#its such a good review and you can tell that the reviewer is very familiar with greek classics

[loveydive]

the main criticism i have for the song of achilles is the depiction of the relationship between achilles and patroclus.

i dont mind a coming of age love story between the boys; its just that throughout the book it is EXTREMELY static. sure there are a few bumps along the way but they eventually sort themselves out fairly quickly (too quickly imo). like yes, i get it. they love each other so much but they cant be tgt bc of fate - oh how tragic. but the story is only tragic in that they both die. its not actually a tragedy in itself, because the ending isnt actually tragic at all - they meet each other in the underworld again afterall.

but this is the reason why i think the depiction of their doomed but unbreakable love is one of the weaknesses of the story. it fails to connect with or explore the themes in the illiad - the real themes which actually made it a tragedy. achilles was consumed by his pride and let hundreds of men die, he was no longer himself and what? patroclus still loved him wholeheartedly after that? i just couldnt bring myself to believe that. after all of that how could patroclus be so single-minded in loving him? it wouldve made for a better story if patroclus had intended to go out to the walls of troy as a kind of suicide mission. if he knew that hector killing him would be the only way to break achilles and finally end the war. the same events could happen but patroclus' motivations would be different. this wouldve given him so much more agency and add more complexity in their relationship. that at the end of the day achilles didnt love him enough to fight in the war. he loved his immortality more than he loved patroclus.

and wouldnt that have made a better tragedy? this is why patroclus' betrayal to achilles when he saved briseis was so emotionally compelling. his love for achilles was no longer simple, it was no longer a boy's love. bc in his mind, the achilles that he loved died a long time ago. the war has changed him and it wont bring the old one back. IS THAT NOT MORE TRAGIC? AND MORE THEMATICALLY COMPELLING?

i just felt that miller tried SO hard to justify their romance that she didnt want to risk putting in any complexity at all otherwise their 'lovers' status would be threatened. but i really think it was to the detriment to the book. it wasnt bad, it was actually pretty alright - it just wasnt a masterpiece

[merakiui]

the birds and the bees.

yandere!riddle rosehearts x (female) reader cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, nsfw, slight dub-con, implied stalking, age gap (riddle is 19 and reader is 29) note - you're hired to teach riddle about the birds and the bees. you need the money. he needs to get laid.

The Rosehearts’s Residence looks about how you expected it to after driving past houses of similar size and grandeur. Unlike you, they’re definitely not strapped for cash. It’s an impressive structure with its elegant wrought iron gates and expertly trimmed hedges. You’re immediately overcome with bitter jealousy when you step through the entrance, passing rose bushes in full bloom. If only your apartment could look and feel as nice as this place. You almost wonder if you should keep Mrs. Rosehearts’s contact in case she ever needs a gardener or a window washer…

But then that risks your cover, and the last thing you want is to get tangled up in trouble with the upper middle class.

Gathering your courage, you smooth invisible wrinkles in your pencil skirt, steady your balance in your Mary Janes—both at socially acceptable lengths and heights—and bring your fist down against the door. Seconds after the third knock, it opens to reveal a woman who looks as prim and proper as the landscape of her home. She takes a long moment, drinking in your formal features, and then smiles approvingly.

“Ah, (Name), you’re early.”

You soften your face into something polite and demure. “Better early than late.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

She steps aside, gesturing for you to come in. You meander into the foyer and are instantly reminded of those exquisite house tours on MagiTube. There’s a fine layer of modest Victorian wealth to the decor. Flowery wallpaper, a lofty ceiling, an aureate chandelier, a vase filled with fresh tulips of all colors… Oh, how you wish you could live here!

“Your home is beautiful,” you comment as you straighten your bow headband.

“Why, thank you.” Her eyes light up once more. “I’ve always admired this neighborhood. Everything is so well-kept. Speaking of which, where did you say you’re from?”

“Oh, I’m actually getting ready to move back to school at the end of the summer,” you explain, narrowly dodging her question. No way I’m telling her I live in a not-so-affluent neighborhood… She’ll totally kick me out. “I’m staying with my parents in the meantime and working a few jobs to support myself.”

“And what was it you’re studying again?”

You paste a hollow smile on, sensing her distrust. I already told you this when we met at the clinic. Do I really seem so suspicious?

“I’m studying to be an ob-gyn.”

“A wonderful profession,” she praises, nodding to herself. “Very wonderful indeed. And how old are you? I merely ask to confirm. There are so many miscreants nowadays. You can never be too sure.”

“I understand completely, Mrs. Rosehearts. I’m—” you almost falter, your real age on the tip of your tongue— “twenty-two. What about your son? You told me he’s also looking to get into the medical field?”

“Not looking. He will pursue medicine,” she corrects sternly. “Just like his mother.”

You swallow your disgust and try not to let it show so openly. Yikes… Talk about controlling.

Mrs. Rosehearts waves you onwards down the hall. “My Riddle will be leaving for his first year of college at the end of August. Though I’m certain he’s more than prepared, it never hurts to review.”

“Absolutely. So you’d like me to give him the talk?”

“Not just that. I’d like you to teach him well enough so that copulation and any other libidinous ideas are the last things on his mind. Stamp them out if you must. He’s to focus on his studies and make good decisions just as I raised him.”

Shouldn’t he already be familiar with this? Besides, he’s not a kid. Of course he’s going to think about sex. Most of us do when we’re horny.

But you can’t say that outright, so you settle for something vastly different.

“It’s important to stay on the right path and be responsible.”

Mrs. Rosehearts nods her agreement. Your stomach twists in discomfort.

On second thought, I don’t want to be upper middle class if these are the people I have to deal with. Is this guy going to have any chance to be social? To live his life? To make and learn from stupid mistakes? I bet he can’t wait to get out of here and go off to school.

“I apologize if this is rude in any way, but I just want to ensure I’ll be paid accordingly.”

“Of course. Good work must always be recognized and rewarded.” She stops at a door. “I cannot thank you enough for lending my Riddle your time. Teach him well.”

“I’ll do just that. You can count on it.”

Pleased with the level of maturity you’ve displayed, she raps her knuckles against the door and calls out, “Riddle, the tutor’s here.”

“Very well, Mother. I’ve just finished today’s readings, so you can send them in,” comes a muffled reply.

Today’s readings? you think, perplexed. Your gaze slides from the door to Mrs. Rosehearts. Does she have this guy doing summer school? That must suck! What a shitty way to spend your summer, cooped up inside filling out workbooks and stuff.

“I’ll be out running errands in the meantime. I trust you’ll be all right by yourself?”

“Perfectly all right,” you assure her, to which she hums and strides past you. You catch her perfume as she departs, and it reminds you of the types of scents worn by saggy, old ladies who have nothing better to do than sit around and complain about the state of the world and the way their children turned out.

In other words, a scent you associate with misery.

You wait until she’s out of sight before opening the door and stepping inside the study. There’s a mahogany desk in the center, and thick textbooks are piled high on either side. Beyond that, beside a big bay window with cream-colored curtains drawn to let in the sun, two large bookcases are packed with an array of tomes. At the front of the room, a blackboard has been built into a wooden frame. Chalk lines the ledge, situated within reach of an eraser. And sitting at the desk, his eyes glued to an open book, is a young man. A pair of round frames sit on the bridge of his nose, slipping ever so slightly down the slope of it when he peers at the page. He pushes them up when he finally lifts his head to greet you.

“Hey.” You wave awkwardly, easing the door shut.

He seems taken aback by your appearance. “Oh, yes. Right. Hello…”

Silence soon fills the space. You wonder if you should just save yourself this nonsensical waste of time and retreat.

“Sooo.” You fold your arms behind your back, rocking on your heels. “Your mother’s probably told you why I’m here.”

“I’m aware.” He shuts his book and stands from his seat. “My name is Riddle Rosehearts. A pleasure to meet you.”

You blink at his outstretched arm. “(Name). Likewise.” You grab his hand and shake firmly. 

So stiff…

“So where’re we starting? The basics? You want the whole ‘when a man and a woman love each other very much’ version or—”

Riddle scoffs and yanks his arm back. “I’m not a fool. I’ll have you know I’m well aware of sexual reproduction and what it entails.”

“You can call it sex. No one’s forcing you to be all biological,” you tease. His body goes rigid, and his face reddens in what you assume is flustered annoyance. “Anyways, since you’re not as brainless as Mother Dearest wants me to assume, I’ll just get into it.”

Riddle stares at you, his arms folding over his chest. He looks like he wants to argue, but instead he huffs and lowers into his chair.

Wordlessly, you undo the buttons on your blazer and shrug out of it. Your blouse goes next, untucked from your skirt and shucked. Riddle’s eyes are so wide they nearly pop out of his skull when he spies the white, lacy false collar that just barely covers your breasts. You’re about to step out of your pencil skirt next when Riddle clears his throat.

“W-What’re you doing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No?”

“I’m teaching you the birds and the bees.”

“N-Not in that outfit! S-Surely not…” He averts his eyes, crimson crawling up to his ears. “You’re practically nude!”

“That’s the point of lingerie, silly.” Your skirt pools around your ankles to reveal the rest of your frilly ensemble. A black-and-white cupless bra and crotchless panties set, both with plenty of ruffles, held together with a pair of garters. Still wearing matching stockings and your precious Mary Janes, you bend down to gather your discarded clothes. They’re set aside on a nearby chair. “You can look.”

“A-Absolutely not!” he hisses, squeezing his eyes shut. “Y-You… You’re not decent. It’s rude to stare.”

“Come on. You got past anatomy diagrams just fine.”

Riddle opens and closes his mouth, speechless like a beached fish. Eventually, he manages to gather his coherency. “You’re a tutor, aren’t you? Where’s your dignity?”

“Nonexistent. I lied.” His head snaps over to view you, and he seems so scandalized by your admission that it’s almost comedic. “No way I’m studying to be an ob-gyn. I’m not even in school.”

“What?! But you—”

“It’s fine. I looked the part, didn’t I?” you joke, waving your hand about dismissively. “C’mon, mama’s boy. You’re going off to college. It’s nothing like those stuffy anatomy courses.”

Riddle tries and fails to look at anywhere that isn’t you, his eyes lingering on your chest to the space between your legs to the thigh garter and then to the ceiling. He’s so red you think he might explode.

“You’ve been with a girl before, yeah?”

With lips pursed in a tight line, he shakes his head.

“Sounds about right.”

“And you’re so experienced?”

You flash him a cheeky grin. “Don’t worry about it, mama’s boy.”

“I’m not a mama’s boy!”

“No? So you just let your mother treat you like a little baby at your grown age? You let her pick out sex tutors for you?”

“I—” He stops himself from speaking to mull over your questions. “If it’s what she deems necessary…”

“Because our biggest fear is sexually awkward you knocking up some girl at school, right?”

“I… I would never! Safe sex is—”

“Very important when you’re not trying to conceive. Good boy. See? You know your stuff.”

Riddle’s eyes narrow into vicious slits. You brush his scorching vitriol off and turn towards the board. Procuring a piece of chalk, you scrawl words on it: Birds and Bees 101. Wholly unamused, Riddle folds his arms across his chest.

“Your mother told me you’re gonna study medicine, so you’re probably familiar with everything already. And I’m sure you know all about the baby-making process on a biological level.” You whirl to face him, your tits bouncing with the peppy motion. Riddle swallows thickly. “But just to make sure… Let’s review.”

“R-Review? You don’t mean—”

“What’s this?” Your hands close around your tits. Riddle’s enchanted with the way you squeeze them—the way they depress under your fingers.

“Um… Ahem. Well… T-The breasts. They’re a type of glandular organ located on a woman’s chest, and they’re made up of lots of tissue and fat. There’s the mammary gland—that’s what produces milk. Oh, and then there are the areolas right around the nipples. Those are—”

“You can call them what they are.”

Riddle blinks, shaken from his studious spiel. “W-What?”

“You know the word, mama’s boy.”

He flusters. “Yes, I’m aware. But…”

“No harm in saying it.” You run your fingers over your nipples and giggle sweetly like a schoolgirl. “Go on…”

He inhales a deep breath. “They’re tits,” he mumbles, desultory. “Y-Your tits.”

You clap, beaming brightly. “Well done! Moving swiftly on…” You run your hands down the expanse of your stomach, stopping just beneath your navel. “What’s here?”

“Your womb. O-Otherwise known as the uterus. It’s where a baby grows over the course of nine months.”

“Mhm. Good job.”

He pushes his glasses up his nose, clearing his throat. “There’s more to your reproductive system than the uterus. Lots of parts. Important parts.”

“Right. But I don’t need to quiz you on it. You obviously know your stuff.”

Again, your fingers inch lower until they’re prodding at your folds. Riddle’s breath audibly hitches.

“And this?”

“Your vagina. It’s where—”

“What’s the other word?”

Riddle avoids your stare. “It sounds so vulgar…”

“So what?”

“S-So there ought to be a term that’s more…flattering.”

“Like what?” You approach him and, with the grace of a swan, lift your leg onto the desk to give him a better view of yourself. Shamelessly, you dip your fingers inside to spread yourself. “A guy called it the honeypot once. That pretty enough for you?”

Riddle squeaks and flinches back in his chair, his face now even redder than it was before. “T-That’s fine…”

“Really? I’d have thought the implication in that one is much dirtier than calling it a pussy.”

It takes him a moment to connect the dots, but once he does he gasps. “Ah. Then…”

You press inwards with your fingers, exaggerating a pornographic sigh. “Yeah?”

“Can I… M-May I call it your flower?”

“Sure.” His shoulders slacken with a flicker of relief. Your next words shatter that and his pride in one fell swoop. “That one’s not as special as you think, mama’s boy. I’ve heard it all—every type of flower you can think of.”

“Even a rose?”

“Especially a rose.” His lips twist into a disappointed moue. You chuckle and add, “You can call it a rose if you want. I don’t mind.”

Riddle meets your eyes then, searching them for the joke. When one doesn’t present itself, he relaxes. “All right. It’s a very pretty rose. Soft…”

“Aww. Thanks for saying so. It’s softer inside, y’know. See?” Spreading yourself wider, you angle your hips to bless him with the full view. “My fingers slide right in. Wanna guess why?”

“B-Because the vagina naturally—” He stops himself, his brows knitting together in contemplation. When he speaks next, it’s with a determined sort of conviction. “When you’re aroused, your rose produces a natural lubricant during sexual excitement.”

“Mhm. We call that ‘feeling good and getting wet,’ Dr. Rosehearts.”

“Yes. Y-Yes, I know that.” He eyes your pussy, a ravenous glimmer in his intelligent blue-greys. “And the wetness—it’s supposed to make it feel better. To make insertion easier, I mean.”

“Right again.” You ease your fingers out but not before thrusting them deeper just so he can hear the sinful sounds. They shimmer with your essence, enticing in a forbidden way. “What about the other parts? How about this spot here?” You brush against the hood of your clit, circling it slowly.

Riddle watches, hopelessly spellbound. “The clitoris.”

“I’m impressed. Most guys don’t know about it.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“But it’s your most sensitive erogenous zone! Just how uninformed does one have to be to neglect such a crucial part to your sexual anatomy?”

“Woefully uninformed, I’m afraid,” you mutter with a pout. Your fingertips drag your hood up to reveal that pretty, perky nub. “I think it’s dumb your mother wants me to talk you out of sex. You’re going to college. You’re an adult. You’re free to do whatever you want.”

“I…” Riddle frowns at that last line. “I have no interest in it. Besides, it’ll only hinder my studies. If I really need it, I’ll just masturbate. That’s healthy every now and then, and it doesn’t break any rules.”

“Really? No interest at all?” You shoot him a knowing look and run your tongue along your bottom lip. “Because your dick’s telling a different story.”

