#repost because the quality was fucked the first time i posted

[organiccats]

kneeling at your altar

[winggy-wanggy-doobledoo]

You actually believe that Israel will nuke Gaza? Like, for real? What drugs did your mom take while pregnant? What moonshine did she give you instead of formula? How many times were you dropped on your head?

A leader of the Isreali government made it a thought and option in people heads. It's a quote. This guy had called for one to wipe people out as a "last option." Such an option would wipe out and hurt more than just Palestinians. Figures you'd stay anon too. You're too afraid to catch a case. My mother, my schools, and people around me have told me genocide is bad for my whole life, but now that it's time to put thought to action you bitches want to pretend and hesitate.

This statement was made in November, and talks of it happening have spread quite far.

This shouldn't even have been made an option or brought up after seeing what it has done in previous wars. If we forget a threat that big, an option that dangerous with how casually it was thrown in, the big wigs in charge will do so without thinking twice about what would happen and who it will affect.

To anyone reading this:

I repost information I find to help spread awareness about what is going on. Please correct me if I make a mistake or if the information has been updated. I will gladly correct the mistake! But don't be a bitch in anons. the next time I find something like this I'm deleting the shit.

BUT YOU, dear Anon, im going to use you as an example.

The talk about the nuclear option made me angry, and I replied with what would happen if it stayed in consideration. I warned that it was something that we should make sure doesn't stay on the table, doesn't become reality because if it does, it will hurt us all. For that careless use of those specific words in that context, we should all keep a very, VERY close eye on the man that made that statement and the man that could put that statement into play.

This was my response and reaction to the post from 5 days ago about a headline that was written on such a topic. This is the only personal reblog addition I have done specifically about that, so this must be what you're talking about.

So, to answer your first question, Anonymous. Yes, I do believe that the people in power of isreal and their dangerous mentality would drop one on Gaza if they felt like it. They would do it, they would drop it on innocents and guilty alike with no regard for the health and safety of surrounding lands, peoples and quality of life.

Never trust people who bring it up as if they were flinging paper instead of a manmade sun. And I never will trust a government that keep them for 'just in case'. This includes isreals patreon, the United States of America, and others in close ties with them.

Anyways, stand for Palestinians. fuck anon, screw 'isreal' and chant the IOF's sins in their faces.

[xxavengingangelxx]

As the Rush Comes 1/1

Ya'll! I posted this fic a while ago. It was the post that took my Tumblr virginity. However, I was dumb back then and I'm still dumb now, honestly and I thought Tumblr had a low word limit so I removed some scenes like a director in a movie that's too long and I think that really took away from the quality of the story.

With Graves coming back, I figured now was as good a time as any to repost this. Although this time, I'm posting the whole thing. It came to me after a reading a fic by halfmothhalfman on AO3. Beginning is kinda boring but it sets things up for some good smut ;)

Summary: A female mercenary and Graves meet in a bar. @bellgraves because you asked for it ;)

Tags: Porn with plot, gun kink, hair pulling, borderline hate fucking, friends to enemies, blood and injury, shooting, top!Phillip Graves.

Tagline: You had 74 hits under your belt. A man named Phillip Graves would make 75.

TRIGGERS: Alleged/referenced child abuse, referenced suicide/self-harm, triggers for domestic violence, possible character death. MDNI, 18+ only.

-

I hate you.

That was the first sentence you said when you were 3 years old. You screamed it, shrieked it, to this towering man standing right in front of you. While you don’t remember exactly what had transpired, you know that you both were standing over your parents’ dead bodies and that your pajamas were sprayed red. The man in front of you did not know how to respond. It was almost as if he had never been around children so young.

You were perceptive like that even when you were 3 years old.

Sirens in the background seemed to pull the large man out of his reverie. You saw panic in his green eyes despite the fact that the rest of his face was covered in a black mask.

Then he took you.

***

And the rest is history. You learned from him later that he grabbed you because the police were on the way, you were clearly verbal, and you might make a good witness. He admitted later that he had not been around any children much less raised one. My childhood was a shithole, he would tell you.

He told you eventually that the initial plan was to avoid doing the ‘hit’ when you, a toddler, were in the home but that the timing had not given him any other alternative. He mentioned his boss told him that if the child, you, were in the home, to avoid doing it in front of you. But if shit hit the fan, then, hell, he said he had been given the green light to get rid of you, too.

He told you many times, sometimes when he was drunk, that there was no way he could kill any child, much less one that’s not even school age. So he did the only thing that came to him. He eliminated the witness without killing you. He couldn’t just throw you into foster care or abandon you because then you could be a witness. Plus he mentioned to you a lot that foster care was fucking awful. You learned that when you spent almost 6 months in foster care after he was accused of abuse. He’d burned your fingerprints off when you were 10 and the teachers were shocked when they tried to do a science project that involved fingerprints. You denied abuse, saying you were a disturbed child (you really were disturbed so it was half truth) who’d done it to herself. You were happy to be home with him however dysfunctional the home was.

He raised you. He raised you the only way he knew how. He actually never really abused you. Sure he’d beat the shit out of you if you acted up. You tried running away once and he almost put you in the hospital with the beatdown he gave you. He smacked you across the face if you got smart mouthed with him. You saw your first murder/hit when you were 10. But you didn’t consider that abuse. You considered it being put back in line. He raised you and taught you the only thing he knew.

Murder for hire.

He’d given you the name Raquel, after one of the avenging angels of heaven. You never knew your real name and to be honest you didn’t really give a fuck. You were apparently born in California and he hauled you all the way to the miserable, lonely town of International Falls, Minnesota to grow up. No one would bother looking in the nation’s ice box.

Businesswise, all you knew is that he was paid by someone else. He was hired by different people to do different hits. His own boss, your boss’s boss, ran a PMC on the side or so you heard. That was your goal: to be a PMC contractor. You’d been all over the world with your job with countless identities. But PMCs got to go to the really fun places. You’d sniped once or twice but wanted to do it more often.

So now you did what he did. Kinda. You’d have to work your way up the ranks. You’d been killing since you were 18. He was ‘nice’ enough to not make you kill before you were 18. Besides, you’d be fuckin’ sloppy anyway. At least when you both thought you were about 18. You did not know your actual birthday and neither did he. Neither of you gave a fuck. You had 74 hits under your belt, all done in the last 15 years. About 5 kills a year and the rest off to do whatever the hell you wanted whether that be party and get drunk (no drugs allowed or you risked getting a target put on your back) or whether it was nothing in a hotel room. You needed 100 hits to be considered for PMC.

A man named Phillip Graves would make 75.

You never asked the why. You never asked if they worked for him before and they had gone rogue. He made it a goal to not let his soldiers know about each other in case he had to order a hit on one of his own. The why was simply not important.

So, Phillip Graves. Someone above your boss had ordered the hit.

You were told to be careful, that he was the CEO of his own PMC. He was dangerous, you were told. You’d have to be on your toes.

I want to make your 75th special, he had told you. Try not to die. We could use a woman in the PMC. Ya’ll get to do stuff men can’t. And definitely do not let him recruit you. It’d be treason to me. Pays $50,000.

The hit was not ‘immediate’ which meant you needed to gather some basic information from him. When the final order came down for the hit to be carried out to “full term” you were to kill him. But not until then.

***

You initially met Phillip Graves in a bar.

You wore something revealing. A hot, tight black dress with thigh boots. Your hair curled over your shoulders and you had your fuck me makeup on. One of the ways you would attract your mark’s attention was to wear a black silicone wedding ring. And it worked this time, too.

“Your husband know you’re here?” A man with a Southern drawl called from behind you. Before you faced him your smirked to yourself.

“I’m not married,” you snapped, turning to face him.

“Coulda fooled me,” he shrugged and nodded towards the ring on your finger.

“Maybe I wear it to stop creeps like you from talking to me,”

“Ain’t gonna stop me, sweetheart,” he moved to sit on the stool next to you, removing dark aviator sunglasses. His blue eyes shone even in the low light of the bar. “Are you?” His cologne smelled intoxicating in a way. There was a slight smell of…gunpowder.

Hot motherfucker, ain’t he?

“Nope,” you replied.

“Name’s Phillip,”

“Ariel,” you lied.

“I’m just gonna ask, ma’am,” he started eyeing your body up and down without shame. “Are you for sale?”

You scoffed. In a way, you thought.

“What makes you think that?”

He huffed a laugh.

“Pardon my language but you’ve got fuck me written all over you.” His eyes focused on yours, looking for a reaction. “Hell several men in here are actively eye fucking you.”

“You mean that disgusting fuck in the corner?” you signaled to an overweight 50 year old eyeing you like you were prey. “Ugh,”

“He seems like the rapey type,” Graves added. “You can either hook up with him or me,”

“Or neither,” you rolled your eyes. “And no I’m not for sale, sir.”

