lines he had just drawn on with a fine needle. “Yessir,” Jaemin joked, wiggling his eyebrows.
Johnny was unusually quiet while he worked, completely tuning out the chatter of you and Jaemin about shitty professors and assignments. You were absolutely fascinated by the confidence he radiated while dragging the needle over his client’s skin. He went back and forth between two different tattoo guns and rubbed Jaemin’s skin every now and then to get rid of excess ink. Soon Jaemin’s whole upper arm was decorated with delicate flowers and leaves and Johnny leaned back to both take a deep breath while stretching his back and to look at his work. “Let’s take a break before I do the color,” he proposed, wiping down the skin. “It looks great,” you complimented his work, taking a picture for Jaemin so he could see it himself. “Damn that pain really pays off,” your friend grinned, zooming in and out of the picture before posting it to his Instagram. “Does it hurt badly?” “You get used to it,” he shrugged, not taking his eyes from his feed, “It’s more like someone continuously scratching you.” “I can show you if you want,” Johnny chimed in from where he was cleaning his tattoo gun from the black ink. “I don’t think I’m spontaneous enough for a sudden tattoo.” “Not even if I offer it for free again?” He laughed. “I’m not mentally prepared for that,” you tried to reason. “I can still show you how it feels though. Without ink.” You shyly nodded and held out your arm for him that he quickly wiped down with disinfectant when he was done putting a fresh needle into the gun. “Just don’t flinch, darling,” he softly spoke before the buzzing of his tattoo gun filled the silence. You expected it to hurt a lot more when the needle touched your skin but it really wasn’t that bad. It was an odd kind of pain you couldn’t really describe. “It’s not that bad,” you told him, looking into his beautiful brown eyes behind his glasses. “It hurts more when it’s directly on the bone or at a more tender area,” Johnny explained and turned the gun off again, bending down to look at the slightly reddened skin of your arm before chucking the used needle into the nearby trashcan. “Let’s patch that up real quick, just treat it like any other scratch.” You nodded and let the handsome man put a band-aid over it. But before you could pull your arm back again, he leaned down to press a kiss on the cloth “For a good and quick healing,” he breathed and grinned smugly when you quickly turned your head away to hide your heated face.
“When you’re done flirting, will you finally put some color into me?” Jaemin interrupted, grinning widely. “That’s what she said,” you mumbled under your breath, making Johnny chuckle. “All you need to do is ask, darling.” Before you could even wrap your mind around what the tattoo artist had just implied, he had already rolled back over to your blue haired friend to take a look at the hummingbird. “Alright let’s do this,” he grinned before wiping down the skin once more. The buzzing of a new machine filled the room and Jaemin scrunched his eyes shut when the needle dipped in turquoise ink met his skin. “This is nasty,” he complained. “Don’t be a baby,” Johnny murmured, dragging the needle over your friend’s skin that accepted the ink quickly. “You want to hold my hand?” You giggled. What you didn’t expect was for Jaemin to actually reach out to you with his unoccupied arm, making a grabby hand. “Jeno always holds my hand,” he whined. “You’re such a big baby, Nana,” you sighed but still laced your fingers together, yelping loudly when Jaemin squeezed down hard. “You said it didn’t even hurt, you big liar,” you squeezed out between gritted teeth. “You’re not the one getting stabbed,” Jaemin argued, “That shit hurts different than the black.” “It’s a different needle,” Johnny explained, “People usually say it hurts less than outlines though.” “It’s not more or less, it’s just different.” “Well it’s going to hurt more if you keep seizing up like that, relax.” “You’re one to fucking talk,” Jaemin sounded upset. “Don’t curse at me for giving you a pretty tattoo,” Johnny just said, dipping his needle into the little pot that held the color again. “Talk him through it,” the artist said to you, looking up from behind his glasses that had slipped down his nose again.
“Hey, remember that time when Donghyuck was so drunk he wanted to jump from the roof into the pool at that frat house?” You quickly said, the silly story coming to mind first. The memory made Jaemin giggle. “Jeno and Mark had so much trouble holding him back once he managed to climb out of the window,” the blue haired boy chuckled. “They were lucky they didn’t fall off.” “That would have made for an even better story though,” Jaemin laughed. “They could have hurt themselves,” you said, scandalized, “You’re hanging out with Renjun too much.” Jaemin didn’t answer, instead he just hummed and wiggled his dark eyebrows.
“Did you ever go to college?” You asked Johnny out of curiosity even though Jaemin had said that the artist preferred to keep quiet and concentrate on his work. “Do I look like I went?” He just laughed, cocking one of his stupidly perfect eyebrows at you when he looked up. “Well, I didn’t want to assume,” you shied away under his gaze. “I dropped out of high school to learn tattooing,” Johnny shared while painting Jaemin’s skin as blue as his hair, “I wasn’t good in school anyways. So art school or something wasn’t an option either. Not that I would have had any money for that.” “What made you want to pick up tattooing then?” You asked curiously. “Art usually is very temporarily and if you make a mistake, you can just erase it or paint over it with another color. Not so much with tattoos. I like that. It’s immortal as long as you don’t start shooting lasers at it.” “I’ve never thought about it like that,” you confessed. Tattooing had never seemed like art to you but that was exactly what it was. Just not on a canvas but under your skin. “Thinking about getting one now?” Jaemin teased, squeezing your hand that he still held. “I haven’t even told my parents about the piercing,” you scoffed, “They would disown me.” “Well too bad, I know a pretty good tattoo artist,” he joked and poked his tongue out. “Do you now?” Johnny asked, a grin on his lips, wiping down Jaemin’s arm before going in with a lighter color. “Yeah, he works in this shady ass shop in Itaewon and I am pretty sure you can buy drugs there as well.” “Those are not for sale,” the artist chuckled when he saw your scandalized expression. “It’s just anesthetics for certain piercing procedures, calm down doll.” “So sadly, it turns out you can’t buy drugs at their shop but it still looks shady and I’m pretty sure they’re paying part of the mafia so the police won’t come to investigate.” “I know nothing of transactions of this sort,” Johnny commented before you could get an actual heart attack. Illegally tattooing and piercing was one thing but mingling with the mafia was a whole other thing. “Anyways, he does pretty cool tattoos and pierces as well,” Jaemin continued, a grin on his lips, “Also talking male to male here, he’s pretty ripped.” At that Johnny started grinning as well. “Wanna know his name?” Jaemin asked you when Johnny turned to clean his needle and you just rolled your eyes but nodded, wondering what he was getting out of all of this. “It’s Jaehyun.” “Excuse me?” Johnny exclaimed with wide eyes when both you and your blue haired friend started laughed at his stupid joke. “This kid,” he mumbled and shook his head before putting the needle back to Jaemin’s skin who seemed to have forgotten to whine about the pain.
The rest of the appointment was spend with you and Jaemin chatting about this and that and a short video call from a red eyed Jeno who had finished his shift at the cat café and wanted to apologize and promised to buy you two dinner after you were done. “I think that’s all I can do for today,” Johnny said after he had stared at the little hummingbird for a while, “Your skin took the color well but if I do any more, I’ll stress the skin too much. I can go in another time if I need to fix anything.” Jaemin nodded, sitting up so he could inspect the colorful hummingbird in the mirror. “Wow that looks sick,” he commented, his eyes going wide, “Totally worth the pain.” “That’s what I wanna hear,” the artist grinned, grabbing some paper towels to rub the tattoo down once more. “Let me snap a picture to post.”
After both men had taken about 20 photos each, Johnny quickly wrapped Jaemin’s arm in plastic wrap, reminding him how to take care of it. “Text me for the next session, I think we could fit some pretty roses at the bottom. Maybe add a dash of color here and there or other animals,” the artist smiled, slipping the glasses off his nose, gently placing them on the table. “I’ll think about it but first I gotta slave away behind the bar to make more money,” Jaemin sighed, shrugging his jacket back on. “And you darling?” Johnny asked, putting on his confident smile again. “When will I see you again?” You just stared at him, at a loss for an answer. Did he really want to see you again? But before you could even open your mouth, Jaemin had already pulled your phone from your grasp, unlocked it and shoved it towards Johnny. “Put your number in already,” he sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. Laughing, Johnny did as your friend had said. “Very smooth, Jaem.” “I- I guess I’ll text you,” you stuttered when Johnny gave your phone back, your fingers tingling where his touched yours. “I’ll be waiting, darling,” he winked, raking a hand through his inky strands. “Alright, time to leave, before you start drooling,” Jaemin destroyed the intense atmosphere and grabbed your arm to pull you back to the main room and out of the parlor, leaving a laughing Johnny behind in his room.
“I wasn’t even drooling, what the fuck Jaemin,” you argued when you were outside, your phone clutched to your chest. “Stop complaining, I got you his number, you should be thankful,” he just grinned, absolutely shameless, tugging you along through the little street. “I will not thank you for embarrassing me in front of him,” you pouted, unlocking your phone to confirm that Johnny had indeed put his number into the contacts with a little black heart behind his name.
“Is it too early to text him?” You asked when you and Jaemin sat in the subway on the way to his and Jeno’s dorm to take him up on his offer for food. Your friend just laughed at you, making an elderly man scowl at the two of you, who shook his head in disapproval. Well, Jaemin’s visuals didn’t help him when he acted like this in public. But as long as he didn’t care, you wouldn’t care either. “Text him after we’ve eaten,” he advised you. “Then you don’t seem as desperate as you are,” he added, which earned him a punch to his not tattooed arm.
All through dinner, Jaemin retold every embarrassing moment that happened at the tattoo parlor, making Jeno laugh so hard that he almost choked on his rice. You really needed to find new friends. These ones were just harassing you at this point. (Aside from the fact that Jaemin had indeed managed to get you Johnny’s number, you’d thank him later when he couldn’t make fun at you.)
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Later that night, you laid in bed in your own dorm room, staring at the screen of your phone. Your fingers were hovering over the keyboard but you really couldn’t think of what you should text Johnny. You didn’t want to seem weird. With how confident he was, he probably did this a lot and you were too proud to make a fool of yourself. Groaning you tossed and turned in your bed for a while, still staring at the empty chat box that by now must be mocking you for your cowardice. Sighing you typed out another short message to immediately delete it again. Should you just send him a simple ‘Hi’ or ask him if he had eaten? How the rest of his day went? In moments like this you whished you were more confident in yourself.
The sound of an incoming message suddenly filled the room and made you jerk. When you saw Johnny’s name on the screen, your heart first stopped for a second before it started beating about three times as fast as it should. How did that happen? With shaking hands you unlocked the phone to see that you in fact didn’t delete the last message but accidentally send it. Luckily it wasn’t as embarrassing as it could have been and Johnny had just answered that he was glad that you had finally texted him. Before you could think of an answer he sent another text asking you why you were still awake this late when he expected you to be a ‘good girl’. You could practically hear his smirk and you couldn’t fight the heat that rose to your cheeks. You replied that you were already in bed and were about to sleep if he was concerned about your sleep pattern that honestly wasn’t the greatest ever since the semester had started. ‘Oh, sexting already’ he replied, making you shriek in embarrassment. Was this what your message had looked like? ‘You alone?’ He asked and with a furiously beating heart you answered with a simple yes.
A couple of seconds went by with no answer from him which definitely didn’t lower your anxiety before the loud sound of your ringtone tore through the silence, Johnny’s name on the display. You quickly answered it to not wake up anyone on your floor, pressing it tightly to your ear. “Hello?” “Good evening, miss,” you heard the rumble of Johnny’s voice, “Missed me already?” “You’re the one who called,” you argued, making the man on the other end of the line giggle. “That is true.” “Why did you call?” You asked curiously, shifting to lie down on your back, staring at the ceiling. “Just wanted some company. My last client just left and I’m cleaning up the shop for today, the others already left,” he explained. “Jaehyun and Taeyong?” “Yeah those two guys,” he sighed and you heard him rummaging in the background. “Is it just you three at the shop?” “Yeah, it was just me and Taeyong at first but Jaehyun is an incredibly quick learner once he had found someone who was willing to teach him a thing or two. So he quickly joined the two of us.” You just hummed, your fingers playing with your hair, unsure of what to say. It was somehow easier to talk to him like this when you couldn’t see his eyes twinkle in mischief or his lips curling up in that confident smirk. Like this he was just a boy who wanted company and not an insanely handsome, heavily tattooed man who flirted shamelessly. “Do you usually work this late?” You asked to fill the silence and out of curiosity as well. If the shop wasn’t legal there sure weren’t any laws regulating how long the artists were supposed to work. “I don’t,” Johnny laughed, “But thank you for your concern. I was just tattooing a friend for free after my last paying client left because he was in the area.” “You do that a lot? Offering up your services for free?” “Just for friends and special people, doll,” he chuckled, “Why? Are you considering getting inked after all?”
Well were you? You didn’t even know at this point. Whenever you had thought of tattoos you had only ever thought about big bold and very black lines, of skulls, names of exes on your skin forever and warped pictures of people’s faces. But never of delicate flowers, bright colors and intricate designs. Johnny had made it obvious that it was art that he was doing and that it wasn’t just some technical procedure to get color beneath your skin. “I- I don’t know,” you confessed, “I never thought much about tattoos until Jaemin started getting them.” “I thought so,” the artist chuckled, “But I bet I could design a pretty piece that would compliment you nicely.” “I don’t think I’m the type for it though,” you argued, thinking about the amount of ink on Johnny’s body and you hadn’t even seen half of it. (Not that you planned on doing so but you were curious to know if there was more hiding beneath his clothes.) “It doesn’t have to be an obvious one. Just something only you know about.” That really got you thinking. His tattoos were really delicate and you had seen that he could write in really pretty cursive. “I don’t want to pressure you into anything, darling. But if you ever want one, you know who to ask.”
“Yeah, thank you Johnny,” you murmured, lost in thought about how you would look like with multiple tattoos. “I like the way you say my name.” “You- what?” You stuttered when he caught you off guard like that, making him laugh. “You’re cute,” he said once he had calmed down. “Stop pouting,” he added when you weren’t answering. “How did you know I was?” Johnny chuckled again. “I just knew.” “Thank you for keeping me company,” he said when you hadn’t said anything in a while. “It’s alright. I like talking to you,” you confessed. You could hear a door closing and his deep chuckle on the other end of the line. “You probably hear that a lot…” you murmured, embarrassed at how the words had slipped past your lips. “I actually don’t,” Johnny said, “I appreciate the words, darling. I’m all done cleaning up now, thank you for keeping me company.” “It’s fine, no need to thank me.” “You should go sleep now, it’s already late. Sweet dreams, doll. Maybe I’ll even visit you.” “Goodnight, Johnny,” you squeaked. The last thing you heard before he ended the call was another chuckle and a hushed goodbye. Smiling widely you turned your face into your pillow to muffle the scream you let out. How could this man make your heart beat faster like that with just a few simple words? And why did this short phone call make you so happy? Sighing, you put your phone to your nightstand and cuddled tightly into your blanket, the thought of Johnny’s smooth voice guiding you to sleep where he indeed did visit you.
After that initial phone call, Johnny called you more and more often. Sometimes when he was on his lunch break and his colleagues were still working, sometimes later at night when your head was spinning from studying and he was cleaning up the shop. You two talked about your days, you complained about professors, deadlines and assignments and he told you about tattooing and his sometimes crazy clients. And every now and then Johnny would bring up his offer to tattoo you. Which made your thoughts spiral every single time. In class you would scroll through Johnny’s Instagram account, imagining what some of the intricate, more feminine designs would look like on your skin. After much consideration you definitely ruled out anything big or colorful. But something small wouldn’t hurt, right? Well it would, you would be giving him permission to stab you with an automated needle a bunch of times which in itself sounded really scary. But Jaemin’s tattoo looked nice. And after his skin had peeled, the hummingbird truly looked absolutely incredible and you couldn’t wait for him to visit the shop again to keep working on the sleeve.
So in a whim of bravery and with the help of the little glass of wine you had drank you told Johnny that he should tattoo you. “Are you for real?” He asked. “I am,” you giggled, “I’ve thought about it a lot the past weeks.” “I am honored, darling. What will it be?” “Something small and no colors please,” you told him. “That’s all you’re asking for?” “Yeah, I… I like the simple black stuff you do,” you stuttered, suddenly really nervous and unsure if this was actually a good idea. “I’ll design something that’ll match you perfectly,” Johnny promised, sounding very eager. You could hear some rummaging on his end of the line. “I could fit you in Friday evening after my last client. It won’t be too late and I need some time to come up with a design that’s worthy of being in your body.” You swallowed dryly. If you said yes, you couldn’t back out anymore. You would be getting inked. Secretly. Without telling anyone. Not to mention illegally. In a reasonably shady shop that was owned by the most gorgeous man you had ever met. Taking a deep breath, you nodded before you realized that he couldn’t see that. “I’ll be there,” you promised. “I’m looking forward to it, doll,” Johnny said before he wished you sweet dreams just like every time when he called you late at night.
