#i havent even looked at the other one so i could go different w the paint job too to make it really intentional

[000png]

considering having mismatched nightstands because turns out I don't have enough fabric of one pattern for two of them and I don't want to go buy extra at joannes that place is so stressful OTL

[kk43mi]

Tbh?? even though i find it kinda interesting i havent ready many fics w/ tickling kink in them but like.. a couple of them just feel like regular porn but the difference is (for example) getting someone off w/ a feather instead of Just stroking the 🍆. In others ive read, the tickling is just foreplay, like doing it playfully and then realizing that the other person is aroused by all the touching (this one is what i like the most especially with grumpy characters wr barely see smiling. They deserve to giggle)

divider: saradika-graphics

cw: feather play, cum, weener, no proofreading, wc: 500+

"[name] i swear..to archons..!" you tickled the man in front of you, teasing his cock with a toy feather. handcuffed to the bedframe first thing when he woke up. you always loved the thought of teasing your boyfriend by a feather, it just seemed so hot to see your boyfriend struggle under you.

"what! its fun...~" you take the feather, wiggling it back and forth around the tip. looking up at him when his thighs quiver and the way he whimpered was so yummy. its like you wanted more out of him. "your way of fun isnt what i like." he exclaimed before popping your mouth onto his tip.

"agh fuck! you better stop with that shit-" you giggled, using the feather to tease him more, this is was much fun, you loved seeing him forced into submission. seeing the way pearls of sweat dripped down from his forehead and the way his abs emitted a shine from all of it...you couldnt stop yourself. "if you say it, ill let you cum~ if not, im adding another ten minutes."

"im not saying shit for your ass." "cmonnn you dont wanna be pent up with no release right? plus...youre handcuffed you couldnt even help yourself." you had a point, and he grit his teeth, all his ego would be lost begging for you to let him cum. tickling him on the base and you can see precum dripping from the side as his cock twitches, it was such a sight to see.

he huffs and breathes in heavily, just hoping he could get a release from the stroke of the feather. but you knew too well, knew how to control his own climax. hes seriously so pent up and needed a release. should he for his own pleasure....

"please.." he mumbled. "hm? whaddya say?" you stopped teasing him. he says something inaudible and you probably know what he said. "cmon say it louder, tell me what you want" "this shit is embarrassing." the way red coated his cheeks made you display a cheeky smile, you loved seeing him this way.

"say it and you get what you want." you stroke a lick against the veins of his base. he twitches and couldnt take it anymore. "please, let me cum, i beg of you." his hands tried getting out of the resistances, absolutely losing his mind from the lack of release.

"hehe, knew you could do it" and without any warning, you his whole cock entered inside your mouth and the moan he let out was heavenly. "ooh-! fuck [name]! your mouth feels fucking great" he let out. the way you slobbered your spit everywhere, bobbing your head up and down.

you eyes fluttered up at him and he couldnt get any hornier from this. he release was coming and you could tell from the way he bucked his hips up at you which made you gag. the slurp sounds and his whimpers were echoed around the room.

"keep going-im cumming-agh fuck!" you felt hot gooey substances shot inside of your throat, from the amount of times you edged him, there was no surprise how much came from him. you tried swallowing all of it, but the way it spilled was so much some came from the corners of your mouth. his breathing was uncontrollable, probably the best orgasm he had in a long time.

after swallowing everything up, you kissed his cheek. "still as yummy as i remembered, you came so much."

scaramouche, diluc, alhaitham, abyss aether, kinichi, kaeya, cyno, tighnari, wriothesley, xiao any character of your choice!

sorry for the long hiatus, been really busy and lost the motivation. just wrote this real quick.

[greazyfloz]

Luke Hughes fluff 12 plz 🙏

Fluff: 12. “I didn’t want to fall in love, but you make it hard not to” w/ Luke Hughes

Friends Don't

I’ve known Luke since he played for the NDTP. I had a crush on him but was friendzoned almost immediately. We became closer when we both ran into each other again during frosh week at Michigan. Since we became best friends. It’s weird to go a day let alone a couple hours without texting him, but today was different. Actually this whole week was different. 

Luke has been off and on with me all week. I think in the past 4 days I have probably received about 5 texts from him. I would see him tonight at a party at Nolan’s that Mackie told me to go to. As I am getting ready I send Luke a text asking if we could go together or meet up. I didn’t hear anything by the time I was done getting ready so I decided to head out myself.

I arrive to the party and make my way over to Mackie. Mackie was standing with Eddy and Mark and no sign of Luke. I am tempted to ask the boys but bite my tongue and just nod along to whatever they are talking about. 

After about 30 minutes I decide to go get myself a new drink so I made my way to the kitchen. As I was refilling my drink an attractive guy from one of my classes that I havent ever talked to makes his way over, “Hey!” he says in a friendly tone.

“Hey” I say back just as friendly

“You’re Y/n, right? We have 8am Tuesday together”

“Yeah, I’m Y/n. Yes I remember seeing you around” “I’m Kyle by the way” he says looking down at his feet shyly before looking back at me, “Where are your friends? You didn’t come alone did you?” he asks

“Oh, no” I say looking around the kitchen to see if I could see anyone I knew, “They must be in the next room” I say still browsing the crowd. The two of us continue talking about class and about ourselves before long it is close to 1am. 

“Oh shoot!” I say looking down at my watch, “I should get going home now, I didn’t want to stay out that long!” 

“You aren’t walking alone are you?” he asks 

“No I was going to ask one of m-” before I could finish I felt a presence behind me speak

“She’s good, man” I turn to see Luke and Duker behind me, one less happy looking than the other. 

“Oh sorry! I didn’t know you guys were dating!” Kyle apologizes to Luke looking between both Luke and I.

“We aren’t” I say but Kyle already turns to leave me with Luke before turning around quick to say:

“Ah okay, I gotta get going”

I turn back at Luke and Duker and Duker is first to speak, “He looked like he was going to shit himself”

“Who was that?” a slightly less amused Luke asks me. 

“Kyle, he was going to walk me home”

“You don’t even know him. I’ll walk you, come on” he says and I walk by him and he follows leaving Duker at the party. After we exit the party and begin our walk back home I question him.

“What was that?” I ask

“What?” Luke says

“Why couldn’t he walk me home?”

“Because”

“Good reason” I say walking a bit faster

“Well how long have you known him? Like awhile?” he questions me catching up

“He is in one of my classes Luke, damn! My own parents wouldn’t care that much!” I say stopping and looking at him

“Well I wanted to walk you home, that's all” Luke says in defence

“So you’re jealous? This is a new side I don’t like” I say and I could tell the last part broke Luke a little on the inside, “You act so protective over me like we are dating or something”

“I just don’t want you talking to other guys” 

“Why? We are dati-”

“Because I love you Y/n” he says and I stand there looking at him in shock, “I didn’t want to fall in love, but you make it hard not to”. 

“Luke- I- um I wasn’t expecting this” I say back in complete shock.

“I really thought staying friends would be better for us, but I was wrong. I can’t watch you with other guys anymore, it kills me” Luke continues. “I really didn’t mean to embarrass you tonight, but I just had to let you k-”

I press my lips to his shutting him up and he gladly kisses me back. I pull away staying in his arms, “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for that”. Luke smiles down at me pulling away and grabbing one of my hands. 

“Here let’s go to my place tonight” 

“The boys though” I say as I begin walking with Luke back to his place. 

“They have probably already seen this coming” he blushes

[dejasenti99]

hi hi, could you maybe show us how to render skin in Blender or make it look a bit realistic? When i import my Sim into Blender it doesn't look like it should, it's texture isn't really good. Or do you know any good tutorial? Hope you can help me out<3

hey babes! :3 this got kinda long bc i ended up writing a tutorial so i put it under a readmore lol as usual anyone can dm me if they need more help

so first off if u dont have this setting enabled on simsripper, definitely turn it on

it makes a huuuuge difference.

i render in eevee nowadays so i also make sure to check ambient occulsion on so i have sexc shadows

and these are my node usual settings for that look of pores/gloss my sims faces/bodies have it is MAGIC

to do this you have to separate the eyes from the head/the body parts from the top and bottom meshes, which can be done in the UV editing tab

this is what it looks like when u go into the uv editor after selecting the head mesh

click those little arrow guys so it looks like this and u can select the eyes part of the head

hover over the other window (the viewport thingy where u can see ur actual sim) and hit the P key, then hit selection and itll separate the two! this is suuuuper useful its how i add varying texture/shine to clothes n shit and u can even delete parts of meshes u dont like if the texture cooperates

i feel like there may be a better way to do this?? but back over in the layout tab ur gonna go to the materials section

and hit that little minus so that the material thing goes away. it doesnt matter which part u do this on(the head mesh or ur new eye mesh) it just unlinks the textures so u can edit them separately

hit new

and then i usually go to another mesh that i havent messed w the nodes in and copy + paste them into this ~ new ~ material thingy u get it LAWL. so now it should turn from white to the normal texture and u can edit it at will! repeat one million times for everything u wanna change kjhkljhk

this is usually how my eyes nodes look

and again this is my head/body nodes like we saw before! the bump map is what gives it that look of pores its soooo sexy. u can get those by hitting shift + a and searching for color ramp + bump. obviously i mess w these settings depending on the vibe/lighting but yeah thats how i set up my skins for Realism!! :-)

ngl it was actually kurt tricoufamily that taught me this a whillleeee ago so thank him not me im just a thief

[wisecrackingeric-2]

Luis ramble time

TW//homophobia??

I think my favorite thing about Luis has to be the idea that his religious trauma led him to become homophobic but not in the sense of how it normally is. I think he internalized it as he grew up in a Catholic setting and became more interested in other people. This is why I believe he probably wouldn't have kissed Leon,,he will flirt and make flirty gestures but I don't really believe he'd full on go for it. I think it's more believable that he would've felt guilty because we all know one thing Luis still holds dear is his religion.

To me Luis is bisexual and when he met Leon it made him remember those odd feeling but he was to afraid to express them both from fear of loosing Leon and the feeling of being sinful. (this comes from someone who connects to Luis in these regards,,dw I came to terms with myself awhile ago!) And just like everything else in his life he ran away from it and ultimately..

He never let himself feel those emotions nor tell Leon

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO GET TO BUT YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW FERAL I WENT OVER THIS I STARTED GOING DOWN SUCH A LONG RABBIT HOLE OUUUUGHHH

BUT YOURE SO RIGHT YOU HAVE A BIT BEAUTIFUL BRAIN IT HURTS SM,,,,,,,, I think you’re absolutely right but I wanted to add my own headcannons too cuz I think it could be a very very interesting discussion!!!!!! I’ve put my thoughts under the cut so it doesn’t clog up peoples dashboards!!!!