“Sounds good to me because I don’t pay. If I see someone I like I get ‘em.” He paused. “Even if that means using force.”

You scoffed. The only reason you took him half seriously if because this is Phillip fucking Graves. “You come off a deployment or somethin’, man? You seem desperate.”

His blue eyes flashed anger and you could swear he was resisting the urge to smack you across the face. He seemed like the type that didn’t have a problem hitting women. Or killing them.

“It’s been longer than I’d like,” he admitted.

“Whatever,”

“Playin’ hard to get?” his blue eyes were dilated now. He liked the thrill of the chase.

“Start over,” you snapped.

You saw when he gritted his teeth. This man was used to getting what he wanted when he wanted to.

“Let me buy you a drink,” he smirked.

***

You led him back to your motel room.

You didn’t have to wait or ask for him to get things started.

He shoved you against the door, one of his hands tangling in your soft hair and the other gripping your ass in an almost bruising grip. He detangled his hands from your hair and your ass and then used them to tear your short dress from the bottom up.

“Asshole,” you breathed. “This was expensive, dick,”

He ignored you, wrapping his arms around your waist and hiking you up so you could wrap your legs around his waist. One of his hands went back to your hair, gripping it tight and pulling hard, causing sharp pain and making you hiss.

His teeth grazed your throat. If wanted to he could’ve ripped your throat out with his teeth. You had a fleeting thought, wondering if he’d ever done that to someone. If he had ever ripped a man’s throat out. His mouth moved to your pulse point. You felt him grin when he felt your accelerating heartrate. He bit and sucked. You were sure he’d leave bruises.

“No marks,” you retorted. “I don’t belong to you,”

“No, you do tonight,” he breathed.

He continued biting, sucking. Your boss would call you a fucking whore with a smile on his face when he saw.

You had never been afraid to sleep with the men your killed. It was weird in a fucked up kind of way. Your boss, also known as your caregiver when you were growing up, had never laid a hand on you that way but he’d mentioned many a time that women can use their looks to bait when men usually could not. It was one of the reasons he wanted to accelerate you to your 100 kills…to get you into that PMC. You’d feel a rush when you finished off men as they slept off their tirade. You’d call it a rush coming and it released only when they were dead.

Graves wouldn’t die tonight, though. But he would eventually.

Flirt, fuck, repeat until the order came in to drop him.

You were tossed on the bed roughly, bringing your mind back to the present. He finished ripping your dress open, saying something you didn’t quite get because no sooner than he tossed you on the bed he had unclasped your bra and started biting and sucking your breasts, again leaving hickies and bruises. He got lower…lower…

And lower. He made quick work of your underwear, his hot breath hitting your sex and making you sigh.

“I said, you’re sure moaning like a whore,”

And with that you wanted to hear him beg.

You shoved him, shedded the rest of your clothing and walked towards him. You then knelt in front of him and he was clearly confused by the way you went from shortly dominating the situation to submission. You knew Graves…at least enough about him…to know he got off on being in control. But that didn’t mean you couldn’t have fun.

Your trembling fingers unbuckled his military-style belt and that was when you noticed his sidearm. You were tempted to grab it and just fucking kill him then but not yet. You didn’t have the orders. You easily worked the belt off but he grabbed his sidearm out of your reach.

You got on your haunches, appearing even smaller before him. You look at him through your bangs, through your lashes (real lashes not that fake shit), and you feel your mascara and eyeliner running, initiated by your sweat and the rain outside. You parted your lips slightly and he sighed, his blue eyes barely visible because his pupils were so dilated.

“I don’t trust you, sweetheart,” he grabs his sidearm and yanks it from the holster. Shit…you might have to kill him tonight.

You pouted, attempting to manipulate him.

“You seem like you’re into dark shit,” he grumbled as he freed his cock, the tip of it leaking precum and standing inches from your lips.

“What’s that mean?” you whispered as you licked your lips.

He aimed the sidearm at your head. “You sure as hell know what to do,” he hissed, his other hand stroking himself. “Get to it. Now.”

“Sick fuck,” you mumbled. You took him into your mouth quickly, knowing no man would willingly shoot a woman giving him head in the head or anywhere else. Teeth could be deadly to a man in more ways than one.

“No sicker n’ you,” he moaned. He kept one hand on his sidearm against your head and one hand then tangled in your hair.

You felt as he got harder and harder in your mouth. You moaned around him and he hissed, the vibration apparently rubbing him the right way. It was fucking hot. Here you were sucking cock with a gun to your head. You didn’t mind. Phillip Graves was attractive unlike most of the men you’d handled.

His hand started loosening on his sidearm and you took that as you doing your damn job right. His hips were thrusting into your face and you felt him hitting the back of your throat. Tears escaped the sides of your eyes as you almost, almost gagged.

It was at that point that he tossed the sidearm on the bed to grasp your hair with both hands. He effectively started facefucking you. But that was where you drew the line. He still had his uniform pants halfway on and you gripped the thick fabric, preventing him from bruising your throat. You stopped it all…you stopped using your tongue, stopped using your tongue piercing to get him even harder.

“Beg,” you said after you pulled away from him. His cock was angry…red.

“Bitch, you don’t get to tell me—” he grasped your hair and threw you onto the bed again. “You dress like a whore, you get treated like one.” He climbed over you. You found it hot he was still in uniform and you were totally naked. Well except for your knee boots. Hell, he still had the vest under his shirt on. “I don’t treat a lady like this, but you…”

He settled between your legs, his hot cock rubbing your entrance. You moaned like a porn star because you’d started getting wet the moment you saw him. He was hot. And the fact that you were going to end his life not long from now got you hotter. So easy to manipulate men…

He didn’t even bother preparing you. He slammed in to the hilt, making you cry out.

“Whatever, slut,” he snapped. “Take it.”

He reached for your wrists holding you down as he rammed into you. His eyes looked down on you, focusing mostly on the way your breasts bounced as he fucked you…hard.

He was hitting that special spot inside of you. One few men knew to hit. He ground against you, rubbing your clit in between you both. You had never understood women who couldn’t cum from vaginal sex. How could you not?

You wanted to break your hands free from his iron grip. You were sure he’d leave bruises on your wrists, something else for boss to tease you about. You’re fucked up, he’d likely say. But he never complained because you always got the job done.

You felt that heat building up deep inside of you as he continued his relentless thrusts. He was thrusting faster, deeper, harder. When he leaned forward and bit your lip with his teeth (and drew blood) that pushed you over the edge.

You cried out in his mouth. You finally got your hands loose, tangling them in his short hair. You wrapped your legs around his waist, as you rode out your orgasm. You moved your hands to scratch his back but you felt only unform and Kevlar, no blood like you would have liked.

He broke loose from the kiss, moving to leave another mark just under your jaw.

He followed with his own climax shortly after. You felt him throbbing inside of you and it was at that moment that you realized ya’ll hadn’t even considered safe sex. Not that you cared. Hot men got a pass on that. Ugly ass men had to wear condoms.

His breath came in hurried gasps as he rode out his own orgasm, pulsing inside of you all the while.

“Fuuuuck,” he groaned. He stilled his hips and hovered over you, his dirty blonde hair ticking your breasts.

You were both hot, both sweaty, and you had several marks all over you. Proof of his dominance. It was almost like he wanted to mark you so no one else would touch you. He wanted you all to himself.

“Motherfucker,” you hissed as he pulled out of you and collapsed next to you. “I said no marks.” You observed marks on your breasts and that the bony part of your wrist already had a light blue tint, promising a bruise.

He scoffed, rolling off the bed. All he had to do was pull his pants up and secure his belt. He secured his sidearm next.

“What’re you doing about…” he trailed off.

“About what?” You sat up, your body aching in protest. You felt his essence sliding out of you and onto the cheap motel bed.

He rubbed the back of his head, suddenly appearing shy. “You know what.”

“Pregnancy?”

“I’m actually looking to settle down and have a kid,”

His eyes widened and you saw panic in his blue eyes. His blue eyes had lost the indigo color they had when he had been fucking you. You wondered if that would be the same look in his eyes when you killed him. You weren’t sure yet if you’d use a gun or a knife but the orders said the mark has to be within arm’s reach so that meant no sniping.

“Kidding,” you laughed. “I don’t want no fucking kids.” You sighed before adding, “I’ll get Plan B but I have an IUD.”

He sighed in obvious relief.

“Leaving already?” you asked as he started for the door.

“You know what kinda relationship this is gonna be,” he replied, not even bothering to turn around. He opened the door. “See you next week?”

“Count on it,” you smirked.