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The neon light in front of the door to the shop was already shut off when you arrived the next Friday late in the evening but the door gave away when you pushed it open with trembling hands after taking a deep breath. “I thought you weren’t going to come, darling, you left me waiting,” Johnny greeted you, jumping down from the counter he had sat on. He was wearing a simple black t-shirt with a little white rose design over his heart that fit him perfectly. His hair was elegantly swept back, exposing the freshly shaved part on the side. “I’m sorry,” you mumbled, fumbling with the sleeves of your hoodie. “Don’t be nervous, I’ll take good care of you,” he promised, quickly locking the front door before taking you to his room where he motioned for you to sit on the bench. “Do you trust me?” He asked, tipping your head up so you would look into his dark eyes. “I- I think I do,” you stuttered. “I won’t tell you what you’re getting,” Johnny grinned and your eyes widened in shock. “You will like it and it’s not that big.” “I’m not sure, Johnny,” you voiced your concerns but he just pressed his index finger to your lips before you could say any more. Your breath hitched and he could definitely feel your shaky exhale against his finger. “You said you trust me, doll.” Taking another shaky breath, you nodded and a smile spread over his plush lips. “I need you to take off your shirt and lie down on your left side,” he spoke, his voice casual but you could feel something shift in the air between you. At a loss for words you just nodded again and did as Johnny asked when he turned around to gather his stuff.
“Take a couple of deep breaths for me, darling,” he instructed you when he rolled over on his little stool, his glasses sitting low on his nose and his hands already gloved. “It’s going on your ribs,” he told you so you wouldn’t flinch when he quickly dragged a razor over the area before disinfecting it. “I’ll draw a quick sketch first. I don’t want to mess it up when it’s going on your beautiful skin.”  You felt the tip of his pen meet your skin in a gentle stroke, tickling your skin so you had to giggle. “Don’t make me mess this up, baby,” Johnny scolded, playfully slapping your back. “It tickles,” you pouted. “I’m trying to be gentle with you,” he said and you could hear the smile in his voice. While he was sketching, you closed your eyes, trying to figure out what he was drawing. But all you could figure out was that it was something rather small which calmed your nerves a bit.
“All done,” the tattoo artist announced after a while and quickly pulled his little side table with his tattoo gun and ink closer. When the low buzzing noise filled the air, you pressed your eyes shut even tighter, balling your hands into fists. Technically you knew it wouldn’t hurt badly, Johnny had shown you before. But you were still getting stabbed a bunch of times and fuck, you were really doing this. Letting this man put something on your body that was going to be there forever and you didn’t even know what it was going to be. “Relax, darling. I’ll be as gentle as I can be,” he promised, running a hand up and down your back. “It’s going to be on me forever,” you said. “It is. Your own personal piece of art on your body. Just for you to have.” That was a beautiful way to see it, you thought. It’s not just some pigment stabbed into your skin but art. Something unique no one else had. And Johnny would be painting it on just you for you and you alone. “Okay, let’s do this,” you breathed. “That’s my good girl,” Johnny praised and the words made your stomach twist with a feeling you didn’t want to further explore.
The pain was bearable. It was weird at first and the ribs sure hurt more than it had on your arm and the bones somehow seemed to amplify the buzzing, making it travel through your body. You had to grit your teeth when Johnny went over what seemed to be the middle part of the tattoo, where he grazed the skin in quick successions. “That hurts.” “I know, baby. But you’re almost done. You’re doing so well for me,” he soothed and gave you a small break to breathe before he went back in.
“All done, darling,” Johnny announced a little later, turning off his machine and rubbing the tattoo down with a wet paper towel. “Can I see it now?” You asked. “In a bit, keep your eyes closed,” he spoke softly and took your hands in his now ungloved ones to first guide you into a sitting position and then off the bench and over to what you assumed to be the mirror. He turned you so your side was facing the glass and put one of his big hands on your waist. It felt hot on your exposed skin and made goosebumps break out on your skin. “Open your eyes, doll.” You did and looked directly into his dark chocolate brown eyes behind his glasses. “I’m too scared to look now, is that silly?” You asked, losing yourself in his eyes and leaning towards his body that just seemed to radiate heat. “It’s beautiful, just like you,” he assured you, squeezing your waist reassuringly. After taking a deep breath, you tore your gaze away from him and turned to look at yourself in the mirror where a delicate, black chrysanthemum was awaiting you on the skin over your ribs. It indeed looked beautiful, absolutely stunning. It was small but looked so delicate and realistic and fit well with the curves of your body. “It’s stunning,” you whispered.
“Thank you, Johnny.” “No need to thank me, darling,” he chuckled and when your eyes met again, his were dark and almost hungry. “But I think I should reward you for being so good while I tattooed you.” Before you could ask what kind of reward he was talking about, he had already connected your lips in a passionate kiss and pulled your body flush against his. You couldn’t help but sigh now that you finally knew what the metal of his lip piercing felt like against your lips. Johnny was a good kisser and you were boneless in his strong grip not long after he had slipped his tongue past your lips after you had moaned into the kiss when he had started to push you backwards to the bench again, hoisting you back up. “Let me make up for the pain I’ve caused you,” he breathed against your swollen lips when you broke apart to breathe.   “Just keep kissing me like that,” you demanded, burying your hands in his soft black locks to kiss him again. He chuckled and let you dominate the kiss for a while, toying with the black ring in his lip and exploring his mouth. Meanwhile Johnny’s hands started to wander from their place on your waist down to grope at your ass, pulling you forward against him, so you could feel his growing erection between your legs which made a spark of arousal shoot through you.
“Let me make you feel good, baby,” he breathed heavily while kissing down your neck, gently taking the skin between his teeth. “Please Johnny,” you begged, feeling the arousal simmer low in your stomach. Grinning he pulled back and raked his dark eyes over your figure before making quick work of your belt and sliding your jeans along with your panties from your legs, only shortly struggling with your shoes. “It’s not Johnny now, baby,” he rasped when he kneeled down in front of you, pulling you towards him roughly, so your glistening core was exposed to him. “It’s Daddy,” he added before licking a broad stripe through your folds and flicking his tongue at your clit. You could just mewl and throw your head back in pleasure. You didn’t know that this would be such a turn on for you. “Say it, baby,” Johnny demanded, lazily dragging his tongue over your sensitive bundle of nerves. “Please Daddy,” you whimpered and you could feel his low groan vibrating against your core. He wasted no time to attach his plush lips to your clit, gently sucking and grazing his teeth over the little nub, making you mewl and shiver in pleasure. He definitely knew what he was doing, altering between stimulating your clit to the point where it almost became too much before he focused on dragging his tongue through your folds, gently prodding against your entrance before it gave away. When Johnny moaned you could feel it travel straight through you, making your head swim with pleasure. Looking down to the man kneeling in front of you, you were met with his dark eyes, staring straight up into yours. Moaning, you threaded your fingers into his soft hair and pressed his face closer to your core, not even taking the chance that he could move back. “Feels so good, Daddy,” you moaned when he spread your labia with his fingers so his tongue could dive deeper into you, stimulating your velvety walls. When he hummed it send sweet vibrations through your core and you could feel your orgasm approach almost embarrassingly fast. “Mmmh, so close Daddy.” “You wanna cum, baby?” He rasped, his hot breath fanning over your clit that he was lazily rubbing with two fingers. You bit your lip and met his dark eyes, nodding furiously. “Then beg for it, doll. I could stay here for hours,” Johnny spoke before he turned his head to mouth at your thigh, gently biting and sucking at the sensitive skin until it bruised under his ministrations. “I would just keep you right on the edge for hours until you’re a shaking mess for me, begging for release.” His lips split into a wicked grin when he saw how his dirty words affected you and he slowed his fingers on your clit until it was just enough to keep you stimulated but not enough to make the knot in your stomach snap. “Please Daddy,” you whimpered. “Please what baby?” He rested his head on your thigh, looking up at you from innocent eyes as if he wasn’t driving you insane with just his fingers. “What is it beautiful?” He repeated the question, replacing his fingers with his tongue. “You wanna cum?” “Yes please,” you whined, grinding your hips against his tongue to get more friction. “Well if you ask so nicely…” Johnny immediately slipped two fingers inside you with almost no resistance from how ridiculously wet you were and began pumping them in and out of your core fast, crooking them to search for your sweet spot. “Come on baby,” he growled, locking eyes with you again when he closed his lips around your clit. Almost screaming his name, you came hard when his fingers finally found your sweet spot, rubbing at it mercilessly to help you ride out your orgasm. Your thighs were shaking and you fell back onto the bench, the leather sticking to your back where you just laid for a while, your head spinning, breathing heavily.
“You look gorgeous like that,” Johnny complimented you, when he got back up from the floor, raking his clean hand through the mess that was his hair before he shamelessly took his fingers that were covered in your essence into his mouth, sucking them clean. Through half lidded eyes you could see the way he was still straining against the fabric of his jeans and the sight made your mouth water. “You’re still hard,” you said breathless.   “I am,” he said matter of factly. You wordlessly let your thighs fall open for him, exposing your core to him. “Oh baby,” Johnny cursed, pressing the heel of his palm against his bulge, “As much as I want to fuck you right now, you still have a fresh tattoo, doll.” “Please, Johnny, I want it,” you begged. “Shh, baby,” he soothed you rubbing a hand over your thigh, “Let me dress that tattoo and then I’ll take you upstairs to fuck you on an actual bed like you deserve.” You nodded, amazed by his amount of self-control.
Johnny worked quickly and efficiently: Cleaning your tattoo one last time before putting some ointment on it to keep it moisturized. At last he gently taped down a small sheet of plastic foil to keep it safe. “All done, beautiful,” he spoke before pecking your lips, “You still want to come upstairs with me?” “Yes Daddy,” you answered and you swore you could see his eyes darken just from the word alone. “Hold on tightly,” he ordered before scooping you up into his arms, holding you up by your thighs. Squealing you quickly wrapped your arms and legs around him, holding on tightly. “I’ll get your clothes before we open up tomorrow,” he mumbled when he carried you through the back door of the shop that lead to a dusty staircase. You pressed your body closer to his, nuzzling your face into his neck where the smell of his cologne was the strongest, to have some of his warmth seep into your skin when you started to shiver from the cold air. Lazily you let your lips travel over his skin, sucking a mark next to a splash of ink.
Johnny quickly grabbed the keys to his apartment’s door from atop of the doorframe (not really safe) and unlocked his door while holding you up with just one of his arms, the display of strength making your head spin. With quick steps he crossed the way to his bed and gently laid you down on the soft sheets, immediately crawling on top of you, crowding you against the mattress. “I knew you would look good in my bed,” he rasped, kissing your neck while his hands made quick work of the bra that you were still wearing for some reason. “You’re gorgeous, doll,” he breathed after he had sat up on his knees, looking down at you with dark eyes, his big hands roaming your body. Feeling shy under all the attention and compliments he was giving you, you tried to hide your face behind your fingers but he wasn’t having any of it, quickly grabbing your wrists in one hand to pin them above your head. “Don’t hide from me baby. Daddy wants to see how much you’re enjoying yourself.” You could just nod, trying to force down the whimper that almost spilled past your lips, he hadn’t even done much yet and you were already feeling arousal pulse through your veins. “I couldn’t hear your answer,” Johnny teased, gently grabbing one of your boobs to massage the soft flesh. “Yes, Daddy.” “That’s my good girl,” he grinned, releasing your wrists to slip his T-Shirt over his head, revealing his strong chest where the eagle majestically spread its wings and the hard lines of his abs. “Like what you see?” He asked smugly, climbing off the bed to unbuckle his belt and slip his jeans off his narrow hips, revealing strong, muscled thighs. One of them was covered with the face of a growling panther while the other was decorated with a colorful koifish tattoo that disappeared beneath the fabric of his dark boxers that were doing very little to hide a prominent bulge. “Let me,” you breathed and crawled over to hook your thumbs into the waistband. But before you pulled them down, you pressed a couple of kisses to the cherry blossom branch tattoo that seemed to stretch from his back over his hipbone and further down, mingling with the koi tattoo further down. With every centimeter of skin you exposed, more ink from the blossoms became visible and you kissed every single one of the delicate flowers. When his length finally sprang free, you had to swallow dryly: His cock was huge and hung heavy between his legs. Licking your lips you looked up to him, to find him grinning down at you. “Go to town, baby.”
He didn’t need to tell you twice, you were itching to feel his heavy weight on your tongue. You pressed a sweet kiss to his tip before placing a hand at the base only to find him surprisingly soft as you experimentally pumped your hand once. “It takes a while for it to get fully hard,” he groaned when you moved your hand up and down his shaft a couple of times, feeling it pulse beneath your fingers. Damn if he wasn’t even fully hard, how big would he be if he was? Holding him at the base, you licked a broad stripe up the whole length before you swiped your tongue around the pink head, pulling another groan from Johnny’s lips. Taking a deep breath, you finally took him in your mouth and hollowed your cheeks, tasting his skin. The weight on your tongue felt just right and you couldn’t help but moan as you slowly started to take more and more of him until you felt him hit the back of your throat. Shit, you were barely able to fit half of his length in your mouth like this. “You’re so big,” you moaned when you pulled off of him with a wet pop, spreading your saliva down the shaft with both of your hands. Johnny just hummed and grabbed a handful of your hair to shove your mouth back onto his dick. He cursed when the velvety heat surrounded him again and gently began to thrust in and out your mouth. “Fuck you look so good with my cock in your mouth,” he breathed heavily. You could only moan where your lips were stretched around his length and hollow your cheeks when he pulled out, the grip he had on your hair keeping you in place while he snapped his hips. “Shit baby,” Johnny cursed when he pulled out, panting while he rested the head of his cock on your outstretched tongue. “I could cum like this.” You whined pathetically, looking up at him with pleading eyes. He chuckled and gently slapped his cock against your lips, smearing them with precum. “But you don’t want that, don’t you, baby? You want my cock inside you? Stretching you out?” “Yes Daddy, please. I need it so bad,” you blabbered, not even knowing where those words were coming from but you seemed to have said the right thing with how Johnny’s dick twitched in his hand.
“Then get on your hands and knees for me, baby. Ass up.” It was almost comically how fast you complied, baring yourself to him. “Such a good girl,” he praised, grabbing your asscheeks to knead and pull them apart. “Beautiful.” “Please Daddy,” you begged him, arching your back further. “Patience baby,” he chuckled. A frustrated groan got stuck in your throat and turned into a drawn out whine when he pushed two of his fingers inside you, pumping them quickly and curling them to find your sweet spot again. Soon two fingers became three and he had reduced you to a moaning mess with how he abused your sweet spot once he had found it again. “You think you’re ready for my cock, baby?” “Yes. Oh god, yes please,” you begged while shamelessly grinding back on his fingers that he had stilled inside of you. “Spread your cheeks for me,” he ordered while quickly grabbing a condom from his bedside table and rolling it onto his cock. Balancing your weight on your knees and shoulders, you reached around yourself to pull your asscheeks apart so Johnny could see your core clenching around nothing. “You’re such a good girl for me,” he rasped, running his palm along the curve of your body while lazily thrusting his cock through your folds, making it glisten with your essence. Finally you could feel him nudging at your entrance with the thick head of his cock. “You want it, baby?” “Yes please Daddy,” you gasped, trying hard to be good and not grind back against him. “You’re such a good girl for me,” he chuckled, “And good girls get what they want if they ask so politely.” With that he finally sank into you in one agonizingly slow thrust until you could feel his hip bones press against your skin. You had to screw your eyes shut and bite your lip to suppress a whimper. You had never felt so full before.
“Fuck baby, you’re so tight,” Johnny groaned, grabbing you by the dip of your waist with his big hands, grinding you on his cock. “I’m so full, Daddy,” you gasped when he slowly pulled out until only the head of his cock was inside you before he languidly thrust back in. “Yeah? You like that? Being stuffed full of my cock?” You could only moan and nod where your head was pressed into the sheets. His cock was so big that it seemed to press against every good spot that was inside you, setting your nerve endings on fire, the pain from being stretched like that only adding to your pleasure. “You‘re sucking me right back in baby,” he cursed and gripped your waist harder, pulling you back on his cock as he picked up the pace, low groans falling from his lips. Your moans got progressively louder and louder the faster Johnny snapped his hips. “Hands behind your back, baby,” he ordered panting and immediately grabbed both your wrists in his hands to use them as leverage so he could fuck into you faster, the change of angle and pace making you moan his name. Your head was swimming with pleasure and you could only moan and mewl beneath him, imagining how he would bite his lip while watching his dick disappear inside you over and over again, stretching out the delicate skin of your sex. “God baby, your ass looks amazing,” Johnny groaned, praise after praise falling from his lips that reduced you to a moaning mess.