I couldn’t agree more I think it’d be pretty safe ro say Luis has a FAIR BIT of internalised homophobia from his religious upbringing (now I wanna clarify that I don’t have any religious trauma like, at all, I wasn’t brought up relifious but I have TONS of friends who’ve gone through it so I’ve done my best to understand it best I can!!!!) and where my headcannon sliiiiiiiightly differs from yours is that I think Luis probably would have come to terms with his own queerness by the time he’s working with Umbrella

Obviously he’s already very flamboyant and VERRRRYYY flirty w both men and women and he’s clearly confident in himself- but what a lot of people seem to forget that the lovely @blveherb and @possessionisamyth have gone into detail about is that Luis is an immigrant, and if you look at literally any piece of history from before like,,,, roughly around the 80’s queer and immigrant history were REALLY intertwined, like, the two communities would often be at the same places or facing the same struggles at the same time etc and obviously white historians haven’t done us any favours with preserving this history (and ALSO also i am WHITE AS ALL HELL so im obviously not in a position to be speaking on topics that i dont fully understand/havent affected me which is why i ask that if anyone is more knowledgable on the topic please do elaborate on it!!!!!!!)((also it’s obviously very very important not to try and take away focus from or erase poc history when talking about queer history!!!!!!!!!!!!!))

So I don’t think it would be much of a stretch to say that Luis, after leaving Valdelobos and ending up wherever he did, would have also discovered the queer community as a whole just by virtue of being apart of a minority (again, this isn’t something that’s ever even remotely effected me so please if I’ve made any mistakes or if anyone wants to point anything out do so!!!!) also I just imagine that, in general, Luis would’ve been grateful for any kind of community to fall back on after he left his own- how old he was when he left is unknown obviously but I can’t imagine being barely even an adult discovering the big wide world for the first time after spending your entire life in a tiny rural catholic village would’ve been easy which is why communities like that are so important (also you could absolutely go into how Umbrella would’ve fed that need for a community even further in a young naive Luis but that’s getting ahead of the subject)

Also somewhat on and off topic but M A A N Y historians have pointed out that Don Quixote is a pretty queer fricken book. That’s an entirely different discussion in and of itself but the whole book itself, the relationship between Alonso and Sancho, the history itself surrounding the book etc can leave a lot of queer interpretations to be read (and @highball66 has pointed out that while not specifically a term used for gay men, in some areas ‘Sancho’ has been used to refer to ‘the other guy in the relationship’, ie the man the husband is sleeping with etc) ((AND also it’s just,, kinda hard to analyse super old books through the lens of the LGBTQ+ community as we understand it roday- Kaz Rowe on YouTube has some good videos on the topic I can’t reccomend enough!!!!))

And so I personally like to imagine that by the time he returns BACK to Valdelobos, he’s probably come to terms with it- but like most traumas, returning to the place where it all started and manifested probably would’ve brought up those same feelings of internalised homophobia like you’ve said; which is why he’s so afraid to confess to Leon. Even if he KNOWS he’s come to terms with his identity n such, that doesn’t mean that returning to the place where it all started doesn’t bring back up those old feelings (also him returning home in the manor that he does just makes my theory/headcannon that he’s Trans go WILD but I’m saving that for ANOTHER DAY)

‘He holds Religion very Close to him’ GOD YOURE SO RIGHT ABT THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like even if he doesn’t still believe in god or anything his upbringing still effects him!!!!!!!!!!!!! He still always does the sign of the cross whenever he sees a dead body and obviously that classic catholic guilt and need to repent follows his every actions alongside just, y’know, the average amount of guilt people would feel in his situation BCNEHENDJDND so can you imagine how much WORSE he’d feeling going BACK to Valdelobos and meeting LEON and having all those feelings and fears come up again???????????? OUGH WHY MAKE ME THINK ABT THIS OP /lh

AND and, like you mentioned, Luis always has this reoccurring theme of thinking he has more time than he actually has and that he can run away from anything. It’s honestly so so so very tragic; and just the idea of that cycle repeating AGAIN in something SO PERSONAL (ie, his love for Leon) is just,,,,,,,,,, o u g h it’s so heartbreaking man why would you say that I am strangling you /jjjjjjjj

Luis always thinks he has more time to fix his mistakes, to be a better person- and even when he starts to realise he doesn’t, he still holds out hope. He thinks, ‘tomorrow I’ll tell Leon’, but he never gets that opportunity.

And finally this one is purely self indulgent but I’ve always pictured Luis as being the kind of person to just be happy labelling himself as ‘queer’ cuz it’s quick and convinient but BISEXUAL LUIS SL TRUE

(Also obligatory ‘these are just headcannons/theories/analysis nobody is saying these are CANNON this is just an observation’ message!!!!!!!)

[honeekyuu]

hi honey! im sending this to ask you how you decided that you wanted to pursue a PHD. im thinking of getting a phd in economics because I’ve always been super interested, but im not sure if that’s the path for me yet. what do you think are some pros and cons to getting one and how did you know that this was the right path for you??

-b.

hi!!! omg wow what a question. i will say first that everyones phd experience looks a little different, so i can talk ab mine but definitely take it with a grain of salt!!

i knew i wanted to do a phd because 1) i love being in school, and 2) while i was getting my B.A in linguistics, i had a lot of questions that were higher level and more specific than my undergrad classes could really get into. I also worked as a research assistant to a professor in the East Asian Languages and Civilizations dept for about 3 years, and she was my closest mentor and advisor in that time. she was a korean historian, and she encouraged me to keep studying something related to korean, because that had been my specialization of sorts when it came to choosing classes and research projects. i had a feeling around that time that i wanted to go on to a graduate program of some sort.

after i finished undergrad, i took a year off to figure my life out, and in that time, i worked one on one with a professor in the Linguistics dept at my undergrad for about 9-10 months. under her guidance, i wrote what would have essentially been a masters thesis about korean linguistics, and i knew in that time that i wanted that paper to be the paper i submitted to phd programs.

i think there are a few things to consider when thinking ab a phd:

phds are extremely individual research focused. my program doesnt offer a terminal master's degree (it's included within the phd program as a milestone), but phds are NOT like "undergrad 2.0". ive seen a number of people make that mistake in my program, focusing only on coursework and waiting for their advisor to give them research to do. im not sure how econ works, but in ling, we're thrown straight off the deep end into research. im only a 3rd year, and my master's degree research project was accepted into the top korean linguistics conference in the world, which is 100% a FLEX but also this is only happening because my advisors are cutthroat research gods who pushed pushed pushed me from the very first day. so please be aware that phds are very self-driven. you need the motivation to work on your own for long periods of time.

some people think a phd is a lonely experience. i think it certainly can be, because everyone is working on their own hyper-specific research project, but it's also very important for that reason to have friends. my closest friend in the department is 3 years above me, and we only became friends because i arrived screaming crying throwing up with fear and anxiety ab my work and he literally clocked me as the kid who needed the most emotional grounding LMAO. my other closest friend was literally my research assistant. he was an undergrad. but he was my age (korean military service delays college quite a lot, it seems), so once his contract w me was up, it turned into us helping him apply for grad schools too!! and now the four of us (them + my partner) have weekly stardew valley screaming sessions on discord and saturday brunch with animal crossing. it's not lonely, and i think that's because i knew it would be if i didnt make friends.

i think ill say one more thing before i stfu. grad school is hard. it's so so hard. please be aware of that. some days im drowning in mental health issues and fearing even a chance encounter in the hall with my advisors because i know theyll ask about something i havent gotten done yet. sometimes im literally sobbing on my couch, overwhelmed beyond belief wondering if i can do this. sometimes i become self-destructive and isolated and so terribly unwell that my mom starts calling my partner because i wont pick up the phone. it's fucking hard. but it's also the happiest ive ever been, truly. the really really hard days are worth it, because the really good days or even just the decently good days are much more frequent and amazing. running down the hall to avoid my advisor seeing me is worth it because, when things are good, he invites me to coffee and we spend 2+ hours talking about my future. he tells me he pushes me because he knows i can do what needs to be done and change the field. he makes my life hell because, once im through it, no one else could ever question the quality of my work and the job market is going to be so beautiful once i get there. i started grad school a nervous wreck with terribly low self-esteem who thought that my research could never cut it or be interesting enough. im barely going into my 3rd year, and ive been broken down and reformed into the kind of person i used to look up to, by my own sheer willpower to be the strongest i can be. im not afraid to fail anymore, because ive failed a million times in the last 2 years. im not afraid to fuck up, because ive fucked up so many times, in front of the two people who hold my future in their hands, and im still here. grad school is worth it to me because im the version of myself that the me from undergrad would never believe exists.

[cannibal-nightmares]

For the ask thing: 1, 11, 27, 30 😁

from the ask thing heh

1. what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are? Music, Doctor Who, and… The third seems to have stumped me. My sister (whom I havent seen in 17 years?) a crippling fear of a higher power? Growing up poor? Of course stories of trauma would be easy and true to answer with, but I’ve sat on this ask since you sent it and I am not certain what I could place as a definitive third. I could answer with names of my friends, but we shaped each other, didn’t we?

11. what do you consider to be romance? I’m not 100% sure I can observe romance in a traditional sense. I like this question because I don’t know how to answer it. I guess I can start by specifying that “romance” is between partners, right? I’m not sure if “romance” is supposed to be an act, but that’s how it feels to me. While I don’t prefer it, I don’t see “acting” for someone else as an inherently bad thing in this context. I mean, isn’t that what birds do? Court? Hahah uhh.. I think romance is loyalty. Romance is testing boundaries with someone, and not even necessarily in the intimate sense, but facing fears in hand with someone. I have a sort of Hannibal-esque lens over what picturesque image “romance” could be, something much more brutal and shimmering like onyx under the moon. Romance is whatever you mutually declare it with someone else. Romance is what you create with intention and expectation. Romance is blood, isn’t it?

Now, “what is love?” Acts of care. But “love” to me is not exclusive between partners, but towards friends and strangers, as well.

27. any nicknames? “My first name is a random set of numbers and letters and other alphanumerics that changes hourly forever My last name, a thousand vowels fading down a sinkhole to a sussurus, couldn't just be “John Doe” or “Bingo” My address, a made up language written out in living glyphs lifted from demonic literature and religious text Telephone, uncovered by purveyors of the Ouija, then checked against the CBGB women's room graffiti My social, a sudoku; my age is obscure; my 'in-case-of-emergency' is in the daisies chasing birds My medical history is a course at SUNY Buffalo: Charlatan psychiatry and troubleshooting undertow” [ x ]

Nah, haha, I see what you’re doing here, heh. As an artist, cannibal. As a familiar, Rocky. Something more formal, Will. If you want to flatter me and fluster me beyond words… kin names… I’m picky in stupid-specific ways about them, so I don’t talk about them. (Stein, Franken, Vitya… sometimes Nic calls me Smokey and doc hahaha.. my goodness..) I’m in total denial of having a “preferred” name. I do have one but it’s kept guarded for now. I sincerely wish “who are you” and “what is your name” was as simple of a question as it is for everyone else, but it just isn’t. I’ve gone by all kinds of names for too-practical reasons; anyone who knows me by any other title has special reserve to call me by those names. I go by Rocky at work and in my musical shenanigans and I think it fits me as though I were a cartoon character. It's actually the name of my late grandfathers dog.

30. what’s one thing that never fails to make you happy/happier? These days I am having to decrypt the difference between happiness and mania but I can tell you what makes me content and what I value in feeling safe/calm:

A hot cup of coffee, silence/summer ambiance, natural lighting. Stuffed animals.

I guess something that makes me “happy” is being in costume. I love a good costume time, especially when I get to make other people happy w said costumes (its part of the reason I started fursuiting back in 2013). Singing, I suppose, too. When I seek joy, I either look to finishing a project or enriching someone else.