***

It had been exactly 30 days since you met Phillip Graves when the ‘full-term’ order came through. You’d learned the basics about him. Some of his habits, that he was ex-military, that he owned his own company although he refused to tell you where he worked.

So you met him at another that Friday night. The Friday night. You met in different places, sometimes hundreds of miles apart. But all were close to a base. The bar was usually filled with uniformed men looking to have a good time and relax. It was colder then and so you wore tight jeans with knee boots. A beanie covered your normally cascading hair. It was sleeting outside. And it was about to turn into snow.

“Hey there,” he drawled.

“Graves,” you smirked.

”It’s gonna be hard to peel you out of those jeans,” he eyed you up and down. Little did he know you did not intend to take your clothes off for him this time.

You followed the typical schedule. Some drinks and then you both left to go to the nearby motel. It’s not like you had a home to take him back to. You’d lived in hotels and motels and extended stay inns since you were 18.

It had started to snow and you watched some of the small furry white snowflakes landed in your loose curls of hair.

“After you, ma’am,” he smirked, holding the motel room door open.

“Such a gentleman,” you purred.

“Not for long,” he sneered.

You had set an alarm on your phone. You’d timed it to go off right before he dragged you to the bed like he always did at least once a week.

“Ugh, my fucking boss,” you pretended to be annoyed.

“What’d you do?”

“None of your business,” you responded to his question about what you did for a living.

“Whore out apparently,” he laughed.

You glared.

“Let me text this asshole and then we’ll get down to business,” you smiled.

“I’m gonna take a piss then,” Graves said nonchalantly as he walked to the bathroom.

Perfect.

You heard as he took care of business, flushed and then went to wash his hands. His back was to you. Foolish move.

So you grabbed a 9mm you kept in your large purse. A 9mm had more recoil than you liked but it definitely got the job done. Especially at close range. You wanted to look in his eyes when you killed him. You didn’t know why he was on a hit list but he had apparently pissed someone off badly enough to want him killed at close range. You’d have to aim for the head because he had his heavy duty tactical vest on today. The one with the wires for communication, the antenna folded several times over. It had an American flag and a patch that read B-23. You suddenly regretted you hadn’t had him use zip ties with you in your month together.

He looked in the mirror and…the cat was out of the bag.

“I fuckin’ knew it,” he laughed. “You were too good to be true.” He turned and walked towards you.

You raised the 9mm.

“Don’t do that. Don’t. Do that,” he warned. He had a different look in his eyes this time. His hand brushed his own sidearm, almost as if he didn’t take your threat seriously, like he knew he’d kill you before you ever got the chance to even try to kill him.

You scoffed. He was a military man. He knew orders were orders.

“You work with a PMC? Or are you a hired slut with a gun?”

“None of your fucking business,” you said through gritted teeth.

“No one needs to get hurt here.”

“You know one of us has to get hurt.” You paused before you added, “mortally so.”

“Let’s not do this,” he said calmly. He knew that his heavy duty vest would catch almost any bullet you fired at his chest.

You shook your head.

“Why the hell are we talking like this is some kind of negotiation?” He demanded. “It’s not.”

“You’re right it’s not,” you stood strong. “I can’t fail. I’ve never failed. He always told me I don’t want to find out what will happen to me if I fail. He just said I’d wish I was dead.”

“Leave,” he snapped. “I like you but I will hurt you if you so much as try.”

You scoffed internally because none of the men you’d killed had put a fight.

You clicked the safety off and before your finger could go from straight to curled over the trigger, he lunged.

Suddenly you found yourself flat on your back with the back of your head hitting the thin, cheap, disgusting carpet with a thud. You saw black spots in your vision. You immediately came back to lucidity. Passing out would be certain death. Or Graves escaping.

“Get off me, you asshole!” you screamed. All the extra gear he had on made him heavier than he already was and some of the gear was digging into your ribs.

He didn’t respond. Instead Graves easily straddled you and pinned you down the same way he’d held your wrists down when he’d fucked you. He leaned forward, his dirty blond hair falling over his forehead. He easily peeled your fingers off the gun and tossed it out of reach.

You shouted, “Ugh, bastard!” before you wrapped your right leg around his waist, feeling bruises forming from his gear. It was usually a lot easier for you to wrap your legs around him but not tonight. Luckily your heels gave you extra height. You dropped your heel on the small of his back, where it was not covered by the vest.

Momentarily startled, he eased his grip on your wrists. You eased your right hand out of his grasp and punched him right in the face. He full on growled with fury as he fell sideways a bit and you shook your hand from the pain, knowing you’d broken something. He stumbled again so you put your right leg in between the two of you and kicked, pushing him off you.

He stumbled, falling sideways once more. “Bitch,” he growled lowly. This was a tone you had not heard from him before. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you. I’ll watch the light leave your eyes.”

You reached for a knife you kept in your boot and taking advantage of the fact that you were both still on your knees, you lunged and sliced.

Graves almost yelped. He pressed his gloved hand to the open cut on his face. On his right cheek. It was sure to scar. Not that it would matter since you’d be killing him tonight. You’d go to his funeral. You were actually going to miss him. If only you’d sliced lower than his right cheek you would have sliced his throat.

“Motherfucking bitch,” he snarled when his fingers came back with his own blood. “Walk away!” he roared. “Last fucking chance before I rip you to shreds.”

“I told you I cant,” You replied simply. “One of doesn’t get any older than tonight.” You reached for a small pink Beretta you kept in your leather jacket pocket. It was your go-to if things got too hot. And things were HOT right now. Not sexually so but dangerously so.

He got in front of you so fast you barely registered.

How did a man that large move so quickly?!

You felt him full on punch you with a closed fist across your face and you heard a sickening, nauseating crack as blood gushed from your nose. A choked sob escaped you despite your attempts to hide it because holy shit he hit you hard. Like he would hit a man. You were losing and losing badly. You stumbled but he then gripped your right arm in a hold.

Another second and he had broken your arm…easily.

You screamed because fuck it hurt and it forced you to drop the gun.

Your boss and caregiver had forced you to be ambidextrous with all your weapons and you silently thanked him for that now.

You reached for your second to last weapon. Another knife. You got it in your left hand and sliced towards him, almost catching his throat when he again attacked you, assaulted you, almost ripped you apart (like he said he would) again. It was so close you yelled out in anger, frustration. You’ve been close two fucking times now.

Two loud bangs and flashes threw you off.

Things blacked out for a second or to and…

You were back on the floor again, on your back, your head hitting it a second time. You immediately spat and coughed blood when you tried to take a breath. You felt a red mist fall on your face and chest. Your ears were ringing, painfully so and you vision had black edges.

What the hell had happened?! Your mind went into panic, something you’d never really experienced before. Your brain switched to a more primal state of survival.

“It didn’t have to be this way,” he repeated a line he’d said earlier. “You there?” he drawled as your hearing went in and out, all while painfully ringing. “That was a big mistake. It did not have to be like this.”

You barely heard him over the ringing in your ears. And…were your ears bleeding?

“Sunovabitch,” he muttered. He said you’d made a grave mistake and some dark part of your mind laughed insanely, because his last name is Graves.

“I don’t usually kill or punch women but you’re an exception to that,” he said cooly. “Fuckin’ idiot.”

You saw him blurrily but you still saw him as he picked up both your firearms and your knives. He then walked up to you. He was getting hurried in his movements. While this was a shady ass motel with gunshots all the time, he knew he couldn’t be found anywhere near there when the police eventually came.

He then grabbed your jacket and dragged you closer to the motel door. You left red streaks as he crudely hauled you. He tossed you into a corner. Probably so when he walked out you wouldn’t have a clear view on him.

“Sorry, soldier,” he commented. “Should’ve kept an eye on the 9 I made you drop earlier.” He laughed. The sadistic bastard laughed cruelly and he added, “Shot with your own sidearm.”

“Kinda a shame,” he continued, his eyes glinting as they caught the bright neon streetlight just outside your room. The blood on his face was now running down his neck, to his shoulder, staining his uniform and vest. It look bright red in places and dark red in others. “I mighta hired ya for some of my less challenging jobs.”

It was probably the first time in your adult life you started crying. You likely had a pleading look on your face. You felt tears of frustration, of pain, or red-hot anger fall from your eyes and slide down the sides of your face. They landed in your hair and they were tinged red from the coughed up blood on your face.

He slipped your Beretta into a pocket, saying, “souvenir,” as he grinned callously. You expected him to hold it to your head and finish you off. You were going to make him look at you when he killed you.

But he turned away.

“You’d better kill me,” you gasped. The effort sent you into a gasping and coughing fit and you were again covered in your own blood. You swore on your fucking life this man would die if you survived this.

He turned back towards you and easily grabbed your cellphone from your jacket pocket, kneeling beside you. He rested one of his knees on your ribs, making you really start crying. You couldn’t stop it…it hurt. It hurt so fucking bad.