Riddle sputters, embarrassed, and squeezes his thighs together. His hands fly to cover his lap. “That’s because you’re—” He gazes at the floor. “Because you’re so pretty…”

Temporarily thrown off course, you gape at him. “What?”

“You’re beautiful.”

Gathering the remnants of your mask, you piece it together and laugh. “Not the first time I’ve heard someone describe it like that.”

“Not just your pussy.” Your gaze snaps to his. He smiles, impish. “I’m sure you know what I mean, Teacher.”

You exhale a short laugh. “Someone’s suddenly confident.”

Riddle rises from his seat. His fingers close around your wrist, gently pulling it away from your clit. He moves around the desk to stand in front of you and then, before you can comprehend his intentions, he’s pushing you down onto the desk. You yelp at the sudden change in position, your eyes blown wide when he presses his clothed hard-on against your bare pussy.

“You’re doing a poor job at dissuading me from wanting sex.”

“I wasn’t trying to.”

“Not in that outfit.” He grabs at the meat of your thighs and parts them. “If Mother knew you lied to her…”

You shake your head at him. “Please don’t tell her. I… I’m being serious. I need this money.”

“Desperately?”

Your lip curls into the beginning of a sneer. You hate feeling powerless more than anything, but the fiery glaze in his eyes is just as troubling. “I’m not going to beg.”

“I haven’t asked for that yet.”

You roll your eyes. “Not funny. I agreed to teach you about sex. We’re not actually doing it.”

“A shame.”

“You’ll find a nice girl at school. Don’t lose hope, mama’s boy. Lots of girls like the smart types who’ll give ’em a lecture on biology and stuff.”

“I think you misunderstand. I don’t want other girls.”

“Okay?”

“My mother’s paying for a tutor and I desire you, so unless you want to leave here as a lying cheat…” He hums, seeming awfully haughty to hold the only thing that tethers you to him above your head. “You need the money, right?”

“Yes. Sure, of course I do. But—” You shift on the desk, silently horrified when he rocks against you. “We can’t. Your mother—”

“Weren’t you the one saying I should live my life? That I have the freedom to do as I please?”

“That doesn’t mean—come on; listen to yourself. You can’t honestly think I’d fuck you.”

“No? And yet you came wearing this outfit, parading around the study with your pussy and tits out.” He glances past you at the window. “And you didn’t even bother to close the curtains… How brazen.”

Your attempt to jerk away from him is made in vain. He pins you down onto the desk, one hand squeezing your breast, while the other works to fish himself from his trousers. Now hard and leaking, his cock rests against your stomach. It’s not a terrible size. If anything, it’s perfect. Just right for your tastes.

“W-Wait! It’s not safe. You can’t—” You inhale sharply, bucking up towards his hand when he presses his thumb against your clit. Biting your lip, you fix him with a glower. “If you pay me… If you promise not to tell your mother—”

Riddle leans in close. “No one needs to know. No one but us.”

Your eyes flit about the room. With a withering sigh, you submit to his touch. “You’d better pull out in time.”

Riddle rolls his hips once and his cock drags along your folds. You hiss through your teeth at this new friction, a sinful delight more dizzying than any type of alcohol consumed in excess. “Do you want to be a mother?”

“What I want has nothing to do with you. I’m just—ooh—t-trying to survive. You wouldn’t know what that’s like, so don’t poke fun.”

Riddle hums, kneading your breast and rubbing you to the edge all at once. It’s so very obviously his first time, his zealous nature trumping any sort of experienced technique. It still does the trick, though, sending little bolts of pleasure up your spine.

“My mother wouldn’t just choose anyone. Her standards are very high.” His eyes flick to your face, drinking in your expression as it shifts with restrained bliss. “Somehow you’ve earned her approval.”

“Lying’ll do that.”

“Maybe.” His fingers replicate the motions you did earlier, though with a singular objective in mind. He’s so focused on succeeding in this endeavor that it makes him look so stiff. Under any other circumstances, you’d find it cute. “Mother always knows what’s best for me. Obviously you’ve met her criteria if she’s hired you.”

“Spoken like a true mama’s boy.” Seeing as this is now your unavoidable fate, you reach up to touch his shoulders. He jolts, his initial glare softening. You tamp down another giggle and massage up and along his arms. “Relax a little. Don’t rush so much.”

Or do. Let’s get this over with before your mother catches us.

Riddle traces two fingers along your labia. He’s quiet as he takes all of you in, and when he sinks three fingers into your gooey heat his breath catches in his throat. “Are you… D-Do you feel good?”

You reach for his unoccupied hand and guide it to your clit. Riddle understands the suggestion well enough, for he massages you slowly. Sucking in another breath, you nod at him.

“Not bad. You’re getting there.”

His neglected cock throbs at the praise, and so you wrap your fingers around it to give it the same amount of attention he’s currently giving you. Riddle grits his teeth at the contact.

“You can move your fingers. Don’t just focus on my clit.”

“Ah. Right. Of course,” he babbles dumbly, so swept up in everything that you are, so very eager to please.

You’re like a work of art pinned to his desk, a delicacy more forbidden than anything from the bakery. Sugary-sweet, adorned in skimpy ruche, you’re a temptation laid bare. Delicately, as if you might shatter, he curls his fingers to press up against your insides. Riddle watches you arch up towards him, your hand working his cock maddeningly slow and steady. It feels good—better than anything he could have ever imagined.

His eyes trail from your lips to your tits to your pussy stretched around his fingers. “Do you have any plans for this summer?”

The sudden question catches you off guard. You were expecting something related to sex, not whatever this new shred of curiosity is. Still, that doesn’t stop you from dragging him closer to the edge of ecstasy with every tug of your fist.

“Why?”

“I… I’d like to get to know you.”

“Me?”

“Of course. You’re more than a body to me.”

“How charming. I just—” You frown, unable to follow where he’s going with this. “Why?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Even though he says it like it’s a fact, he looks shy. “I want to know you.”

“Uh… Yeah… Okay.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“Not that… It’s just hard to imagine you having any girl friends.”

Riddle rolls his eyes and grinds his thumb into your clit. You bite back a whine as his fingers pump in and out of you. “Is that space open or closed?”

“You know which one.”

“You could be the one to close it.”

You meet his eyes then. For a short minute, the two of you hold each other’s stare. And then, breaking free from his hypnotic hold, you squeeze his length gently. He shudders, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks.

“And what about you? You excited for your first year?”

“Mm, yeah,” he murmurs, rutting into your hand. His fingers spread you open, scissoring gently.

“Just make sure to take time for yourself. Have fun. Live.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you were at school—how’d you manage?”

“I never went.” He opens his mouth to interject, but you beat him to it. “Couldn’t afford it.”

“Oh…”

“It’s fine! I’ve got plenty of experience in other things. I don’t need school for that.”

Riddle doesn’t believe your feigned optimism for a second. “If you could’ve gone, what would you have studied?”

You release his cock from your hold and reach up to pull his glasses from his face. Gingerly, minding the fragile frames, you set them aside. You lift your index to your lips, effortlessly coy. “It’s a secret.”

Before he can protest, you tap the hand at your cunt next. Riddle’s fingers, wet and shiny, slide out with a slick squelch. “I think you can do it.”

“What?”

“Go to school and study what you want. I believe in you.”

A wooden laugh tumbles from your lips. “Thanks for the encouragement, mama’s boy.”

“I have a name, you know.”

You smile easily. “You want me to call you something else? How does ‘good boy’ sound?”

Even though he tries not to let it show, his cock betrays his reticence with a small twitch. He’s an open book. Not wanting to give you the satisfaction, he lines himself up instead. Your fingers slip down to spread yourself for him.

“S-Slowly…” you whisper, stumbling over your breath as the head of his cock presses inside. Shallow at first before more inches fill you.

Riddle heaves a shaky gasp, his eyes wide with amazement. “I… I’m inside you…”

“How’s it feel?” “Warm. Soft. Snug. R-Really good.” He bows his head and digs his fingers into your hips. You think he has a dozen more adjectives on the tip of his tongue, each one just as fluffy as the last. “D-Do you feel good? It doesn’t hurt?”

“I’m fine.” You wind your legs around his waist to pull him closer. Your hands come to rest upon his shoulders once more. “Move your hips.”

Riddle does just that. His pace is awkward and inexperienced, every motion unsteady and jerky, as he searches for the right rhythm. He falls into it surprisingly fast, and it isn’t long until he’s smoothly rutting into you. You grab at his shirt, your breath coming in reedy huffs.

“Good. You—haa—good. You’re doing good.” Praise pours from your lips like a waterfall, plentiful and refreshing. It invigorates him, fills him with a confidence that wasn’t there before.

The soft slap of skin on skin fills the room. You keep your voice in check, lest you lose yourself and alert Mrs. Rosehearts. Riddle seems to be doing the same, even though it’s obvious he’s struggling much more than you are. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth to suppress his groans.

“You can touch me,” you whisper, petting his cheek. He blinks at you, his face aflame with a bright blush.

Nervously, he reaches for you and then pauses. Contemplation passes over his features. “What feels better? I want you to—no. I will make sure you cum. I’ve studied it, actually. I know how long it takes.”

“Look at you, doing your research like a diligent student. You want extra credit?”

Riddle chuckles and pinches your clit between two fingers. The rest of your teasing tapers off into a lewd squeal. “What was that about extra credit?”

“You’re awfully bold for your first time.”

“I’m not clueless.” His hips press inwards, plastering you to the desk, and his cock brushes that special spot within—the spot that has you seeing stars, your every nerve tingling with pleasure. You choke around a delighted gasp. Riddle, feeling victorious,  places his hand against your stomach, as if searching to feel his cock thrust up inside you. “Will I see you again after this?”

“If your mother wants me to come back and give you another pointless lecture on celibacy and safe sex, sure.”

“No, not that. Outside of this.”

“Don’t you have friends you’d rather hang out with?”

“I…do.”

“So spend time with them.”

Riddle doesn’t dignify that with a retort. With the way his eyes gloss over, you wonder just how many of these friends are within physical distance. The conversation stalls out into silence.

“You’ll make lots of friends at school. So many you’ll probably forget all about me.”

Riddle yanks your hips to meet his, driving himself deeper into your pussy.

“A-And you’ll find a nice girl to love if you’re looking for that kinda thing.”

“I am,” he confesses, breathless. “I want to get married and—mmh—start a family one day… I want to study law—become a lawyer… Mother thinks medicine suits me, but I can’t agree. Law is fascinating. It’s a perfect fit for me. Far better than medicine.”

You drag your thumb over your mouth, wetting it with your lipgloss, and then press it to his lips. The indirect kiss sends a tidal wave of arousal over him, darkening the tips of his ears in striking vermillion. You offer him a gentle smile while he recovers from that devastating flirt.

“I’ll make sure to hire you as my lawyer if I ever get into legal trouble.”

“You’d better not!” He laughs and shakes his head in amused disbelief. “But if you do, I’ll be there for you. Always.”

“Thanks, Riddle.”

Maybe I judged him too harshly. He’s not so bad.

In that stuffy study, just as the late afternoon gives way to red-orange streaked across a purple-pink sky, Riddle fucks you against that desk in all manner of rhythms. It’s when he finally picks up speed that you realize he’s nearing his end. You mirror his enjoyment, strung along by titillating touches and whispered words drenched in sweetness. You’ve lost track of how many times you’ve reached rapture alongside him, your pussy now brimming with cum. There’s so much it leaks out of your slick hole when he draws away, only to burrow his cock deeper to stuff it back inside.

The room reeks of sweat and sex. You think, if not your disheveled appearance, the smell will definitely tell Mrs. Rosehearts all she needs to know.

“I love you,” Riddle murmurs, and you’re about to ask him what he means—maybe he’s caught up in the moment and doesn’t realize what he’s saying—but then he lifts your legs up to fold you into a mating press. Coherent thoughts are knocked out of your head when he spills over, filling you up for the nth time that day. You shiver beneath him, eyes rolled back into your skull and tongue lolling out. You feel so stupid, fucked submissive by some inexperienced, upper middle class mama’s boy. Which isn’t even an insult with real heat to it, but in your hazy mind it’s all you can think of to describe him.

He grinds against you in the aftermath, panting from the exhilaration and adrenaline. 

“We need to…open the window,” you mutter, your heart thumping wildly in your chest.

Riddle admires your fucked-out expression in his sex-drunk daze. He slides out just as he feels himself going flaccid. Cum drips onto the desk below. Briefly, you struggle to recall whether or not you took your birth control today.

Something to consider later. Definitely not right now when you’re still clinging to the vestiges of your orgasm.

— — —

Mrs. Rosehearts knocks on the door, opening it to find Riddle sitting at his desk, jotting notes and occasionally pushing his glasses up. You’re standing at the blackboard, writing a list of the consequences of unplanned pregnancies. The room smells pleasantly of roses.

“Pardon my intrusion.”

You gaze at her and smile, wearing the clothes you arrived in. Nothing’s amiss. It’s perfect—thankfully. “Welcome back, Mrs. Rosehearts. We’re just about finished here.”

“Is that right? I assume all went well?”

“Very well. Your son’s a fast learner. Extremely talented.”

“I would expect nothing less.” She withdraws an envelope and hands it to you. “Thank you again for explaining it in realistic terms. Of course I doubt that my Riddle will act senselessly while he’s away, but as his mother I’m prone to worrying. Boys his age are so easily influenced.”

“O-Of course! That’s a very valid concern.” You force a chuckle.

If only she knew.

“Your pay is in that envelope. Should I ever require your assistance again, I’ll be sure to call.”

“Right… Thank you.” You hold it close to your chest. “I’m happy to help.”

You follow her out the door. She pauses to address Riddle. “Do continue reviewing your notes. We’ll convene for dinner in thirty minutes.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Mrs. Rosehearts walks you to the gate. “I wish you luck in your studies. If I don’t see you again at the clinic, have a pleasant summer.”

“Thank you. You as well.” You smile, fidgeting slightly. A bead of sweat tracks a path down your leg from between cum-spattered thighs.

Finally! With this I can pay my rent and still have enough for a treat from the bakery.

It’s worth it, or so you continue to tell yourself.

— — —

From the window, Riddle watches you make the walk to your car. He lifts his phone to fit you in the camera and snaps a secret photo. He continues to watch you until you’ve driven off and turned the corner, disappearing from his sight.

A tiny smile tugs at his lips.

Within his phone, put under a password lock, a special photo album exists. It’s filled with pictures taken from your social media—all of them. Every. Single. One. He’s resourceful when he wants to be. He can play the parody of a tech genius when he sets his sights on something.

And you’re just perfect.

[avatarmerida]

Truth & Love

I had this idea awhile ago and I’ve been working on it in the background and I’ve been stuck on it writing so I tried. I had trouble ending it so don’t come for me I wanted fluff k bye 💚💛

———

Before, Willow absolutely dreaded potions class.

Her magic thrived when it could tap into her emotions but potions required a precision and exact measurements that Willow found tiresome. Eda had tried to help her improve, but Eda’s ‘measure with your heart’ method was best done by someone who had mastered and then evolved the subject, not by someone who had a hard enough time focusing without Boscha dropping things into her vial when she wasn’t looking. She always second guessed herself and potions were often time sensitive, which didn’t help improve her confidence.

But then when they were finally able to return to Hexisde she was much better at believing in herself. Not to mention Hunter was in her potions class and Hunter had never had trouble believing in Willow.

Of course they were partners, there was no question about it. The moment the teacher had uttered the words “pair up” he had teleported beside her without even thinking about it. How odd that just last year she was everyone’s last pick and now well truthfully she didn’t care about where she was on anyone else’s list because she’d choose Hunter’s everytime.