Thank you for the ask, sincerely ^^

[sxtvrns]

unspoken

🎶 now playing: hi - laufey

P: Ryōhei Arisu x Fem!Reader

S: You couldn’t leave the poor man laying on the street. He couldn’t help falling for the girl who was always by his side.

W: aib spoilers, cursing, alludes to sexual content, beach arc, arisu a bit ooc (downbad), mentions of death, violence

N: Y/N is your first name, L/N is your last name. this has been sitting in my drafts for too long also i havent even finished the series yet i left off on s2 ep5 but i practically know the rest of the plot cuz i got fuckin spoiled… i started this like months ago now im just trying to make sense of the plot anyways hot emo gamer nerd man woopwoop sexy ahh mf i love kento yamazaki

please interact if you enjoy!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Yuzu walks beside you with the rabbit she just hunted in a plastic bag, a confident strut in her step. “We should get your clothes washed. Then again, I don’t know if you have any other clothes to wear.” She says, noticing the stains and dirt on your attire from previous games. You point to a shopping mall down the street you just walked.

She sighs. “I guess you could loot the place. Then we can wash your clothes.” You begin to get excited until she puts a hand on your shoulder. “You’ll go by yourself, though. You know the way back by heart.” You freeze up, complying with her terms considering that she was right. It wasn’t like you needed someone to nanny you 24/7, you were just scared of the thought that something could happen while Yuzu didn’t know.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. You’re strong and have the ears of a bat.” She pats your shoulder, the compliment you found strange but accepted anyways. You notice a lump of clothes and a hand on the street, noticing it’s another person after approaching closer.

You jog over to them, sitting on your knees in order to get a good look at the stranger’s face. You move his hand, his arm ending up on your legs. You end up nearly laying down with him while trying to get your head lined up with his, your fingers moving his hair out of the way to see his face more clearly.

His face and hands are tainted and covered in dirt and dust, including his clothes and shoes. His eyes are half open, yet they fully notice you when Yuzu calls your name. “Y/N! What are you doing?” She begins to walk over, prompting you to turn back to the man. You stutter out a few words when you realize he notices you there. “…you… okay?”

He’s alive, that’s for sure. You can hear his soft breathing, and his arm tensed up. “I wanna die here.” He softly speaks, the sudden request surprising you before you can say anything. Yuzu catches up, standing behind you, her shadow looming over the man. She watches you play with the man’s fingers, observing the cuts and dirt in the crevices of the skin and under his nails.

“Is he alive?” She asks. You nod, wondering what to do. You don’t want to leave him there, but you knew that Yuzu wouldn’t just let someone into your bunker unless she was the one to bring them in. This guy seemed different, though. What had he gone through in order for him to want to starve himself on the street? “We have to go. It’s gonna get dark soon.”

You let the man’s hand rest on the ground as you get up, looking behind you occasionally to see his figure slowly turn into a small speck the further you walk away. “Why’d you stop for him? You wouldn’t do that for anyone else.” She was right, but you didn’t know if she’d believe your answer. “He feels guilty.” Those were the words you were looking for.

“Even so, wouldn’t anyone be full of guilt to lay on the road like that?”

You point at him. “Wants to die.”

Yuzu just nods as her head slowly turns to face the road in front of her.

“Fine then. We’ll just leave him.” You want to protest, but can’t seem to say anything. To Yuzu, you just can’t get the words out at all. She was so strong; her presence alone intimidated you. You always watched yourself around her, considering that you had to learn from her and you didn’t want to humiliate yourself.

You’ve always had a hard time talking to people. Was it the fact you were bullied for merely speaking, raising a hand up to answer in class, to have a normal conversation with anyone? Yes. Slowly, day after day, you stopped talking. No one noticed, anyways, so it didn’t matter. You’ve been to therapy for it, but when you tried to talk, it was hard to put how you felt into words.

The sentences formed, but you couldn’t say anything out loud.

You usually spoke in smaller sentences, nothing detailed but enough for others to understand, which wasn’t useful living in a world where detail is key. If you were given the chance, you’d simply point and finish your sentence from there. Yuzu’s trying to help you through it, but she states that going out to get paper is a waste of time. She’s smart enough to put the pieces together through your phrases, figuring out why you rarely spoke.

“You’ll go out tomorrow. We’re running low on fuel for the gas stove and we need batteries. You can get anything else you need while you’re there.” She says, not really giving you much of a choice. It’ll be fine, right? Low chance of you ever running into someone while you’re… alone.

You point to your shirt with small stains on it. “New clothes.” Yuzu also looks at your shirt, sighing. “You can get new clothes, too. Speaking of which, can you also get soap?” You try to visualize what it would look like to carry all those things in your hands. “Too much. I’ll drop it.” You say, holding your arms out in front of you. “I can get you a bag.”

You hated how fragile plastic bags were, how easily they’d tear and rip, especially the handles. If something was too heavy, the pressure would go onto your fingers, and it hurts more than it looks. You shake your head no, trailing behind Yuzu. “Geez, you’re so stubborn. Might as well get a reusable bag while you’re at it.”

The list of things never ends.

“I can do… two trips.” You hold up two fingers, your friend letting out a huff. “If that’s alright with you, I suppose. Our visas are still good for a few more days, then we’ll have to play another game. So be careful tomorrow; don’t get hurt.” Yuzu warns. You nod profusely, her patting your back.

The first trip there you’d gotten the gas and batteries and a few extra flashlights just in case, snagging a reusable bag to make the trip easier. You always snagged reusable bags, but for some reason they always went missing more often than Yuzu’s plastic ones.

On the way back, when you didn’t stare at the sky or the garbage on the street, you noticed the guy still laying on the street in nearly the exact same position. You walked over carefully, kneeling down again and moving his hair out of his face. He was still breathing, but was sleeping soundly on the cement. The air that exhaled through his nose brushed against your arm, startling you a bit, but you stopped yourself from nearly flinching too hard and waking him up.

That day, you left him be.

The next day, it rained.

Your bag had a zipper, so thank god that your new clothes didn’t get soaked that day. Even with your umbrella, the wind would’ve blown the rain onto your shirts and bottoms. You nearly ran home, until the sight of the same man still laying on the street in the pouring rain stops you. It could just be the horrible conditions, or the thought of his clothes getting drenched bothering you so much, but you run over and hold the umbrella above both your heads.

Your first thought was to carry him bridal style, but then you’d have to ditch the umbrella, which you obviously weren’t gonna do. Instead, you tap his shoulder, and when he doesn’t respond, you tap his cheek. He blinks a few times, and that’s all you need to help him up and support him with his arm wrapped around your shoulder. He still slouches, head down, but as long as he didn’t fall asleep on the way there, he’d be fine.

You slide open the warehouse curtain, Yuzu gawking at the sight of you supporting another person. “Close it.” You tell her. She gets up and runs past you, you remembering you had to climb a ladder to get up. Yuzu climbs up, helping you carry him to the elevated surface, letting you set the man down on your old cardboard bed. You take off his jacket, setting it aside while you take your shirt off and dry him as best you can with it. Even while you’re doing this, he doesn’t seem to wake up. His eyes remain half open the entire time until he’s fully laid down, them closing shut.

You zip up your outer jacket, being met with Yuzu looming over you. You begin to open the bag with excitement before she drags you to the opposite side of the site. “What were you thinking? Bringing him here?”

“3 days. He slept on the street for 3 days.”

“Okay, but still. You need to be careful.”

“He was giving up. I didn’t like that.”

“So what if you didn’t like that? If he wants to die, he’ll die.”

“I’ve seen death before. He will regret it.” Your words come together slowly, yet you still feel frustrated as you couldn’t say it how you wanted to. “You’ve been like him before. You should understand.” You add, walking back to the unconscious man. You lay down beside him, staring at his face.

He’s ridden with dirt and dust, and he smelled of it too, with a hint of blood and the tiniest smidge of something botanical. His clothes were soaked and they were soaking the cardboard beneath him. There was probably still some lying around this place anyways.

The first time you saw him on the street, he looked familiar, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. Now that he’s in your base, giving you the ability to stare at him for the next 10 minutes, you realize that this was the man that saved you in his first game that he played.

Yuzu looks at you, laying on the bare concrete ground after you sacrificed your former makeshift cardboard mattress for the stranger that laid next to you. “Y/N.” You don’t move, laying still beside the man. She sees your fingers brush his hair out of his eyes, his face fully visible. “I’m sorry. Come help with dinner.” You shift, then finally get up and join her, looming over her workspace and watching her prepare rice.

“I got an extra knife for you.” She hands you a smaller knife and a cutting board, along with some vegetables that looked like they were just washed. You place them down on the cutting board, frozen and lost in space. “You don’t want him to starve, do you?” Yuzu speaks up, snapping you out of it as you begin to help.

“You were right.” She says, the lack of context clues only making you confused. “I was like him. I did nothing. I felt like dying. But I’m here now.” She suddenly stops what she’s doing, looking at you. “I’m sorry. You did something good, but I still don’t trust him.” You nod.

You understood why she was skeptical of him. Something in you just couldn’t bring yourself to leave him behind.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Are you really just gonna stay with him until he wakes up?”

You sat down by the man a while ago, noticing he turned and laid face up while you were making food with Yuzu. She’s currently eating at your one-person makeshift table, staring at you from there. You shrug, eating from your own smaller canister. The bowls you found came in packs of four, which was convenient if he was going to wake up and eat.

It’s nothing but the light of the lamp on the desk and the skylight above that helps you see throughout your small living space. Yuzu is about to finish her food while you sit by the stranger, getting up to put your bowl away after finishing your food.

“He’s awake.” Yuzu says, your eyes shifting to the sight of him blinking. You get a clean spoon and cup and scoop a serving into the bowl you used, pouring water into the cup. His eyes meet yours, freezing you in place for a moment before you remembered who the food in your hands was for. You set the bowl and cup down next to him before sitting down by him again. His eyes follow you the entire time.

“Why did you save me?” He asks. You say nothing but stare at him, his eyes focused on the ceiling now. “You want to live.” You reply. He merely scoffs with a sigh. “But I don’t deserve to live anymore.” Your heart aches as he begins to cry, but as he speaks, you realize you’ve been in his shoes before.

“We know how you feel.” You say, your hand tucking his hair behind his ear. “How you feel… we have felt it before.” You look over at Yuzu, and she smiles with a nod, meaning you’ve explained it better. “I saw my mom die while I lived. After that, I tried to die. I saw death for a second, but survived. Death isn’t pretty. It is darkness. It is nothing.” Yuzu stares at you with wide eyes as you try to speak. Your hand trembles and pauses while your fingers brush through his hair. “Your friends want you to live, so live. You will die sometime; a game, your visa, but don’t force it. For now, eat while you are still alive.”

He stares at you, who sits in front of him with her fingers brushing his hair. He simply lays there, staring at the bowl of food. “Y/N, just let him be. He’ll eat it when he needs to.” Yuzu says, your hand reluctantly moving away from his head. You turn off the lights before joining her in the tent, laying next to her. Meanwhile, the man lays on the cardboard, exhausted, but wondering what you meant by all that and why you played with his hair.