“Unlock it,” he demanded of your phone. He held it just out of your reach, almost as if he wanted to see you suffer. “You put up a good fight but fight’s over.”

Cruel, merciless bastard.

You were dying tonight so what the hell. You used your left index finger to unlock the phone.

He creepily knew right where to go. His rust-red fingers danced over your screen, his blue eyes shining bright with the screen’s light. Your screen would likely be caked with your blood and his blood. At least you’d made the great Phillip Graves bleed.

That scar on his face would make sure he never forgot you. But then again if your survived, the scars that would litter your body (the gunshot wounds, the plates probably required to repair your arm) would make sure you didn’t forget him either.

He showed you the screen.

He had gone into your text messages and somehow found your boss’s number.

He had typed: Come get your girl’s body. -Graves

And he hit send.

“You’re very likely as good as dead,” he said before he clicked his tongue. “But if they get to you in time, stay the hell away from me.” He reached down, grasping your hair with a ferocity he had not before. He raised you off the floor and you were pretty sure you lost consciousness for more than a few seconds. But he waited for you to open your eyes again before he asked, “We clear?”

You nodded despite yourself. Hell no you intended to make him suffer if you survived.

“Good,” he drawled. “If you don’t die tonight, I’ll fucking slaughter you if I see you again.” It sounded like a promise. “I’ll have one last fuck and then I’ll paint the fucking walls with your brains.”

He got up and tossed you your cell phone on your chest. You’d seen that curiously enough, weirdly enough he had dialed 911. He stood back up. The movement of air as he stood resulted in scents of blood, sweat, cologne, and gunpowder being sent your way. Usually it was hot. Tonight it almost made you gag.

You tried to roll into the recovery position on your side and you screamed as it felt like your inside were on fire. The phone slid off your chest onto the floor.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

You ignored it. You looked for something, anything that could kill this son of a bitch. Like an attack dog you’d been conditioned since you were a child: Either finish the job or die trying. He had your Beretta and your 9mm and both knives. There was no way you could reach your last resort weapon. He was taking no chances and giving you nothing to strike back at him with. He knew you better than you gave him credit for.

Besides, he was gone.

The 911 operator kept trying to get in touch with you.

You tried to say you’d been shot but could only gasp for air, choking on your own blood. Being in the recovery position helped you not choke and gag as much but you were sure you had bad internal bleeding. You vomited the alcohol you’d recently drank, the liquid burning your inside wounds like lava. Something primal in your brain fought for survival and wanted you to reply to that 911 operator.

You set your head down on your left arm, cradling your broken right. You sniffled because fuck…fuck…FUCK. Phillip Graves had mopped the floor with you. He had beaten you within an inch of unconsciousness and then shot you. All in the span of less than 5 minutes. You’d been cocky, so sure you could manipulate him with sex and seduction. It had worked for all the other men.

But not Phillip Graves. Speak of the devil because you heard him start his pickup truck parked just outside the motel room window.

You opened your eyes again, not knowing how much time had passed. You then noticed something…your 9mm. You thought you were hallucinating so you tentatively reached out for it, choking back a sob of pain and misery. You’d been crying at this point so you gave up on trying to hold back tears. You gripped it with trembling, bloody, sticky fingers. So he hadn’t taken it. When did he drop it or set it down? You had no idea.

“I’m sending police and ambulance to your location,” the 911 operator’s voice echoed in your head and it seemed to reverberate forever.

You ignored her. You grasped the gun and pointed it to the left side of your head on your temple. You angled the gun downwards because you knew that made it more likely for the bullet to take out the basic part of your brain that controlled breathing and heartrate and blood pressure. You squeezed your eyes and pulled the trigger.

And nothing happened. You then saw that the son of a bitch had ejected the clip and the bullet from the chamber.

“Motherfucker,” you whimpered in a whisper.

Your phone dinged. A text message.

You better fucking explain yourself, Raq. What the hell kinda message was that? You lazily read the text message from your boss. Graves better be KIA. Another text bubble. Just because you grew up with me doesn’t mean I won’t beat your ass and put you back in line if you failed me. You couldn’t reply and didn’t want to. A phone call from your boss. Another text message as you wavered in and out of consciousness. You blinked through tears and saw him text again. Answer your fucking phone. Yet another text bubble. You’re pissing me off, Raq. Answer me. I need a sit rep.

Oh well. You were likely going to bleed out anyway.

A fucked up end to a fucked up life. If by some miracle you survived, you might have to go rogue. Missing in action because there would be a hit on you for the failed job. Phillip fuckin Graves would die if you survived. That much you promised yourself.

But you were dying. Fast.

At least it was looking like you wouldn’t find out what happened if you failed.

***

I honestly don't know if she's alive or dead ;)

[momo-no-tane]

Peach-Pit Artbook Scanning Project - Complete!

On August 1st, 2015 I made the first post of this artbook scanning project to provide high quality scans of Peach-Pit’s illustrations, because there was barely anything available online, or if there was the quality was absolute garbage. 7 artbooks and 648 illustrations later, the Peach-Pit Artbook Scanning Project is finally complete... really, really late.

I was supposed to finish this project in April 2018. I finally uploaded the last illustration yesterday - July 8th, 2023. Unfortunately I was never able to finish it back in 2018 like I wanted to. Life got really busy, I had gone back to school, my computer battery died, I started getting lazy... when I only had 5 illustrations left to post. I’m so sorry it took so long to finish. I really hated myself for not finishing it back then. I was constantly beating myself up over it. I really wanted to get it done this year though. Thank you so much for all the likes and reblogs over the course of this project. You can find each of the artbooks below.

Artbook 1 (Peach-Pit Artworks DearS)

Artbook 2 (Peach-Pit Artworks Sui Mitsu Kyo)

Artbook 3 (Peach-Pit Artworks Zombie-Loan)

Artbook 4 (Shugo Chara! Illustrations)

Artbook 5 (Peach-Pit Artworks Rozen Maiden)

Artbook 6 (Shugo Chara! Illustrations 2)

Artbook 7 (Rozen Maiden Illustrations: Rose Maiden)

Now for something really annoying... Tumblr’s recent bullshit is another reason why I finally forced myself to hurry up and post those final 5 illustrations.

Tumblr has decided to be completely and utterly stupid, getting rid of the legacy editor and replacing it with a garbage new post editor that makes posts look absolutely hideous on desktop. I initially made this post with the new post editor, but I was so disgusted at how ugly and awful it looked I deleted it. For some stupid reason, all posts automatically become text posts even if I specifically select the photo option. It makes no fucking sense. I realized that all the posts I had saved in my drafts still had the legacy editor, and thankfully I had a few photo posts still in there. So I was able to repost that news post.

The problem was that I only had less than 10 photo posts saved in drafts. If I had known Tumblr was going to be fucking stupid and get rid of the legacy editor, I would have saved dozens of posts to prepare. But I only had enough to make a few news posts and those last 5 illustrations. Now I have nothing but text posts left in drafts. I’m behind on some posts already (Nagi’s birthday post, new SC! Princess Cafe goods, new RM SOLWA goods), and I can’t make a post about them because Tumblr fucked everything up and I’m trying to figure out how to fix the posts on my theme so they don’t look like shit.

I don’t know what to do. I’ve been giving them grief almost daily on their change blog and support section. So many other people are also upset. I don’t want to get too backed up with news posts because there’s so much information that comes out monthly lately. Does anyone know how to fix this? Any code I could add to my theme to make my posts not look like shit because of the new post editor? It pisses me off that I have to waste time and energy focusing on this instead of the project I plan to do next - high quality manga caps. How can I even make nice looking manga cap posts when the new post editor will just destroy it? It’s so frustrating. I’m sorry this post turned so negative, I really needed to rant about this.

[irithnova]

The way white hetalians, especially fairly popular white hetalians, react to poc who actually speak up against racism is really telling.

I'm sick and tired of having to hand hold and coddle white hetalians when I call them out on questionable behaviour to try and convince them that no!!! I still think you're a good person despite the fact that you've already blocked quite a few poc who are vocal about racism even though they've never interacted with you, even though you're excruciatingly exclusionary of non white nations, post ignorant and historically deaf takes and repost literal n*zi fanart!!

I find it incredibly telling when a white hetalian already has a bunch of vocal poc blocked even without ever interacting with them. Because I know exactly what they're trying to hide.

Like. Why should I, a poc, have to hold your hand while I explain to you why other poc are upset with your post/posts. Why do you see this fandom as a safe space away from poc and away from any and all forms of accountability. As if a poc didn't create this manga/anime in the first place. You guys are fucking pathetic lol.

