#perhaps there are some more atrocious than others but he’s just so pretty

[theotherseapancakes]

Psssst. You mentioned no one cares about Philemon, but now I'm curious if you have any thoughts about his role in the games after he disappeared. And for sillies sake, does he have anything to do with the Dance games?

I have been waiting my entire life for this. Anon do you realize how verbose I'm going to get. DO YOU REALIZE? I hope you like read mores. Let me preface this with I am aware and have seen some popular theories, so I'm going to sidestep a lot of them and present one I've built since... well, I became a Persona fan as a teenager. MAJOR PERSONA SERIES SPOILERS LIKE THE ENTIRE THING OK? OK. yes even royal.

The P2 PSP additional scenario is so incredibly important and I think everyone missed the point of it. THE PERSONA 2 PSP ADDITIONAL TATSUYA SCENARIO!!!! It's beyond important, because it reveals to us Philemon can have more than one Avatar we know about, just like Nyarly. (Casual reminder he's like half the shopkeeps in P2. Time Count, anyone? Why was the Time Count so hot. Anyway.) Disclaimer: I'm just a casual fan who has played a LOT of Persona and SMT. I haven't gotten around to all of them, but I've played/finished both paths of 1, 2, 3 (and p3p) as well as 4 and 5. Didn't manage to get my hands on Golden but I've seen enough of it. (It's funny you ask about the dance games, they're the only ones I don't have right now! But my roommate does, and will be gone for a few months soon, perhaps I will take the time to start with p4DAN. I'm atrocious at rhythm games though so more than likely I'll find a video. Anyway.) WHAT is Philemon? If we can't define that, we can't talk about The Positivity Guy Ever.

So let's talk about Phil. He's a fascinating character. His Persona is just a form of Himself, But Cooler. And he seems to HAVE no set shape, not unlike Nyarlathotep. People have various theories about Shadows and their origins etc., but Phil is more like that vote of confidence in people. I think, personally, that after the end of Innocent Sin, Phil's been pretty weak. We see in Eternal Punishment he's fading pretty roughly, and has a hard time talking to the party. Presumably ending Nyarly might to some degree fix things when Deja-vu Boy goes home, but... the problem is, we don't know how fixed they truly ended up being, or the full depth of how much he could/did expend!

In fact, the first time we even see Phil without the dumb mask is when Tatsuya decks him. Pay close attention to that fact. To the mask motifs here. I want you to really soak in Phil's everything. He's a leader. A kind soul. He's the good of people. He wants to believe the best.

Anyway, most of these things overlook what I find really interesting as we've gotten more games worth of lore: he and Nyarly aren't the only eldritch entities walking around like that. Yes, Nyx is one too. Yes, it's probable she may even be their 'mom'. It's possible they all came from Nyx initially, but it's also possible (and should be considered) they too may have been outsiders at one point. We need to ask ourselves how far the human collective unsconsciousness can go. Is that sea infinite? Could it affect other worlds? Think about Aion in Devil Summoner Soul Hackers 2. Yes, I am asking you to think about Soul Hackers 2. Deal with it, I don't care. They're sister series. They share many things. SO! Did the shape of the human mind change a bunch of eldritch creatures and make them interact with us even more after Nyx smacked the moon a gazillion years ago? Is there multiple worlds? Weird bullshit? Just the two? Hmm. Well... I, personally, think so. I think he was touched by humanity just like Nyarlathotep, but in the other way. The reason I bring this up is two-fold. The first is Nodens. Now, we don't know much about the actual Nodens, unfortunately, just some speculation. Which is a shame. (If anyone has more info I'd love to have it, ngl. As a pagan this shit fascinates me.) But what we do get on him in Lovecraftian lore can provide us some intriguing possibilities about Phil's everything, which the games love to keep really rather vague. (And this is putting aside that his human Persona is based off the obviously bogus Jungian Spirit Guide, but we love an old guy in a mask anyway. He probably felt that was more 'friendly' for humans, hah.) I believe that Nodens, and Phil by extension, are just as responsible for nurturing and keeping the collective unconsciousness alive and positive. We see the butterfly symbol everywhere. We see it with Lavenza, too. "This is truly an unjust game." So was the bet Phil made with Nyarly, a game he rigged. Phil made the mistake of thinking the Crawling Chaos wouldn't cheat, a mistake he is never making again, I assume, if he can help it. Shit, you could view his boss fight in P2EP as him trying to train the EP crew to beat the snot out of Nyarly, even. But off topic. If Nyarly is basically the father of all Shadows, and they and Personas are the same coin, it makes me wonder a lot of things. The two have always been portrayed as simultaneously diametrically opposed, but also not? They have identical halls in P2. They have similar powers and talents... I think after Persona 3, Phil's remnants sank into the Collective Unconsciousness, to attempt to rehabilitate humanity from what it lost, from what he himself lost. I think Igor took over the room, because he took a backseat to recover. It would go a long, long way towards explaining why only SOME characters have the tier of the Wild Card, which is similar to the 'original' Persona power. (Having multiple.) He was took weak to remain in his Spirit Guide (Philemon) form, and had to abandon it to return to the depths as Nodens... So. Let me go back to Nodens and make some notes about design.

Nodens, as seen here, sort of resembles an iron maiden. It really brings to mind the idea of maybe Tatsuya or someone's humanoid form sleeping within it, doesn't it? Fitting for an aspect of Philemon! ... You probably can see where I'm going with this, but let me pull up some screens to finish the point:

That's right! It's Azathoth, Baby! I believe that unlike mythology, he's yet another aspect of Philemon. Eldritch positivity, in too much force, could be used for accidental bad, too. (Reasons Maruki is my favorite Law Hero, haha.) Let me explain. I think Philemon always existed in... let's call it parts. Azathoth is said to be a dreaming god in whom's universe we all just happen to be alive inside, right? "Dream of butterfly" (Philemon) "Or is life a dream? Don't wanna wake up. Cuz I'm happy here." That sure is thematic to what Maki goes through in Persona 1, and what Maruki's beloved suffers, isn't it? ISN'T IT. The "true reality" he creates... would help Maruki create in the additional Semester--would be something most humans would never pass the muster to even try to control. But we have seen Phil test a few people and find them worth passing before! However, that seems like ages ago. Why has he been so quiet? I think because he was spending time conserving his energy. He believed in humanity enough to give Makoto a push when it was needed in p3 (or femc, if you play her), but otherwise trusted Igor while he restored what needed it. But in Persona 5 Royal, he hand-picked Maruki, didn't he? At first, when I played Persona 5 Royal, I really thought it was some part of Nyarly, but I no longer believe this to be the case. The coloration and symbolism in the background (the golds, the whole garden of eden themes, the way his Palace was laid out), the whole sea of soul motifs in P3Re later... mmm. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but this post is already way too long for one simple ask. So let's wrap up by going one step further and looking finally at Nodens' dialogue to the party in the Extra Scenario in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (PSP). The following is a transcript, you can find a video here:

Nodens: This is the memory of the lost child whom you all seek. Nodens: Memory occasionally brings about much distress and suffering, but it is absolutely vital to distinguish oneself from others and manufacture one's own psyche. Nodens: Ever since it began, life's memory has accumulated unbroken, passing through individual experiences and spanning several generations. Nodens: And so it has given shape to Kadath and the Collective Unconsciousness, thereby becoming a foundation for the next generation. Nodens: Even if the roots of the world are directed by fear and anxiety, never forget that the true essence of life is brimming with joy. Nodens: You must not stop seeking the answer for why life was born in a cosmos progressing towards absurdity and chaos. Nodens: Life brims with joy, bringing about balance in a universe predestined to heat death, and that allows the world to live a long time.

So to answer your question, I think he's taken a much subtler role. I think he's influencing people by pretending to be a Persona for Maruki, because he believes it will help them grow. I don't think he was intending a forever-control vice grip, but rather to prove a point. No matter what, the primordial chaos of humanity will rise up for chaotic good, lawful good, whatever "good" is needed. Azathoth is... interesting. Adam Kadmon is also interesting. But mostly I HIGHLY suspect we may see him again in Persona 6, or at least I'm hoping so. It's my personal pet theory by then he'll be less faded and come back to us in a new form of some kind. He's never had a set one, after all. Now for funsies about the dancing game, well, he's a positive guy, he wanted to just make sure everyone had their fitness regimen checked off. Obviously. (This is a joke.) Did the devs intend this? I'm honestly not sure? Like there's a lot of nods to older Personas in 5 and now 3RE especially, but it's definitely worth chewing on. I could go on and on about things I think he's connected to, but ultimately they have the final say lol. I'm just a crackpot conspiracy theorist on tumblr who really likes Philemon. He and the Room are my favorites. :) Ask me about attendants for additional dumb, sometime, I guess lol.

[blueyluu]

howl jenkins pendragon x gn! reader

The living castle chugged steam from it's tall engines, emitting smoke up into the crystal-blue sky after every lanky movement. With each savage huff that escaped the living home, you teetered across the rugged wood floors.

You were busy cleaning away at the lonely rooms, each inhabiting disparate articles of knick-knacks and eye catching souvenirs. It was like caring after a bunch of children really, Howl and Markl always on the move and not bothering too clean up after each other.

Perhaps that was just the reason the fire demon had 'hired' you too clean up this place.

You had spent long, atrocious hours sweeping away at each room, shooing pesky soot gremlins that had found their way into silent corners. The hard work was appreciated from Calcifer, the occasional coal stirring praises from his flame-coated mouth, but was quick to be destroyed when Howl came dragging himself through the house.

You perked up to see Markl bounding after his mentor per usual while the blond dragged a green substance across the mostly-clean floors, now stained with goo.

"Now this won't do, Calcifer keep the castle headed west, down to the folding valley." You corrected the direction before throwing the demon a hefty stack of wood that he eagerly gobbled into the flickers.

The trip running up the stairs and down - twice - was a brief exchange. You had croaked out directions to the child and a full Calcifer. Going as far as to draw a steaming bath in the nearest lavatory, next rushing a sticky Howl into the room.

"Well then, I'll need you to cooperate if this is going to work out. Arms up-" The only noises that left his mouth were strangled mumbles about god knows what, but it was obvious in the way he sank against the rim of the tub that he was out of it.

"You only get like this if one out of two things have happened," you huffed into the steaming room, busy putting your elbow into scrubbing off the green liquid from his person "you've bitten off more than you can chew or someone's rejected your feelings."

You could tell by the way he grumbled on cue that it was the latter. Occasionally some foreigner, man or woman, would whisk Howl away to keep their minds (and bodies -) busy for a while. But in the end, he was always the one sulking about passionate feelings and the strands of hope he had clung on to for a relationship that was doomed to break. Sometimes you'd wish one of these failed flings would knock some sense into the hopeless romantic but the next thing you knew, he was smitten for the first vixen passing through.

Regardless of the repetitive broken hearts and sob stories that he spewed out from pretty-pink lips, you were always there to calm the storm, wiping salty tears from his face.

"Don't waste your tears on that woman, Jenkins, she was no good to begin with." You usually quipped up a response with honeyed words and embraces but you were honest with him this time 'round. "She doesn't deserve your heart, so don't bother dwelling on what could have been. It's best to look past that and move on, dove."

Anyone could tell you it was easier said than done but you had already heard that over the many break-ups and each time, you reluctantly soothed him.

In the end it was you and him in a steam-filled bathroom, wind-chimes twirling up against the high windows to fill the silence, along with the swirling waves of bubbles that pooled over the rim and leapt in crashes. You had a puffy-eyed Howl leaning up against the edges of your shoulder while he sniffed away remnants of his story, hands tugging at the hems of your white sleeve. He was dramatic, truly, but you let the emotions reel on.

The negative aura seeped out of the room after his last tear fell, the crystal arching over his cheek before leaping into the unknown. By then you had cupped his cheeks into your hands, thumbs brushing away the evidence from his skin.

"Thank you," Howl spoke in his lilted voice for the first time in that interaction, throat bobbing when he swallowed down the pained emotions.

In reality you had cleaned away the gooey mess from his body, but you'd also stripped him of the grief weighing him down. Giving him a chance to breathe.

[ponett]

I have now finally seen the Mario movie. It was Pretty Good. Here are my wordy thoughts on it. (I am going to spoil the entire movie. Duh.)

In many ways, the Mario movie does what I wish the first Sonic movie had done. They just took the characters and the premise and the world from the games, and made it a straightforward animated adventure movie. It's bright and colorful and remixes things JUST enough to include fun elements from multiple games, and it doesn't make Mario get adopted by James Marsden or whatever. It even has the music!

That's all you really need, right? Right...?

I'll get this out of the way up front. Chris Pratt was fine. He's fine

If anything, it really feels like they did the movie a disservice by letting us hear so little of the Mario voice in the previews. It took one scene for Pratt to disappear into the role for me. It was totally fine. If anything, I found Charlie Day's normal voice coming out of Luigi WAY more distracting, even if I did like him in the role.

Everyone else was pretty good, for the most part. Jack Black was obviously very good as Bowser, but I'm biased. Seth Rogen does the Seth Rogen laughs as Donkey Kong, but I thought DK was fun, too. (I liked his little rivalry with Mario where he was just constantly giving him shit.) The only casting choice I truly hated was Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong. I hated every line that came out of his mouth. He sounds atrocious. Just the worst. I swear to fucking god if they do a DKC movie and we have to hear him for 90 minutes

I did think Peach was lacking, but that was on the script, not Anya Taylor-Joy's performance. It's cool to see Peach fight, but it's one of those all too common instances where the writers put so much effort into making the main girl kick ass and be an effortlessly confident girlboss that they forgot to give her an actual personality. Not that I'd point to Super Princess Peach and its mood swing superpowers as positive representation or anything, but there's a happy middle ground, surely. Shrek was 22 years ago, just having the princess do flying kung fu kicks isn't enough.

Okay. With the voices out of the way, let's talk about the big picture:

It's way better than the words "Illumination Mario movie" implied, and I mostly enjoyed my time with it. The spirit of Mario is there 100%. But I'd also describe it as "ruthlessly efficient."

This was perhaps the main complaint critics had, and they were absolutely right. People have responded to these totally average reviews with "Well, what did you expect? Shakespeare?! It's MARIO!!" Like, yes, I would prefer it if the movie I paid to see had writing that was good instead of bad. What a shocker. My issue isn't that it's not "high-brow" enough. The problem is that it feels mercenary. It feels like an editor went through and deleted almost every line of dialogue that isn't some form of exposition, at the expense of the pacing. Any scene that's not a montage or some sort of action is kept as short as they could make it, with barely any room for embellishment, character interaction, or anything other than the bare minimum word count to hit all the typical Save the Cat Hollywood screenwriting 101 story beats to the letter. There aren't even as many jokes as you might think (and the ones that are there are extremely hit or miss, including a lot of the slapstick with Mario himself).

Mario and Peach's little arc together in the front half of the film is probably the worst example of this pacing. Even having read reviews that complained about how fast Peach goes from meeting Mario (by her admission the first other human she's ever met) to deciding to train him as the new savior of the Mushroom Kingdom, I was SHOCKED at how fast it was. They don't even lampshade it.

Peach takes Mario straight into the big training sequence where he learns how to use mushrooms and jump over platforming obstacles. Peach is apparently already a hypercompetent platforming pro and a great fighter, so there's no clear reason why she's taking the time to train this random guy to be half as good as her when the world is in danger. Then they set off on their adventure, Toad joins them, and we get a VERY brief travel montage. It's about thirty seconds total - just long enough to give Peach a line about how she wants to protect this beautiful world of hers to try and give her some stakes. We get the genre-mandated nighttime campfire heart to heart, which is exactly long enough to have Mario say he misses Luigi and to have Peach give the two sentence summary of her origin story and not a second longer. Then they reach the Kongs, and their big journey is complete. (They barely interact for the rest of the movie.) So much of the movie is like this - always ready to get on to the next scene as soon as a new one starts.