Hunter had a decent knowledge of potions, but Willow would pick him even if he had never touched a potion in his life.They worked well together; Hunter loved to sort the different ingredients and he allowed Willow the honor of mixing them. They were a great team, although honestly Willow cared less about her improved grade and just wanted an excuse to spend more time with him. Her studies revolved around getting to sit close to him and watch the cute way Hunter furrowed his eyebrows when he reviewed measurements.

“Okay, wait,” said Hunter as he counted the vials in front of him. “I usually sort them by colors but I might’ve mixed up the milled orc wing and obsidian dust because when they’re liquidized they have a very similar color.”

“Oh, which one smells more sour? That should be the orc wing,” said Willow. She watched as Hunter cautiously sniffed the first one and his face instantly contorted in disgust. She giggled as she took the ingredient from him and added it to their assignment.

“I hope the soaked rosemary can dilute that because otherwise I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep that down,” he said, clearing his throat.

“Hey, I had to do the hair growth potion,” Willow reminded him. “And that one was spicy, and not in a good way.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he said with a smile. Hunter had offered to cut her hair back to its original length after and had unintentionally gotten distracted and had ended up cutting it much shorter. He had felt terribly guilty but Willow ended up loving it and decided to keep it. The cut was still fairly fresh and Willow loved flipping it and feeling how light it and easier it curled at the ends. The distraction was fairly familiar, as watching her joyfully exist was part of what caused him to cut her hair so short in the first place.

“Okay, which do I add first?” Willow asked as Hunter went back to the book.

“Ummm, hold on the pages are stuck together,” said Hunter as he attempted to delicately separate them. “I don’t think it matters as long as it’s still boiling.”

“Okie doke,” said Willow, sticking out her tongue as she focused on not spilling a drop. “Oh thorns, I think I added too much.”

They were supposed to be making a potion to change the drinker's hair color and according to the book it was supposed to be a dark turquoise but Willow simply could not manage to balance the color to match the picture.

“Hmmm,” observed Hunter. “It looks close. Add the orc wing and see if that’s the missing part.”

Willow obliged and the potion color changed slightly, but Willow still couldn’t tell if it was getting closer to the photo.

“Hmmm, whaddya think?” Willow asked her partner. “You ready for a taste test?”

“Okay, but if I don’t look good with red hair, you’ll tell me right?” Hunter joked as he went to take the glass container from her, swirling it like it was a fine wine.

“Absolutely not,” she smiled back, secretly expecting him to look handsome as ever.

“Fine,” said Hunter, having grown more comfortable with this type of joking. “Then just promise me you won’t find a new potions partner if I decide to keep it red?”

“That I can promise,” she said, scrunching her nose as Hunter brought the concoction to his lips. He took a gentle sip and didn’t look immediately repulsed, but Willow could tell the taste was not what he knew it was supposed to be.

“Is it minty?” she asked.

“Not really?”

“Darn it, it’s supposed to be minty,” said Willow. “Is it almost minty?”

“I’m not sure?” he chuckled. “What does ‘almost minty’ taste like?”

“Hmm, I think if you have to ask then the answer is ‘no,’” Willow sighed. “I think the issue is the potion is supposed to be blue-green and this is more green-blue. And your hair is still the same, so we didn’t get it yet. But wait, then what did we make?”

She flipped the pages, looking for something similar or a cheat but saw that the pages were still sticking together which could be the reason the potion did not line up. None of the ingredients were toxic, so Willow knew she didn’t poison him. But it was rare for a mixture with this many components to have no side effects.

“Hmmm, what other potions do you know are this shade of green?” Willow asked as she tapped her pen on the table. Before, she’d chalk this mistake up to an F, but now she had someone to work through it with her.

“None come to mind immediately,” said Hunter as he pulled out another book. “But I think the prettiest shade of green is the one of your eyes.”

Willow froze, certain she had misheard him. “Huh?”

“Your eyes,” repeated Hunter. “They’re a beautiful shade of green, like gemstones or new leaves. They sparkle when you’re happy, and your glasses make them seem even brighter.”

“Oh,” said Willow, somewhat taken back. “Well, uh thank you.” Come on girl focus, she thought to herself. “Um…okay, so you can’t place the taste, what would you say the potion smells like?”

“I’m not sure, but did you know you smell amazing?”

“What?”

“You always smell like a greenhouse,” said Hunter casually as he skimmed his textbook. “Which makes sense since you’re there so often. Or maybe a meadow? It’s like a bunch of different flowers and fresh grass and dirt all mixed together. It’s really lovely. Like I can’t help but think of you whenever I go outside.”

“Oh, wow,” she said with a small smile. “That’s… so sweet Hunter, thank you.”

She was so taken back by Hunter’s effortlessly sweet words that she nearly forgot the task at hand until the professor started making her rounds to check everyone’s progress.

“Miss Park, the assignment was to create a follicle altering potion, this coloring is completely wrong,” said the professor. “I don’t know what you were trying to make, but if you don’t correct it posthaste it could settle into a more complex potion. Act fast now, I don’t want to have to dock you and Mr. Noceda’s final grade.”

“Oh yes ma’am, of course,” said Willow, redirecting her attention.

“No worries, professor; Willow is the most determined person I know,” assured Hunter. “I’m sure we can figure it out.”

“See to it that you do,” she said before walking away, unaware Hunter had already sampled the mixture. Willow hoped she would at least give them a hint as to what they had made instead, but the bell screamed to signal the end of the period.

“Alright everyone, that’s lunch,” said the professor. “This will give your potions time to settle and we’ll work on perfecting them in class tomorrow.”

———-

“Let’s see,” said Willow, zooming in on the photo she had taken of the potion on her scroll, every book she and Hunter had between them regarding potions took over the lunch table. “We had to have made something, right?”

“Yeah I probably should’ve waited to taste it until we knew for sure,” said Hunter, bringing over their trays. He didn’t have to ask Willow what she wanted; he always knew. “I guess I was just trying to impress you.”

Willow didn’t say anything about this time, she just tried to hide the blush creeping onto her cheeks as Hunter continued.

“So it didn’t really have a taste, it was more of an aftertaste I guess? So maybe it has a delayed effect.”

“Well I wanna figure it out before you start shrinking or something,” said Willow, only half joking. Hunter had a high tolerance for most potions, which is why he only let Willow be the tester if they were 110% sure they had nailed it. But that didn’t mean Willow still didn’t worry. “So it’s the wrong shade and consistency to be a mind reading or mind swapping potion, and you’re awake so it’s not a sleeping potion. Maybe it’s the lighting in the classroom but it actually kind of looks like this love potion? But that can’t be it, because you’re not in love with me.”

“Oh, I’m definitely in love with you,” said Hunter casually as he reached over to take one of her fries.

“What?” Said Willow, looking up from the book so fast her glasses nearly fell off. She was certain she had misheard him.

“Oh, could you not hear me?” Hunter asked. “I said I’m in love with you.

A vibrant golden sunflower appeared on the side of her head. She didn’t know how else to process Hunter casually saying the most accidentally romantic thing she had ever heard. He was so direct and so certain and it was so out of nowhere that she couldn’t think of the right thing to say. Willow was sure they were having two different conversations or that she was dreaming. The way he didn’t even hesitate, surely her mind was playing tricks on her! How was this real?

“Hunter, are you… um… are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I always feel great when I’m with you,” he said as casually as he would say “fine.” He spoke as though praising her was as natural as breathing. “Why?”

“I just uh…” Willow wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t mind what he was saying, not one bit, but she didn’t know how to express that while still making it clear that she felt guilty for how it came to be. “Just wanted to be sure.”

“Hmm, ya know I think that’s one of the first things I loved about you,” said Hunter. “I mean, right away I knew you were beautiful but I’ve never met someone so kind. Sometimes I can’t believe you’re even real.”

“Oh, uh well… I am, heh. R-real that is.” Willow knew it was the potion talking but she couldn’t help but blush. She knew she shouldn’t encourage it, that allowing him to continue might make the potion more potent and harder to subdue. She knew it wasn’t real, and yet it flustered her just the same.

“Well uh, anyway we should get back to the potions classroom,” decided Willow quickly, clearing her throat. She didn’t want to act like something was off, lest she worry him and agitate the potion somehow. “I think I figured it out so we can go make up the counter potion, all the ingredients should be in the classroom.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hunter agreed, quickly darting away for a moment to put back both their trays. He darted back to help her collect the books. “Can we hold hands on the way there?”

“Um… sure,” she decided as she extended her hand to him. It wasn’t totally unusual for them to hold hands as they walked. Hunter was still getting used to the layout of the school and Willow certainly didn’t want him getting lost.

“I lied about that, by the way,” he said as though he was responding to her thoughts as he took her hand delicately in his.

“Huh? About what?”

“Not knowing my way around the school,” he clarified as they began walking. “I studied the blueprints for weeks before I started. I wanted to impress you with how much I already knew on my first day but when you offered to take my hand and walk me to my classes until I got the hang of things well I liked that option even better.”

Willow wasn’t the best at potions to begin with so it was possible she had messed up her mess up, but she couldn’t help but wonder why it had affected Hunter the way it did. He was so… casual about it, like it was a natural occurrence that didn’t alter the set up of his mind.

They had only covered these types of potions briefly as they were only intended for the advanced class as the ethics of them were highly debated but it was well known that love potions were meant to border on obsession. Hunter should be overwhelmed sitting near her, like a lovesick puppy. But despite the things he was saying, it was like nothing had changed. He was able to function just fine. Willow wondered if the effects got more severe with time, or if bringing attention to the early signs could cause him to spiral. Was it like waking a sleepwalker? Would it be dangerous not to indulge him?

“Your hands are always so soft,” Hunter continued, looking down to admire them in his own. “And I know you always get in trouble for always having dirt under your fingernails but I love that too.”

She smiled, in spite of herself. “Really? You don’t think it’s kind of gross?”

“No,” he said easily. “I think it shows how hard you work and how much you care about what you do.”

“Well, thank you Hunter,” she chuckled. “I guess I never thought about it that way.”

“Well, I should tell you more often,” said Hunter, giving her hand a small squeeze. “You deserve to know how amazing you are.”

Willow felt like her heart was spinning around in her chest. Hunter wasn’t showing any physical signs of the potion’s effects, but the blush on Willow’s face was proof that she was. She suddenly remembered the time she had offered to paint Hunter’s nails when the Entrails had a team building night. How she took his hand and asked what design he wanted and suddenly he couldn’t decide. The longer he took to think, the longer she held his hand. She wondered now if it had been intentional.

“Oh shoot,” Willow groaned as they re-approached the classroom. “The door is locked, I forgot the professor always locks it when we have projects brewing so no one can mess with them.”

“Well, I feel fine,” said Hunter. “I think I can wait until after school for her office hours.”

“Hunter, are you sure?”

“Yeah, we can always go to the nurse if I start not feeling fine,” he said. “But I’ll take any excuse to spend more time with you though.”

“Okay then,” she squeaked, overly aware that he did not let go of her hand. “Why don’t we uh, go find the others for the rest of lunch?”

“Sounds good,” he agreed. “As long as I can sit near you.”

———-

“Oh, Willow! Hunter! Over here!” Amity called from across the cafeteria. “Hey! What are you guys doing here? Willow messaged me that you guys were working through lunch.”

“Well, that was the plan,” said Willow. “But the classroom is locked up right now, so we have to wait until after lunch.”

“Too bad, but pull up a chair!” Gus said, sipping his juice. “So what’s up?”

Hunter pulled out Willow’s chair for her, which was not new but given the current circumstances it made her feel guilty. “Uh, well…”

“Nothing much,” said Hunter as he took his seat beside her. “I’m just thinking about how pretty Willow is, what about you?”

Gus nearly spit out his juice. This was not a totally unique answer from Hunter, but usually Willow was out of earshot when this was the case. He didn’t sputter to correct himself and Willow didn’t react, which suggested this was not the first occurrence.

Amity and Gus exchanged a look and adopted matching grins.

“Whaaaat’s going on?” Gus asked mischievously.

“Yeah, is there something you two wanna share with us?” Added Amity.

“Willow is beautiful every day, why do you two seem so surprised?” Hunter asked.

Willow’s face flushed and she gave a tiny giggle which quickly turned into a nervous laugh. She looked down and suddenly a vine crept onto the table and knocked over Amity’s drink. “Oh darn ! Oh wow, uh… Hunter! Could you go grab a napkin, please? And uh maybe another drink?” She added, attempting to prolong his return beyond a mere golden dash.

“Of course,” he said, getting up. “I’ll grab you something too, I think they have the little cakes you like. They’re small and sweet, just like you. It’s like most things remind me of you, isn’t that funny?”

“Haha yeah sooo funny,” Willow smiled nervously as she moved her hand to the side of her head trying to hide the blooming flower he inspired this time. “That’s so… yeah. Um, take your time! Thanks!”

“So…” began Gus. “Did something finally happen…?”

Willow made sure Hunter was out of earshot before dropping her false smile, stuffing the flower in her pocket and turning to her friends to explain in a panicked whisper.

“I messed up our assignment and long story short I gave Hunter a love potion,” Willow confessed quickly. “I don’t want to worry him so he doesn’t know because I don’t want to make things worse or make him feel awkward because it’s not his fault.”

“Well how do you know it was a love potion?” Amity asked.

“Well for one he told me that he’s in love with me,” said Willow, pulling out her scroll to show them the photo of what they made. “I added something wrong or out of order and this is what we made instead of a hair changing potion.”

“Did you taste it?” Amity asked.

“No, we always take turns being the tester,” said Willow.

“Willow, I don’t think it’s a love potion.” Amity said delicately.

“What do you mean?”

Amity didn’t know the proper way to say the effects would be moot as the potion creates attraction but if attraction was preexisting it would cancel out. But she knew Willow had definitely made something and didn’t want to add something else to her friend’s plate before solving the problem at hand so instead she said:

“I mean, it’s the right color but don’t you need intention when making a love potion?” Amity asked. “I mean, isn’t it supposed to have like your hair or something in it?”

“I dunno, my hair could have fallen in it or something,” said Willow. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t want Hunter in love with me?”

“Oh, don’t you?” Gus questioned smugly.

A mini field of yellow flowers sprouted in her hair. She quickly dusted them off and tried to whisper but her voice still managed to squeak. “Well okay maybe but not like this,” she said. “Like it’s so wrong for me to be enjoying all the nice things he’s saying about me when it’s not real.”

Amity and Gus exchanged a look, both knowing that wasn’t totally true.

“Oh shh! He’s coming back!” Willow pleaded, brushing the latest garden from her head.

“We didn’t say anything,” Amity murmured.

Hunter offered Willow a wide smile as he slid in back beside her. “They had cake cups and I wanted to get you one but I didn’t know if I should get one with a heart or a flower because they both remind me of you so I got them both and you can choose your favorite and Gus can have the other one,” said Hunter as he distributed the sweets and goods from his tray.

“Thank you, Hunter,” said Willow faintly, as she allowed Gus to take his pick because she truly could not choose.

“Um, why didn’t you get me a cupcake?” Amity teased as she took her new drink.

“Because I’m still mad at you for telling Darius that my O’Bailey cosplay wasn’t modern human realm fashion so he wouldn’t let me wear it in our holiday card,” said Hunter nonchalantly.

“What?” Amity said. “But you still got to wear it in the one with the Nocedas!”

“Yes but if you didn’t say anything Camila was gonna find him a general Midas outfit to wear when we took the photo all together next year but now he knows it’s not ‘in fashion.’” Said Hunter. “Which is also why I set all your clocks back a minute and a half when we came over for dinner last week.”

Gus sighed. “Hunter, we need to work on your pranks because that’s not-.”

Amity gasped in shock as she pointed a finger at him. “I knew it was you!”

“I also moved everything on your desk one inch to the left,” said Hunter. “That was Willow’s idea. She has a wonderful mind for mischief, it makes me feel like a puddle.”