He distinctly remembers you, getting on your knees to check him on the road. You carried him when taking him to the warehouse, and he could’ve sworn he’s seen you in a game before. What did you mean when you said that you’ve seen death? Did you reincarnate or something?

He was too tired to think about it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You wake up, Yuzu not beside you and light shining through the fabric of the tent, meaning she’d gotten up earlier than you to warm up. You had less of an athletic prowess than Yuzu did, so you normally stayed behind whenever she went for her morning jog.

Leaving the tent, you first notice the empty bowl that held only a seed by the man’s head. With the sunlight shining bright through the windows, you wonder if he is awake or not. “Wake up. We’re playing today.” You say, the man lying still, nearly convincing you he was still asleep. You fill up a water bottle, waiting for him to respond but getting nothing. “Do you remember the one game?” You ask, knowing he won’t respond.

“Live or Die.” The name brings back painful memories of his friends, one of them coming out with a burnt leg. “You saved me there. I would have… died at the one door.”

“One door?”

“The door after the girl died.”

“The second one?” That’s the word you were looking for. You nod. “I didn’t wanna die then. I didn’t want anyone to end up like the high schooler.” He adds. You sit down in the same spot again. You take one of his hands, holding it, your fingers gently playing with his palm. “You saved Yuzu. She would not be alive if you did not scream.”

“Were you there?” He asks. You shake your head. “She told me.” You respond with a sigh. “I… don’t want you to die. Let us save you.” You loosen your grip nearly to the point where you let go of his hand. He slowly but surely sits up, back against the boxes. He takes a good look at you, your hair tucked behind your ears and eyes moving like they’re looking for something.

“Why do you talk like that?” His full stare intimidates you, given this is the first time you’ve ever seen his eyes when they aren’t closed or covered by his hair. You tilt your head, confused. “Your sentences seem… broken.”

You play with your fingers, staring at his hand and wish you were playing with it. “It is hard for me to talk. I was laughed at. Words are in my head… but they don’t come out.” You summarize, hoping he’d understand. He nods slightly, noticing your friend come back from who knows where. She tosses something up before climbing the ladder. “I got a tent for him. But no mattress yet. How long have you been awake? Did you stretch yet?”

You shake your head, noticing Yuzu’s eyes drifting over to the man. “Come with us?” You ask, holding your hand out for him to take. He accepts, being pulled up onto his feet. “Okay?” You check in while he nods. You offer him some water, nearly finishing your whole bottle. You take him by the wrist, descending down the ladder and pulling him with you to the gate.

“Let’s go.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Your fingers hold onto the sleeve of the man’s jacket gently as you walk into the highway tunnel. In his first game, he never introduced himself to you, and you never saw his name on his phone screen, though you remembered his friends constantly screaming his name after each door. He later introduced himself as ‘Arisu’, Yuzu seeming to know his name already before you did.

The walk is long to the registration, Yuzu sighting a bus heavily graffitied a bit in. Your hand grips onto his arm, Arisu noticing. “Are you okay?” He asks. “Nervous. Always nervous… for new games.” You explain, hoping he’d understand.

You had a bad habit of holding onto people before entering registration. Before you met Yuzu, everyone you accidentally latched onto cursed at you, or shook you off their arm, which was understandable. No one likes a stranger randomly holding onto their arm out of nowhere. You just hated the fact it was your first instinct. When Yuzu came along, she was the first person to listen—to understand.

But Arisu was content with it. He didn’t swat you off, or stare at you weirdly. He simply let you be, holding onto his arm like a koala hugging a branch. You worried that your grip was too tight or that he could feel you shake, but he didn’t seem to react, so those worries went away eventually. You clung onto him the moment you stepped into the bus, taking one of the phones before noticing there were three other guys seated in the back.

They’ve played their last few games together, however, one of them was visibly injured. In a world like this, injury holds you back from everything, which puts you at risk of death. You felt sympathy for the man, but also felt intimidated by him and his friends given that they were staring at the three of you intently.

Arisu picks up his phone, looking at the names of the participants, landing on yours.

L/N Y/N

“Ryō…hei?” You stutter, looking at your phone. Arisu looks down at you, a bit confused. “Y/N calls people by their first name. Sometimes.” Yuzu explains, which cleared some things up, but it didn’t help a whole bunch. “Can I call you that?” You ask. “Can you call me Ryō?” He restates your question, being followed by an eager nod from you. He simply shrugs and nods, and you’re glad he doesn’t mind.

One of the men huffs. “Your girlfriend?” He gestures to you, making you let go of Ryō’s sleeve and hide behind him. He shakes his head. “We just met today. Yesterday. A previous game.” His idiocy makes Yuzu shake her head while you try to hold in your laughs from behind. However, the man doesn’t seem all too convinced. “Whatever you say.”

The phone chime sounds, the robotic voice drawing attention to them.

Registration is now closed. The game is about to commence.

Difficulty: Four of Clubs

This was a team game. Your favourite kind.

There are a total of six participants.

Game: Distance

Rule: Endure the trial while striving for the goal within the time limit.

Clear condition: Safely attain the goal.

The game will now commence. 120 minutes remaining.

You look out the driver’s window, the tunnel seeming like it goes on forever. Your eyes are drawn to the dashboard of the bus, specifically the fuel. “It’s empty. Can’t drive.” You say. “Looks like we’ll have to run.” Yuzu says, Ryō’s eyes landing on the injured man in the back. “What about Takuma?”

You’re lost in thought for a moment, not wanting to die but also not wanting to leave the man behind. “All of you, run. I’ll stay with Takuma.” Yuzu and Ryō look at you as if you’ve said something stupid. “What? Y/N, we have to run.”

“We will try to do something. If I die, I die. I am okay with that. I don’t want to leave ‘Kuma alone. I will take care of him.” Yuzu suddenly hugs you, which catches you off guard. She pulls away, her face with a trace of disdain as she walks off, along with the two men that sat in the back. Before Ryō can leave, you grab his hand. Your thumbs rest in his palm before you warn him. “Don’t worry. We will be okay. You have to be careful.” He squeezes your hand, visibly doubtful as he walks off the bus to join the other three outside.

You watch from the window as they all run off, seemingly shrinking as they get farther away. You sit in the back, closer to the man. “Kuma? Is that your name for me?” He asks lazily, relaxing against his seat. “Yeah. Sorry.” You suddenly become timid at the sound of him laughing. “Don’t be. It’s cute.”

“Are you… giving up?” You ask, wondering how he’s so unfazed. “I am still worried. But even though we aren’t running, I feel as though we’ve already won.” He looks up at you and your solemn face. “We can’t do anything about it now, can we? I know you wanted to help me, but is there really anything we can do?”

“I don’t want to die. I know you don’t either. But I’m injured, and the only thing that can heal that is time. There isn’t enough time in this game to go away. So I understand what you’re saying. If we die, we die.” He waits for you to say something, looking at you when you stay silent. “What’s on your mind?”

“The… difficulty… is low. Why are they running so far? It shouldn’t be that far if it is only Four of Clubs.”

Kuma puts together what you’re trying to say, the look of realization on his face. “You’re right. But then, where is the goal?” You notice the graffiti reaching the bottoms of the windows, remembering how the bus was covered in it. You get up, leaving the bus, fingers brushing against the outside walls. There was nothing but casual graffiti gibberish that you never understood on the side with the door.

The other side, however, had a word written big and in blue.

GOAL

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Usagi’s water bottle empties after she offers it to the three men, who finish it in a heartbeat. She’s stopped by Arisu, who held onto her shoulder for a brief moment to get her attention. “Your friend… she confuses me. Why does she do these things?” Usagi’s automatically suspicious of Arisu, viewing his question as an insult. “What do you mean?”

“She’s very physical with my hair, my arm, my hands. No one does that to someone they just meet.” Usagi scoffs. “She cares. She’s worried about you. She’s worried about everyone. That’s why she offered to stay back with Takuma. When she held you back in the bus, she was worried about you, knowing that you’re still grieving. Y/N is a physical person in general, violent or affectionate. The only reason she kept going with it is because you hadn’t pushed her away. If you want her to stop, tell her.”

He didn’t want you to stop. Not really want, but more like he didn’t mind the gesture. He wasn’t bothered by it; really, he enjoyed it in the moment. It was comforting— something he hadn’t felt ever since his first game. Usagi laughs. “You should’ve seen her during a team game. She annihilated everybody, then went back to being all shy at the end.”

Arisu tries to imagine it, the thought of you killing people you didn’t know in order to survive. The more he tried, the more he wanted to push the thought out of his mind. The girl that gets clingy and nervous before games, the girl who convinced him to live, taking the lives of total strangers without hesitation? Honestly, he didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it.

He realizes that Usagi’s already began running from the trial, forcing himself to catch up with her, along with the other two men.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You’re pacing frantically down the walkway of the bus, forgetting that Kuma was sitting at the end of it. “L/N, what’s wrong?” His voice stops you, remembering you hadn’t told him yet. You looked like an idiot panicking over a reason he didn’t know. “The goal. We already won.”

“What?”

“They should have stayed. This is the goal. We are safe, they are not.” Kuma looks at you in disbelief, eyes wide. “Really? So… we’d survive?” You nod, looking at the graffiti on the window. “We have to do something! They’ve all ran and they need to get back here.”

You sigh, overwhelmed with emptiness. “We can’t.” You want to cry, but the tears aren’t there to flow. “What? What do you mean, we can’t?”

“They are too far. I can’t get them. Not enough time.” You say, sitting down next to him. His face is ridden with tears; he’s been crying all this time and you hadn’t noticed. You hug him, patting his head. You’re sure he’s confused as to why you’re doing this, but really it’s because you wish someone would comfort you the same way.

Suddenly, you hear footsteps, your head lifting up. “What happened?” Kuma sniffles. You get up, running to the door. “Someone is here.” You answer, him looking out the window. You step out of the bus, seeing someone running with a motorbike towards the bus. “L/N!” He calls, his messy, disheveled hair coming into a better view.

“Ryō!” You call, looking at the window where Kuma is looking out of, seeing that he noticed the bike too. Ryō runs over with the bike, both him and the hunk of metal leaning against the bus. You hug him, feeling a sense of relief that he would also survive. But then again, what about Yuzu?

“The bike,” he pants, “can fuel the bus. There’s diesel in here to fill the bus. We can drive and get Usagi and Yamane back.” You look at the bike, inspecting the shiny metal and the tank, hearing fuel sloshing around inside. You didn’t understand much about motorbikes or vehicles in general, but given that Ryō ran all the way back here with the bike convinced you that he knew what he was doing.

You explained everything to him, seeing the drive in his eyes to get Yamane and Usagi back grow in his gaze. Ryō stood behind you, Kuma in the driver’s seat. The voice on your phone reminds you, 5 minutes left. You hear a loud rumbling, telling Kuma to step on the gas. Tell is an understatement– you screamed at him.

He roughly avoided the cars on the highway street, ramming through the darker section where you see a body lay on the ground next to an animal you can’t define. As Kuma continues driving, you open the door, holding onto the bars and peeking your head out the window. You hear faint panting from a distance, the rumbling getting louder.

The sight of Yuzu running for her life from a flood of water chasing after her comes into view. You hold out your hand, screaming her name. Kuma’s foot slams on the pedal, speeding towards her. The water barely touches Yuzu’s heels as you grab her hand, pulling her into the bus and closing the door before the water could flood in.