With one particularly hard thrust he buried himself to the hilt inside you and draped his body over yours, his hot breath fanning over your face when he spoke, a deep rumble in his chest while grinding his dick right against your sweet spot that had you seeing colors behind your closed eyes. “Wanna see you bounce on my dick, doll. Can you do that for me?” Taking a deep breath, you nodded. Your ability to form coherent sentences had left you as soon as he had begun to fuck you in earnest. “You’re such a good girl,” he purred and gently pulled out, making you whimper from the loss. You felt the bed dip next to you and when you opened your eyes, you were met with Johnny’s pleased smirk as he leaned against the headboard of the bed, his cock resting against his hip, too heavy to properly stand up and you couldn’t stop another whimper. “Come on baby, I know you want it,” he grinned, crooking a finger in a ‘come closer’ motion. Dragging your limbs from beneath you with great effort, you climbed onto his lap, immediately claiming his lips in a messy kiss. You buried your hands in his stupidly perfect hair to mess it up and tug at the inky strands, causing Johnny to moan into the kiss. “Hmm, my baby is feisty,” he chuckled when he broke the kiss, the pupils of his dark eyes blown so wide that they seemed almost black. “But you promised me to ride my dick,” he reminded you. “And I’m gonna,” you slurred, reaching between your bodies to grab his cock, giving it a couple of strokes. “But turn around for me baby. Wanna see how much my fat cock is going to stretch you out,” he rasped, playfully biting your lips. “But I want to see you too,” you complained. “Oh you can,” he grinned and pointed over your shoulder. You reluctantly turned around before you saw what he meant. Right across from the bed was a big mirror and you gasped because of how fucked out you already looked. A couple of tears had rolled down your cheeks and messed up your makeup and your lipstick was smeared around your lips.
You carefully grabbed Johnny’s cock again and held it steady so you could sink down on him, watching yourself in the mirror until you sat snug on his lap and had to close your eyes because the feeling was so overwhelming. He felt even bigger like that. “You okay, baby?” He asked, grabbing your hips tightly to help you swivel them on his cock, making it press into your walls just how you liked it. “How does your cock feel even bigger like this?” You gasped as you leaned forward and slowly started to ride him at first to get used to his size and figure out the best angle for you. Your legs shook with the effort to keep your rhythm but the look Johnny had on his face, his eyes glued to where you two were connected, made it worth it. Suddenly a wicked grin spread on his lips and he snapped his hips up when you lowered yourself again, tearing loud moans from both of you. “Fuck, do that again,” you demanded when you raised your hips again. “What’s the magic word?” Johnny teased, holding you up so you wouldn’t drop down again. “Please, Daddy.” Groaning he started to snap his hips up every time you ground down on him, making your skin slap together with an obscene noise.
God you wanted to die on his dick. “Do you now?” Johnny laughed. Shit did you say that out loud? “Want to feel how deep it goes inside you?” He rasped, wrapping his strong arms around your waist. You went lax in his hold and mewled helplessly. Who knew that a little display of strength and a big dick were such turn ons for you that your brain was reduced to mush. Grinning he carefully pulled you up and against his chest and draped your legs over his after he had planted his feet firmly onto the mattress. “Watch, baby,” he ordered as he lifted you off of him until only the tip was barely inside you anymore before letting you drop down again. You mewled and thrashed in his hold, the feeling just on the edge of too much. Feeling him deep inside you was one thing but actually seeing it was a whole other thing and it messed with your head. Curiously you pressed your hand down on your lower stomach when Johnny had started to piston his hips up into you instead of dropping you down onto his cock every time and you swore you could feel him move inside you. A drawn out curse left your lips and you threw your head back onto his shoulder.
With the way he was snapping his hips up you could feel your orgasm approach at lightning speed and you were so far gone that you shamelessly reached between your legs to stimulate your clit. “Fuck baby, you’re so hot like this,” Johnny groaned, grinding his dick inside you as you quickly rubbed your clit, toeing right on the edge. “Please Daddy,” you cried out, not sure what you were even begging for. “You gonna cum on my cock?” He rasped, snapping his hips harshly, “Wrapped around my big cock stretching you out like this?” You nodded your head furiously, your eyes screwed shut. You were so close that you could already feel your toes curling. “Show me baby. Show Daddy how good his cock makes you feel.” That’s what pushed you over the edge, the way he was panting in your ear, his voice strained from how he was drilling into you. The coil in your stomach snapped and you almost screamed his name, your body curling inwards and thighs shivering as your orgasm washed over you, making a bunch of colors explode behind your lids. In the back of your mind you registered Johnny’s curses and how he was grinding his cock inside you to help you ride out your orgasm. “Such a good girl,” he praised when your body went lax on top of him, your chest heaving with heavy breaths. You briefly wondered if you had ever cum this hard and you couldn’t think of any other time. “Thank you Daddy,” you panted, turning your face to press a messy kiss to his plush lips that were bitten raw. He chuckled lowly when you whimpered when his still hard cock shifted when you tried to turn around.
“Will you let me fuck you for a little longer, baby?” He asked, running a hand through your sweaty hair. Instead of answering him, you lifted yourself off his dick to turn around on his lap, capturing his lips again. “Want you to ruin me,” you whispered between kisses, “Want you to ruin me for any other men. Want to only remember how you feel inside of me.” Johnny growled deep in his chest before he pushed you down onto the bed, hungrily licking into your mouth. “You’re the one who is ruining me,” he panted, rising to his knees. He quickly grabbed your legs and threw them over his shoulders before he sank into you again with a low groan. This time he didn’t waste any time with building up the pace and immediately snapped his hips harshly, chasing his own orgasm. “You’re taking me so well, baby,” he panted, folding your thighs to your chest so he could push into you even deeper, making you see stars with how he was nailing your sweet spot with the new angle. And even though you had just cum, you felt another orgasm build inside your stomach. A row of curses left Johnny’s lips when he could watch his dick slide in and out of you again and he gripped your thighs so hard you were sure you’d have bruises there tomorrow. But that was something you’d worry about later, right now your world was only made up of the handsome man with his huge cock that was currently rearranging your guts with how vigorously he was snapping his hips, making your skin slap together with lewd sounds.
“I’m gonna cum baby,” Johnny grunted, his hips losing their rhythm. “On me,” you managed to choke out, still lost in your own pleasure. Another groan left his bitten lips before he quickly pulled out and ripped the condom off, jerking his cock with quick strokes, his eyes fixed to yours. All it took was a couple of jerks before he threw his head back and you could see his abdominal muscles contract before the first burst of white hot cum spurted from his dick and covered your chest and stomach. With parted lips he stroked himself through his orgasm, milking rope after rope from his cock until he hissed with overstimulation. “Fuck,” he cursed before giggling when he saw the mess he had made of you, his cum dripping from your boobs and running down your stomach. He cursed again before claiming your lips. “You want to cum one last time, baby?” “Please Daddy,” you whined, spreading your legs further for him. “My good girl,” he sighed, sinking two fingers into your heat, quickly crooking them to stimulate your sweet spot while his thumb was putting sweet pressure on your clit, making you thrash beneath him. “You look so good covered in my cum,” he rasped before he kissed you harshly to swallow your moans and cries of pleasure. You desperately held on to his shoulders, breaking the kiss when your head was spinning from the lack of oxygen. While speeding up his fingers, Johnny began sucking bruises low on your neck and over the soft skin of your cleavage. “Shit, I’m gonna-“ you didn’t get to finish your sentence because right that moment he had sucked one of your nipples into his mouth which was just enough to send you over the edge for a third time that night, your lips parted in a silent scream of his name and your thighs shaking and closing around the handsome man kneeling between them. “That’s my good girl,” he praised breathily and gently rocked his fingers to help you ride out your orgasm before he pulled them out, instead winding his strong arms around your body, holding you to his inked chest.
For a while he just held you close, not caring that his cum was now also stuck to his chest. “Fuck that was a lot,” you chuckled, burying your face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his calming scent. “Not what you thought would happen when you get a free tattoo?” Johnny softly spoke, carding his hand through your messy hair. “Not at all.” Another question was burning inside your head but you were too scared to ask it. You didn’t want to push him and ruin the mood. “I should clean you up and see if that tattoo is still okay. Then we can cuddle, alright?” The tattoo artist said before he detangled your bodies from one another to get up from the bed. He looked around on the floor for a cloth and you could finally see where the cherry blossoms on his hip were coming from. A big samurai was stretched over half his back, surrounded by the pinkish blossoms. It seemed like it wasn’t a complete piece yet, the samurai staring at the still untouched skin of Johnny’s left shoulderblade. “Your back tattoo is really pretty,” you mumbled to fill the silence while Johnny was wiping his chest clean before he gently did the same to you, taking extra caution when looking at your still fresh tattoo. “Thank you,” he smiled, pressing a kiss to your forehead, the metal of his piercing feeling warm on your skin, “We should change that foil real quick.” You just nodded and let him do his work, exhaustion settling into your bones.
“Do you do this with all your clients?” Shit. You hadn’t meant to ask that, the question had just slipped your lips and you could feel Johnny freeze where he was dressing your tattoo again before he secured the last piece of tape. He sighed and slipped beneath the covers, pulling you against his chest, so you could listen to his heartbeat. “Not all of them,” he answered eventually, “I haven’t slept with a client in a while. It happens sometimes but usually I don’t think much about it.” “And now you do?” He just hummed nonchalantly, playing with your hair. “They usually don’t come back after I fuck them.” He paused, holding his breath. “Will you come back?” Your heart started to race and you could feel a bright smile spreading over your lips. “For more free tattoos and piercings?” “Oh, yeah, I guess,” he sounded so deflated, the confident tattoo artist suddenly gone. “You idiot,” you giggled, pillowing your head on his sternum so he could see the smile on your lips, “I like you Johnny. I’ll come back if you want me to.” Now he was also smiling, his features softening. “Don’t make jokes like that, my heart is fragile,” he joked, wrapping you up in his strong arms.  
“Which one was your first one?” You asked him when the silence between you stretched while you traced the scales of the dragon that wound around his arm. “My first tattoo?” Johnny shifted around for a while before he showed you his other arm that had all kinds of different designs on it, some in bright colors, some strictly black. “That little guy over here,” he said with a smile on his lips and pointed to a little sunflower at the bend of his elbow, “To remind me to always look at the sun, at the bright side of life.” “It’s cute,” you breathed, touching the yellow petals. “And then it went downhill from there,” he chuckled, “It’s addicting.” “Let’s hope I can stay abstinent.” “What a shame, I’d love to cover you in my art,” Johnny confessed, tilting your face up so he could claim your lips in a kiss. “Maybe one or two more,” you breathed in between kisses, making him chuckle against your lips.
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luna-the-moth · 4 years
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Lucifer, Leviathan, and Satan with a Plant-Loving S/O (SFW)
I accidentally deleted the ask, but here’s what was requested: @hey-its-spades : Hello! For Levi, Lucifer, and Satan if you dont mind uwu . Mc has a knack for plants and has taken it upon themselves to put plants everywhere. ( hanging from ceilings,crawling ivy on outside walls,in the kitchen, library, even luci's study.) All the rooms look a liytle greener and None of them say anything but the student body is saying that it makes the old place look alive and home-y. It makes mc really happy.       
Oh I adore this ask! SFW, with a GN! reader. I’m assuming by student body you mean the HoL residents? Since almost nobody outside the household residents visit there. I got really carried away with Levi and the Lucifer angst as well-
My vampire poll for the OM characters
My ask box is open, but please read my rules and guidelines before requesting! Please send them in my ask box, as I can keep track of requests better.  Reblogs, likes, and comments are greatly appreciated!
Lucifer, Leviathan, and Satan with a Plant-Loving Reader (SFW)
Prologue/basics for all of them:
Ever since you came to the HoL, you decided that it was too....lifeless.
Sure, there were bright candles lighting the halls, but the house was devoid of any life, besides the brothers and Henry.
So you took it upon yourself to decorate, of course!
While many human world plants didn’t fare well in the Devildom due to the poor soil quality, Lord Diavolo had agreed to bring you enchanted soil, guaranteed to grow any plant.
Regardless of temperature or sunlight needs, whatever plant grew in that soil would flourish to its upmost potential.
Asmo had a great deal of amusement with you decorating, advising you on what colors would fit specific areas of the household, and what species of flowers would bring beautiful symbolism as well.
In the house’s entryway, you left a pair of Strelitzia nicolai (giant bird of paradise) plants, as they added a subtle flair.
With long, stemmed leaves, it contributed a touch of elegance and flair.
On the a few windowsills, you had placed Begonia rex-coltorum (Rex begonias), their dark, vivid, colors standing out.
You had planted crawling ivy on the outside walls, making the house seem more inviting.
Lucifer:
Lucifer hadn’t minded your redecoration, as it had matched well with the house’s aesthetic, adding to the beauty.
In fact, he had quite enjoyed seeing you pore over catalogues and books, deciding which one would fit the space best.
Over the next few weeks, he watched as the House of Lamentation became brighter, more colorful.
It was a nice change, he thought.
However, he was surprised when he had woken up in his study, rose bushes in the corners of his study.
Deep, red roses greeted him as he surveyed his study with a pleased smile.
It was no secret Lucifer adored roses, and he was appalled when he had first arrived in the Devildom, as the soil quality was so poor, it could hardly grow anything.
Which meant he couldn’t grow roses, one of his favorite flowers.
The fact that you had thought about him, and wanted to gift him such a beautiful display, greatly moved the stoic demon.
Making his way to one of the bushes, he took off his gloves and knelt down on one knee.
The soft, sweet fragrance immersed his senses, filling him with memories of laughter, smiles, serenity, and Lilith.
Roses were her favorite flower.
As the memories flooded his mind, Lucifer suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of longing, and his vision became blurred.
He remembered the way Lilith used to brighten up when helping him with his garden, an eager grin ever-present on her face.
The way she would make him a colorful bouquet of roses whenever Michael had given him more stressful tasks than usual.
He quickly wiped a stray tear that had fallen from one of his eyes, and calmed himself.
Taking one of the velvety flowers in his hand, Lucifer gently brought his lips to the flower head, leaving a soft kiss, almost as if it was Lilith’s forehead.
The next time you went over to his study for some tea, he brought you into his arms, bringing you close to him.
Kissing your cheek, he lets a small smile break through his usually-serious facade.
“Thank you for the roses, my love. They compliment my study’s aesthetic nicely.”
Placing a small kiss on your neck, he smirked.
“Perhaps I can thank you with a date tonight?”
Leviathan:
Levi actively enjoyed watching you redecorate the HoL.
It was like one of his favorite games, The Grims! (Yes that was a terrible pun for The Sims.)
He had listened with interest as you went off on the best plants that would fit his aesthetic, and would match well with water.
What caught his attention, was when you brought up the topic of bio luminescent plants.
Of course, they weren’t naturally grown in the human world, but scientists had recently found a way to genetically modify tobacco plants.
In doing so, they had spliced the genes with four fungus genes related to bio luminescence, then carefully cultivated them.
From a seedling to maturity, the plants presented a small glow, visible to the naked eye.
The gene modification had no harmful effects on the plants, and the only difference between the lab-modified plants and wild plants, were height.
The entire time you had explained the plant’s origins passionately, Levi sat in awe, watching as you had gestured your hands in an excited fashion.
So this is what you meant when you had said you enjoyed him being so passionate about an anime or game.
At first, Levi had thought you were merely exaggerating to cheer him up, but as he looks at you now, eyes shining with delight, he understood.
You decided that since you were decorating the HoL, you would decorate Levi’s room as well.
You didn’t have access to the bio-luminescent plants, but you decorated his rooms to the nines nonetheless.
So, you had pooled together your money and resources, to create a mini lily pond for him!
You had miraculously gotten him out of the house, for a cosplay con, in which you had ‘accidentally’ forgotten to buy yourself a ticket.
Which we all know is a lie, you had just not bought one for yourself in order to stay at home, assembling the pond with Solomon’s help.
It was small, enough to fit around 6-7 lily pads/lotuses.
You had carefully grown the lily pads in your room, watching as they eventually bloomed into light, almost ethereal flowers.
By the time Levi came home, you had just finished cleaning up, getting the mud washed from your hands and arms.
Upon seeing the lily pond, Levi’s eyes were wide with amazement and shock.
You created and did this, for him?
Absolutely sets down his handfuls of merch, (gently, mind you) and silently steps over to you.