“Hmmm,” said Gus as Amity continued to express her woe. He couldn’t help but be suspicious of the way Hunter admitted this with such a straight face. It wasn’t snarky or defensive; it was just factual. It was way too casual. It was unusual. Gus had a theory.

“Hey Hunter, what did you really think about the way I wrote O’Bailey in my Cosmic Frontier fanfiction?”

“You had him monologuing a bit too much and I’m not sure you captured his humor as well as you could have,” Hunter said as he took a sip of his own juice.

“Okay, okay,” said Gus, knowing this response was very different from what he had initially said. “What happens in the story you wrote that you won’t let me read?”

“Uh, nothing major,” said Hunter thoughtfully. “I just wrote about what I think happened with O’Bailey and Ivy when they got stranded on that moon. It had a lot of kissing but I don’t really know how to describe kissing and I didn’t want to risk Willow finding it and realize that because I want her to think that I-.”

“Okay!” Gus cut him off, his theory confirmed. He cleared his throat as he prepared to share. “Willow, you didn’t give him a love potion, you gave him a truth potion.”

“What, wait?” Willow said.

“How do you know?” Amity asked.

“Gave who a what now?” asked Hunter as he used his fork to take a bite of Gus’ dessert.

“I had a feeling there was a reason Hunter was avoiding giving me feedback,” Gus explained. “And I know he would never tell me outright that he didn’t like my story, and if he did he wouldn’t do it without me having to force it out of him.”

“No, no I’m pretty sure it was a love potion,” said Willow. “I mean, why else would he be talking about my eyes and my smile?”

“Because it erases his filter,” said Gus. “So he’s basically just saying everything he’s thinking.”

“So he… thinks about my eyes a lot?”

“Yeah,” said Hunter, unaware it wasn't a question he needed to answer. “But I mostly think about your face in general, it makes me feel dizzy and warm and safe.”

“Awh,” Willow couldn’t help but openly blush as Hunter went back to sampling Gus’ treat as though he had Neely given her the time. His words seemed to hit her twice as it spun her back to everything he had said to her since class, and they echoed with a new air.

“So when he said he was… that means he really is…”

Gus watched as the truth washed over Willow, her emotions leaping in and out of focus as they tried to decide what to display on her face. Gus wasn’t sure if Hunter would remember saying the things he was saying now, considering they had not intended to make a truth potion initially and he had no reason to be suspicious. Very often when a consumer had not been told they had been given a truth potion (as they were often used in court or interrogations) their mind automatically went to the things they wanted to keep secret and blurted them out against their conscious will. But when a person was slipped a potion, they acted like they would act in a dream; unsuspecting of the unusual.

But Gus wasn’t certain if this was a dream Hunter would remember fondly or instantly regret.

“Hey, if you guys wanna head to the Owl House and have Eda help you make the counter potion, I can whip up some illusions to cover for you guys for the rest of the day,” offered Gus.

“Sounds good,” said Hunter. “That way I can still qualify for the perfect attendance award which for some reason the thought of not having makes me anxious and can spend time with Willow, which both excites and terrifies me sometimes.”

“Worried about losing the award to me huh?” Amity teased, hoping to defuse the tension before remembering it was technically impossible for Hunter to save face right now.

“Well I think I’m afraid of missing a core memory that makes us all closer friends like in all the stories Luz told me when I was preparing to enroll,” said Hunter thoughtfully. “I mean, I’m also still wary of breaking rules but Willow seems to enjoy it and I enjoy seeing her enjoy things,” he chuckled before he turned to speak to Willow directly. “Mischievousness was not something I thought attractive until I met you, but I think it’s the gentle way you laugh when you talk about that makes me feel like my chest is going to explode.”

“Uh we should probably get going,” said Willow, swiftly getting up to try and hide the newest blooms sprouting in her hair.

“I would go anywhere she asked me to go,”said Hunter, sharing his thoughts as casually as he might say goodbye as he went to follow Willow outside. “Oh and Amity, Luz got you Azura earrings for your birthday.”

—-

The Owl Lady left them alone, not wanting to hear Hunter’s true thoughts about her, and also knowing this was teenage drama best left to be solved by teenagers. She had everything they needed and promised to check the final concoction to avoid any accidental poisoning.

“You look worried,” Hunter observed in the middle of silence which was unusual for this setting between the two recently.

“I’m not,” she said, as she added some crushed juniper to the mix.

“I can tell you’re lying,” he said. “I can tell by the way you move your hands. I know you’re not sad but you do the same thing when the weather is bad and you’re thinking about your plants. I don’t like when you lie to me about how you’re feeling. I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

She glanced up at him and knew he’d say this even without the potion prompting him. The potion typically didn’t allow his emotions about what he was confessing to be expressed, but his concern for her was just that heavy.

“I know,” she sighed. “I do know that. I’m just… worried that I didn’t respond the right way when I found out all your secrets.”

“Well you didn’t find out all my secrets,” Hunter said as he spun in his chair. “I didn’t tell you about the-.”

“Mhmm! Hey!” She exclaimed, cutting him off. “Careful! I’ll wear ear plugs; I mean it!”

“Fine, fine, but I do wanna tell you things,” he said. “Which you know is true, because of the potion.” She lovingly rolled her eyes and he smiled. “I’m really okay with you asking me things. I like when I can help you and I can tell there’s something bothering you.”

“Heh, of course you can,” she chuckled lightly. “It’s just… not something I was expecting to hear today, I guess? And I know it’s true but I’m still in disbelief, kind of. It’s just been… a lot? Ya, know not in a bad way I just mean like I know you weren’t planning-.”

“Is this about me being in love with you?”

The flowers sprouted back in her hair. She had given up trying to hide it at this point. “I mean, it’s not something you expect to hear at the lunch table I guess.”

It wasn’t the fact that he said it really it was the way that he said it. He didn’t say he had a crush on her or that he liked her, he kind of skipped a few steps. And Willow didn’t know if that was just how he happened to phrase it or if that was truly how deep he felt about her. She knew how serious Hunter took the things that were important to him, but she couldn’t help but wonder if he was even aware of these feelings. It took her weeks before she accepted she liked him more than a friend, but her acceptance didn’t stop the feelings from growing. She had tried to convince herself that it was nothing, that it would pass but one day her feelings just burst forth like water from a damn demanding to be felt.

Willow wondered if a Hunter in full control had already come to terms with these feelings or if this confession was news to him as well.

“Oh no, did it make you uncomfortable? Willow, I promise I wasn’t trying to embarrass you.”

“I know that, of course I know that, and I promise you that you didn’t.”

“Good.”

“It’s just that, you’re really in love with me,” Willow crafted her question carefully as she began to mix. “Then why haven’t you ever told me?”

“I don’t know how,” he said in the simple way the potion effects allowed him. “I’ve never really felt this way before, at least not toward someone I actually knew and knew for so long. I didn’t want to do it wrong and make things weird between us or offend you. I just kind of hoped I would wake up one day and just know how to do it.”

“Okay.” She didn’t want to pry further. Well no, she definitely did but she knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. She shouldn’t trick Hunter to find out his feelings about her despite desperately wanting to. She could at least be more open with her feelings with full confidence when this was all over but it still felt unfair that he didn’t have control over how she found out. But she couldn’t help being secretly happy about it anyway.

“Do you think you could ever fall in love with someone like me?” He asked calmly as though asking about the weather.

She wanted to say, no to scream: Not someone like you, you!

Instead she sputtered:

“Um, w-why do you ask?” She wasn’t sure if it was something he wanted to know right now or just something he was thinking about at the moment that slipped out against his will.

“That’s the main reason I never said anything,” he explained. “I didn’t think you’d like me back. And if I knew for sure that you didn’t then I’d have to stop feeling that way about you and things would be weird but I like feeling that way about you. It’s confusing, but nice?”

“Hmm you’re confusing but nice,” she giggled, feeling silly and bubbly for some reason.

He smiled. “Are you? Okay with it, I mean?”

Her smile grew. “I really like the way you get excited about things,” she said, looking down to trace some carvings on the table with her finger. “You take care of the things you care about and the way you care about things is really sweet. Being someone you care about is really special. And being someone you really like… well… I don’t see why anyone would mind that. In fact…”

She wondered if she should just say it. It wasn’t like she wasn’t sure her feelings were returned, but she didn’t want Hunter to think she was only saying it to make him feel better if his memory didn’t erase the moment. But she wanted Hunter to know that it was all equal; his hesitation, his confusion and his feelings.

But that would have to wait until it was his choice to tell her.

“… I’ll tell you after we have the counter potion ready.”

“You’re so wonderful,” he sighed, tracing the letters of her name on the front of her notebook. “You make my hands feel sweaty.”

Willow tried not to drop the spoon she was stirring with as she fought the urge to craft a flirty response. She wanted him to know she felt the same way but she knew it was wrong to dive too deeply into his trove of secrets. So instead, she giggled and bit her lip as she playfully responded. “Stooooop.”

“Do you want me to stop talking?” He asked, resting his chin on the back of the chair as he watched her work.

“Of course not, why would I want that?” She asked with a smile.

“Because what if I say something you don’t want to know?” He said. Willow marveled at a moment that even with his filter removed he still managed to be concerned about what she thought.

“I mean, I’m more worried about you saying something you don’t want me to know,” said Willow. “Maybe there’s a way we can erase the memories from today, about those parts at least. I know Eda could probably-.”

“I do want you to know,” he said.

“Huh?”

“I do want you to know,” he repeated. “I do want, well did want to tell you. I thought about it all the time. Sometimes it was hard not to say something. But there was always so much going on, I mean we’ve got playoffs and finals and then there was never a time with all the portal attempts in the human realm-.”

“Human realm? Wait,” Willow set down her supplies as she dreamily processed his latest confession. “Do you… you’ve liked me since we were trapped in the human realm?” Realizing what she had done, before he could reply she quickly leapt forward and her hand sprang to cover his mouth. “Don’t answer that! I’m sorry! I don’t want to trick you into telling me any more secrets!”

His response still came, muffled by her palm and safe from her ears. She felt him smile and his eyes softened as he went to remove her hand and held it to his cheek.

“Well,” he sighed. “Can I at least tell you again how soft your hands are?”

She giggled, unable to help how giddy and dizzy his unfiltered praise made her. “Well okay, I guess.”

——-

The counter potion was much simpler to make, and thankfully much better tasting too.

Willow watched Hunter’s face as he drank for signs of whether or not he remembered the details of the day’s events.

She could instantly tell by the way his eyes widened that he did.

And the way his face flushed told her his calm demeanor about it all was no more.

“How are you feeling?” She asked anyway.

“Uh… a lot?” He said, his voice cracking. “I mean, I feel fine but I uh…” he now found he couldn’t look at her without all the things he had said today overlapping in his mind. They were nothing he didn’t truly believe, nothing he was ashamed of, but he was mostly embarrassed that she knew he couldn’t easily say them to her now despite how truly he felt them. “Soooo uh can we maybe pretend today never happened?”

“I mean, we can if you want,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I mean, it’s my fault that you drank the wrong potion anyway, and I really am sorry that you had to-.”

“Oh, no!” He jumped in to say. “I-I don’t mean because of what you did I mean because of what I did.”

“Yeah because of what I did!”

“No! No, I… I don’t want you to feel bad,” he tried again. “But I don’t want things to be weird between us because of what I said. I mean, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me now that you know … ya know…”

“I know,” she said, reading between the lines. “And since we’re being honest… I was able to recreate the truth potion while the counter potion was settling and I took a sip of it and I can feel it starting to work.”

“What? Why?”

“Well I wanted to see what the after taste tasted like,” said Willow. “But also because I thought this would be a way to make things fair between us.”

“Willow, I don’t want you to admit all your secrets just to make me feel better,” said Hunter.

“I’m not gonna say all of them,” she said, mimicking his tone from before. “I’ll just answer any questions you wanna ask me.”

“But I don’t know what to say, I mean I don’t want to ask the wrong thing if it’s something you don’t want to tell me…”

“I figured you’d say that,” she said with a smirk. “So I wrote some questions down for you. That way you know what I want you to know and you can decide if you wanna know too.”

She slid a carefully folded piece of paper over to him, his name written in bold cursive with a tiny heart beside it.

“Are you sure?” He asked. “I’m fine with waiting for the potion to wear off, really. We still have some of the counter potion left and we don’t have to talk about… the other stuff.”

“I’m very sure,” she said. “I want to tell you these things.”

“Okay then,” he chuckled as he brought the paper closer to read. His eyes found the first sentence and he immediately slammed the paper down, his face beet red at the thought of saying it aloud. “Ok, uh..”

“Heh, you always look so cute when you do that,” she giggled, resting her chin in her hand.

“When I do w-what?”

“When you blush,” she clarified. “I love how the red reaches the tips of your ears and your mouth gets all squiggly; it’s very cute.”

“You… think I’m cute,” Hunter said, saying it more as an observed realization and purposely not as a question to answer. He cleared his throat as he tried to move on with grace. “Okay, cool. Cooooool. Cool cool cool.”

“I also think you’re cool,” she said, and the red on his face intensified and his smile grew. “I also love the gap between your teeth, especially when you smile.”

“Willow,” he said shyly, unable to suppress his smile now. “I thought you wanted me to ask you things.”

“You’re right,” she sighed. “But I can’t help it; no filter, remember? Did I make you uncomfortable?”

“No, no I just uh wanted to stick to your plan. So uh okay uh Willow,” he began, clearing his throat as he brought the list back up to his eyesight. “Uh ‘do you think I’m’ - oh wait, w-we just said that one heh.”

Willow bit her lip in anticipation as she watched him scan the rest of the list.

“Do you- hehehe,” he couldn’t help but laugh nervously at the sentence written plain as day in her bubbly green pen. He knew it was her own choice, that she wanted him to know, but it was a question he would never ask (at least not the way she had decided to word it).

“Go ahead,” she prompted.

“Do you think my hair looks… attractive pushed back?” He paraphrased from her list.

“Yes,” she said. “I like getting to see your face better, I don’t feel guilty about that.”

“Were you the one who let Hooty eat my history of magic notebook?”

“Yes, because you were stressing yourself out about the test even though you had everything memorized and it was the only way to stop you,” said Willow. “But I put a protection spell on it so it’s still usable, that I do feel a little guilty about.”

Hunter smiled, it had been his first official test at Hexside and he was determined to do well. Willow knew he knew the material and when his notebook ‘mysteriously’ went missing, the two of them went on a picnic. He had passed the test easily, and he knew without intervention he would’ve been up all night studying instead of getting a proper night’s sleep.

“Can I… actually ask you something that’s not on the list?”

“Of course,” she assured him. “I trust you.”

“I… uh,” he hesitated, if only to try and find the best way to ask her this. It weighed so heavily on the back of his mind and he knew what she’d say if he asked her any other time. But a sort of him would never believe her. He didn’t know if it would be better to really know but at least he wouldn’t wonder.

“Does it… bother you that I’m a grimwalker?”

“No.” She said without hesitation.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Like, not even a little?”

“I mean, it bothers me that it bothers you,” she said. “Because it’s not something you can change and I know sometimes you think it means you’re not deserving of things or that you have something to make up for. But I’m really glad you exist, and I don’t really care how it happened.”

“Okay,” he said with a sniffle, trying to not cry. “Cool. That’s… good to know I guess, heh.”

He was feeling better, but he couldn’t help but feel a small weight still tugging at him, he both did and didn’t want to keep going. It was scary, as Willow often was to him in a unique and safe way (yet another contradiction she summoned) but if he didn’t keep going it might haunt him forever. He knew deep down that no matter what she would not leave or belittle him, but this was still uncharted territory.

“Does it… bother you that I like you more than you like me?”

