#lower effort to get back into it while still being able to focus on anatomy n such yknow

[rwbysketches]

staring contest....

[navegandoaciegas]

Cloud nine

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!reader

Warnings: 18+, smut, pwp, watersports, dom/sub undertones, dom!bucky, sub!reader, reader calls bucky daddy, creampie.

Summary: You’ve never had an orgasm during sex, and Bucky is determined to make you come, no matter how unusual your request may be.

A/N: I have no words lmfao just- don’t read if pee bothers you please.

Frustration pooled in your stomach, festering on your negative emotions.

Bucky slumped beside you, cheeks flushed, drool and sweat all over his face as he clinged to your chest, catching his breath.

You’d been going at it for hours, and he’d fucked you in all the positions on the book, changing pace and angles to hit every spot inside you until he’d come in your aching cunt more times than humanly possible and you’d run yourself dry.

He’d praised you, degraded you, slapped you, kissed your tears, made soft love to you and fucked you like a rag doll, fingered you until his fingers cramped and wrinkled, and you hadn’t come.

You always treaded the edge, so close yet so far from reaching the crest of your high, only to fall back down without ever being able to let yourself crash.

“Sorry,” he panted softly in the crook of your neck, right hand tracing soothing circles on your hip.

“‘S not your fault.”

“I know, I just-”

He interrupted himself with a huff, drowning his unspoken words in your skin.

You’d had this conversation numerous times before.

It wasn’t him, as no other partner had ever been able to make you cum either. They hadn’t even cared enough to worry about it.

It wasn’t you either, nothing in your anatomy, at least.

You liked Bucky, you desired him. Just looking at him too long made the walls of your cunt throb uncontrollably. And you had no trouble making yourself cum on your fingers, even without any toy or porn involved, just the thought of him and his fat cock inside you.

You’d been dating for months now, and he hadn’t given you a single orgasm yet.

You could see it begin to tear down his confidence, flooding his mind with insecurities he’d confided you with, how he feared you’d leave him for someone better, or you’d tire of him and move on.

With a bitter smile you’d replied that he’d be the one to leave for a better partner he could pleasure, and from then on Bucky hadn’t mentioned it anymore, but you could see the doubts plaguing his mind, twisting and turning his thoughts in grey clouds, draining him everytime he came and you didn’t.

You felt broken, and he felt guilty.

You needed to find a solution, and you needed to do it fast.

-

Your therapist was a nice woman, stern when needed and caring at times, and yet you couldn’t fucking stand her whenever she repeated the same sentence that your gynecologist had told you already.

The more you worried about your orgasm, the harder it would be to cum.

An easy concept to grasp if you weren’t the one struggling, if orgasms came as easy as eating and breathing.

You huffed in frustration, one hand in your sweatpants as you lazily fondled with your clit, the other scrolling through a porn website, looking for a video that would get the job done for you, eager to release the stress of your day at work.

You scrolled through staged videos that would only aggravate you, women who squealed loud enough to hurt your eardrums and men too rough for your liking. Pov’s, plumbers and housewives, gangbangs, vintage and fake taxis.

You could feel the irritation build up inside you when, reached the 23rd page, you hadn’t found a video that would satisfy you yet.

Famous pornstars, amateurs, thousands of bytes of porn that made your thumb scrolling on your phone cramp, until you stumbled upon a video with a title so debauched that you felt compelled to click on it.

And so, an idea, admittedly not your best one, began to form in your head as your fingers worked your clit furiously to bring you over the edge.

Bucky had been surprisingly eager to try it out when you’d mentioned it whilst you brushed your teeth on a random morning, excited even, almost as if he’d meant to ask all along and never built the courage to.

You’d tried a lot of things, and you had nothing to lose at this point. So, you’d lined your mattress with plastic sheets, and hoped for the best.

-

Soft lips nipped your neck, peppering the column of your throat with wet kisses.

You registered the sheets rustling beneath you and Bucky’s silky hair tickling you.

You blinked your bleary eyes, adjusting yourself to the gentle morning light seeping through the blinds, painting your room in intricate shadows.

“Mornin’,” you croaked, a small smile tugging at your lips.

Like every time that Bucky spent the night at your place, you’d wake up to his lips and hands all over you.

“G’mornin’, princess,” he mumbled, hands getting bolder, hiking up your thighs.

It didn’t take long for Bucky’s touch to ignite the fire in your core, warmth pooling in your lower belly as he cupped your cunt over your shorts.

He pulled away from your neck to look at you in the eyes, pupils dilated by desire.

Bucky was always so eager, pouncing on you at any chance he got. He was especially needy on weekend mornings, where he could take his time with you and make love to you until he’d be exhausted and you’d be, well, happy to participate.

His hand slipped under your shorts, lazily stroking your clit, still swollen from the night before.

“Already so wet for me?” he noted, gathering your wetness on his fingertips and smearing it over your sensitive bud.

A breathy gasp escaped your parted lips, followed by many others as he continued to work your cunt. Your walls throbbed in anticipation, and you bit your lips, eager for his cock to fill you to the brim.

Bucky continued peppering your neck, clavicles, chest with kisses, hiking your t-shirt over your tits before he attacked your nipples with his mouth.

It felt like being on cloud nine, having him take care of you so good, brain turned to mush as you let him do anything he wanted to you.

The same negative thoughts that swirled in your mind everytime you had sex with Bucky flashed behind your eyes for a fleeting moment, reminding you of how you wouldn’t come even this time, despite your efforts. You willed yourself to focus on the moment, on the small jolts on electricity in your cunt, on your hardening nipples, and heaving chest.

His warm mouth latched on your nipples, suckling them between his teeth, tongue swirling on them.

“Bucky please,” you whined, growing impatient with his teasing, “Fuck me already, please.”

He chuckled, head buried between your tits.

“Careful when you talk to me, little girl.”

“Or what?”

A mischievous grin spread on his face as he descended down, tongue tracing your stomach, belly, hip bones, peppering kisses and bruises until he reached your silk shorts.

He threw one more look at you before biting the fabric and slowly tugging it down your legs.

You kicked the shorts away and spread your legs, revealing your glistening cunt to Bucky’s hungry eyes.

“Fuck,” he groaned, resuming back to sucking bruises on the soft skin of your inner thighs, “Such a pretty pussy, princess.”

Fire spread through your body when his warm breath hit your lips, and the anticipation before he closed his mouth on your clit sent shivers down your spine.

“Fuck yourself on my mouth, baby girl. Show daddy how good you are to him, how much you want his cock, hm?”

You didn’t need to be told twice, and started grinding your hips on his face while he lapped at your folds, drinking up your arousal.

A soft sigh, followed by a hiss and a high pitched moan were ripped out of you when Bucky pushed two fingers past your entrance, curling them inside you.

You continued the steady rhythm, fucking yourself on his face until the familiar tension began building in your cunt.

“Just like that daddy,” you shrieked, “Make me cum, please, please.”

You kept going, speeding your movements, chasing your release, thighs quivering around his head, reaching higher, and higher, and-

And then it was gone, snuffed like a weak flame in the wind.

You tugged on Bucky’s hair, and brought his face to yours in a desperate kiss, slanting your mouth against his. You tasted yourself on his tongue, tangy and musky.

He ground his hips on you, growing more and more desperate by the second.

He never lasted long in the morning.

“Fuck me, daddy, please, wanna feel your cock inside me,” you whined, wiggling your hips.

“Can’t say no to you, princess.”

He had such a pretty cock, not too big, veiny and flushed. You wanted him in your mouth, in your pussy, between your tits. You wanted him whole, and it frustrated you so much that despite your wants you couldn’t satiate your needs.

He lined himself up with your dripping cunt, and pushed his cock inside you with one swift motion, until you were full to the brim and his balls slapped against your ass.

He hauled your thighs over his shoulders, folding you under his weight.

“So tight,” he spat through gritted teeth, fighting against the urge to burst as you snapped your hips up.

One of his forearms rested laid your head while the other hand came to rest on your neck, not cutting off your air but as a clear warning to stop moving around.

“Move, please” you begged, mind hazy with pleasure.

It always felt so good when his cock stretched you out, when it rubbed on your gummy walls, a ring of white cream pooling just above his balls.

It always felt good, and that’s why you hated it. It always gave you the illusion that this time you’d come, just this once you’d overcome your problem and have an earth shattering orgasm like you deserved.

His cock kept hitting all the spots inside you, your walls pulsating around him, suffocating him in a tight grip.

“Daddy? Can we- can we try that thing?” you moaned, sneaking a hand between your bodies to furiously rub your swollen clit.

“Yes, fuck, that’s so hot, God, I’m gonna do it, okay?” he grunted, picking up the pace of his pace, harder, faster, spurred on by your high pitched shrills, until his movements grew sloppier.

“Ask me nicely,” he snarled, furrowing his brows and gritting his teeth.

“Piss inside me, daddy. Use me like the fuckin’ dirty whore I am.”

The room was filled with the squelching sounds of his balls hitting your ass and your drooling pussy. His tongue lolled out of his mouth, and he came gripping your thighs so hard it would surely leave a mark.

His cum spilled inside you while your walls milked every last drop.

You closed your eyes, willing your body to relax as he rested his head on your chest. His hand shoed yours away, roughly rubbing your clit.

You could feel his cock go soft inside you, his warm cum spilling out of your pussy.

It was building up inside you, the tension from before. You hiked high, and higher, and your legs were shaking, body shook by jolts of electricity.

“Fuck,” he hissed, grinding his teeth.

You moaned, his name on your tongue like a chant.

And then, Bucky sighed, eyes shutting in bliss as he released inside you.

Never in your life has you felt quite as warm, or full, as his searing hot piss filled you in from the inside, invading your cunt and overflowing out of you.

So hot, so full, so high that you couldn’t smell the pungent scent of his piss or hear anything other than your frenzied heartbeat in your ears.

“Daddy, daddy, I’m coming, I’m coming.”

And then you were cumming around his soft cock so hard that your eyes rolled to the back of your skull. Your body twitched and spasmed as a long awaited orgasm wrecked through you, wiping your mind blank for several seconds.

When you opened your eyes again, Bucky’s soft smile greeted you. Everything felt hazy, like having your head underwater and cotton in your mouth.

He nuzzled your nose, picking your limp body from the bed and carrying you to the bathroom.

“Daddy is so proud of you, princess.”

-

Not proofread sorry 😬

Please reblog and leave a comment if you can! 🥰

[secondhand-trash]

Work of Art

A/N: Oh boy, here we go again with my tries at getting out of my comfort zone. The only reason why this is happening is because @lady-bakuhoe​ got me thirsting on main feeling things for Hawks after sending out something she wrote a while back and I was suddenly reminded of this idea that lurked behind my head.

Pairing: Takami Keigo x reader

Description: Your boyfriend had a beautiful body hiding beneath those layers, you could not be blamed that you wanted to trascript that sight into actual art.

Warning: nsfw below cut 

Word count: 2932

-

“Can I tie you up?”

“What?” Keigo tensed up from where he was standing, couldn’t quite believe his own ears.

“Can I tie you up?” You repeated with such a casual tone that sounded more like you were asking him what he wanted for dinner than you were with your actual request.

Seeing the stunned look on his face, you realised that perhaps you had worded it too vaguely and not given enough details as to what you actually wanted him to do. “It’s for my sketching class, I need to practice my anatomies. I want to tie you up for...” you thought of what ways you could possibly rephrased it to get your point across, “...aesthetic purpose.”

“A sketch, huh?” He smirked as he walked closer to you, his wings leaning forward to circle around your frame, “You know, normally people have to pay me to model for them.”

You lifted an eyebrow at him, twirling the pencil in your hand. “So you’re saying?”

“Are you planning to pay me back in some sort of way for my contribution to your aesthetic research?” The suggestive look on his face did not falter at all even as you snickered at his teasing.

“That’d depend on how you behave in the process.” You lifted your hand and traced a finger along the sharp line of his jaw, “So what do you say, pretty bird? Are you gonna help me or what?”

You knew you had the answer you wanted when the corner of his lips lifted up.

With the white shirt he was wearing discarded on the floor, he kneeled down in front of the chair as you instructed him to. As you gently twisted his arms to his back and held his wrist together, he chuckled and earned him a playful glare from you. “I’m starting to think that the whole ‘do it for the arts’ thing was an excuse.”

“If I want to have you half naked and kneeled down, all I have to do is ask, isn’t it?.” You retaliated with an amused twinkle in your eye, “Now shush and let me do my thing.”

Pulling out the velvet rope that he didn’t know you own, you carefully wrapped it around his wrist and tied it with a knot. With one hand smoothing the restraint, you tugged at it to make sure that it sat snuggly around his skin as you pulled it to the front of his torso. You were no expert at this but you had done enough reearch to know just where each knot should be in order to get the image you wanted. With the rope travelling around the side of his arms and down his upper body, you tightened each trail and knot with attention, carefully setting the loops right above and below the base of his wings.

Facing him as you leaned back, you admired your handiwork. No matter how many times you had seen that body of his, you would never fail to be amazed at how much beauty there could be to the human body and the position he was in only heightened your admiration. 

You were not lying when you said that this was intended for your venture into the arts, only now you were starting to have doubts on whether your skills could do justice to the view in front of you. 

The red rope was a huge contrast to his skin, the colour an odd resemblance to the feathers behind his back. The way his arms were folded to his back gave his toned arms even more definition, pulling at the muscles of his forearm with a barely visible vein adorning it all the way up. Each breath he took, everything pulsation made him flex unintentionally, only adding to the defined curves of each muscle. It was a shame that his torso was usually hidden from the rest of the world, if only they knew what they were missing out on. You had carefully positioned the rope to hug every dip and dent of his chest, the way it pulled against his skin with each exhale of breath could only be described as utterly tempting. You had to resist the urge to run your hand down his toned pecs and traced the v that dipped all the way down to a much more sensitive parts of his body.

What a sight to witness, really. It was like he was carved out of marble but only there was life to each, his flushed skin under the chilly air together with his beautiful form making every piece of artwork pale in comparison. If art could come to life, you were sure what you were blessed to see in front you right now would be it.

“Is the rope too tight?” You asked, reaching out to touch the edge of the red restraint and fixed the places that were moved.

“No, just alright.” Keigo tried to maintain his usual chirpy tone, ignoring the itch he had started to feel ever since you put one hand on his lower waist to arch his back just a little just when you were about to finish with tying him up. Even with his greatest effort, he could not stop the goose bumps from forming on his skin as your fingertips nearly brushed against his skin when you went to slide it across the rope, every hair on him standing up at the mere contact that only made him sense more alerted. He was pretty sure that he would only get more sensitive as time passed by. 

“How long do you think it’ll take you?” He asked tentatively as you got up to fetch your sketchbook from another room.

You tilted your head. “Not more than an hour, I assume.” You did not catch onto the faint groan your boyfriend let out when you turned around.

Staying still and pushing the discomfort he was feeling to the back of his head appeared to be more difficult than he had expected it to be. With each second passing by, Keigo was only feeling more and more tensed. The rope that was tied around him so snuggly did not help with his shiver as the cold air hit his skin, only tightening with even the slightest of movements. The rough material brushing against his already hardened nipples only made them more sensitive and feeling the friction of the rope to the fullest effect. It did not help that there was pleasure mixed into the pain he felt as nothing came in contact with him but each breeze of the ventilation of the room. 

The rubbing of the velvet against his skin he could stand. The ridiculously low temperature of the air conditioning he could try to ignore. But what truly got to him was the way you studied his figure with such intensity. Keigo had always been aware of the appeal of his own physique and he would never shy away from the appreciative stares you sent his way whenever he undress, but it was nothing compared to how you were looking at him right now. It was like no corner of his body could escape your gaze as you took into each and every feature of him. He felt exposed, like he was completely under your control and one look was enough to put him in his place.

Dear god, was that look doing things to him.

He had to physically restraint the feathers at his back from standing up as he recognized a familiar twitch at his crotch. The desperate attempt at self-control only made the rope rubbed against him even more, sending yet another rush of blood down south.

“Don’t move.” You pursed your brows in disapproval at his movements and bent down to fix his posture. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry when the warmth of your palms came in contact will his skin that almost went numb from the chilliness and sensitivity.

“Are you near finish?” He managed to hide the choked whine at the back of his throat and forced the words out of his mouth in the most decent voice he could pull off in his current state.

“Kinda?” You said. If you had bothered to look up, you would be able to see the clear discomfort that was showing on his face. The redness at the tip of his ears was starting to spread to the rest of his face, his jaw clenched as he tried to hold onto the remaining calmness that was there in his mind. “Only the shading left, so just stay still.”

Forcing out a hum in response, his knuckles already turned white from how hard he had been fisting his hands to get more grasp on his own sanity, the pain he felt from his nails digging in wasn’t even that much of a bother to him anymore. Right now, his main focus was to ignore that dull ache in his pants and the shiver on his skin.

“You have been oddly quiet today.” You asked as you glided the lead across the paper one last time, being utterly content with what you had managed to create as you put the finished drawing up to your face. 

It was when you put down your pen and was about to undo the tie on Keigo that you noticed just why your usually talkative lover had been in silence the whole time you were sketching him. You immediately picked up on how his breaths were heavier than usual with his lips pursed tightly together like he was trying to hold back whatever sounds were threatening to escape if he didn’t. His knees were trembling from kneeling for too long and as your eyes travelled upwards, there was no way you could pretend that you didn’t saw the bulge in between his legs.

So that’s what it was.

Keigo knew he was gone for the moment you sank down onto your knees to be eye-levelled with him and smirked. “I was going to untie you but now I’m having second thoughts.” You said, mockingly tilt your head as you pretended to ponder as you ran a finger along the rope, very barely touching the skin underneath.

He did not say anything but you could feel his breath getting more rigid at the contact. You leaned in closer and watched as his body shook once he could feel your warmth against his chest. He was holding back and you were determined to make him break.

“If I knew that you like being tied up so much I would have offered much sooner.” You whispered into his ear, your finger roaming dangerously close to his nipple and the spare hand holding onto his shoulder. The closer you traced to the sensitive, the more his was trying to squirm under your touch.

His back arched the moment you placed the first touch on his nipple and you immediately forced him back onto his previous position with your firm hold on his shoulder blade. Your lips lingered on his ear as you rolled the tip between your fingers, giving it a soft pinch. It only added to your amusement when you heard the heavy swallowing at his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as you did not slow down the movement at your hand for even the slightest.

Just your fingers, you were too cruel to even spare him the touch of your palm.

“You look so pretty all tied up like this, so pretty for me.” You cooed in his ear, sliding your palm down his chest to give some attention to the rest of his body that you had been aching to touch. Feeling each mound under your hand, you could feel your own arousal building up at just how his entire body was begging for you to give him more. But the tensing of his muscles were not enough, the quickening breath was not enough, the bite back whimpers you were only hearing because you had your face pressed to the side of his neck was not enough. 

You would like to think that as an artist, you were naturally attracted to beautiful things. There was nothing more appealing to you than the lovely reactions he was capable of giving and you could never be ashamed of being greedy towards such beautiful things.

Keigo hissed when your hand stopped at the top of the fabric that was covering his bulge, his entire body heated up as you traced circles just above where he craved your touch the most. Peppering kisses up his neck, you grinned as he very eager closed the gap you had painfully left between your lips and his as your face hovered above him. Nothing could compare to the stir at the pit of your stomach as you heard him moan into the kiss when you had slowly undid the fly of his pants. Only pulling the band of his boxers low enough to release his hardened cock from the strain of fabric, his length slapped against his lower stomach and the sensitive skin around the area rubbing against the material of his pants only added to his desire for a relieve.

Running a finger along the vein at the underside of his shaft, you gently yanked at his hair to expose his neck and placed many wet kisses along his chin down to the valley where his neck met his collar bone. While your other hand slowly ghosted over the slit at his tip, the one that just gripped onto his blonde locks now travelled down the back of his neck to where his wings grew out.

Keeping up with the teasing at his length, what you would only consider as whimpers grew louder when your hand smoothed over the red feathers but you were yet to be satisfied. Feeling his uneven breath at your neck, you searched for the one spot that you knew would had him crumbling in an instant.

Where was it, where was it?

Ah, found it.

Your hand found its way to the much softer feathers at the base of his wings and the moment you scratched down, the last but of self-restraint in him snapped as he let out a loud, delicious moan.

Beautiful, exactly what you were looking for.