He does his best to hug you like in anime, wanting you to know how much he appreciates this.
Yes, it may be awkward, but it warms your heart knowing that he stepped out of his comfort zone, just to thank you.
He’s too embarrassed to say it while looking at you, but you can hear his voice as he rests his head against yours.
As he pulls away, a blush is evident on his face, his head turned to the side as he awkwardly places his hand against the back of his neck.
“T-thank you, Y/n. It’s a b-beautiful lily pond.”
Satan:
He fully supported your botanical excursion
After all, he’s always had an affinity for plants.
Whether it be for potions, poisons, or mere decor, Satan had a green thumb, through and through.
If his room weren’t full of books, scriptures, and all sorts of literature, he’d fill it with various plants.
So when you had announced that you were going to re-decorate the HoL with various flora, he was buzzing with excitement.
He gathered every human botanical book he knew of, and started leaving them for you on your desk.
Within a week, you had stacks upon stacks of books, knowledge ready at your disposal.
And so you began to research.
Satan was considerate to leave footnotes in a few of them, like what type would pair well with what color schemes, etc.
You smiled while reading through them, seeing Satan’s elegant handwritten flow across the pages.
Within a few weeks, you had skimmed through the books, thoroughly reading a handful of them.
After ordering the plants you wanted on Azukon, (courtesy of Lord Diavolo’s credit card-) you were eagerly anticipating their arrival.
Especially because a few ‘special items’ were in the package.
After all, you wanted to thank Satan properly for his help.
When the various flora arrived, you had carefully cultivated each of them, encouraging their growth.
Satan had assisted you, monitoring their progress, and making sure none of his brothers ruined them.
The following weekend, Satan had a student council meeting planned, as did the rest of the brothers.
Which left you with the perfect opportunity to set up Satan’s gifts.
In his room, you had placed Senecio rowleyanus (string of pearls) plants, their bright green globes spilling over the bookshelves.
Along with that, were lavender candles, with dried lavender crushed inside.
After all, Satan had always (usually) been the most level-headed out of his brothers, despite his title.
He’s much more than the avatar of wrath, and has gone through painstaking time and trials to overcome that.
That’s why you had picked lavender, which without a doubt, would be noticed by Satan.
When he had come back from the meeting, he was already in a pissy mood, as things didn’t go as planned, ending in an argument between the brothers.
However, when he stepped into his room, seeing lavender candles lit, and garlands of plants over the bookshelves, he immediately broke out in a smile.
A real, genuine smile.
Seeing you sitting on his bed, lavender candles lit, plant garlands stringing down from the bookshelves, it was almost like one of the romance novels he had read...
Quickly, he scooped you up in his arms, spinning you until you were laughing for him to stop.
Finally setting you down to gently kabeddon you, he playfully kisses the corner of your lips.
“Thank you my love, these are absolutely beautiful. I shall preserve these for all eternity.”
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Daenerys Stormborn, Part 2: Wake the Dragon
Oh hey, I have part 2 already! Guess my brain is really focused on Dany now. In part 1, I talked about Dany's arcs from AGOT to ASOS, exploring the narrative and thematic purpose of her journey. However, the most important part of her journey occurs in ADWD, and sets the stage for some incredibly exciting developments to come in TWOW. For part 2, I'll be talking about the gradual transformation of Daenerys into a slightly different, darker character for the future.
Breaker of Chains & Mhysa
Slavery has been an important background element throughout Dany's time in Essos, even in AGOT, but it becomes front and centre in ASOS. She accepted the Dothraki, a society that uses slaves for many things, and wasn't too perturbed at the use of slaves in Qarth. However, it is in Astapor where she finally realizes just how bad the institution is, as she tells Xaro:
"Whence came this madness? Should I count myself fortunate that you did not free my own slaves when you were my guest in Qarth?" I was a beggar queen and you were Xaro of the Thirteen, Dany thought, and all you wanted were my dragons. "Your slaves seemed well treated and content. It was not till Astapor that my eyes were opened."
As mentioned last time, ASOS is when she begins to take control of her destiny, and she does so by beginning a revolution to free the slaves of Slaver's Bay. She believe she has a greater destiny lying ahead of her, that there is a reason for her dragons, the red comet. She also has great empathy for people and sees this disturbing injustice being played out with nobody to stop it. But she has the power to do so, and thus she begins by going fire and blood at Astapor, killing the Good Masters and freeing all the slaves. Afterwards, she leaves the city with a ruling council of a priest, a scholar, and a healer and moves to Yunkai.
She does a different approach with Yunkai, negotiating with the Wise Masters to surrender their slaves and to leave them in peace. And then when she arrives at Meereen, she decides to stay and rule as its queen. This is where things begin to get difficult for Daenerys. The ruling council of Astapor is overthrown by a butcher named Cleon, who said the council was conspiring to bring back slavery, who declares himself King of Astapor, enslaves the children of the former Good Masters to make new Unsullied, and tries to ally with Daenerys against Yunkai, who has resumed slavery.
Daenerys is not interested in any war with Yunkai. The reason she stays in Meereen is exactly because she learned what happened when she left Astapor. The fire and blood approach didn't work. You can't just dismantle such a deeply engrained system so easily. So instead she opts to rule, and protect the people she can. While a lot of readers view Dany's actions in Meereen as pointless, the whims of a naive girl, and poor leadership, I actually think it's the opposite.
For starters, Dany realized that she can't simply burn the slavers to end slavery, but she needs to stay and instill changes. While King Cleon repeatedly begs for Daenerys to join the war against Yunkai, she refuses, and warns Cleon to not do such a thing. She turns out to be horribly right, as Cleon is killed, Astapor is sieged, before being slaughtered, burned, and sacked, to be reinstated as a slave city once more. Likewise, the Yunkish siege Meereen, first by creating a blockade in the bay with ships, and then by having armies amassed outside the city walls.
In addition, refugees from Astapor begin to pile up outside the city, and a deadly plague called the pale mare (for the horse from Astapor that arrives at Meereen) begins to sweep the starving Astapori freedmen, who begin to resort to cannibalism to survive. Dany blames herself for leaving Astapor a mess, but does not wish to have the same thing happen in Meereen. She wants to protect the people she's freed, not just from the Yunkish, but herself as well.
When a sheepherder brings the burned bones of his daughter, Hazzea, who was killed by her dragons, Dany has Rhaegal and Viserion chained in the dungeons below the Great Pyramid to prevent them from causing any more harm. However, Drogon is still loose, unable to be found. In addition, when the sons of the harpy, a terrorist group opposed to the emancipation of Meereen, begin massacring freedmen, Dany decides to raise a tax on the Great Masters and have all families of suspect loyalty send a child to serve as a hostage and cupbearers. Yet, as the killings continue, she has grown close to the children and decides not to have them killed.
Now, some of you may notice that I am taking a lot from the Meereenese Blot essays written by Adam Feldman. That's not only because they are really well written essays, but ones that GRRM himself has approved of.
"I read those when someone pointed them out to me, and I was really pleased with them, because at least one guy got it. He got it completely, he knew exactly what I was trying to do there, and evidently I did it well enough for people who were paying attention."
So I am retreading some of the ground Feldman has laid, but it's important to do so if I am to build up to what I think is going to happen in the future of Dany's story.
As Feldman notes, Dany's own actions (or in the case of the cupbearers, inaction) actually made a peace possible, because the Yunkish saw that she was someone who is capable of mercy and not a (in their eye) violent mass murderer. Knowing what happened with Astapor, and seeing what happens when her dragons are unleashed with Hazzea, Dany decides to make peace with the Yunkish and marry Hizdahr.
Under the peace, Meereen itself would remain a free city, but the Yunkish would continue to sell slaves. They even sell them in markets outside the walls of Meereen, which displeases Daenerys extremely. In addition, slaveowners could bring their slaves into Meereen without fear of them being freed, and the Yunkish promised to respect the rights of the freedmen in Meereen. Yet, despite the peace and the progress made, she feels as though this is a defeat.
This is peace, she told herself. This is what I wanted, what I worked for, this is why I married Hizdahr. So why does it taste so much like defeat?
The thing is, Daenerys has had to sacrifice so much of herself and her morals to get to this point. Yes there is peace, even if it is tentative, Meereen would not be sacked by the Yunkish, but slavery is still going on, and she thinks that she has let herself and other people down by agreeing to peace and allowing the Yunkish to continue slavery. She has agreed to peace to people she loathes and thinks are despicable, she has married a man she does not love and does not love her, she has chained her dragons in the pit below, she has allowed the fighting pits to reopen. This comes to ahead at Daznak's Pit when she is at the height of her discomfort.
The boar buried his snout in Barsena's belly and began rooting out her entrails. The smell was more than the queen could stand. The heat, the flies, the shouts from the crowd … I cannot breathe. She lifted her veil and let it flutter away. She took her tokar off as well. The pearls rattled softly against one another as she unwound the silk.
And then Drogon arrives, and in the chaos of him attacking the boar and being attacked by the soldiers in the pit, Dany tries to calm him, but he spits fire at her, and she tries to tame him by whipping him into submission. Here, Dany is quite literally fighting herself. She herself in this moment represents the Queen of Meereen, someone who desires for peace. Meanwhile, Drogon represents the dragon inside her, who wants to unleash blood and fire on her enemies. In the end, Dany climbs onto Drogon and they fly away together, which foreshadows and symbolizes Dany's later decision to choose being the dragon.
Despite her frustrations in Meereen, the peace was a good first step. Not to say that it solved every issue, it didn't, but that doesn't need to be the end of it. Daenerys could forge new peaces, new agreements, and if she stayed in Meereen, she could implement great changes throughout Slaver's Bay. But what is done is done, and cannot be undone. The peace that was forged is now gone. Next comes war.
The House with the Red Door
Before we move on to Dany's final chapter and what that means for the future, we must take a look at a very important part of her backstory which is one of the main elements of her own story. Sure, destiny, greatness, prophecy, power, and identity are themes with Daenerys, but at the center of it all is the desire for home. Dany was born on Dragonstone, but was whisked away to Braavos, and there she lived in the house with the red door, with Viserys, Ser Willem Darry, and their servants.
To Dany, the house with the red door was the only place in her life she called home, and she has very fond memories of it, of Willem, or the lemon tree. But after Willem died, they were kicked out and forced to become beggars on the streets, selling off their possessions and travelling the Free Cities. The red door was closed and gone forever after, but the dream of having a home hasn't.
Daenerys has a desire for home, for love, for family. Throughout her childhood, Viserys would tell Dany all about Westeros, how they need to take back the Iron Throne, that the Seven Kingdoms were the most beautiful lands in the world. And sure enough, soon, Westeros represents the idea for home and belonging to Dany.
"I pray for home too," she told him, believing it. Ser Jorah laughed. "Look around you then, Khaleesi." But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.
Although she takes on the mantle as the new head of House Targaryen and carries on Viserys's dream of taking back the Iron Throne out of a sense of duty, she also does so for desire to belong in a place she can call home. It's a nostalgic feeling she gets of the old days, that she wants to relive again.
But then other ambitions get in her way. She frees the slaves of Slaver's Bay, and decides to stay in Meereen to try to ensure that her revolution succeeds. Thus, her quest for home is put on hold. Throughout ADWD, she gives up parts of herself, to try to become one with the Meereenese; marrying Hizdahr, reopening the fighting pits, chaining her dragons, dressing in the Ghiscari fashion, and making peace. But in the Dothraki sea, hundreds of miles outside Meereen, she finds that she wasn't being her true self, that she can never be the Queen of Meereen, or become a true Meereenese.
I must keep walking. Water flows downhill. The stream will take me to the river, and the river will take me home. Except it wouldn't, not truly. Meereen was not her home, and never would be. It was a city of strange men with strange gods and stranger hair, of slavers wrapped in fringed tokars, where grace was earned through whoring, butchery was art, and dog was a delicacy. Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy.
The series is all about the human heart in conflict with itself, and Daenerys in ADWD is one of the best examples of that. She was struggling with her two competing titles of Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons, but in the end she was not comfortable with being the Breaker of Chains. This final transformation she undergoes in the Dothraki sea really sets the tone for what she will do in the future, and how she will change as a person and character.
Mother of Dragons
Daenerys X is one of the more bizarre chapters in the series, since it follows only one character alone with her thoughts, but it works extremely well as a character study, and the development over the course of the chapter is one of my favourites in the whole series. Through all the hallucinations and visions and dreams Daenerys has during this chapter, it's important to remember that they all (apart from possibly Quaithe) are her, so the discussions she has are with her own internal thoughts directly.
The topic of Targaryen madness reoccurs throughout the series, but it's ADWD where it is brought up the most. Now, the topic of Targaryen madness will be another post i will do in the far future and won't discuss in depth today, but the matter is that Dany is aware of some of it, even if she hasn't fully accepted the truth of her father. She fears that she is succumbing to the madness at points.
"Your Grace?" Missandei stood in the door of the queen's bedchamber, a lantern in her hand. "Who are you talking to?" Dany glanced back toward the persimmon tree. There was no woman there. No hooded robe, no lacquer mask, no Quaithe. A shadow. A memory. No one. She was the blood of the dragon, but Ser Barristan had warned her that in that blood there was a taint. Could I be going mad? They had called her father mad, once.
Later, she implies this fear again to Barristan.
I lived in fear for fourteen years, my lord. I woke afraid each morning and went to sleep afraid each night … but my fears were burned away the day I came forth from the fire. Only one thing frightens me now." "And what is it that you fear, sweet queen?" "I am only a foolish young girl." Dany rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. "But not so foolish as to tell you that. My men shall look at these ships. Then you shall have my answer."
But in an early version of Daenerys III, the answer Daenerys gave was "myself". She fears what would happen if she "woke the dragon", as Viserys put it. She's afraid of succumbing to the madness that consumed her father and probably was consuming Viserys. She's afraid of what would happen if she unleashed her dragons, how many innocents they would kill. But in the Dothraki sea, she begins to question her decisions, starting when she woke up after finding blood between her thighs:
"I am the blood of the dragon," she told the grass, aloud. Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark. "Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons." Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children.
The importance of this quote cannot go unnoticed. She thinks about Hazzea all the time throughout the book, feeling deeply guilty about what Drogon did to her. But here, at the end, she cannot remember her name. The in world explanation is that, of course, she is delirious from being in the wilderness eating berries and being sick, but thematically this is her slowly turning away from the people she freed. Next comes a dream with Viserys (long quote incoming):
She dreamt of her dead brother. Viserys looked just as he had the last time she'd seen him. His mouth was twisted in anguish, his hair was burnt, and his face was black and smoking where the molten gold had run down across his brow and cheeks and into his eyes. "You are dead," Dany said. Murdered. Though his lips never moved, somehow she could hear his voice, whispering in her ear. You never mourned me, sister. It is hard to die unmourned. "I loved you once." Once, he said, so bitterly it made her shudder. You were supposed to be my wife, to bear me children with silver hair and purple eyes, to keep the blood of the dragon pure. I took care of you. I taught you who you were. I fed you. I sold our mother's crown to keep you fed. "You hurt me. You frightened me." Only when you woke the dragon. I loved you. "You sold me. You betrayed me." No. You were the betrayer. You turned against me, against your own blood. They cheated me. Your horsey husband and his stinking savages. They were cheats and liars. They promised me a golden crown and gave me this. He touched the molten gold that was creeping down his face, and smoke rose from his finger. "You could have had your crown," Dany told him. "My sun-and-stars would have won it for you if only you had waited." I waited long enough. I waited my whole life. I was their king, their rightful king. They laughed at me. "You should have stayed in Pentos with Magister Illyrio. Khal Drogo had to present me to the dosh khaleen, but you did not have to ride with us. That was your choice. Your mistake." Do you want to wake the dragon, you stupid little whore? Drogo's khalasar was mine. I bought them from him, a hundred thousand screamers. I paid for them with your maidenhead. "You never understood. Dothraki do not buy and sell. They give gifts and receive them. If you had waited …" I did wait. For my crown, for my throne, for you. All those years, and all I ever got was a pot of molten gold. Why did they give the dragon's eggs to you? They should have been mine. If I'd had a dragon, I would have taught the world the meaning of our words. Viserys began to laugh, until his jaw fell away from his face, smoking, and blood and molten gold ran from his mouth.