I'm not criticizing the script because I expect The Super Mario Bros. Movie to be a prestige drama - although there are certainly halfhearted attempts at a dramatic arc. The stuff with Mario's family was a fun enough idea, but again, ruthless efficiency. We get one quick scene with them at the start to give Mario some pathos, because I guess Save the Cat said he's gotta have some pathos. And then Mario gets his dad's approval amidst the action of the final battle in Brooklyn to resolve his arc, just so the movie can end as quickly as possible once Bowser is defeated. (Despite now having the approval of their family and their community back in Brooklyn, Mario and Luigi move to the Mushroom Kingdom off-screen without a single word dedicated to this decision, because that's where they live in the games.)

Look. I am not comparing it to The Godfather. Don't give me that shit. I am not asking for an extra half hour to explore Mario and Luigi's childhood trauma. I am not asking for the complex inner workings of the Mushroom Kingdom monarchy. I know this is gonna be a basic Hero's Journey adventure for kids. It just feels like it's turning down so many opportunities to have a little fun with the characters, to let them interact and play off of each other, to let there be some adventure on this adventure. This is the first time we've gotten to see these characters interact with fully voiced dialogue in a very, very long time! "Yeah, it's not High Art, but it's FUN!" Stories are fun! Character interactions are fun! The script could be having so much more fun!! It is adamantly against making the Story parts of this story-driven movie any more Fun than they functionally need to be!!!

Mario, Peach, and Toad's journey to find the Kongs is shorter than the training montage that precedes it. After the opening, Bowser mostly just sits in his castle and waits for the third act to start. Luigi's there, too, but he only gets one scene with Bowser and then the movie mostly forgets he exists until the climax. He doesn't even get to try and sneak out of Bowser's castle and get up to hijinx. He's just there to be a motivation for Mario, so he sits in a cage for half the movie. It's the bare outline of a script with action scenes added in.

Aside from the fact that it's Jack Black singing as Bowser, I feel like this overly-efficient script might be part of the reason why the "Peaches" scene stands out so much. It's a moment that didn't strictly need to be there to keep the plot moving or to provide an action setpiece. It's not even a reference to another Mario thing. It's just a fun and memorable little character moment that's there for its own sake. That's what the movie needed more of. To stop and smell the roses more often. To play in the space.

To be clear, this isn't a unique problem with this movie. Critics have been noting for years that second acts are disappearing from big Hollywood movies in favor of the Act I plot setup and the Act III action, even though Act II is supposed to be where you get to explore your actual premise. And lots of animated movies give me this exact same vibe of being too "screenwriterly," or feeling like they had an executive breathing down their necks and demanding changes based on focus testing. But these common issues are why I come away mostly feeling like the movie is on the better end of "average," rather than totally blowing my mind. You have seen this movie many times before, just not with Mario in it.

And, of course, there's the music. The score by Brian Tyler based on various classic Mario and Donkey Kong tunes (frustratingly all attributed to Koji Kondo) is absolutely beautiful, but it's unfortunately frequently overshadowed by the licensed music. Everyone already complained about things like the use of Take On Me in place of a lovingly arranged DKC medley, but it feels illustrative of the tug of war the movie is caught in the middle of, between wanting to be a lavishly faithful Mario movie and wanting to be a generic tentpole animated adventure movie. Every single licensed song used is the most obvious, overused song they could have picked for the scene. It reeks of cynical executive meddling and it took me out of the movie every time.

But there really was a lot of care and love put into this movie - more than probably any other video game movie ever made, not that that's a high bar. I don't want to underplay that too much amidst all my complaints spurred by the absolutely insane response to the reviews.

Aside from the countless background references that people will be picking apart for years, touches like the Captain Toad tune playing in the background of Toad's introduction or the Mario Kart 8 menu music playing in the kart garage really help bring it to another level of authenticity. I also enjoyed seeing some more obscure Mario enemies that felt like they were picked more for being fun to animate than for being nostalgic and marketable. No matter how many times I sarcastically pointed to the screen and deadpanned "reference. reference." I am not immune to noticing these things and smiling. I am not immune to the DK Rap. These alone don't make the movie good, but it's nice to have a video game movie that feels like it was made by people who like video games.

Most importantly, the animation is great throughout. It's leaps and bounds ahead of other Illumination work, and it's the best the Mario cast has ever looked. They even made Donkey Kong handsome, somehow. They're all so squishy and expressive, and they move so fluidly - especially in the action scenes. I particularly liked the more kinetic ones like the aerial Banzai Bill chase and the Mario Kart sequence. Truly, the Mad Max-inspired car battle on Rainbow Road where Mario literally does the speedrun shortcut is this movie firing on all cylinders.

Other, more hand-to-hand fights nail the Popeye-esque vibe Mario should be going for. He's an underdog who gets the shit kicked out of him by bigger, stronger opponents until he gets his signature powerup and turns the tables on them. My favorite animation of all probably came from the use of Cat Mario to turn the tide in the DK fight. They had so much fun making Mario move like a cat. Again, it feels like a choice made because it'd be fun to animate rather than just a nostalgia move.

It's that animation and that attention to detail that carry the film, really. They elevate it from mediocrity into being a fun watch for a fan like me, albeit one I couldn't help but pick apart with Anthony as we watched it at home. I'm glad I saw it, but there's a lot of room to improve with the inevitable sequel. I hope they do. I can't deny that I had fun with the movie, but I hope next time that fun is partially because of the script instead of in spite of it.

Stray thoughts:

Overall, I would say I enjoyed the movie a lot more than Sonic 1, but probably not as much as Sonic 2. Not that these movies need to be pitted against each other.

I hated the Luma. I hated how hilarious they clearly thought the Luma was. They have the fucking Luma break the fourth wall to end the movie and start the credits. This is going to be a deep cut for fans of bad animated films, but the whole time I was just thinking of the little fish from Romeo & Juliet: Sealed With A Kiss who's just the director's kid saying random nonsense. You know I'm right

I rolled my eyes at the "our princess is in another castle" joke and several other jokes that would have been dated in a gamer webcomic 20 years ago but I guess they had to be there

How much of Brooklyn did Bowser's giant floating castle take out? We know 9/11 happened in this universe because the Freedom Tower is there, hasn't New York been through enough

I can't believe there's a Diskun easter egg

The dog is the most Illumination character design in the movie. It felt like it wandered on set from The Secret Life of Pets

Mario being a gamer and playing Kid Icarus of all things just made me remember this tweet:

Yes Anthony did get mad at me for being thirsty for Bowser

[hufflegruff]

Chapter 2: A Knowing Look

Pairing: Sebastian x F!Reader Summary: In which Sebastian is whipped and literally everyone can see from a mile away that this is more than friendship.

“Sebastian, would you like to join us next time?” “Oh me? Beasts watching?” He drawled absentmindedly, “Can’t say it’s really my thing.” Poppy nodded, “I figured as much. But our dear friend has recently been so terribly insistent on finding the snidgets before the poachers do and I feel bad for taking up so much of her time. Seeing as you’re courting, I thought you might like to spend more time together.” Sebastian stopped and his brain short circuited entirely. What did she just say? Did Poppy Sweeting just say courting?

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 AO3 link

Chapter 2: Poppy

Sebastian felt a little ill. 

Like a thousand lacewing flies were lodged deep inside a crevice in his stomach, threatening to burst and split him wide open.

Perhaps it was the pumpkin pasties from lunch. Perhaps Lucan Brattleby poisoned him out of spite after he’d told him that he’d have to miss Crossed Wands due to more pressing matters. Perhaps it was the plague.

Whatever it was, he needed it gone. Like pronto.

After Ominis’ outrageous comments and his whole spiel about friends not looking at each other like that… Well, it was all he could damn well think about now. 

Especially now that it was just the two of them. In close proximity. In a secluded corner of the library where the eyes of prying students couldn’t reach them. 

She sat calmly next to him. Her attention solely on the pile of books in front of her. How? He wondered, when he felt so unsettled. Their knees were just barely touching. Their shoulders were a Diricawl feather apart. Their breaths were atrociously loud in the silence. Sebastian’s mind was racing a million miles a second.  

Damn Ominis. Making him over-think.

Okay fine. Sure. Sebastian tended to keep an eye out for her. Which to the untrained eye (or the blind), could be misconstrued for lovelorn longing.

But how could he not look out for her? When she was practically a walking Ashwinder magnet, Goblin bait and a flight risk balled into one. If he didn’t, who knew what kind of ridiculous trouble she’d get herself into? As a friend , that would be terribly thoughtless of him. This misunderstanding honestly just stemmed from his good conscience as a friend, worried for another dear friend.

Yes. That was well and truly it.

But then again… he supposed there was also the matter of her appearance.

As if it had been waiting on cue, the clouds parted and the library skylight casted a perfect beam of light onto her. He took this chance to look at her properly, to observe the focused crease of her brow. The rougeish glint in her eyes. The soft curve of her cheek. The flecks of light caught in her hair and the way it cascaded over her shoulders. The traces of scars on her fingers from burdensome battles and arduous work. The delicate shape of her neck. The slight pout of her lips. 

All of these parts of her came together, through hell and fire, to forge her. The prodigal hero. The slayer of trolls. The girl like no other.

And Gods, was she pretty. 

So pretty that it was difficult for him to look away.

But that didn’t mean anything. None of it meant anything. Because friends could certainly be pretty. Sebastian had been friends with tons of pretty girls before. And it was just a fact of nature that pretty things were made to be looked at. 

His eyes dropped to her fingers that stroked the edge of an old book. All of a sudden (overwhelmingly at once) the urge to hold onto it became not a want but a need.

Was it dastardly (blasphemous? outrageous?) to assume that some pretty things were made to be touched too?

He was so close to her. If he just reached out his hands he would —

Oh no. No no no.

He shooed away the rogue thought that sneaked its way into his mind. Merlin’s beard, how did that get there?

In a quick bid to distract himself, he picked up a random book from the pile she had haphazardly curated. But that proved to be a terrible mistake, when - what he assumed must’ve been - centuries worth of dust scattered into the stagnant library air. Sebastian went into an ungraceful coughing fit.

“What does Thistlewood have us looking for again?” Sebastian choked out as he waved the dust out of his eyes. 

She didn’t look at him (to his disappointment) but replied, “An old book. Helena said she heard a rumour that her ancestors hid an enchanted map to the heirloom in an old book in the Hogwarts library.”

He raised a brow, “Okay? Anything else?” 

Was that too haughty? Too sardonic? If she was annoyed, she didn’t show it.

But surely there must be more. Surely Helena Thistlewood gave the Hero of Hogwarts more to go on than that. 

“Unfortunately,” she replied diplomatically, “That’s all the clues I have at hand.”

Nevermind that she had just admitted she was grasping at straws - she still wasn’t looking at him. Why wouldn’t she look at him? He knew they were here with a job to do - but the books couldn’t be that much more interesting than him that she couldn’t even spare a glance. 

Could they? 

Sebastian always felt an inexplicable compulsion to look at her (as all friends would, he assumed). So by some wicked thread of logic, he believed it would only make cosmic sense she felt the same. 

“Well, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but this entire library is filled to the brim with old books,” he quipped wittily.

And then finally, after what felt like aeons, she turned to look at him. Sebastian had to physically fight the smile that threatened to form on his face. Her attention was all too thrilling. 

Perhaps he would’ve been better off if she hadn’t looked at him. Then he wouldn’t have suffered the terribly ill fate of looking so bloody stupid. 

Unbothered, she coyly replied.

“Shrewd as ever, Mr. Sallow. They don’t call you the brightest wizard in Slytherin for nothing,”

Mr. Sallow. Oh, the way his name rolled off her tongue was much too lovely. 

“You do know that this means we could be looking for days? ”

“I never said it would be easy,” She said.

“You never said it would be impossible either,” He bantered. 

Their exchanges were never a song and dance. It was like fencing. Every quip a lunge, every retort an en garde. But that made him love it all the more.

“Well I thought you’d be up for the challenge. Hidden treasures tend to be - well, hidden.” She said with a hearty laugh.

And like kerosine to a flame, the sound made his chest swell.

“Who knew that you’d be sending me on an impossible goose chase,” Sebastian said with a dramatic sigh.

Not that he was complaining of course. Despite the niggling pit in his stomach that knew he couldn’t explain why - he revelled in every moment he was blessed to spend in her company.

She rolled her eyes, “Don’t even pretend like you don’t love it.” 

Okay, now the smile on his face was truly repulsive. His cheeks were getting sore. 

“Oh no, I absolutely adore it.”

She swatted him gently with the stray book in her hand. But soon enough (too soon), her attention went back to the task at hand. He could feel the pout growing on his face as he watched her bury her nose deep into another book. 

Sebastian genuinely tried to help. He truly did. But the moment something no longer amused him, he was a lost cause. And while he was only joking, he was starting to feel like maybe this was proving to be an impossible task.

So instead, he chose to spend his time observing her. Until something caught his eye. 

The edges of her school robes were… singed? The seams were frayed and burnt, which was odd. When did she manage that? He hadn’t noticed that earlier. 

“What happened to your robes?” He asked.

Unexpectedly, she stiffened and looked away, “I’d rather not say.”

Now his curiosity was truly peaked. What deviousness did she get up to in his absence? What schemes was she committing without him?

“Well now you absolutely have to say.” He said.

Sebastian detested secrets he was not privy to. Especially hers. With every ounce of charm his brown eyes could muster, he looked at her expectantly, imploring her to tell him. 

When her face turned a delightful shade of pink, he knew she had folded. Check and mate.

“Fine.” She conceded.

On the edge of his seat, he urged her to continue.

Hesitantly, she did, “…I had a rather unfortunate accident yesterday.”

Sebastian cocked an eyebrow, “What did you do?”

“I might have… accidentally held my wand the wrong way round and confringoed myself in a duel with Clopton…”

Oh. Oh? Did he hear that right? 

Of all the things that she could’ve said, he was certainly not expecting that. He tried his best — he genuinely did — to not laugh. But he simply could not help himself from breaking into hounds of laughter. 

“Shut up!” She hissed, “It’s not funny Sallow.” 

As he wiped a stray tear from his eye, he quipped, “I beg to differ. It is actually very funny. I might have to rescind the title of best duellist in Hogwarts with that kind of shoddy wandwork.”

The glare on her face alone could’ve taken down trolls.

“Not even two rounds of washing got rid of the stench!” She yelled in whispers.

“I think that makes it objectively funnier.”

“You’re infuriating,” she huffed, “And I smell like burnt toast.”

He gave her a cheeky grin, “Oh, don’t be like that. I’m sure you smell fine. Lovely even. Let me see.”

“Hey, wait a minute—!”

Before the protests could leave her lips; before the rational part of his brain had time to think,  Sebastian moved towards her. Like lightning to the tallest peaks; like a comet caught in gravity's pull — he moved towards her.  

As he breathed into her, her breath hitched. 

Just as he had suspected, there was no hint of anything unpleasant. She smelled of mallowsweet and pine trees and warm fires. The mallowsweet she grew diligently in her garden. The early morning dew of pine trees from the forbidden forest. The crackle of her usual seat by the common room fireplace. 

If he could commit a scent to memory, Sebastian decided that this would be it. How was it possible that a smell could feel like home? What undiscovered sorcery was this? She didn’t smell like Feldcroft or the Undercroft — but it gripped onto him like a warm embrace that he yearned to always return to. 

It left him in such a daze that when she cleared her throat, it sounded miles away.

“...Sebastian?”

What was he doing again?

Right. He was reassuring her. That she was all good.

So how did he end up in the crook of her neck again? 

When he noticed how close he was to the delicate curve of her neck, he knew that he was in trouble. And he thought they were sitting in close proximity before. How in good conscience did he allow himself to get here?

Evidently, his conscience was not at all good and very much out to destroy him. 

When he finally gathered the nerve to bring his eyes to meet hers, he realised that she was looking directly at him. Her eyes were heavy with the weight of something indiscernible. Whatever it was, he couldn’t read it - but he could sense it was important. All of the sudden, the air in his lungs wasn't enough to keep him going. The words in his mouth wouldn’t form coherently.

Was it just him, or was the room spinning? 

Despite himself, he managed to get out in a whisper, “Just like I said. Sunshine and daisies.”

And more his traitorous mouth itched to confess.

Beneath lowered lashes, she replied barely above a whisper, “...thanks.” 

To his surprise, the look in her eyes turned bashful. Which was… something. In their time together, Sebastian had seen her embarrassed and flustered; but not once had he seen her bashful. Bashfulness was reserved for demure wallflowers and girlish first years. Not the hero of Hogwarts.