Btw before anyone says "if you don't like it then leave!!!!!!!!" lol what a cheap copout plus I've been in this fandom for 8-ish years in total now so obviously I enjoy hetalia enough to stay. Imagine telling someone who wants to fix their home to just move to a new one. Because fuck trying to work to improve anything right? If you try to actively improve the quality of the fandom (like. make it less racist) then obviously you must hate the fandom and you're only here to whine!

If anything, people, especially poc who are vocal about the racism care more about the fandom space than the hetalians who brush it under the rug. And I find it absolutely hilarious when popular white hetalians block small poc creators who are known for calling out racism/ignorance. Doesn't look good bestie x

For a while now I've pretty much curated my fandom space to include people who are similar to me and have similar interests to me because I wasn't a fan of the racism I saw when I first joined quite a while back. I reach out to the wider fandom again after a hiatus and yup still having to deal with white hetalians not wanting to take accountability for their racism, ignorance, and exclusion.

I mean, the fact that with the poll argument I had with a larger white creator ended with them not even uttering an apology, whining the entire time about being "harassed", not taking anything I actually said on board and that the only reason why they were no longer doing the poll was because they had a "private conversation" with someone about how the poll wouldn't work, and not because a poc (and others) called them out for being blatantly exclusionary to non white nations...

That's not the only incident if anyone accuses me of milking the situation, there were incidents before that and after and a lot of my poc mutuals/friends still deal with a lot of shit on the daily.

Anyways maybe try to listen to poc who actually speak up against the racism/ignorance in the fandom rather than speed run blocking them, talking down to them, tone policing them and ignoring them. Thanks.

[mitamicah]

Saw your post and am going with the method of aggressive kindness.

You know when I think of JO fanart I think of you right? When I picture Jure's little cat smile I think of your kitty mouths? You have a very noticeable style and holy shit you draw quick and a fuck tonne!! I adore everything you make and if you have no fans it means I'm dead.

I get wanting them to see your work. They get hundreds of tags every day and Nace is the only one who actually reposts shit. We can't say how they feel looking at it. Maybe they share it with the others or really really enjoy it but don't repost for whatever reason. We can't assume they don't like it at all just because they don't share it.

It's pretty special they even do look at it, they don't have to be as involved with their fans as they are. I get being jealous and wondering why other people get shared and not you but that's not a reflection of the quality of your work. I dunno why they share some and not others but there's no point trying to guess cause we'll never know.

Your brain is dumb and sometimes it's just gonna be dumb. I value you a lot and your art and look forward to maybe meeting you in the queue and getting a sticker and being like "aaaaah holy shit I have a dope ass sticker ahhhhhhhhhh"

This message is so old I wouldn’t put it past you if you’d forgotten even sending it.😅

I didn’t get around to reply to it then but since I have a similar day today I will do it now.

The first paragraph still makes me tear up sometimes it is so freaking sweet 😭. Especially the part about Jure’s smile 🥹. I feel like I’ve lost the drive to make art quickly (I say knowing full well I drew six sketches for the fanart meme this weekend) and that was my entire thing as an artist as some point: Not being the best but at least being quick. Now I’ve seen way more people quicker than I that keeps up the quality, so I am not sure if that point still stands with me being quick and productive. Never the less I still really appreciate these words <3

The next part is funny to read back on since I did end up being blessed by Nace in the end – twice in a row 😱😭. I’m still probably insufferably happy about that and he owns part of my heart for all he does for the fandom, I mean as you say yourself he (and the others) doesn’t have to be involved yet he chooses to be. And that’s pretty special for sure.

I hope you still enjoy the sticker. It was so nice meeting you in the queues and so happy you had a great time in Europe and at their gigs (and that you got your drumstick(s)). 🤗

[spectralsleuth]

Favorite fics? Doesn't have to be rise or even turtle related

Oh man I got very excited for this ask. I have been in a lot of different fandoms for a very long time- but lets start with some of my all timers.

Now What I'm Going To Say May Sound Indelicate (Rated E)

A Reddie fic for It CH2, which I've probably reread about fifty times. It's unfinished, and probably never will be finished, but it's absolutely worth a read. The writing is incredible, and it's my singular favorite fic of all time. A lot of medical procedures and recovery, since (spoiler) someone gets impaled at the end of the movie and this is exploring how they might live through that.

_________________________________________________

Blue Sky (Rated T (from what I remember))

PDF VERSION

I hope this link works- the first link is fanfiction dot net, which is hard to use after so many years, and the other is a pdf I found of someone who downloaded a version to share. This fic is from 2011, and is actually pretty famous. Based off of Portal 2, what happens when Wheatley gets a body? I've actually been meaning to reread it because I barely remember it at this point, but this fic came out about a year before I graduated high school and opened my eyes to the fact that fanfiction can be actual published novel quality.

Also friendly reminder that if you love a fic, download it. Not to repost obviously, but websites disappear and works get deleted for any number of reasons and you may in fact be helping an author out.

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Wow. This is fucking wild-

From Out the Ocean Risen (Rated T)

A Pacific Rim fic that started publishing in 2013- last time I reread this, YEARS AGO, the series was as of yet unfinished. It's a fantastic body-horror-esque story of the implications of aliens and hiveminds and what makes a monster. It's Newton Giezler-centric and FANTASTICALLY written-

and it JUST updated this month in 2023. I had no idea, but searching through my fic list made me notice. I thought, surely it's just an update to apologize for abandoning the fic- but no! It's an actual new chapter.

If you guys ever wanted to show support for a fic that's been abandoned, this one deserves it immensely. Show it some love, it's never too late to hop on board and enjoy a fic and you never know what someone will return to.

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Pirate King Laurence (Rated T)

'His Majesties Dragon' is a super good age of sail book series, sometimes called 'Temeraire', that's as if a Pride and Prejudice character was captain of a dragon crew. This is a little bit of an AU to that, and is one of my all time favorite Temeraire fic series.

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the run and go (Rated M)

Post Homestuck fic. 560k words. Still being updated- enough said, it's fantastic. This is probably the longest fic on my list. Involves a lot of unpacking about Dave and Bro and not just what it's like recovering from an abusive childhood, but reconciling with the person you love who abused you. Also everyone lives. Everyone.

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>Dave: survive three years on this rock (Rated T)

One more Homestuck fic for the road- there was a period of time where the Homestuck tag was nothing BUT meteor fic. If you were in the fandom, iykyk. This one was probably the most in character Dave and great portrayal of what it would be like actually living within a universe made up of date game mechanics.

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The Other Hawke (Rated E)

If anyone's gone through the rest of my fic besides TMNT stuff, they've seen my SECOND largest fandom I've written for, which was Dragon Age. More specifically, I fixated on most peoples least favorite character on the whole series- Carver Hawke. Hahaha. I just really fixate on the oddest characters, huh?

This is a fic about what his life outside of his brother is like, and giving him a lot of depth that you don't get in the video game series. Also he is getting dicked down by Fenris, which is a fantastic pairing I didn't know I needed. It's hilarious, and romantic, and very tense.

Man. I gotta reread a lot of these. Thanks so much for the ask! Sorry if it got a little out of hand haha.

[kp4president]

reposting this on here because tumblr can smd

///

Post first few dates, Clarke takes a lot of cold showers and spends a lot of quality time with her favourite vibrator. Something in Lexa's eyes keeps her from going any farther than roaming hands, swallowing a muffled groan as Lexa gently settles herself onto Clarke's lap, eyes huge and darkening by degrees as her forest gaze fixes itself on Clarke's kiss-bruised mouth.

Their first time is after a handful of dates, a few steamy make out sessions on Clarke's couch, full of syrupy kisses and Lexa panting hotly onto Clarke's neck before shaking her head slightly and pulling away unsteadily, the slinky beats of the 1975 pouring through the speakers that perch on Clarke's wooden bookshelves.

Most of those hot and heavy handsy make out sessions end with Clarke walking Lexa quietly to her door, hands intertwined as they hover in the entryway, Lexa brushing the softest series of kisses to Clarke's flushed cheeks before quietly leaving.

After a brisk walk home, Lexa thuds her head against her door after tottering through her front door, groaning quietly as she scrubs her hands over her face.

"What the fuck, Lex?"

Lexa nearly swallows her tongue as she whirls around to see an extremely unimpressed Anya sitting on her kitchen counter, easily cracking open a bottle of beer with her back teeth as she settles back comfortably into place.

"Holy shit, Ahn, that key is for emergencies-are your teeth ok-"

"This is clearly an emergency, Lexa, if I have to hear you whine about how hot Clarke's hands are for one more day I am going to lose my goddamn mind," Anya says pointedly as she nudges a shot glass full of mysterious clear liquid towards Lexa's curious gaze, hand hesitantly extending.