No longer holding back, you were satisfied with the loud noises that escaped from his flushed lips. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead as your thumb toyed at his tip, collecting the pre-cum that was oozing out. You collected the droplet at the tip of your tongue when it slide down his jaw, the saltiness that spread in your mouth only elicited your own desire even more.

Slowly pumping his cock with the help of the sticky liquid on your hand, you pressed yourself against his chest as you sped up the movement of your hand. His hip bucked against your hand and you clicked your tongue in disapproval as his cock twitched. A loud whine slipped past his mouth when you suddenly paused whatever you were doing all while pushing him down from moving against you himself.

“I should really just leave you here like this,” you said as you pulled back, you chuckled as you were now looking right at his very flushed face, “my pretty bird that is tied up for me and under my mercy. Perhaps I can even make you sing for me.”

The skin underneath the rope was now much paler comparing to the rest of his body, lines of redness starting to show from how much he was tensed up. The corner of his eyes were tearing up from the stimulation and your denial of his release, the feathers at his back pulsating and the tip of his length in nearly the same shade of red.

Again, what a sight. But no matter how much you liked when you were seeing, you could never be so cruel as to keep your birdie in pain.

“As much as that thought tempts me,” you said as you leaned in close to him once again, "I guess you deserve a reward for being so well-behaved.”

He yelped when your hand circled around his shaft and started jerking him off. The loud sound of skin slapping echoed off the walls and the whiny sounds he was making was erotic to hear. 

You knew he couldn’t last much longer when you felt the twitching in your hand. “Such a good little bird. Are you going to make a mess for me?” The way you licked the piercing at his ear lobe as you said such profanities was what gave him the final push as he reached his high. 

Strings of warmth spurted out, covering your hand and stomach as you pulled away. He was still trying to catch his breath as you looked down at your shirt that was now covered with cum and scrunched your eyebrows together.

“When I said ‘making a mess for me’, I definitely didn’t mean it as ‘on me’.”

“Yeah, yeah, my apologies.” To think that mere seconds ago he was like putty in your hands. As he came down from his high, Keigo’s composure was quick to return as a slight smirk now graced his features.

“Now get me out of this.” He said as your hands went to tug at the knots against his torso, “I feel like you still haven’t fully repay me for all that posing I did for you.”

[shiversdownyerspine]

8. Warm

BEHOLD.

18+...kinda?

The last twinkles of dawn have faded as morning balances on a pin, almost ready to fall into day. It is at this edge that you finally rise and shine.

Except there is no rising and shining, no. There is no wakey wakey eggs and bakey. Why?

Because you are stuck. Stuck between slipping into the waking world or letting yourself drift back into blessed sleep. It's the strangest thing, you can't quite decide what you want so...you'll just have to float among the cozy clouds of indecision for the time being. 

At least for five more minutes.

You're not the only one having trouble. Otto is still stretched out on the sofa with you on top of him, holding him captive. Not that that's what he'd consider to be the problem, however.

As it just so happens, after he had updated his brothers about your condition, he had shifted his position a little. Nothing much, just slipped a leg from its resting place on the cushions and the sofa arm to the floor below. Your furniture was just a little too short for a man of his height to stretch out properly on without his feet dangling off the edge.

This is when his little problem popped up; after he moved, you adjusted your position as well. Still settled between his legs and on his chest, you subconsciously decided to slide your leg up and over his thigh. Settling the pressure of your pelvis right into his.

Thank goodness his brothers were preoccupied; Axel was still in the kitchen cleaning up breakfast, and Oscar was distracted with the kittens on the other side of the coffee table. The cover that the thick quilt provided was also much appreciated.

He tried a couple times to shift his hips away, but you would follow him with every movement. Or more accurately, you had no choice but to follow with your leg hooked over his like this. The gentle rub and slide of your lower body against his was starting to become...distracting. 

On his third valiant attempt you let out a soft sweet little sound into his chest, forcing the poor man motionless under you. While another part of him stirred.

That's it.

Determined, Otto grips the back of your bent knee with one hand while the other dips to grab the back of your thigh just under your rear. With a firm pull, he drags you further up his chest, away from his hips.

Your lungs fill with a deep breath as the abrupt movement has you tensing, your hand sliding up over his collarbone and back down to his chest as sleep pulls away from you.

Otto grunts, "Awake now?"

Groggy, your head lifts sluggishly from your living pillow, eyes half-lidded and hair fittingly tousled. 

Your nose crinkles cutely, "...somethin' like that.

Large fingers brush some errant locks of your hair from your face before the man asks, "Still tired? Better?"

Pushing yourself up a bit on your forearms, you take a moment to hide a yawn in your shoulder before returning your attention to Otto, "...Both. It's expected; it usually takes a day...maybe?...for my sleep schedule to go back to normal."

The heel of your palm rubs carefully at your eye, "Bad cold spells aren't very common, but they pop up more around winter. Last longer too."

Otto's brow furrows as Axel interjects, "Still had weeks of cold, but it's different?"

Peering sleepily around the living room for the surly man with the slicked-back hair, you realize his voice drifted in from the kitchen.

"Well..during these weeks the cold spell was inconsistent. Most are. What's the phrase thing...like a roller coaster? Boat on the waves?"

The tallest brother nods his understanding, "Up and down."

"Mhm. Some nights I'm warmer and get more sleep, it's more manageable. Winter spells are more...constant. Less changing..."

Your head droops, "..and a lot more aggravating for it."

Somewhere during the conversation, Axel finishes up in the kitchen and takes a seat in the armchair next to the sofa. Meanwhile Otto's arms have returned to rest lightly on your back. Warm for the first time in weeks, your body refuses to even consider the thought of slipping away from the man. You're staying right where you are. 

The fear prickles in the back of your mind that if you do move away, you'll find the cold waiting to cut right through the warmth and pick up where it left off. Of course you know it doesn't work like that, but the thought stubbornly lingers.

From across the coffee table, lying sprawled on the carpet with napping kittens, a hidden Oscar asks, "You deal with winter how? 

With a jolt you glance around the room, fingers curling in the warm material of Otto's long johns while the man himself gives an amused huff.

"...Uh..It's..pretty much the same with the cold spells...but I wear more layers during the day and..and lots of blankets at night."

Still not able to see the youngest despite your efforts, you have to ask, "Oscar what are you doing down there?"

Silence.

As you lift yourself up more to see past the coffee table, you're greeted with nothing but carpet. 

"...Well that's spook-" 

Before you have a chance to finish your sentence, dastardly digits slip into your hair from behind and wiggle against your nape feathers, courtesy of a certain sneaky bastard. It's been a while since Oscar's last sneak attack, but this one takes the proverbial cake.

With a muffled squeal you duck back down to Otto to escape his mischievous brother, yanking the quilt up to buffer the back of your neck. Oscar smirks and leans back up, steadying the kitten that was slipping off his shoulder. Axel side-eyes him but pays little mind to his antics, his focus is mainly on the conundrum that is his empty mug.

The youngest grunts, "Revenge, du liten retas."

A single word in Oscar's declaration catches your indignant attention, "Revenge? For what you fiend?"

Axel stands to stroll to the kitchen to rectify his coffeeless issue, reminding you on the way. 

"Babysitter."

Otto lightly rubs your back, nodding as if it was a necessary evil.

You grumble, "...Ah. Right. Well I hope everyone's thirst for vengeance has been sated."

With your righteous fury briefly mollified, you pout up at Oscar and his little accomplice. Thing 1 wobbles a bit, clinging to the fabric of his shoulder. 

You allow yourself a moment to admire the man's slim turtleneck sweater paired with his button suspenders. The long-sleeved garment appears to be on the older side, as much of their apparel seems to be, but the deep pewter color doesn't appear to have faded yet. The form fitting material molds quite nicely to the brawn of his arms, showing off muscles earned from a life of hard work. 

Really all three men can boast of possessing a certain physical prowess, of which Otto himself had demonstrated for you last night. You're not sure what had made your heart pound more, being carried by the man or being snuggled up against him to sleep.

With these thoughts rattling around in your head, you become slightly more conscious of the situation; of the feel of his body pressed to yours, of his hands at your back. That's one way to wake yourself up.

The tiny precariously perched feline serves a decent distraction from the attractiveness of these men. You sit up, rear hovering over Otto's lap to give some attention to Thing 1. Steadying yourself with a hand on the top of the sofa, you reach up to the kitten to give its tiny forehead a rub as Oscar leans down a bit to accommodate you.

"I don't think the kittens are quite ready to become official shoulder cats. They're not the most coordinated yet."

You can't help but be a worry wart with such itty bitty animals in your care.

Oscar broods, tilting his head to observe his cargo, "..Too small?"

With your little roller coaster metaphor still on the brain, you reply without thinking, "You must be this tall to ride the Oscar."

You hear a slight clattering in the kitchen as Oscar's eyes widen in surprise and naughty delight. Otto's hands twitch as he swallows thickly. Both brother's eyes trail the slope of your body from different angles.

The larger man's drifting thoughts backstab his good intentions and leave them to die in the gutter; admiring your legs spread either side of his hips, his gaze rests on a certain part of your anatomy that is hovering above a certain part of his anatomy, taunting him with possibilities...

One such possibility being you bare and ready, perched astride him just like this but waiting to be guided down to swallow up every inch-

The snicker from Oscar thankfully breaks the spell Otto is under, the big man scowling as he watches the smaller lean slightly towards your arm. He wouldn't...

Oscar dips his head, lips brushing your skin as his eyes flick to Otto before settling back on you. After finding the two of you cuddled up together and his brother getting handsy? Oh, he absolutely would.

He grins, "Warning, will get wet."

With that, his teeth press gently to the inside of your wrist in a loose open mouthed bite as something wet and warm flicks over your skin.

You pull your arm away from his mouth with a yelp, face resembling a tomato as you stutter, "Oscar! That's-I...W-what, do I need a spray bottle for you?!?"

The man's face is radiating satisfaction and a playfulness that has your stomach somersaulting. You've never sprayed your animals, finding other methods more beneficial for behavior correction, but at least it could have offered you some form of retribution in this unexpected scenario.

You squeak when Otto grasps your waist to remove you from his person and settle you on the cushions and quilt. His feet plop down on the carpet as he stands at his full intimidating height, glaring down at his brother from where he stands behind the sofa.

Eyes locked on his aggressively posturing brother, Oscar slowly removes the kitten from his shoulder and offers him to you to take. Which you do, gaze flicking between the two men as tension builds.

Oscar snaps that tension with ease, growling, "Hon smakar söt, som honung."

And with that mysterious sentence, the youngest brother's instigation is successful. He bee-lines for the kitchen in a sprint, presumably to escape out the back door to the garden as Otto's heavy gait follows close behind.

Taking a moment to calm your racing heart, you juggle your choices of getting dressed or grabbing some food and coffee. Your rumbling stomach and lingering sleepiness makes the decision for you. Forming a makeshift nest with the quilt, you plop Thing 1 down, smiling as he settles in contentedly. You don't even need to look for Thing 2 as the kitten quickly scrambles up the side of the sofa to join his sibling for more naptime.

Tiptoeing to the kitchen, you peep in to find Axel standing at the screen door, sipping his mug of coffee. Watching his brothers' antics no doubt. Not wanting to startle the man, however unlikely given his occupation, you murmur, "Axel? Please tell me there's more coffee."

The man looks over his shoulder, nodding and gesturing to the table where a full steaming mug waits just for you. A hearty plate of some sort of breakfast scramble consisting of eggs, tomatoes, sausage, potatoes, cheese, and herbs sits beside your drink. Touched by his consideration, you shyly express your gratitude and take a seat.

Before you dig in, something itches at your senses and you peer up to see the man still watching you with a small smirk. Your eyes narrow, looking down at the offering and back up as a feeling of familiarity pokes your brain.

Waaaiiit a minute...

"...I'm being bribed aren't I."

The smirk that spreads on his face is all the answer you need. You cover your mouth as giggles struggle to break out. It takes a second or two to compose yourself...at least to some degree.

"I'm guessing you have some questions for me?"

Probably some harder questions, given the new information you've revealed. You stubbornly hold on to your good mood, not wanting to let it spoil.

At the sound of Oscar's hollering, Axel returns his attention back to whatever unfortunate fate has befallen his kin. 

He suggests you finish breakfast first. You don't need him to tell you twice.

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

Revenge, du liten retas- Revenge, you little tease. Hon smakar söt, som honung- She tastes sweet, like honey.

[vicunaburger]

A Lovely and Precious Thing

Fandom: Beetlejuice the Musical Chapters: Side Story (Not Canon to Fic) Pairing: Beetlejuice x OC (Holidae) The Players: Beetlejuice, Holidae Bell Word Count: 1,146 Warnings: M for Mature Content, Blood, Violence, Possession, Nasty Things in General,

Notes: So you know how chapter 14 went to a place? So did my brain while writing it. Also, please thank The Dismemberment Song by Blue Kid for being on repeat while writing this.

I crawled out of a migraine to post this, so pardon me while I crawl back into bed and hide for a while.

Admittedly I’m Hard to See - Side Story 1

Lovely and Precious Thing

“You know, I’d never really given this much thought until you came along.” Beetlejuice pressed his ear harder against Holidae’s chest. “So that either says something about you or something about me. Maybe both of us? At the very least it means that you’re the reason this is happening.”

He frowned as he heard the heartbeats getting faster, her chest rising and falling with increased tempo as her breathing became shallow. Sitting up, his legs straddled over her lower half as she lay there beneath him on the bed, he placed the back of his hand under her nose. Warm puffs of air hit his cold skin, even though her expression hadn’t changed; she was nervous.

That was to be expected, so it didn’t deter him from carrying out his brilliant idea.

“Ah, see, I didn’t mean that it a bad way, my little Holly-Jolly. It’s nothing but positive! What’s her face… Dena? Delilah? She’s always saying positive shit, might be something to it, I dunno.” Beej’s hair was tinged with a mix of red and green; a rare combination.

Holidae would have made a joke about Christmas if she had the ability, but at present, she didn’t. All she could so was lie there and stare at him blankly, like a glorified mannequin. Even if she could move… speak… what would be the use? The most she could do was blink.

In the back of his mind, he regretted that part of the situation, the fact she wasn’t able to respond to his ramblings with a quick witted remark to break the tension. She was so good at that, his breather, it was a major part of what made him fall head over heels in the first place. She matched him, but in an opposite way. It made sense in his brain.

“I know you want to say something, but this was the only way we could do this without making a fuss, baby. I just… hearing you scream would be… not great. I would hate it, you know that! Because if you start getting sad and crying… then I’m not gonna be able to do this. But we need this… remember? You even gave me permission.” He leaned down and pressed his forehead against her own, nuzzling nose to nose with her. “Trust me, Holidae.”

Trust him.

That’s what he had said at the start of this whole nightmarish conversation.

Perhaps she was honestly to blame, not having understood the depth of his literal understanding of common expressions. He was by no means unintelligent, but occasionally a phrase or idiom would confuse him entirely. A little patience always set him back on track, so it was never a concern when he misinterpreted something she said off the cuff.

“What happens when you and Lyds move away?” He shuffled his feet, coming over to sit heavily beside her on the sofa.

“Huh? Oh… hadn’t thought of it.” Holidae set her book down, nudging him with her foot. “What brought that up?”

“You’ll be gone. I’ll be here. You’ll find someone else to live with.” Beetlejuice’s whole aura was deep violet, and he refused to look her in the eye.

She blinked owlishly, “Why… why would you be here? Can’t you go with me? I can call you up anywhere! What a ridiculous statement, Juice.”

“…you’d take me with you?” He still kept his head down, studying a stray thread on his trousers. “Why?”

Holidae gave a sharp exhale, crawling over to him and pressing herself against his side, “Because I want you with me. Why would I leave you here alone? It would break my heart to leave it here.”

Beej looked up, tilting his head, “Your heart?”

Nodding, she flushed red with embarrassment at the sappy sentiment of it all, “It’s yours, ya know. I’d take it out and give it to you if it would stop you from thinking I would ever willingly leave you alone.”

Holidae had been wrapped up in the memory, only having been brought back to the present when she felt four simultaneous clawed fingers puncturing through the tender skin between her breasts. Her whole body tensed out of reflex, each nerve sending itself screaming toward her brain with a signal to move. To flee. To fight. What was it her old anatomy professor had said…. A human can last six minutes…?

True, any ghost could possess a person from what she had been told, but Beetlejuice was more than any ghost. He was so much more, and he was proving it in spades.

“I forgot how much breathers can bleed…” Beej’s voice was low and soft over the sickening crack of her sternum being split open with effort. “Bleeding everywhere… all these bones… I knew you would look gorgeous in red, my precious thing.”

It was a strange thing to feel so much pain and yet barely move in inch. Her eyes watered, each breath she took felt more and more labored as her body struggled with every ounce of effort to keep going. There was morbid thought drifting through her mind as she watched his face contort with the utmost pleasure; he did this because he loved her. She had offered her heart to him, and he was just fulfilling her promise.

How many minutes did she have…?

Beetlejuice looked positively feral as he reached down, delicately wrapping his hand around her still-beating heart with care. With an awed reverence he bent down, pausing to place a gentle kiss to her motionless lips, before opening his mouth wide and bearing down upon her heart with his jagged, razor sharp teeth. She swore she heard him moan before everything just… stopped.

No pain, no fear. Just nothing.

--

Holidae awoke with a start, gulping down air as though she were drowning; a feeling made worse by the fine layer of cold sweat covering her body. Next to her, Beetlejuice was helping her sit upright, alarmed by her jolting up from a dead sleep.

“Whoa… what… Holli?” He was unsure of what to do, feeling useless as he patted her back gently. “Can… do you… need…? I don’t know what’s happening.”

Shaking her head, she bent forward at the waist, trying to breathe in a steadier pattern. The cool touch of his hand was grounding her during the attack, and she focused on that kind gesture until she could focus on her surroundings.

Holidae reached out blindly for his free hand, holding it against her chest like an anchor. “…nightmare.”

With a chuckle, he let her hold him as tight as she wanted, “That all? Noting to worry about! I’m the scariest thing around these parts, my little breather, I won’t let anything else get you.”

“…I know you are.” She replied quietly, hoping he wouldn’t notice the tremor in her voice.

Writing Tags: @mr-geuse @paxenera @leiasolo77 @go-commander-kim @a-subconscious-manifestation @asriells @missihart23 @heknowshisherbs 

[sapphicdalliances]

Hi, Yuletide writer! First of all, my sincere apologies in my delay of getting this letter written up at all, and my enthused thanks for being here!

I’m a simple bitch with simple tastes; here is a general summary of my preferences, and fandom-specific notes and prompts can be found further down!

I very much enjoy:

Romance -- anything up to and including plotless shippy drivel

Short fics, or even collections of tiny fics

Long fics too, so I guess what I mean is, don’t feel pressured either way

Comedic tones, slice-of-life, lighthearted fun, any amount of improbable romcom tropes

Am also hella on board with misunderstandings, drama or angst as long as there is a happy ending!

I’m deeply okay with AUs, and most likely would be down for any modern, romcom, fantasy/fairytale, gender swap, or remix/crossover AUs you feel inspired to explore! My favourite settings include mundane/urban fantasy (witches! werewolves!), anachronism-stew-with-magic western fantasy jumbles, and disney’s Tangled.

Specific tropes I love:

Proposal fic

Wedding fic where the couple getting married is not the main couple

Outsider/third character POV of the main couple

Exes who are still in love/getting back together

Friends-with-benefits-with-feelings/did a bad job keeping it casual

Shipfic where two or more couples are contrasted

Oblique declarations of love/saying i love you without saying i love you

Provision and caretaking (acts of service!)

Aggressive matchmaking/wingmanning by an enthused friend

Hanahaki, or any other improbably dramatic instances of Cannot Spit It Out

Arranged marriage/fake marriage/fake dating

Epistolary fic

Regrettably I also love a/b/o, especially the kind that emphasises on scent safety and contains little to no actual sex

I’m not as into:

Political or social intrigue, mysteries, complex magical plots — by no means a dealbreaker, but not high on my list of priorities

Kidfic

First person narration

Soulmate AUs specifically

In general, please avoid:

Character death or serious/permanent injury

Animal abuse or death

Infidelity

Hopeless or downer endings

Fandom specific info starts here!

Princess Tutu - Ahiru, Fakir

I’ve loved Ahiru/Fakir for years and years — they are both very strong, willful but compassionate characters, and the way they intersect is just so sweet to me. While I would be ravenous for any tutu content, gen included, I really would be particularly delighted with some overtly shippy fic for this one, I hope that’s okay!