“No it doesn’t bother me,” she said. “Mostly because it’s not true.”

“What?” Hunter said, certain he had misheard her. “Do you not… Willow, I promise you it is true.”

“Mhmmm no it’s not.”

“Willow, I can assure you it is.”

“I can assure you it’s not.”

“Willow, I mean I know the potion was preeetty strong,” Hunter chuckled. “But I still remember everything I said. I know that I told you I’m in love with you which I know seems like a strong wording but it’s how I feel. I like you a lot, like… a lot.”

“Exactly,” she said with a smug smile. “You don’t like me more than I like you.”

As her mischievous grin grew, her words suddenly became understood and caused his ears to flutter. He felt like steam was escaping them, like he had finally landed after falling for so long. Her eyes sparkled the way they always did when she teased him like this and Hunter couldn’t help but feel like they were on the edge of something.

“Oh, then how does it make you feel? I-it’s okay then?”

“Do you wanna ask me the last question?”

“I mean, I don’t really know if I- wait, did you just ask me a question?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s just that you asked me a question instead of truthfully answering the question I asked which means… Willow, you didn’t really take another truth potion, did you?”

She knew the jig was up so she simply shrugged playfully and twirled a loose curl on her finger. “Okay, so maaaaaybe I lied about that,” she admitted.

“Willow!” He tried to say sternly but couldn’t help but laugh. He knew she meant no harm, that her silliness was not at his expense.

“I’m sorry!” She laughed in response. “But I didn’t remember exactly how I messed up the first time and I wanted to tell you I liked you too but I didn’t wanna wait until we got back to school because I’m pretty sure we’ll have to dump the potion and start over anyway so I-.”

“Wait,”said Hunter softly. “So… you do? Like me? Like… I like you?”

“Well, if you had read me the last question,” said Willow, reaching over to both point to the bottom of the page and to be closer to him. “You wouldn’t seem so surprised.”

[demonslayedher]

Not-very-spoilery thoughts on the movie release of Pillar Training (+SSV conclusion)

Behind a cut anyway just in case!

--Very nice to hear familiar background music brought back--Yuukaku themes when Uzui & his wives appear, Mitsuri's "Koi Kogare" BGM when she has a good batch of lines, Giyuu's BGM as he's like, "bye"

--I am very happy with the new OP, both sound and imagery-wise.

--One very short clip in particular made me, a fanfic writer, very very happy, but then there was more gratuitous focus that reminded me of another one of my best fanfics. The rewards of writing fic as closely based on canon as I could get them gives me the satisfaction of feel liking like canon-based imagery honors my fics by extension.

--Speaking of imagery in general, Ufotable is finding lots of ways to try to harp on the idea that everyone's wishes to destroy demons find their accumulation in Tanjiro, the Sun Breath user and first person in centuries to unlock the Mark. It is perhaps a little clumsy at times, but hey, that's a theme I like in this series.

--I was sad that Suma sounded so different, and had to look up afterward if she still had the same seiyuu. She does, but I think they might have given her totally different vocal direction so that she wouldn't sound too similar to Mitsuri

--Japanese crowds tend to be very quiet at movie theaters, but people could not contain their giggles at many of Mitsuri's lines

--I had the honor of sitting next to a huuuuuuuge fangirl who before the moving was saying stuff to her friends like, "(Hanae) Natsuki-san was at USJ the other day, and since it's a VR ride, you know, you have to wear the goggles, and I think, what if I wear the pair that he wore??? You know?? Our faces??? Would be so close?????" and then at the review of previous seasons at the beginning of the show, she started crying the instant the Mugen Ressha part started. Not loud crying, but crying.

--You can tell everyone was waiting for the "welcome back" scene, and although I thought Zenitsu would steal the show in that scene, it was indeed Nezuko. In the seiyuu greeting that was broadcast across all Japanese theaters on the opening day, Shimono-san noted that he thinks the audio was turned down on his performance of that scene. I think it was probably was too.

--So much happy daily life in this episode. If you have any friends who complained about last year's theater showing being a let-down because it was just regular anime episodes instead of a Mugen Train style movie, please tell them to just sit this one out and spare us their complaints. Most of this showing was just Tanjiro having a nice time after having a panic attack over Nezuko (oh, and like, killing Upper Moon Four, that too).

--Shinobu's hair seems distinctly longer. Giyuu's hair seems distinctly fluffier.

--Ufotable has put a lot of touches into humanizing Amane

--I wish Ufotable would stop trying to drive the "Zenitsu thinks Aoi is happy to see him (just because Aoi is a girl)" point. First off, yes, Zenitsu being a creep to girls is played up a bit in the anime. Second, the first fanbook states that the only kind of girl who is not so much his type is the Aoi-type.

--Also, on the promo art, I like the design they gave Shinobu's sword, but that's ignoring the fact that the four engraved kanji characters are on either side. Go ahead, Ufotable, hire me as your canon double-checker. EDIT: Oh wait, that is its sheath. Lovely, carry on.

--That said, the original filler they gave us? Gold star. Excellent. So happy with it. One... well, two tiny nitpicks that don't bother me much but stating it here would spoil it.

--One more non-spoilery thing to say about that filler: the people at Ufotable were probably like, "our fans are nerds. We already give them this, this, this, and that to nerd over. You know what else they are probably nerds for? Yeah. Let's give them that." Thank you, Ufotable. This nerd accepts and loved it.

--Tiny Nezuko filler as they set the stage talking about Muzan is probably looking for her? LOVE THAT TOUCH, at every level.

--Shinobu does have multiple goldfish, but they look a bit different?

--Genya's makes the best face in this whole episode

--Speaking of Genya, in the seiyuu greeting they had actors in big chibi costumes of the Kamaboko gang come out... PLUS GENYA. Giant chibi grumpy Genya was so, so, so, so freaking cute. Also, his seiyuu Okamoto got to join the stage with everybody and was talking about how he always used to scroll through his social media seeing the other seiyuu at KnY events and he was like, "sigh... sure looks like everyone is having fun..."

--Hanae Natsuki and his wife are big Genya fans, though, it seems

--Okamoto had a lot of trouble performing young Genya in the flashback, especially the emotional screaming. The desperation Genya always displays as he fights? That was Okamoto. --Meanwhile, Matsuoka always looks very overwhelmed at these things. I think having to embody the spirit of Inosuke terrifies him.

--IT WAS SO GOOD TO HEAR INOSUKE AGAIN

--Those actors in chibi costumes? The Zenitsu and Inosuke ones embodied them SO WELL. I don't usually care for those giant mascot character costumes, but these were legit so much fun to watch, like with Inosuke going right up into the cameras and Zenitsu trying to pull him back and then the two of them pushing and shoving. Zenitsu acting like he is being bullied and Inosuke showing off his muscles. I loved them. I am very sad that I will not be in town when they travel across Japan and come to my area.

--Also, the baritone voice of Oyakata-sama's personal crow? LOVED IT.

--Himejima at the the Pillar Meeting is such a statement. The new promotional material has a tag line that prominently uses one of the kanji in his name ("cry out"), and I feel like this is set-up for him to have a lot of impact later on in this season. Here's hoping!

--I am probably gonna go watch it again in a couple weeks, ufufufu

--Which is worth it for that KIZUNA NO KISEKI REMIX WHICH SOUNDED SO COOL IN SURROUND SOUND, OH MY GOSH

[herotome]

Devlog #120

Hi-ho, Wudge here. Early devlog...!

This week I drew a blush just for Warden and nobody else. There are two very specific ways to see it, and only in this office location. So... good luck!

I playtested the game enough to get allllllll 26 achievements. I actually... had to reference my own walkthrough to get one of them. ;;; But I was able to do it!!

I also had a small.. incident where Griffin promised he'd talk to everyone to help fix their negative opinions of me (aka, reset the approval points to a more neutral zone after I thoroughly antagonized everybody).... and then he didn't. It's fixed now ;;;;;; But woo that would have been an awful lil mistake hahaha.

I finished the 'updating ur mc pfp' tutorial - seems to be intuitive and working seamlessly enough!

I converted converted alllll the pngs into webps, and converted alllllllllll the mp3s and wavs into oggs...

...and deleted all unnecessary files and notes from the development process. This is usually the stage where I'll end up breaking something from accidentally nuking an important file... but so far so good.

I put in a cute, special lil sfx for the reward you get after the credits.

Finish designing and coding my SECRET NG+ screen, and wrote a personalized dev note to put in it.

And - we've finally updated Mr Whidden! Wahoo!!!! Remnantation did an amazing job as always!

I thought about putting in some animated smoke coming out of his cannon arm but I had to tell myself No... No Wudge....stop.. ......I did add a lil ember and smoke at the very edge of the gun but THATS IT I restrained myself there and did not animate!!!

So, what else is left?

Thanks I'm glad you asked.

Test my email subscription service to see how much I can customize those emails.

Film and upload the Griffin CG video.

Finish and import a few final pieces of in-game art (1 bird sprite, 1 background, some food art).

Review some sound effects in a final, final dev playtest.

Schedule out some social media release posts; wherein I might do like, a week of counting down until the game's release.

Finish updating my itch page (adding the final few lil graphics, putting up the new Content Warning, linking to the new video, then finally, uploading the game files and walkthrough).

Decide how I'm gonna update my pinned post. I should save a link to the old one bc most of its information should be quite relevant, but I'll want a temporary, shorter pinned post for new players who aren't familiar with this blog and are looking to troubleshoot or say hi or something.. Should still have fun attention-grabbing gifs and stuff from the itch page though. <_<

.... So yeah, mostly like - social media promo stuff. That should be it. Fingies crossed. Whew.

By the way?

Super Demo comes out December 2nd. Mark your calendars <3

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[119riize]

HEARTS BETRAYAL - S. EUNSEOK

SYNOPSIS .・゜゜・ you and song eunseok are known for being academic rivals, it was no secret. the whole school knew you guys always fought for the number 1 spot, which also led to the public assuming you both hated each others guts. but, did you guys really hate each other?

PAIRING .・゜゜・ eunseok x fem! reader

GENRE .・゜゜・ school au, fluff

TROPE .・゜゜・ academic rivals to lovers

START - END .・゜゜・ 03.31.24 - ongoing

TAGLIST .・゜゜・ feel free to ask!

03. HE’S NOT THAT BAD

you were stunned after hearing the other and all he did was smile at you like you misunderstood him. “did i say something wrong?” eunseok asks you as you just looked at him shockingly. was he really acting dumb right now? you didn’t even bother bringing it up and just moved on.

“anyways…what do you wanna know about me?” you ask him and watched as he sat in thought for a bit before responding. “what’s your favorite…everything?”

“my favorite color depends on my mood, it changes everyday…im not picky with foods, but i do prefer salty over sweet. my favorite hobby is obviously studying, my parents have high expectations of me so i don’t really have a choice.” you tell him and he listened to you intently.

“your parents?”

you nodded, “yeah, do your parents have any expectations of you?” eunseok shook his head no.

“i study because i want to get into a good college, that’s it.” he says softly, and you could tell on his face something was wrong, but you didn’t wanna question anything too soon.

“really? to be honest, i hate studying. i’ve never really enjoyed it, i only try my best in school so i can make my parents proud. they’ll never notice my existence if i don’t put effort into school.” you saw eunseok whose face was filled with sadness, though it was very subtle.

you tried to keep the atmosphere calm, but it was hard when your academic rival looked off. you brought up the courage to finally ask, “are you okay?”

suddenly, the boy got up from his seat, “mhm, the bells about to ring.” he spoke while grabbing his bag and soon leaving the library. you were left there, confused. once again. however, he wasn’t wrong. the bell in fact did ring a few minutes after he had left.

you sigh and grab your bag before leaving the library. as you walked to class, you couldn’t stop thinking about the look on eunseok’s face. the moment you brought up your parents, the whole atmosphere just changed, let alone he himself looked sick. “i didn’t say anything wrong, right?” you thought to yourself as you walked down the halls.

“hey, y/n!” someone shouted for you through the crowded halls and you turned around to see one of your great friends, yeji, trying to catch up to you.

“oh my gosh, yeji?! how have you been? i haven’t seen you in ages!” you exclaim as you run up to hug her.

“i just came back from my trip last night, what did i miss while i was gone?” she asks you and you looked at her before laughing a bit.

“you missed one of the exams. it was a bad idea to go traveling while its exam season yeji.” you laughed looking at her face, it seemed like she completely forgot the year was ending soon, and wasn’t paying attention to the fact there are exams left and right.

“wait…when’s the finale?!”

“after this next exam. you have this week to study because it’ll be next week and then the finale will be two weeks after.” you couldn’t help but laugh at yeji’s shocked face.

“don’t worry, i’ll help you study if you need.”

yeji let out a sigh of relief, “my house after school, we can’t fool around!”

༉‧₊˚.

as told, you went to yeji’s house after school to help her catch up and study for the upcoming exam.

“these are all the notes that you need to review for the exam, you should copy them down.” you tell yeji and she grabbed out a sheet of paper.

“are these the unit 10 notes?” she asks you and you nodded your head. “how’d you know?”

“they look familiar. but our teacher never informed us to take down notes for this unit, how’d you get them?”

“oh…uh, eunseok gave them—”

“eunseok?! you mean, song eunseok!?” yeji had cut you off right then and there. she got up from her seat immediately after hearing the said name. “he gave the notes to you?!”

“well…yeah, i guess.”

“but aren’t you guys like…rivals? why would he give you his notes?”

you laughed at yeji’s shocked face, “i don’t know, do i look like eunseok to you? go ask him these questions, not me! i’m just trying to help you here.”

“oh, right. i’ll ask him tomorrow! but hey, since we’re talking about him, has your perspective changed ever since he gave you his notes to copy? or do you still think he’s a loser..”

you looked at your friend like she wasn’t being serious, but her face said otherwise. “what kind of question is this? focus on copying down the notes yeji!” you scolded but she wanted an answer from you.

“i just wanna know if you still think he’s a sore loser who only wants to top first to annoy you or if your thoughts changed about him!” yeji said, and you let out a sigh.

“HE’S NOT THAT BAD…”

back | next

taglist. @starwonb1n @kyusqult @teddywook @renjuneoo @lecheugo @seunghancore @sunwoosberrie @b-riize @ilovechanhee @yyangj3lly @07yujin

© 119riize 2024

[10underoot2]

I finally rewatched Queen of Tears Episode 16.

Its given me a lot of clarity on why I didn't like it all that much. The episode feels very filler like, reiterating what I already know, no development nothing to draw me in. So here's a list of thing I really like vs things I had beef with: 

The Good:

- Hyunwoo's understanding of what marriage is is very profound and beautiful. Really appreciate that bit.

- The employees in this corporate sector have been 10/10 throughout. I cannot with how much I love them to bits. Still not over 'I just want to see the rich argue' 😭😂

- Yangi's bond with Hyunwoo is absolutely 10/10 

- I like Haein trying to find the reason of their divorce. It's important for her cause why did two people who love each other want to divorce each other. But again I hate how this wasn't a main cause of comcern around epsidoe 7. Like don't brush over it fam. Don't you wanna know why the man you love and who loved you to bits wanted to divorce you?

- Those last 7-8 mins. Though I wish I had more of them. I needed a linear passing of time. Something like the Germany Montage at the start would've been perfect. But at the very end just 'Way home' playing, Hyunwoo seeing Haein as an angel to pick him up, the familiar happiness and love just spreading around them was beautiful to witness. Really got me teary eyed both times I watched it. 

The Bad: 

- I'm not even getting into the uselessness and bad execution of the whole Yoon Eun Sung plot line since episode 14. 

- Still have no idea why Mol Soo Hee she wanted Suwan dead? Like there's no rationale? Why not kill Hae-in or SeoCheol in all those 20 years as well? It makes no sense to me.