And in this moment, Sebastian cursed her for it.

Never in his 17 years of feeble existence had he seen anything so disgustingly disarming. And bloody hell, for the sake of his poor, erratic heart, he would need her to swear on Salazar to never ever, ever, ever ever look at him like that again — 

“Oh, hello friends!” 

Like a douse of cold water, a cheerful voice broke them out of their reverie, and suddenly they were scrambling apart. The air shifted. The tension dissipated. The scent of her no longer pervaded his senses. There was now (what felt like, at least to Sebastian) an astronomical distance between them. All that he had left to show for it was the stupid look on his face.

Sebastian felt like he was waking up from a fever dream. He didn’t know whether he wanted to jump for joy or throw up. Whether he was relieved or infuriated by the intrusion.

Who was it that intruded anyway?

“P-Poppy!” The girl beside him exclaimed, looking like a deer caught in headlights herself.

“Poppy.” Sebastian repeated, almost robotically.

Before them stood Poppy Sweeting, with a wide-eyed smile on her face. If she had noticed any tension between them, she didn’t mention it. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Poppy said, apologetically.

“Oh not at all!” His friend said hurriedly.

Sebastian begged to differ.

Poppy turned to address the girl wonder directly, “I was wondering if you had that magical creatures book? Natty and I were planning on visiting the fwoopers den up North, and I was hoping to bring it out with me today.”

Abruptly, she jumped from her seat and snapped her fingers in recollection.

“Oh! Right. I left it with Scribner at her desk. Let me go get it.” 

With rushed fervour, she stood up to go. Her hair and the folds of her skirt swayed hurriedly behind her. He watched with heavy eyes as she walked out of sight; as she robbed him of mallowsweet, pine trees and warm fires.

Now that she was gone — without rhyme or reason — his chest felt hollower. Why? Surely that lonely feeling that gripped his chest couldn’t have been from her absence. She would only be gone for a few minutes at most. What was he — a hapless puppy? 

Poppy’s bright voice broke him out of his trance.

“Sebastian, would you like to join us next time?”

His brain was still spiralling, so it took him a while to process the question. Or even realise that Poppy was speaking to him. But he managed to muster enough mental energy to reply.

“Oh me? Beasts watching?” He drawled absentmindedly, “Can’t say it’s really my thing.” 

Hippogriffs aside, he never really cared much for beasts no matter how mythical. And it wasn’t like he and Poppy Sweeting were particularly chummy either. 

Poppy nodded, “I figured as much. But our dear friend has recently been so terribly insistent on finding the snidgets before the poachers do—”

“Sounds just like her,” he interjected. It was valiant and righteous and just so bloody like her it made him want to scream. Just a tiny one, to help relieve the lingering warmth and tightness he felt in his traitorous chest.

Poppy continued, “—and I feel bad for taking up so much of her time. And seeing as you’re courting, I thought you might like to spend more time together.”

Sebastian stopped and his brain short circuited entirely.

What did she just say? Did Poppy Sweeting just say courting?

He swore he physically felt the neurons in his brain melt, “We’re not - I don’t - She —” Once again, Sebastian found his words failing him.

Poppy was looking at him expectantly, like an over-eager kneazle. But the weight of her expectation crushed him. After a few agonising moments of Sebastian completely butchering the English language, Poppy finally caught on. Sebastian’s words refused to cooperate, so he could only watch feebly as the gears seemed to finally turn in Poppy’s head.

“Oh!” She said in disbelief, “Sorry! I just thought, the way you were looking at her - and you looked so close that —”

Oh God. The way he was looking at her? Poppy Sweeting just basically implied that he was a hapless puppy. Obviously, Sebastian knew that the thoughts on his brain were a complete travesty — but he didn’t think he wore it on his face. 

Did he? Well apparently fucking so.

Sebastian was mortified. “It’s not like that,” he said quickly, “We’re just friends.”

A tentative pause filled the air. To his dismay, Poppy only dignified his response with a look of sheer disbelief. As if he’d grown two extra heads and still couldn’t find between them a single brain cell. 

Sebastian felt the urge to crawl into a Dugbog nest so he could be swallowed whole. If even Poppy Sweeting was questioning their relationship, then who else? Ominis he could handle. But the rest of the student body? He wouldn’t survive it. 

“Friends.” Poppy repeated the word painfully slow, as if tasting the word her tongue would help make it all make sense. Eventually, she nodded and said cryptically, “I see.” 

“Yes. Friends.” He repeated.

The cavern of lacewing flies that plagued him earlier returned, and they were back with a vengeance . It’s not like he was at all prudish. Let it be known that Sebastian Sallow was no stranger to a romantic dalliance or two (Third year was a whole thing, don’t ask). Flirting was his status quo, being charming came to him as easily as breathing. As naturally as a moth to a roaring open flame.  

But courting? Her? The very thought made his insides scream.

Poppy looked unsurely at him, as if she had much more to say (or protest even). But she kept her mouth shut to maintain the civility of it all, as if she decided that even one word more would likely fracture Sebastian’s thin semblance of normality. And Poppy didn’t want to be to blame for his pitiful unravelling. 

So they just sat in silence.

“Here you go Poppy!”

Eventually, when their friend returned, she was surprised to find both her friends sitting in complete silence. When she handed Poppy her book back, she was taken aback by the pitiful look in her eyes. And as if to apologise, (for what exactly she had no idea) Poppy gave her a soothing pat on the back. She said a quick thanks and left. 

The girl wonder turned to look at Sebastian curiously, but decided against prying. 

From the look on his face, she had a feeling that whatever it was, was better left alone. —— We love to see Sebastian flustered!!!

I have like little bits of all the chapter written out, and this took me way longer than I thought it would! Hopefully yall enjoy the pining and how in love Seb is <3

Thank you so so much for everyone who liked and reblogged, they really made my week! Also thank you @peterwandaparker @wt-fxck @pugsnotdrugs92 @ithinkweallsing For your lovely comments <3 This is a side blog so I can't reply but I'm soooo glad you guys like it!

[roguishcat]

Conversations with a vampire - part 4/10

Summary: A story told through a series of conversations between Astarion and child Tav, tracing the slow and steady progress of trust and friendship.

Humor/Friendship/Angst

Rating: Teen. Mild language, mentions of abuse in later chapters, some violence.

Setting: Set before the events of the game.

There was a chill in the air and evenings were turning colder, seasons changing with slow grace, first leaves falling and scattering on the ground in a multitude of colors. Astarion started wearing his doublet more, his usual shirt being too light for this time of the year. That is, it would be if he could feel the cold. He supposed that was one of the few perks of his current state.

Tav was autumn personified, wearing an ankle-length coat in shades of bright amber with a brown fur collar which she left unbuttoned, revealing a shirt and trouser ensemble of a lighter shade that matched her leather boots. Her hair was in a low braid with shimmering golden threads woven along the tresses.

“You know, it’s the first time I see you wearing something other than that frilly shirt,” she commented, throwing a pretty sparkly ring into the air, and snatching it quickly before the trinket hit the ground. “You look nice.”

“Well thank you, not that your opinion was wanted or needed,” Astarion rolled his eyes. He didn’t need Tav to know he looked good, though he didn’t mind being admired by all. The doublet was beautiful, although the golden embroidery was a pain to look after. Not all his conquest were gentle when handling him and his clothes had a fair share of wear and tear. He took care of the little he had meticulously and carefully, as Cazador did not see it fit to give the spawn any more than bare minimum.

Yet, flattery would really get people everywhere and his mood was decidedly better now than it was before he set out for the night. Thus, assured of his good looks, Astarion strolled down the street with unhurried steps, keen eyes observing those he passed by. They passed the potion shop and were nearing Wyrm’s Rock. There were more people around for this time of night and not the usual crowd too. Families, children, young couples, their excitement for the fireworks display in celebration of the grand re-opening of Felogyr's Fireworks so palpable he could almost taste it.

“I just don’t understand why you don’t just come and work in Sharess’ Caress, with your looks you could make tons, tons!” she gesticulated wildly in her excitement to show just how astronomical his earnings would be. “And then you could have everything you wish to have, which whoever it is that you work for doesn’t provide. Mamzell Amira is not exactly nice, but she treats everyone well enough, better than you get treated clearly. I am sure-”

“I don’t need your advice. Or your pity,” he spat, cutting Tav off sharply. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Find another charity case if that’s what you are after.”

Tav frowned but did not flinch or move away. She was used to adults having little patience when dealing with her, perhaps understandably. She did go on and on sometimes. Besides, she had her suspicions about Astarion for a while now, and she knew the defeated look of a person who had no power to make their own choices and hated it. It was useless to pry, for now.

“Sorry, that was wrong of me to say that. It wasn’t meant to be pity. I really do say the dumbest things, don’t I?”

Astarion sighed, a little annoyed at himself for this display of emotion. Yes, she was an insensitive, intrusive little idiot, but she did it out of some feeling of misplaced kindness. And whilst he did not necessarily need her kindness, it was quite refreshing to talk to someone who wanted to converse just for the sake of it.

“Well, I guess it can’t be helped,” he brushed his fingers through his silver curls, “your atrocious lack of manners is especially obvious today, that’s all. You should really work on that.”

“Maybe. But at least I’m trying. Wouldn’t hurt you to be nicer, you know. Once in a while,” Tav said petulantly.

“And it wouldn’t hurt me to be less nice, so your point is moot,” he countered.

“Oooh, someone is in a bad mood. Fine, I’ll shut up,” she huffed and turned away, seemingly determined to show that she was upset.

That lasted for a grand total of two minutes before Tav started fidgeting and shooting furtive looks his way.

“Want me to do your nails then? It is party tonight, after all. I have everything with me. Polishes and all,” she asked hopefully.

Apparently, it was physically impossible for the girl to be quiet.

“No.”

“Aw, come on!” she whined in a most aggravating way. “You have beautiful hands! Like the bard with the lyre that played at Sharess’ the other night.”

“Well, I do know which strings to pluck to make everyone sing for me.”

The innuendo went completely over her head.

“So, is that a yes on the nails?”

“Still no.”

She pouted but did not insist anymore.

“The human delivery boy who brings the groceries to Sharess’ Caress asked me to go watch the fireworks with him tonight.”

“Oh?” He looked at her with his eyebrows raised. “Sounds like somebody’s got a date.”

“Eww, gross” Tav scrunched her nose at the suggestion. “He is a year older, but so juvenile for thirteen,” she said, clearly unimpressed with whatever the boy did to try to get her attention.

“Because clearly you are a picture of wisdom and maturity,” Astarion quipped.

“Well, maybe not,” she agreed, “but kids my age are boring. They see one gash on my leg, perhaps bleeding too much and maybe there was a bit of bone sticking out, I admit, and just faint! Wimps,” she scoffed haughtily.

“Not everyone has the devil-may-care attitude you do, it seems.”

“Exactly! And why would I want to hang out with someone bland and boring like that? They won’t be able to keep up.”

“Which is probably a good thing for them, as they clearly have a sense of self-preservation, and you don’t.”

“Whatever,” she smiled, apparently choosing to take his comment as a compliment. Tav flicked her hair over her shoulder, the golden threads making her blonde hair twinkle as if lit up my magic. “Besides, the fireworks are going to be down by the river, not far from Felogyr's Fireworks. I wouldn’t be able to go even if I wanted to.”

Ah, yes. There was the ever-present issue of her having to traverse these streets over and over again without being able to explore the rest of the city.

“You are not missing out on that much, fireworks are frightfully dull, overrated really,” Astarion said with a longsuffering sigh, as if going to a party was such a chore.

“Yeah, baby stuff,” she looked up, catching on quickly.

“Quite so.”

Her lips quirked into a smile. It was a ghost of her usual enthusiastic grin, but better than nothing.

“Ya know,” Tav looked down, suddenly finding the cobblestones worthy of her attention, “I decided I’m going to marry you when I’m older,” she said in a nonchalant manner.

“Are you now?” he snorted in amusement. “And I suppose you didn’t think to ask my opinion on the matter?”

“Just you wait, I’m going to grow up to be strikingly beautiful. Well, maybe not as beautiful as you”, she sighed, accepting that as a fact of life, “but close enough! And I’m going to save you from your master, because he clearly does not treat you as well as he should, and you will fall hopelessly in love with me!”

“Didn’t you say that this isn’t what you really look like? You might be quite a bland thing. Terrible warts on your nose. Missing teeth, bad breath.”

“Stop it, don’t be horrid!” she laughed. “You are just saying that to be mean.”

He was needling her on purpose, that was true. But Tav could take a joke and wasn’t fishing for praise. It was a nice change of pace when he didn’t have to needlessly stroke someone’s ego and come up with artful, empty compliments. Words were usually just another arrow in his quiver, a tool used for seduction to ensure his survival. It was pleasant to talk to someone just for the sake of it.

“Well, even if I am beastly and ugly, and you will not want to marry me, I hope we can still be friends even many years from now. And I am going to set you free no matter what.”

Set him free, she said. And who was going to set her free before that? Because no matter how negligent her family was, she was being educated, provided for, dressed in the best of the best. One did not just do that out of the goodness of their heart. There had to a purpose for whatever this was.

“Well, that sounds like a plan,” he rolled his eyes. “It may be missing the how and when you are going to best Cazador-”

Fuck. He didn’t mean to say his name. The less she knew about him, the better.

“Don’t make fun of me! I may be measly twelve now, but in a few years, I will be old enough to decide my own destiny. One day, I will do something great, really great, and it will change everything.”

“If you say so,” he allowed, relieved that she did not latch onto the name and start asking questions.

The fireworks display started abruptly, painting the sky a myriad of colours. It was obtrusively bright and showy, but seeing all this in his world where colours were muted and dull had a certain appeal.

“Right, whilst you idle away the hours, some of us have things to do, places to be,” he walked off, moving with the crowds that started making their way towards the Lower City.

“Okay,” she ran up to Astarion to hand him a potion, upholding her end of the bargain as usual, “hope your hunt goes well!”

Hunt. Yes, that is exactly what he was doing. And the crowd tonight seemed so ready for the picking, oohing and aahing at the beauty above them, drunk on their excitement and cheap beer. It was almost too easy to engage one, two, three victims in quick succession. Pluck them like ripe fruit, ready to be devoured.

The other spawn quickly caught on to where his hunting grounds were for the night, and he started glimpsing them here and there. Dalyria grasping a tiefling’s chin and bringing his lips closer to her own to whisper something seductively, him following her completely enthralled by whatever she was saying. Petras loudly propositioning a human pair, them laughing and calling him daft, which was obviously not the effect he was going for. Astarion scoffed. Petras was terrible at being suave, he lacked the finesse, the ability to improvise on the spot.

At one point, Astarion had a niggling suspicion at the back of his mind that Tav was watching him from the rooftops, he thought he saw her once or twice. But, when he crossed the bridge yet again and noticed her up on the roof of the potion shop, she was looking at a human family with a wistful expression, the child holding his father’s hand and gesticulating animatedly, clearly excited about being out and about after dark. The mother crouched beside the boy and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, eliciting delighted giggles. Tav scowled and quickly turned, walking away from the edge of the roof and then bleeding into the shadows.

A child without a name, without a family, and without any history.  Astarion supposed that she had little in common with children that sought her company, who had the luxury of enjoying the care and love of their parents, or at least were free to come and go as they pleased on a whim.  

She was a specter that haunted the streets of the city she could never properly explore. It was little surprise that she identified with him on some level. He was a creature who was a ghost of his former self, who was compelled to act as he was bid. A former elf without a past, a vampire spawn without a future.

@ninty900 @dajeong @ayselluna

[george228732]

Fylass Through the Looking Glass - Chapter Twelve - The Queen’s Gambit

Maforanti felt as if they were more relieved when they left that bag, surely due to not being with Fylass around; although, another weight on his nonexistent shoulders set in, as he pondered on the implications of his new found memories. 

How was his life beforehand? What caused him to go down this path? Many of the memories that should be there felt as if they were blank like a chalkboard, and his mind was desperately trying to piece itself together, but was unable to, as if someone just missed the details. Up until this point, he thought of himself as a civilian of Underland, with no family and a couple of friends perhaps, but this rabbit hole goes deeper and deeper, as the general tries to remember people that were, somehow, close to him, yet he didn’t remember one bit of them, not even their name, or their voice.