"I'm gonna need you to take this shot, buck the fuck up, and go back and bone your girl."

Lexa chokes slightly as her hand freezes midway through reaching for the shot, feeling a flush roil over her entire body.

"Ahn, it's not that I don't want to-" Lexa starts quietly, rolling the very full shot glass through pensive fingers.

Anya cuts her off with a roll of a slender hand as she tilts her head back gracefully to take a long pull of the golden beer in hand, condensation rolling down the bottle as she sets it back on the counter with a clink.

"Lex, every time I've been around when you've come back from a date with Blondie you're walked by with huge unfocused gay heart eyes to take the longest shower known to womankind. I know you have a huge girl-boner for her, what the fuck are you waiting for? She's crazy about you, you can practically see the cartoon hearts that swim around her head whenever she stops by your shop."

Lexa feels an involuntary smile crack across her face as she remembers Clarke stopping by the shop with tacos from the food truck Lexa had offhandedly mentioned she loved earlier in the week, mentioning she had been in the area.

Not knowing that Lexa knew that the food truck was in the opposite end of town on Tuesdays.

Lexa shakes her head as she snaps back to the present, absently draining the shot with a slight grimace as she nudges Anya over on the counter to hop up next to her.

"I absolutely do, Anya, it's just been a while since Costia, and I'm, you know, nervous-"

Lexa squeaks in surprise as two heavy hands reach down to grasp her shoulders and shove her brusquely off of the counter. Lexa topples to the floor, a puppet with their strings cut as she looks up at a smug Anya in abject betrayal, eyes wide.

"Lexa, I swear to god if you don't march back to Clarke right now and put both of you out of this abstinence misery bullshit..." Anya hisses like an angry goose, yanking a stunned Lexa off of the floor and brushing her off gently. Seeing the slight terror on Lexa's face, Anya softened slightly as she draped Lexa's coat over her shoulders, ushering her towards the door.

"Lexa, you could strip butt naked in front of Clarke and dance the hokey pokey and she'd still think the sun shines out of your ass. She really likes you and will probably spontaneously explode the moment you lay hands on her. Relax, have fun, and get out of your damn head about it."

Lexa smiles begrudgingly as she nods, the tequila shot thrumming through her body as she turns unsteadily to head back to Clarke's.

///

Clarke is just emerging, towel clap and flushed from her shower when a loud knockknockknock. Confused, she squeezes a handful of water out of her hair, shaking the wet mass of curls side to side as she peeks carefully out of her viewfinder to see-

"Lex?"

Lexa stumbles in, pupils blown wide at the sight of Clarke, pale skin glowing with tiny gems of fractured water droplets, towel twisted to showcase long legs and toned arms.

"I- Clarke- you-" Lexa stammers, gaze skittering over Clarke's barely clad body to land fixed on a point just above Clarke's head. Clarke's eyebrows drew together as she takes in Lexa, panting in her doorway, the curious scent of tequila drifting in the air around her.

"Were you drinking?"

Clarke's curious inquiry is cut off by lips crashing into her, a tidal wave of Lexa washing over her as she throws herself at Clarke.

They kiss heavily for a moment as Lexa slowly grows bolder, hands roaming to every exposed swatch of skin she can reach, fingers skimming over damp shoulder blades, lips sweeping over goose-bump dappled collarbones. Clarke fights to keep still as she revels in Lexa's explorations, heart rate thrumming in her ears as she leans into the onslaught of kneading hands and the slightest graze of teeth.

With what feels like Herculean effort, Clarke pulls herself away gently, just enough to rescue the tucked corner of her towel from exploring fingers.

"Lexa, are you sure?" Clarke stresses the last syllable meaningfully as she nudges forward to meet Lexa's clear gaze.

Lexa nods softly as she tips her forehead in to meet Clarke's, breathing in her clean scent for a long moment as she focuses on the feeling of Clarke's fingers tracing meaningless shapes into her clothed hipbone.

"I want this, I want you." Lexa manages to whisper as she leans forward to capture Clarke's mouth again, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth and biting, just hard enough to elicit a breathy little moan that sent her stomach swooping pleasantly.

Clarke pulled back just enough to nod slightly, the towel falling away as she reached under Lexa's t-shirt hem, smirking slightly at how the smooth skin shivered in response to her touch.

Lexa shuffled forward dazedly as Clarke tugged her towards her bedroom, head lolling back as warm hands made quick work of her top.

"I can't wait to get you in my bed," Clarke murmured they tripped through Clarke's doorway, Clarke making quick work of the singular button on Lexa's jeans. "I can't wait to taste you, I can't wait to make you tremble and fall apart."

A garbled moan burst out of Lexa's mouth at Clarke's silky words, tiny ears flushing red as they tumble into bed together.

They don't emerge until the morning, sunlight pouring through the high windows as they slowly untangle from each other, having gravitated into each other's arms when they collapsed in the early hours of the morning, a faint sheen of sweat coating heavy limbs as they fall into each other.

Lexa shows up to work the next day with dark circles ringing her eyes but a smile as bright as the sun gracing her cheeks, practically skipping into work until Anya's subtle smirk and crooked eyebrow.

A bouquet of bright red roses show up at Lexa's shop the next day, the only signature on the card a kiss stamped in red lipstick, and a cursive C.

[lividria]

Funny Story: Bad Video Game Endings (+ a game nobody's heard of before)

Not as in bad endings as in negative outcomes in the story, I mean video game endings that are of poor quality. I have some funny experiences with them. One of them is in a game I could probably convince you was a hoax if I tried hard enough. The other is from a recent Nintendo release. Strap yourself in, this'll be fun.

I'm back from writing this out, and HOLY SHIT, THIS MIGHT BE AS LONG AS THOSE TWO REALLY LONG METROID PRIME 4 POSTS I WROTE OUT. Abandon all hope, ye who enter in.

I Might Be One Of The First Actual People To Document Sparklite On Tumblr

Okay, Sparklite is a pixel-art 2D top-down roguelite that's on a couple consoles and I think Steam, but I played it on my stepdad's Switch (He found it in the eShop, I watched him play and wanted to try it myself). The game is seemingly often compared to 2D Legend of Zelda, but I personally don't really see the comparisons beyond comparisons you can make to dozens of other games and not just LoZ. It took me 2 or 3 days to beat, but if you have enough time and know what you're doing you might be able to beat it in 3 hours. This game has enthralled me ever since I played it like... It might've been months ago now, actually, because it is possibly one of the most obscure games I've ever played, and the way it handled it's plot fascinates me.

I looked on YouTube and only found a couple playthrough videos & specific segment guides and not much else besides the official soundtrack upload (By the way, huge shout out to the game's composer, Dale North, this game's ost is amazing go listen to it right fucking now it has under 2K views but is spectacular and deserves better), I found a Fandom wiki for the game that only has 16 barren pages and the main page was vandalized for some time because it wasn't fucking edit locked, and besides for like 1 or 2 people playing through the game on their own, all of the posts about it on here seem to be either automated reposts from other sites and/or like... Reviews and articles written by game journalists? Which puts me in an interesting spot here.

I just find that entire side tangent really interesting, but I'm now going to spoil the entire plot because it leads up to why this game's ending sucks. If you're playing through this game right now, don't read further but let me know and provide proof because I will not believe you but also really want to know if I am literally the only person who knows about this game.

Sparklite's Story, From Memory at 12:30 AM

You're a mechanic girl named Ada flying an airship with your robot pal Wingnut. You crash atop the continent of Geodia, and have to figure out where to go now. Woohoo.

You go through a weird building called a Founders' Vault that gives you a crossbow then replaces it with a blueprint in your inventory when you leave, and get your ass kicked by a robot that eats Wingnut and has a human piloting it that is uncommunicative and never elaborated on and entirely possible to miss.

You wake up in the Refuge, a fucking sky island base built by the people of Geodia because it is currently experiencing multiple seismic events constantly reshaping the land. Because it's a roguelite. There's this one character I forgot the name of, he's really cool looking and is said to be the one who built the Refuge but hasn't talked since he finished it, he'll come up again a bit, I'll refer to him as Hero because his design at first glance reminded me of a character named Hero from one of my friend's projects, ROYN, which I shall now shamelessly plug, go watch it. I dare you. I don't think the designs are actually comparable in hindsight.

You go down from the Refuge into Geodia, starting in the Vinelands which has a lot less vines than the name implies, and explore a bit, meeting a strange pirate gambler who makes you gamble at his game and resets all of the objects once you leave the room allowing for you to grind breaking plants eternally for infinite money, and eventually find that boss from before and kill him. Wingnut is saved, hooray!