- the episode felt so unnecessarily dramatic. I get it he got shot and was in a car accident but I was so sure he'd be okay? Did not understand or appreciate the over dramaticness also those Yangi shots in that sequence were a little tooo dramatic for me

- I don't like Haein getting back her memories cause they said the hippocampus would be destroyed. It's my fault for looking for logic in the first place but can we please stick to what we established writernim. Also wasn't this the whole problem that she's not getting back ANY memories EVER?!

- The scene between the mothers at this point was also unnecessary. We could've gotten to this realization back in the episode this was brought up the first time. She knew the location and date I don't see how reviewing her album was the light bulb moment.

- I feel super bad for this one but for me even Hae-in's bedside speech, once Hyunwoo woke up, lacked sincerity. As much as she might realize she loves him. He's still a stranger. Who does she miss? Her husband who's love she has no recollection of? The man she loved but she has no idea how she loved him? Take out the loss of memories and it would've hit me like a truck. Like she's not even holding his hand as she waits cause she recently met him. What am supposed to cry over here? What could've been? The pre ep 15 Baekhong I dearly misssed at this point?

- More on the Hyunwoo hospital scene. When he says 'I had forgotten' As sweet as it is I already knew all of it. It was so ill placed I didn't have to see it here.  Also like what does she care? She doesn't remember if you forgot or not in the first place 💀

- The Yangi x Haeina acene in the hospital - what notebook are we talking about? Did I miss something? Did I fall asleep somewhere like what?! Also I feally do like Yangi but I thought all of the scenes with him were kinda forced this episode.

- The conversations where Haein tells Hyunwoo he's perfect. Is it just me or is Haein extremely expressive after the surgery? I can never imagine Haein telling Hyunwoo that he's perfect even if she think so. It was a little off putting for me being introduced to this new character in the last episode. I miss my inexpressible power girl.

- Just the voice over off what happened with Mol Soo Hee would've sufficed but I guess we had to see that SNU degree in action. 

- The turn in Da hye's emotion - as sweet as it was also felt forced. They just showed me earlier she didn't care for him and bullied him. Now you want me to belive she mistook her feeling okay sureeee 🙃

- This is what meant by killing the temperment. They start Hyunwoo's monolougue 'We forgave those who we used to resent and then we cut to this long scene of Aunt Beom ja. Then we have Hyunwoo, then we have his brother's scene. The editing was off here. I wish we had a monologue of just them. It all threw me off so much.

And here's why a sequence of Baekhong was so necessary cause remember the first episode we instantly fall in love and get curious because of that lovely montage of BaekHong Germany scenes. 

All in all good ending, horrible last two epsiode. Kinda left a bad taste in my mouth. It makes me long so much for the show I saw and fell in love with before. I have never felt this way about a last episode, I think I just expected better from this show. 

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC REVIEW: A Fate Inked in Blood by Danielle L. Jensen

4.5/5. Releases 2/27/24.

Heat Index: 6.5/10.

Vibes: vIKINGS!!!!, slutty guy/serious girl, "oops I'm married to your dad", and legitimately intense battle and magic stuff that actually works and puts people in those heartrending situations where it's all "STAY ALIVE!!!!! I WILL FIND YOU!!!!!!!!!" as it should in a FANTASY ROMANCE

Married to a man she hates and hiding the fact that she's the child of a minor goddess (children of gods are a Thing in this world) Freya lives a life of drudgery. Until, that is, her secret is revealed to all and Jarl Snorri declares that she's a prophesied shieldmaiden, meant to clinch him the kingdom he's always wanted. As such, she must marry him--kind of an issue, as she is very, very attracted to Snorri's son Bjorn. Another issue: Bjorn has been bound to Freya as her protector. On top of everything, Freya's goddess-given abilities are obscure but dangerous, leading her to wonder if her fate is less that of a protector than that of a monster...

OOOOH WE'VE GOT SOMETHING HERE. I've read Danielle L. Jensen before, way back in the day with her Malediction books--but those were YA (albeit, pretty hot YA) and I really don't read YA anymore. However, I do like Viking Shit, and I especially liked the idea of a romance between a Viking lady and her husband's SON, which was something I always wanted to happen on Vikings. So I picked it up.

And dude. It sucked me right in. I am, as I will get into more below, kind of a hard sell on fantasy romance--when it works, I am HOOKED but when it doesn't I am quickly turned off. This is the former. I was so drawn to Freya, a heroine who does have Chosen One aspects, but is also very human and just trying to make it work, one battle at a time. (Also? She's not instantly gREAT at fighting, how refreshing.) And I absolutely fell head over heels dumb girl for our hero Bjorn, who I expected to be a stoic silent warrior type. NO. He's so much better. He's like, an amazing warrior--but is also so funny and super slutty and just a BRO. I love him. Protect him.

The fantasy plot is compelling and doesn't get so in love with itself that it's impossible to follow. It's really good! I'm excited by this! Can't wait for the next! (What a relief, God.)

Quick Takes:

Here's my issue with fantasy romance (or romantasy, though I'll point out that this series is billed as "fantasy romance" on Netgalley, and that is so HOT to me): often, though the name implies that it's a subgenre of romance with a heavy fantasy bent... It's basically fantasy (well-done or not) with a romance subplot tucked in. The character work is shoddy, the tension is nil, and you can tell that the author is just trying to horn in on the romance audience. Not so, here. 

First off, I think Jensen was really smart to create a fantasy world that is very "Vikings But Fantasy". It's not poorly drawn. You can tell that she's really into the Norse vibe, and I will say that I am biased because as someone who has somehow been watching the Vikings franchise since its inception (pray for me) I'm fairly familiar with it on that level. But the way she weaves the fantasy elements, most distinctly the idea of these empowered children of gods (who are basically made when their mortal parents HAVE THREESOMES WITH GODS??? Amazing. Just imagine having these superpowers and knowing that it's because your parents took some dude home from the bar one night and he turned out to be Thor.) into the story is really natural.

Secondly... There is a really compelling plot, yes. I am really into the duality of Freya, don't get me wrong. I really like the royal intrigue. All the WIFE DRAMA. It's My Brand. But the real heart of this story, very openly and honestly and presented without any self-consciousness, is Freya and Bjorn. And I think Jensen just lays it all out there the moment she introduces the brilliant plot device of "Bjorn's Dad, Who Freya Is Technically Married To, Wants Bjorn To Follow Freya Around And Make Sure She Doesn't Get Into Danger". Oh, so he's supposed to protect her as she hurtles into adventure and fights Viking zombies and shit? HOW CONVENIENT. Throughout the story, their immediate physical attraction melts into this emotional slow burn... and I am also a hard sell on a slow burn, so thank you for doing it right, Danielle. The book is single POV (Freya's, though I wouldn't mind Bjorn's in a future installment) but you can just tell that Bjorn is so mad that he's this into a woman who is technically his stepmother. Like, he can have anyone! But he wants HER. But he can't have her! 

Picture me gobbling this up like a raccoon in a trash can.

--Speaking of! If you're all "ew, I hate that Freya is married to his dad"--no spoilers, but this is dealt with in a way that I think both avoids the ick that some readers (to be clear: not me, I am very resistant to ick) may feel over that setup, and avoids a copout. 

At the same time... First off, Bjorn doesn't fully know that the ick has been avoided, and to be frank, I don't think Bjorn really cares about a little ick. But he does have like, you know, the "WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME" vibe for a while, and it is delicious. All very illicitaffairs.mp3.

--I also really loved that there is no mistake about Freya being a GROWN WOMAN. I strongly, strongly object to shelving this as New Adult, because regardless of her age, Freya (and honestly Bjorn as well) has been through a lot. She's literally married when we open this novel. She gets a second husband. She is not a virgin; her marriage was not chaste; it sucked. (To be clear: you don't get a lot of insight into Freya's first marriage beyond "it sucked" because it's dealt with pretty quickly. You don't see any sexual assault on the page in this book, and I don't know that Freya would see it that way? It's alluded to as "lie back and think of England" bad, gross sex, which I think suggests assault, but there is not any explicit violence, sexual or otherwise, depicted in either of her marriages.) She is JADED. She has never had a man like, take care of her.

And then she gets linked up with local dude who's snarking at her horrible husband about how he must not go down on her enough, and she's all "WHAT'S THAT MEAN :/". I really, really enjoy a pairing that involves a tough woman who's never been properly taken care of and a man who's like "I am DESPERATE to take care of you". Freya deserves!

--Another good choice: often, in fantasy romance (or at least in fantasy romance of yore; I feel like there has been a recent push to correct this, at least somewhat) the heroine is hypercompetent. She's smart, she's a good fighter, she's a femme fatale, she's the seventeen-year-old master assassin...

Freya is... a person. She does want to fight, and she is--not surprisingly, as she does come from a culture in which women do fight--not incapable of holding her own. Somewhat. But as soon as she's up against a master warrior like Bjorn, she's kind of not great, Bob, and even with the benefit of her goddess-given abilities, she still has a lot to learn. It's giving "Book One Aang", and I'm good with that. I'm actually much happier with her giving Book One Aang as a twenty-something woman because like? Give us hope, Freya.

She also doesn't have all the answers. Frankly, Freya doesn't have 80% of the answers, and she shouldn't, because she's new to this. She's new to the magic stuff (though she knew she had it, which I did like--she's not an Alina Starkov-level "WHAAAT" about it) and she's new to the court intrigue, and frankly she's new to Hot Dudes. Speaking of, she does spend a decent amount of brain time going "STOP! STOP, SELF! DO NOT LOOK! DO NOT TOUCH!" Which, frankly, I loved. I feel like that's the kind of behavior people are going to be annoying about because people are dying, but like. This woman just spent years surrounded by Village 2's and suddenly she's being swung around and guarded by a very flirtatious Royal 12. Give her a break. I would be much worse. 

And she doesn't know what the hell she's doing with this man. She knows the mechanics, but she doesn't know the FINESSE. Speaking of...

The Sex:

The reason why I'm between a 6 and a 7 on this (and that's not quality, that's literally just how hot the book is re: sex acts) is that the story is a slow burn. Everything sexy happens in the back half, and you don't get to the full shebang until pretty late in the game. It's ABOUT THE YEARNING.

However, I think this was a good choice, and when we do get those scenes they are super hot (and explicit, though not like Sierra Simone explicit to be clear) and passionate and you definitely get the sense that it's this giant deal for these two. I was quite touched. I was like "awww" but also "oh" which is where I want to be when a story builds to two people hooking up for that long.

And Jensen fully takes advantage of the "Vikings" component and does have some "under the sleeping furs with 76 people sleeping in the near vicinity but we just need to get this done" action here. Which. Brava.

I'll be honest--I was worried about this, as I feel like I've been let down by a great fantasy romance in the past. I, much like several people in this novel, have been burned before. Not so here. I'm fully on board. I loved where we left off, and I cannot wait to see where those two crazy kids go next. Hopefully, like. To Vikings divorce court. So she can end that marriage to his dad.

Thanks to Netgalley and Del Rey for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Preorder:

Amazon

B&N

Bookshop.org

[vermutandherring]

Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine - Issue 95 - August 2005. Source: Internet Archive

Today, 24 of October, came out (or rather were re-released) classic Metal Gear games, starting with the very first games in the series. It doesn't matter either Konami did it to get more money, or to engage more players into the series, alongside with the news about MGS remake.

Personally, I see this as a good gesture of respect for one's heritage and an example for other developers to show that there is still a place for classic works in the world of modern videogames. After all, a classic will always be a classic.

What surprises me are the comments of some reviewers, the essence of which is that the games have not been improved or modified, but only optimized for modern operating systems. A rather strange remark, in my opinion. After all, when you visit a museum, you don't expect to see a polished Rembrandt or an 'improved' Michelangelo. You want to see with your own eyes what has been the crown of human genius for several centuries in a row. You want to see a unique original, because you can always order an lame copy on the Internet. In this regard, I agree with the Richard Wakeling' words in his article on Gamespot:

"More than anything, revisiting the series' humble beginnings essentially functions as a virtual museum, providing you with a fascinating look at how familiar elements began and then evolved as Metal Gear made the monumental shift to 3D. Both games--particularly Metal Gear 2--feel like blueprints for what was to come, establishing the foundations for Metal Gear Solid and stealth-action video games as a whole. Codec conversations, alert statuses, enemy-identifying radar, and gameplay concepts such as crawling through vents and using sound to draw the enemy's attention were all part of the series' roots over 33 years ago. Even if you have no interest in seeing either game through to completion, it's worth at least giving them a try to see where Metal Gear got its start."

Ukraine is out of party again (at least on Konami' official page), but I'd say we are used to it

At a time when so-called WWIII is not just outside the door, but on your doorstep, the content of Metal Gear is more relevant than ever. And now, thanks to the re-release of the first MG games, it is possible to trace how the games have turned from silly, pointless shooters into complex philosophical works capable of telling complex stories.

[dissociativemagicalgirl]

well it's almost a whole new year .... i started parts work this year (finally) (i think) which was exciting. now, i will write reviews of the texts on structural dissociation/trauma/DID i read this year. almost all available on archive.org for free if you would like to join me in reading. okay byebye.

any book titles listed with a ‼️ contain graphic, heavily triggering depictions of trauma. there is a heavy focus on these descriptions in each book. i'll try to write out specific tws in my review for each one, but i would only recommend reading these if it's safe for you to do so. make sure you listen to parts that get activated, have plans to de-escalate and take care of yourself, and avoid entirely if discussion of trauma is particularly raw for you or you're physically unsafe.

keep in mind: every book here will discuss various traumas. if you're not at a place where you can handle these discussions, it would be best to avoid these readings entirely.

amongst ourselves: a self-help guide for living with dissociative identity disorder - tracy alderman & karen marshall

5 out of 5. overall, this is a really insightful text. written by two people, one who is a licensed clinical social worker and one who is a person with DID. the way it's written was surprisingly warm. something about the way it's written feels so non-judgemental and non-clinical. i particularly liked this book's insights on things like how to come out as someone with a dissociative disorder, whether to confront your abusers, etc.

attachment trauma and multiplicity: working with dissociative identity disorder

2 out of 5. honestly im sure this isn't a bad book. unfortunately, it was too dry for me without providing much insight that's not easily accessible from other texts. i ended up not finishing it - maybe there's more to it that i didn't read? regardless, it reads as an introductory text for clinicians.

‼️ don't: a woman's word - elly danica

4 out of 5. content warning for csa, trafficking, and incest. this is a memoir. i really appreciate that it's written in a less narrative structure - events seem to take place separate from anything else, with little coherent narrative or reference to time to tie them together. i really hope that doesn't come off as a negative, because it excellently captured how childhood histories of trauma often become fractured. really powerful book with little catharsis at the end.

‼️ if you tell - it'll kill your mother - ardith trudzik

2 out of 5. content warning for csa, suicide, self harm, incest, animal abuse, and animal death. this book follows ardith's journey through therapy. it eventually falls into a pretty straightforward pattern: ardith recalls a memory, she tells her therapist, and her therapist affirms her experiences. unfortunately, i'm giving it a low rating because i personally felt like i didn't get much of it. ardith writing this book becomes part of her therapeutic process, and i'm very glad she was able to write this and share her story; however, beyond that, there's little analysis of the therapeutic process or the dynamics of abuse.

multiple personality disorder from the inside out - multiple authors

4 out of 5. a collection of submissions from dozens of systems. a lot of poems, memoirs, etc. this reminds me more of a zine than a book. really cool collaborative work from the 90s.

‼️ my father's house - sylvia fraser

5 out of 5. content warning for incest and csa. really powerful memoir on repressed incestuous abuse and its effects on her adult life. sylvia's writing style really tickles my brain in a good way. as far as i'm aware, she has never been diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, but her descriptions of having "alternate selves" who live in trauma time will likely be painfully familiar to any systems reading.