He seemingly had a wife and kids? How? Why doesn’t he remember anything? How did he get here in the first place when the last memory he had was when he died in a place that seemed too bizarre to even understand? The version he saw himself as in those misplaced mementos was enough reason for Fylass to hate him that strongly, yet it felt unfair, since he didn’t even know that those atrocious acts were any of his doing. 

It felt horrible, yet it felt incomplete. Although, maybe some tea would help him clear his thoughts; this felt like a broken record, but he wanted to have his days of glory and serenity back… Although he knew his life was nothing but serene. Not this one, not any other one he might’ve had. 

"Sit down, please."

He just realized that he was walking with the Red Queen this entire time, going towards a living room, looking as fancy as it could be if it came from a common household; it looked pretty, but it didn’t reach the standards for something like a castle. There were some chairs, which were next to a table containing a teapot and some good-looking teacups on top. 

Convenient, to say the least.

With nothing else to say, Maforanti decided to sit down, with the best composure he could have, but decided to hear what Majaway had to say; in times like this, it was better to drown on someone else’s words than with any other thing at the moment. It was that, or to have yet another crisis.

"...I have been wanting to talk to you, Maforanti. I am quite glad I am able to do it now."

"...Hm, I see. What do you have in mind, Queen Majaway?"

"Oh, nothing much." She stopped to drink some of the tea she had, and to pour some more to Maforanti’s teacup. Wasn’t it easier to have both teacups done, though? "I just wanted to discuss a… plan I had planned for a while. I know your records based on your actions, like how you were the one that drove the Jabberwocky to that celebration, or when you tried getting the White King’s crown for yourself, and almost succeeded. I know you are a genius when it comes to planning. So… I wanted you to do something for me."

"...Go on." What Majaway said was true, and he’ll be proud of it, if only he didn’t have that recollection of memories that made them look much more like an irredeemable monster that shouldn’t deserve anything but the worst of punishments. He at least had reasons for doing what he was doing, thinking about the White Kingdom’s wellbeing, but after those atrocities he apparently committed, he still wasn’t sure about what to think about himself.

"...First off, why don’t you drink some tea? I made it for you."

Maforanti was about to drink the tea, but as he placed the teacup close to his mouth, he felt as if he was being watched from afar, and that pressure was enough for Maforanti to check the smell emanating from the tea, but his suspicions were confirmed when he was about to drink it through. It was tea, but with something else added into it. Poison.

By pure instinct, he dropped the teacup, still with its contents, and so, both Mafo and Majaway saw the cup shattering into pieces. Majaway was speechless, and so was the general, but before she could say something, Maforanti broke the silence.

"W-WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO?! POISON ME?! I’VE BEEN YOUR STRONGEST ALLY BACK IN THE WHITE KINGDOM, AND I GET PAID LIKE THIS?!"

"..."

"AND WORST OFF, YOU TRIED TO USE THE SAME METHOD I USED WHEN TRYING TO GET RID OF THE KING?! WHAT KIND OF SENSE DOES THAT MAKE?!"

"...Guards. Get rid of him."

"Eh?! What guards!? You and I know that no one bothers to look at your dying realm. Let alone stay! Who do you take me for?! Just accept that you won’t get Celeenyx kingdom!" He surely was aware that was hypocritical on his part, but he wasn’t thinking straight. It wasn’t until Maforanti looked at the sides of the room he was in. There were armors everywhere, and every single one of them was looking at Maforanti. He was sure those armors weren’t there before

"...I am sorry, but you see, I found someone more useful on my way to success than you, and we both realized that you weren’t needed. So… if you are not going to take your life willingly, they will do it, then." Majaway left that calm behavior, but her voice seemed just as gentle as before.

With a snap of her fingers, the armors suddenly moved, as if they were given life. 

Maforanti left the room as soon as possible, ignoring every single obstacle that was thrown at him on the way through, even those green eyes that he swore to have seen before, but any exit that could be used was now blocked with more sentient armors. He knew he had to fight.

"Alright." He took out a sword from his robes, resembling none other than Galaxia, now having a silver hue to it. He would’ve used it with Fylass beforehand, but his epiphany didn’t let him think straight, but now, he didn’t have that chance to do that. He was hearing the Queen getting closer, so time was running out for him. "This is not the first time I have to do this. Bring it on!"

-

The place was getting to a point that the darkness around the walls was becoming palpable, with the lanterns on the walls being the only source of light besides the light coming from the magic of both White King and Queen. Every corner was slowly becoming one of dread and concern, as everything felt like it was leading to a disaster, but everything felt so… quiet. 

Until…

"Hnng…" A voice was heard from within the group, leaving everyone on edge, only to realize that it was Fylass, who was finally waking up, without that crack, but the scar was still present. "...Uh…?"

"Oh, kid! I am glad you are okay! Feeling well?"

"Er… Where am I?" Fylass’ eyes adjusted to the darkness, noticing Lucid and the rest with him, with the porcelain man carrying him through a place they didn’t know exactly, but either way, they were happy to see their friends around this dark place.

"Well, we are at the Red Castle. The lower part of it to be more exact. We are trying to find the Chronosphere, or atleast, Time around, but to be fair, there’s an odd feeling in the air, and nobody likes it."

"Oh… Is this a castle, though? This just looks like an abnormally big basement to me…" Fylass said as they tried their best to gain a better look at their surroundings.

"Glad to see that your opinion isn’t much different from ours…" Mikuto commented, still trying to make his path clear. "Good thing you guys have that magic, or else we might as well consider ourselves lost."

"It’s no issue. Besides that, we… we better… better keep moving." Celeernyx seemingly was uncomfortable traversing this place, as if she knew that something was deeply wrong.

"...Something happens, Queen Celeernyx?" Fylass asked.

"...I know this place. It was… It was my home. A long, long time ago." 

"...Wait, what? Excuse me?" Seemingly, not even Buddy knew that fact about her, someone that he has been with for a while. Was that why she was so uncomfortable when approaching the Red Kingdom? Why, though?

"...There are some secrets I can’t reveal just yet, but for now… I think I know where to go." Celeernyx begrudgingly went ahead towards the darkness, seemingly knowing the exact place to go. The rest followed her, asking questions in silence about how Celeernyx knew about this place that well, and how was this place her home. 

The path that resembled a labyrinth, became much more clear to the view, as the doors around became ones that no one would want to access, until the door that they were seemingly supposed to visit made itself present in the distance. 

It was Majaway’s room.

"...So, this is it?" 

"Supposedly, yes." The Queen was about to open the door, but hesitated for a moment. "...I wonder how different this room may look like now." 

The room was now visible, and it looked… oddly wide; in fact, it looked like it could fit, atleast, two people in here. Everything was tidy and cleaned up, but there was a stale sense of disdain floating across the room. No one could really tell what it was, but something felt… uneasy. 

The silence quickly faded again, though, as they noticed that a clock was ticking on the room; seemingly being the only clock that worked in the entire place; Fylass was going to check the pocket watch to see if time was back, only to realize they didn’t have their bag with them.

"Wait, where’s my bag?"

"Oh… We surely left it behind." Lucid said. "Here, let me get it for you." He headpatted Fylass softly as he was about to leave, but was quickly interrupted. 

"Actually, I have the bag here." Chaos said, and indeed, they had the bag, even though it was clear that he didn’t have it beforehand. 

"...Alright…" Lucid took the bag, not before thanking Chaos, and giving it back to Fylass. 

The kid checked their bag, checking that the watch was still motionless, so this sight over here, only brought up suspicions around the Queen and her castle. 

"We should keep looking for any clues around this place…" Fylass said, and with that, everyone kept looking for any sort of hint about the Chronosphere’s whereabouts. They looked at the walls, seeing multiple paintings that looked like family photos but every face on it was scratched out, as if a beast destroyed them completely; the bed was comfy, but there wasn’t much to say about it, for everyone checked behind the pillows, or below the blankets and mattress.

Something interesting happened when looking at the drawers, though; a thick layer of dust covered a red notebook; it was seemingly the Queen’s own diary, if the black font on its cover didn’t make it clear. 

"Hm… We might want to get a peek at this…" Fetty said, but as the first pages of the notebook were about to be seen, a distressing sound resembling metal bars clashing towards a hard surface echoed through the darkness. 

"...Uh… Have you guys heard that?"

"The sound of a strong hit? Yeah." The crown Buddy was wearing said.

"..." Soon enough, that sound followed by many more sounds of the same tone, progressively getting closer to the group.

"We need to run. NOW." Everyone’s panic rose up, and they left the eerie room, trying to outrun that sound that only could mean danger, and the path now seemed much brighter, but more confusing. 

Fylass was the one that struggled the most during the escape, maybe due to their recent wound, that even if it wasn’t there anymore, the kid still needed some time to heal; luckily, though Lucid was doing his best to help them mid-run, and soon enough, they reached the same room in which the group got separated, although, they quickly stumbled across some familiar faces.

"Banshee! What were those sounds back there?!" It didn’t take a while for the gang to realize that there was someone else accompanying them, being none other than Time himself. He seemingly was tired, struggling to keep up the pace, and looked hurt. 

"Wait, clock tower man?! Are you here, too?!"

"YES, BUT THAT’S NOT IMPORTANT, THOSE THINGS ARE FOLLOWING US AND THEY WON’T STOP UNTIL WE’RE DEAD."

Some of the armors that were across the hallways were somehow following the group, all of them with sharp swords on hand. 

"QUICK, LET’S GET TO THE UPPER FLOOR." 

Another chase followed, now trying to find the possible stairs leading everyone to safety, trying their best to leave behind the heavy steps of the armors following them. As for the rest of the people running away, they all had questions they wanted answered when they were in a safer place.

How was Time here? Why was he here? Why did Chaos seem so disturbed by their presence? Time didn’t even notice Chaos’ sight around, and even if he did, he would be too busy running away to ask him some questions.

Soon enough, the stairs made themselves present, as if someone put them there for everyone’s convenience, and the light seeped through the palpable darkness. The sight outside this great basement wasn’t better though, with lots of those same destroyed armors scattered across the floor, and a wounded Maforanti around them.

"OH, FINALLY. HAVE YOU FOUND THE CHRONOSPHERE?!"

"NO, BUT WE FOUND TIME, SO, I GUESS WE DIDN’T EXIT HERE WITH EMPTY HANDS!" 

"WHATEVER. LET’S GET OUT OF HERE, SHE’S LOOKING FOR US!"

No one really knew what was happening, but they did as such, with Buddy using magic to break one of the walls; he was sure that the Queen did this, somehow, so he didn’t have much issue with destroying the property for an easy escape.

The land of mist and ash was getting across everyone’s eyes, as they tried to hopelessly get to safety, but soon enough, some others didn’t even feel the ground down their feet; there was now a hole resembling like one you could do when breaking a glass panel, and Wonderland was at the other side. 

Everyone fell down this destination, but Fylass who was steps away from falling down that hole; not that it helped them to fall into another hole that was formed down their feet; it wasn’t Wonderland, though, but a space that resembled… well, space. 

Fylass cried for help, but nobody came to their rescue, now that everyone was seemingly in Wonderland, and by pure chance and bad luck, their club shaped gem was shattered once again out of nowhere, shattering the kid in the process.

…They would try again. She would try too. He would try too.

-------

@heiressofdoodles

@kirby-universe-4162

@kachikirby

@galakianexplosion

@lostsoulau-ask

@moon-mage

[mha-grievances]

Ok, so I know that I constantly criticize MHA. I constantly bitch and moan about how much missed potential there are in the series, how the pacing is ass, how Hori’s comedy is atrocious, how there are many plot holes, how Katsuki is an utterly shit character, yada yada yada. The way you see me talk about MHA probably makes you think that I feel it’s the worst anime of all time.

Trust me, it’s far from the worst thing that’s out there. Like any sort of media, anime is littered with some bizarre, atrocious stuff.

Future Diaries is an anime that has cemented itself as a hugely influential aspect of pop culture, Yuno being THE character that defines the idea of a Yandere. However the series goes into batshit crazy territory that makes absolutely no sense, the MC is all kinds of shitty, and, well, shit happens just to happen.

Redo of Healer is revenge r*pe fantasy that has no well defined characters. They’re either comically fucked up or just there to contribute to the MC’s harem. Also magic sperm.

Pupa is an incest anime (yes, anime, not hentai) about a sister who needs to eat flesh to survive and a boy who can regenerate. For the sake of your sanity, I’m not going to talk about this further.

School Days goes off the rails and has perhaps some of the most unlikable characters to ever exist, including the MC himself. Meant to subvert the typical romance visual novel, things get into wtf territory fast. Honestly I constantly debate whether School Days is a masterpiece in what it does or if it falls under the same pit traps that other series that aim to “subvert expectations” does.

These series (except for perhaps School Days, still tryna figure out where I stand on it) are far worse than MHA, which is incompetent at worst.

So why do I criticize MHA rather than these series?

Well, MHA is an interesting beast. Future Diaries, Redo of Healer, and Pupa know what they are. They know that their storytelling isn’t the best. They know that they’re fantasies for perverts, people who just wanna watch something fucked up, those who like the shock factor/harem aspects, all that stuff. They don’t try to be anything more than what they are, and there’s nothing wrong with that (and by that I mean there’s nothing wrong with them not being deep. Whether the content shown might be is a different topic all together). MHA is a series that tries to offer commentary on the real world and wants us to take it seriously, but there are barriers that stop this from happening. Whether it’s Hori failing to allow his MC to breathe which makes things feel angsty for the sake of it, his failure to tackle the themes in a meaningful and non-hypocritical manner, his “comedy”, missed potential that he doesn’t capitalize on or cares to, the creation of characters meant to embody certain themes but fail at doing so (Katsuki, Shota, etc.), fake tension that goes nowhere, or Hori springing shit at the last minute to up the stakes but only makes people scratch their heads. MHA is a series that, despite it being a colorful world of superheroes and having a charming set of characters, is meant to serve as a criticism of society and a dive into what it means to be a hero. Sadly it fails to do this accurately. I can meme and shit on Pupa, Future Diaries, and Redo of Healer, but besides edgy 12 year olds on YouTube who think they’re philosophers, everyone will pretty much agree that these anime aren’t good. Even the fans will agree. Wildly entertaining as fuck, yes, but not good, and they weren’t designed to be good or thought provoking. They were designed to appeal to a certain demographic and keep them entertained as they turn their brains off. MHA however demands that we use our brains, to analyze the material that’s being shown and to question ourselves, but it sabotages its themes at numerous points and that’s what makes MHA the subject of my analysis. It’s a series that ultimately fails at what it’s trying to do, and what it’s trying to do is pretty big. Take Katsuki for example. MHA is constantly shoving down my throat that Katsuki is a good person and that he’s worthy of being a hero, but it does it in an obnoxious way and constantly contradicts itself with Katsuki’s actions. Meanwhile the other anime I mentioned don’t bother propping their characters like the second coming of Christ, some even embracing the fact that a character is shitty, and if they do try shoving down my throat a character is good, it’s done in such a laughably bad way that it’s far more funny than it is annoying.

To me it’s interesting HOW MHA manages to fail at what it’s trying to do and it serves as an example of what works and doesn’t work when writing a similar series. In MHA what works really works and shows that there is immense potential in MHA to be something amazing, further proven by the fact that some of the characters and some of the arcs are well written. However what doesn’t work really reduces the quality of the series and makes you wonder how one writer can understand the assignment in some instances and completely bomb it in others (especially in key moments where the writer is meant to give it their all and showcase WHY their series is so popular and WHY they chose to write this series and about certain topics rather than do something else).

So yeah, if you wonder why this blog was made, and why MHA over everything else, now you know 😂.

[silmawensgarden]

Earplugs & broken strings

Maglor x reader

Prompt: Maglor with an SO that loves to listen to his music but can't play an instrument to save their life.

Requested by @crispynerdbarbarian

A/n: Some days I know just what to write for Maglor, other days I have my issues. I hope that you enjoy this little one shot despite it!