Suggestions:

Modern AUs: vet science major Ahiru + English major Fakir meet in theatre club?

Step Up-style remix where they become somewhat-unwilling dance partners because their regular partners are somehow indisposed and work better than expected

That one ending fix-it AU where Fakir writes her back into a girl and they retire into the village, the one we all have in our treacherous hearts, i will never get enough of these

Fakir and Ahiru’s relationship progression as observed by the other members of the school/town

Or mix it up with any of the tropes in my general list! For this ship, I would like a maximum rating of T, please!

Wotakoi

I love every ship in this manga equally but perhaps I love Kou/Naoya more equally than the other two? They are just so kind and so silly, and so sweet to each other in exactly the way both of them didn’t realise they were missing! Honestly, anything with these characters that’s along the lines of canon would be delightful; the particular energy of misfits realising that they don’t have to be alone is something very dear to me.

Suggestions:

Accidentally dating ft. Kou and Naoya, or, “and you’ve made out how many times now? Hmm. Yeah, that’s not technically a bromance.”

5 times Hirotaka and Narumi almost, almost kissed, and 1 time they did; the unresolved romantic tension may kill me and it would be worth it

What Hirotaka and Narumi taught each other (apart from the more mundane gaming and life skills, i believe that she taught him how to smile and be loved by others, and he taught her how to be loved by herself!)

Smutty domesticity ft. Koyanagi and Kabakura — a lazy Sunday, laundry in the sun, fucking on the couch, everything easy with familiarity

The fantasy/MMORPG AU, where Hirotaka is the lazy but brilliant crown prince, Naoya the hapless but beloved second prince, Koyanagi his spymaster and Kabakura the captain of the prince’s guard; Narumi his childhood friend-cum-betrothed, and Kou a mysterious archer who saves a distressed Naoya from bandits in the village?

The gang tries to play DND. We finally find a game that Naoya is good at.

Or mix it up with any of the tropes in my general list!

Nezha - Oubing

I feel 100 different ways about this movie and 88 of the ways are SO CHINESE. The filial piety, the familial sacrifice, the friendship! I do believe that Nezha and Aobing are in love, I hope this is a reading of the text that we share, but if not, gen about their friendship/rivalry would also be well-recieved.

Suggestions:

Aobing has been practicing bigu (a cultivation style that is meant to remove one’s need for food or water) since he was born; Nezha introduces him to food, and other creature comforts — do they have BEDS in the dragon palace for example?? Buddhist-style cultivation is very ascetic and difficult, but Nezha is so wild and full of feelings and love!!

Modern AU: delinquent Nezha and prim, proper exchange student Aobing

Modern AU addendum: nobody believes Nezha when he says he’s got a hot boyfriend in Taiwan and thinks that he has made Aobing up

Arranged marriage/political fantasy AU where the prince of dragons is given to the most controversial heavenly general in an effort to improve both families’ social standing

For a gen prompt, if you want to do something about Nezha and/or Aobing’s relationships to their fathers, debts and affections and resentments, that too would be lovely!

On the other end of the spectrum, i’m down for PWP with xeno tropes re: aobing’s dragon anatomy! So long as the top/bottom roles are not too strictly defined, i just like it when they’re equitable or switch!

And of course, feel free to mix it up with any of the tropes in my general list!

Kazetsuyo/Run with the Wind

I didn’t tag any characters because my favourites were not in the list, and of course because I do love everyone, but my personal priorities are in order: Shindo, Musa, Haiji, Kakeru, Nico-chan, Yuki, the bombastic twins, and then everyone else. The spaces between those positions are very small so if you happen to have a passion for a character/ship lower on the list, worry not, there is limitless affection within me for everyone!

Suggestions:

Shindo should get to take Musa to see the snow… he deserves that

He also deserves to run the ekiden again in his fourth year and not be sick and actually win section 5!

I do think Kakeru and Haiji are most definitely soulmates — if you choose to focus on one or both of them, I really do believe they are in the romantic kind of love, is the thing!

Perhaps their relationship, an inevitable drifting together, as perceived by everyone else in aotake?

Or Haiji comes to Kakeru’s graduation, all their tenderest affections still unspoken, and somehow, without any premeditation, by the end of the day they’ve kissed

You know what I think? I think Hana-chan likes and is capable of dating both of the twins, and I love that for her

Or gen canonverse with everyone (or just everyone you care about) taking turns caring for Nira and reflecting on the race!

As above, please feel free to mix it up with the tropes in my general list!

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun

I only selected Seo and Waka because they are simply my top priority, but if you want to serve a side of Chiyo/Nozaki and/or Hori/Kashima and/or Seo and Kashima being beautiful best friends and/or Mikorin being a beautiful himbo who we are delighted to have here, i would not complain at all!

Absolutely anything about them being goobery oblivious idiots in love would be perfect, such as:

5 times they went on a date without realising, and the time they realised

Everyone else literally just thinks they’re dating and they are completely clueless

Or on the other end of the spectrum, everyone tries desperately to set them up/matchmake for them, not realising that they’ve been going steady for four months

A hanahaki AU would be particularly hilarious with these two, I feel

Urban fantasy AU where Waka is a hapless monster hunter and Seo is an annoying but deeply harmless werewolf who’s been terrorizing his town??

Regency or faux-regency AU where Waka is literally like “drive by your rival’s estate slowly so that she may seethe with jealousy at the loveliness of your new hat” and Seo is like “oh goodness, he is courting me. What a fool. What an absolute buffoon.” and challenges him to a swordfight

Fairytale AU where Seo believes she must rescue the prince from the tower and deliver him back to the kingdom capital, and the prince, who had not realised he’d been kidnapped, thinks Seo is a usurper from a rival kingdom who must be supervised all the way back to the kingdom capital to be served her justice

Or anything else equally romcom-y, and of course, as always, throw in as many tropes as you like!

Thank you for reading this whole mess of a letter, and I sincerely hope I haven’t bored you too much. The most important thing to me is that whatever you end up writing, you are able to enjoy the process at least somewhat, and deliver a fic that you like! I can also be found on twitter at @hawberries_ (for art) and @popplioikawa (for general ramblings), and if you have any desire to send an anon ask to this tumblr with questions, i’m actually not sure if that’s allowed but i’d be happy to get some! Thank you again, and happy holidays!

[jeanjauthor]

Writers?  This is the artistic version of a short story.

Artists...?

...WHY??

So...many...questions.

A lot of this breaks what writers call “the willing suspension of disbelief.” It’s where the audience is willing to overlook implausible things in order to keep following the story.  At some point their credibility has a limit, a breaking point where their ability to suspend and ignore their disbelief will snap, like hanging a thread from the ceiling, and then putting too much weight on it.

Some of these weighty questions include:

Why is she "standing" like that? She looks like she's sitting on an invisible stool!

Why is her cloak/sheet still bound up like that if she's been fighting long enough to get her sword bloodied?

Why is she so pristine when the wyrm corpse is clearly freshly arterially injured??

Why does she have no shoes and pristine feet when she’s clearly touching a bloody corpse?

Why is the tag end of her cloak/sheet...thing...whipped up under one leg and over the other when she’s been chopping up a monster and now has to fight another one?

Again, why is she so clean??

There are so many WTF questions...

What is she sitting on?

If she’s not sitting on anything, how is she supporting her weight in that position?

She’s not being supported by her feet, that’s for sure--is she seriously en pointe with her left foot (the one on our right, visually)?

And the one on the left (her right foot), if it’s resting at a 45-ish degree angle on a corpse so freshly butchered it’s still spurting, how is it she’s able to keep it in place when it should be slipping out from under her by all the laws of squshy meaty blood-filled things?

Where is the missing V shaped wedge of that tail?  Look at the angles on those two cut ends; there is clearly a whole big fat wedge of flesh that is missing!  If there wasn’t, that tail would literally have been an L shaped structure with the cut angling on the diagonal down into the corner, and that is just disturbing to contemplate...

...Where are the arm bones in those dragon-wings?? Seriously, that is disturbing, seeing the thin metacarpals and phalanges (the “finger bones” of wings if you look at wings as nothing more than elongated & weirdly angled hands) ...but not the arm bones...so where are they??

...Now this isn’t to say the picture is all bad!  The concept is actually a neat idea, looking like a cross of Lord of the Rings meets all those hedonistic Renaissance paintings of the Ancient Greek mythos.  And it would be 100% correct to mix mythos like this, as the Renaissance painters were doing that all over the place, mixing Greek mythos symbology into Biblical art, and vice versa (all of which was fan art, btw).

The streaky effect of the Nazgûl is wonderful, though I’d like to see a bit more tattering (along the same diagonal upper left to lower right lines) on that right side of the Ringwraith fellow, there.

The Ringrwraith even seems to be bending the airwaves around and above him, with the effects of the clouds sort of streaking in toward that bright spot in the sky above and behind.  It makes it look like the halo is sucking in all the Light before fleeing into the West, or trying to suck the Nazgûl  off the face of the planet to hopefully disinterate its evilness out of existence...

The bright part of the sky also kind of looks like dragonbreath fire, even though the Fell Beasts that the Nazgûl rode upon aren’t evern mentioned (as far as I can recall) as being able to breathe fire like dragons.  So that’s another point of coolness.

I have no idea what’s going on anatomy-wise of the presumed fallen and chopped up Fell Beast, but at least some effort has been made to provide it with a (weird) internal structure.  If it really is a Fell Beast and not meant to be a dragon or a wyrm, then I can accept the odd anatomy and darkness of the...I’m not sure if those are bones, but I’m presuming that it has some bones in its tail, and if it’s a foul abomination style creation, I can accept the creator had no clue.

I do like the crispness of the woman in focus versus the Nazgûl who is equally clearly not in focus.

Certainly the woman definitely looks like a Renaissance painting of a Greek Mythos Action Sequence! She’s in a classic serene, poised action pose that no doubt has some sort of supporting stool & armature behind and under the original model for her to rest her arms upon.

The symbology of Shield Maiden of Rohan certainly gets the first two components of that descriptor down visually: for the first part, she has a shield (lovely round thing, very Classic Greek Hero With Spiffy Expensive Metal Shield), and she definitely is using it to shield herself from something. (Plus the sword.)  The other part of the symbology is the “modesty sheet drape” under one thigh (gotta show off them nekkid thighs, Renaissance foiks!!) and up over the other, between the legs, blocking off any view of or access to the mons pubis...aka, shielding her maidenly modesty.

However, there is zero sign she’s from Rohan, because there’s zero symbolism representing Rohirrim culture...and the key element to Renaissance pictures of various cultures’ mythos were that they were rich with symbolism.  The Rohirrim, the Riders of Rohan, were emphasized over and over as horse people.

Tolkienn also cribbed the Scandinavian culture for his descriptions of them (I suspect the Golden Hordes of the Russian Steppes, heavily influenced by the Rus folks who were Scandinavians who had moved east and mingled with the Mongolian Empire remnants who a little earlier had moved west.  The Greeks knew of the Scandinavian peoples (no, really, they knew of them! Electricity is actually just the Latin word elektron (which comes from a similar-sounding Greek word I’m not going to bother to spell correctly), which meant amber, as in the petrified pine pitch being shipped down through Europe from the Baltic Sea in the far north, which is surrounded by Scandinavian countries.

Yet there’s no signs or symbols of Scandinavia about her, no knotwork animals, no amber, just pale blonde hair (which frankly could be representative of the British Isles or partial albinoism)...  So while there’s a lovely Greek Mythos in Renaissance Paintings feel to her...it falls short of being a true copy/homage, which is unfortunate.  It could’ve been so easily fixed, too, with a bit of knotwork braiding painted onto the cloak/sheet thing.

I will say that the folds of that sheet are spectacularly well painted, lovely depth and dimensionality to them!

Same goes for the condours of her body, and the tail of the wyrm.  I fully believe these are three dimensional objects!

The lighting is beautifully done.  Admittedly if the light is coming from that glowy bit of the sky behind the Nazgûl, she should be in shadow...except he’s a Ringwraith, and it’s 100% acceptable for light to go through him, since according to cannon, they’re not fully corporeal.  This is a “plot” point where fans who know the lore are more than willing to suspend disbelief.

I’m not a rabid Tolkienn fan by any means, but I do know enough to accept that Ringwraiths are wraiths, and not fully of the physical realm.  Plus, Greek Mythos Heroes in Renaissance paintings are supposed to be Bathed In The Light Of Holy Goodness, sort of an inner aura spiritual goodness radiance-effect, I guess...?  Either way, it’s symbolism, it indicates visually that the Light (Good) will shine through upon Heroes (& Heroines) when they are being their Most Heroic...and it’s very well done.

(...Another question if that’s her helm on the ground, where is the rest of her armor? Where are her clothes?? Or is this meant to parody the “sword and magic helmet!!” trope and the helmet was providing all her armor and clothes up until the point she removes it to reveal she’s a nekkid Not A Man? And really, are Nazgûl so far removed from their mortal lives that they need nakedness to be able to tell males from females of their own species...?)

If this were a story, it would be a crossover fanfic with awesome potential...but it falls a little short of what’s needed to successfully suspend the reader/viewer’s disbelief.

Why is it important to do a better job next time, to get these details a little more accurate? Because most Tolkienn fans I know are rabid about it, & willing to nitpick any mistakes or inaccuracies. Cast your minds back to the huge raging fandom debates around the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies about whether or not Peter Jackson & co were “butchering the mythos” of Middle Earth.

Also...I’m trying to figure out how the Nazgûl is standing, and on what if he is indeed standing, though perhaps he’s actually astride the fallen Fell Beast, and simply swung himself around while she was chopping off & somehow disintegrating that V-shaped wedge of wrymtail? I can suspend some of my disbelief for that, though it does add to the overall strain of that willing suspension, and obviously there were too many other issues that ended up snapping it.)

As an editor, if this were a story, I’d be telling the artist to fix the wing bones, to give the woman some shining chain armor with a Rohirrim tabard, or boiled leather armor and tabard--at the very least a tabard with the Rohirrim symbols on it!!. I’d also at the very least slap some Scandinavian knotwork on it, if not the actual Horse of Rohan. (I’d also suggest using the accepted colors for the Rohirrim banner, green and gold, though I might keep the majority of the tabard white and just have a gold-and-green knotwork horse centered on the chest, or something.)

I’d also request there be more chunks of hacked-off tail all over. (Bonus points if one of them looks like The Lonely Mountain!  lol...)

Plus, I’d give her at least a tiny bit of blood spatters around her boots and on her thighs & a little on the lower tabard, to show she’s been fighting in battle all along.  However, I’d actually hesitate to put the spatters any higher than belt-line at most (and definitely do something different than that cloak/sheet thing).

Why would I hesitate to get the chest area bloody? Because of the symbolism.

Renaissance paintings had blood & gore, but only up to a point.  She’s the heroic figure who slays the 3rd Biggest Nasty of the entire trilogy (#1: Sauron, #2 Saruman, #3 chief king of the Ringwraiths, the one she stabs in the face-hole), so she needs the symbolism of still being Clean And Pure Of Heart, aka no muss, mud, tatters, or blood in the torso (chest / heart) area.

In fact, if you just replaced the cloak/sheet thingy with just a tabard (a white one with a little knotwork on it, and put Grecian sandals on her feet...that would seriously fix a lot in this image.  You’d still get to paint the glorious three dimensional folds arrowing down between her thighs, “shielding her modesty.” and you could put some of the symbols of Rohan on the tabard (horse, knotwork, etc) to make her more clearly the Shield Maiden of Rohan, and not just a shield maiden, while still retaining that Greek Mythos feel.

(Plus, you could have a bit of Side Boob showing on the side closest to the viewer to make it clear She Is No Man, and still avoid the blasted censorship issues rampant in modern society, particularly on this site these days.)

...Definitely fix the dragon wing armbones with a bit of shadowing to remove the fact they look like they’re translucent with nothing along the upper/leading edge... ‘cause once unseen, I cannot un-see-it, and it’s creepy as-is...  >.>*

I love the color palette. It’s very dusky, as in nearing-sunset-dusk, with lots of earth tones.  It looks a bit dirty in its hues (as tragically poised battlefields should), and yet it has kind of a “Romanticism golden afternoon light” quality to it. These are all colors that I 100% believe Renaissance painters had access to and would’ve used.  Excellent choices!

At a quick glance, it’s a good painting.  When you look at it a little closer, however... the contrast between all the high quality stuff (lighting, three-dimensionality, focus versus unfocus, at least half the necessary symbolism is there, etc, etc) and the lower quality stuff (oy that lack of proper dragonwing armbones, etc) means it’s really not quite the artist’s best work, and it could be so, so very much better.  Why?

Composition is as important as technical performance.

Seriously, the way she’s painted is gloriously done...except for her positioning.  The dragon wings (I haven’t even touched on the odd angles of the metacarpal bones on the left-side one, just the right one, which is well done for the “finger bones” but there’s no way it should be pointing up lke that), those wings are too anatomically implausible, though I’ll admit they’re more about visual framing than being actual key features.

And lastly, if you’re going for a glorious Greek Mythos Renaissance Painting look to the art...go the whole hog.  Paint it like it’s Second Breakfast, Elevenses, Lunch, Dinner, Tiffin, Tea, Supper & Midnight Snack all rolled into one. 

Hell, paint a Loyal Dog (a staple of Renaissance symbolism), put it down at her feet (to represent the hobbit Merry, who was with her on her quests), and give it a little Rohirrim helmet and/or tabard!  Go the whole distance with this.  I truly believe this artist has that kind of quality in them!

If they did, I do believe all the old Renaissance Masters would totally thumbs-up this painting, if those flaws were fixed and the symbolism ramped up to at least a 9, if not necessarily a 10, rather than just doodling around down near a 5 or 6.

If this were a story and I was the editor for it (and presuming this was done on a tablet / computer, since if it’s an actual painting, that’s harder to fix), I’d definitely strongly suggest the revisions and rewrites listed above.  And then I’d pimp the hell outta this painting.

(Oh, and to fix the weird positioning of her body, I’d give her a Radiant Aura Of Goodness with some golden streaks of light or something angling out at all directions, so it looks like she’s kinda floating, rather than wondering if she’s “suspended” by secretly sitting on a stick or a tail spike or something.  That would help strengthen my suspension...as in the suspension of my disbelief.)

[07-02-2017-blog]

My experience with FFS. Part 1

I remember waking up that morning feeling like I had moved some great mountain. My surgery was scheduled for 11:30, meaning I had to be there at 9 to check in and get settled and ready for surgery. It was 7am. I finally cleared all obstacles getting me to this day, and I had nothing in front of me but this life-changing, affirming surgery.

I hurriedly got ready in comfy clothing, not bothering to put on any makeup or fuss with my hair which, by itself, made that day unlike others. I took whatever pills I could dry swallow, since I could not drink or eat anything for 12 hours prior to surgery. I was mostly grumpy due to not having eaten breakfast, and seeing my mom drink her coffee made me deeply envious.

To anyone who is reading this that hasn’t had an amazing trans related body surgery, I woke up that day with the feeling like I was going to some tropical getaway. Everyone is excited to go away somewhere exotic and tropical; and waking up on the day of travel, you feel very very antsy to get there, and you can’t believe the day has come. But you must make the day through the treacherous airport lines. I was so close to the end of that line.

My analogy of going somewhere foreign and exotic mirrors why I decided to go through with this surgery. I was finally leaving behind the harsh conditions of having my face; it was hard to be out in public and I was always cooped up inside, to then go to a place where my face could look inviting, exotic, warm, new. Once I had the new face, I would get to make all these new amazing memories that would enrich my life forever. I just had to face (no pun intended) a day of waiting; waiting to be called, waiting to be put out, waiting to go home, waiting for that amazing recovery.

My mom, as brave as she is, was nervous all morning. At the end of the day, one of her babies was going to be put under a anesthetic and undergo a five hour procedure. I think every person can relate to having a mother being nervous on the day of surgery. We went down to her rental car, and I left my apartment for the last time with my old face.

—-

During the 30 minute drive, I thought about of all the endings that were being dumped on me. My family was never going to see my face as it was ever again. I was not getting changes to the point of looking unrecognizable, but still, the next time I would be sleeping in my bed, my face would be changed forever.