‼️ prism: andrea's world - jonathan bliss

whoever allowed this book to be published should be like... put in a saw trap. jonathan bliss' novel is a self-aggrandizing, exploitative hunk of shit from a freudian psychoanalysist with no history or training in working with DID. the novel alternates between jonathan bliss writing masturbatory exposition on how accomplished he is, taking random potshots at andrea (his patient) for being fat and mentally ill, and long recollections of andrea's trauma that seem to serve only as exposition on how crazy she is without any empathy - the equivalent of saying "isn't that fucked up?" and moving on. with the things jonathan bliss admits to in his own writing, he should have had his license taken away. the only feeling of catharsis or relief you will get from this book is when you learn that jonathan bliss has since died. content warnings for incest, csa, animal death, animal abuse, suicide.

the haunted self - multiple authors

5 out of 5. this one is kind of cheating because i haven't finished it yet - i'm about halfway through. regardless, it's radically shifted how i understand structural dissociation and its relations to traumagenic disorders - not just DID! the only negative i can list is that it's a little dry - if you're not used to reading academic texts, you might find it hard to parse. however i think the text itself more than makes up for it.

‼️ the incest diary - author unattributed

4 out of 5. i really, really, really struggle with writing about this one because it's a difficult read. part of what makes it triggering is that it describes aspects of csa that nobody really talks about, i think out of revulsion. my experience reading it could best be summarized as: yeah, that's what it was like, but i don't want to think about it. regardless of how much it repulsed my "main" self, i can acknowledge that some parts of my system felt understood in ways that other readings haven't given them. regardless, it's a really difficult read, and it's equally difficult to talk about. content warnings for... well, it's in the title.

the magic daughter - jane phillips

5 out of 5. the reasons why i loved this one so much are more personal than objective, but i still loved it nonetheless. jane's life has lined up in ways that are uncanny compared to my own. particularly, i thought it was refreshing to see a system that operates more similarly to my own: no defined identities or internal world, but there nonetheless. content warning for csa and incest, though the depictions are fairly brief. the bulk of the book focuses on jane's adult life, how she manages her DID, and the therapeutic process.

[okayto]

Mini-Review: Bee and PuppyCat: Lazy in Space

Bee, an unemployed woman in her early twenties, encounters a mysterious creature she terms PuppyCat. She adopts this apparent cat-dog hybrid, and together they go on a series of temporary jobs to pay off her monthly rent. These bizarre jobs take the duo across strange worlds out in space.

This is the kind of show I often enjoy, episodic while expanding the world and our view as the stories pass; humorous without making me cringe.

It's a very fun show that looks like its aimed at kids, and would probably be fine for that audience--it's not adult humor in the vein of things like The Simpsons or Rick and Morty, but it feels like adults are the audience because of the atmosphere.

Bee is a mess, in a recognizable way: she's been fired from her job for possibly valid reasons but also partially for taking the blame for someone else. She's aimless: if it wasn't for the rent being due, she wouldn't really be looking for another job.

The aimlessness of being an adult, yet not automatically having things all together, is a running theme. Bee definitely doesn't. Her best friend and neighbor, Deckard, is struggling to decide between following his passion, and staying where he is in a predictable environment with friends and family.

His sister Cas gave up a passion project in favor of the predictable work and stability of software engineering, something she has complicated feelings about. Their landlord, Cardamom, seems to have everything all together, except he's a 7-year-old with no adult supervision, and as the episodes go on you realize that his straightforward approach to life is actually a child being forced to handle things that are an adult's domain.

The setting is also fun: it's hard to tell whether things like toilets be a place to store food instead of, well, bodily functions are normal, or why a 7-year-old seriously acting as a landlord doesn't seem to raise many comments. Is this a fantasy land where things are just kind skewed anyway? Or are Bee and her neighbors extra-odd? In that way, it reminds me a bit of Steven Universe, with its mix of cartoon reality and non-main characters eventually making clear that they think this is weird, too.

The actual fantastical bits are interesting, too. We get information about Puppycat towards the end, but he definitely has secrets, and Bee isn't as straightforward as she appears at the beginning, either. Their visits to other planets/dimensions (?) to earn money would be an interesting show even without showing any of their home lives.

You can definitely see the influences of classic magical girl anime, but this show is also the answer to the premise: what if magical girl, but tired adult? What if magical girl, but it's just kinda a job?

Verdict

Voices: Very good! They sound very...realistic, not super polished. I don't mean that they sound like inexperienced voice actors, I mean that they sound real and variable, which isn't common in voice acting. I really enjoyed them.

Also, special shoutout to my favorite character, Toast, whose first line had me wracking my brain to figure out why did her voice sound SO familiar and why was her voice affecting something in my emotions until I looked it up, and her voice actress is the English voice of Sailor Moon/Serena that I grew up with!

Visuals: Vibrant and pastel colors, a very round cartoon style, it feels modern and cozy.

Worth watching? Yes! On one hand, it's just a fun series, the balance between "just living life as an aimless young adult" and "brightly-colored fantastical adventures" is done well. The supporting cast of characters is great and entertaining. And on the other hand, it's also nice to watch a cartoon that feels very much like the target audience are adults, but not because the show is raunchy. I really hope we get another season someday.

Where to watch (USA, as of September 2023): Netflix. Note that a 10-episode original web animation (titled Bee and Puppycat without any subtitle) can be found on Youtube; the Netflix series I watched is both a reboot (covers the original series' material in a few episodes) and then continuation. After asking advice on here, general consensus was that newbies starting with the Netflix series is a good idea, but there's nothing wrong with the older, original web animation.

Click my “reviews” tag below or search “mini review” on my blog to find more!

[altheasmeadow]

Next Time

Warnings: None?

Pairing: Yunho X Reader

Summary: In which he fell for her, but did not believe that she would fall for him so he tried out a few things first

The woman slumped into the booth, the restaurant seemingly empty making her doubt that the food would even be  that good. She was tired, worn from her day at work, but when she matched with a guy who had charmed her pretty quickly she agreed to the date easily. He wasn’t too far off of her usual type, he was very ambitious and confident from what she can tell. The last month hadn’t been easy with her dating,  each week her dates had just been slightly different than the last. In the first week the man had been way too polite. It was almost too good to be true, he just didn’t feel authentic. The date ended with a sad smile and the phrase “Maybe next time,” which had been the recurring words that had followed the next three dates. The second date was slightly more pushy, but his eyes seemed way kinder than his actions leading her to be put off by him trying too hard. The third was interesting, the woman wasn't mean nor too nice but her eyes carried so many emotions, oddly the eyes of her dates were seemingly copy and pasted each time they were identical, scaring the woman slightly. The only issue with this date was the uncanny feeling associated with her, her face was just a mesh of all of her female celebrity crushes, nothing seeming genuine on her at all. The fourth date was the worst, it was too freaky, he looked like the human version of her favorite cartoon character, the one she had mentioned to her previous date in passing. He even had the same mannerisms. 

She was burnt out from the promises of “Maybe next time,” She rested her head on her palm as she waited, sighin to release some tension when suddenly a man began rushing to the table in a frenzy, “I am so sorry I’m late, I got held up at dance practice.” The man sputtered, his puppy-like features begging for forgiveness, not wanting to give her a bad impression.

“It’s okay, I just got here.” She smiled reassuringly at the man who mentally rolled his eyes, she was always early to dates, at least 10 minutes so he knew she had waited a bit.

“So have you ordered a drink?” He wondered, not knowing if she had been waiting for him.

“Just water, I’m a little burnt out from work tonight.” She sent a sympathetic smile his way to which he responded with a reassuring grin.

“I just wanted to make sure you got a drink, what do you do for work?” He wondered, though he already knew, he couldn’t give anything away.

The two fell into a steady conversation with ease, the woman taking quick notice of the similar eyes the man shared with her previous dates; however, he seemed much more genuine than the previous four, he was himself. Which was his last resort, he wanted to make sure he was her type before having to be shifted into someone else for the rest of his life just to be happy with her, thankfully she was seemingly more attracted to his authentic self than any of his other forms.

“Wow, this food is really good!” She gasped out not having expected the explosion of flavor on her taste buds.

“On your profile you said you loved it so I looked through reviews of most of the restaurants and settled on here, its a relatively quiet part of town so it's never too busy here.” He grinned as he watched her features melt into awe.

How could someone be this sweet?

By the time the date ended, she was enchanted. Somehow he was a perfect man and it was the most refreshing revelation after the worst dating month in history. She honestly didn’t want this date to end.

“So, Next time?” The eerily familiar sentence sent shivers down her spine, however with the energy she gained from the relaxing date she grew the urge to continue the night.

“Actually, Would you like to come over? I have wine and games.”

And suddenly there were no more sad maybe next time, the next time was always a promise with lingering excitement.

[gascon-en-exil]

(Further) Beyond Dream Daddy: A Year of More Gay Dating Sims

Last year for Pride I made a video sharing my thoughts on a selection of gay dating sims, among them Dream Daddy - by far the most well-known title in that genre. My opinion of that game was rather unfavorable, to say the least, but nonetheless I had a lot of fun discussing the topic. Dating sims rarely get any significant analysis or consideration, so it was a novel experience on that basis alone.

Recently, a patron of mine expressed a desire to see me talk about dating sims again. To save myself some work on a project when I've already got so many others going on at the moment, I've opted to do so here on my blog rather than on my channel this time. This also has the added benefit of giving me more latitude to discuss the NSFW qualities of these games without needing to censor myself. When the majority of the titles in this space are explicitly erotic, that's kind of a big deal.

Anyway! Here's a selection of games that I've played in the past year that I thought were worth looking at in some more detail.

Dear Monster

As the title suggests, this one is for the monsterfuckers out there.

This is, sort of, the second time I'm discussing a project by Y Press Games. I've touched on an earlier game of theirs, To Trust an Incubus...but I found it so unimpressive that I never bothered to review it in-depth. In several ways you can tell that Dear Monster comes from the same creative team: there's a similarly large focus on plot with a bunch of variable endings including some very dark ones, all the characters are vers despite many of them playing into familiar top or bottom archetypes, and most obviously the main theme is monsterfucking.

In this case the selection is much broader, as instead of a single species of pheromone-emitting aliens you get your pick from a variety of fantasy creatures. I say "creatures" because Dear Monster isn't afraid to shy away from furry/scalie erotic content for certain scenes, although most of the time the love interests stick to their humanoid forms. There's

a Western dragon as the violent bad boy love interest;

an Egyptian-flavored god of the dead, whose alternate form resembles Anubis and who plays the standoffish tsundere role;

a kitsune for the mischievous and overtly sexual option;

a unicorn who comes off as the caring submissive choice...mostly;

and an orc, who's had a route announced as free DLC later this year but who currently exists only as a recurring NPC

As I said, like To Trust an Incubus there's a noticeable focus on plot here, with the protagonist being a young man newly introduced to the world of the supernatural and trying to locate his mysteriously vanished grandfather inside an obviously magical mansion. Also like their earlier game, there are some unexpected plot twists that I won't spoil here, and overall I'd say this game pulls them off more effectively even if the ending feels a bit unfinished currently. Maybe they're waiting for the orc character's route to properly tie off the story? In any case, Dear Monster is better written than its predecessor and comes with an appreciable variety of kinky scenarios, and despite the lack of voice acting (a very hit-or-miss topic when it comes to dating sims, as I've discussed) the production values are overall quite good. The animated character portraits have been advertised as a highlight but frankly don't contribute to much, and they have a tendency to slow down my computer. Luckily though, they're easily turned off.

Favorite route: A hard call. They all have their highlights, and I'll probably enjoy Slagathor (the orc) when his route comes out. Hikmat (the god of the dead) probably comes out a bit ahead of the others both for his story and for some unexpectedly adventurous sex scenes, like one that incorporates a variant of tentacle porn - points for creativity there. Faeryn (the unicorn) is the one I find least appealing sexually, but on the flip side his route has some of the most unexpected twists and is probably the most helpful for understanding the game's premise as a whole. There's not really a bad option here.

UPDATE: Now that the final route has been released, I can talk about it. It's fine enough, following similar tracks for its good, neutral, and bad endings. Slagathor is vers, just like every other guy in the game. As for the main plot, it does have a resolution once you've gotten satisfactory endings with all five characters, but because it has to be integrated into all of those route endings and doesn't actually impact any of them it feels rather inconsequential as a result. A bit of a shame, really, but I do respect the boldness of some of this game's narrative chioces.

Camp Buddy

Oh, dear. There are some things I need to make clear with this one from the start...stuff I definitely couldn't talk about on YouTube.

To state the obvious first: yes, the characters are all 18+. It's in their in-game profiles, on promotional material online, and on the disclaimer you have to click on whenever you boot up the game. The main character and all his love interests are specifically stated to be 18-20 years old. However...that doesn't always bear out in the writing. The premise is that they're all campers at a scout-themed summer camp, i.e. not something you'd expect of legal adults, and more than half the time these characters are written with the emotional maturity of boys in their mid-teens. That doesn't extend to the sex scenes, beyond most of them being virginal and clueless but somehow still capable of having mind-blowing sex with no lube and simultaneous orgasms and so forth - all of which is pretty standard for these sorts of games. It doesn't consistently affect their storylines either, as they range from adolescent issues like anxiety over losing a close friend to more young adult material like deciding on career paths and moving on from a bad breakup. Having spent a good bit of my own adolescence in an all-male environment, I found most of the character behavior relatable for that demographic. Outside the sex scenes, Camp Buddy is a sweet and sometimes heartwarming story about friendship and making good memories...but the sex stuff is still there, and I can understand why this game isn't listed on Steam based on the premise alone. It is not, as some online have hyperbolically dubbed it, a "child porn" game, but it can be awkward all the same, and if you, like me, are not into twinks/twunks those scenes aren't going to do much for you.

Leaving that aside, it still took me a while to get into Camp Buddy. I was mostly interested in its sequel, which I'll talk about later in this post, but I wanted to play CB in case I missed out on any context with the second game. This one does feel like a first project; the artwork isn't as clean or varied, the voice acting has some standouts but is overall just average, and the script occasionally reads like it was written by someone whose first language isn't English - where the writing isn't incorrect, exactly, but rather worded in ways that don't sound natural. Not all of the scenes are fully voiced, but I really have to wonder how some of those that are got through all those people without anyone realizing how inorganic the dialogue sounded. The humor at least is pretty consistently good, with a highlight being the one major female character who is an affectionate parody of yaoi fangirls leading to a lot of fourth-wall-breaking jokes. As I said some of the storylines work well, even if the main plot is a clichéd and sometimes treacly "save the camp" routine for most of its run. If you can accept the handwave on the characters' ages for the sexual content, it's not a bad time. Given my familiarity with Fire Emblem and its love of underaged-looking dragon girls, and knowing that there are surely far more dating/porn games that use a similar handwave for female characters, I can give CB a pass. I've never cared for how media directed at straight men never warrants more than a moment's worth of moral outrage while everything else gets endlessly scrutinized.

Favorite route: Yoichi is the twunk-iest of the love interests, and his route is easily the darkest as well. Surprisingly he's not the sole total top option...but the guy who is barely grasps of the concept of masturbation and needs to "research" sex after he fools around for the first time. I suppose someone must be into that. Taiga has the most distinctive route as it was added last and has the largest amount of story variance as well as both topping and bottoming variations, but I find the emotional beats of his story (both in and out of his route) to be paced a bit too oddly for me to give him first prize.