Wordcount: 1K Warnings: none :)

"You know, it's not necessary for you to bite your tongue so hard if you think my harp skills are atrocious. Just say so. "

You had been listening to Maglor compose a new piece for a concert he'd perform next month and expressed how much you liked his music. Sometimes you couldn't help but stare in awe of his skill. In those moments if you allowed your eyes to lose focus a little, it almost looked like his hands were made of pure gold. His skill was so ridiculous that it mattered not what instrument was given to him, he knew what to do with it.

You on the other hand were an absolute wreck, and that's putting it lightly. Everytime your parents attempted to have you learn an instrument, the teachers fled after little over two weeks of attempts to teach you. The last teacher was assigned to help you learn to play a small lyre. There were so little strings, you could master that right?

Wrong.

It was a constant battle between you and the lyre. In your frustration you had managed to snap one of the strings. That's where the lyre lessons ended rather abruptly. You've never picked up another instrument since. You had made peace with the fact that you simply weren't musically inclined.

Sometimes your non-musically inclined nature made you feel unworthy of Maglor. How come someone with such talent in music would choose someone who can't even read notes correctly? Let alone sing a duet with him. Unbeknownst to you, Maglor had noticed your timid behavior and your insecurities. He knew that you felt unworthy, of him, of being part of his family, and perhaps more. He knew about these feelings better than he was letting you know.

And because of this you are now sitting on the bed in his room with a small harp on your lap. Trying to make sense of his instructions.

"Melda, that is an F. The parchment says you need to play B."

You felt pretty terrible at this point. How did you confuse and F for a B? Though to you it didn't matter so much whether it was F, B or even G you had to play. What mattered to you was the expression on Maglor's face. It was unnaturally stiff and almost fully devoid of emotion. He was trying incredibly hard not to crack.

It made your heart ache. In a way you could say that these lessons weren't helping either one of you. Yet Makalaurë pressed on. He firmly believed it to be possible for you to learn. Even if it would take you much longer than the average student, he was willing to sit through every single hideous note. If only you'd feel more confident.

You sigh deeply, your frustration and thoughts are overwhelming you. You honestly wanted to chuck the harp out of the window and cry. But you knew better than to do that, so you put the harp down on the pillows as gently as you could in your frustrated state. You felt your eyes starting to sting, you knew you were about to cry any moment now...

Suddenly you feel two arms wrap around you, and a soft soothing song being whispered to you. Your eyes widen and a tear slips out despite trying to keep it inside. Maglor embraced you tightly, rubbing circles on your back.

"It's okay meldanya, we can take a break. It's okay." He whispers. He pulls away from you and smiles a soft smile. His hand still resting on your shoulder in a reassuring way.

"Maka.... Makalaurë, how are you so patient with me? I saw the look on your face, I am a horrible harpist!" You said in between sniffles. The waterworks had taken the embrace as their que to start pouring out. You felt like a mess, both emotionally and physically.

"Y/n, listen, I understand that you feel frustrated with learning an instrument. Music is an art form that takes many years to perfect. Even I, during the time that I had not played my harp for nearly an age, even I snapped a string when I picked it back up again. Just like how you can't make a smith out of me, no matter how much I wanted to try to appease my atar. When it came down to smithing, I was horrible."

Maglor pulls you close to him, looking into your eyes. He is serious, more than you'd seen him before.

"Y/n, just like that, I do not expect of you to be a master of song. You are a master of your own unique set of skills. And I am more than grateful to have you as my partner. I chose you because I saw the brightness of your soul, your joyful nature, how caring you are to others....and the way you look at life itself. Not because I expected you to be the best harpist out of all of them."

You felt like your heart was playing jump rope of some sort. It was beating rapidly. His words were like a soothing cup of tea after a terrible breakdown. The fact that he saw you for who you are, and not for any potential you could've had, was a relief. Marrying into the Fëanorian household made you feel like you had to constantly perform. Now knowing that to be false, a huge weight has been lifted from your shoulders.

You let out a deep sigh, calming down slightly from your frustrations. You were still mulling over some things but were soon interrupted by Maglor.

"How about we have some tea, and I'll play you a song or two? Because there is one skill of yours that I am most certainly in awe of, and that is your ability to truly listen to what someone's heart is saying. And that's a lovely quality for someone I'd love to be the first to hear my compositions....before anyone else does."

You smile and nod at his proposition. The both of you get up from your spots on the bed and walk out of the room to the kitchen. Walking hand in hand, with an excitement to hear the music and for the other to hear the heartfelt opinions of someone they love.

[scripted-downfall]

I never did understand that mentality. "Oh, this person doesn't like J*red? Well, let's threaten and throw slurs at this person! That'll make them like him! 😄"

Like, no. That's not how that works.

Also, for a while, I used to have nothing against Jared. No, I wasn't a Stan, but I didn't hate him either. I thought he was a pretty alright dude. And I kinda bought into the whole J2 thing for a while too. Until I started hearing about this shit about him. And at first, I didn't think much of it, it was one story here, one story there, but then it kept. Happening. And then I saw the receipts. And I rewatched convention clips, and this was the turning point for me. It surprises me there's no one talking about this anywhere else. Not Twitter and not Facebook. Or maybe there are, it's just not tagged or trending, which it should be. People need to know about this.

- ʀᴀᴍʙʟɪɴɢ ᴀɴᴏɴ (•‿•)

Exactly! It makes no sense in my mind at all.

For context: I also didn't feel especially strongly about JarPad at first. I saw him in the context of the show and found his acting utterly atrocious --- it became a long-running joke in my family and friend base --- but I didn't really care much about him. As I mentioned, I don't look much at bts stuff anyway. This was then followed by a few of my Sam-critical and JarPad-acting-critical posts, which got me slammed by stans so vehemently that my inbox was full of little else for about a week. (I never really mute posts or block people --- perhaps I should, but I never feel the need --- but I muted a few posts and blocked a few folks during that first wave of b.s. I can't bring myself to regret it, either.) After that point, I got even more suspicious of JarPad's character --- I mean, if a man inspires a fanbase like that (heavy on the bad extremes, light on the moderates, and with a hefty dose of threats), something questionable is probably going on. And then I looked through Tumblr and saw posts about him doxxing service workers, treating people like shit in general, the tattoo debacle, et cetera, and I saw his temper tantrum about The Winchesters, and I just lost any and all respect for the man. (And then his stans had the nerve to be like: "well, it's clear you're just jealous or something, since you clearly spend all your time thinking about him" and I'm just sitting there. Like. Wot??!? I honestly do not think of the man unless I'm watching SPN and dying because of his acting, or if someone brings him up.)

I definitely follow what you're describing though. That's probably the path I would have taken if the stans didn't chuck me into the deep-end of antiJarPad, and I think it's admirable that you paid attention to all the warning signs. (A lot of people I know have... not.) I also very much agree that this information should be wider-spread than it is... I only know what's going on because of Tumblr --- though, I confess, I don't have any other social media (is Tumblr even social media? I don't think so, tbh, but anyway) so I wouldn't know if there's much on there --- and it took some conscious research to find/verify even then.

Thank you for the ask! (Stans dni)

[peachmangopie323]

Back to table of contents

Chapter 7: The Wish Granting spell book

(Kirby SST!)

Meta Knight woke up on a familiar bunker room, oh right, it was his personal room space on his battleship.

He had been overworking himself inside by finding suitable and safe routes for his journey, he slept right on the computer keyboard that the team had to carry him his bed.

He rubbed his eyes and began thinking, it has only hit him now that he's going to set sail on the deepest parts of the universe once again.

He thought of how he's going to tell Kirby about the trip, he doesn't want Kirby to follow him in case things might not go as planned.

He heads to the bathroom area and brushed his teeth, he looked at his blurry reflection and wondered where he had put his mask, it was carefully placed in his locker, maybe he should start wearing prescription glasses like normal people next time.

'Prepare ship for take off, Find the crystal, free Galacta and go home safely.'

He took a deep breath as he lays his clear plan out, he checks their food storage room to somehow get breakfast and found it empty,

"But first, we need more rations.." he muttered.

"Goodmorning Sir Meta Knight! Good to see you in the mornings again!" Axe Knight greeted.

"Perhaps you left breakfast for me?"

"We sure did! We missed you down here my Lord!"

The Meta-Knights started gathering around the dining area surrounding their leader,

"I take that everyone had already knew of the mission?"

"Unseal Galacta Knight?"

"Exactly, but there are things we have to go about first before that, I've estimated the time we get there would take about a month, in the ship's maximum speed."

"What do we do to prepare?"

"Here's the cheque for the food supply, I want our food storage full of rations by tomorrow." Meta Knight slides a piece of paper to the table.

"Sure thing! But uhh, could we know why the sudden need for the knight? There is no emergency or anythin'."

"Hmmm, I just concluded that it's the right thing to do, I don't know...it just feels wrong to let him die slowly inside there." He sighed.

The crew looked at each other and tried to cheer their leader up,

"We support you Sir! You truly are a Knight of honor!!"

We're gonna get going and take care of the food supply, have a good day!!"

As the Knights goes on their separate ways leaving their leader in peace, Captain Vul steps in to talk.

"How do yar plan on breaking the crystal spell?" The captain asked.

"I heard that an ancient book of spells that contains every sort of spell your heart will desire, kind of like a wish granting book, was recovered and kept locked on our town museum...It saves us the scavenging hunt." Meta Knight replied.

"Are you perhaps planning to-"

"Mmm, steal? Maybe, maybe not, don't worry about it."

Meta Knight leaves the Captain confused, he knows Meta Knight is planning to do something atrocious again.

Meta Knight headed to the main deck to find Sailor Dee,

"Sailor." He said appearing on her back

"GH- G-good morning sir..what could I do for you?" Sailor is a really jumpy gal, especially when it comes to Meta Knight.

"I saw how well you get along with Kirby so I thought... You should stay with him while we take off."

"Ah? But, without me no one will be doing the navigation and and-"

"I'll have Magolor do you work don't worry, you just have to look after him from time to time and inform me of whats happening on Popstar while we're gone, other than that it will be like a... vacation, don't you want that?"

"Well it's an honor sir! Thank you!" She shaked, nervously nodding her head.

"Yeah but you won't get to see the spectacular view of milky way once were far enough Miss Sailor!" Trident knight teased.

"Waah! Atleast take pictures of it for meee!!"

The crew laughed and packed their things, it's going to be a long day for them to clean up the built up moss outside the ship to make it look pretty as it takes off.

☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ*.✧

Meta Knight entered the castle to pack some of his things that were left in his room, he walked across the dining table as an angry king demanded an answer,

"Meta Knight! You were awfully quiet yesterday, what happened?"

"Its nothing your majesty i-"

"C'mere"

Meta Knight sighed as he sat on the dining room with the king,

"What is it?" Meta said in a tired tone,

"You know you can tell me anything right? What's wrong?"

"...Let's just say I wasn't thinking clearly yesterday but, I am deeply sorry for ignoring you."

"That doesn't matter I just want to make sure everything is alright since you tend to do really stupid stuff when you're all worked up I'm telling ya."

Meta Knight paused and said,

"Speaking of which, ahem, I'm off to travel the space once again in 2 days.."

"2 days? Where you goin'?"

"Somewhere..just..space expedition with the crew.."

"How long ya guys away?"

"About a month."

"A month??"

"Oh look at the time! I must get Kirby to school! Kirby wake up!!" Meta Knight quickly got up to avoid more questions.

"But it's Saturday?" Dedede winced his eyes as he watches his knight prance away,

Meta Knight successfully avoided the king, he panted and ended up on Kirby's door.

*Knock knock knock*

"Come in!"

"Kirby, I need to talk to you about something."

"What is it?" Kirby paused his game and dropped his controller,

Meta Knight told Kirby about his plan to travel the stars, he didn't give out that he's going to bring back Galacta Knight because he might get into any unwanted ruckus.

"I'll be gone for a month but hey, Sailor Dee will stay here with you, You two could go on trips and alot more things, will that be alright?"

"Really? That's awesome!" Kirby is always easy to persuade,

"Hmmm, ah! It's Saturday today isn't it? How about we go to the town museum together?"

"I guess so.."

"We shall go to a restaurant after."

"HECK YEAH!!"

"Get yourself ready." Meta Knight smiled, lightly tapping his shoulders and left the room,

"Yow meta knight!" Dedede hurriedly ran to the corridors

"What?"

"We have a little situation at the museum!!"

"What's the situation?"

"Someone stole some ancient book, they need us to do something about it... quick which one of these coats make me look better?"

"We have no time for that! Let's go!"

Meta Knight made his way to the front door as the king grasps for air

"Can ya slow down a bit jeez.."

"Where's your car WHERES YOUR CAR!?" Meta started to panic, even though he could fly he didn't want to carry the king on the way,

"I DON'T HAVE A CAR!!" Dedede argued.

"Stop arguing you two and get in!"

Kirby ran between them as he rides the floating Warp star,

"Ugh I hate riding the Warpstar.." king dedede muttered as he hops in,

"Grab on tight!"

"EEEEEAAAAAAHHHH!!!" Dedede screamed as he held on Warpstar for dear life, Meta Knight catched up to them using his wings,

"Why did the museum call you for some robbery anyway?"

"No idea!!"

"Are you certain it is not some prank?"

"Nope, I recognize that lobby girl alright!"

The two landed on the front of the large museum door, Dedede tried to open the door a bunch of soldier dees with exits

"huh?"

In the middle it was, a familiar red coated criminal being detained and cuffed leading to a police ca.

"Is that who I think it is?"

"Forgot his name let's follow em'"

As they were about to run the two then saw a panting Bandana Dee holding his spear,

"What ya doin here Bandana Dee?"

"I caught, haaah, I caught him!"

"That's my boy alright!!" Dedede laughed in pride loudly,

"Haaahh he's fast, but he doesn't have much strength to begin with.." Bandana Dee was profusely sweating, almost collapsing to the ground,

Dedede carried his tired son on his back, as they follow the police car to the station.

☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ*.✧

"I'm happy I chose the black one because it matches the them heheh!"

"Can you stop acting childish for a minute my king? I'm trying to contact the museum if they recovered the lost book.."

"How about stop acting more of a dictator than me!"

"Hmph, they said that he's hiding the book somewhere, were going to interrogate him."

"Alright, luckily I brought my hammer, how about I be bad cop and you be good cop."

"you've got our roles switched up.."

"Come on! Let me have it!"

"Very well your majesty." He sighed

They walked towards the room and watched the culprit by a window, a man with big gray ears glares at them from a double sided window.

"You may go in King Dedede, Sir Meta Knight." A speaker said to them,

*Door opens*

"Let's go straight the point, where's the book and what do ya want pretty boy?" Dedede slammed the table to try and intimidate him,

"Not telling ya, the book is all I need, lock me up if you want." Daroach grinned.

"If you ain't gonna cooperate I might as well make you unable to." Dedede grit his teeth threatening to hit his smug expression.

"Now now Dedede, this is not how negotiating works...What do you want?" Meta Knight calmly said.

"I just want a regular home for my crew."

"What do you even need the book for?"

"The book isn't really owned by anyone, you only found it from your little scavenger hunts, might as well sell it to someone who needs it."

"So yer sayin we give you a home you return the book to us?"

"Mmmaybe."

"Ya can't just bullshit your way into getting a free house!"

"And so what? What will it cost you to lose a magic book?"

"Meta Knight ya better hold me back I'm boutta break this man's neck-"

"This is not good for your blood pressure...Dedede, Mr. Daroach, we will not give you a free house and we will conduct a search party for it, that book would do danger if it falls on the wrong hands."

"You like it the long way ah?"

"Hardly, that is why we brought in Kirby."

The joyful Kirby, enters the room, Daroach's eyes widened almost letting out a smile,

"You can't just steal magic treasures like that!" Kirby looks at Daroach with his cute big eyes.

"Oh I'll be damned, Just because you helped me with the medals I'll give your papas the book but you promise you'll do me a little something in the future."

"What!?" Dedede looked confused.

"Well as long as it's not another heist." Meta Knight said crossing his arms.

"Anything! When you get your home can I play with the squeakers?"

"Is that even a question? Yeah!" Kirby and Daroach giggled.

Dedede is still confused but he shrugged it off, he remembered he still has important business to do in the castle.

"The book, now!" Dedede asked,

"Kirby, would you be kind enough to check my hat? Thank you."