And for a few moments, it’s dark.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A drop of water falls on your face. Then another, then another. You think of getting up, until you noticed you were resting on Ryō’s chest.

Thank god you survived, but what is life if you woke up in the most awkward situation ever?

Yuzu laid next to you, and Kuma stayed in his own little area in the driver’s corner. You shake Yuzu, forcing her awake along with Ryō. He then proceeds to wake up Kuma, opening the door above all of you since he was the tallest one there. He struggles, but manages to climb out first, Yuzu following, then you, then all three of you making an effort to pull Kuma out of the door.

“The bus is the goal. There was no point in running.” All of you stare down at the word ‘GOAL’, painted in bright blue on the side of the bus you were standing on. Yuzu jumps down first, followed by you, Ryō, then Kuma. Ryō’s hand still clasps onto yours even after he helped you jumped down, bidding Kuma a regretful goodbye in hopes of seeing him again somehow.

Trying to be completely realistic, you’d probably never see him again, and that alone made it more sad.

He doesn’t seem to notice that he’s holding your hand, squeezing it every once in a while, specifically when you see him noticeably about to cry. “Y/N, let go of him. Unless you asked first.” Yuzu notices, making you embarrassed and pull your hand away. “I actually did it first. Sorry, Y/N, I didn’t notice. L/N. I meant L/N.” Ryō apologizes, but you shake your head, assuring him that it was okay.

Deep inside, you wished he didn’t let go.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Yuzu had gone out for the next few days— sometimes you tagged along with her if you woke up early enough that she’d already left. You both had gotten intel on something called The Beach, and were planning to pack up and leave eventually to scour. She’s been going out to gather supplies for hunting and for shelter, including refills of water.

When you woke up to see Yuzu wasn’t laying next to you, you found solace with Ryō. He continued to talk about his friends, how they’d gotten here and how he witnessed them sacrifice themselves just for him to survive, knowing that they’d have to pick someone to live. He never understood why, and that is what he explained to you.

The entire time, your head rested on this shoulder, your hand playing with his own. “There are gaps in your heart you that cannot fill. That is what I’ve learned in this world.” You pause, piecing together a sentence in your head. “There is no time for grief. There is no time for anything.” You rest your hand on top of his with a sigh. “Do not let grief affect your need to win in games. You must focus, or you will break the last promise your friends made to you.”

“Hard for you to talk, huh?” He jokes, his shoulders lifting as he laughs, relaxing after. “How come you do all this?” You look at him, confused. “Like… this,” He shakes his hand that rests underneath yours. “And this.” He lifts the shoulder where your head rests. “You’re always next to me. Girls are never this close with me.”

You scoff, laughing, your fingers brushing over the back of his hand for a moment. “I wish someone cared for me like this. After my mom died.” There’s definitely a lack of closure in that sentence, which made the air awkward. “I want to… give you what I did not have. I hope you don’t mind. I can stop if you want.”

“No, it’s okay. I really don’t mind. Thank you. It’s just… I guess I never had anyone comfort me like this either.” Comfort. That’s the word. You mutter it quietly to yourself, remembering what it meant. You hadn’t felt it in a while as well, only feeling most comfortable whenever you stayed with Yuzu. Eventually, you found comfort in Ryō as well.

You traced patterns on Ryō’s hand, sometimes even spelling out words. It became a hobby of yours, and sometimes he’d try to guess what you were writing as well. “B…” He started, feeling the letters on his hand. “E, A, C, H…” He looked up at you with wonder in his eyes, being able to see something past his dark irises. “The Beach?” He says it as if it was something glorified. You nod, him grabbing your wrists. “What is the Beach? Do you know? Have you been there?” You’re overwhelmed by the questions he asks you, trying to process all of them at once.

“No. I heard another person talk about the Beach. I told Yuzu. Then she heard someone talk about it too. We want to know what it is.” You explain. Something lights up in Ryō’s head, the idea being explained to you. “Some people I’ve seen wore wristbands. They had numbers on them.”

“Follow. We will follow them.” You add, Ryō nodding eagerly.

“We’ll start looking. For supplies, then we’ll search at night. You can convince Usagi, can’t you?” You nod, only half sure of it. You felt that Ryō had a better chance of convincing her for some odd reason. Yuzu still intimidated Ryō— you could tell. He’d always seem… nervous around her.

Your hands are clasped together, his own covering them with a soft grip. “Don’t worry. We’ll make it out. We’ll stick together.”

That was a week ago.

Meanwhile Yuzu offered to take the solo tent as you were sleeping in a park during your period of locating the Beach. Her and Ryō bickered about it until she finally won (like usual), meaning that he’d have to sleep in the same tent as you.

Beside you.

You totally weren’t freaking out over it. Why was Yuzu so persistent to sleep alone anyways?

Except Ryō offered to sleep outside, in the grass, where all the bugs flew around. You heard slaps from outside repeatedly, trying to fall asleep. The thing with heightened hearing was that you heard everything. Almost everything. You heard the bugs buzz outside, you heard the soft pants of Ryō every time he slapped himself. It didn’t take you long to be so bothered by it, nearly breaking the zipper to open the tent.

“Come inside. Stop slapping your face.” You say sternly, visibly bothered. Ryō pauses for a second, kicking his shoes off before scrambling inside and zipping the tent shut. He looks at you, laying down normally, just realizing how close the two of you would be. You look back at him taking a deep breath after simply patting the spot beside you.

He lays down slowly, holding his breath, shoulders tense and tight. “Calm down. It’s only me.” You mutter, turning towards him. Your nose nudges his upper arm, your hand resting on top of his. You can hear his heart racing, yet he still didn’t listen to you. “Ryō. You’re okay.” You reassure, hearing him exhale and feeling his shoulders relax. Your eyes flutter shut in an attempt to fall asleep. His arm didn’t move, but you felt the tips of his fingers touch yours.

Just before you drift off, you feel his hand hold onto yours, his touch soft and comforting.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

This wasn't part of the plan.

You were being restrained by two men in bathing suits, being dragged into a large room where a bunch of people were standing in a circle. You tried to flail, but their grip on you was too strong. You first catch sight of Yuzu and Ryō, who are relieved to see that you were okay. "Y/N!"

“Ah, you three must know each other.” The man in front of you says, his orange robe blocking your vision. All your cards are laid out on the table, but it’d be too risky to grab them with two people guarding them with firearms.

From what the man said, there were three rules. You must wear a swimsuit, since firearms and/or weapons could not be concealed. Enjoy your life as much as you can, whether that be through doing drugs, having sex, or drowning yourself in alcohol. Lastly, death to the traitors, meaning the three of you didn’t have a choice but to accept if you wanted to live.

“L/N, Usagi… I’m sorry… for getting you involved.”You hear Ryō whisper from behind, your head slowly dropping, body language displaying that it was okay. “Don’t apologize. We were in this together.”

Judging from the man’s laugh, who you later learned was nicknamed ‘Hatter’, you were now a part of The Beach, like little pawns designed to win games that didn’t fully guarantee the benefit of being able to leave the hellish world.

You were sent into a room with one of the executives and Yuzu, being showed an array of swimsuits; one pieces, two pieces, bikinis, swim shorts, they had all kinds. Both of you darted for the same set, long shorts and a simple bra top, but let your friend have hands on it first, finding another one, black with swirls of grey on it, the top more cropped and shorter bottoms. You look at the executive, her arms crossed and sunglasses on, seeing her nod.

Before you leave, both you and Yuzu snagged an extra garment, a jacket and a thin robe, running into Ryō by the pool. His eyes land on both of you, but he’s drawn to you in particular, the way your robe is meant to cover but doesn’t do that at all considering it’s see through. Your chest, your waist, your thighs– he was being a pervert. He snapped out of it, looking away immediately.

And you walk over all innocent, checking your wristband in sync with Usagi, your own eyes trailing over his figure. He mostly looked the same, yet he seemed more stiff than usual. People had eyes on you, everyone you looked, there were stares coming from the bar, the poolside, even the beach chairs.

Your hand naturally drifts over to Ryō’s, toying with his fingers to distract you. He must have noticed something more, instead holding your hand fully with a tight grip. He doesn’t let go of you the whole day, afraid he’d lose you in the crowds.

The only time he let go was when everyone was separated into groups for individual games. The woman who was with you in the dressing room had Ryō following her, and you couldn’t help but feel your heart crack a little. Your eyes meet for a brief moment before he leaves, and he swears he can see the light in your eyes dim for a moment.

You managed to come back alive, and so did Yuzu, yet Ryō was nowhere to be found. As you walked down the never ending halls of the large resort, she brings up a topic you haven’t discussed once in your life.

“You like him, don’t you?”

At first, you’re confused as to who him is, then remember that there was only one him in the first place.

“Ryō?”

“You’ve been close with him. Touchy.” You nod, agreeing with her points. “You’ve always been that way, but there’s something… different. Different when it comes to Arisu.”

Your head tilts slightly, wondering how that could be. “You’re comfortable with him. You don’t second guess and always go for it. I’ve seen the way your face goes red when he accepts your gesture. The way you smile when he leans closer to you to make your habits of playing with his fingers more discreet. When he smiles at you, and you’re left lovestruck with your mouth hanging open.”

“Of course I like Ryō. He is my friend.”

“Not that like…” Yuzu searches for the words in her head, trying to put them together in a way you’d understand, but deciding to be straightforward. “You like him in a way you want to kiss him.”

You heat up from that thought alone. Kissing your friend? You weren’t sure if you were blushing from the thought of you liking it or the thought that it was embarrassing. “I haven’t… kissed anyone.” Yuzu looks around, dragging you into an empty hotel room and locking the door, letting you sit on the bed.

“Have there been times where you think of… inappropriate things involving him?”

“Sex?”

“…Sure. Sex thoughts.”

You sit there for a moment, embarrassed that you have thought about such dirty things. But Yuzu was right there, waiting for an answer, and you couldn’t get out of it despite having the choice to not say anything.

“His hands.”

“What about his hands?”

The image replays in your head like a movie. “On my waist, my hips, my thighs…” You list, unable to make eye contact with your friend. “His fingers…” You look down between your legs, not wanting to go into detail. “His lips.” Your hand brushes over your chest briefly before moving it back to your side.

“Aren’t you a virgin?”

“I know things. I’ve seen things.”

“But do you like Arisu for who he is? That’s the big question. Because if you don’t, I think you’ll hurt him.”

“I’ve always liked his personality. There are… things we… keep between ourselves that others don’t know about. I really like him, I do. It feels wrong to think such… dirty things about him. I can’t help it.” Yuzu sits down next to you, feeling a dip in the mattress on your left. “I ran into Kuina while walking around the club when you two stayed by the bar. She said to live life while I still could. And she mentioned you.”

“Me?”

“Even though we’re newcomers, she noticed you and Arisu. Even she could see the tension, despite never knowing what was going on between you two.” She holds your hands gently, one hand under and the other on top. “I’m not encouraging any… sexual activities… but I think you should tell him.”

“Tell him… I like him?”