The dream terrifies Daenerys, but once again, Viserys (really herself here) is telling her she is stalling in a place she doesn't belong, that she needs to go home, that she should embrace being a dragon. The climax of this comes right after she realizes Meereen would never be her home, where she argues with Jorah (again, herself):
Meereen would always be the Harpy's city, and Daenerys could not be a harpy. Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you. The voice was no more than a whisper, yet somehow Dany felt that he was walking just behind her. My bear, she thought, my old sweet bear, who loved me and betrayed me. She had missed him so. She wanted to see his ugly face, to wrap her arms around him and press herself against his chest, but she knew that if she turned around Ser Jorah would be gone. "I am dreaming," she said. "A waking dream, a walking dream. I am alone and lost." Lost, because you lingered, in a place that you were never meant to be, murmured Ser Jorah, as softly as the wind. Alone, because you sent me from your side. "You betrayed me. You informed on me, for gold." For home. Home was all I ever wanted. "And me. You wanted me." Dany had seen it in his eyes. I did, the grass whispered, sadly. "You kissed me. I never said you could, but you did. You sold me to my enemies, but you meant it when you kissed me." I gave you good counsel. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, I told you. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and go west, I said. You would not listen. "I had to take Meereen or see my children starve along the march." Dany could still see the trail of corpses she had left behind her crossing the Red Waste. It was not a sight she wished to see again. "I had to take Meereen to feed my people." You took Meereen, he told her, yet still you lingered. "To be a queen." You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. "It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl." No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words. "Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass.
And here is where everything changes. She has spent time trying to protect innocent lives, to make peace, not war, to be loved and accepted by Meereen. But here, she decides that it is time to do away with that. Meereen is not her home, Westeros is, and it's time to wake the dragon and burn Yunkai. No longer will she be burdened by the idea of a cost of innocent lives, no longer will she fear herself, and no longer will she linger. When the time comes, she will burn her enemies and leave for Westeros.
I need to make a few things clear here, however. For one, I don't think she's mad now, this is just her resolving her internal conflict. For another, I don't care what she does to the slavers. They deserve what's coming for them. She will still care about the innocent, but she's now going to go full-blooded Targaryen and burn cities to the ground, and this will mean massive collateral damage she will try to rationalize away.
Daenerys has now transformed into a different, much darker character, which I feel will continue to define her for the rest of the series. She is now the Mother of Dragons, in her entirety, and Essos is about to bleed and burn. I really appreciate how GRRM put this together, and that she didn't stay fire and blood after Astapor. His character development is realistic, and sometimes the development is not linear. In part 3, I will be discussing predictions about Daenerys's arc and story in TWOW, more specifically what she will do in Essos.
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ashandpaulrivalry · 3 years
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Paul: The Protagonist
Ash and Paul’s rivalry is one of the many peaks in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. So much thoughts were put into this rivalry and the storytelling remains to be perfect, even after a decade. So I thought I’d analyze this rivalry and what makes it so spectacular.
I’ll be watching all the episodes from DP that focus on anything related to this rivalry. I’ll use the Japanese sub to present my analyses since it’s more accurate than the English dub.
(Note: Italics is used to represent me, the author, analyzing and making inferences and non-italics are used to describe what’s happening in the episode.)
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Paul represents the ‘Pearl’ in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. His Japanese name, Shinji, derives from Shinju, which translates to Pearl. Even Paul is hinted to be derived from Paul. Ash represents the ‘Diamond’ in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl. The diamond is to the pearl as the sun is to the moon. Both are the complete opposite to each other, however the presence of both is a necessity for life. This is Ash and Paul’s rivalry.
DP015
This is the first episode of the anime where the audience sees Ash’s rival earn a gym badge on screen. In fact, this is one of the first episodes where the rival (Paul) is basically treated as a main character while the actual main characters (Ash, Dawn and Brock) are (quite literally) in the sidelines. This is what the episode does best, by allowing the audience to see his personality and interactions outside of Ash and their rivalry together.
Ash and co. are at Oreburgh City for Ash’s first official gym battle in Sinnoh and arrive at the gym. Before Ash enters the gym, Paul and an older man, Ian, walk out of the building. Ash asks Paul if he defeated the gym leader, and he harshly replies that it’s none of his business.
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Almost always whenever Ash asks about Paul’s progress, Paul will refuse to disclose any information and just retaliate rudely. At this point in the series, he doesn’t open up to anyone (aside from his older brother most likely). He gradually gets more comfortable doing so later in the series, not just with Ash, but with even Brock and, to some degree, Dawn as well.
Ian explains that Roark is unavailable at the moment and welcomes Ash to the Rock type gym. Ash asks if the gym is for Rock types, and Paul is shell-shocked at his idiocy. Ian then explains that Ash will be able to have his battle with Roark after Paul’s battle with him. Paul then decides to find a Pokémon Center; Ash wishes him good luck as he’s walking away but Paul basically disregards it.
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Roark soon returns to the gym after working in the Oreburgh Mine, and Paul returns for his match. Ash and Paul glance at each other before Roark apologizes for the delay and suggests getting started on their battle. When Dawn is excited to see a gym battle for the first time, Roark invites Ash and the group to watch.
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This above shot perfectly depicts that this episode is going to focus solely on Paul, while the main group will remain in the background. The rest of the episode entails Paul’s gym battle with Roark while Ash and the group are making comments from the sidelines for the audience’s understanding.
The gym battle commences, and Roark sends out Geodude, and then Paul sends out a Pokémon the audience is seeing for the first (and last lol) time, Azumarill, a Water type, to evidently counter Rock types. Paul immediately orders Azumarill to use Hydro Pump, but it’s deflected by Geodude’s Hidden Power, sending Azumarill flying in the process. Geodude then manages to land Rollout twice before Azumarill faints. Dawn is shocked that a Water type was defeated by a Rock type and Brock explains that Roark was prepared and trained his Pokémon for these types of situations.
As Paul recalls Azumarill, he predictably insults it, causing Ash to be infuriated once again.
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Paul then calls out his Elekid, which makes Roark curious about his strategy. Paul commands it to use Brick Break, a Fighting type move, and sends Geodude flying back, knocking it out in one hit.
Roark then sends out Onix, allowing Ash and the group to react in excitement (I really like that Brock tells Dawn that he used to raise an Onix himself). Paul decides to let Elekid continue battling, and orders it to use Brick Break again, but Onix easily dodges it. Onix then attempts to use Slam, but Paul orders Elekid to use Protect to stop the attack. Onix’s Double Edge then manages to break the protective barrier, sending Elekid flying back. It’s then revealed that Onix has the ability, Rock Head, which prevents recoil damage.
Roark then orders Onix to use Stealth Rock, which damages Pokémon that are switched out.
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Since this episode basically treats Paul as the main character, I feel like this battle now and continuing forward is written specifically for Paul’s character. The battle so far is very tactical and calculated, basically the definition of Paul. Rock Head is one of the many abilities shown in this episode. This is actually the episode with the most abilities activated. 
Along with abilities, this entire gym battle is very strategic so far – from both Roark and Paul. First Paul brings in a Pokémon that’s supposedly at a disadvantage (Elekid) but has the right move (Brick Break) to counter the disadvantage. We’ll be seeing the same with Chimchar very soon. And now, Roark cleverly uses Stealth Rock to damage Paul’s other Pokémon since he hadn’t switched Pokémon yet; this strategy seems like something Paul would do (and what do you know, Paul implements this strategy against Ash in the Sinnoh League with Toxic Spikes!)
Onix uses Slam on Elekid once more but gets inflicted with Elekids’s Static (yet another ability activated) and gets paralyzed in the process. Onix and Elekid clash together with their attacks, and Elekid seems to be too weak to continue so Paul recalls it, surprising Ash and co. as they realize he doesn’t about the Stealth Rock damage to this other Pokémon.
Paul in early DP has almost always insulted or scolded his Pokémon that aren’t up to his standards, but Paul has never treated Elekid in this manner, even if it wasn’t performing well. This is because Elekid represents Paul; Elekid is the first Pokémon that the audience sees him with. Additionally, Elekid has a lot of similar personality traits that reflects Paul, which is why Elekid is his perfect partner Pokémon.
Paul calls out his infamous Chimchar, as it takes damage by the stones from Stealth Rock. Chimchar uses Dig (This is the other example of Paul bringing in a Pokémon that’s at a disadvantage but has the right move to counter it) and manages to land the attack. Ash realizes that this is exactly why he taught Chimchar Dig. (The audience had already seen Chimchar’s Dig and Elekid’s Brick Break in earlier episodes, both used against Ash in their battles, which meant Paul had been training for his battle against Roark since the very beginning.) Chimchar then manages to land another Dig, making Onix faint in the process.
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Not sure if this is an accurate translation, but this is one of the few times, if not the only occasion, where Paul gives Chimchar some sort of compliment while it was still in his possession. Paul is very harsh to Chimchar a bit later on in the series, even if Chimchar does win battles, because of his obsession with restoring Chimchar’s powerful Blaze.
Roark then calls out his final Pokémon and ace, Cranidos. Paul commands Chimchar to use Dig once more, but Cranidos manages to counter it with Headbutt. Cranidos then lands several Zen Headbutts on Chimchar and Paul tells Chimchar to dodge with Dig, but Chimchar is too scared to attack. Cranidos then uses Focus Energy to ensure Chimchar goes down. A fiery red aura then glows around Chimchar, indicating that its Blaze ability has been activated (the third one). Paul seems evidently pleased with this, as he mentions that he’s been waiting for this moment.
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This is the first time that the audience (and Ash and co.) is witnessing Chimchar’s Blaze ability, basically Paul’s main reason for catching Chimchar. This battle (subtly) foreshadows the eventual backstory of how and why Paul obtained Chimchar. Zangoose were constantly attacking Chimchar in a forest and once Chimchar was cornered at a cliff, it was very scared but managed to activate its Blaze ability and unleashed a powerful Flame Wheel, eventually chasing the Zangoose away.
Similarly, in this battle, Cranidos was constantly attacking Chimchar until it was feeble and there’s even a shot where Chimchar was too scared (due to Zen Headbutt) to counterattack before it activated Blaze. The difference is that Chimchar’s Blaze was much more powerful while facing the Zangoose, and that’s what Paul’s been seeking again ever since it happened.
To add to that, the fact that Paul was waiting for Blaze to activate meant that he was probably depending on it to deal with Roark’s toughest Pokémon.
Cranidos launches another Zen Headbutt while Chimchar appears to be very fast and lands a Blaze-boosted Flame Wheel on Cranidos’s legs. Chimchar repeats the attack before going underground for a Dig attack. Roark takes advantage of the opportunity and orders Cranidos to use Focus Energy before following up with Headbutt, knocking Chimchar out. Paul is frustrated and calls Chimchar back.
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Paul has been trying to recreate that power from Chimchar’s Blaze ever since he caught it. Sure, Blaze activated during this gym battle for him, but it was nothing compared to when Chimchar fought the Zangoose. Paul would never be able to recreate Chimchar’s impressive Blaze – something that Ash is successful doing at instead. Of course, the audience wouldn’t know the potential of Chimchar’s Blaze until later episodes.
Paul calls out Elekid and it takes damage from Stealth Rock once again before Cranidos uses Flamethrower. However, Elekid dodges and lands a Brick Break on Cranidos’s knee, allowing Cranidos to become inflicted with Elekid’s Static and be paralyzed. But Cranidos then shakes off the Static due to its (the last ability activated!) Mold Breaker ability (This doesn’t happen in the games by the way). Cranidos attempts to go for a Zen Headbutt, but it appears to be moving slower than usual due to the pain inflicted on its knee. Elekid manages to land a Brick Break on Cranidos’ head before Cranidos counters with a Flamethrower. The two then launch their final attacks – Flamethrower and Brick Break – and Elekid manages to break Flamethrower before landing Brick Break on Cranidos’s head once more. The two Pokémon are seen struggling standing before Cranidos falls to the ground, defeated.
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Roark then congratulates Paul and presents him with a gym badge. Before Paul can leave, Ash calls out to him and urges Paul to watch Ash’s battle with Roark next.
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Closing Thoughts 
This episode is meant for Paul, and I don’t mean it in just in the sense that Paul won a gym badge on screen. Paul was able to shine as his own character and it allowed the audience to discover interactions outside of Ash. It also helped that Ash and co. were literally taking a backseat in the episode. Ash and Paul’s rivalry isn’t the focus of this episode even though there are definitely a tad bit of serious interchanges between the two, and that’s what’s amazing about this episode; it allowed Paul as a character to exist without depending on just their rivalry together.
The entire gym battle was written specifically for Paul as well. The many abilities that are activated from both opponents’ Pokémon, Roark using Stealth Rock, Paul getting his Pokémon to attack their weak points (Cranidos’s legs), etc. All of these clever strategies mirror Paul’s battling style – and this is only the beginning.
One of the most important aspects of this episode is Chimchar’s Blaze, foreshadowing Chimchar’s actual potential. Of course, it’s not apparent that this suggests Chimchar’s actual power and backstory because it’s purposefully never shown. Chimchar losing despite activating Blaze in this gym battle sets up for its outcome and release later in the series, because Paul is never able to recreate that power he saw when Chimchar attacked Zangoose and considers it weak without Blaze.
Overall, this episode does an astounding job of allowing Paul to function more as the main character and allows the character to be a little more self-dependent rather than solely relying on his and Ash’s rivalry together.
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seokiloquy · 3 years
Text
Game Cartridges - Kenma Kozume
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Au: Regular/Gaming
Requested
Tags/Warnings:  GN! Reader, short and fluffy, Time Skip spoilers
Word Count: 2.1k+
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"Lev, are you almost done?"
A deep raspy voice echoed into the gym, loud and authoritative, startling the volleyball players. Once all eyes turned your way, you laughed, letting your natural voice still the silent atmosphere. Your hand smacked the metal door as you hunched over, gasping for air between each series of laughs. 
Lev, who had just landed from a spike, opened his mouth in a loud cheer at the sight of your slumped form in the door. “(Y/N)!”
You straightened your spine, sighing as you watched Lev’s nose get caught on the mesh net as he tried to limbo under it. He looked like a pig for a moment, before the bottom of the net snapped and Lev ungracefully fell on his face.
“Ow.”
As he laid flatly on the gym floor, Kuroo —who you managed to identify based on Lev’s description (though you did expect a comical beak to be attached to his muzzle)— walked over, thumbs playing with the waistband of his shorts. Before he started to talk, you leaned over, looking behind him to see a partially blond boy dig the toe of his shoe into your tall friend’s side. Kozume Kenma.
The rooster in front of you started to speak. “You sure gave us all a shock. Thought you were a janitor coming to kick us out,” he chuckled, lifting a hand off his hip to scratch the back of his head.
“Ya sorry, Lev just finds that voice creepy so I use it every now and then to scare him.”
Kuroo sidestepped as his hand moved to gesture you inside. “So, you’re a voice actor?”
“That’s the plan at least.” You bowed and walked to the bench that was pressed against the wall, a small bag swinging over your shoulder. The old man, Nekomata, gave you a wrinkly grin as you sat next to him, watching your hands as you pulled out a DS from your small bag.
Kuroo smiled, snapping his head to the clock before looking over his teammates.“Nekomata, should we start cleaning up?”
The couch hummed thoughtfully, turning his attention away from you and onto the team captain. “We still have a half-hour before our practice is officially over. How about we do 3 vs 3, to, ah, 7 points?” He then turned his attention to Lev, who was rubbing his nose as he got to his feet. “Pair up evenly for the beginning, the odd player out will be keeping track of scores and rotate into the next team. Got it?”
Lev raised his hand. “Can you explain the rotation again?”
You looked up from your handheld console to give your friend a deadpan look. Nekomata laughed before answering, “The odd player will take out a player of the next team and so on to keep teams fresh. Got it?”
The Silver hair boy hummed, standing to his full height. “Got it.”
As players dispersed randomly, not selecting any teammates, in particular, to play with, you were vaguely aware of the new bodies that came to sit alongside you on the bench. Instead of looking up to whichever boy had chosen to take the spot next to you, you kept your head down as you played on your DS.
“Ah.” Quiet
“Um.” Again.
Sighing you turned your head on a swivel to the blond boy who sat next to you. His head was downcast but through the dyed strands, you could see his eyes flicker from his fidgeting fingers to the device in your hands. His eyes shot up to meet yours before quickly turning away.
You wore a kind smirk. “Need something?”
Kozume turned his head slowly, pointing to your small bag that was laid open, exposing the variety of games you owned. In a calm voice, “You have lots of games, why are you playing Nintendogs?”
You laughed looking back down at your small virtual pet. “Well, a lot of those I haven’t started yet, Lev gave them to me yesterday as a gift. And well, I’m only going to be waiting for about 30 minutes for you guys to finish before we leave, so I don’t really want to start something new.”
You heard the clicking of the plastic game cartridges as Kozume riffled through them. He pulled out one, a Pokemon game you had yet to touch. “Play this.”
“But my dogs.” 
“They aren’t real. Play this, it’s fun.”
Nekoma called for the teams to switch. Kozume stood up but waited for you to take the game out of his hand before he left for the court.