Kirby removed his torned hat to see a book taped inside.

Daroach must've carelessly snipped the sides of his top hat to have his ears sit comfortably in between.

"...How did you get this past security?" Meta Knight wondered.

"They never check the hat." He let out a chuckle.

"Well it's a lesson for next time and oh goodie you cracked so easily, now I can continue my third breakfast.." Dedede exits the room as he stretches his back,

"So uhh, do you still have to lock me up or?"

"No, due to the lack of laws and jurisdictions here on dreamland I have no power to keep you in jail, but you know I can, I'm just letting you off the hook because you have a family."

"Sweet."

"Kirby, wait for me outside will you? I'll escort this gentleman myself."

"O okay!"

*Door closes*

Meta Knight and Daroach shared glances at each other as the knight slid a paper note to the man

"Meet me at the fountain of Dreams, 5:30 pm."

Daroach gave him a nod, Meta Knight walks out of the room as Daroach furrowed his eyebrows

"Ahem." He gestured at the cuffs on the table.

"you're a thief remember? You can break through that." Meta Knight exits

"meanie." Daroach muttered.

And soon, the Ancient book of spells were put to it's glass cage once again, protecting Dreamland is all in the day's work for the Dream team!

☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ*.✧

The king treated his team on a lovely restaurant near the museum, Bandana Dee enjoyed a refreshing glass of apple juice as he told everything about the chase, Daroach seemed to have surrendered himself just fot his squad to escape.

Kirby reminisced the times he was teammates with Daroach as he takes a bite on a yummy strawberry shortcake, while the other two talked about how hard it was to capture dark nebula only for him to recklessly release it.

Dedede ranted more munching on his large pork roast while Meta Knight sat beside him quietly drinking his frothy hot chocolate.

Everyone ate well, it was sunset and Kirby had planned to go around shopping with everyone as Meta knight excused himself for he has business to attend to, it's not uncommon for him to always ditch group trips so the three told their "see you later!!" As Meta knight flew to the fountain of Dreams just a agreed upon.

"It's about time you arrive." Meta Knight greeted.

"Would have saved much more time if you unlocked the cuffs."

"Atleast you learned something new."

"It suits you Meta Knight, being all hard to get." He teased.

"Now..." Meta Knight gestured Daroach to discreetly give him something, it was the real ancient spell book.

"It seems like they bought your replica Sir Meta Knight, They didn't bother checking if it was forged!"

"That is why I preferred you get caught so we could negotiate with you I hope it wasn't much of a chore."

Yes, Meta Knight orchestrated the whole heist, he was the mastermind, he had to fool his superiors by pretending to interrogate Daroach since doing something as stealing an artifact would really damage his reputation (certainly not allowed to borrow), Daroach is already notorious for committing these crimes that's why he asked him to do the dirty work.

"Nah nah it's alright, I don't think I could get it uncaught, these... security cameras and alarms today really makes heists a challenge." Daroach lights tobacco from his coat and offered one to Meta Knight.

"I don't smoke, more importantly, your kind dies earlier if you continue that." Meta Knight responded.

"It's just something that I do that I can't stop kind of like stealing. I'll be returning to my place, I hope I'm pardoned."

"Wait.

Do you still need a house for your..family or crew?"

"No, my airship is alright but Its part of the act.."

"I think it's time you start having a job, use your abilities to make the people happy, you'll have money in no time, I'll even help you get started."

"You're too kind Meta Knight." He said as he puffs a cigar

"I'll give you this a thank you, use it wisely." Meta Knight handed an envelope full of money, more than enough to buy a house!

"Where do you even get this kind of money??"

"I've lived long enough to earn myself a fortune, being a royal knight pays well too, come on take it and return to your airship, make the most out of your life."

"Thanks, you too Meta Knight, goodluck on your mission!" Daroach waved goodbye.

"Of course, farewell."

Daroach and Meta Knight walks in their separate ways as it was getting dark.

The knight used his wings to fly back home, he came back to his three friends all exhausted from carrying their newly bought items.

"Welcome home!" Kirby greeted, holding a plush of himself?

"You shoulda seen the little merchandise store they have Meta knight! I heard it's imported from the city." Dedede said with a smile.

"Merchandise?"

"Yep, I bought a little thing for you, I think you might like it."

"It looks like it's well made, I shall keep it."

Meta Knight kept his composure but deep inside he feels giggly about having a tiny plastic figure modeled after his image.

He made his way onto the corridors and stepped on what seems like sanitary pads, he looked around and tossed it the trash since his shoes had already soiled it.

Meta Knight continued to walk around as he hears footsteps behind him, he looked and it was Bandana Waddle Dee looking for something,

"..ohh..oh! Sir Meta Knight!"

"Hm?"

"I met one of my friends on the mall earlier they're a big fan of you and would be honored to have this toy Galaxia to be signed!" Bandee handed a replica of Galaxia made out of plastic.

"Alright..." Meta Knight grabbed a pen from his cape and scribbled his signature, Meta Knight has good handwriting!

"Thanks alot!"

Meta Knight's curiosity about these merchandise being produced at the city piqued even further, he doesn't go there too often because of the noise, but maybe after his space mission he'd check it out, if he comes back alive that is.

⭐Notes⭐

I still can't get sugar daddy Meta Knight out of my system(I wrote a fic about Dreamy Gear Meta Knight a while back) I mean it makes sense he has alot money when he's like 1000 years old like 😭

Next Chapter

[myemotionalsuppportcatboy]

I got Rise of The Sphinx for Christmas and I’m making it everyone’s problem

This game can be summed up in the two sentences I said when thanking my mom for getting it for me. “This game is atrocious. Thank you so much for buying it for me.”

More thoughts under the cut. There are spoilers.

Another quick review of this game is: buy it if you want, but do not pay full price for it.

The good: I CAN BE MY BLORBOS. Both Ladybug and Chat Noir are playable in every level. You get to explore Paris. You can switch between characters whenever so I had so much fun talking to everyone and then switching who I was to see how the dialogue change. You can upgrade the stats of both LB and CN and learn new skills, which is nice. The plot is actually pretty good. It proves again that Natalie is the brains of this operation. Using Chloe to create akumatizations in others is not new, but it does make sense. The new Chloe akuma design (Clonika) does slay. I get to beat up Hawkmoth. There are cute little character moments. Ladybug and Chat Noir talk throughout the levels and while some of it gets old most of it is cute. DID I MENTION THE BLORBOS?

The bad: It plays like a PS2 game. The models are...questionable. There is a good amount of time spent watching loading screens and things still phase into the levels. I jumped in the wrong spot on the Clonika level and clipped through the level and couldn’t get out so I had to redo the whole thing and I was almost at the end of it. You can’t control the camera and it sucks ass. There were several times I had to do a leap of faith or run ahead without being able to see where I was going. Collecting items and orbs is a big part of the game so it sucks that you can’t freely look around. Some areas of the levels were really laggy. This was worst in boss fights but would also happen sometimes when I was just walking around and I was like, I’m not even doing anything? There was one platform section in the last level with some orbs that I gave up on because my jump was so messed up and I also clipped through and slid off the platform without moving several times. The combat was very lackluster, lots of button mashing and standing around until you could get a hit in on bosses. IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK A SPHINX IS? THAT IS MOTH. SHOULD HAVE BEEN CALLED RISE OF HAWKMOTH. COME ON. There is a flashback that explains how HM came to be (Natalie and Gabe are stuck on finding the cat and ladybug miraculouses and Gabe decides that using one miraculous might bring out the others), he makes a huge giant sentimonster moth. It sets up Miracle Queen and the big change of status quo that follows. His RISE in power, perhaps.

The meh: There are A LOT of collectibles. Some are right in your path, which is nice for the literal children playing this game. Some require more exploration or replays. It was nice that exploring was rewarded somewhat. Sometimes there would be a little area you could go to and there would be nothing there and I would be like why did you make it so I could go here and then not put anything here? Like this an obvious spot for a collectable and there’s nothing? In general the levels also go between rooftops and the street and it’s not always clear when jumping down is encouraged and when it will kill you. The game is very forgiving of that, though. Each akuma transforms Paris and honestly I really liked some of then new elements that each akuma brought.  It was weird to have such empty levels and not interacting with the akumatized villain until the end in most cases. I really liked seeing the lucky charm each time and how LB and CN used it but it could just be cut scenes without the QTEs. The little comments were cute but did get old. There is one for CN where the subtitle says Woohoo but it’s more like a deranged giggle and it makes me want to come for Bryce Papenbrook’s kneecaps. As for Christina, Mari has one “awesome!” that I found grating. Other than that the voice acting is great!

TL:DR The game is clearly a cash grab made to capitalize on children who will beg for anything with Ladybug and Chat Noir on the packaging and plays like it.  The quality is poor and the game play is simple. However, you do get to be your blorbos, the story is solid, and there are cute character interactions so if that’s what you’re looking for and you have the cash to spare, go for it.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Rock 'n' Roll Hits of 1958 1999 Rock & Roll / Doo Wop

OK, well, this actually turned out to be a little bit of a surprise for me. Had this CD of hits from 1958 consisted of all original versions, I would've listed nearly all ten of its songs as highlights. But none of these tracks, as it turns out, are actually original versions; they are, in fact, re-recordings, which are, more or less, a bane of pretty much everyone's existence.

Re-recordings are just cheaply made imitations of original versions, usually done by an original artist when they're past their prime, and whenever anyone hears one, they're typically made upset by it, because it doesn't sound nearly as good as the original version that they remember. It's sort of like ordering your favorite dish from a restaurant that you haven't been to for a while, and then finding out the hard way that the chef changed up its ingredients. The dish still has the same name, but once you take that first bite, you realize that something's off, and then you're disappointed that you can't enjoy that same meal that you came for in the first place 😑.

And yet, I was prepared for this to happen. The cheap and generic album art template and the phrase, "10 big hits by the original artists!" are both dead giveaways. See, when you run into enough of these oldies releases, you know what careful language to look for, and that sentence there, rather than saying something like, "original hits from the original artists," really tells you all you need to know: that these are re-recordings.

But listening to re-recordings can also be like watching The Room; you know it's atrocious, but you get a big kick out of just how atrocious it actually is.

So, I was really all set to trash this whole thing, and then have some fun by singling out the absolute worst re-recording of them all, but then I came across what basically amounts to a four-leaf clover: a good re-recording 😮.

Lloyd Price's rendition of "Stagger Lee" here is definitely not as good as its infectious original—in fact, that original just might be my favorite hit of all from 1958—but it's still pretty decent. The audio quality's definitely not spectacular by any means, but whenever Price recorded this one, he clearly still had enough vocal chops to do it, which is not something that you can really say of most other re-recordings. Of course, he sounded a lot spryer in 1958 than he does here, and perhaps that's why the tempo's a bit slower now too, but on this he still has soulful passion, and his grizzliness feels charming rather than piteous. His backing vocalists also lend to the overall goodness of the song too, especially their repeated "ba-da-ba-da-ba-da"s that they rhythmically sing in tandem with the horns and drums. On the original, those "ba-da"s only appear a couple of times, but on here they're way more constant, and they really end up enhancing the track, overall, I think; as does the sax 😌.

So, with this CD, I was actually prepared for what some might think is the unexpected, but what I wasn't prepared for at all was something that should be even far more unexpected, and that is a genuinely good re-recorded hit. I can honestly probably count on one hand the amount of times that I've actually managed to run into one of these things over the years, so you should all consider yourselves lucky to have been able to bear witness to such a rare event, because this is real Halley's Comet stuff here, folks 🌠.

Highlights:

Lloyd Price - "Stagger Lee"

[three--rings]

Okay if the LITA special episode is gonna make me shriek like this, I’m liveblogging it.

“Have you ever called P’Pai....daddy?”  Okay that literally made me scream.  Good thing Mr. Rings already left for work.  Yes I haven’t gone to bed and he’s at work....this is my life don’t judge me. 

The Payu/Rain sex scene with the conveniently placed cushion and the Actual Porno Soundtrack music in the background is SENDING Me.  I wish these two did more for me, other than both being objectively attractive cause on paper they really should but in practice...I cringe.  Also daddy kink just isn’t my thing.

Fucking Rain... “Tell me P’Pai’s size....”  He’s being a brat to his friend now.

P’Pai taking after Vegas and being enthusiastic about ass-eating? Perhaps? Love me a service top.

Yeah, um,,,,as a gamer, a sub, and a bottom, I’m...uh, INTO that scene on the conference room table.  HOLY FUCK giving me Vegaspete levels of hot there.   Fine.  Fine.  You won me over with your acting and emotional storyline and sealed the deal with that fucking explicit as fuck hot sex scene. 

(Still pretty much porno soundtrack backing though.  And this special episode has atrocious sound quality like wow the levels..I don’t normally point that stuff out but damn it’s flagrant when one line you can barely hear and the next is blowing out my laptop speaker.)

Sky and Rain: We’re going on a trip, just the two of us! 

Me: And WHICH of you is paying for this?  You can’t go without your sugar daddies.

ONE PIECE COSPLAY.  We’re doing ONE PIECE COSPLAY for some reason?  My god.  This show....it’s so fucking bizarre sometimes.

No, I’m sorry, my secondhand embarrassment will not allow me to watch Rain’s fucking pilot fetish costume fantasy.  Like babe fine you do you but I do not want to be involved. 

And once again the Prapaisky scene takes me OUT.  Sky as Pushy Dom punishing P’Pai?   Umm, yes please?  Fucking hot.  Yup, watching this 70 min special has definitely been worth it for their two steamy scenes. 

[captainderyn]

Jealousy, Jealousy [Fic]

Summary: Wren considered Aramys her best friend, her closest ally, and the most important person in her world. Acknowledging the crush she definitely doesn't have would ruin everything they've built together. But when at a party put on by their fellow Dark Council members, Aramys begins catching the attention of others there, Wren has to admit that its jealousy that's taking hold.

Cross Posted to AO3, but tumblr hates outside links. Aramys belongs to @lumielles

--

Formal events put on by the Dark Council were usually insufferable, but tonight was quickly becoming unbearable. 

    Once upon a very long time ago, the bright-eyed ambitious creature that was Wren’s younger self had thrived in the indulgent, opulent event scene, with its dripping chocolate fondue fountains, twinkling lights, and stifling orchestral music.

    Wren still kept her wits about her in these environments, still thrived in her Sphere’s work, but the constant drivel of these glamorous, over-glorified parties was becoming taxing. Her tongue fatigued from all the pretty words she spun, her facial muscles aching from the fake smiles she wore. 

    She kicked one leg over the other, hefting the heavy black skirt of her dress up as she crossed her legs at the knee. Swirling the deep red of her wine--whoever ordered the caterers for this party had skimped on the alcohol quality, making this all the more atrocious to weather--she took a long sip. 

    Tonight would be far more bearable if she held the company of her dearest Aramys with her. That had made the first few hours of this nightmare tolerable, with whispered snickers behind hiding hands as they judged those who were trying too hard to prove they were important. 

    But Aramys had been waylaid by one such type, a gentleman with a hideously embroidered suit, with far too many rings, expensive bangles, and one more watch than necessary twinkling as he waved his hands about. No doubt talking about the things he deemed important enough to have earned him an invitation. Perhaps they involved the lightsaber handle dangling at his side, also twinkling, and extremely out of place at an event that was meant to be no weapons. 

    Wren’s lips curled into sneer and pressed the glass to her lips again. Perhaps he was compensating for something.  

    The air was becoming too hot, her skin burning, and she pulled her arms up to heave let the delicate white sleeves of her dress, complete with tasteful embroidery, collect in her elbows. It was barely enough to cool her forearms, let alone the simmering rest of her body. 

    She wanted Aramys back over here, making her laugh like that gaudy sith was, with her smile bright and--

    Her palms heated, the beginnings of electricity sparking across her skin. 

    Wren let out a sharp breath from her nose, looking away and narrowing her eyes at the marble countertop of the table beside her. Partygoers had left their glasses and plates there inconsiderately, napkins and forgotten drinks lonely. 

    Was it jealousy, burning its way across her skin and writhing in her like a snake?

    There had been countless parties where she’d been on her own, Aramys owed her nothing, and Wren expected nothing except the company she was gifted. 