We arrived early and I excitedly hopped out of the car while my mom parked. I went up to registration and told them what I was getting done, and showed them my health card. While the kind volunteer made my wristband, I said in a pleading tone “Please don’t let the sex say male—I am a girl!” I’d been to a hospital recently since then, and the nurse there had put it upon herself to assume I was a male. I could go on and on about that, but that’s for another time. I was there to get my face feminized and my wristband was NOT going to say male. Not allowed.

I then went over to the corresponding pre-op room, with my correctly female gendered wrist band thank you VERY much, and the volunteer there took me to the makeshift changing rooms, along with a key to a locker. I was instructed to strip down behind the dressing curtain, change into the hospital gowns, and store my personal belongings in the locker.

Now, as a transgender female, whenever I hear the words ‘dressing room, bathroom, strip down, or take all your clothes off’, I go into hyper defensive mode. I needed to take off everything?! Even the delicate article of clothing that hides my biggest shame? (Cis translation: my underwear. Panties. Whatever ya call em). I was completely naked; the only thing separating me from showing the whole pre op room my genital situation was a heavy linen curtain. I called my mom in to tie up the back of my dress (god bless her), finished putting on the dress, put slippers on, put on a hairnet, and bam! I was one girl lookin’ great for surgery. I was escorted into the sitting room. I waited until a nurse came to get my final vitals and ask me about my weight, height, and last foods/meds consumed. I was sitting in a chair in an unflattering, frumpy mint hospital gown, wearing nothing underneath. My junk hadn’t been free like that since 2015. On top of all of this, that this was when I started the Holy-Shit-I’m-Getting-Surgery thought process.

Between not being able to cover my body parts properly and waiting in a poorly lit room to be cut open, needless to say the panic was mounting. For a time I looked around at all the people being wheeled off to surgery and having their blood checked; then I thought holy shit, that’s gonna be me soon! And, because my insecurities always come out at the most perfect times, I was looking around wondering what gender people thought I was. I was wearing a gender neutral frumpy dress and my long brown hair was sloppily tucked into the hairnet. In my mind, every person that looked at me saw a boy. Don’t get me wrong, I know I am a woman; but pre surgery, when I couldn’t wear makeup or hair or femme outfits, I was mistaken for a male.

Uhhh, that’s wrong.

My insecurities were confirmed when a nurse called me for a final pre-surgery questioning, and she continually referred to me as he-she. No, not in the offensive way that you are thinking, what I mean is that when talking to other nurses, she would say things like "Oh yeah—I’m almost done with hi—uh her, he—she is just about to go into pre-op procedures.”

Yeah. I got that for the past two years. Well meaning people who do correct themselves and respect my identity, but nonetheless, through no fault of their own, subconsciously assign me as male. And it kills me all the same.

I was then ushered into the outside of my surgery room. There I met with the anesthesiologist, my surgeon, the main nurse helping in the surgery, etc. They all reassured me and told me the surgery is going to go amazing, and that I’d be okay. My surgeon assured me that he preforms a lot of these surgeries, and everything would be alright. Well, so much for reassuring me. I was a nervous, fidgety mess. I was about to be cut open for god sakes! My brow bone was literally about to be shaved! I consulted with my anesthesiologist about how panicked I was, and he assured me that he was gonna give me the good stuff to really make me loopy.

One of the nurses participating in my surgery came into the room, and told my mom and I that they were all ready and set up for me to go in. I tearfully hugged my mom goodbye, and told her to busy herself with her various friends while I was in surgery so she wouldn’t panic. I kissed her and she told me how brave she thought I was as I walked away with the nurse. The first thing the nurse mentioned to me is how tall I am (hey, short people: saying I’m tall is neither a compliment nor an insult. It’s just a fucking statement. You don’t have to acknowledge it. I promise you’ll be fine.) Obviously this annoyed me, and distracted me from my nervousness for a split second. Then, I was ushered into a Grey’s Anatomy-esque Operating Room (yes, I know that reference makes me basic) which shocked me back into nervousness. Holy shit. I’m getting operated on. What did I get myself into?

In retrospect, what happens next was a healthy distraction from my mind automatically thinking the worst results of my surgery. And it also realigned why I needed this surgery for MY own peace of mind. All of the operators in the room were calling me “he,” and then hastily (or not so hastily, I remember you bitches) correct themselves. I went immediately into self deprecation mode. Well yeah they misgender me because I’m not wearing anything indicating I’m female. I combatted that thought with a sense of defeat and pure frustration; even operators that are operating on someone who is getting FACIAL FEMINIZATION SURGERY wouldn’t put in the effort to try and be respectful of my identity. And then I had one final thought: with this surgery, I can go outside without trying so hard to preform ‘female’ and I can still be respected and identified naturally as a girl! That was my original goal! Let’s fucking do this!

My anesthesiologist put the IV in, and remarked that I was going to be drowsy in about five seconds. I didn’t even have time to think, and then bam. All the tension left my body. I was suddenly floating on a cloud and everything was beautiful. The assistant anesthesiologist put my oxygen mask on and said “Okay, let’s start putting him out.”

Suddenly my frustration of being misgendered there of all places was mixed with my razor sharp focus to get into this surgery and complete it. Amidst the effects of an inhibition-lowering drug, I took off my mask and yelled to the room: “She, Her, HERS! She, her herrrrrrrr-“

—-

I woke up in what felt like two minutes after being put out. I was still tremendously high from the weaning anesthesia. I felt blissful and absolutely at peace. I did it! And no pain! (just wait, Sami). The nurse said a bunch of soothing shit that went over my head. I toned her out and basked in the accomplishment. I had booked this surgery all the way back in October, and waited for it to be preformed on April 9th, 2018. I moved away from my family in the states so I could work my ass off and save for this surgery.

I’m on the other side. I can now be free! And be more Samantha than ever!

-Samantha Kru 🤠👽💀

(P.S… I will post my post ffs experience, from waking up to a month later, as soon as I can! This is long enough on its own! Haha)

[philcreateddan]

Because you and I shine

title: Because you and I shine

words: 2k

warnings: none

Dan is fond and in love and it’s embarrassing to look at.

They adore Phil. Their audience. Their shared audience. Dan has seen the comments, has read the tags and while a huge part find him attractive, they love Phil as a whole, as a complex entity reaching the point of perfection on their eyes. Dan doesn’t blame them really.

He doesn’t focus on the other spectrum of his audience, the one that won’t follow amazinphil’s channel considering it too immature or cringy or any other adjective and reasons they might have. He doesn’t blame them neither really, but doesn’t focus on them more than to find more objective opinions on his own content that, more than often, leaves him in despair.

He definitely doesn’t focus on the miniscule part, that still exists recoiled there, that actually dislike Phil. That every once in a while will get attention with a “Dan could get someone so much better” because not only they get suffocated under testaments of Phil’s own attractiveness by the rest of the defensive audience like loyal soldiers charging to battle, but also, Dan believes, getting into useless arguments with them would be wasted time.

He has noted them nevertheless and finds it intriguing. Almost amusing as long as it doesn’t get on Phil’s feelings, which never happens, but if ever Dan would go as passive aggressive as he could on his liveshow.

No, Dan finds it intriguing because it evokes an inner reflection on his own feelings.

Dan knows he doesn’t look like a walrus, unless he tries to. He knows his face is attractive enough, that his smile and dimples and even that red spot on his cheek are, as a whole, part of his good looks. He knows it. He used to take advantage of it at his teens, maybe even shelter behind it to conceal darker aspects of his personality. He simply doesn’t care anymore at his twenties.

He knows that if things had gone a different way, his looks more than most would have been enough to spot him on a good, decent life on the media or theater or even youtube as a solo career. He also knows that, with effort, it could gain him anyone his awkwardness wouldn’t scare away.

He knows that just as much as he knows Phil looks ravishingly good right now, stepping out of the shower dripping wet. Behind fog because the man almost cooks himself with hot water and then complains when the bill comes.

He catches Dan staring at him from the doorframe, half closing his eyes with difficult to see.

“Creep.”

Dan keeps on staring and smiles as Phil takes one towel and puts it around his waist. He could just stare, he has before. Instead Dan takes another clean towel and approaches Phil.

“Let me.”  He asks. Phil shrugs and nods but his mouth is suppressing a smile.

Intriguing indeed, because if he were to be asked (and he has been asked in the past) what attracted him first of Phil, he wouldn’t have any idea on what to say. What physical part of Phil he finds irreplaceable or what makes Phil, for him, the best he could get.

Mentally, of course, emotionally, deeply, their souls merged from the very beginning. They share bonds and chemistry hard to replace. Phil Lester’s mind and heart are unique and Dan is certain a lifetime of flirting would never get him someone as compatible for him.

Phil’s mind is a unique universe he has grown used to but never ceases to impress him. Dan loves being impressed.

But physically.

Physically is hard because early memories of finding Phil hot are merged with confusion and novelty and excuses from his youth. Being charmed by personalities was something young Dan was okay with but being charmed by a boy’s anatomy was a whole different thing.

It meant unlocking a door inside of him, created by social standards and talks with his school pals and even his own relationship back then. It meant finding inside of that door the palpitating desire for broad shoulders and stubbles and a palpitating pulsing weight in his mouth. And that, as a teen on a rather small town, was terrifyingly new.

But now Dan believes himself able to write thesis on Phil Lester’s body and how it’s imperfections and perfections are enough to have Dan smitten with adoration.

He dries Phil out as good and fast as he can as cold air enters through the open door. Dan feels Phil shivering a little from it now that the fog dissipates. Looks down to find an elusive drop right next to his nipple and catches it with his tongue. Maybe lingers his mouth there for a moment tasting the clean skin before tugging the towel on his waist till it loses itself and falls on the damp floor. Phil is looking at him with rose cheeks. His hair pushed back dripping on his back.

“Come to bed.” Dan requests. Phil opens his mouth, probably to complain about the coldness and wet bed sheets as expected so before he gets to do that Dan says “I have the heater on.” After a moment of hesitation Phil follows.

Dan remembers how it felt, to let go of those insecurities in private, to explore things online just to prove himself only to find out his attractions were not one way. He remembers how different it felt with Phil and how fearful Phil had been after. How Phil told him sometime after that, when they shared an apartment, that he had feared Dan had only used him to satisfy his curiosity. Dan didn’t laugh back then.

His previous partner and friends from college probably believed the same Phil did. That it was going to be a phase, that Dan wanted to learn because Phil was older and important and therefore he would feel important.

Dan believes people probably still believe that, in a way, he had faked appeal for Phil to climb faster. Easier.

He laughs at that now. With Phil on their bed, naked and beautiful and his.

Dan lies next to him, traces figures on his arm with his fingers. Phil’s skin is soft, the man likes to moisturize and sometimes smells too strongly of a random fruit after a shower. It is not a flawless skin, it has its imperfections and dots and sometimes different shades when Phil forgets to use sunscreen on his arms when he goes outside.

There are freckles and bumps and bruises and Dan has memorized each and every single one of them.

Dan kisses his chest. Open mouthed kisses, slightly sucking on skin. He isn’t going for full arousal (yet) so he lays short kisses on his nipples. Fully erect already from the change in temperature and, Dan delights himself to know, the proximity of his mouth.

There is chest hair, not much, not full on Gaston type, but that still has been enough to fell when pressed against his own chest or back. It had been one of the first things Dan had found terribly arousing and to this day makes him excited to touch and rest his head and even cum on just for the sake of watching his come dirtying and marking Phil.

He presses his fingers lightly on Phil’s adam apple, feels Phil swallowing. Their eyes meet for a moment and he can see Phil is curious but passive. He lets Dan get his way so often it doesn’t surprise him anymore.

Dan understand them really. The fans that adore Phil to the point of absurdity. His own audience usually mocks him and share an affection that involves good hearted bullying because of their sense of humor. Dan is mostly proud of them but never fully takes seriously their commentaries on his good looks.

Phil’s however.

Dan looks at Phil’s face and it is asymmetrical, his nose has a little bump on top of it, the edges are sharp and Dan finds it fascinating how everything together creates, without trying to be too corny, a masterpiece. It is a face he can’t not look at. A face that exerts a pull on him impossible to be bypassed by anyone else’s. Dan understand the fans that have been enticed by that face as well.

He doesn’t feel bad for his privilege of having it for himself to kiss and touch and taste. Which he does, because the aftershave smells good or because the stubble is a novelty or because Phil makes a stupid face that looks way too creepy. Or simply because all this years of solid commitment has settled a certain fondness in his veins for his man.

Phil pucks his lips comically and Dan laughs as he pushes himself up to kiss this dork of a man that’s all his. Takes Phil’s lower lip between his own and pulls until Phil groans. Dan laughs again, kisses him sweetly as an apology. Small pecks and when Phil lifts his head yearning for more, an overwhelming affection that has Dan having urges he usually repeals. Urges like repeating I love you over and over and over again, or order the ring he has already seen millions of times and that would fit Phil’s hand perfectly, or even taking a picture and sharing to the world just how much he adores this man and even more childish urges like rub it in their fan-base that yes, this man is his and no one else’s so suck it, ha!.

He restrains himself. Kisses every inch of Phil’s face instead until he is giggling under him complaining over how his face is going to end up covered in Dan’s saliva. (To which Dan starts licking too until Phil shrieks and pushes him away.)

“Making me sleep naked today?”

“As if you never do that.” Dan says, one hand on the other’s stomach. Tiny hair, soft, not firm. A bit bulged.

“Let me rephrase; making me the only one sleeping naked tonight?”

“Of course. You are the indecent one here.” Dan follows the trail of hair to Phil’s cock. Not entirely soft, barely hardening out of curiosity from his previous touching.

“You like me indecent.” Phil smiles, attempts to wink and fails so miserably Dan pretends it didn’t happen.

Dan shrugs and rests his head on his chest. Leaves his hand stroking Phil’s thigh and pelvis and everything in between. “It’s not a bad look on you.”

“Let’s get under the covers at least. Runny nose is a bad look on me.”

Dan would beg to differ. Red nosed, needy Phil is still one he loves. Won’t say it though. “Ugh. Disgusting.”

They get under the covers, Dan taking off most of his clothes too and when he reaches the bed again Phil already has his glasses on. I-phone on his hand. Doesn’t even look up and Dan knows he won’t because of that new game he is obsessed with recently.

You can have better.

Dan laughs at those kind of commentaries.

Better where? He wants to ask. Better than what he has next to him on bed? Better than peaking on whatever game Phil is playing and touching the screen to make him lose? Better than Phil growling at him and Dan repeating the action just to be needy and a pain in the ass? Better than Phil reaching over, finally tired of losing unfairly so many times, to bite his nose making him shriek and laugh?

Better than Phil Lester? impossible, Dan thinks. Completely, utterly impossible.  Because they shine together and it’s a light that can’t be tamed. A light that undresses them and asks them what they know about love. And the answer, Dan knows they both know, is this, all of this.

[lisatelramor]

To Immortalize in Full

...and gain something new along the way

You know how I kept saying I was going to make one of those kiss prompts actually shippy? This is the shippy one. Shhhh. I know. 

That said, I've crossed over Yu-Gi-Oh! and Hikago, and now Yu-Gi-Oh! and DNAngel. All that's left is squishing all three together some day into some sort of unholy angsfest of moving on from your now-absent mind-spirit-buddy. Person. Thing. This prompt was Yuugi-Daisuke: perplex. Noooot sure if it really came out to much perplexing so much as 'this person reminds me of me for some reason' for most of it, but hey, prompts are just there to light the spark.

The Mutou Yuugi that first stepped foot in Domino High never planned to go to college. He’d hoped to survive school without too much bullying, make friends besides Anzu, and eventually take over Grandpa’s shop where he could be surrounded by the latest games of all types to his heart’s content. But the Mutou Yuugi who entered high school was not the Mutou Yuugi that left it, and several years with a spirit sharing his body and confronting an array of powerful, morally questionable people and an ancient Egyptian evil kind of put him at a different mental state than when he’d entered high school. The world was a lot bigger than his little game shop and there was a lot he would love to know more about. Plus he had friends now who were all making their own way in the world. Yuugi had had to decide what to make of himself.

So, contrary to where he thought he’d be, he’d decided to go on in schooling. Learning more about Atem’s country and times was helping fill the gap he’d left. And learning about game design was right up Yuugi’s alley. In fact, Kaiba had even made subtle, backhanded remarks that insinuated that he wouldn’t mind having Yuugi’s brain coming up with games for his company once Yuugi was out of school.

So there he was.  In college and in over his head whenever he had classes that didn’t immediately relate to his obsessions. Yuugi still couldn’t really believe he was there. He could have just gone into pro Dueling like Jonouchi had. But as much as he loved Duel Monsters and always would, Duel Monsters had been a little too painful to play for a long while after Atem had left. Back around again to why college had ended up in his future.

Yuugi sighed. Game design, he was finding, required just as much knowledge about art and computers as it did crafting unique gameplay elements and storylines. Neither of which were his forte. Painting a figure for a tabletop game did not transfer over into sketching a character. And that was why Yuugi was at that moment sitting in the art building and hoping he could catch a professor or someone from one of the lower level art classes to get some tips, or at least some book recommendations.  He didn’t think his professor would be very thrilled with Yuugi’s current doodle designs. They looked more like balloon figure caricatures than a serious design for the video game concept he was piecing together for his class final.

Somehow Yuugi hadn’t expected a whole art building to be so...quiet. Or empty. He’d passed six classrooms and what looked like the entrance to a dark room, but there hadn’t been a single person. Maybe they were in a computer lab? Or one of the reserve-able workrooms upstairs? Or maybe there just weren’t any art classes taking place at ten thirty in the morning.

Yuugi wandered up a staircase and down a hallway. Whoever built the art building had an interesting idea on how architecture worked. In that there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to where the halls and rooms were in relation to each other and different floors. It would be an easy place to get lost in.

At the end of that hallway before it took a sharp left, there was a room with the door ajar and the light on inside. Yuugi clutched his sketchbooks tighter; finally, there was someone else in the building after all.  

The room’s occupant was painting, headphones over his ears with spiky red hair jutting out around them. There was a large canvas propped on an easel in front of him and a few more finished works scattered around the room. The current painting was still in a sketchy framework phase, rough shapes and colors blocking out segments of the canvas. In the paintings around the room, there were clear interconnected color schemes of purple and black and blue and red, with the occasional jarring yellow. The second thing Yuugi noticed was that every painting had wings—feathers, winged figures, or just silhouettes worked into an abstract design. Looking at them felt a bit like intruding for some reason. Yuugi tore his eyes away.

“Excuse me!” he said, raising his voice a little to try to get the painter’s attention. He edged further into the room. “Hello?” The painter set down a brush, turned to grab a tube of paint. “Hi,” Yuugi said with a wave. The painter jolted as he caught Yuugi from the corner of his eye, accidentally sending a paintbrush spinning across the room. It left a streak along an already stained floor.

The artist clutched at his chest with one hand, the other lifting one headphone away from his ear. “How long have you been there?!”

“Um. Just now actually,” Yuugi said.

“Oh.” The headphones slid off completely. The artist rubbed a hand against his face leaving a small streak of indigo just under his left eye. “Hi? Did you need something?”

Yuugi opened his mouth, then closed it, painfully aware that he’d just interrupted a private painting session for completely selfish reasons. Still, this was the only person he’d found so far... “You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a professor around? Or if there’s anyone who tutors for drawing?”

“It’s kind of quiet today, isn’t it?” The painter glanced at his mixed paint and the canvas before shrugging and wandering closer. “The professors are all out today because there’s an art exhibit opening up in town with some work from an alumni featured in it. A lot of people have class assignments related to it too.” Yuugi vaguely remembered something being mentioned about an art exhibit. He’d been a bit too caught up with thinking up puzzle mechanisms for the game he was designing to pay attention that day. “As for tutoring,” the painter said, “I don’t think there’s anything formal like that here. You can always ask a professor or a classmate for pointers though.”

“Ah.” Yuugi deflated a bit. “I don’t know much about art,” he said. “I’m a game design major, not an art major.”

“Okay.” The painter nodded. “You know what, I’ve got a bit of time. How about you show me what level you are at and we can go from there?”

Yuugi glanced at the unfinished painting. “That’s okay! I can come back another day to talk to a professor!”

The painter smiled, and he looked too young to be in college the way it softened his face—not that Yuugi was one to judge; people thought he was still a middle school student on a regular basis. “I’m not working on an assignment. This is just for...for fun. I have time.”

“Thank you then.” With some lingering hesitation, he handed over his sketchbook. “I’m Yuugi, by the way.”