Behind the boss (Because I guess it couldn't get in there but wanted to guard it) is a room leading to a giant chasm underneath Geodia revealing a big crystal. I don't remember if it was named. I'm going to call it the Philosophers' Stone because it's funny and technically a pun. You step on a symbol and a voice from who the fuck knows where speaks to you, telling you things. You're warped back to the Refuge, Hero speaks to you, and the next area is unlocked. This loop repeats for each major world, because that sequence unlocked the next one.

Between the mystery voice and Hero's monologues, you learn the following:

The main fuel source of this world is Sparklite, a usually green crystal that comes in other flavors and contains essentially infinite power. Basically anything drops it, and it's the currency of the game. Despite being set up as a power source, you're arbitrarily given a separate energy meter for the weapons that cost energy.

You can burn Sparklite to get a higher energy output but destroying the Sparklite, which fucks up the environment and turns things into monsters and is what's causing Geodia to fracture, and that's what the main antagonist, the Baron, and his soldiers, the bosses, are doing. Why? I dunno. Hero specifically mentions he was the one who invented burning Sparklite, but this never goes anywhere.

There was this ancient people that either came to this continent or planet and made it alive because they needed a place to stay. I forgot all of their names, but there were 5 important ones, but only 3 were actually important to the plot, and in fact I might be misremembering and only 2 are. one of them made the Philosophers' Stone as essentially the world's heart (It's one giant Sparklite crystal), one of them is Ada's ancestor and passed down the necklace thing you use as a key to get into more Founders' Vaults, and another tried to break the Philosophers' Stone and figured out how burning Sparklite works. No, I don't think this means Hero is thousands of years old, though I wish that was the twist.

I think Ada was prophesized to show up here, but I don't know how or why.

The Baron wants the Philosophers' Stone. You have to activate the seal things at the end of each world to protect the stone and stop him from getting it.

There are these musical creatures called Beats that keep getting lost. This one girl, Harmony, wants you to rescue them all. Saving all of them across the entire map gives you essentially the instant win button, as it's the max upgrade of each major equipable accessory thing I forgot the name of. If you've played Iconoclasts, they're essentially this game's more elaborate version of Tweaks... Iconoclasts is also another obscure indie game I've obsessed over a lot, and I only know one person outside of the game's Discord that knows about it.

Sparklite's Ending Has To Have Been Developed In Under An Hour

Okay, that's a bit of hyperbole, but still.

You're in the final world, Titan's Ridge, listening to one of the coolest tracks in the game, and you enter the final dungeon, seeing that the standard boss room is empty and the door to the Philosophers' Stone chamber is broken open. You walk in, the stone is gone, and the voice tells you you were too late and to go stop the Baron.

You're warped to the top of Titan's Ridge (it's a mountain), where the Baron is staring over the clouds at the Refuge. He has a generic villain monologue about how Ada is annoying and Sparklite is always more powerful when burned, snaps his fingers and the ENTIRE REFUGE CATCHES FIRE AND FALLS OUT OF THE SKY, and the final showdown commences.

You beat him up, and then he just absorbs the entire Philosophers' Stone out of nowhere, transforming into this horrid abomination that takes up almost the entire background as you fall into the stone chamber, and have to fight a swarm of buffed enemies to reactivate all of the seals. Alright, now I can fight him for rea- Wait, what the fuck, the game's over.

I'm not kidding. You have the first phase where you fight him in his normal form, then he turns into a kaiju, and you don't even fucking fight him, just his enemies. He doesn't even have a unique animation for when the seal lazers shoot at him and just... Disintegrate him offscreen, I guess, because the Philosophers' Stone is put back in place and the day is saved.

Hero's entire arc is never resolved, none of the other characters you meet have literally any relevance to the story, there's no further explanation given from the voices, the Refuge is somehow back to normal again, and the monsters all turn back to normal animals. The credits put you in a white void with nothing to do but pet a dog as the credits roll, and then you're booted to the title screen once the credits and their corresponding song (best track in the game and one of the best credits themes I've ever heard btw) finish.

You can imagine why my immediate reaction was frustrated, confused vocalizations of distress and despair, after having spent approximately 4 or 5 hours trying to beat the final boss (You had to restart at phase 1, and I had to leave to get better equipment twice which meant finding the dungeon in the newly randomized map all over again).

Hero's story never went anywhere and had no relevance to the plot, Baron's character was never explored, you don't even see what happened to him, his minions literally never got dialogue but were clearly people as Hero would talk about them individually each time you cleared a world, a lot of questions about the ancient people are left unanswered, Ada's relation to the ancients and Geodia is never explored, Wingnut is barely even a character if you remember them by the way they don't talk ever again after rescue besides when you get upgrades for them because they're a gameplay gimmick, and I don't know if Ada ever gets her ship back.

I don't know if this was a deadline issue, since the game was already pretty light on content and made by seemingly an indie studio idk I haven't looked into them, or if the devs just... Ran out of ideas on how to wrap the story up and just threw together something just to get it over with. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, you won't be playing the game for the plot, and it was my fault for expecting the game to have one when it was absolutely a gameplay-centered game. But still, as the ending to a narrative, that was dogshit. I still recommend the game, though. I don't even play roguelikes/lites and I still had a great time. I don't remember the price tag, and as you can tell I'm too lazy and tired to be googling things right now, but I'm pretty confident it was less than 30 dollars.

Princess Peach: Showtime, A Paradox Of Game Design

One of my friends didn't even know this game released when I started playing through it. I got it for my birthday, because I thought a modern Princess Peach platformer would be a decent time and I was running out of modern first-party Switch releases I was actually interested in. Like Sparklite, I see nobody talk about it, but obviously due to being a Nintendo game (Though made by some other company, I don't know what Goodfeel is in relation to Nintendo but they're to blame for this) there's much better documentation meanwhile Sparklite doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. I don't know what the standards are for that kind of thing, but you get the idea.

In case anyone missed that this game existed and don't know anything about it, Princess Peach is invited to the Sparkle Theatre, only for Madame Grape and the Sour Bunch to infiltrate and fuck up the plays happening in the Theatre, while locking everyone inside. The theatre's guardian, Stella, this game's stereotypical tiny floating exposition dump partner, asks Peach for help going through all of the plays and saving the day. You go through the plays, resolve the story conflicts the Sour Bunch are causing (Fun fact, they literally commit an act of terrorism in one of the levels), rescue the main actors called Sparklas, yadda yadda.

The game's story is as bland and generic as you can get, so you won't be playing the game for that. You could've swapped Peach out for a unique non-Mario character and nothing would've changed, literally nothing. Especially since most of the character designs don't feel like Mario characters to me. The game's soundtrack, to me, was nothing to write home about. The graphics are alright, but still pretty standard. The gameplay loop, in a vacuum, should be really annoying: You go through a linear level with a couple easy-to-miss side paths or side quests to get collectibles, do a couple minigames, maybe fight a boss every now and then, and if you want to retry literally any part of the level you have to restart the entire thing. At some point, you get a transformation into a costume matching the play, and a new gimmick is introduced, that usually sucks.

The game is easy as shit, unless you're trying to 100% it, then if so the developers hated you. I genuinely don't know why I even finished the game, I should by all accounts not have enjoyed it, but I somehow had fun with it and I still can't really figure out why. It was barely even a platformer. I gave up 100%ing it halfway through when I had to ask myself if constantly retrying a level if I actually cared enough that I wanted to be doing this, because I realized I was just acting on completionist instinct. Once I re-evaluated, I immediately dropped it and just went to finish the game, because I was just not into this game enough.

Princess Peach: Showtime's Ending Is Sonic Adventure 1's Final Boss But Done So Terribly Worse It's Actually Really, Really Funny

I have not, in fact, played Sonic Adventure 1.

I will preface this by saying that even with how lame the game was over all, it was ultimately inoffensive. Sure, it existed only to exist and make Nintendo some more money and nothing more, but you could at least have a good time with it. Up until this ending.

You've beaten every level, and rescued all of the Sparklas. The final boss door is waiting for you, where Madame Grape is waiting behind it. But... Stella can't get it open, even with her magic (By the way, Stella and the Sparklas are powered by Sparkle, Grape uses DARKLE). The cutscene makes it feel like all is lost, because now we can't stop Grape if we can't get to her, and she's just gonna rule the theatre forever.

The Sparklas, previously not in literally any part of the hub world even after being rescued unless I missed them, all surround Peach and offer up their Sparkle, and Peach absorbs it AND GETS A SUPER FORM. Like, literally, through the power of friendship she gets a Super Sonic form.

She floats now, too, and can shoot magic projectiles. So Peach goes through the door, Grape is waiting, somehow three times the size she was in previous cutscenes, and challenges you to a fight, saying she'll create the perfect tragedy by defeating you, her foil. The fight is flying around a ring-shaped arena and shooting projectiles at her around obstacles blocking you from shooting her as you occasionally have to dodge rocks and lazers. That is the ENTIRE FIRST PHASE OF THE FIGHT.