You sighed, pulling Nintendogs out of the DS and putting the Pokemon game in, Pearl, apparently. 
“Your name is (Y/N), right?”
“(L/N) (Y/N), ya.”
Kozume hummed, before stepping onto the court, letting a sweaty Lev fall into the spot he had previously occupied.
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Another day, another practice and you were back to sitting next to Nekomata, waiting. Occasionally, you looked up from your DS to see the two setters toss a ball up for the players to hit, watching as the players ducked under the net to collect their balls. 
Once their final water break came around, Kozume, who had been eyeing your DS since you sat down, shuffled to sit beside you. “Ah, use the water attack.”
“Are you sure?” you asked, head tilting as you showed him your progress.
“Hmm, gym battles are mostly element-based, you want to use mostly water attacks for this one.”
Nodding, you clicked the option Kozume had so helpfully pointed out. “I know nothing about how to play this.” The battle ended, giving you a pretty badge, to which you realized there were more empty slots to fill. “Damn it.” You turned to see partially bleached blond chugging back his water. “Kozume, could you help me with the other gyms?”
“Kenma is fine. And I could, but you’d probably have to be here for that, you have to find the other gyms after all.”
The wince you wore caught his attention. Hissing you dropped your hands into your lap, still holding the sides of your plastic game. “I’m not sure how possible that would be. My luck is just running out isn’t it.” He kept watching, half-listening to Nekomata as he explained the cooldown drill before practice ended. You pulled out your little red flip phone from the side pocket of your back. “Put in your email. I’ll message you and give you my contact.”
Taking the device from your hand he quickly typed out his address before dropping it unceremoniously into your bag and running onto the court with his teammates. You smiled at the sight of his hair bouncing before your smile dropped and your head lowered to look back down at the game in your lap. The colours on the screen seemed a bit dimmer.
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Where did the Pokemon go?
Kenma had quickly become your go-to Pokemon consultant. Always there in your time of need.
Which one?
He responded quickly, which helped.
Uh, one of the three ones? I was trying to catch it but it’s not there anymore. I tried dropping revival items and stuff but it’s not there.
(Y/N) did you kill it?
….Maybe?
Reload the game.
I’ve done that.
Did you save after you defeated it?
Messages with Kenma typically surrounded classes and videogames, more so the latter. With that though, came a sense of consistency with messages outside of active school hours and giving your mind a constant timeline to follow throughout the chaos that surrounded you.
Ya, I had to save my progress.
It took a minute for him to respond, but you could feel the sorrow radiating off him through the screen.
You’re going to need to restart the game if you want to continue.
Shit. Well then, got any other recommended games? Ideally RPGs.
Plenty.
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After many practices with your presence sitting silently against the wall, Kenma was surprised when the end of practice came around, and you were nowhere in sight. Kenma pushed the rolling basket of volleyballs up next to Lev as they gathered up all the equipment.
“Where’s (Y/N)?” he asked, crouching down to pick up a stray ball.
Lev lowered his chin to see the setter clearly. He hummed, “Ah, I think it was called, New York?”
Kenma paused, dropping the volleyball into the basket with cold hands. “What?”
“They moved to the USA. I don’t think that they’re going to be there forever though. But Mr. (L/N) got a job there from what I remember. They were staying with my family before they moved.”
Kenma’s nose scrunched. “Why did I have to make friends with someone who was moving away? You’re terrible, Lev.” He gripped the blue fabric of the basket a bit tighter and began pushing it into the storage closet, grumbling.
“What did I do?”
After practice, Kenma quickly got to his phone, typing away as he walked home alongside Kuroo.
Your response, despite being in a different time zone, was quick.
IM SO SORRY I TOTALLY FORGOT!!! I just liked talking to you and it slipped my mind whenever you were around
Kenma sighed, washing away the anxious feeling in his chest. 
Another email came through.
I’m only going to be here for a couple years, then I’m going to come back. Messages may be slow because of time and all, but I’ll always respond.
You didn’t lie that day. You were always quick to send a message back, but over time those messages stopped coming and you didn’t have the heart to send anything in return.
You’d ponder on it occasionally, hoping that all it was, was forgetfulness, or a changed contact. But after a couple years, it was easier not to think about it, and go on with life and pursuing your passion.
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“Stop spamming the chat guys, please,” Kenma grumbled, wincing at the repetitive notifications that rang in his ear. Turning to look at the live responses, he paused the stream of messages to read over a few. “You’ll stop once I start playing? Fine, fine. Let me get it booted up.”
As he pulled up the Japan-made open-world RPG that had been released for Beta earlier that week, the chat went into a flurry of excitement, with various images and repetitive cheers rolling by.
Kenma turned to face his main screen as The main intro to the game played with a flurry of colour. The chat increased in speed as the two-player options appeared on screen, ready to be selected. When his mouth moved over one of the characters they moved, reciting a line.
“Oh they’re voices are nice.”
The chat exploded again.
(Y/N)
(Y/N)’s voice is great!
They do both of the MCs voices
All the talent 
Selecting the male character, Kenma listened to the boyish tone, furrowing his boy as he caught sight of the name being repeated over and over again in the chat.
“(Y/N)? That sounds familiar, are they in an anime?”
The chat responded with a list. 
Tilting his head, Kenma pulled out his phone as the game began to load, talking out loud for the viewers of his stream.
“(Y/N). that sounds familiar.” He entered the search for the game’s voice cast. Immediately seeing a familiar portrait at the top of the list.
The chat quickly caught on to Kenma’s look of surprise and started spamming again.
“(Y/N)?! Ah! I know them! It’s been years!”
Ignoring the chat and fully loaded game for a moment, Kenma smiled at the image of an older you on his phone screen. Putting down his phone and sitting straighter, he looked at the camera that was focused on his face.
“Hmm, this makes me want to play Pokemon. Maybe later. Time to start this.”
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I was going to write a full-length fic with this au but…. You know how it goes.
Short and fluffy cause I have to get back into the groove of writing after 2 months. Ahaha. I finished all of One Piece this week (when I wrote this), 966(now 971) episodes thus far and all the movies. Makes me want to write for it. Maybe If Kiwi watches it I will. 
….If I do, it’ll probably go on Ao3… but if you’re reading this and want me to…. Let me know… I’m tempted.
Kiwi. Watch One Piece so you can edit One Piece fanfiction that I’ll probably never write…. Unless. - Bacon
Maybeeee I can still edit without watching it thoughhhh. I’d edit whatever you’d me too - Kiwi
Unless!- Bacon
Posted: 25/04/2021
88 notes · View notes
ayuuria · 3 years
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Yashahime Translation: Prince Animage May 2021 Issue (Part 2)
Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.
For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.
Due to the amount of content in the magazine, I have decided to the split the translation into three parts:
Part 1: Elder Son’s Resolve! Interview with Director Satou Teruo
Part 2: We Won’t Give Up On the Future! Father-Daughter Round-Table Talk with Narita Ken, Matsumoto Sara, and Komatsu Mikako
Part 3: The Strength to Overcome Destiny. Interview with Director Satou Teruo
Intertwining Fates
The curtains on the Yashahimes’ story briefly closed with the shocking scene of “Setsuna’s death”. With Towa and the others at its center, the complexly intertwined fates of various people continue into the second chapter (season).
The fire that tore Towa and Setsuna apart, the Dream Butterfly that stole Setsuna’s slumber, the sleeping Rin, and the Rainbow Pearls that possess demonic power; all these things that became key to the story were connected to Kirinmaru’s elder sister, Zero.
Zero previously heard the Shikon Jewel’s prophecy: “An existence that is neither demon nor human and can cross through time will destroy Kirinmaru.” Thinking that it refers to Towa, Setsuna, Moroha, and Inuyasha, Zero tried to eliminate them in order to protect her younger brother. However, that was just an ostensible reason. Behind her actions lurked a feeling of jealousy towards the half-demons and quarter-demon that carried the Dog General’s blood. It seems her unrealized love for the Dog General was the motivation behind her twisted emotions and actions.
Zero’s behavior rouses Kirinmaru’s anger and she disappears from his sight. However, the story does not end with just this issue being settled. As part of the “Rite of Courage and Cowardice”, Towa and the others end up having to fight Kirinmaru and unbelievably, Setsuna loses her life during the battle.
There is a heap of other issues such as Rin who still continues to sleep even now and the Grim Comet that has appeared in the modern era. It is now an anxious wait for the broadcasting to see how future mysteries will be unraveled in the second chapter (season).
Character Bios
Zero Kirinmaru’s elder sister. She was in love with the Dog General. Being that she was the one who created the Rainbow Pearls, she went to go look for the scattered pearls after her breakdown with Kirinmaru.
Kirinmaru The beast king of the eastern lands. Irritated by his elder sister, Zero’s, misconduct towards Sesshōmaru, they part ways as brother and sister as a result. He battles the three (Towa, Setsuna, Moroha) and kills Setsuna.
Sesshōmaru The son of the beast king who once stood on the same level as Kirinmaru, the Dog General, and Towa and Setsuna’s father. It seems he is searching for a child named Akuru but the reason why is unknown.
Higurashi Towa She treasures her younger twin sister, Setsuna, above all else. As she grieves over Setsuna’s death, she receives a broken Tenseiga from her father, Sesshōmaru… …?
Setsuna A half-demon whose sleep and memories were stolen by the Dream Butterfly. She loses her life while battling Kirinmaru but just before drawing her last breath, she calls Towa “Towa-neechan”.
Moroha Towa and Setsuna’s cousin. Despite being enraged by Setsuna’s death, when she turned into Beniyasha, she was able to maintain her (sound) mind and not get overwhelmed by the rampage of her demonic blood.
The Offense and Defense Concerning Half-Demons
Zero has attempted to eliminate the half-demons that carry the Dog General’s blood by doing things such as spurring Kirinmaru to kill Inuyasha or burning the forest that Towa and Setsuna were hiding in. Sesshōmaru was always by her side. Though he does not say much, Sesshōmaru may have seen through Zero’s intentions early and acted one step ahead.
Rin and Zero’s Connection
Zero can connect to others via “fate” and control them as she pleases. Those whose fates are connected to Zero will die alongside her should she lose her life. It seems Zero herself connected her fate to Rin and used that to keep Sesshōmaru in check. The details on how Rin and Zero’s fates were intertwined is of interest.
That Which Sesshōmaru Searches For
Sesshōmaru is someone who never appeared on the story’s center stage for long. During that time, he was searching for a child named Akuru. It seems that the pinwheel Akuru holds is somehow connected to the giant “Windmill of Time”. After Akuru appeared before Sesshōmaru, the Windmill of Time that had not moved for so long moved again but what does that mean… …?
Setsuna’s Seal
Zero wants Kirinmaru to exterminate Towa and the others but Kirinmaru, preferring to fight fair and square, realizes the difference in strength between him and the girls and decides to hold off battling them until they have grown (in strength). It is there that Zero forcefully releases the seal placed on Setsuna’s demon blood so that Kirinmaru will fight Towa and the others seriously.
A Broken Tenseiga
The Tenseiga that Sesshōmaru carries is a sword of healing that was created from the fang of the Dog General and is known as “the sword that saves the lives of the weak”. Sesshōmaru resurrects the dead Zero with Tenseiga but that enrages Zero and she breaks the blade. Will the broken Tenseiga be able to revive Setsuna who has lost her life?
Famous Quote Pick Up!
The role of Sesshōmaru, Narita Ken “Anymore will sadden Rin”
“Personally, the monologue in episode 24 “Anymore will sadden Rin…” struck me. Even though Sesshōmaru doesn’t show kindness, periodically he will suddenly say something like this. On top of that, he doesn’t even put a lot of emotion into it and it just comes out nonchalantly. I think that‘s what’s good about him.” (Narita)
The role of Higurashi Towa, Matsumoto Sara “We’re not alone now.”
“(the line) At the end of episode 16 “We’re not alone now.” I felt was just like Towa. She says that to Moroha but of course Setsuna is among those she’s thinking of. Towa came to the feudal era for Setsuna’s sake she has always held the feeling of “It’s okay because Setsuna is here” at her core. The strength of her unwaveringness really shows when the three of them are backed into a corner.” (Matsumoto)
The role of Setsuna, Komatsu Mikako “You can always change the way you live”
“The phrase in episode 16 “You can always change the way you live” left an impression on me. Even though Setsuna is a half-demon, she’s quite farsighted (philosophically) for a 14-year-old. I think her environment up until now and the blood that flows within her makes her that way. Having passed episode 20 which depicted Setsuna’s past, I once again feel how powerful this phrase is.” (Komatsu)
We Won’t Give Up on the Future! Father-Daughter Cast Round Table Discussion
Role of Higurashi Towa: Matsumoto Sara Role of Setsuna: Komatsu Mikako Role of Sesshōmaru: Narita Ken
Demanding “A Sense of Smell” From Playing Sesshōmaru
— Since this is after the recording of episode 23 today (the day of the interview), thank you all for your hard work!
Matsumoto: Thank you! You see, today is actually the first time I recorded with Narita-san for “Hanyō no Yashahime”. It’s like “we finally meet” kind of feeling and I’m very happy!
Narita: Finally, it was our first father-daughter meeting! I look forward to doing this interview together.
Komatsu: Likewise, I look forward to working with you as well. Narita-san went straight into recording episode 24 (the final episode) right after recording episode 23. The last episode is next week for us, but we read the script and it was completely shocking… …!
— The final episode had an ending that really made you wonder about the future. Having traversed through the story up to this point, what is everyone’s state of mind right now?
Matsumoto: After episode 20, going into the final stage, the vigor of the story increased. For viewers, I think their theories up to now were all overturned at one point. We also started recording not knowing what was going to happen in the future, so we progressed through recording while talking about “What’s going to happen next?” every time. It was a continuation of surprises. Just when I thought we finally got to interact with our father in episode 23, this time, something like that happens to Setsuna… … I was shocked like “To think they would end it like this!” and I immediately started thinking about how the second chapter (season) would connect from here. My current thought is that as I look forward to the second chapter (season), I want to rewatch season 1 one more time before the broadcasting (for season 2) begins.
Komatsu: Back when I didn’t know what was going to happen, when I asked the staff “How is season 1 going to end and what’s going to happen in season 2?”, they told me “Most of the questions that the viewers have will be answered in season 1. Around the last episode of season 1, you might be able to record with everyone in the Higurashi family again.” That’s why in my (mind), I had my hopes up like “I wonder if in the final episode, the whole Kirinmaru situation and Rin’s sleep would all be resolved and Setsuna and the others go to the modern era again, and in season 2 the three Yashahimes would start a happy school life?”
Everyone: (laughs)
Komatsu: And then it went in a completely different direction! Just when I thought the story was connecting in a line, there’s suddenly more questions. There’s still many unanswered mysteries and in the second chapter (season), what will happen (in regards to the those mysteries) … while having that anticipation, as Setsuna, I want her to be revived as soon as possible. In the Inuyasha world, you get pushed down many times, no matter what, and those intense developments where you fight as you climb back up are a distinct characteristic. Hence, I look forward to those intense developments in the second chapter (season)!
Narita: I don’t like calculating future developments and then think “I’ll do this part like this” so I go into the recordings without knowing the upcoming story or the movement of the characters as much as possible. Besides, it feels more fun to go into it without knowing the story. As such, all I use is my sense of smell. In this work, it feels like I’m using my sense of smell 1,000 times more than usual. That’s just how much concentration is needed, and I feel that this work is very stimulating in more ways than one.
— It seems that Sesshōmaru himself moves knowing what Kirinmaru and Zero are after but Narita-san, you were acting without knowing the upcoming development I see.
Narita: That’s right. Sound director Nagura Yasushi-san asked me “Would you like me to give you something that explains how things will turn out?” but I purposely declined. If I found out, it felt as though unnecessary emotions would come out of my voice. When I act, I aim for the middle between “Lines written in the script as is” and “my own considerations” like “It probably goes like this right?”.
Komatsu: Even though I think Sesshōmaru probably knows everything, his lines have various components mixed into them, so I always get a sense of “I wonder?”.  That’s why as a fan, I love speculating that marginal aspect.
Matsumoto: I’m the same way. (His lines) always leave room for pondering.
Komatsu: He doesn’t speak much to begin with, but I think it’s just like father to not say everything within those few words. Watching Narita-san record in person today, I was moved by how Sesshōmaru’s nuances were expressed with such finesse.
Narita: As expected, you two are “Inuyasha” fans (laughs). But it really is difficult. He won’t say things with words after all. Although, he would just become a boring man if he said everything. I think he himself knows everything, but suppresses giving out the answer and just highlights it a little bit… that kind of moderation is important. I’m always conscious of this when I act but it’s tough after all. I only have a few lines so I have this feeling of “If I mess these words up, when is the next time (I speak)?”. That’s why I act with this feeling of “I’m going to put everything into these words” every time.