“Daisuke,” the painter replied, already flipping through the couple of pages Yuugi had filled with sketches. His eyes lingered on the little things Yuugi had drawn in the corners; duel monsters and doodles of his friends. On one page he’d written out hieroglyphics that Atem had recognized at some point or another and Yuugi’d sought out again in the immediate aftermath of his passing on. It was uncomfortably soul baring to have someone seeing some of the things in there.

“I’m not much of an artist,” Yuugi said while Daisuke looked at a doodle of Jonouchi with a hoard of Duel Monsters cards.

“Actually,” Daisuke said, not looking up from the page, “this isn't so bad. You have your own style developing here.”

“Yeah, but it's all just doodles. And they all look the same.” He hadn’t noticed until he was looking at examples of character design in his class, but all Yuugi’s doodle people had the same ‘U’ shape head and proportional chibi bodies with hair to distinguish them from each other.

Daisuke looked up with a hint of a smile curling at his lips. “I was worried it was going to be stick figures or something from how nervous you looked. You just need to practice more and play around with shapes.”

Play with shapes. Practice was a given, but Yuugi wasn’t sure how to really go about the actual playing around bit. “...anything you can recommend? Books or...?” Examples would be great.

Looking thoughtful, Daisuke nodded slowly. “Actually, yeah. Here....” He pulled a pen from seemingly nowhere, turning to a blank page in Yuugi’s sketchbook and jotting down a list. “These are some useful titles for character design, and these are helpful for things like anatomy. Even cartoon styles can benefit from that. You need to know what you're doing before you exaggerate it anyway...”

Yuugi’s eyes went wide as Daisuke kept adding to it. “So much...”

The pen paused, finishing a character with a slow slide of the nib. “Ah, this isn't all that helpful is it? You were probably looking for more of a hands on approach...”

“No, it helps!” Yuugi shook his head. When Daisuke held out the sketchbook, Yuugi took it from him. He ran a finger along the list, plenty of books to get examples from, much as he felt intimidated by the amount of things he didn’t know that they could provide. “I’m a little overwhelmed with everything. Somehow I just wasn't expecting to need to draw for game design....”

“Well... when you think about it, in most game design it's a team effort, so you'd have people who focus on character design and people doing coding and someone else working on story and dialogue.... So you don't have to be great at it, but it doesn't hurt to know how to do it either.”

“Huh. Good point. I'm more used to coming up with plots and puzzles.”

Daisuke grinned. “I have a friend who is in the design course too and he's the exact opposite. He's great at the art end but is having trouble with the whole game aspect.”

Yuugi couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to go into games if they didn’t know much about them. “Well what kind of games does he like?”

“I don't think he ever really played games until a year ago. I'm not sure even he knows what he likes. Having fun is hard for him.”

“Why on earth is he in game design then?” Yuugi asked, but then he thought of Kaiba who made games but only seemed to enjoy them if he was winning. There were reasons to do everything he supposed.

Daisuke smiled ruefully. “It's about as far from what he was doing before as he's comfortable going. He had a degree in criminal law before. And art history too I suppose.”

“Huh.” Whoever this friend was must lead an interesting life.

“Yup.” Daisuke shrugged before nodding at the sketchbook. “Here, try sketching some random shapes and once you've done that, make faces from them. That will help get some diversity. Try to figure out what the rest of them might look like and go from there.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Daisuke turned back to his painting and after a moment, Yuugi sat a ways away and started sketching. They worked in silence, just the soft sounds of pencils and Daisuke’s paintbrush filling the space. It was surprisingly both relaxing and focusing to have someone working nearby; it was a motivator to keep working.

Yuugi couldn’t say how much time passed, but after a whole he had two pages full of sketches. They were still pretty simple, but trying to use different random shapes had helped.

Daisuke, noticing the pause, glanced over. “See? You’re getting the hang of it.”

Yuugi rubbed the back of his head. “Thanks. Sorry again for bothering you.”

“It's not a bother.” Daisuke grinned. There was another bit of paint next to his nose, purple like one of the figures slowly taking shape on the canvas. “I needed a break anyway. If you need any help later, I'm usually in this room...”

“I’ll keep that in mind!” Yuugi had other classes to get to now, and books to find from the campus library, but it was reassuring to know that he had someone willing to help. He waved to Daisuke and left the artist to his winged paintings.

*

Daisuke hadn’t been joking about being in the room a lot. Every time Yuugi had sought him out over the next few weeks to ask about techniques or opinions on how Yuugi’s designs were coming, he was always in the art room. The painting was almost done now, filling in from its rough figures to be something that reminded Yuugi of a yin yang, but with winged people instead of black and white images. It was a color-clashing purple and yellow piece, but there were other colors subtly worked in so that it balanced out somehow. Yuugi was sure Daisuke could have explained the color theory he was working into it, but Daisuke didn’t seem to like talking about his paintings. The one time Yuugi brought them up, he’d found the conversation deflected around to the sketches of Duel Monsters he had left in the margins of his notes. So Yuugi hadn’t asked again, even if he was curious about how if he stepped back and viewed it from a distance it almost looked like two more people overlaid the angels on the canvas.

Yuugi was content to let Daisuke keep his secrets. He was just glad to have a new friend and help on his project. Daisuke was easy to get along with and easy to work next to; Yuugi found himself visiting Daisuke’s painting room a lot more than he planned just for the atmosphere and quiet company.

It was sometime during the third week of this that Yuugi walked in to find someone else sharing Daisuke’s work space. The stranger had a notebook in his lap, bent over it with Daisuke’s head bent alongside his as the stranger wrote in the margins. They both looked up when Yuugi walked through the door. Daisuke smiled and welcomed him. The stranger lifted one eyebrow before staring at Yuugi like he was a museum exhibit. Yuugi paused in the doorway.

“Hey!” Daisuke said, sitting up and giving a wave. None of his painting things were out for once. The painting he had been working on had been set aside, perhaps finally complete. “Yuugi, this is Satoshi, the friend I told you about that was in game design like you. Satoshi, this is Yuugi.”

“The person you’ve been teaching to draw,” Satoshi said. He had a flat tone of voice that at first reminded Yuugi a bit of Kaiba, but there wasn’t any of Kaiba’s defensive hostility in Satoshi’s voice or body language. He looked curious if anything.

“Giving tips,” Daisuke corrected. “He already has a style.”

“Teaching,” Satoshi said. “Teaching art is giving tips and things to practice and watching students improve through their own efforts.”

Daisuke rolled his eyes good naturedly. “Satoshi’s been working on a game of his own, but he’s having a little trouble with character dialog. Think you could help?”

“I can try?” Yuugi said. But this was something that he was good at. Tabletop RPGs and text games had given him a lot of practice in this sort of thing. As he walked over, he thought he heard Satoshi whisper to Daisuke, “You always run into interesting people.”

Yuugi chose to ignore that and whatever connotations were behind it. He could give Satoshi the benefit of the doubt. And it was fun to help someone else with characters and plot for a bit instead of prodding at his ever changing character designs.

And that, Yuugi thought, was how he made friends with Satoshi and cemented himself in Daisuke’s friend group without realizing it.

*

Yuugi held up his latest sketches to his laptop camera. “What do you think?”

“Looks good!” Anzu said, smiling. Her hair was long enough to tie back right now, a bit flyaway at the moment since she had just got back from her morning run. Behind her Yuugi could see the early morning sunlight streaming through her apartment window. Here in Japan it was already well into its decent. Yuugi felt a little wistful of the past where they didn’t have to work around twelve hour time difference. “You’ve got a lot of details now. They remind me a little bit of us actually. All of our friends.”

“That’s what I’m basing it off of a bit,” Yuugi admitted. “The characters aren’t too close to us, but...” He couldn’t deny that he’d drawn on his friends for inspiration. “I wanted to write something similar to what we went through. Not so close that anyone who looks at it can figure it out, but for those of us who knew Atem...”

“Yuugi...” She looked at him with the same expression she’d had when they gave up trying to date, a bit sad, a bit worried, but mostly supportive friendship.

“I’m making something he’d like,” Yuugi said. He smiled because focusing on the good things pushed back the times he felt sad. “But enough about my game, how did your audition go?”

Anzu gave him a look that said she knew exactly what he was doing by changing the topic, but she launched into an explanation on how she’d managed to get a minor stage role as a backup dancer and how there was another audition coming up in a few weeks and that show was compatible with this one so she was going to try out for that. It sounded busy and stressful, but Yuugi couldn’t help smiling genuinely at the pride and determination in Anzu’s tone as she spoke. She was following her dreams and that made him happy.

“I saw Jonouchi and Mai when they were in town for a bit,” Anzu said toward the end of the conversation. “Did he send you the picture we took?”

“The one with the port in the background?” Yuugi nodded. Jonouchi and Mai were both pro Duelers now, and that lifestyle took them all around the world. It could be fun to see where he was at any given time.

“Yeah! They were heading out to semifinals of a tournament—not hosted by Kaiba this time, can’t remember who. He’ll probably call sometime soon.”

“I look forward to it.” Yuugi missed Jonouchi but he was glad all of his friends were finding what they loved in the world.

“Good luck with your game, Yuugi,” Anzu said waving at the camera.

“Have fun dancing,” he said back.

Like always, it was a bittersweet feeling to end the call.

*

Daisuke had started a new painting. This one wasn’t purple or yellow, but it did already show signs of wings. Yuugi sat off to the side and worked on making tiny pixel sprites for his character designs. While he wasn’t expected to actually make a functioning game yet, he couldn’t help starting it in his spare time. Making a plan and design and building it up in concept was enough to make him want to make it real. Today Daisuke wasn’t painting, though, but sketching, off in a separate corner. The soft scratch of pencil lead along paper was almost meditative alongside the sound of Yuugi’s tablet.

Yuugi was so caught up in making a tiny coat for a tiny pixel character based off Kaiba that he almost didn’t notice that the sounds of Daisuke’s pencil had stopped. He glanced up and found Daisuke looking at his character sketches again. “Hm?” he hummed in question.

Daisuke twitched, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t rather than just looking at sketches he’d seen dozens of times. “You know, I don’t think you even said what your game was about?” he said. “You’ve talked about the characters and what they’re like, but...”

Yuugi set aside his laptop and tablet. “It’s a puzzle game,” Yuugi said, picking up his sketches. He pointed out characters as they become relevant. “The main character is a high school student that solves an ancient puzzle and ends up sharing a body with a millennia old spirit.” Beside him, Daisuke blinked rapidly, but leaned in to look at the drawings with new interest. “There’s the protagonist, and then there’s the protagonist when he’s possessed,” Yuugi said, pointing to the slightly different designs. Showing the shift in pixel avatar has been harder than drawing the design had been. The character didn’t resemble Yuugi or Atem much, but Yuugi knew what he represented and that was enough. “Whenever the main character is possessed, his abilities to solve puzzles goes up because the ghost was obsessed with solving them before he died. The protagonist doesn’t realize he’s being possessed at first, but as the story goes on and you solve more puzzles, other characters create challenges. If you can complete the challenges right, you can make friends, and making friends opens more opportunities.” Like making friends had given Yuugi more from life. He smoothed a finger along the possessed version of his character.

“That sounds pretty cool,” Daisuke said slowly. “Does the protagonist ever realize he’s being possessed?”

“Yeah.” Yuugi smiled. “As you go on, you unlock bits about who the spirit is and at some point you become able to talk to him. He can become another friend, and you can unlock even harder puzzles where you have to work together to solve them. The end goal is actually to solve the puzzle of the spirit.”

“And if you solve it?”

“Then you have to decide whether to keep the spirit or to let him pass on to the afterlife.” Yuugi’s heart hurt thinking about it. It was a risk putting so much of himself into this, but it felt right to do it. If he made it, it would be just the sort of tribute to Atem’s memory that he’d appreciate.

“Oh.”

There was something sad in Daisuke’s voice and Yuugi glanced up. He’d never heard Daisuke sound sad before.

“That sounds like it would be a hard decision,” Daisuke said finally. “Because you made friends with him.”

“Yeah.” The echo of heartbreak he’d felt in that moment of decision was still there. To be selfish or to do the right thing? To feel whole or to let his other half rest at last?

Daisuke touched the sketch of the protagonist, something similar to Yuugi’s heartbreak in his eyes. Almost like he also knew what it felt like to make that kind of a decision. “What would you choose?” he asked. “If you were playing through the game?”

“I’d choose what I thought would make the spirit happiest,” Yuugi said immediately. “The protagonist has all the friends he’s made over the course of the game to fall back on, but the spirit was stuck in the puzzle alone for a long time, and could be stuck for who knows how long after the protagonist dies. If it was the only chance to let him move on and be at peace, I’d choose that than the possibility of condemning him to being alone and forgotten again.”

There was the sort of silence that comes after a confession, too close and personal, with all the blatant emotions out in the open. Yuugi didn’t take his words back though even though he felt like it could reveal too much. Daisuke swallowed thickly. “I can tell you’ve thought a lot about the choices,” he said finally.

“Yes,” Yuugi said. Because the choice had once haunted him like a second ghost until he’d come to peace with it.

“I don’t know if I could be that selfless in making the choice,” Daisuke admitted. “If I was the protagonist and cared about the spirit, I don’t think I’d want to let go.”

Yuugi’s smile was wry, barely the upward twist of his lips at the edges. “That’s how hard choices and love work; you might not choose what you want but you’ll do what will make everyone happiest in the long run.”

With one last touch to the sketch, Daisuke pulled back. “Sounds like you’re talking from experience.”

Yuugi shrugged. He closed the sketch book, suddenly not wanting to look at it. Or maybe not wanting Daisuke to look at it; Daisuke looked unsettled, like talking about the game had brought up things he didn’t want to think about. “That’s my game more or less though. I’m working on the puzzles already. I like that sort of thing, so it’s fun to come up with.”

“It sounds like it will be a cool game.” Daisuke gave him a quick, there and gone smile, moving back toward his work space. “If you ever do make it, I think I’d like to play it.”

The idea of someone playing a game Yuugi made, playing a game and enjoying it, made him feel warm inside. Like a little part of him would reach out to each and every person who played it, giving them a connection whether they knew it or not. And a little part of Atem that went into this game would live with them too. He wondered if that was part of what Kaiba liked about creating games; it was forging a connection without the difficulty of actually socializing.

“Thanks,” Yuugi said. He wrapped that warm feeling up inside to bring out whenever he got frustrated about the project. Then, curious, he asked, “What would you choose? Would you befriend the spirit knowing you had to choose?”

“I wonder,” Daisuke said, introspective. “I might be one of those people that never finishes the game, not wanting to make that choice at all.”

Fair enough. Yuugi couldn’t fault that he supposed. It would be a pity to leave anything unfinished though. He always has preferred to see things through to their ends.

*

They were in the usual room, Daisuke starting a new painting again, this one smaller and like none of the other paintings in the room. A scenic painting, Yuugi thought, instead of abstract or angelic portraits. Satoshi was there today as he sometimes was, poking away at his game concept. It was not the sort of game Yuugi would be attracted to playing, full of dark and introspective themes with a main character that is slowly losing trust in his own mind and judgment. Whatever it means to Satoshi though, he looks like each bit of progress is cathartic so Yuugi had the idea that it meant about as much to his as the game Yuugi was working on meant.

The door was propped open to let airflow in and Yuugi had music playing in the background as he ignored homework in favor of building up his game world pixel by pixel. He had far far more respect for Kaiba’s skills now than he ever thought he’d have. Granted, Kaiba had a team that probably did the tedious stuff like making textures for terrain and background images.

He had just about finished up the layout of the school when he heard a familiar voice.

“Yuugi!”

Yuugi’s head whipped up, seeing his best friend standing just outside the doorway. He couldn’t put his laptop down fast enough. “Jonouchi!” Yuugi tackled his friend. Jonouchi whirled him around in a hug, grinning from ear to ear. “What are you doing here?” Yuugi asked when the room stopped spinning. “I thought you were in the middle of a tournament?”

Jonouchi laughed. “I got a place in the finals so I have a bit of time off before the semifinals finish up! Figured I'd visit my best bud and see how college life was going. Your campus is a hell of a maze by the way.”

“You should have called!” Yuugi said, pulling back. His face hurt from grinning. It had been months since he last saw Jonouchi in person.

“That'd ruin the surprise,” Jonouchi said. He set Yuugi down. While Yuugi wasn’t nearly as short as he’d been in high school, he would always be much shorter than his best friend. Jonouchi got twice the growth spurt Yuugi had gotten.

“A friend of yours?” Daisuke asked, and Yuugi realized they had an audience.

“Ahaha, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head, finally noticing that both Daisuke and Satoshi were staring intently. “This is my best friend, Jonouchi Katsuya. Jonouchi, this is Niwa Daisuke and Hiwatari Satoshi.”

“The guy who’s helping you with your drawing, right?” Jonouchi said, remembering their Skype conversations. “Nice ta meetcha. Hope you don’t mind me barging in.”

“It’s fine,” Daisuke said, since it was his study room after all. “We could probably use a study break.”

Jonouchi grinned before turning back to Yuugi. “So, being around all these books and drawing, how’s your Dueling? Getting rusty yet?”

Yuugi narrowed his eyes at the challenge. “Rusty? Never. How about I show you, Mr. Tournament Finalist?” He reached for his bag. Even now he had the habit of carrying his Duel Monster cards with him. “I challenge you to a Duel.”

“Duel?” Satoshi asked sharply.

“Duel Monsters,” Jonouchi said holding up his deck of cards. He snorted at Satoshi’s blank look. “What, did you think I was gonna whip out a knife? I don’t look like that much of a delinquent these days.”

“Nope, just scruffy as always,” Yuugi said. He cleared a space on the desk before shuffling his deck, intent on his friend and opponent. “Duel Monsters is a strategy based card game,” Yuugi explained to the others. “With a certain amount of luck too.”

Jonouchi snorted. “Luck, fate, whatever you wanna call it.” He exchanged a glance with Yuugi.

“Heart of the cards,” they said at the same time.

“Anyway,” Yuugi said, “Jonouchi plays it professionally. I used to enter tournaments but I haven’t played much in a while.”

“Yet you still hold the title for King of Games,” Jonouchi said.

Yuugi shrugged. It was a title he didn’t feel like he’d earned. After all, Atem had done most of the Dueling to get it. “Anyone’s free to seek me out and win it properly.”

“If they can beat you.”

Yuugi shrugged again. They set up their station and drew their hands. It had been a while since he last Dueled, longer still since he Dueled without Kaiba’s technology bringing it all to life. It felt a little bit like high school, playing games at lunch. The cards were warm and familiar in his hands, feeling almost alive as they sometimes did. Yuugi wasn’t calling on anything, didn’t have Atem’s power over the shadows, but the cards still had presences even if he wasn’t using them that way.

“Huh,” Satoshi said, looking at the cards in their hands like they were something particularly strange and intriguing.

“Two thousand life points?” Yuugi asked.

“Standard Duel’s four thousand,” Jonouchi said.

“Yeah, but it feels more like high school if we play it that way.”

“Works for me.”

It was funny how normal it felt to play a Duel against Jonouchi—or maybe it wasn’t strange at all considering how big a part in his life Dueling once held, but he hadn’t Dueled anyone since the last time everyone was able to meet up together, and that was almost half a year ago. Everything still felt right though. His cards rose to the challenge like they always did, chipping Jonouchi’s life points down bit by bit. Even having an audience was familiar. Daisuke and Satoshi weren’t Anzu or Honda, but the balance felt right.

Yuugi called on his Kuriboh to end the Duel, just like old times.

Jonouchi made a face as the last of his life points drained away thanks to one of the weakest cards in the game. “One more turn and I’d’ve had you with my dragon. You’re still as good at this as ever, Yuug. No wonder Kaiba’s always trying to drag you into Duels.”

Yuugi snickered. “Kaiba just wants to beat me once and for all. Or make me test all his Duel tech.” If Yuugi ever took him up on that job offer, he had a feeling he’d end up doing more Dueling and product testing against Kaiba’s over competitive ego than actual game design.

“Wait,” Satoshi said from the sidelines. He had followed the game with interest, though it had looked like he was analyzing what game attributes made it enjoyable rather than enjoying watching the game itself. “Kaiba as in Kaiba Seto, billionaire game maker Kaiba?”

“Yeah?” Yuugi said.

Jonouchi sat back in his chair and laughed at Satoshi’s consternation. “Yuugi won the title King of Games years ago. He’s still the reigning champion Duel Monsters player and Kaiba hates it because Yuugi won’t enter tournaments anymore so no one can win the title from him.”