    Though it had been a long while since anyone had been so bold in their flirtations. So blatant. 

    And Wren had long since given up trying to obliterate the whispers of emotion she’d begun to feel when around Aramys, unable to squash them completely. The way her heart would beat painfully quick whenever her friend would get close enough that a whiff of her perfume twined around Wren. When they would connect so perfectly through their forged Force bond that it felt as though they were of one mind when working. 

    There were a few times Wren had given in to fantasies of what it would be like to let those feelings flourish. She’d just as quickly put them away in some secret part of herself, guarded in a vault of distant wishes and maybe-in-other-worlds.

    That was her best friend. Her closest partner. One of her only true allies in this cutthroat world they found themselves in. 

    And there was no reason for her to believe that admitting all the thoughts that ran through her mind would do anything less than shatter the carefully built glass castle they’d created. 

    But still. She wanted to be the one trading bold flirtations. Buying her drinks without it just being a gesture of friendship. 

    Pitifully, desperately to the point of agony, she craved the something more that sat tantalizingly just outside the bounds of the deep connection they shared. 

    “Tch.” she hissed out between her teeth, giving her head a quick shake. She needed to get a hold of herself.

    A familiar presence brushed against her awareness and she blinked, bringing her eye to eye with the very source of her desires and her distress. 

“Aramys,” she breathed out, half in greeting, heart picking up as she hoped against all hope and knowing that she failed, that her internal battle had not just played out on her face. 

Her friend’s achingly beautiful face lit up in a smile as she gestured to Wren’s hands and the wine glass clutched tightly between her fingers, “I know the wine is awful, but has it victimized you that badly?” 

Wren huffed out a laugh, taking a drink. The wine buzzed across her tongue, a byproduct of the wavering control she should have kept a handle on. She’d been lucky to not singe her dress, “I always feel victimized when these dull events fail to provide adequate means to get through them.” 

“Mhm,” Aramys hummed, plucking the wine glass from Wren’s fingers and setting it aside. She slipped her, mostly filled, one in as a replacement. The red lipstick Aramys wore was imprinted on the edge of the glass in the shape of her lips, “And that’s why I felt you getting pissed from all the way across the room, even with everyone else here?” 

Shit. Wren tilted her chin up, willing away a flush, “The wine is truly awful.” 

Aramys’ laugh was light and she gestured to the glass she’d imparted on Wren, “That was a gift from the lord who told me his whole life story. If he’d let me get a single word in, he would’ve known that the one he chose was my least favorite of all the options.” 

For a long moment, Wren considered dumping the glass onto the floor. But that would send the wine splattering onto the white sleeves of her dress, staining them with the poor decision that idiot had made. 

“I would’ve got you the right one.” she said, with more venom than she intended. She pressed her lips together. 

“And that’s why I came to find you,” Aramys seized Wren’s hand up in her own, giving her a tug, “Because you’re going to accompany me to get more. I don’t want anyone else thinking I look particularly conversational.” 

Yielding to the insistent pressure, Wren stood. Her skirts fell back around her feet, brushing against the train of Aramys’ own dark dress into a midnight pool of fabric. 

Already there was a hole in the delicate deep red lace that made up the underskirt of Aramys’ dress, the black fabric hitched up onto her hip so it cascaded to the floor on only one side. It would’ve been scandalous had Aramys not carried herself with such elegant confidence. 

Wren knew that hole hadn’t been there before. The dress had been sequestered from her own closet, two weeks ago when they’d been together in her apartment trying to figure out what to wear to this event. 

Aramys had snatched it, and when she’d tried it on Wren had nearly forgotten how to breathe. And that was before it had been tailored to hug Aramys’ curves in all the right ways. 

“Someone already tore your dress?” Wren gestured to it. 

Aramys’ lips pressed into a frown, a line forming between her eyebrows, “The same one who gave me the wine somehow managed to step on it as I tried to leave. I almost ‘accidentally’ spilled that wine on him before considering if that would cause a diplomatic incident.” 

Her air quotes were vicious but the look she sent Wren was apologetic, “I’m sorry about the dress.” 

“It’s not about the dress,” Wren looked sideways at Aramys, a small smile quirking up her lips despite the simmering beast circling the audacity of that sith lord, “You already know anything in my closet is yours as much as it is mine.” 

Aramys hooked her arm through Wren’s elbow, leaning against her. Even wearing tall heels, she still only brushed Wren’s chin when standing upright. 

Her perfume swept around Wren, intoxicatingly Aramys. Her heart stuttered. Please stop. She couldn’t take anymore. 

“Only if you come with it.” Aramys said, “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if it was just me and your dress collection.” 

Even as Wren’s heart raced, she felt herself relax more than she had all night. This was familiar. This was comfortable. 

“I would hope, wear them.” She teased back, “And not let them go to waste.” 

“Do you know how much my tailor bill would be?” Aramys exclaimed, “Tailoring all your dresses to fit me?” 

Wren would get her anything she wanted, if she asked. She pushed that thought to the wayside.

From the corner of her eye she caught another unknown party goer, a lovely chiss woman in traditional Csillan dress, making to come towards them. Eyes fixed on Aramys. 

The glare Wren sizzling towards her was nothing less than deadly, and wholly unintended. It stopped the woman in her tracks. 

What turned her entirely away was when Wren, chiss already forgotten, delicately plucked Aramys’ hand from her arm. Her mind already wandered back to the dress Aramys was currently wearing, even with its torn lace. 

She pressed her lips to the back of Aramys hand, “I didn’t get the chance to tell you earlier, but you look drop dead gorgeous tonight. The tailor did a wonderful job with that dress.” 

Aramys’ cheeks reddened, “Oh,” she smoothed her free hand across the cascading folds of the skirt, “Only because you chose it out. I was fully prepared to wear the black dress I wore at the last party.” 

“And you looked wonderful in that one too,” Wren noted. It’d distracted her all night, that dress that sparkled like it had captured the stars itself and turned Aramys into the quite literal star of the night. 

Not that Aramys wasn’t already that to Wren, always. 

Her mind was beginning to wander off the tracks of all reason again. Perhaps it was the shitty wine that made all of these thoughts almost make their way from Wren’s brain and out of her mouth. She clamped down on them, staunchly refusing to let them go. 

 “Well, I was right about that dress on you.” Aramys redirected, eyes wandering over Wren. She ignored the way Aramys’ study made a thrill go through her, “I’m surprised you haven’t had a line out the door of people begging to talk with you.” 

Every single person who had tried had made a beeline out the door when Wren had sent them a frosty glare. As the night wore on she didn’t have the patience or the want for pleasantries and people who weren’t actually interested in her, but her status. 

And as people had become increasingly intoxicated, she hadn’t wanted to play ‘100 Nice Ways to Tell Someone No’. 

“I’ve only wanted the attention of one person tonight.” 

Aramys looked up at Wren, “I hope you get it.” 

It’s you! Wren’s mind hollered, Please understand it’s you. All I’ve wanted tonight was exactly this. 

“I already am.” The words slipped from Wren before she could register them, her mind going blank when Aramys gave a trill of what Wren hoped was pleased surprise. 

It might have been Wren’s imagination, but she swore Aramys’ grip tightened on her arm. She certainly wasn’t imagining it when Aramys twined their fingers together. 

This was where she would perish. Right here on this floor, spilling the atrocious wine everywhere. 

Aramys held their locked hands up together with a dazzling smile, “See this? This is the rest of our night. No more distractions. Promise?” 

“Promise.” Wren said breathlessly. 

[sharkbaitouhaha]

Tell me about your book !!! (I saw the name of the book btw) I just don't know what it's about . Curious to know why it's not that enjoyable but you're still reading 😂😂

Lola i am about to write you a novel i am so sorry

for anyone curious this is a bout the book "a touch of darkness" okay so! i have to start with the fact that this was a book bought for me for my birthday and was very much a shot in the dark on if i'd like it or not. and this is all going to be very rambly because i'm really not sure why i'm still reading it 😂

it's a retelling of the hades & persephone myth but it's like a ✨spicy✨ retelling. so look i love some good smut but i'm not a big romance or smut book reader, it's just usually not my jam or something i'm drawn to outside of fanfic. i adore greek mythology which is why the book was bought for me, with the biggest worry being "is the retelling going to be good enough for my dear darling wife who admittedly is sometimes too critical of retellings". My sweet darling beloved husband also did not realize this was a smutty book he was buying which actually is the funniest part of this entire story to me.

at the time of writing this i'm about 50% done the book. now the way this author has gone about doing the actual retelling or reworking of the myth is just, in my opinion, not great. however it really reads like maybe they had this other story and just slapped some greek mythology characters onto the book. the story very much feels like they wanted to write that kinda 'billionaire, possessive, enemies to lover' type story which again just not my usual type of story but hey it's good to give things a chance. also persephone, who this particular book really places the focus on, is just really fucking stupid

the smut is also just not really smutting to put it in the worst possible wording i can. there's like hints of it but nothing has really happened. perhaps i am just impatient but also there's been moments where there's definitely build up and then it doesn't go far and just ends very abruptly.

honestly it feels like maybe the book would have been better if it was not meant to be smutty at all, or there was more commitment to the smut. it almost feels jarring, like i'm being pulled out of one type of story and i'm being plopped into another type of story.

now with all of that i'm sure you're still wondering why is she reading this she has many a complaint. and i really wish i had a firm answer here because i wouldn't be so confused myself. here are some thoughts on why i think i have continued to read it despite all of the above

like sometimes things are objectively bad but they're fun and so it's still enjoyable and while it may not be a super enjoyable book it's also not unenjoyable, it's kind of a middle ground i guess. at no point have i been reading and felt "this is so atrocious that it's a waste of time to read it". so while i don't find it's very good i also don't think it's bad enough to just stop reading. ya know what i mean?

i am also genuinely curious to see where this author takes the myth. i don't necessarily think it's a great retelling or rework of the myth but i am so curious to see where she takes it, at least for this book because i don't see myself reading the rest of the series. that's part of the fun in reading retellings is seeing how things are changed and while i don't love the current choices i've seen the authot has in fact piqued my interest enough to see where things go, or at the very least where this book ends in terms of the myth.

it's also a pretty quick read so it doesn't feel like it's draining or taking more mental energy than its worth to read it. and hey why not try to just finish a book in a genre you never would have bought yourself

anyway i don't know if any of this makes any sense or really explains why i'm reading it. i guess there's just parts of the story i am somewhat interested in but as a whole im just not really liking it. if i had to rate it right now i'd say it's like a 2/5 so not the worst but also not good.

[shorkbrian]

I swear I ain’t in it for the money, but I can’t stop thinking about sugar daddy shoto. Maybe he sweeps a cute little college kid or barista of their feet, just something fun and casual. But this man starts falling harder, needing a way to lock them down to him. Money isn’t quite cutting it anymore, so he decides fucking a baby into her would do the trick. Shoto would push her down into the mattress, large frame twisting her into a sweet mating press. This way they could stay together forever and Shoto would have absolutely no problem providing for his sweet family <3

but fr tho I feel like Shouto is NOT the type for kids.

Mans will tolerate them when they babble or wave at him, but he very actively Does Not Want them.

Always uses condoms, and even though he’ll threaten not to, it’s never a legit thought in his mind to cum inside. Shouto doesn’t want to be a dad.

-----

You’ll be sittin on a park bench, fading sunset dark and pretty in front of you yet all you can do is cry. There’s not really any people around so it’s not like you’re bothering anyone - you hadn’t wanted to cry in your shabby apartment (half the cause of your worries) just in case you received a noise complaint.

“Are you alright?”

A somber, smooth voice is heard. You’re swiping at your tears quickly as you look up, trying to laugh off your state of distress. “Oh, haha, yeah I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” It’s hard to smile with your puffy cheeks and red-rimmed eyes.

The man in front of you frowns, hands in his coat pockets, scarf draped around his neck. “You don’t look fine. Mind if I sit?”

He’s already claiming the spot next to you on the bench before you can say a word, turning to you with a passive expression. “Why are you crying?”

And that’s all it takes to have you breaking down all over again, tears streaming down your face. Just one person offering to listen to the heavy burden you have to bear.

‘’M sor-sorry...” You sob, wiping at your eyes with frigid fingers, successful in doing nothing more but smearing tears around your face.

“Here.” The man’s taking off his scarf, gloved hands offering it you.

“I ca-can’t use your sc-scarf sir.” But he’s insistent, pressing it into your hands up by your face.

“I’ll just get another one. Keep it, you’re in need of it more than I am.”

The kindness makes another fresh bout of tears roll down your cheeks, but this time you're able to dab them away with soft fabric as you sniffle.

It takes a moment for you to calm yourself. When you do, you can finally engage in conversation with the man.

You tell him about your job hours getting cut, how you’ve been turned down or ignored by every single place you’ve applied at for a second job. How you’re barely affording to wash your clothes - you have to hang them or drape them across things in your apartment because you don’t have the money to pay for a dryer cycle.

And to top it all off, you’re still short on rent, despite how you scrimped and saved and even forced yourself not to buy groceries this week - you’ve gone hungry for the past three days.

“You haven’t eaten?”

You glance up at the man and his incredulous expression, shaking your head. “I’ve been trying to save money, I thought I could afford my rent if-”

“What kind of food do you like?” The man is pulling out his phone, swiping and tapping immediately. 

“Thank you, but I’m not-” looking for charity is what you want to say. Plus, you shouldn’t accept favors from strange men.

But the handsome man is waving you silent. “I’m cold, plus I’d like to grab a bite to eat before I head home. I don’t like eating alone though, you’d honestly be doing me a favor.”

You take a moment to process. Is he telling the truth? He sounds like an honest guy.

“Seems like the only place open around here is “Joe’s 24 hour Diner”.... You mind burgers?”

So that's how you end up in a booth opposite the man (”Shouto” he had told you as you both headed to the diner), munching away at warm food. It tastes so good, you hardly have time to worry about the man watching you as he eats.

You’d been shocked at his looks the moment you’d seen him in the light of the diner. Pretty two-toned hair, different colored eyes, perfect skin, expensive clothes. Why was he even talking to you? It’s obvious the two of you led very different lives.

“How does everything taste?”

“Delicious.” Is your response, and Shouto seems pleased, nodding before taking another bite of his meal.

Maybe it’s stupid... but you feel weirdly safe with this man. He doesn’t seem to bear any ill-intent towards you, nor has he made any comments about your body or let his hands or eyes stray. He seems like a gentleman.

Conversation flows easily between the two of you, even sharing a few chuckles at times. He’s some fancy rich businessman, you learn, and you share about your own life, laughing at the comparisons. Shouto can’t fathom growing up in a house with less than five bedrooms and a personal servant.

He asks for your number, and you’re hesitant in giving it - he surely can’t be interested in you? But he seems so sincere, it’s hard to say no.

When the two of you part ways, Shouto gives you a wave, “Hope to see you again soon, and under better circumstances.”

“You too! And sorry for being such a mess and stopping your walk-”

Shouto shrugs, cheeks beginning to pink from the cold air as you two stand outside the diner. “You needed help. I like to assist.”

-----

The next morning you wake to find an atrociously large sum deposited in your Venmo account by none other than a Shouto Todoroki.

Immediately, you’re calling him. “It’s too much, we just met. How can you give away that much money to some low-life?”

You hear him sigh on the other end of the phone. “You’re obviously struggling. I was wondering what your hours are this week, perhaps we could talk about this over dinner? Or lunch, if that fits better with your schedule. I’m flexible.”

It’s a few days later, days spent questioning yourself, questioning his intentions, before you see him again, both of you deciding to meet for lunch to further discuss... whatever had just happened.

“Was what I gave you adequate to cover your rent?” Are the first words out of Shouto’s mouth after you greet each other.

“Yeah, more than enough-” You squirm. “But I need to ask.... why?”

“Why?”

“Why me.” 

“Oh.” Shouto’s expression clears. “That’s easy. I told you a few days ago - I like to assist. I’m quite lonely, and it feels nice to use my money on someone other than myself. I think providing for someone brings me... I wouldn’t quite say joy, but... contentment.”

You contemplate his answer for a moment. 

“Well... you saved me with my rent, I don’t really know how to thank you.”