— Narita-san, how did you feel when you first heard about the “Hanyō no Yashahime” project?
Narita: I never thought they would revive “Inuyasha” in this form. If they were going to do it, I thought naturally Inuyasha would be the center of the story. The setting of Sesshōmaru’s children being the main characters never crossed my mind. I thought something like that would be impossible and I wondered about a lot of things like “Then who’s the mother?”.  Rin (being the mother) was unexpected.
— It was unexpected?
Narita: I didn’t think he would ever touch upon that. I wanted to shake Sesshōmaru’s shoulders like “This isn’t like you~!” (laughs).
Komatsu: Love sprouted!
Narita: How do I put it, love is something far off to Sesshōmaru… I even think he had kids because he probably had some kind of objective.
— In other words, not because he wanted to create a family?
Narita: That might be true for Inuyasha, but for Sesshōmaru, I think there was an experimental aspect to it like “What sort of chemical reaction would happen in my heart if I had kids”. After all, I don’t think it’s necessary for him to be a dad.
Komatsu: Sesshōmaru certainly does seem like he would have that kind of desire to “want to know”.
— Then how did you feel when you saw the girls?
Narita: “Ah, so this is what they’re like” is what I thought. I thought they were brave, healthy looking kids. When color was added to the characters, I felt there were aspects similar to Sesshōmaru. But you know, the shock that he had daughters really is big. It was like “Will the Sesshōmaru up until now fall apart?” “I don’t want him to start ogling”. It was a little complicated there. It's just that it’s true that in the story of “Inuyasha”, he gradually showed his affection for Rin. In that case, something close to that may also bud for his daughters and that too may become a new appeal for him.
Reenacting Sesshōmaru’s Solitude for the Final Recording
— It’s been 20 years since the time of “Inuyasha” but Narita-san, do you remember the time you met Sesshōmaru?
Narita: I did not get the role of Sesshōmaru through auditioning. It seems there were actual auditions, but they couldn’t come to a decision, so they had Takahashi Rumiko-sensei, the author of the original work, listen to the voice samples of various candidates. It was there that Rumiko-sensei picked me is how the story goes. Until then, I did not have many appearances in anime works, so I think there are many young people who recognize me for my role as Sesshōmaru. I also felt that things changed after I played Sesshōmaru. That’s why to me, his existence is very big.
— His looks are androgynous but his voice is deep, so in the beginning, there may have been people who felt an element of surprise from that.
Narita: When I first saw his character appearance, I remember thinking he was woman dressed in a furisode. That’s why during the first test, I used a higher pitched voice. Like the pretty boy voice so to speak.  Then, the sound director at the time, Tsuruoka Yōta-san told me “Please make it deeper”. I lowered my voice while thinking “What?” yet he still said “Deeper” … That’s why it was very hard in the beginning. It was to the point that I thought “I can’t keep going like this!”.  That’s why I raised my voice just a little bit at time so that it wasn’t noticeable. Otherwise, I felt that I couldn’t express (things). When I did that, it gradually became easier.
Matsumoto: So that’s how it was.
Narita: Although, there was a trigger behind that. At one point, I received a letter from someone who was a fan of the work and it seemed that the Sesshōmaru that person imagined was a certain voice actor who was very popular at the time. When I read that, I thought “Whaaat!” (laughs). But if that’s the case, I thought “It’s fine if I do this more freely” and my shoulders relaxed instantly, and I felt better.
—  As in acting in a way that only you can?
Narita: Yes, that’s why I’m grateful for that letter. It’s thanks to that that I was able to reach a turning point after all.
Komatsu: Meaning you broke through that “Sesshōmaru has to be like this” kind of (mentality). When I first heard Sesshōmaru’s voice in the animation, I was able to grasp that “This is what Sesshōmaru’s scariness was”. To begin with, his beauty and contrasting calmness pierced through me and I had this scary image of him from when I read the manga. However, the moment that became a voice, I really felt that it made it convincing. That’s why from the start in my mind, I couldn’t imagine anyone else for Sesshōmaru other than Narita-san. It’s the complete opposite of Inuyasha’s high tone and he’s calm. He felt like a true greater demon. His rank is much higher than Inuyasha’s and I could feel that sense of him being beyond anyone’s power.
Narita: Afterall, his father (the Dog General) was Ōtsuka Akio-san and his mother is Sakakibara Yoshiko-san. The parents were amazing, weren’t they?
Matsumoto: For sure, the whole family is strong… …!
Narita: But Sesshōmaru’s strength is that he doesn’t flinch even before such parents. Like he has his own world. I thought I really should (act) that part without wavering.
— How did it feel playing Sesshōmaru again for the first time in a while in “Hanyō no Yashahime”?
Narita: It’s been 20 years since “Inuyasha” and 10 years since “Inuyasha the Final Act” so that amount of time is pretty hefty. I thought I could do it instantly but when I tried, it felt off. I was bewildered like “I did this originally so why?”.  I started acting while doing my utmost to recall the feelings from back then, but it didn’t go well immediately and even I was surprised. The stronger the emotional attachment, the closer to myself I got and I thought “This is a human”. I kept comparing and adjusting many times like “Gotta change it back, gotta change it back”.
— So there’s a certain feeling when playing a demon.
Narita: That’s when I thought I probably focused a lot more back during “Inuyasha”. The onsite studio for “Inuyasha” had a peaceful atmosphere and I felt that I couldn’t let myself get caught up in the atmosphere. Stubbornly, I strongly made myself think “I am solitary”. Until I stood in front of the microphone, I would create Sesshōmaru inside myself and carry on as such until the end. That may have been what I was missing. That’s why at the recording of the final episode today, I purposely told the girls “I want you out”.
— In other words?
Narita: Just as I said earlier, I recorded episode 23 with the girls but I recorded the final episode alone. During that time, the girls waited for me (until the interview started) and they could’ve stayed in the booth but I purposely wanted to do it alone. It probably wouldn’t have changed much whether there was someone inside or not but how to put it, I wanted to get closer to the me back then, even just a little.
— I see.
Matsumoto: There’s certainly emphasis on recording with a small number of people right now, so it might be a difficult environment to face your role in. It’s pretty much you get to the studio, immediately voice the scenes you appear in, and then immediately go home when you’re done. Even as a newbie, I can feel it throwing off my rhythm somehow.
— So even bout scenes get (cut up) into small pieces then.
Matsumoto: I think if we had recorded with everyone together from the top, we could’ve created time for each of us to focus on our roles while feeling the flow of the story. I think there’s definitely something that can be built with everyone onsite. However, there’s difficulty from not having time to build that.
Komatsu: When you can feel the flow of the whole thing onsite, the feeling changes a little from when you’re reading the script at home. There are times where you realize things for the first time. But right now, we’re only doing our corresponding scenes, so things come up that we just can’t grasp. There is merit in just doing your turn in a short time, but it feels completely different from doing it with everyone.
— So there’s a challenge that comes from the Corona crisis.
Komatsu: The staff have shown consideration for us by making it possible for us to interact with each other as much as possible, so I’m grateful. While taking in consideration counter measures against spreading the virus, they adjusted it so that those voicing scenes with character conversations can record in the same booth together. Thanks to that, the cast of the three Yashahime were basically able to record together.
Narita: They were limiting it to around 3, 4 people at most. I recorded with Kirinmaru (Yoshimasa Hosoya-san) and Zero (Sakamoto Maaya-san) many times. Then there was Jaken-chan (Chō-san). Jaken was the same old Jaken and he made me think that I had to do my best without losing. I didn’t (record) together with my younger brother (Inuyasha played by Yamaguchi Kappei-san). Not that I want to meet him or anything.
Matsumoto: It’s Lord Sesshōmaru! (laughs)
Komatsu: Thank you! (laughs)
Narita: (laughs) Also, I was able to record together with Rin (Noto Mamiko-san) in episode 1. It felt as though Noto-san had matured a little bit. Her growth as a woman came through a little in her acting, which I thought was wonderful.
Matsumoto: Us daughters haven’t recorded with Noto-san but I just happened to be able to watch the recording for episode 15, so that’s when I greeted her. When I told her “I’m your daughter; thank you for giving birth to me” Noto-san was like “Oh my god~! My daughter~!”. But we had to maintain social distancing so we were both like “I can’t hug youuuu~!” (laughs).
Komatsu: I’m so jealous. I can picture that situation (laughs)
Concern about Setsuna’s life and Towa and Riku’s relationship
— In regard to Rin, it was revealed in episode 23 and 24 that her “fate” is connected to Zero. Matsumoto-san and Komatsu-san, as daughters, what do you think?
Komatsu: I thought “what a cruel fate”. While the feeling of wanting to hurry and meet mother face to face grows stronger, currently the only way to prolong Rin’s life is to keep her asleep, and it’s there that Setsuna’s Dream Butterfly is involved. All that is linked to Zero.
Matsumoto: It’s a negative chain where in order to get Setsuna’s sleep back, you have to kill Zero but doing so would also kill Rin. Towa wants Setsuna to be able to sleep but she still doesn’t know about that connection. She tried to sever that in the final episode, but the result was…
Komatsu:  Setsuna, who was never able to sleep, was finally able to sleep via death. It was such an ironic plot twist… …!
Matsumoto: Seriously, I thought “You’d write this kind of script!?”! (laughs) In the opening for cour 2, there’s a scene where Rin catches a falling Setsuna but I want them to hurry and do this scene in the main story.
Narita: Setsuna will be in season 2, right? We won’t be able to sleep in Setsuna’s place because we’re so curious.
Komatsu: I have faith that she’ll appear… … For that reason, I look forward to Towa’s efforts.
Matsumoto: I’ll do my best! At the end of the final episode, Sesshōmaru takes out a broken Tenseiga and says “Shall you try, Towa…”. That was the first time father said my name. Earlier, I watched Narita-san record from outside the booth and that was truly unforgettable. Seriously, I think it was a scene that entrusted a lot of things (to Towa) so I want to carve that voice into my heart and take on the recording for the final episode.
— In regard to Towa, her relationship with Riku is also of interest.
Matsumoto: You’re right. The scene where she told Riku “I like you!” really surprised me!
Komatsu: Love made up a large portion within the story of “Inuyasha” but “Hanyō no Yashahime” doesn’t have a love component to that level. It was a scene where you saw a small sign of that.
Matsumoto: For the line “I like you”, Nagura-san directed me before the recording “It is absolutely not fawning. Please don’t go in the LOVE (romantic) direction.” I think it was a refreshing emotion and that she liked Riku as a person type feeling. I was also told “It’s okay to show happiness when Towa sees Riku like ‘Oh it’s Riku’”. Even though she doesn’t think it’s (romantic) love, it seems she’s always had this perception of “Riku’s not a bad person” and I think what burst out from that was “I like you”. The fact that Riku hugged her was something that lingered with her into the next episode, and it was very memorable.
Narita: Riku… … he can’t be overlooked in many ways (laughs). This won’t do, I can’t let him live. I guess I should cut him down in a single stroke!
Matsumoto: Fatheeeeer!! (laughs)
Komatsu: Like “I won’t forgive anyone who make a move on my daughter” (laughs)
— Riku’s wellbeing will be something to pay attention to in season 2 (laughs). Lastly please give a message to our readers who are looking forward to the second chapter (season).
Komatsu: First off, there’s what’s going to happen to Setsuna. I’m sure Towa, who’s been entrusted with things, will revive her in the second chapter (season)… … Personally, I want to see father-daughter interaction and a reunion scene with mother. I also haven’t given up on my dream of an exciting modern era school life! Just once is fine but I want an episode where everyone goes to the modern era, wears a school uniform, and takes Kirin-sensei’s class. Having it end as “it was all just a dream” is fine too (laughs). I believe there are issues as well like Inuyasha and Kagome being trapped in the black pearl, so I hope everything is included in the second chapter (season)!
Narita: Indeed, when I think about what all is going to happen, I can’t help but be curious. Coming to episode 23, I recorded with the girls for the first time but how are things going to be between (Sesshōmaru) and the girls going forward? I’m also curious about the relationships with Inuyasha and Kirinmaru. I’m just like the viewers in that I want to enjoy each episode one at a time. I’m truly happy to have encountered this work. I would be happy if everyone continued supporting us.
Matsumoto: In terms of hopes, I want Setsuna to be revived immediately at the beginning of the second chapter (season)… … Even if that doesn’t happen, I want Setsuna to be revived as soon as possible. I think there will be new encounters getting there. At the end of season 1, there was a character named Akuru that appeared along with the keyword “Windmill of Time”. I’m excited to see how those will connect into the second chapter (season). Another thing I’m curious about is the promise that was made to Mei, “We’ll come back for sure”.
Komatsu: Oh yeah
Matsumoto: I do feel that I want to see a scene where Towa says “I’m home” to the Higurashi family… … but right now I don’t want to go back to the modern era! Need to revive Setsuna and clean up everything before that! Riku, Zero, and Kirinmaru might show some new movement in the second chapter (season). Please look forward to it without missing the details!
Q. Who did you think was Towa and Setsuna’s mother?
Narita: I thought it was Jaken (laughs).
Matsumoto: The Mama Jaken theory! (laughs)
Komatsu: Even among the fans, there was the Mama Jaken theory in the beginning (laughs).
Narita: Well, Jaken stays close to Sesshōmaru the most and knows him best. If love was going to sprout, it would’ve been from Jaken. Plus, he’s a full demon.
Matsumoto: Master Jaken really looks at Lord Sesshōmaru after all.
Komatsu: In actuality, Master Jaken was both the educator and caretaker, so his position was like a wet nurse.
Narita: He might’ve been breast feeding them periodically. Demons seem like they can do anything (laughs).
Komatsu: I think Master Jaken guessed what Lord Sesshōmaru was feeling and thought “What is my role…”.
Narita: He probably can’t be by Sesshōmaru’s side if he doesn’t have that kind of anticipation (laughs)
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chalkrevelations · 3 years
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So, Episode 7 of Word of Honor, and where to start? No, I’m kidding, I know exactly where I’m starting, which is with some recognition of what a great job this show does of developing 98 percent of its multitude of characters, because the first two things I’m going talk about this week aren’t even Zhou Zishu, Wen Kexing OR Wen Kexing’s thirst (AKA, the three main characters of the show).
Well, I guess I’m really starting with the usual warning – this is a re-watch and so there are SPOILERS here, not only for this episode, but for most of the show. Scroll away and come back later if you’re trying to watch all 36.5 eps unspoiled.
SO, I mean, come on. Of course I’m starting with the Smartest Man in the World, who has finally shown up in this episode, and I’m reminded once again what an actual cinnamon roll, too good for this world, Cao Weining is. He’s maybe the single completely good character we meet  – even Chengling wants to burn down somebody’s house at one point because he’s mad. But Cao Weining is almost too good to be true – and yet, there he is! Living his best life, being good, eating good, falling in love, and refusing to let his beautiful, clever, fierce girl’s neuroses come between them. I love him, y’all. And not just because he instantly falls in love with A-Xiang when he happens to see her beat up a bunch of drunk bro assholes in the inn where he’s having a quiet little lunch by himself before she storms into his life like a purple whirlwind. But let’s do think about this from his perspective, yeah? And let’s remember it as we watch the progression of their relationship, as we wait for the revelation we know is coming, and as – many eps down the line – he learns the truth of her. Cao Weining’s first experience of A-Xiang is someone who’s brave and capable, who defies outsized odds to come to the rescue of those in need, who doesn’t allow women and girls to be abused, who expects proper behavior from the representatives of the jianghu, and who is absolutely fearless in demanding just treatment and never even thinks to be intimidated when she faces unfair censure from an authority figure. This is the girl WKX raised, y’all. This is a girl who embodies everything Cao Weining has been taught to believe in as a cultivator. And this is the girl Cao Weining sees every time he looks at A-Xiang. Maybe, just maybe, this is the truth of her, and Cao-dage sees and understands it from the very first time he spots her, and anything else he’ll learn about her is really extraneous. (Hmm. I wonder what other relationship we’ll eventually end up seeing that kind of dynamic in, where someone truly knows you and believes in you, so everything else is unimportant?) Also, Cao Weining tells A-Xiang she’s very beautiful, and how many people do you think have ever told her that before in her life? He asks why he would want to fight and hurt her, and how many people – particularly men, given where she grew up – have ever told her that before? He buys her lunch – twice, because the first round gets cold. Remember a few episodes back, when WKX asked her who the second cutest person in the world was, and she responded that it was someone who would buy her a meal? Well, here he is. For bonus points, it is hilarious how badly WKX responds to Cao Weining’s very existence after ZZS points out the pair of them having a toast at the same inn that WKX and ZZS have stopped in WKX has dogged ZZS’s footsteps into. Poor Cao Weining doesn’t even get the shovel talk – although to be fair, he doesn’t get the full-court Ghost Valley Master press, either, so WKX must have been holding back somewhat – he just gets told to get out, before WKX grabs A-Xiang by the ear and delivers some scathing commentary on her taste in men, like he didn’t immediately fall for some rando who was tits out, drinking himself to death in the gutter.