“If he says no, I’ll kill him. And you of all people should know I will take that to heart. I feel this is the only time I’ve seen you so open, especially with Arisu. If that’s what it takes to see you like that all the time, then I hope you’ll go for it.” You smile and hug her, eventually feeling her take you in her own arms. “I will run back to you if it does not go well.” You state before you pull away. Both of you leave the room together, Yuzu going on her own after spotting a girl with a bikini top and jeans from afar.

You mindlessly check downstairs, outside, the club, and eventually back into the hallways, running into Ryō by the stairs.

“Y– L/N.”

“Y/N is okay.” You assure, walking with him close enough to have your fingers brushing against each other. “How was your game?” He asked. “Good. Easy.”

“Of course it was.”

It’s silent for a moment, and you pick up on a tinge of alcohol coming from Ryō. “Did you drink?” You ask, the scent not strong but prominent. “A little bit. Hatter wanted to discus with me. I’m not drunk.” You eye him, believing he’s telling the truth after not finding anything different about his mannerisms. “I managed to get a suite.” He says.

“How?”

“I played with Ann. The executive. Then Hatter talked to me and I got the room.”

“So… you are an executive now?”

“No. Hatter said I was… beneficial.”

Ryō takes your hand, guiding you up one more flight of stairs and opening the room, revealing a large space with a cozy seating area, a large window with the curtains closed, and a massive, made bed. His jacket is hanging in the bathroom, soaked and dripping but left to dry with a towel underneath.

“What happened to your robe?” He notices, looking back at you. “Held me back. Threw it during my game.”

You look at the door. “Should we tell Yuzu this room?”

“I already did. I ran into her before I found you.” You anxiously scratch the palm of your hand, staring at his shirt. “What’s wrong? Is there something bothering you?” You shake your head, the scratching intensifying. He grabs your wrists, separating your hands. “Don’t do that. You might scratch too hard and bleed.” He notices your hands shaking, knowing if he let go that you would continue.

“What’s the matter?” He asks, his grip loosening. Your heart is pounding, unable to make eye contact with him. “I want… to tell you something.” You stutter, breath shaky. Ryō could feel the pulse point on your wrist, unclear but fast thumps against his thumb. “I like you.”

His eyes widen, and he almost lets go, but instead you grab his hand and place it against your chest, feeling your heartbeat just as fast as he did from your wrist. He was trying so hard not to stare at your tits at the same time.

“I’m scared.” You mutter, hiding your face.

“Why?”

“That you’ll hate me… since you don’t… like me back.”

“Who said I didn’t like you back?”

You look up at him for the first time since you’ve entered the room, and his look is genuine. Your hand stays on his wrist, but he moves his own hand up your neck, a sudden chill shaking your body. He tilts your head up to make up for the height, and kisses you.

He’s kissing you, and you’re kissing him.

The moment his lips are on yours, you don’t want to let go. You wanted to kiss him for as long as you could, be in his arms for as long as they could hold you. You’re both a mess of tongue and lips, and you couldn’t get enough of it. You wanted more than he could give.

You both stumble over to the bed, being the first to lay down with Ryō hovering over you. His chest presses against your tits as he leans into you, making you groan. He pulls away, a whine emitting from you, his finger barely slipping under the band of your bra, looking at you endearingly. “Can we do this? I want to make you feel good. Please.” He practically moans, and you don’t even have to think, nodding profusely.

Maybe it’s the fact you’re horny as fuck right now, as he is, but god, you wanted to see him beg for you so bad. Seeing the position he was in right now, pleading for your consent, the way his eyebrows furrowed in desperation, you wanted to be the only one that could make him do that.

And by the end of the night, you certainly did.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Clothes are strewn on the floor, the light barely shines through the crack of the curtains. There’s a naked man laying next to you in bed, snoring softly with his mouth slightly open. His hair messy and his arm under your head, he lays there peacefully, his own eyes fluttering open and squeezing shut after being hit with the light of the sun. He opens them to see you, and your glowing, post-sex face.

“Hi.” You greet, further leaning on his arm. “Hi.” He replies, hand curling around your head to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “You’re so pretty.” He says, fingers playing with your hair.

“You are.”

He doesn’t retaliate and simply smiles, giving you your first kiss of the day. He breaks eye contact first, lost in thought. “Does this change anything between us?” He asks, looking back at you. “I don’t want this to be a one time thing. I… that was… really nice.” He refers to the night before with a smile, unashamed.

“I want… to be more… than friends.” The words come out staggered, but he understands, his smile growing slightly. “But I don’t want this to… hold us back in games. If we lose each other, we won’t join the other. The other… must stay alive. I don’t want me or you to give up… because the other half isn’t there anymore. Can you promise that?” There’s a tinge of worry in his eyes, but it slowly changes to understanding as your hand cups his jaw. He nods. “I promise.”

You kiss him once more, bringing the two of you back onto each other again. His free hand rests on your waist, moving to your back to push you closer, then down to your ass, your leg on top of his side.

“Jesus, I thought you two were done already.”

Yuzu is staring at you from a distance by the corner of the wall, seeing one of your undergarments on the floor. “Get dressed, we need to find more intel. Y/N, you can stay with Arisu, since you’re already with him anyways.” She eyes the position you’re in right now, looking at Arisu, then at you. “I’m assuming it went well.”

You nod. “It did.”

“I knew it would. I knew he liked you anyways. I was going to come in until I heard what was going on. You left the door unlocked. Lucky you two were so loud no one dared to walk in.” She leaves the room, the two of you back to admiring each other in the glow of the covered sunlight.

“I could never hate you, by the way. I feel like you’re the reason I’m still alive right now. Everything you said stuck with me… and I guess it kept pushing me to live.”

“What if I die? Would you… still have the will to live?”

“I’d keep living if that was your last dying wish.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

i want to say hi to you. i have no reason to. 🎧

[safetycar-restart]

Hh!carlos and his wife have a running tally of how many times Carlos can make his wife cum in a day, and almost every Sunday is dedicated to breaking his record from the previous week. He goes positively pussy-drunk, and he’s so happy about it. If he could, he’d literally have a shrine to his wife and her pussy, he loves it so much.

He also does not care about looking “whipped” in front of people, he’s shameless and completely in love. The housewives despise it, because Carlos and his wife have the best relationship in the neighbourhood (maybe the world). I also think that the part of the reason why Sundays are free for them so often is because people tend to have neighbourhood BBQs and things on Sundays, and Carlos and his wife just never got invited. And when they did, they weren’t happy. The other housewives absolutely whisper about reader behind her back, and it’s actually pretty nasty stuff because they’re just so jealous. And Carlos absolutely will not stand anyone being mean to his beloved wife, he doesn’t care who he has to fight. So those garden parties would always end in a fight (and Carlos getting thoroughly fucked but that’s a given), so Carlos and reader just eventually decided to keep their Sundays free. Idk that’s just my personal thought lmao feel free to tell me I’m dumb. (That sounded way meaner than I meant I’m so sorry I meant for it to sound joking I swear)

-💍 hhc anon

YES. YES TO ALL OF THIS. I love house husband Carlos so fucking much oh my god. Honestly I love seeing so many asks from 💍 anon! I usually get an ask every second day or so and I love them so so much!!

So we said that Sundays are strictly for you and Carlos. You two spend the entire day together, and preferably never even leave the house.

And yeah, he goes pussy drunk. He wakes you up with his head between your thighs, giving you at least one orgasm before he goes to make breakfast for you two. Sometimes you'll have slow morning sex before that, other time he'll just eat you out. Of course it all depends on what you want.

(Sidenote: Carlos would absolutely get a vasectomy so that he could cum in his wife every time and eat her out to clean all the cum out. He loves it so much)

He keeps a tally in his head of how many times he makes you cum. It doesn't matter how thoroughly fucked he is, he will always remember how many times you've cum. Honestly it's like his superpower.

Sundays are sacred pussy days.

But as much as he loves it and wants nothing to change, he also can't get the housewives off his back because you and him havent attended any of the monthly neighbourhood barbecues. Maybe it's hosted at a different house every month and you and Carlos simply havent bothered to go to any and also havent put your names down to host either.

Granted, you two have considered going a couple times, but then one (or both) of you got horny and suggested a quick fuck which turned into a very very long fuck and then whoops the barbecue is over.

But Linda just won't stop going on about it and well, Carlos does want to be an actual member of the community. And you know basically no one in the community despite living there for a couple months. Plus you'll do whatever Carlos wants to make him happy and if he wants to go to the barbecue, then fine.

So you two go to the next one, after a morning of sex of course, and the entire neighbourhood is so shocked to see you all.

The housewives are most upset to realise that Carlos looks at you with the same love and devotion that he expresses when he speaks about you, openly staring and being so clearly in love it's insane. He doesn't even notice another woman, and turns down every request to talk alone. He doesn't want to speak to anyone without you, stays glued to your side the entire time.

You two go from group to group together, socialising and chatting and getting to know some neighbours. Most of the husbands and wives have split into groups, the husbands at the grill and the wives in the kitchen with the salads and sides. But you and carlos go from group to group, even stopping by some of the kids playing too.

It seems to be going well, until Carlos realises some of the wives are whispering about you. He tells you that he's going to get you two more drinks, but actually he goes to the women and asks them point blank what they have been saying about you.

And he just sees red. Because how dare they? How dare they suggest that his wife isnt the best partner he could ever have? That you aren't the best person for him? That someone else could do better? How fucking dare they.

And well... let's just say it's a good thing none of them can speak Spanish because if they could they would never look at Carlos the same way again. He is absolutely not having it.

You realise of course, because you hear Carlos's raised voice and instantly you know someone must have said something about you because that's the only way to get Carlos to yell in Spanish (besides fucking him of course, but only you know that).

You only ever attend one barbecue, and years later the neighbourhood is still talking about the time the hot house husband from the corner house threw a potato salad at Jeff.