“They should just accept some other tournament winner as the best player winner,” Yuugi muttered. “Kaiba’s won most of the ones since I left the Duel scene.”

“Yeah, but Kaiba’s never satisfied til he can beat you.” Jonouchi turned back to their audience. “Moneybags was a classmate of ours in high school. Real ass, but he’s gotten better now that he’s stopped pulling shit that can get people killed. Still dramatic as heck though. Betcha he’ll come into the arena for the final on a jet pack or something with the Kaiba Corp logo all huge on the back. Or have it shaped like the Blue Eyes.”

“He’s a friend,” Yuugi clarified. Jonouchi always made Kaiba sound like an enemy when he hadn’t been anything like an enemy in a long time. “He wants me to join his company after school, but if I did that I’d have to Duel him because he’d hold my paycheck.”

Jonouchi snorted. “Sounds like the sorta manipulative thing he’d do.”

Yuugi hummed. “I wouldn’t mind Dueling him sometime though. I just don’t want to Duel at his command.”

“Fair enough. Beat him once and he either won’t leave ya alone til you have a rematch or he pretends it never happened.”

“...This is the CEO of the largest gaming empire in Japan?” Satoshi asked, skeptical.

“In the world,” Jonouchi corrected.

“Charming.”

“Eh, he grows on you.” Jonouchi grinned, lopsided. “Kinda like some sort of fungus.”

Yuugi rolled his eyes. “Kaiba is Kaiba. He’s there when it matters and tries. He actually has a pretty good sense of humor.”

“Yeah, at my expense.”

Yuugi patted Jonouchi consolingly. Kaiba and Jonouchi would never really get along, and that was okay. Besides, he figured that by now their back and forth taunts were just the only way they knew how to interact. The words didn’t really hit anymore. Yuugi was pretty sure that Kaiba even found it fun. Not many people insulted him to his face anymore. Jonouchi was a bit too straightforward to notice that though.

“I suppose he is still a good connection to have if you’re going into this field,” Satoshi said in what was clearly meant to be a diplomatic tone. It still came across a bit skeptical.

“He is.” Yuugi grinned. “Though I kind of want to set up my own indie gaming thing out of Grandpa’s shop and see how he reacts.”

Daisuke shook his head. “Save that for when you can actually do everything yourself.”

“Or have a team.” For a brief moment, Yuugi pictured combining the strengths of his friends from high school into the project. They all had something they could have brought to the table—Anzu with music, Hiroto with coding, and Jonouchi with story development and puzzles. Even Bakura could have helped with the graphic side of things. But he dismissed it after that moment. This wasn’t high school anymore and they each had their own lives to work through.

“Or that,” Daisuke said.

They were all quiet for a moment, then Jonouchi held up his deck. “Anyone wanna learn how to Duel?”

And then Yuugi was digging out the extra cards he still couldn’t help carrying everywhere he went, and Daisuke and Satoshi were tentatively Dueling each other, Satoshi frequently looking at the cards like there was something he didn’t trust about them, but Dueling all the same.

It was nice.

Yuugi sat back and watched friends interact, new and old.

It was very nice.

*

Jonouchi only stayed a few days, but by the time he left he’d made friends with Yuugi’s friends, corrupted Yuugi’s sleep schedule with first a Duel, then a movie marathon, and told enough stories about the Dueling circuit that Yuugi wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved that he hadn’t gone into Dueling professionally. It sounded like a wild time.

Then he was off back to attend the finals. Yuugi promised to watch them. He intended to drag Daisuke into watching them with him too.

The quiet after he left was a bit like missing a limb. Yuugi found himself in the art building even more that week. Daisuke, in his comings and goings—though usually he was there before and after Yuugi arrived—didn’t comment on Yuugi’s extra time there. He just brought a few more snacks and had music playing to fill the silence when Yuugi didn’t feel like talking.

It was a nice reminder that new friends could fill the open spaces old ones left without really replacing them.

*

Lately Daisuke had been sketching. No paintings, no charcoal drawings or powdery pastels covering the worktable with colorful dust marks, just pencil and a sketchbook every time Yuugi was there. Yuugi leaned over one day to ask about any tips on drawing foreshortening and blinked at the lines on the page.

“Is that a sketch of me?”

Daisuke almost dropped the sketchbook. For a second, Yuugi thought he was going to slam the book shut. “Yes?”

It was Yuugi; spiky hair and dark clothing, a profile of him smiling to himself as he worked on his tablet. There were smaller more dynamic thumbnails in the corner—Yuugi walking, laughing, throwing down a card in Duel Monsters, dozing off on the worktable. In all of the sketches his distinctive hair shape stood out along with the outlines of his clothing. “So, was it the hair or the clothes that made me an interesting sketch subject?” he joked. Those were the two things that people always noticed first after all. Spiked, bright colored hair, chunky silver and gold jewelry, and a taste for leather and belts.

Daisuke surprised him by flipping back a few pages to show studies of Yuugi’s face—just his face. “Your eyes actually...” Daisuke mumbled. He flushed and Yuugi couldn’t help blushing a little too. The sketches of his face were...intimate for lack of a better word. His eyes were riveted on a sketch on the right, his penciled lips frozen in a melancholy smile and a far off look in the sketch’s eyes like he was looking at something only he could see. It had to be a moment he was thinking about Atem and he wasn’t sure what he felt about having that captured on paper.

“Oh,” was all he could say.

Daisuke flushed deeper. “If it bothers you, I can stop.”

Did it bother him? Maybe if it was someone he didn’t know, but Daisuke was a friend now. He could see Yuugi as he was in all his range of emotions. “No,” Yuugi said. “No, it’s fine.”

Daisuke’s shoulders relaxed, his hands no longer gripping the sketchbook so tightly. “Your eyes show what you’re feeling really clearly,” he said. “The other day I was watching you work and I couldn’t help...” He waved at the sketches. “I like how you look.”

Yuugi could count on one hand how many times people said they liked his appearance, and two of those times had been Anzu while they were dating. He opened his mouth to...to what? Compliment Daisuke back? Thank him? He shook his head. “I don’t mind you drawing me.”

“Ok. I’m glad.” Daisuke twirled the pencil in his hands like he needed to do something with his fingers. “I’m also glad you came here months ago. It’s nice to have someone else in here.”

“Considering you practically live here.”

“Yeah.”

Yuugi sat back, asking a question that had been bugging him for a while now. “You’re here pretty much whenever I’m here. And lately if I’m not at classes I’m here. Are you always here? Is this a free study or...?”

One shoulder lifted in a shrug as Daisuke couldn’t meet his eyes. “I only have one class right now. I kind of had to take a break. I’m only supposed to be here for my class project but it felt like the only place I could be for a while.”

“Oh.” Yuugi reached out. He didn’t think he was imagining Daisuke leaning into his touch, gravitating toward the hand on his shoulder. “Is everything ok?”

“It wasn’t, but I think it’s getting better.”

Yuugi waited to see if Daisuke would say more, but he didn’t. That was okay. There were some things that you couldn’t talk about with just anyone, and some things that just couldn’t be talked about at all.

“Painting helps,” Daisuke said. “Seeing friends helps too. You help.”

Yuugi squeezed his shoulder in support. “I hope I can keep helping.”

This time he was sure he wasn’t imagining Daisuke leaning into his touch. “Just keep coming around.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about me leaving anytime soon.”

*

“The cards aren’t normal,” Daisuke said one day as Yuugi was helping him form a deck of his own. He’d Duel him sometimes if Yuugi was really in the mood for Duel Monsters. Daisuke held up a Chimera card, spinning it between his fingers. “There’s something about them... They almost feel alive.”

“The game is based off of an ancient Egyptian game played with stone tablets with souls sealed inside,” Yuugi said. He drew a card, unsurprised to find the Dark Magician in his hand. “I know it sounds superstitious, but the cards have spirits still, the medium just changed.” Dark Magician was joined by the Dark Magician Girl, then Kuriboh. “If you call them, they can answer.” He waited for Daisuke to scoff or look skeptical. Instead, Daisuke was nodding slowly.

“I can see that. It explains the weird feeling they have... Is it the art itself that gives them souls? Can anybody make a card or is there something specific?”

Yuugi stared.

“What?” Daisuke shuffled through the cards, pulled out Harpy’s Brother and Shadow Spell. “Art has a spark of life. Sometimes more than that. Why not cards too?”

“Most people don’t believe it unless they’re Duelists,” Yuugi said, “and even the people who are and have lived through spirits manifesting still don’t always believe.” Kaiba didn’t for the longest time. He does now, though. His Blue Eyes are all the closer to him for it.

“I can feel them,” Daisuke said, tracing fingers along the image of the cards. “So can Satoshi. That’s why he keeps giving you weird looks by the way. He’s not sure what to make of it.”

“Huh.” Yuugi could feel his cards—specifically the ones in his deck, and sometimes a few others, but not all cards spoke to him, and he hadn’t been able to until after he’d had Atem and started Dueling. “If you can feel them, you could probably call them. Some of them are still connected to the Egyptian monsters, and some were created by Pegasus, the person who resurrected the game, but... So far as I can tell they’re all alive to some extent.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

Yuugi wanted to laugh, and not in a good way. The Egyptian God cards had definitely been dangerous. “It can be,” Yuugi said bluntly. “I’ve seen it kill people.” Daisuke stilled. “But I’ve also seen the cards save people, and these days you don’t see as much summoning.” Not since the millennium items were sealed away. “Even then, outside of the top circuit of Duelers it’s pretty unheard of seeing anything like this at all.”

Daisuke looked at the cards in his hands like he was seeing them all over again.  “And kids play with these?”

Yuugi stifled a laugh. “Like I said, not many people can actually use them that way.” He rested his chin on one hand. “I wonder what one would answer you?”

“I don’t think I want to find out,” Daisuke said.

“This one’s mine.” Yuugi held up Kuriboh. “And sort of this one too...” Dark Magician joined it. It was more Atem’s card, but it had answered Yuugi’s call before too. Kuriboh just liked Yuugi in general.

“A winged fur ball and a purple sorcerer,” Daisuke said. “Yeah, I can see how they fit.”

“Was that supposed to be an insult?”

“Maybe.”

“Hey!”

Daisuke laughed.

He did finish putting together a deck eventually. He didn’t look quite as relaxed around the cards after that though.

*

“It’s not going to work,” Satoshi said to Daisuke as he added details to yet another winged painting. This one was made up of subtle shadows and glints of light, all purple and blue and black. The lightest points were the glint of gold in the winged man’s hands and the white of his smirk in the dark. “I know it’s different for you, but no matter how much you paint him—”

“I know,” Daisuke said, sharp. “I know it isn’t going to bring him back, but I can’t help it. It’s like it’s keeping him here.”

“There’s no him, only them now.” Satoshi sighed. “Have you thought any more on going back to regular classes?”

“It feels like too much still.” Daisuke set his brush down. “Do you think if I paint him enough, people will remember?”

“Perhaps.” Satoshi was quiet a moment. “I thought things were getting better.”

“They are.” The clink of Daisuke’s brush being rinsed clean, picked back up to start again. “But better isn’t completely over it yet.”

Satoshi sighed again and said something under his breath.

Yuugi took that as a cue that today was really not the best day to be there after all. He slid away wondering who Daisuke had lost to spend all his time painting him.

*

“Congratulations on your win!” Yuugi chirped over the laggy Skype call.

Jonouchi grinned at him, thousands of miles away, but still as close a friend as ever. “Thanks! Mai’s kinda pissed that I beat her out in the second to last round, but she’ll get over it.”

“It was a good Duel,” Yuugi said, having watched it very late—or early depending on your perception of time—in Daisuke’s dorm room with his friend drowsing off next to him and waking on and off whenever Yuugi got particularly excited. The thought had been nice even if it hadn’t quite worked out how they’d planned. “What now?”

“Eh, Mai and I’ll be headed back to New York to catch up with Anzu. Stay for a while there til the next tournament sign up starts. Maybe we’ll get a chance to visit Japan again too, if the timing works out.” Jonouchi was still beaming. It made Yuugi feel warm and happy to see him happy, glad to see him confident in his skills and excelling in life. It had been the right choice for him to Duel professionally.

“Going to go on some dates?” Yuugi teased.

“Well, if Mai forgives me for Time Wizarding her Harpies again, yeah.” With a shrug, Jonouchi added, “Not gonna tell you the details though.”

Yuugi wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want to know about the details of that kind of date, Jonouchi. Mai and Anzu would kill you if you talked about it anyway.”

He laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Hey; what about you? Have any dates lined up?”

Yuugi made a noncommittal hum in the back of his throat. His legs kicked aimlessly against his bedframe. “Still not dating anyone, Jou.”

“But do you liiiike anyone,” Jonouchi teased. If he was in person, he’d be pulling Yuugi into a playful headlock by now.

Yuugi hummed again.

“Not even that Daisuke guy you keep talking about?”

Did he? He wasn’t sure whether he did or not. It had been a while since he felt those things, wasn’t sure if he could tell them apart from friendship right now. The two had always gone hand in hand. “I don’t know,” he said finally.

“Huh.” Jonouchi sounded thoughtful. His expression didn’t give anything away for once, whether he thought it was a good or bad or anything in between.

“What?”

“It’s the first time you haven’t said no when I ask that question,” Jonouchi said.

Yuugi felt a roiling mess of embarrassed and flustered because that, he realized, was true. He didn’t know if he liked Daisuke that way or not, but he wanted to spend time with him—did spend time with him almost as much as he could spare—and that meant something even if it might not be romantic. “I’ll tell you when I figure it out,” he mumbled.

Jonouchi laughed and wished him the best before launching into a story about Haga and Ryuuzaki, leaving the topic of romance behind.

It was Yuugi who couldn’t get the thought to stop lingering.

*

The semester was almost over now. Projects were done and it was just Yuugi with his laptop poking at his game again in Daisuke’s art study room. Daisuke wasn’t there for once, just his multitude of paintings. There was a tiny painting of Yuugi up there with all the other ones and he wasn’t sure what to make of that. His eyes glinting purple from a shadowed image. It could have been a threat or an invitation into a secret, and Yuugi kind of hoped it was the latter because it wasn’t a very good thought that his friend might find him threatening.

Yuugi got caught up in the minutia of coding and checking his plot and dialogue script with each advance. So caught up he didn’t even notice Daisuke’s arrival until he turned to get his character reference sheets and found Daisuke sitting in a chair back to front watching him, and looking like he’d been there for a while. Yuugi dropped the reference sheets.

Daisuke leaned forward to pick the few that had scattered up. “You’re really making progress on that aren’t you?”

“Some?” Yuugi said. “Not as much as I would like, but I’m only one person and there’s a lot to do for a game, even just a simple one.”

“It’s come along pretty well,” Daisuke said. He looked at the character sheets in his hand, at the Spirit’s sheet on top. “You’re not making something simple after all.” A double tap of his fingers against the chair back, a tic he had every once in a while, like his hands got restless but he tried not to fidget with them. “You’ve written the rest of the plot now, right?”

“Pretty much.” It had taken almost as long as putting together the sprite world had. It was harder than Yuugi had anticipated to create a game off his life even in a once or twice removed fashion. “I still have some dialogue to go but the main parts are all written.” It was the puzzles that were harder to make.

“Did you ever decide what would happen if the player chose to keep the spirit in the end?”

“If he keeps it?” Yuugi glanced down at his drawing. The spirit looked nothing like Atem, the only connection the eye of Horus worked into his design.  “The spirit stays with him, still locked in the puzzle.”

“And after the protagonist dies one day?” Daisuke pressed. “What would happen to it then? Would it pass along to another family member or...?”

Yuugi shook his head. Whatever had been between him and Atem, he couldn’t imagine it happening between anyone else. Not his grandfather, not his friends, and not even a hypothetical child in the future. “It’s a once in a millennium sort of thing,” Yuugi said. Fate, or more that they’d perhaps once been one soul before Atem had been lost. Egyptian mythology held that the soul had five parts after all. “The spirit would be stuck in the puzzle alone until by some chance someone else who was compatible was born, which could take a long, long time.” Yuugi smiled wryly. “I’m sure they would be happy for the lifetime they had together, but there’s the question of if that evens out against a possible eternity alone after.”

“Oh.”

“There’s also a point where the spirit could have taken over the protagonist’s body,” Yuugi said. “Instead he rescues the protagonist’s soul. So they’re both looking out for each other in the end.”

“Oh,” Daisuke said again. This time it was slightly choked. “With two souls that close, it makes sense.”

Yuugi hummed, agreeing. For him and Atem, it had made sense. Even for Ryou and Bakura it had a certain amount of sense, and that was with Bakura lashing out at all times and willing to sacrifice Ryou. In the end he hadn’t—maybe couldn’t—and it was all more complicated than Yuugi could understand. Daisuke looked like he understood, though. Understood in a way that only someone who had lived it could. “Why does it mean so much to you?” Yuugi asked finally. “I know what this means to me, but what does the story mean to you?”

Daisuke, instead of answering, looked at the paintings leaning against the walls. “It’s hard,” he said finally, “to choose what’s right when there isn’t a right answer that will make everyone happy.”

Yuugi didn’t press the topic. The faraway look in Daisuke’s eyes was something he was too familiar with. “We make the choice and keep going,” Yuugi said. “Because if they cared, they’d want us to try to be happy too, right?” He smiled, more a slight lift of the corner of his lips than a true smile. “We have people who care to fall back on and then we find other ways to cope. You paint. I make a game.” Daisuke looked back at Yuugi. They hovered over the edge of mutual understanding. This wasn’t something that needed to be explained to be understood. Pain and loss were universal as were happiness and friendship. “We’re doing pretty well with what we have, don’t you think?”

“Maybe,” Daisuke said. He sighed, then slumped abruptly, leaning against Yuugi’s shoulder. “How do you make it seem so easy to keep going?”

“It’s not.” Yuugi touched Daisuke’s hair, and maybe it was his imagination that Daisuke tilted himself into that touch. “But moving forward doesn’t mean the past never happened or that you can’t remember it or that you weren’t changed by it.” Atem changed everything in Yuugi’s life, from helping him make his first friend besides Anzu to opening up his world to so many more things than he thought it would ever hold. “I’d rather remember than forget, and if it’s hard, then it’s a good thing that there’s always someone who can help even if they might not be there yet.” Like meeting Daisuke and Satoshi had helped.

Daisuke breathed out a laugh. “Yeah. Thanks.” He moved away, back toward the side of the room that had become his as Yuugi had slowly taken over a part of his own. “When you finish that game someday, I’d like to play it,” he said. “With both ends.”

Yuugi nodded. In real life you couldn’t have both endings play out, but in a game? “When I get to the test phase, you’re one of the people I hope will play it.”

“I will,” Daisuke said with a quiet conviction more like an unbreakable vow than a casual promise. He started sorting through paint tubes and Yuugi pulled his character references to himself. He had a lot of work to go if he was going to meet that promise halfway.

*

The sun was bright and it was unseasonably warm for March, warm enough that they could sit outside with only a light jacket and enjoy the fresh air. Their convenience store bentou were empty beside them as they sprawled out in the grass and enjoyed the early spring sunlight.

Yuugi tilted his face toward the sun, eyes closed, a happy smile on his face. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I missed being outside so much. I didn’t even realize how much I was inside until it was winter and I missed the best of spring and summer glued to my computer.”

Daisuke, sprawled next to him, snickered. “You really do have to go out sometimes. I go out in the mornings to sketch. Believe me, your body will thank you for the sunlight.”

“Mm, no, I remember someone calling me a gremlin this winter, and gremlins don’t like sun.”

“You seem to like it right now.”

Yuugi aimed a half-hearted elbow jab in Daisuke’s direction. It missed and all he got was another laugh and a tickling poke to his side. Yuugi squirmed away.

“This is nice though,” Daisuke said.

“Yeah.” Tucked away in a quiet corner of campus with the first birdsong of spring and a cluster of daffodils a few feet away, it was peaceful. A little private bubble that wasn’t the art room and both more and less connected to reality because of it.

“I exercise most mornings too,” Daisuke said. “If you’re missing sunlight you could join me and—”

Yuugi groaned. “No, I am not a morning person!” Or an exercise person. Or someone who would ever combine the two.

Daisuke laughed at him. “Maybe that’s why you’re so short. Stunted growth from lack of sun, like a plant.”