ANYWAY, from the Smartest Man in the World, we’re going to move to Han Ying, My Beloved, who we see interacting with the Five Lakes Alliance again, this time in the person of Gao Chong, leader of Yueyang Sect and host of the upcoming Heroes Conference, da-ge of the 5LA. I had honestly forgotten we got to see so much of Han Ying this early on. What strikes me here is that this is a guy who I actually could believe is the second-in-command of Tian Chuang at what is it? 21 years old? When he’s doing his job, and ZZS is nowhere around for him to make pining puppy-dog eyes at, he’s focused and determined and a bit forceful and somewhat threatening and, frankly, appropriately arrogant for the job he’s been sent to do. He’s also wearing a cloak with a mini-Collar of Evil. He comes off as, dare I say, a capable leader of an assassin organization and a guy who’s able to do a proxy flex for his boss without looking completely ridiculous - which puts him one up on Duang Pengju, omg that asshole, and also makes me feel a little better about how I want ZZS to wreck him (or I guess, technically, him to wreck ZZS, because I’ve never seen a character (except Marcus Flavius Aquila, THANK YOU for your service, Channing Tatum) who put off such subby service-top vibes. WHY is there not more Han Ying/ZZS on AO3, fandom? I thought better … worse? … better? … of you.) When Gao Chong claims the Glazed Armor is a myth, Han Ying basically calls this older, respected zongzhu a liar and gets up in his face before refusing a dinner invitation and sweeping out in his mini-Collar of Evil with a credible “PAH.” My boy has layers, y’all.
What else? We start out the ep at Luo Mansion, a wedding scene, and I’m struck by how the Ghost Valley colors match traditional wedding colors, here. I’m thinking about how A-Xiang’s wedding dress won’t be red (and I think green was more common during the Tang dynasty?) although all the decorations will be, and I’m thinking about how we have this wedding as a book-end to that wedding, and I’m thinking about how it’s interesting that a girl who was raised in the Ghost Valley and protected by the Department of the Unfaithful meets a man who’s going to be so faithful to her in the same episode as this wedding with/of the dead. Ghoul, who’s one of the attendees from the Ghost Valley, also remarks that the red makes him hungry, so there’s a meat reference to throw into the thematic basket, I guess. (Also, hey. Ghoul is played by the same guy who’s Sun Yongren in Killer & Healer.) Lovelace (ugh) briefly menaces one of the Department handmaidens before Luo Fumeng shows up, and I think she’s Yun Zai or Hong Lu, one of the two maids that A-Xiang rescued from him, although I’m not positive, because her hairstyle is so different and hides a lot of her face, here. So, we’re all attending the “wedding” of Mu Yunge, the apparent fuckboy who got got a couple of episodes ago as bait for Ao Laizi when Changing Ghost got his hands (briefly) on the Danyang Glazed Armor. We did see a brief scene with Yunge in the last ep, when he woke up tied up in bed, being menaced by someone who appeared to be his dead lover – who hanged herself while pregnant with their child – but turned out to be Beauty Ghost using a face-masking technique similar to ZZS’s disguises. In the interim, Ghost Valley has kidnapped 10 cultivators as his wedding party, and – this is the important plot point – that includes Deng Kuan, head disciple of Yueyang Sect. We get to see some of Beauty Ghost’s ruthlessness here, as she carries in the dead woman’s memorial tablet draped in a red cloth – how’s that for some foreshadowing (my f’kn HEART) – to set it down in the “bride’s” place before Yunge is forced to bow three times. (Dead girlfriend was a Mo from Broken Arrow Manor, and I … am not sure if that is significant or not. Is she possibly related to Mo Huaiyang? Does anyone know which sect is associated with Broken Arrow Manor?) Beauty Ghost also kills two of the 10 “guest” cultivators for talking without permission as she explains the next event to them – cage match. Only one of them gets to get out alive. Deng Kuan, the best of them, apparently, pleads with everyone to not let themselves be divided, but we can all guess how this is going to go. I guess maybe he’s the other completely good character we meet, but he sure is a punching bag. He ends up the last man, sort of, standing, as he kills the final other person in self-defense, but not before getting stabbed, and he goes down and is out for the count.
Meanwhile, cut to Zhao Jing and Shen Shen drinking and gossiping at an inn on the way to Yueyang. Shenshen – Shenshen – continues to bemoan Chengling’s uselessness, and also talks about the torture the other Zhang family members underwent just in time for Chengling to overhear in the hallway, so thanks a lot for even more trauma, Shenshen. Zhao Jing is so sad about it all, y’all. He’s just so very very sad, can we just stop talking about it, Shenshen, because you’re making him sad, and he’s just going to let Da-ge figure it all out, OK? Uh-huh.
Fourth plot thread of the episode is ZZS skulking around, following Chengling, trying to convince himself that this kid is safe now that he’s turned himself in to gone to live with the 5LA, even as ZZS spots Tian Chuang spies in the ranks of the Yueyang disciples and among the dumpling vendors on the streets outside. ZZS follows the dumpling vendor, gives him a code phrase and almost gets his head taken off by a Scorpion blade for his trouble, before stabbing Dumpling Man in response. WKX picks this exact moment to wander back into ZZS’s orbit, taking the chance to flirt as Dumpling Man spits up blood and dies in the alleyway, because of course he does. WKX tsks, accuses ZZS of being cruel, and quotes some poetry about fair faces and poisonous hearts, which - like all of his poetry - has a double meaning, because which of them is he really talking about, ZZS or himself? ZZS notes that WKX is openly wearing the (Danyang) Glazed Armor because of course he’s looking for trouble, but WKX loosens his stays and clutches his pearls and replies that he couldn’t possibly be looking for trouble – him? Philanthropist Wen? He’s not a merciless killer like ZZS. Whereupon ZZS finally says out loud what he’s been clearly thinking since he started going on about what an awful person he is in the LAST EPISODE, which is why the hell don’t you stop following me around, then? There’s some more flirting, and WKX continues to follow ZZS around, and ZZS takes note that WKX is obviously flaunting the Glazed Armor out in the open, and then there’s a little sleight of hand when Famous Pickpocket Fan Bu Zhi, oh noes! Steals WKX’s Glazed Armor right off his belt when he isn’t even looking! before WKX continues to follow ZZS around, conveniently into the same inn where Cao Weining and A-Xiang are having lunch. After WKX attempts to chase him away, we discover Cao Weining has had his wallet stolen. WKX deploys his Sadness Eyebrows to convince ZZS to turn over his wallet to pay for Cao Weining’s and A-Xiang’s lunch. ZZS – who does an admirable job of refusing for a bit – finally caves, and WKX orders lunch for everyone, on ZZS. Now all we need is Chengling, because the fam is not complete without Goldbean.
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goosedawn · 3 years
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i've never listened to Friends At The Table (though it's on my list now, dnd campaigns podcast wooo!) what would the storyline of the crossover entail? with the HermitCraft characters i'm guessing it's chaotic and interesting 😊
:0!!!! :DDD!!!!!!! if u end up giving it a shot i hope u enjoy it! they dont actually play dnd, they play a bunch of other tabletop games which are all really neat also! (also if u need a suggestion for where to start if/when u get to it, feel free to drop me an ask)
the story follows the typical structure of "group is sent off to do tasks for money, and eventually realise something bigger is going on" so i am largely following the plot in that way, where groups of adventurers are sent out to investigate a series of towers that appear to have some connection to the gods of the world. ajhsjjejhfhjef most of my thoughts about the au are more character based,, so instead of a proper plot summary i can give details and thoughts on where some of the hermits fit into everything so far (while. trying to avoid the big twists revealed in the podcast ig,,?) i also ended up including some sleepybees (sbi + beeduo) in the au but im still not 100% sure on where they fit in (as in i have too many ideas djhdkndnj)
ANYWAY uhhhh some spoilers for the universe im basing this off of, under the cut cos it got long :'D
context/setting:
the specific arc/universe that this au is set in is the one from Seasons in Hieron (SiH) which is their fantasy season! (its. its long,, this arc spans i think. 3 seasons? plus a short interlude season)
the setting was previously a traditional fantasy world that had some sort of great catastrophe (the Erasure) happen, and the current world is after people have rebuilt a new society! its described as "post-fantasy, post-post-apocalyptic" its very fun and subversive and afhdjfbj the worldbuilding is just. real good :>
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characters:
im still figuring out where different hermits fit into the au but i am basically taking aspects of various characters from the podcast and splitting roles and traits to hermits, so its all mixed up! also,, there are just. so many hermits,, i have not found places for all of them (not even most of them i dont think) but here is what i have so far:
impulse and zedaph work in the New Archives (a series of huge warehouse-like archives run by the orcs of this world!) impulse is an orc, zed is not! impulse works to retrieve artifacts for the archive, and zed,, hes just kinda there. learning and experimenting with pattern magic (a type of magic done by arranging and rearranging things in specific configurations, often they are obscure and weird things like "27 brown birds in a tree, 5 table legs, 500 buttons, 16 steps to the east" etc.) when the story finds them they are studying a fallen tower in the center of the Mark of the Erasure (a location still showing the effect of the great cataclysm that befell the world)
tango vaguely takes the role of Ephraim, prince of something or rather,,, idk man hes cool and has fire powers, very anime. his powers were a gift from the gods, and he goes on to hv close relations w them! he meets up with impulse and zed later on and become fast friends obviously
joe is an expert in pattern magic, and is on the run from the archives after having stolen a pretty nondescript notebook. its a nice notebook! hes just a human guy. he writes and recites poetry in order to do pattern magic using the notebook!
cleo hails from the city of *Nacre*, where people get multiple chances at life. people from there can get killed but will exist on as zombies, then if they are killed again, they exist as ghosts, and then they pass away fully. she is an undead pirate captain that joe somehow manages to sway over to their side ahjbhfbjf,, she is hunting down the lost prince/king of Nacre.
wels is a pala-din (pal-ah-deen, rather than paladin), a sort of living marble statue that serves one of the gods in the pantheon.
scar is ofc, a wizard! it. it should be noted that wizards dont really exist in this world, people who perform and study magic are mages, not wizards,, "wizard" is kind of a weird term to use sjbdbjhfjjhb scar takes place of The Great Fantasmo in the podcast, and similarly has an invisible assistant! he doesnt seem to remember much of his past...
cubfan works in Velas, a fishing town where the story "begins" he does not enjoy talking to scar, and seems to be sad whenever hes around. perhaps scar reminds him of someone, or perhaps of better times...
tfc hes a priest aagsuijdjhkdgjdkihwhjvd i swear theres a reason for this later,, the role of the npc alyosha is somewhat split between tfc and cub!
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others i have thoughts on but im not settled on yet:
im debating having xisuma as part of the pantheon, but if not, he would be a druid so he can shapeshift into animals sjbakjnsnfjb he would take the general role of Fero in the story, but would also be kind of split with evil x, who captures... a certain stubbornness and deepset frustration Fero has in later times.
etho could take the place of Samol, the first god to exist. he is the embodiment of this world, and is kind of isolated and strange wbhshjhbdbhjdjbdkjn,, strange /pos. hes also. kind of dissapearing though... i wonder why :)
while theoratically i could have xisuma as samol cos. yknow. admin. i think the vibes and role just fit etho better
and... if i had etho as samol i think it could be fun to have doc and bdubs as other members of the pantheon, if u go with their dynamic from the start of s7 they even fit the divorced couple vibe two of the gods have /lh /hj (nho pantheon pog..? maybe. theres a total of 5 deities in the pantheon tho...)
im leaning toward either false + stress or maybe gem + pearl pairs for two of the goddesses in the pantheon, but thatd probably depend on if i can find a better place for them ;P
techno and phil take the role of red jack, and techno is a Huge Oni Dude >:] in canon red jack has a cool horse!!! it fits!! hes also. heavily implied to be kinda immortal?? anyway. im torn on this because techno and phil ALSO fit the roles of some of the player characters, with relation to the missing prince/king of Nacre but im still working things out,,
no matter whats up with them, ranboo takes the role of bluejay, redjacks son, meeting up with tubbo and tommy who take the place of benjamin, the son of one of the player characters. tubbo and tommy kind of. get sent to another dimension to keep them safe,,? and live in a lie for many years before they are brought back.
when i first thought about this au, i also thought about the whole. sending child off into fake dimension to live life, and of course. i thought about. grumbot ofc and originally planned to have mumbo or grian take the place of that player character abhdfvnbrvbn but it also implies one or both of them would be paladins (not pala-din! just the normal religious knight) AND have connections to tubbo and tommy which is. funny but ehhhh idk.
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and that. maybe probably somewhat incoherent train of thought is what i have for the au so far! its. still very much a work in progress so thank you if you stuck through all that!! ive still got a lot to think abt in the au,,,, lots to figure out ;P hopefully i can iron it out a bit more in the future, but its fun to think about for the time being
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evrensadik · 3 years
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          𝐄𝐕𝐑𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐊 / 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐋𝐒
i. 𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐊 ( asoiaf ) they are children, sansa thought. they are silly little girls, even elinor. they’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before joffrey cut her fathers head off. sansa pitied them. sansa envied them. //  “i’m a slow learner, it’s true. but i learn.”
ii. 𝐂𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 ( les misérables  ) critics have often considered cosette to be something of an empty figure, with no real independent character apart from the role she plays in the lives of others: as an innocent, hopeless child-victim to be exploited (for the thénardiers); a daughter to be protected (for fantine and valjean); and an object of adoration (for marius). stephanie barbé hammer writes that "having served her function as a paternalizing figure, cosette grows up into a silent, beautiful cipher". // "please don’t send me out alone, not in the darkness on my own."
iii. 𝐌𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑 ( rebecca ) a timid, naïve, middle-class woman in her early twenties, who enjoys sketching. neither the narrator's first nor maiden name is revealed. she is referred to as "my wife", mrs de winter, "my dear", and so on. despite her timidity, she gradually matures throughout the novel, refusing to be a victim of rebecca's phantom-like influence any longer and becoming a strong, assertive woman in her own right. //  " i wish i were a woman of 36, dressed in black satin with a string of pearls!”
iv. 𝐌𝐀𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐘 ( westworld ) maeve is designed to be charming and perceptive. as the series progresses however, she becomes more aware of her reality, making her more manipulative. she uses her charms to coerce technicians felix and sylvester into giving her what she wants, including changing her initial programming so that she can control other hosts. using this skill, she becomes increasingly ruthless. // “all my life, i've prided myself on being a survivor. but surviving is just another loop.”
v. 𝐈𝐋𝐒𝐀 𝐋𝐔𝐍𝐃 (  casablanca ) adventurous, poised, reserved, and loyal. ilsa has a somewhat cool exterior; over the years, she has put up walls between her and others to protect herself. but isla can’t bottle up her emotions anymore. she is coming to a point where she must decide the life she wants to live. //  “i love you so much. and i hate this war so much.”
vi.𝐃𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐘 ( westworld ) dolores' scripted personality is defined by optimism and innocence. every morning in her loop, she awakes with a cheery disposition, takes her paints and easel downstairs and goes out on the porch to talk to her father. during the first season, she questions the world around her, and her outlook on life and sense of purpose evolve. however, she eventually becomes self-aware and discovers that her entire existence is an elaborately constructed lie. she begins to learn her own strength, breaking from her 'damsel in distress' role. // DOLORES, WHO HAD BEEN HURT COUNTLESS TIMES BY SO MANY PEOPLE IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS, STILL CHOSE TO HOLD ON TO THE GOOD IN THE WORLD AND IN HUMANITY.
vii. 𝐉𝐀𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄 ( aladdin ) she initially rejected her role as a princess because of the unethical requirements that come with the role, including being forced to remain within the palace at all times, forced to marry for political gain rather than love, and treated as a tool rather than her own person. // “i can’t go back to where i used to be.”
viii. 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐈 𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍𝐘𝐄   ( the good place ) his overwhelming knowledge of ethics often caused him to obsess over whether even his most insignificant actions were ethical. chidi is shown to be extremely receptive to guilt, likely as a result of his indecisiveness. // “i want to start crying.”
𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 ( thanks to the character test ) : juliet capulet ( romeo and juliet ), the little mermaid, kiara carrera ( outer banks )
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