[piss-wizard-ao3]

dndads s2ep45 spoilers

re: that one quote that absolutely emotionally obliterated a decent chunk of the fandom

alright fuckin bear with me i have some Thoughts and Feelings about particularly how the Close-Foster-Swifts deal with a) parenting and b) intergenerational trauma Anthony: 'As you're saying this, without even wanting it to, tears are rolling down your cheeks. And in that moment, you, and Taylor, and Nick all realise... That there is no fixing this. That this is as good as it's going to get. That you are stuck with each other in the forms that you are now.' this fucking DESTROYED ME and, from what i can tell, a lot of other people in the fandom also. i think this brings up some really important points that resonate w/ me personally about intergenerational trauma, and that are super important to talk about like with the wilsons and the oaks, they manage to (in varying degrees) realise what they did wrong, or what they could do better, and actively try to do better. they actively try to go out of their way to fix things, which is great! breaking that cycle is important, and it takes a while, but they're trying. with the stamplers (+ marlowes), specifically ron and terry jr, they do the 'acknowledging i havent been good enough' to 'trying my best to be what you deserve' pipeline and its Beautiful. and we get a little of that with terry jr and scary too, with terry jr just trying to do his best and scary slowly coming around to realise that she does, actually, care about her stepdad. and its so wholesome and good. it really pays homage to the ron and terry jr relationship i feel, where they end up before he died (F). BUT THE CLOSE/FOSTER/SWIFT FAMILY. i fucking. it hurts. but its the one that hits the closest to home. 'This is as good as it's going to get' fucking resonated with me. im sure it resonated with a lot of people. intergenerational trauma and the effects it has on people is such a core theme of dndads, and the way its handled so differently through each family line is honestly artful. but an important part of the story of intergenerational trauma is when it's not something that you can fix, or go back and apologise for, or something that you can become better from. sometimes trauma just is. sometimes you can't recover from it. families will break up, lineages will die out, stories and lives will be forgotten. and as tragic as that is, as much as it hurts, it's so real. in a way, its a double-edged sword that they all still talk to each-other, that they still cling to what they have, what they wanted to have. especially in the case of Taylor, who does spend a lot of the series with questions about his dad but ultimately thinking he's pretty neat, to then break down to wishing there was time travel so Nicky could be there for him, so they could re-do childhood. i just. screams. thats such a pivotal moment for him. to finally come to terms with and admit the fact that no, things aren't okay, this isn't what he wanted, and if given the chance he would go back and fix them himself. that his father, and his father's father, have failed to do it, and now it falls upon his shoulders. (this also resonates very well with the whole 'our parents unleashed the doodler and both our grandparents and parents failed to fix it so now that's our burden to bear') i wonder if we'll ever get to know if the teens from this series go on to have families. if Lincoln ever introduces his children to grandpa Grant, or if Normal ever feels, well. normal enough to even consider the possibility of raising kids. if Scary ever takes her children to visit Terry Jr's grave, or tells them about his exploits, or recounts to them the things he did for her before she grew to appreciate him. i wonder if Taylor will ever even consider the concept of having a family, upon looking back like this at his own, upon knowing first-hand the stakes if he gets it wrong. would he think that he can break the cycle? that he could be better? or is it, truly, as good as it's going to get?

[teacorgi]

Hi I really like Lily's style! She's super cool but I was wondering, is she still a vampire? The fangs are a great look! (⁠☆⁠▽⁠☆⁠) What all does vampirism entail in your world/setting? There are so many different interpretations of the curse and I like learning about everyone's ideas on it!

HEWWO ! >W< ty for the ask abt lilly waah !!

i feel like this got too long for the dashboard so ill throw my answer under a readmore !

She is still a vampire ! Part of the time, anyway ! In her main universe/the main universe i write with her in she is a human but ! i do have an AU i poke around in sometimes w/stories where she's a vampire still bc its Very important to me that she gets to keep her vampirism somewhere u know x3

The Curse(tm) depends on the type/'rank' of vampire in most my universes that i write w/them.

Lillian, for example, was changed by a man who held a moderate amnt of control over her following the change. While under his influence/control she could only drink blood n was unable to go out during the day w/out it severely burning her.

Killing him herself n drinking some of his blood basically released her from him + buffed her vampy powers up a bit. She can eat normie human food sometimes w/out getting sick and sunny days just feel like when you go outside w/a not-quite-healed sunburn- warm, tingly, hurts a little bit but its bearable. some of this is due to alien tech given to her by her husband tho to help her deal w/negative side effects.

there are also...alien vampires in this universe which are responsible for introducing vampirism to earth many centuries ago. they don't typically come to earth themselves but lilly's daughter is friends w/a few of them =3

some of these alien vamps don't really suffer many negative effects at All and have more abilities ( can turn into various beasts, teleport, turn invisible, ect ) but others are weaker than ur average earth vampire. it just depends !

ooh also if u do not consume enough blood, even if you are able to eat human food n have been doing so, you can go into a frenzied starvation mode. when this happens, people lose control of themselves and seek out a food source indiscriminately.

lets see... what else... vamps can feed off other vamps but its not as effective/does not taste good... there are some alien species w/highly prized blood... holy water and the like mostly only effects lower tier vamps and only rly works bc of the strong emotional energy behind the process of making the vamp hunting items... silverware tastes extremely bitter and acidic to them... a weaker vamp could paralyze a stronger one if their venom was different enough...

i kno there is more but. sleepy....... sleepy... i am so VEWY sleepy so im sorry if this sounds rambly or doesnt make sense DX TY AGAIN a lot for the question ;w; i havent talked this much abt oc stuff publically in 500000 yrs no joke lol

[fried-phrogcakes]

spoilers for paper mario: origami king !!

i uhhh havent finished it just yet but im so obsessed and in love that i need to ramble,, (just deleted purple ribbon)

you have been warned

OH my glob there is nothing in the world that can make me happier than this game,, dont get me wrong i love my boyfriend but this is just such an amazing game im going to fucking cry when i finish it because the first time experience will be over,, but !! ive been savouring it as much as i can

as i get closer to beating the game and saving all the toads i can find along the way, its still really weird seeing the stadium of toads filling up so much.. like what im just a guy- BRO and - mmmmMMMM

i havent played many mario games but this is absolutely by far my favourite mario iteration as a character. he is so silly and so goofy and hes not mean to luigi and he dances and grooves and has such a silly fun time i really hope there will be a bit more luigi content too after i save the castle or something i love them both so much

and like olivia was a lil annoying at first, some of her hints (esp during battle) can be pretty useless and she holds your hand through a lot of things,, reminding me that im playing a kids game, but ive grown to love her a lot i love how silly she is even tho she is quite oblivious sometimes. her dancing is so cute and while its not like technically her form or whatever its so cool seeing her fold into the different vellumentals!!!

.......i miss bob-omb "bobby" :( why did silly fun game have angst.. OUGH AND HE SHOWS UP IN THE PICTURES YOU TAKE AT SHOGUN STUDIOS IT MAKES ME SOB wah hes following and keeping along on the adventure :(((( i love him 😭 gary come home moment,,,

um.. anyway. moving on from my heartbreak theres just like a kajillion reasons to love this game, and while i dont have the comparison of the other paper marios i have no clue how the hell this one is deemed as the worst one!! sure the combat is a little weird but its puzzling and challenging and so unique!! ..albeit i dont like doing it over and over and over but as you get more health you get stronger and can just smack em with ur hammer and not have to fight them which i REALLY appreciate

anyways it just has so much in it and i love the puzzles and the silly little things inside i love the sneaky stuff and 😭 the shogun theatre show was just amazing. idk how many hours of gameplay i have in it so far but it feels like eons /pos

i dont think ive ever had a game that ive hyperfixated on so hard that has made me smile and laugh and cry so much this will forever hold such a strong place in my heart and while i cant wait to finish it i absolutely never want it to be over

so that being said!! if this IS the "worst paper mario game" then honestly all i have to look forward to is up!! i love the toads so much i love the silly ways you find them.... im also curious what wouldve happened if i agreed w the folded soldier in the very beginning and went yeah!! being folded sounds amazing sign me up!! .........bro........ that could open up a whole alternate storyline gameplay. probably not but like imaging it is so cool!! like.. mario gets folded and then instead of saving toads he folds em up n is on a quest to put all the ribbons in place or something

im not sure exactly how it would work out but a sort of anti-mario would be very neat

urgh okay its late im gonna conclude this as part 1 of my rambling abt paper mario lmao, a lot of words but not a lot was said

[coconox]

Why you love Mammon? Of course i'm not judging your favorite or something don't get me wrong here haha:D

I live love laugh Mammon too! And i want to know other Mammon lovers, what is the thing that makes them love him😋

i have quite a few reasons on why i love him so big ramble incoming LMAOHSHFJS

i think one of the biggest reasons is just vibes alone lol. my type in general is usually big brute exterior, soft and silly interior like with nocti from pgr and aki from neural cloud

theres also a common pattern of having the most dorito bod + tiny grabbable waists ive ever seen but thats a whole other topic 💀

+ most of the time theyre all shirtless? 🤨 i keep unintentionally choosing the ones that are/go shirtless more frequently than other chars so thats another weird call out to myself hsjfjskf

legit when i first saw mammon my brain was automatically like "i NEED him." it was literally the same as how mammon fell in love w mc, love at first sight LOL

anyw looks aside i very much love his approach of "i'll be yours and so maybe one day youll choose me." its a nice change of pace from the usual "youre mine and i will do as much as possible to prove youre mine." he ald knows everyones gonna try to claim you, so he found a workaround that stood out from the rest (actual big brain move imo). idk i like the more passive approach of him just letting you go at your own pace and he'll be there whenever

most of his card stories (havent fully read his attacker card tho cause im stuck on needing his sig 😭😭) normally have him submit to you and let you do whatever you like, even reassuring you that no matter how rough (or gentle) you wanna be w him, he'll always enjoy it (cause he gets to spend time w you hHHSHFJSKFK 😭😭🥹🥹🥹) and being rough wont hurt him in the slightest. idk i like being in control in most ✨️spicy✨️ situations and for mammon to be like "do as you please" just makes me very happy :3

hes also just very romantic and sweet and gentle and tHE LOVE CONFESSION IS SMTH I WILL NEVER GET OVER 😭😭😭🥹🥹🥹 you can tell he just loves you sm and as much as he wants to be like "youre mine >:3c" he normally doesnt do that and just lets you be free to do whatever

in one of the chats when you ask if its alright if you see other devils, hes very much ok w it as long as hes your #1 like HSJFJSKDK ?????? OFC YOURE MY #1 MAMMON LITERALLY NO ONE COULD REPLACE YOU 😭😭

also love how he carries mc a lot of the time in card stories, i just imagine he carries them like this

i also like how his greed is portrayed differently from the usual. like his greed focuses more on keeping/maintaining what he ald owns rather than trying to be on the hunt to collect everything (tbf he ald believes everything is his so theres most likely no need to really collect anything in his eyes).

other side note i just love his sticker he sends when he txts ITS SO CUTE HE LOOKS SO HAPPY 😭😭

tl;dr i like how hes very sweet and romantic and gentle despite how absolutely MASSIVE he is ;w;

i could go on and on w more examples but id just be stating the same points over and over again hdhfkskf

[excadrill]

tagged by @yj-98 ilyyy 🫶🫶🤍

RULES: Reveal the titles of the documents in your WIP folder and tag as many people as there are documents. Let others ask questions about the ones that interest them and post snippets or explain the contents as you see fit!

tag as many people as their are wips.. eep.. sorry i'd put this under a cut but it's not working on mobile 😭

ankhgiveaway.sai [i held an art giveaway in february and havent finished the prizes even tho i keep looking at them and going 'i need to and Want to finish this..']

yuukigiveaway.sai [same as above but the person who requested this one deactivated so i. don't know if i'm still gonna finish it]

sonomomo.sai [my current priority 'For Me' wip.. ive shared this wip w some people but ive never done a proper piece for the 'cycle of life and death' thing for them so that's what this one is..💙❤️]

exozinewip5.sai [pokemon zine oc piece, not supposed to share zine wips so idk if i should say more but it's of my beloved gymsona.. this zine will be free + digital and i'll ofc be promoting it more when it's done but it's soooo cute keep your eyes out for this one :3c '5' not bc im contributing multiple pieces but bc this piece is big and slightly intimidating for me so i keep saving different versions when i do major merges]

pocketzine-nymble.sai [another pokemon zine piece, so i can't really say more But it's not the only thing im contributing to this zine, ive just finished all my other stuff already]

oczine-thumbs.sai [thumbs for an oc zine i signed up for that i'll probably drop out of bc im not feeling like a vibe w everyone else there >w>;;; ]

philip.sai [philip piece ive had sitting around basically since i finished W.. about a year ago now i think ? but i transferred it to my '23 wips folder bc i still wanna finish it..it was supposed to be a 'this one will be quick and easy so i'll have smthn i Finished this month outside of zine stuff' but. zine stuff took up all my time and energy oops]

mrtourism.sai [this one's a silly post-canon kirihiko art i've Also had sitting around for like a year. i chip away at this one sometimes but then keep restarting bc im unsatisfied with the lines i wish i could just sit down and finish it bc i Love Him]

platform.sai [ummm silly ryotaro thing i drew after watching the den-o final stage ^__^ not a high priority one but it's cute so like. maybe one day]

punkjackhelmet.sai [file name was bc i was originally doing helmet studies before it turned into a full sketch. punkjack with the beat buckle bc i was doing this right after his special came out 🎃🫶]

colourwheel.sai [ummm well. yeah im not good at finishing art memes when theyre still on trend. i did all the sketches for these but i probably won't finish at this point..]