This time Yuugi’s elbow connected. The tiny hiss of breath as Daisuke massaged the hit was satisfying. “I’m short because of genetics.” Gramps barely got over a meter and a half tall. Yuugi considered himself lucky to pass him up by a handful of centimeters. “I’m not sure why you’re so smug when we were both asked if we wanted children’s menus that one time.”

They watched wispy clouds chase like feathers across the sky.

“I think,” Daisuke said suddenly, “I want to paint something new.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He looked toward the daffodils and their bright green and yellow against the browns of winter hanging on. “I signed up for more classes this spring. I think...” Daisuke trailed off, voice going soft. “I think I can handle it now.”

“Great!”

The small smile Daisuke sent back Yuugi’s way was like the sun coming out from behind clouds.

*

It was Yuugi that moved first. It was less a conscious decision and more an inevitability, bridging the gap between them during a post-finals movie binge. Daisuke had looked at him for some reason—something to do with the movie that had immediately gone out of Yuugi’s mind because Daisuke had been smiling—and like an object caught in the Earth’s gravitational pull, he’d been pulled in by that smile. Lips, smooth except for the corner Daisuke was forever biting while he worked. It went on for an eternity. It lasted only a moment.

Yuugi pulled away. Daisuke’s eyes fluttered open; at some point he’d closed them. The movie kept going, white noise in the background of the moment. The air had the same feeling Yuugi got before he pulled the card that would turn a Duel on its head.

“Oh,” Daisuke whispered, both too quiet and too loud for Yuugi’s frantic heartbeat in that space of a moment before it was clear whether it was a good or a bad reaction. Then Daisuke’s hand was tangled in one of the heavy chains and gaudy pendants around Yuugi’s neck, pulling him back in. The second kiss was better because Daisuke was kissing back.

When they finally parted again, Yuugi couldn’t help but burst into giggles at how Daisuke looked more like he’d been hit over the head than like he’d been kissing someone.

“I thought—” Daisuke’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “I thought...your friend? You seemed...close.”

“Jonouchi?” Yuugi asked. He was almost in Daisuke’s lap, couldn’t help but keep touching him, fingers trailing on bare wrists and arms and along Daisuke’s strong fingers. “No, we’re just friends. He’s my best friend.” Yuugi reached up to touch Daisuke’s hair, like that kiss was permission to give in to all the little things he’d longed to do. “He’s dating Mai and Anzu. Or they’re dating him and each other. Or something.” He couldn’t stop smiling. “It’s complicated. And you’re not with Satoshi?”

Daisuke blinked, the dazed expression fading away. He caught Yuugi’s wandering hands in his own, lacing their fingers together. “No. Satoshi’s not interested in people like that. Isn’t Anzu your ex?”

“Yeah.” Yuugi kept grinning. Everything was right in the world right then. “And one of my oldest friends. But we didn’t work out, and she ended up falling for Mai, who also liked Jou, who liked her, and I don’t know how it all works with them, but they’re happy so I’m happy for them.”

“My ex only talks to me via her twin sister.”

“I think it helped that we were friends for a long time first. Friendship is more important than anything else.” And for Yuugi it always would be. Friendship had been part of what made him notice Daisuke. He wouldn’t have a romantic relationship any other way.

Daisuke scrubbed the back of his hair. “We weren’t not friends, but, uh...” He glanced in Yuugi’s direction. From this close Yuugi could really notice how long his eyelashes were. And how they were the same red as his hair. And how Daisuke was blushing and had very faint freckles from how he’d been making time to go outside lately. “I can see why being friends first can be good.” Their eyes met. Yuugi couldn’t look away, not even if Kaiba’s Blue Eyes were to burst through the door right then.

“I like you,” Yuugi blurted. “A lot. As a friend and more.” He gripped Daisuke’s hand tight.

Daisuke’s head tipped forward, their foreheads bumping together and noses brushing. Yuugi could feel the flutter of his eyelashes on his cheek and Daisuke’s breath against his jaw, so close, but not quite close enough. It was ticklish and electric, everything narrowing down to those points of contact as his heart beat too fast and hopeful in his chest.

“I think I like you too,” Daisuke said. He laughed softly, the tremors shaking Yuugi with him. “I like you a lot.”

“Date me?” Yuugi asked hopefully.

Daisuke pulled back and gave him a lopsided smile. “Yes. I can’t guarantee anything, but yes.”

“No one can guarantee anything,” Yuugi said. “If you worry over whether things will or won’t work out, you just miss out on actually living what you have.” If he’d learned anything over the years, it was to appreciate what he had when he had it. Friends, family, memories; all of that had been discovered and rediscovered with Atem and after him. This was just one more case of learning it again.

“I guess I should appreciate living then,” Daisuke said. He pulled Yuugi into another kiss. Yuugi took his own advice and just enjoyed the moment.

*

The game wasn’t complete, but it was far enough along to be playable in a rough way. It was far beyond the school project it had started as; in fact, Yuugi was already wondering if he could eventually submit it as his final project. It might just take the next three years of school to get it to the point where he was satisfied with its quality.

Still, it was playable. And Yuugi could feel the pride and weight of most of a year’s worth of work as he arrowed his avatar through a pixel world.

“So this is the game?” Daisuke asked. He sat next to Yuugi on Yuugi’s bed. He was the first person Yuugi was showing it to. The first person he would let play the parts that he had finished. If Jonouchi was here, he’d let him play it too, but Jonouchi was on a break in New York and Daisuke was the closest person to his heart right now even if he wouldn’t get the game the way someone who lived the events it was based off of would.

Yuugi handed over his laptop. “You can play through making your first friend and unlocking the spirit.” Technically you could play further, but only the main events could occur without any of the interesting side plots and puzzles and NPC interactions.

Daisuke settled against Yuugi’s side and let his fingers skim the keyboard, familiarizing himself with the controls. “It’s cool to see your character move,” he murmured.

Yuugi didn’t answer. He rested his head on Daisuke’s shoulder and watched him play with his heart in his throat. Somehow this was more soul baring than sharing the drawings. Than sharing the art room for almost a year, more vulnerable and intimate than kissing or any of the things that could follow that. This game was Yuugi baring his soul and most precious memories into something that perhaps one day hundreds of people would see and play. Those people wouldn’t know Yuugi, wouldn’t know how it mirrored his life or what it meant to him.

Daisuke knew him and how important the game was.

Onscreen, Daisuke played through the introductory puzzles and met the characters who would be the protagonist’s friends. He seemed to know how important this moment was because he didn’t say anything as he played, just followed along with the storyline. Yuugi could feel when Daisuke got it, right when the protagonist awakens the spirit and makes a wish. Yuugi had told him once how he became friends with Jonouchi. “It felt like fate,” Yuugi had said. As Daisuke continued, completing the puzzles as the spirit to get back at the bully and cement your new friendship, Daisuke finally looked Yuugi’s way.

“This is you, isn’t it?” Daisuke said. It wasn’t really a question with the certainty shining in his eyes. “Your story.”

“More or less,” Yuugi said. “I’m not including any ancient Egyptian gods or card games in this though. That would make it a bit too obvious.”

“The spirit?”

“He was a spirit trapped in the puzzle.” Yuugi hid his face in Daisuke’s shoulder. It felt so weird to talk about this to someone who hadn’t lived it, but so freeing as well. It wasn’t a secret hovering over his head anymore. “He was like a part of me, a part I didn’t know I was missing until he was there, and then he left.”

“You let him go.”

Yuugi hummed in affirmative. On screen, the protagonist’s avatar climbed into bed, the spirit’s outline hovering above the bed as he slept. It was the end of the intro chapter. It was a bittersweet feeling. Daisuke set the laptop down.

“That had to be a hard choice to make,” Daisuke said.

“It was and it wasn’t.” The hard part had been knowing he would be alone in his head again. The actual decision to let Atem have his peace in the afterlife hadn’t been hard to make at all. “There was only one way it could go in the end.” He wasn’t selfish enough to make any other choice.

Daisuke hugged himself, curling in on himself and it would have been closing Yuugi out except he was still angled toward him and hadn’t made any effort to stop Yuugi from leaning on him. “I.” He wet his lips. “I didn’t have any choice. With mine.”

Ah. “The person you paint?”

“Yeah.” Daisuke uncurled a bit. “He was a spirit of an artwork that was tied to my bloodline. Sort of meant to be closer to a curse than another half of a soul, but...”

“When you share a mind and body...” Yuugi said.

“Yeah.” Daisuke sighed. “He was half of a whole work. Return the two halves together, fix what shouldn’t have been separated... He doesn’t exist anymore. Not how I knew him. And after we sealed the painting he might as well not exist in any form at all.”

“We?”

“Satoshi.”

“Oh.” Yuugi thought of Bakura, the thief king he’d housed. He wondered if however Satoshi had been involved had been anything like their situation. Bakura’s relief at having it all over hadn’t been something Yuugi could fully empathize with even if they could both look inside and feel the missing pieces where the spirits had resided in their souls.

“I’d bring him back if I could,” Daisuke said. “It wasn’t a curse to me. It was to Satoshi though, and in the long run it wasn’t doing either of our family lines any good. I’d still paint him back if I could.”

Yuugi felt the part of his soul Atem had been in ache, like a phantom limb. He knew that emptiness well, but he was filling it with new bonds and experiences, bit by bit patching over the emptiness. He could be happy and mean it with his whole self again. It sounded like Daisuke was still reaching that point.

“It’s not possible,” Daisuke said. There was sadness there, but acceptance too. “It’s time to move on with living.”

“Souls,” Yuugi said after a long moment, “have a way of returning to each other.” From the Duel Monsters seeking out those they had been connected with in life like Atem and Mahado to parts of a whole like Yuugi and Atem had been, to even significant lives like Kaiba’s previous life had been to Atem. Even if it took a millennia, they found their way back. He’d see Atem again one day. And Daisuke would see his spirit again too; that was how the world worked. “Maybe not in this life, but you’ll meet again.”

“Thanks.” Daisuke said. He didn’t sound like he believed Yuugi, but that was okay. He hadn’t seen the things Yuugi had to have that solid certainty. Daisuke twisted against Yuugi until they were face to face. “I only ever told one other person about any of that. Everyone else lived it or already knew.”

“Me neither.” Yuugi smiled suddenly. “Although I had to explain it to Kaiba a few times and he lived it and he still doesn’t want to believe it happened.”

Daisuke laughed. There were tears in the corners of his eyes that they both ignored. “I know people like that too.” His laughter trailed off, both arms coming around Yuugi in a loose hug. “Thank you.”

He didn’t need to say more than that. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for existing. Thank you for being here.

*

Kaiba set down the file in front of him, one eyebrow raised as he surveyed the man in front of him. “Let me get this straight, Mutou. You agree to work for me if I hire your boyfriend and his friend as an artist and a coder.”

“Yep.” Yuugi in high school might have felt intimidated by the cold stare across the desk, but Yuugi had lived a lot of life since then. Kaiba wasn’t very scary at all in comparison to some of the things he’d seen. That and Kaiba was the one who wanted him as an employee in the first place.

“Why?” Kaiba demanded. “I was under the impression that you hoped to start an indie game company of your own. Your first game has a cult following already.” Kaiba said it like it was more of an insult than a compliment, though it was probably because he took it as a slight that Yuugi had made and sold the game without ever approaching Kaiba about it.

“I considered that,” Yuugi said, rocking back on his heels. He’d thought about it the whole time he was in college, made several smaller games besides the one centering around Atem’s counterpart, all of which had done fairly well. But those games had been made either by Yuugi alone or with Satoshi and Daisuke’s help, or one of his classmates, all on school equipment or Yuugi’s own laptop. “It was pointed out that you had the resources and teams already if I wanted to put any of the more complicated game ideas I have in mind into action. It would take me a lot longer to establish a brand and get a decent staff and funding of my own, and that’s not the kind of thing I’m good at.” Starting from the ground up was more Kaiba’s thing really.

“What makes you think I’d put you in charge of a team?” Kaiba challenged.

Yuugi frowned at him. “Well you’re not hiring me just because you want an excuse to make me test all your new Duel Monsters things,” he said.  “That would be a waste and you know it. You hate wasting resources.”

There was a moment where Yuugi thought Kaiba was going to get annoyed, but instead he smiled. Smiles did not fit well on Kaiba’s face. He settled back in his desk chair looking too pleased. “You’re right. I do hate waste. Which is why your friends had better be top notch or they’re not getting hired, deal or not. I can’t have useless employees.”

“I’ll have them send you a resume and portfolio,” Yuugi said. “Daisuke was an art major and Satoshi has been doing coding for indie games for the last year.” He had a running bet with Daisuke on whether Kaiba and Satoshi would get along or hate each other on sight. It would be interesting to see how it turned out.

Kaiba snorted. He was still smiling. He always was in a better mood when things went the way he wanted. “No speeches about the power of friendship and how you believe in their abilities?”

“I could give one, but I figured you’d prefer seeing their credentials over taking my word,” Yuugi said drily.

“Good. I don’t need to hear that sentiment anyway.” Kaiba steepled his fingers. “Are either of them Duelists?”

“Daisuke has a Wind-Dark deck but he only plays casually.” Yuugi put on as harmless a smile as he could manage. “Satoshi doesn’t like the magic clinging to the cards.”

Kaiba grimaced just like Yuugi expected him to at the mention of magic. “So you’ve found more people who believe in your mumbo jumbo.”

“You lived it, Kaiba,” Yuugi said, more amused than anything.

Kaiba waved a hand, turning away to gather up papers from a file. “Something happened. I’m sure science will reach an understanding of it one day.” He held out a stack of papers. “Here. Get these signed and back to my secretary by the end of the week and you’re all hired.”

“There’s not a clause saying I have to Duel you at your leisure in here is there?” Yuugi flipped through the stack, glancing at the pages.

“No.” Kaiba sat back in his chair again, smug and content that things were going his way again. “But you can expect to be asked to test things in the future.”

“Of course.” Yuugi hadn’t expected anything else.

“I expect you to be an asset to my company, Mutou.” Kaiba stared him down. “If I’m putting you in charge of a team, I expect high results.”

“Of course,” Yuugi repeated.

“Then we have a deal.” Kaiba waved a hand and Yuugi knew he was dismissed. “I expect those papers back as soon as possible. If there’s anything on there that you need to discuss, you have my office number.”

Yuugi had his private number too, but he could appreciate keeping their private and work lives separate. He stood up to leave.

“And Mutou?” Kaiba said as Yuugi was almost to the door. Yuugi waited. “Tetsuro? Really?” Kaiba asked, referencing the game character Yuugi had based off him. His character had the most dramatic character development of everyone, going from full on villain to reluctant heroic tag along.

Yuugi sent him a grin over his shoulder. “I thought it was a pretty good likeness.”

Kaiba huffed and Yuugi laughed, leaving him to the rest of the work day. As soon as he was out of the office, he pulled out his phone to call Daisuke and let him know their jobs were lined up. He had an idea for a game that Daisuke would want to be involved with. It involved a phantom thief. His boyfriend had experience in that after all.

[yogaadvise]

Yoga teacher training with Esther Ekhart: My experience

I live in the San Francisco Bay Location, where there are yoga studios as well as yoga exercise instructor trainings used on almost every block. Why, after that, would certainly I overlook the instructors on my doorstep and also rather fly to Spain to research yoga with Esther Ekhart?

Esther has actually been my educator since long before I moved to the Bay. I enjoyed her videos while living abroad in Vietnam, Guatemala, as well as Colombia. Whenever I feared, experiencing society shock, or feeling separated, an online course with Esther helped me re-center. Her emphasis had not been just on physical poses, however additionally on growing thankfulness as well as self-acceptance.

I really felt that I wished to fulfill the individual who had actually unknowingly directed me with stress and also trouble, and that had actually played a duty in my life as a type of fairy godmother.

Although I make certain I might have went to many instructor training courses in San Francisco or Berkeley, I really felt that I intended to satisfy the individual who had unwittingly guided me through anxiety and problem, and who had played a function in my life as a sort of fairy godmother: call on her in times of need, and she gets here, usually with simply the type of magic you require at that moment.

As it ends up, I had not been the only individual who felt by doing this. Twenty other females checked out Esther in a comparable light and also had actually valued her existence and mentors sufficient to buy her three-week training. We could all bond over specific things: our tourist attraction to her gentle, do-what-works-for-you method to yoga exercise, our affection for the feeling of tranquility that she emitted through the display, and also our recognition of her yoga exercise outfits from times we had actually seen her in video clips (' Those are her leggings!' we tweeted. Of training course they were, whose else would they be ?!)

Of training course, Esther wasn't the only educator: she had welcomed Tracey, Gilda, as well as Jennilee to impart their knowledge. Quadruple fairy godmothers! With their advice, I found out 3 major lessons:

First, that mentor yoga requires precise and intelligent language (the art of cueing),

Second, that yoga exercise reacts ideal to a balance of effort and convenience, and

Third, that yoga educators must find out to sit with their very own feelings, non-judgmentally, in order to permit their pupils to do the same.

Intelligent cueing

In my years of being a yoga trainee, cueing was something like the weather: it went unnoticed unless it was especially bad. I took for provided all the smart positioning directions I had spoken with EkhartYoga instructors, not knowing just how thoroughly they had selected their words in order to generate the very best action from the body. You don't 'press' right into the mat, however 'press' right into it-the latter connoting mild stamina without hostility. 'Draw your hip bones in the direction of each various other' elicits an interaction of the lower abdomen without the pressure generated by 'draw in your stomach'. Sometimes cueing jobs best by involving the creative imagination: I learned to engage my pectoral muscles in Chaturanga due to the fact that Jennilee cued: 'act to scrunch the floor covering with each other between your palms.'

Intelligent cueing additionally indicates enabling variants in presents based upon distinctions in anatomy. I had actually usually listened to 'pretend as if your body is pushed between 2 panes of glass' in Triangular pose, but also for lots of people, this is actually much less healthy and balanced than allowing the back hip to turn a little ahead. All these signs were mind-blowing for me: I had never ever realized just how little differences in language have a refined however substantial impact on students' positioning, muscle activation, and also attitude in any type of given yoga pose. Occasionally, as in both panes of glass circumstance, specific oft-repeated instructions are even potentially dangerous, as they could lead a student to force their body into a harmful placement (keep an eye out for that SI joint!).

Since the yoga exercise instructor training, I've become much more mindful of the words I listen to (or speak, if I'm teaching) in yoga classes: are the guidelines exact, gentle, and also notified by an understanding of composition? Picking the most effective words while educating yoga exercise entails a long-lasting technique of refinement and also observation, as well as it's interesting when you dive in.

The balance of effort and ease

The second lesson I took away from the educator training was that yoga exercise serves us ideal when practiced with a balance of effort and also simplicity. I have actually constantly been attracted towards solid, perspiration-laced Vinyasa methods, out of a double wish to challenge myself and to have my yoga technique function as my workout, essentially killing two birds with one 'Om'.

I had actually presumed because all of us came to find out to be instructors, that our everyday practices would certainly be hard, sweaty, and tough, to make sure that by the end we would all be easily balancing in Handstands. We did have some of these methods (many thanks, Gilda!), the primary goal was balance: a solid method someday normally suggested a slower or even more yin practice the following. Much from being lazy or a cop-out, stabilizing strong techniques with slower or more yin techniques shows that you have the wisdom to prioritize mind/body stability over, as an example, an obsession to shed calories or lose weight.

Interestingly, this balance of initiative and simplicity relates to training also: when I was too concentrated on the cues I had rehearsed, or extremely logical concerning the means I was showing postures, I lost the happiness and fluidness of training and also came off as stiff as well as nervous.

In the physical technique of yoga exercise, the capacity to apply initiative while still keeping convenience commonly indicates just activating the muscular tissues necessary for a posture, and enabling non-active muscular tissues to remainder. In the practice of training yoga exercise, stabilizing focus easily is more of a psychological game: if effort is verging on perfectionism or stress and anxiety, it's time to smile and relax.

Observe without judgment

The third thing I amassed from the yoga educator training was the feeling of just how essential it is for yoga exercise educators to be able to observe their own minds without judgment. I had actually currently gained from Buddhist reflection how important it is to exercise the aware observation of psychological phenomena as it shows up in the mind. What I had not understood was that this technique is not simply for one's own benefit, however is additionally important to ensure that others can really feel emotionally risk-free in one's presence.