Camp Buddy: Scoutmaster Season

This is why I played Camp Buddy, because I saw its follow-up advertised on Steam and was impressed enough by the production values to check it out. I still bought it from developer BLits's website though because certain scenes are removed in the Steam version (for reasons similar to why Camp Buddy isn't there at all). Anyway, Scoutmaster Season is in just about every way a vast improvement over its predecessor:

Most obviously, the characters here look and act unambiguously like adults. Their storylines are also more mature, as is that of the main plot which concerns the camp expanding after it received a new wealthy investor at the end of CB. This maturity extends to the sex as well. These characters aren't experimenting adolescents but rather men who've been casually involved with one another for some time already (heavily implied in the first game) and whose romantic development thus concerns their relationships becoming grounded in emotional support instead of only hot NSA sex.

Camp Buddy is a decently kinky game in its own right, but the sequel takes advantage of its older characters and really runs with the concept. There's bondage, leather, voyeurism, softcore daddy kink, public sex, several varieties of costume role play including two that verge on pony play, threesomes, and a few types of size kink thanks in *ahem* large part to one of the love interests having such a comically oversized cock that in some encounters it can be seen distending the main character's stomach during penetration. I'm...pretty sure that's not physically possible, but I know it's a fantasy that exists. SS is just as unrealistic when it comes to things like (lack of) lube and refractory periods, but that's to be expected at this point.

I didn't talk about CB's minigames because they're frankly not that impressive, but SS's are both a bit more challenging and, in the case of the foreplay minigame, hotter and more interactive.

The writing is much improved, and flows more naturally. The voicework is overall of a higher quality as well, even with many in the cast reprising their roles. Particularly, the same voice actor plays the main characters of both games, but he sounds much more natural as the deeper-voiced lead here, in contrast to CB where he has to work to sound like a teen. The comic relief is about on par, so it's as entertaining as usual. There's even a yaoi fanboy in this one...who funnily enough never actually gets laid during the story, although the artists threw him a bone or six with a bukkake party crack scene in the extras.

SS's antagonist is both more compelling and more entertaining even though she never becomes a romance option - as should be evident from the pronoun alone. I predicted where the story was going to take her arc the first time I played, and while I was proven right the game didn't follow that thread to its logical conclusion. A bit disappointing, but I imagine that that would have obliterated the tone for the rest of the game and prevented it from ending with fluffy romance or celebratory sex.

There are enough small callbacks to CB that I'm glad I played the first game, but not so many that a newcomer would feel completely lost. As this is the only gay dating sim sequel that I can even think of, I appreciate the attention to continuity.

BLits is currently working on a third game called Jock Studio, unrelated to Camp Buddy but already looking to be an evolution of what they've learned from their first two games. The athletic university premise appears to be a self-indulgent excuse for porn - but I'm more than okay with that seeing how much the quality of their work has improved.

Favorite route: There's only two here, so naming one would be suggesting I dislike the other. In fact, both routes are really solid. I would say that Aiden's story hangs together a little better and feels stronger in its emotional moments (helped greatly by the best vocal performance in either of these games), whereas Goro's route appeals to me more based on raw sex appeal. He's a kinky daddy, what's not to love? Either way, SS is a ton of fun, and of the games in this post it's the one I recommend the most strongly.

Errant Kingdom

I'm of two minds about including this game. I really wanted to have one that would be drastically different from the others I've selected, but at time of writing I haven't done everything there is to do in Errant Kingdom. That's not for lack of time, as it's been released in chapter increments ever since last autumn or thereabouts and finally finished up in February. I've currently completed two of its stories so I feel like I have a solid grasp of what's on offer, but I realize that I haven't seen everything yet.

However, I had to keep pushing myself to play this one. It just doesn't have a very strong hook, in my opinion, but let's talk about the positives. If your main complaint about Dream Daddy is not the lack of hardcore gay sex but rather the inauthenticity of its representation then Errant Kingdom will be more your speed. Your character can be male, female, or nonbinary, and there are two love interests of each designation available. (That both nonbinary options are supernatural non-humans might arguably be a bit of a copout...but I'm not really in a position to judge.) There are also two options for poly relationships, as well as asexual dialogue options although the way the story is set up does still lend itself toward monogamous romance with occasional, vaguely-described (and never visualized) sex scenes. I'd also note that unlike every other visual novel with romantic elements I've ever played, dialogue options are explicitly marked as being romantic, asexual, or poly when applicable. This does make it much easier to get a specific outcome if you're looking for one, but in my view takes away some of the fun of these sorts of games.

Errant Kingdom's story is quite linear regardless of which if any romantic relationship(s) you choose to pursue, with the largest variance coming not from your choice of love interest but from your choice of one of three origins when you're creating your character: an ambassador, a knight, or a nomad. Having played through two of these, this decision greatly impacts the game's opening chapters but ultimately leads into the player characters being three different points of view on the same story, with all the same major set pieces. Errant Kingdom is occasionally clever about this, with the other two PCs popping up in each other's paths every now and then...unseen of course, because this is a game where the main character's physical presence is left entirely up to the imagination. On the other hand though, the different perspectives converging toward a single climax has the clunky side effect of dropping certain NPCs into the story lategame and acting as if you know who they are even if you've never met them in that playthrough.

The story itself isn't terribly fascinating, being a medieval fantasy conspiracy plot involving gods and magical weapons and an 11th hour Chosen One reveal (that isn't the player character, shockingly). If we're talking pseudo-medieval/early modern romantic visual novels, I find I prefer the Chess of Blades approach where each love interest gets his own storyline and so there's more overall variety and less tangled continuity. I've read in places that the later chapters suffered from deadline and creator burnout issues during development, which wouldn't surprise me with how much the pacing speeds up after a certain point.

Favorite route: For origins the ambassador angle suited me better and would probably be my pick overall. The choice of love interest is, as mentioned, actually not all that important, but disgraced former knight Erik hits most of my buttons. It's a shame his poly option is with a woman, because while Maja is my preference of the two female options I wouldn't be invested in her like that. This is the trouble for me with stepping outside the bounds of strictly M/M games.

[salvadorbonaparte]

2023 in Films

I watched way too many films this year. Here are my opinions on some of them

January

Las Cosas Del Querer (1989) - Amazing if you love sad hot people and flamenco

Canadian Bacon (1995) - Incredibly silly and Alan Alda plays the US president

Nope (2022) - A highlight of the year

February

Hellraiser (1987) - This film is actually about miscommunication in this essay I will-

Predestination (2014) - Time Travel and Gender Moments

Malignant (2021) - Camp horror masterwork

Late Phases (2014) - Mediocre werewolf film with some really interesting comments on ageism, ableism, suburbia and religion

March

Sterne (1959) - Plays into some problematic stereotypes from today's perspective but revolutionary for its time, first German film to address the Holocaust

Major League (1989) - A film I only watched to confirm that it uses a weird phrase I also found in my thesis project

Carry On Screaming (1966) - Camp. Gay. Horror. Parody.

Glen or Glenda (1953) - A product of its time and no longer up to date in its understanding of gender but surprisingly revolutionary in its compassion and earnestness despite the bad reviews

April

Taxi Driver (1976) - Isn't it frustrating when annoying people tell you a film is good and then it's actually good?

June

Mr Deeds Goes To Town (1936) - Mr Deeds has autism swag

El Espíritu de la Colmena (1973) - I really wanted to like this because civil war era Spain and Frankenstein are super up my alley but unfortunately it was so much slower than expected

Das Boot (1981) - Very long and claustrophobic but holds up to the hype

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) - RIP King

July

Nimona (2023) - His big wet eyes bewitched me

First Blood (1982) - You're telling me the film is about Americans fighting an enemy they view as simultaneously weak and dangerous, escalating the situation, and then sending more and more men into a rainforest to die through guerilla warfare after being warned again and again they can't win this? sounds familiar

Barbie (2023) - Insert a bunch of pink emojis

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) - Made me crave bagels

Jojo Rabbit (2019) - God I love war satires

Sweet Liberty (1986) - Alan Alda having fun and also using his own film as a therapy session

The Majestic (2001) - A rewatch but it's so tragically underrated, Jim Carrey is very good in dramatic roles and McCarthy-era media is like catnip for me

Joker (2019) - This is just Taxi Driver with extra steps

August

Tin & Tina (2023) - Probably one of the worst films I have seen in a while

Battle of the Sexes (2017) - I love women

Four Lions (2010) - The ending really got me, I love when satire gets serious

The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid (1979) - Can we talk about how the theme song is just going "I'm the sheriff" "yes you're the sheriff"

Happiness (1998) - Nauseating but in a "good film but what the fuck" way

They Call Him Bulldozer (1978) - Italian Lagaan

The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) - Sad and Gay

Twister (1996) - So much better than expected

Magnolia (1999) - Cloudy with a chance of frogs, a really long but really good film and I'm not entirely sure I got it

Doubt (2008) - Somehow I watched 5 films with Philip Seymour Hoffman that month because I was haunted by his ghost or something

September

The Terminal (2004) - I assumed this to be more of a classic romcom but the whole concept (based on a true story) is so terrifying and tragic that it made me feel all emotions at once

Apocalypse Now (1979) - I knew a lot of trivia about the film but for some reason I didn't know anything about the cast so every single actor was a surprise and made me go "!!!", Also I kinda wanna write an essay about it

October

Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984) - Some of the gay jokes absolutely killed me

Last Night in Soho (2021) - I'm Not Like the Other Girls to Time Travel Murder Nightmare Pipeline, actually I really enjoyed this one but it's also super silly

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) - How do you say poor little meow meow in gaeilge

The Menu (2022) - I go to the murder restaurant I order the beesechurger, I was super surprised there's no cannibalism but tbh that would have been low hanging fruit

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021) - Explains a lot about religion in the US, I love that she was pro lgbt, also I googled her ex husband and he has a prepper/survivalist thing going on now and scams more people

The Darjeeling Limited (2007) - we can't eat pray love ourselves out of this one boys

Holes (2003) - Hated the book as a teenager for school reasons but gave the film a try and really enjoyed it

Renfield (2023) - I expected werewolves but I enjoyed it nevertheless, My Chemical Romance is on the soundtrack, it's very silly, the effects are great

Interview with the Vampire (1994) - Oh people weren't lying about it being homoerotic

The Big Lebowski (1998) - I've had days that feel like that

November

Pappa ante Portas (1991) - Funnier now that I'm an adult, basically half the jokes my mum makes are from this film

The Meg 2: The Trench (2023) - I watched this while sick and really wanted to see a giant shark fight a giant octopus and boy did it deliver

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) - Very nice animation style

JFK (1991) - I actually fell asleep halfway through because it's so long but can we talk about how this film is just A-listers but has some of the worst wigs and makeup I've seen

Bottoms (2023) - A spiritual sequel to Heathers

December

When Harry Met Sally (1989) - They deserve each other (derogatory) but that one restaurant scene was pretty funny

The Royal Nanny (2022) - one of the many Hallmark films my mum made me watch and this is perhaps the worst one, incredibly sexist even for a Hallmark film and they clearly mean Mi5 but say Mi7 which was a WW2 propaganda service? Also they really want me to believe there is a British prince called Colin and that he doesn't look like his family tree is a circle?

I forgot the title but there was also the one where two people get stuck in a time loop while trying to make a sponsored youtube video about baking and I didn't really pay attention much but man that was bad

[dndhistory]

375. Roger E. Moore - Crimson Crystal Adventures 2: Search for the Pegasus (1985)

The second in the short-lived Crimson Crystal series, this one is penned by Roger E. Moore, someone you'd be very familiar with if you've been following Dragon magazine since its start, as he was one of the most prolific, and best, article writers for that publication, together with Ed Greenwood.

This is another volume I couldn't get my hands on (I will be able to give a better review for the next one which I can actually read), but a synopsis I found online tells me that you play a halfling who needs to save a Pegasus from an evil witch. Reviews at gamebook.org also let us know that although the story is pretty good, the "Crimson Crystal" gimmick with the red cellophane is pretty useless and no more than a gimmick. So, there's that. Anyway I leave you with the pretty great Clyde Caldwell cover, I particularly like the Drow witch there at the back. 

[xenodile]

Alright, I finished Lies of P on stream today, so I guess I can give my review of it.

Very solid overall, strong early game makes an excellent first impression, with a few little nitpicks that turn into consistent frustrations as the game reaches its finale. The music and presentation is excellent, combat feels smooth and responsive, if you're familiar with Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Lies of P will feel comfortably familiar.

In terms of replay value from multiple runs, it's a bit of a mixed bag. The weapon modification system of mix and matching handles and blades to create totally new weapons to fit any kind of stat spread means Lies of P has the largest weapon catalogue of any Souls-like I've seen, so there's always a new weapon to try out whenever you start a new run. The flipside is that the game is completely linear and only has 2 endings, so if you're looking to vary up the sequence of your run you'll likely be disappointed.

The game is also quite challenging, and not always in the best way. Of the game's 13 mandatory major bosses, 6 have two health bars, three of which are fought back to back. Furthermore, the game touts its perfect guard system to force enemies to stagger and break their weapons, but by the halfway mark these systems feel less and less impactful. Later in the game, you encounter enemies with no weapons to break or weapons so durable that you'd have to do nothing but perfect block so many attacks, or so much poise that if feels like perfect blocking has no effect. It turns from a reward for good timing and skill to the bare minimum to progress as not perfect blocking will causes you to take tremendous amounts of damage from blocked attacks.

On the subject of the game's difficulty, Lies of P inherits Sekiro's perilous attacks, in which the enemy glows red and plays a sound effect to warn of an unblockable attack that can only be stopped by a Perfect Guard. While Sekiro gave the player many ways to deal with different types of unblockables with the memorable Mikiri Counter, jumping into a head stomp, and so on, fatal attacks in Lies of P are binary. Either you perfect block or you take unavoidable damage, and the timing on some of these attacks is very finicky. An overwhelming number of enemies in Lies of P have attack animations that consist of a laboriously slow wind up into near instantaneous active frames with no tell or warning. These attacks are effectively unreactable and so they only way to deal with them is to just...keep getting hit until you fish out the right parry timing by chance and then hope you can repeat it. It's very frustrating, especially when most bosses can have multiple attacks of this nature. Some enemies also have grabs or true unblockables, which cannot be blocked or perfect blocked, and the game does not give you the courtesy of warning you which ones, which can further add to the frustration.

The game's story is enjoyable and engaging, with plenty of little secrets to uncover and leads to pursue that give the player things to think about, the but its english localization is...subpar. While I cannot confirm it as such, I was told by someone in my chat that the game was machine translated, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that was the case. It's hardly the worst case ever seen, but the english script has some very awkward grammar and syntax in multiple areas, as well as clumsy word choice. The actual voice acting is excellent for most of the cast, it's specifically english grammar and word choice that seems off.

The game's greatest weakness is its pacing. As you near the 80% mark of the game, a significant change occurs in the game world that signifies the coming of the end, ramping up to a grand confrontation that just...drags on and on and on for far longer than it should. The final area has more checkpoints than any other zone in the game and is an agonizingly slow crawl through a generic gray environment with almost nonsensical enemy choice and placement. Progressing this one area took me almost 10 hours by itself when most other sections of the game took me 2 or 3 at most when I was thoroughly exploring and backtracking for items and sidequests, and it utterly ruins the sense of urgency the game's narrative attempts to instill in you when you arrive.

As I said before, I do like Lies of P quite a bit and would easily recommend it to anyone that enjoys games like Sekiro or Bloodborne, but it has glaring flaws that are all the more prominent when help up next to the game's good points. The frustrating, unfun bosses stick out when you remember all the incredibly fun bosses you fought before and after them. The slow dull irritating sections linger when compared to the faster paced and more engaging parts.

The game clocks in at a very impressive length if you're scrounging for secrets and optional areas, and given its overall quality I would say it is worth its $60 price tag, but only if you are already acquainted with other game in its style as I've mentioned previously.