poppyangel.sai [poppy ex-aid i sketched as a break between big stuff the other day that i like a lot so. maybe will finish but might just post unfinished if i cant find the energy to get to this one sooner. feel bad that i like ex-aid so much but don't have any clean art done for it..]

millirider.sai [toku oc planning :3 i was saying last night i finally figured the helmet out which ive been struggling with for ages so hopefullyyyy i get around to doing a proper ref sheet]

im not at my laptop rn so im doing this off the top of my head but i THINK that's everything.. tagging umm @ankhisms @heartvisor @madaraki @circeancity @horrorcomedies @yu3s @pleuvoire @kosukeiichi @danothan @seashrine @asticassia @eclipse-song @kirider only if you guys wanna 🤍🤍

[volfoss]

hiii meow 🔥

i am going to give u a guy that would be obscure even if volfoss was popular bc people hate old man cunt serve or whatever

this is frokiston and he has every disease. i havent seen a ton of him yet (so this will not be long which i think is for the best. but he has a lot of the ummm. features that aki and from what i understand of astarion have which is why i think you'll like him). hes basically the leader of Ikuaipe (which. quick pause to get into politics before i continue. because unfortunately its important and the politics do tie into him due to his position in society). the map is there to well. hopefully help it be easier to understand the politics im so sorry (and also because his head is kind of cut off like this. jumpscare of old man face)

so. volfoss politics 101: three big countries: ikuaipe, asdenia, and caldealand. asdenia and ikuaipe are at war by the time you hit act 2 over the fact that asdenia basically stopped exporting rare metals that ikuaipe used for drugs (for like. no reason rly but its been VERY shitty for ikuaipe bc they either have to smuggle it over or experience very bad withdrawal symptoms) and depending on what route you take (there are 5: asdenia, caldealand, ikuaipe, good, and bad), the war itself is properly started/furthered due to differing events (a monster in one, frokiston's seeming kidnapping in other. we will circle back to that). one of the really nice things abt volfoss is how even when you take one of the country's sides, you'll still see the other country (and in a sympathetic light too. like theres nuance there basically). the political structure of each nation is different (so like. with caldealand, theres a prime minister, king and queen; asdenia has weird shit going on where its like? the arch priest seems to kind of be leading or somewhat. its weird man idk. and ikuaipe has frokiston as the king, gust as like his evil inventor or whatever and veycer under him as the lead of the military. this is all important im so fucking sorry. there will not be a quiz at the end)

you have made it OUT of the politics section and now i can talk about him as a character. he's very interesting to me due to his self sacrificing natures (which is why i immediately thought of him when you sent an ask in). the two most prominent examples is in the ikuaipe route, when the war starts (or is about to), he puts himself in risk to go talk to Tiece (who's the archpriest of asdenia) (this journey is like. the entire length of the world. ill toss a map in above to help keep all this straight and also to show for reference why this man is making a VERY dangerous sacrifice), all because he just doesn't want the war to start. literally EVERYONE is like hey. this is a really dumb idea. dont do this. and he just is insistent bc its for the good of the country. i kind of hesitate to be like oh found family moment bc thats not really the case, but he's very much a figure that veycer can look up to and someone who veycer turns to before he leaves, because NEITHER of them want this war really. but frokiston is level headed but is there for veycer as he's coming to terms with the fact that the war may be necessary in order to get the rare metals in order to help their citizens. and then um well. he gets kidnapped/disappears shortly after this (on this route at least. idk about the 3 routes i havent done/the rest of this route) and that is enough for veycer to basically kickstart the war into high gear, as he assumes asdenia did SOMETHING to him and would do anything to get him back. and i think um well if you think about the tragedies and all w aki. that the parallels are there.

we are onto part TWO of the self sacrificing natures. when on the asdenia route, he's the final boss. also he has had body modifications here. unclear as to what they are but it could be really anything. tossing that light hearted fact in before i hit you with the horrors. into the horrors now though :3 so all through the asdenian route, you see veycer kind of butting heads with frokiston on this because frokiston does NOT want this war. he will do anything for peace but eventually it gets to the point where he realizes it has to happen. and hes very upset about this bc its painted as veycer is a bit more supportive of the war happening, and frokiston just kind of like. being there and being kind of miserable about it for a bit because he really can't do anything (as we see in the ikuaipe route, its not really safe for him to leave the capital, so he's just stuck there).

but the self sacrificing point comes after you beat him. he pretty much says that ikuaipe has no future now, and shows gratitude towards shalvas for being a good fight at the end of his life. and here is when we start to see the self sacrificing tendencies RAMP up. directly from my summary bc well. "He pleads with Shalvas to finish him off and then he will show his body to everyone. His plan is that if they do that, Veycer and the others will stop fighting. Frokiston wants no more lives to be sacrificed." He literally fully believes that showing his body will stop everyone because the fact that their leader was defeated would make everyone just. stop. Sheala (who's one of the Ikuaipe army commanders. she's great you'd love her) is also there, and he is SO relieved to see her because it does genuinely seem like he cares about them (veycer and sheala are siblings) a lot and worries about them. one of the higher up people in ikuaipe (turi-marrya. sorry there are a million names. shes important and u would love her ok. i promise) is the only one who can really persuade him that he shouldn't throw his life away for this, and sheala has to basically persuade him that he's the only one who can stop gylor (leader of the asdenia military) and veycer from continuing to fight. Turi has to pretty much beg Frokiston to live, and again from my notes:

"Frokiston pauses to think for a very long time, before finally saying “...I… Maybe I was trying to escape from death by embellishing my words beautifully. Should I make amends? It is very sensible to think of it that way.” Turi says his name and he finally comes to a decision, saying that they need to go to Veycer right away, and that after that, both he and Veycer will formally declare their surrender. Turi replies, “Bless your courage, Your Excellency Frokiston.” He rejects that, believing that if he looks brave, it is because of Turi. Frokiston feels encouraged due to the lack of doubt in Turi’s words."

but i think his interactions w veycer and sheala are so interesting, and especially turi. like shes a very blunt person and cannot hide her emotions well, and that being reassuring for him, that she knows for sure that he can help. its very interesting to me (read: typing this up made me get 5 million times worse about the characters)

he's also just kind of like. a silly guy at times. he goes to the tournament earlier in the game, and Gust has invented some like. super fast powered transporter. and is sure using frokiston as a test dummy for it (objectively funny of gust like. hes like well um ^-^ it functions but this was the test run) and hes just like completely ok with it and thought it was fun. i do not know all of his deals and issues yet but i think the position hes in and his diseases would appeal to you :3 and SOMEONE needs to fuck that old man (or something idk.)

[kaleidosouls]

hi. (pulls out uke)

IM JOKING but i havent posted here in forever huh, are ppl still around? i guess ill comment on like, whats been going in in the time i havent posted

so a long time ago now i wanted to like, cut off from twitter, so i deleted the kaleidosouls twitter, and wanted to keep my art stuff just on insta mostly, trying to move since twitter is a sinking ship right. then my instagram got deleted for no reason (and so did my pinterest that was ful of refs and honestly that was more upseting than insta getting deletedand losing all my art following)

ive been mildly caught up in IRL/college stuff in the meantime,having da depression, and the exec dysfunction same as awlays like. not much has actually been happening but ive been going acutally all over the place trying to figure out what im gonna do with my internet social media stuff. im looking into internships (other field) and im like, i havent given up being an artist professionally exactly but i think im like fuck it. fuck this like, building my Internet career or whatever. like, im gona wokr on my art portfolio and try to find art job stuf thats not really about how popular my art is on twitter or smth. none of that shit rly matters anymoer. same w here, i probably wouldve delted this tumblr if it wasnt the main like, blog so all my other blogs dpened on this one right.

im not like, done posting art online but ive been changing how im going about it and i still havent found my like, place yet. i did remake instagram, a main one and one for creature/pokemon stuff. idk im figuring out my life but i guess the main point is that its all a mess, and its not a disaster like things are going bad or anythin just that ive been in this inertia of disorder for a long time. im getting old. really tired lately, barely draw that much

i still rly love and am holding onto my personal ideas/projects that i want to execute oveer time altho they cant be a priority rn becuase of stuff in life. i got a really bad attention span so ill probably like, work on smth a lot for a few ays and then pick it up again in a year or more. the SU stuff is one of those. i actually ammaking this post bc i got really fucking dickhead comments and i was thinking of going off but my social media paranoia PR brain is like weighting on how i cant do that bc itll make my brand look bad and immature, and its like exhausting to live like that yk. altho it Is wise to restrain myself from being mean dsgkj but i also think itd be funny to cuss ppl off so :( life is very hard as an adult!

anyway point is. thigns are a mess rn and they will continue to be for the time being. my accoutns got obliterated so if you wanna keep up with me maybe follow my instagram if you want, i keep forgetting tumblr exists so tahst why i post so little on here. i do like postingt here though, nad i like making little blogs. i like ppls tags on ym art and replies. even the pricky ones like, i get to engage my brain a litlte bit adn its like ppl are out there yk? seieng my stuff, rather than just like, a bunch of numbers of how many likes or reblogs smth has.

most of the stuff left on this blog is for SU reclaimed and i still rly like the idea and its good coping for me and i want to pick it up sometimes but idk what to do with it wrt how i wanna present the content. ive considerd many times making a separate tumblr for it and i am considering that Again but maybe i should just quit it and post it here and forget about that. and find a different way to present the totality of the contents of the AU and use this tumblr as a way to just post it like, a 'devblog' (i am not developing SHIT this is just conceptual design writing stuff)

if theres anyone still following thats like engaged/interested in SU reclaimed feel free to comment with your thoughts or suggestions,i guess i could make an instagram for it? but ehh... idt thats how i wanna like, execute it. welp. i guess if i do make smth ill post about it here,i guess the point is that maybe i can try to post on here moreoften, idk, like i want my instagrams to be more tidy and like, impersonal. i deleted twitter bc i dont want to engage that personalyl at ALL anymore as an artist w viewers. not to mention it sinking. but i guess tumblr Is the perfect place to keep that unprofessional, slightly casual blogging artist experience. maybe if i get to cuss ppl out :D but then i dont wanna get harassed later over it. hm.. sucks to exist online tbh

thank u if youve read this far. if youre a mutual (somehow) or a long time follower and wanna know how to better keep up w me since i know im disappearing a lot feel free to dm