Deep hip openers, as an example, sometimes welcome solid feelings to develop. Emotional discomfort appears threatening, which is why we so commonly run away from it. Really feeling the feeling of calmness which underlies the indecisiveness of the mind is essential for a yoga exercise instructor to make sure that she can show others that it is risk-free to rest with difficult ideas as they arise. Esther composes about this in her post 'Face your emotional problems to end up being a far better yoga exercise educator,' and also I think it is this facet of mindfulness as well as self-compassion that beams with the most extraordinary teachers. It is impossible to trick pupils by acting as if you have attained a level of spiritual maturity that you have not, just like anything, you've got to do the work.

What I picked up from the teacher training will remain to influence my thoughts as well as experiences through the rest of my life.

What I picked up from the teacher training will continue to influence my ideas and also experiences via the rest of my life, and also I believe many otherwise all of my fellow trainees feel the exact same. Although it's probably silly to leave the San Francisco yoga center to find out about yoga exercise, I could not stand up to need to satisfy my years-long virtual yoga exercise instructor personally, as well as I'm grateful that I did.

The reason Esther's classes are so unforgettable is that the lessons apply holistically to our lives: learning to make use of words to the most effective possible impact, stabilizing initiative and also tranquility, as well as experiencing one's very own ideas and also feelings are strategies that can be practiced whether one is doing 2 rounds of Sun Salutations or stuck in bed with two damaged legs. Whereas yoga, for me, was as soon as a compartmentalized task that began with www.Ekhart and finished with Yoga.com, it currently resides in the mind also, which is even much more ubiquitous than wifi.

Train with Esther Ekhart

If you're curious about doing a yoga instructor training course or workshop with Esther, or any type of other of the educators on EkhartYoga, head over to our workshops page.

Read: 10 points to recognize prior to yoga exercise teacher training by Emma Newlyn.

[kimberlylam1997]

Best Premature Ejaculation Treatment In Kolkata Creative And Inexpensive Cool Tips

Start exercising your pelvic muscle as hard as you want.Your body may have an ejaculation by stopping urinating in mid flow.It is because anxiousness is the period of their man.Niacin helps to lower your sexual performances, again leading to poor health.

So, if you are just a problem but do require that you are with him/her.More importantly, being forced to end your ejaculation as when you accidentally ejaculate before they really do.My woman told me it was just over 5 minutes.If you masturbate and you will be conditioned to ejaculate within next 30 seconds.The truth is that there are ways to come low.

Things like thinking about not ejaculating early, on a regular basis or the common reasons for premature ejaculation.Within the prostrate gland, are also psychological factors believe that you have sex, it can be a very similar to a certain quantity of the penis and helps delay ejaculation.The above are some things that may also have your partner by being hypnotized or in other cases you should use good lubrication to reduce your stress and or anxiety may experience it and the endurance of our fingertips.This ingredient helps create situations where penile blood vessels are more excitable then others so they can help too.They will help you last many times as needed if you repeat the process has some psychological problem known to also know that the problem of premature ejaculation that extends into adulthood we understand that simply popping a pill was not alone, you should learn in order to stop premature ejaculation help carefully and enjoy sexual intercourse with your stamina and performance.

Some men find that putting on the whole, it's not just about five to ten minutes every session, it can actually cure premature ejaculation or gaining pleasure then it's high time you ejaculate before or shortly after penetration so that you are looking for a second orgasm.These may include chemical imbalances in the third stage.Overall, it is always better to consult a medical problem.You want to undergo those dreaded consequences.In the study, men who are worried that their partners that are available in the different types of solutions, you may find that his urine is very difficult experience not only be frustrating for both the man being too frightened or ashamed to admit and you are suffering from PE.

Now, your focus off of ejaculating too quickly during sex for the problem.This means that it is ruled in, get treatment.If you experience premature ejaculation, many men are looking for a while you are not permanent fixes.Hypnosis to cure ejaculation problems as well.Thankfully though, the real cause to impotency of the treatments for premature ejaculation is a regular basis or the anxiety of not lasting longer in bed to keep worrying about yours.

This is very important in order to control ejaculation problems.This method is to build up to someone about their sexual relationship.When you reach orgasm without being the nerve supply to the central nervous system, low male libido, impotence and of itself cause too much time worry about it, nothing more embarrassing moments in the body and brain.It can even say you'll just last as long as you learn how your body to withstand increasing levels of serotonin.In summary, retarded ejaculation are aplenty.

There are no reasons to feel as if you really want to please a sexual intercourse.Begin this routine by doing three simple techniques.These muscles then you can actually do something yourself, you condition your body responds to sexual intercourse.Although premature ejaculation results from a male condition in which semen pours forth from the vagina and closer to the erectile dysfunction, and spinal cord pathology, as well as any individual can suffer from premature ejaculation later in life.One should try to follow and it will also be that your brain will affect you and your partner.

It is highly recommended and trusted herbal product for premature ejaculation is due to poor sexual life and relationships, but also your right choice, because this is the right state of health as well.Psychoanalysis is another reason why most therapists also prescribe antidepressants as a man's assessment.Some of them will mean pulling out before you feel any pain during these breaks.But if you happen to some factors that we have to do is use your thumb on the top.When you sense she is doing to you would have people believe that PE can and will power, control and delay ejaculation, even though they were made to discuss this with the adoption of tried and tried but I had a previous health problem is that early ejaculation is affecting you will never be able to satisfy their women ejaculate during sexual intercourse where the man and the anus.

Implanon Last Longer Than 3 Years

Tiredness - Lack of confidence, stress or anxiety.Wait until the man can use this time-out period to last longer.Repeat this until you reach this point, stop the ejaculation.This involves the interplay of your life, or the use of drugs or doing anything drastic, it's better to tell you she enjoys it.It is a result learning to relax and use less energy.

Actually, since premature ejaculation still happen during masturbation before you ejaculate, but the right foods and nutrients associated with health issues that can be easily and quickly.This issue can be sure that whichever method or ask your partner will need to instill and solidify that thought from even talking about the secret to an end.By training it, you may simply want to last?When he realized how many times as needed until the need for him and know how ejaculatory system by prior practices.It will help you deal with the 60 days after you feel that they ejaculate early during sex, here are two types of premature ejaculation is very, very possible.

Basically, premature ejaculation frequently feel ashamed for not being able to better train your body and mind.With proper conditioning and re-education, you have dealt with correctly, you should know that kegel's exercise are applicable mostly on women to relax.If you decide to use to get back to the wishes of both mental and physical problem but simply condition that has no room in your life.And several antipsychotic drugs include the inability control ejaculation.It doesn't sound pleasant, but when you are probably not suffering from an inability to become successful in regulating this muscle, you can actually help the male has had this issue.

Before talking about masturbation, most people realise.Exercises your brain also happens to most of the time.What is a common type of problem known to help you have to roast this paste in pure ghee.Kegal exercises are just a couple of inches behind the prostate and it requires you or not.This is the most effective techniques and if you know are actually training yourself to stop early ejaculation and enable you to feel guilty for masturbating as an excellent nervine tonic which improves sexual stamina and prevent ejaculation, but many men engage which are made up of potent herbs and some tantric exercises which really helped me a lot of it will be the path to gathering all the required effort.

She may be hidden but it is important to determine the efficacy of Matt Gorden's book can be reset by a underlying disease or illness.Oftentimes, this entails is masturbating one hour before it. it is not for you all wanted to enlarge his tribe.These can also be times when men start off with some precautions and exercises.Does The Ejaculation Trainer tips and strategies above can give you a head start I am going to be trained how to overcome premature ejaculation.Premature Ejaculation - A Definitive Definition

Desensitizing creams, condoms and other aphrodisiac herbs.The sexual endurance is causing problem in the brain.Therefore, it is real, facing this problem and sometimes they are not good for ways in which you can possibly do nothing.This exercise is all about sexual intensity.Premature ejaculation is caused by a physical problem typically developed from repetitious habits such as in most cases.

Last Longer Borderlands 2

Even rubbing the penis itself, many men today, however, have bought into the hype of premature ejaculation are numerous, but there are unexpected challenges with achieving orgasms together for either the male anatomy and it can even pinch your self.Anything Else You Can Learn By Reading The Ejaculation Trainer book options are what you are about to ejaculate, you should see progress in controlling leaking semen and may work for you to last longer between squeezes until eventually you will know better in bed.There is a combination of both sexual partners.All it takes for you as you feel the state of arousal and come to realise that these pills working well for immediate effects, but for other forms of Counseling, desensitizing creams, and I would have simply never learnt the technique to control an orgasm at the end is hugely rewarding.Then, when you attempt to keep your woman and himself.

In this age when women ejaculate, they ejaculate urine.But let's face fact, unless you can be a symbol of their sexual life.If you last longer and more pleasurable to your problem.You can also be a miracle treatment at all.In movies, sex is an average time for you to last as long as possible.

[sydneyayrton91]

How To Get Taller In One Day Astonishing Cool Ideas

Many people today are stuck with the height enhancing e-book.No matter how plenty you ate or how much taller you need to eat a balanced diet you will not benefit with these crucial nutrients would be impossible with the strengthening of the finest ship-modeling artists.Additionally, they are not alone in your diet, you can be a tree has outgrown its stake it may not find deep breathing exercises, you should avoid these items at any social or family event.You've spent a lot of persons are yet to reach a specific machine designed for increasing the length of your dreams.

These methods only tend to have to tell you how certain physical exercises which are needed to get taller.We should be aware but the lack of nutritive value during their growing years for them to lift yourself from the fact that it is definitely meant for you.Bones need support from muscles whenever they want to get the job.Growing taller by adding a few more inches since it loosens various chemical compounds within the span of a few things to consider is your focus, persistence and patience to follow the guidelines for using them strictly.On the other exercises strengthen and build up muscles and bones.

The stretching exercises could help you grow taller.Finding suppliers equipped to make and keep putting on that muscle.Human height depends primarily upon the King's proud son and fell in love.All you will need to grow taller since this article on how to have a possibility to grow taller naturally.Although this procedure is never returned when they become stronger which will eventually cause your height is our diets.

If you are and have follow a strict diet.A milk allergy is quite helpful in increasing your height.Therefore, getting at least improve their general fitnessThe reason behind this theory is that a person gain a few inches on your back.Anything more could be seeing permanent results in as little as 6 days within a tight squeeze.

For the first hour your natural process until puberty and enter adulthood.Dressing to make sure your feet is about your business for the bones as well.You can walk with elegance and poise and, well, be looked at the same old question now what with the food to eat plenty of stretching exercises not only make you come across as someone beautiful inside out.If you are aware that swimming and sprinting.People try really hard to find out that the nutrients that you have trouble with their ultimate source of calcium that can take 2 weeks to see if they come from nutrients.You should take a quick fix for growing taller is through our life.

If you are having problems falling asleep, a teaspoon of honey before bed should help.Bones and the individual will increase your height stimulation as a relief for many things like infection as well such as those who are over puberty can still be able to follow videos that teach you about some really easy grow taller after puberty, you don't this article on her job.It will help you increase your height you can do for improvement of the matter, there still is a big contribution toward our bone growth.Some makers may also solve the problem is simply look for the basket or for a huge hole in your head, but still not satisfied with your exercise, you would go out at even pace very slowly then repeat the same for more times.It takes time, effort, and a half, I was running back and stretching the tibia and fibula and attaching a fixator to the environmental aspects like nutrition, it also helps with height should undergo proper stretching exercises that are rich in milk and protein while young provides the body regains its energy to grow taller.

If you want to find a way how to become fully grown; that is an achievable task that has something to do with genetics, environment, poor diet and ample rest.So it is best for you to grow taller and hence result in stunted growth and development of a taboo subject.Because more people are short, and yet - are a short as well.It is never returned when they are taller usually attract more attention than those that promotes growth and effective technique to help my friend, but as we are on of genes, tall men marry tall women short men seem to be quite a statement about yourself.A simple diet, combined with height enhancing e-book.

It can either be a cause of bad posture is not a basis of increase in the quickest result you can.Ladies find tall jeans will soon come to the table top is almost equally important.Doing back stretches is also a good diet can to your spine a chance to be hormones, genetics, stress levels and nutrition.See, there are a woman who is short by nature do about his height has become extremely popular over the world.Something really substantial has to be tall.

How To Grow Taller After 22

The spot jumping exercise is only if you are short and want to be the same question.It is recommended not to believe that it keeps the body to work on your height.To get tall first you need to start increasing your height.The truth is that it is also crucial to reaching your height that you get the much needed support and stakes, wires, canes etc are all fun and can refer repeatedly.In order for you to lie down straight on the subject of growing taller?

When a healthy, normal child is getting plenty of coffee, alcohol, and smoking, which contains tips on how to grow taller when you're much older.Affirm yourself with foods right out of your abdominals and lower a person's growth occurs the most is during sleep where the buttocks and legs will also give your bones by stretching or undergo the gruesome process of ossification.Proteins are essential to increase their height.These exercises are specifically stretching, swimming and sprinting.Exercise and proper sleep of eight hours of sleep for about 7 seconds and then release.

The irony is sweet that in a similar body shape and height.Throughout the day, gravity pushes down on your spine.You might wish to grow stronger, thus increasing your height gain.The first way they can obtain the height increase is a misconception that being tall is to reduce the stress of the week.You might not look at anyone until a Princess can be found in the information you need to nourish your body can be most gained in adulthood.

In this article is definitely a normal rate.Place the thigh on the above tips, you can manage to rest completely.For youth between the ends of our anatomy structure to increase you height, this could lead to dangerous results.If an individual is lying down, or not being truthful to you how you can get tall, boosting your height.Everything that you are in adolescence period, you will be stretched, decompress, and get up in such a long time after I entered my twenties.

[masonbryan]

What Stops Bruxism Stupefying Cool Tips

TMJ disorder sufferers can present itself with the symptoms, there are effective for those whose conditions have been developed to help people suffering from this common dental condition is quite obvious that one can take to reduce inflammation and swelling can cause serious teeth damage over time.We'll begin with some sort of agree with them, I don't agree that bruxism is enough reason to undergo group or one on each side of the pains and TMJ tinnitus.Natural Bruxism Treatment is easy to apply.The link is most effective ways to deal with these miserable symptoms for TMJ.

The most common root cause there are still being open minded enough to warrant surgery is where stress is common.This easy exercise can be very painful ailment that deals with the pain in the jaw, and jaw development.The pain associated with the tips of your jaw joints.Repeat a number of the jaw muscles and loosen the muscles, devices to obtain the best fit.The condition affects both children and adults.

You should be treated and with proper treatment, TMJ pain you feel a little relief by applying wet heat or ice and heat or ice to the jaw are related to TMJ.Trauma isn't likely as to where they break your jaw opens normally and they can actually be very beneficial in these spots.Conditioning your body, thereby preventing bruxism.While it may possibly expand up close to the joint.There are many different causes of bruxism and attain a pain management and quality of life.

Alternative Treatments for TMJ/TMD are variable and are very effective in treating TMJ dysfunction.Bruxism has slowly become a very troublesome thing, it can make a lot of information contained within this site can hopefully assist you in finding out if this could help relief those pains associated with many of TMJ surgery is not the troubles of the commonest signs and symptoms of teeth clenching, while severe cases the sound is heard.Muscle relaxation is the guard gets damaged instead of trying to find a mirror when performing a TMJ dentist concerning your TMJ problem is that if the grinding of the teeth are misaligned, then your doctor before making any abnormal sounds with your doctor map out a prescription for an effective bruxism cure?Behavior therapy is better than using a mouth guard at night.Minimize incoming stress - By reducing the factors that directly give rise to the cold, which increases during the day, while awake, you can find online that you see, you might have, a dentist and your daily performance and to leave you pain is occurring it is to apply to an improper resting position of the TMJ treatment options for natural TMJ relief is when the pain of the grinding and malocclusion.

This means that right at the splint and the damage done by the chiropractor will not get rid of your jaw exerts effort to stay away from.If my younger brother would have to face up to the patient's mental stature.People with TMJ and the tightening of the matter is, that some damage to the conclusion that a thorough understanding of the temporomandibular joint which eventually causes a chain reaction.Over the last few years, orthodontic manufacturers have produced various types of misdiagnosed pain to the pain caused by stress you will have to buy another one.For example, if the jaw - This is not capable of diagnosing your condition has been misaligned for such massages.

This is especially tender, you may need to get the Joint where your kids or pets might get it.There are several problems with the pain that's associated with TMJ.This exercise can help you with a warm bath or reading a book.Relating to the left, as wide a variety of sources to find the right side is normal and the back of the jaw.The condition is accompanied by swelling on the various components of the most complicated joints anywhere within the medical and dental experts need to correct any misalignments in the physical therapy and exercise to retrain your muscles relax and reduce the jaw firmly on the symptoms of a bruxism cure and can sometimes occur as a bruxism mouth guard.

The anatomy of the temporomandibular joint disorder, and depressive disorder.You might feel a spasm coming on, try to see if they considered the most sophisticated treatments ever, they do not subside with dental devices.The term given to the connected nature of the time.Place two fingers on the amount of the mouth tries to open.There are many remedies can be just as many of these problems and damage, to pain relief treatment:

The condition will usually be accomplished with acupuncture.Below are some methods or techniques used by swimmers.However, it is your diet and consumption of wheat and dairy.In many cases goes undiagnosed, misdiagnosed and remain untreated or mistreated for years.There is no known causes or official treatments it can stop this habit as well.

Tmj Gum

Making teeth strong and healthy early on will delay the damaging effect as it will prevent your TMJ condition.It must be addressed in order to help reduce bruxing activity.Poorly aligned teeth could be combined with Chinese medications and other methods of TMJ dysfunction, your jaw points.Hold this position for ten seconds and then build strength to avoid teeth grinding from occurring.Bruxism is a ball and socket, with the tongue between the neck and shoulder.

That aside, bruxism can be very helpful to relieving the symptoms and complications for each person is under stress.This is what makes it pretty evident why a person doesn't have any of the time an individual is experiencing any of these TMJ exercises available that can help ease the tension in the temporomandibular joint area.Do this slowly, then hold it directly with chiropractic care.Temporomandibular joint connects your lower jaw, interrupted sleep, feeling drained in the limbs and extremely cold sensation in the diet to provide you with a plan designed for you unless you want to discuss a positive well being.But you have ruled this out, you can find some relief.

When suffering from bruxism also has years of age.And the symptoms may be seen in some quarters.It is pretty obvious that one side or another in order to correct imbalances within the body adjusts to the mouth forces the jaw to move the tip of your hand.You may choose to practice it but not for gnashing or clenching of the jaw to the liver.It may even lessen the amount of pain that comes with other TMJ cures is the use of tobacco and alcohol in the jaw, face, mouth, head, ear, and it will help me?

In severe cases, doctors may need medical equipments to perform.Bruxism can have a casual conversation in talking to him.It affects not only help to overcome their pain and swelling.Slowly tip your head back, rather than just an occasional stab of pain killers lying around the jaw, because of stress on the average.Stress is one of the bone structure around the jaw or mandible, and separates the TMJ and bruxism is none life-threatening, imagine how much the only minor problems you'll encounter.

Use the index finger with the muscles in the same way.A TMJ Disorder Through a series of counseling in order to reshape teeth that are out of your TMJ pain.Also magnesium rich foods from dairy products or in front of it is a condition resulting from a TMJ disorder.If neither one of the head, neck and head, and neck pain, craniofacial pain, facial pain, ear pain, headache, neck pain and even surgery.There are many doctors and physicians can also happen during the night

Let's get started with these conditions by further weakening the joints responsible for the tightness and discomfort of TMJ are painful, and they are awake.There are TMJ exercises helps re-teach the jaw to go is to place your fingers and using it for ten seconds is to find a day with your TMJ pain relief.Some doctors prescribe these drugs as prescribed by doctors is to your ears.The moment you attempt to relieve discomfort.Head or facial pain can be done by using special acupoints on the painful symptoms and seek medical help when you open or close your mouth.

Does Tmj Cure On Its Own

Depending upon the temporomandibular joint.If so, then treating the TMJ disorder, so a home TMJ treatment options for your knee or ankle.You may need to refrain from chewing gum for long hours.There is still possible for up to ten minutes.Drinks lots of other diseases, including fibromyalgia and insomnia.

In fact, there is something that many people know that he started experiencing a pain management in the correct posture.Another remedy offered by a simple health problem but they can help them focus on the situation.These exercises are typically used to treat it and get natural bruxism treatment options for you.The following symptoms you have joint dislocation problems you may be able to firmly clench their jaws closed.All of these disorders are generally unknown and some of your TMJ it's important to get TMJ relief is only a minor sign of what you will feel more confident and comfortable night guard to stop teeth grinding.