The man leans forward. “Well.... I know it might be a bit sudden, but how would you feel accepting me as a.... benefactor of sorts?”

“You mean like a sugar daddy?” Is your immediate, blurted response. You want to slap yourself for speaking before you have the chance to think about your words, but luckily Shouto just lets out a light laugh.

“If you’d like to call it that. I’m willing to provide financial assistance for you, in exchange for companionship, if you’re willing to give it.”

Your face heats up as you drop your eyes, fidgeting nervously in your seat. “I don’t feel comfortable with a... a sexual relationshi-”

“That’s perfectly acceptable.” Shouto cuts you off before you can continue. “I wasn’t trying to insinuate a contract of that nature. I’m thinking more along the lines of accompanying me at meals, sharing experiences with me, providing company and friendship to a lonely man. If it seems that we’d like to progress further than that after we get to know each other, well, that will be addressed then. For now-” Shouto meets your eye, dipping his head a smidgeon so he can look at you directly. “All I ask for is a simple, non-intimate bond between two people.”

This is crazy.

And yet you accept.

The situation may be wild, and completely absurd, but you’d be a fool not to say yes.

Shouto is charming and handsome, respectful, courteous - you could go on and on about his positive qualities. He just seems like a sad, lonesome man swallowed by work and responsibilities, too stressed and busy to put the effort into making friends the conventional way. 

-----

Months pass by.

You’re eating at every meal, sated and never going hungry. You’re able to move into a new place, one that doesn’t smell like cigarettes and sits right next to a railroad.

Clothes aren’t a worry anymore, you have your own washer and dryer in your new apartment (Shouto offered to buy you a house, or a penthouse at the least, but you couldn’t justify it to yourself). You’re able to afford new things, and pretty dresses, shoes that are comfortable and fashionable and that fit.

You no longer have to wear clothes down until they have holes in them. You’re able to go to the doctor’s when you feel sick, able to pay for health insurance.

Life is good.

Shouto is a personable man, serious, but he can be rather funny and even crude at times.

The doubt and thoughts of “Why is he doing this for me?” and “I’m not good enough for this.” plague you, but Shouto always seems to catch on, reassuring you that you’re exactly what he needs - a friend.

And you’re more than happy to be that.

You think sometimes, that even if he wasn’t paying you, you’d still like to be friends with Shouto Todoroki.

Until he starts acting weird.

“You should just stay at my place. I have more than enough room,, it’d be easier for both our schedules. We’d get to see each other more often.”

“Uhm...” You don’t really know what to say. You like your freedom, and having your own place where you can walk around in your (expensive) underwear without being bothered.

“I think it’d be nice, don’t you? We could have breakfast every morning, you wouldn’t have to worry about traveling to and fro, we could spend more time together. We don’t see each other nearly enough.”

He’s pushing, insistent. How are you supposed to tell him no? He’s paying for your entire life. Plus, it wouldn’t be that bad to actually live with him. Shouto’s an amicable man.

So you move in.

“I bought you a few things, they’re on your bed.” 

Shouto’s striding into the kitchen where you’re making coffee, buttoning up his shirt as he comes closer. You’ve found that the man likes to sleep in nothing but boxers, shrieking and flushing an embarrassing shade the first time he’d come to wake you up with a sweet “welcome” breakfast in bed.

It’s taken a while to adjust, but you finally feel that you’re fully settled in.

“Oh, you really don’t ha-”

“I wanted to. I went through your closet - your clothes are nice, but your underwear seemed to be lacking.” He’s so matter-of-fact.

All you can do is stare at the back of his head.

“Could you pass me a spoon please?”

-----

Shouto had splurged on expensive, fancy lingerie. 

At least eight different sets were laid out on your bed. It was overwhelming. It also felt.... a bit intrusive? They were all in your size, in a complementary color for your skin tone. 

Weird.

Not as weird as the onset of Shouto’s casual touches.

You’d be reading, or drinking tea and watching cars race by on the street so far below, and Shouto would come up behind you, caress your sides before intertwining his fingers with yours on one hand. He did it as if it was a normal thing, but it felt anything but normal.

Or you’d be on the couch together, and Shouto would shuffle closer until his large body was pressed to yours, almost curled around you. The faux-cuddling was a bit more off putting. How do you tell him no?

The touches became more and more intimate, Shouto’s gifts more and more frequent until you weren’t even spending a penny, the man taking care of everything.

The arrangement was beginning to make you uncomfortable.

Shouto’s bi-colored eyes seemed to always be on you, tracing the shape of your body, watching you move, or breath, or sit. It was distracting, and you felt bad for feeling this way towards the man who’d pulled you out of poverty, but it was so unnerving.

He seemed to notice.

“You’ve been so stressed these past few days. Is something wrong?” Shouto’s rubbing a hand into your shoulder, hovering over you at the dinner table.

“No?” Is all you can manage, wiping your hands on your napkin as you finish your food.

Shouto frowns. With a sigh, his hand drops from your shoulder and the man leaves your side, heads toward the kitchen.

You clear your plate from the table, following after him so you can wash it and put it in the dishwasher before you head off to get ready for bed. 

But Shouto is rummaging in a cupboard, pulling down two wine glasses to accompany the bottle of wine that’s standing proud on the island.  It’s your favorite, a sweet wine that Shouto knows you like, always brings it out when he decides to drink whisky or bourbon after dinner.

He pops the cork and pours you a glass while you finish with your dishes, handing you the glass when you turn away from the sink, pressing it into your hands. “Let’s relax a little bit, it’ll be good for both of us.”

You’re fine with that, knowing that a little wine won’t hurt you, especially when it’s of such fine quality. You’d never dreamed that you’d be able to taste such richness in your lifetime, spend frivolous amounts of money on wine and fine eateries. Yet here you are.

Shouto pours himself a glass, barely a sip filling the bottom. The man raises it to his lips and takes a swig, grimacing a bit in his flat, unexpressive way. You giggle a little.

“Too sweet?’

The man nods, setting the glass back down. “I’m not entirely sure how you can stand to stomach it. But if it makes you happy-” He shrugs, before pulling on of the bar-stools out from under the island so he can sit facing you, long legs stretching out before him.

You look at him, and he looks at you, and then you take another sip of wine to avoid the awkwardness.

“You’re distancing yourself from me.”

The accusation is quiet, Shouto’s eyes focused on your fingers wrapped around the stem of the glass.

He’s always been straightforward with his words. “Is there a reason you keep drawing away?”

The wine disappears from your glass, sliding down your throat and settling in your stomach. You fill your glass again before speaking, struggling to find the right words without upsetting your... benefactor.

“Well, Shouto... I don’t really know how to...” You trail off, hoping Shouto will say something, change the subject, say it’s alright and move on to something else.

But the man stays silent, eyes appraising you.

Taking a deep breath, and another gulp of sweetness, you try again.

“Sometimes the closeness... like, physical closeness? Makes me, well, uncomfortable.”

Hopefully, that would satisfy his curiosity for now. That wasn’t the only reason you’d been avoiding Shouto seeming distant, but you didn’t think sharing the others would result in anything good.

Said man accepted your response, dropping his eyes to his lap as he mulled it over. More wine was consumed, glass re-filled. You felt nervous.

“You’re saying that my touch isn’t something you’d prefer.”

Biting your lip, you soften at his confused expression, at the hint of sadness swimming behind his eyes. “Kind of. I don’t mind you Shouto, you’re really kind, and you’re good company, and a wonderful friend. I just don’t think the.... the intimacy is for me.”

Shouto raises his head, stares at you with those pretty eyes, lips parted as he comes to terms with your words. 

“It sounds like you don’t trust me. I would never hurt you, you know this.”

You scramble to assure him. “I do! I do trust you, and I know you wouldn’t.” (at least you hoped) “But I guess I just... Coming into this agreement I wasn’t ready for that type of... thing. I don’t know if I ever will be.”

The man rises, shakes his head as he steps closer to you. “Don’t worry, I remember our first conversation about that aspect. I see that for you, that type of relationship would only begin after you really cared for the other person, trusted and wanted to see them happy, am I correct?”

“Oh, Shouto-” You rush. “No, I care for you, and I trust you, and of course I want to see you happy. I think it’s just, y’know, my last relationship like that went really bad, and it sucked. I don’t want to go through that again.”

Shouto nods, understanding. “I see. You don’t have to worry about any of that with me then.”

A smile crosses your face, and you feel relived that he accepted your rejection with grace and understanding instead of violence or anger. “Thank you, it means a lot to me.”

The mood of the room shifted, from tense and uncomfortable, to easy and light, and you poured another glass of wine, laughing a little at how worried you were about the conversation with Shouto, only for it all to turn out fine.

“I’m going to go drink some of the liquor that’s kept in my room. I could mix a few drinks for you to try, you might like how sweet they are. I know hard alcohol isn’t quite your thing.”

You beam a smile, nodding your head eagerly. Before, you’d feel apprehensive about going into his room with him to drink alcohol. But with the conversation the two of you just had, you knew - things would be fine.

-----

The room was spinning and you felt giddy and light. You were definitely tipsy.

“You can lay down on my bed, you’re getting wobbly on your feet.” Shouto had offered, and you’d gladly accepted, flopping down onto his comfy bedspread with a laugh at how the motion made butterflies rise in your tummy.

Shouto leaned against his dresser, swirling whiskey in his glass as he watched you, a half-smile across his face. You smiled back, before closing your eyes, a little bit tired as you realized that you might be a bit more than just tipsy.

Shouto had mixed quite a few drinks for you, and you’d drank each one eagerly, impressed with how little alcohol you could taste in each one. You don’t remember how many you had, but it didn’t really matter.

The next thing you know, hands are on your waist, scooting you further up the bed so your legs no longer hang off the edge. Cracking open an eye, you’re met with the visage of red-and-white, eyes soft and warm as they regard you, Shouto’s face tinged a bit pink from the few drinks he had consumed. The man had never been too good at holding his alcohol.

When those hands started to slip beneath your shirt, you wiggled like a little worm, not really comprehending the situation. Maybe it was a dream.

Your shirt was discarded, then your pants. It felt much more comfortable now, and you mumbled a “thanks” to the man helping you settle for bed. He was so nice, Shouto took such good care of you. You still kind of couldn’t believe the turn your life had taken with him, the good luck pushed into your path.

Someone was kissing you.

With a grunt of surprise, you kissed them back, meeting their feverish pace and trying to keep up, soft lips puckering and pushing against your own with intent. Kissing felt good. You liked kissing.

Then a hand was cupping your face, stroking tenderly over your cheek before it began sliding down, down your neck, into the valley between your breasts, trailing over your bra. It felt funny.

Pushing back for air, you gasped when the hand on your chest started squeezing at you, eyes flying open with the startling, sudden sensation.

Shouto was hovering over you, lips puffy, panting as he stared at you with lusty eyes, an uncharacteristic look on his face. This... this wasn’t supposed to be like this. You knew. Hadn’t the two of you just talked about something... important? Was it important?

You didn’t feel panic until a hand cupped your sex, feeling your skin through your panties.

This wasn’t right.

Alarm bells were ringing, dull and far away, but you didn’t think that Shouto should be touching you in such a way. you should be going to bed.

“Mm, Sho, can you stop?” But your words felt funny on your tongue, and Shouto didn’t stop. Maybe he didn’t hear you.

His hair tickled your chin as the man bent to mouth at your tits, pulling the cups of your bra underneath them so he could feel your hot skin, let his saliva drag slick and wet against your chest. 

Your hands instinctively rooted themselves in his hair as you gasped again, not expecting such a move, tugging lightly at his head to pull him up. Shouto just groaned, teething gently at your breasts and not moving an inch. His hips were grinding against the bed though, as he stood between your spread legs.

Before you knew it, your panties were gone, bra clumsily unclasped and discarded, and you were completely bare. Shouto was undressing before you, struggling with the buttons on his shirt before giving up, easily ripping the fabric of his body with one tug, grumbling.

You didn’t feel so tipsy anymore.

“Shouto, what’re we doing? We shouldn’t be doing this, we need to stop-”

“Stay down.” Was his firm command, a hand splayed across your naked chest and pushing you back into the mattress as you tried to sit up. It made you breathless, the growl in his voice, the dominance emanating from the man. You stayed still.

“This’s gonna make us a stronger couple.” The man slurred, eyes dark and hands wandering, effortlessly keeping you pinned against the bed as he ground his hips forward against the edge. You were getting scared.

“Wait-”

You fell silent as one hand pushed down his pants, his underwear going with them, pink cock bobbing free. He was so pretty down there, and it made sense, all of him was pretty, but you suddenly realized the weight of the situation, what was happening.

“Shouto, no, oh my god. We gotta stop right now, we’re drunk, we’re-we’re-”

“Don’t care. Not gonna let you hide away from me this time.” Shouto shook his head, taking his cock in one hand and giving it a long, slow pump, flushed tip weeping precum and wetting his hand.

“No, no, this is wrong. I don’t want this, I could get pregnant!” You cried, beginning to panic for real, pushing against the one strong hand anchoring you to the bed.

Shouto just chuckled, letting go of his cock to crowd against you, getting up in your face to press a wet finger to your lips, the salty taste of his precum threatening to slip into your mouth unless you kept it shut. “Shhh, shh. If you stay nice and still, if you do what I say, I’ll use a condom.”

You couldn’t believe your ears.

“You’re gonna listen to me, you always do.” The man nodded to himself, once again dragging his cock against the bed between your legs, as if he couldn’t stop himself. “Or else I’ll fuck you raw.” The finger was pulled from your lips, only to be wagged teasingly in your face. 

You couldn’t believe how he was acting.

“Be nice.”

Shouto tapped your nose with a neatly manicured finger, before groaning as he heaved himself upright, red cock bobbing against his stomach, desperate for attention. The man gave you a look, as if to say “don’t move” before he took his hands off you, heading for his dresser.

Once you saw him pulling out a strip of condoms, you were on your feet, stumbling toward the door.

Although panic had sobered you somewhat, you were still struggling with the effects of the alcohol, so your reaction time was maddeningly slow. Slow enough that you weren’t able to truly fight against Shouto when he grabbed you from behind toned arms wrapping around your middle and heaving you into the air, only to throw you back on his bed.

You were almost sick on the bedspread, world spinning and stomach protesting, but you were able to calm yourself.

But then Shouto was on you, flipping you onto your back, a soft hand pressing against your throat threateningly. 

“You want to have a baby? Want me to cum in you so you’ll get all fat with kids? Hm?” He was so intense, almost choking you, straddling your waist and keeping you pinned. It was too much

You were able to manage a tearful, desperate “No!” despite the hand around your throat, and Shouto backed off, releasing the pressure to instead stroke his hand against the sides of your neck.

“Stop acting like this, it’s the next logical step for us. You said you cared for me, wanna make me happy. This’ll make me happy. I won’t be like the last guy.”

His cock was pressed against your stomach, and you could feel it twitching. Shouto clambered off of you, letting go of your neck so he could grab the condoms he’d tossed on the bed before snatching you up.

“Do what I say and I use these.” He waved them in your face before tearing one off, beginning to open it. 

You stayed still, gazing at him blearily, limbs feeling fuzzy, mind feeling the same.

The condom was rolled onto Shouto’s cock, the man spitting into his palm and giving the latex a few rubs to make it slick before reaching for you.

He dragged you to the edge of the bed - the perfect height for him to fuck you - and you didn’t fight, terrified of his threat. You couldn’t stand the thought of a baby.

(You didn’t know, but neither could he)

“Wanted to do this since I met you.” Shouto mumbled, pushing your panties to the side with a few fingers so he could guide his tip to your hole. “Want you so bad.”

You didn’t know what to think of this side of Shouto. This unreserved, uncareful, slurring mess of a man that loomed before you, gaze dark and wild, limbs everywhere as he groped and squeezed and appreciate the shape of your body.

But he must’ve gotten impatient, because then he was pushing inside.

It hurt, stinging pain rippling up your back and you keened, causing Shouto to pause. One of his hands darted down to wrap around your calf, hauling it up on the bed so he could lean forward and press it to you chest, sinking his cock a few inches deeper.

“You’re gonna take it.” He hissed before messily kissing you, pressed so close together that it was hard to breathe. “I’ll make it feel good after you do.”