Some of the major bosses of the game actually had interesting gimmicks, like Light Fang was a snake in a clocktower-like environment who you had to avoid being spotted by or else they'd REWIND TIME until you got high enough to hit their fuse and stun them, and Spotlion who would turn the arena to glass and shoot projectiles that now bounce around and you'd have to reflect them back at the boss to stun them. But not the FINAL BOSS.

Peach powers down, and she and Stella go to leave, satisfied Grape is dead as only her mask is left on the floor, only for her to reform and the entire room explodes.

Peach and Stella wake up in the rubble of the Sparkle Theatre, which is now completely destroyed. Grape, now instead of basically being invisible under her clothes besides for a purple smog orb is now whatever this is, and the size of a fucking kaiju.

All seems lost AGAIN, until the residents of the island offer up their Sparkle to Peach, who powers up AGAIN with technically a different form but functionally the same except shooting a beam instead of an orb, and flies off to fight Grape... IT'S THE SAME FIGHT AGAIN, BUT WITH A SMALLER, RECTANGLE ARENA, SHOOTING A BEAM, AND EVEN EASIER TO DODGE ATTACKS.

AND THEN GRAPE IS BLOWN UP AND THROUGH THE POWER OF BULLSHIT THE THEATRE IS RECONSTRUCTED AND PEACH GOES HOME. THAT'S THE ENDING. THAT'S THE FUCKING ENDING. But then, on one of the random credits slides you can see Grape's mask floating in the ocean, implying she might come back in the future. That wasn't a post-credits scene, not one of the last 5 slides of the credits, they put the sequel bait only like 3/4ths into the credits.

I can't be the only one who feels like this is basically just thrift store Perfect Chaos, right? Just when it seems the villain is going to succeed, the main character assumes a floating super form with the help of their friends and goes in for the final showdown. The final boss is the main antagonist which is some esoteric being with shapeshifting capabilities thousands of times bigger, more monstrous, and made of some kind of viscous fluid, and is fought in the remains of the hub world. It even looked like the island was being flooded in that final sequence right before the second phase of the Grape fight.

Obviously, Perfect Chaos is much better than Grape in basically every aspect, especially because that form is actually earned by Chaos meanwhile Grape just... Turns into it.

Oh, also, get this, I didn't look much into the post-game content just because I was so fucking done with the game by this point, but those collectibles you can find in the levels if you hate yourself can actually be spent on something besides unlocking boss doors now. You can decorate the hub world. There's only like 15 decorations, and you can't choose where they go. They're in specific spots. And you can only get one of each. And there's only like 3 per floor.

Don't play this game. You can take the triple A price tag and split the money up to buy like 5 indie games so much more worth your time than this fucking garbage. I beat it a few hours ago and I'm still fuming about how dumb the ending was.

Conclusion

I hope at least one more person buys Sparklite or at least looks into it/listens to it's soundtrack because of this post, and one less person buys Princess Peach: Showtime because of this post.

Also, Bonus Funny Story: Me joking with one of my friends about Grape devolved at breakneck speeds to PP:S 2's antagonist being named Pineapple, having the evil plan of opening a portal to Hell, being fought in the Greed layer of Dante's Inferno except it's basically El Dorado, burnt to death by being dropped into molten gold, replaced by a corrupt businessman as the main antagonist only to come back for the final boss as Golden Pineapple. And then Reality Pineapple.

Would you believe me if I told you all of that was references to the ROYN series I mentioned earlier and the inside jokes we have related to it? Because that's what happened. No, you are not getting an explanation. Unless you watch ROYN. There's a running gag where me and that same friend from the Pineapple joke advertise the series like we're paid shills, and it's really tempting to lean into that right now, but then I'd just actually look like a shill. Especially since I'm friends with the guy making it.

[rhpsdys]

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER. ( REPOST DO NOT REBLOG!)

✿ NAME: eros

✿ PRONOUNS: they/he but the he is silent, so really just they/them

✿ EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS / YEARS?): about 9 years on tumblr (dear god) && another 3 on other platforms before that

✿ NAME OF MUSE(S): raine whispers ! i also have an abundance of other muses on @whsprhouse && @tongowheel​ plus some single-muse blogs with varying degrees of activity

✿ PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: discord is preferred once we’ve interacted a little, whether that’s through tumblr ims first or just writing together a bit 

✿ PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: mainly tumblr, but also discord, twitter, instagram, && my humblest beginnings... the fanfiction.net forums

✿ BEST EXPERIENCE: overall, the 7+ years i’ve spent in the star trek rpc on && off. it’s been by far the most chill rpc i’ve been in with the least amount of bullshit, && i’ve made some amazing friends who i consider irl friends even though we live in very different places; we’ve visited each other a few times over the last year && a half or so which great. but also the undertale rpc, circa early 2019 — that’s the most fun i’ve had in an rpc, && talk about making friends — i wrote one silly crack thread about skeleton sex ed with a mutual i’d never spoken to, && now almost 4 years later we live together.

✿ RP PET PEEVES/DEALBREAKERS: how about one of each? for a dealbreaker, in terms of what will make me not follow a blog: i don’t care about aesthetics or formatting or graphics or whatever, but i really do check for writing quality. i don’t need purple prose, i’m not asking for your blog to read like a new york times bestseller, but if all you’re writing is dialogue, no real description or action, if there’s inconsistent grammar && a general lack of focus on writing... i don’t care, you do you, but we won’t be a good fit. as far as pet peeves go, i love talking ooc with mutuals about our muses && stuff, and (as evidenced above) i like making friends too. but it takes me a while to get to that point, && an abundance of non-rp/muse related ooc talk right out the gate makes me balk a little, as does constant conversation && communication in general. i’m just — really busy && have a limited social battery, so it can take me a while to reply to messages && stuff if it’s not like, specific to our muses or something we’re writing. 

✿ FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT: this is so interesting. like. yes to all? and no to all? i love fluff in very small doses but if it’s all a thread is, it gets boring really fast. angst is super fun to write but it needs to be balanced — again, if it’s always leaning on one muse going through it™ && the other is the constant caretaker, that gets dry too. i don’t write smut super often, && it truly depends on the muse && how sexual they are by nature. my ideal threads are either plot-driven or grounded in character development/dynamic development. muses being put in situations. muses talking about their issues without it becoming heavy hurt/comfort. that kinda thing.

✿ PLOTS OR MEMES: overall, plots are necessary for characters who have never interacted in canon, even if it’s as simple as “hey these muses have ROUGHLY this dynamic” && then a meme is great to kick off actually writing. in terms of threads themselves, if it’s a continuation or a meme or a starter call post that had some serious thought put into it/is based on a discussed dynamic, it can turn into something great without plotting. but i also love when i discuss a plot with someone && then we start a thread based on it.

✿ LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: i tend to write longer things, averaging three paragraphs or so, but easily longer if it makes sense to. i try to rein myself in because long replies, obviously, take longer && more focus, so sometimes i like to keep things short just so i can write more when i’m busy. doesn’t always work though.

✿ BEST TIME TO WRITE: fuck if i know. usually at night, but only when i have time to stay up && don’t need to be anywhere in the morning. i get most of my writing juice while i’m at work, && so when i get home at 10pm, that’s when i’m ready to bang out drafts.

✿ ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): in a lot of ways, yes. not so much that i actually put myself into raine, but more like i keep finding things about them relevant to my own life. we are both nonbinary && transmasc, we’re both somewhat socially awkward but also know how to really step it up && take charge, despite those nerves. i love music but i don’t consider myself a musician — however, i do work in orchestra/concert management, && i keep having moments of being like “oh raine did this for a while in the earlier years in the bard coven”, so. yeah. raine is someone i wish i was more like, tbh. they’ve got about 20 years on me though, so i have time to get there.

Tagged by: i stole it ! Tagging: if you haven’t done it yet: tag, you’re it !

[themunflower]

IT IS ALMOST THAT TIME AGAIN...

Sooo, since I've been doing this for so long I MIGHT be legally classifiable as insane…

Top Ten Most Uncomfortable Goretober Entries I've Done!

Now, because this is outside of October, when you guys usually expect this blog to turn into a slaughterfest, the rest of this post will be under a readmore. if you have trigger issues with ANY of the following:

Blood Graphic Depictions of Death by Burning Infant Death Torture Self-Harm Fucked Up Relationships that border on Stockholm Syndrome Rabies Mentions of Radiation Sickness

DON'T CLICK THAT READMORE! You might also wanna not click that if you're at work or at school right now.

Also, minor note: I won't be reposting the flavor text for each of these here as this post is long enough as it is. I would suggest clicking the links to read those, because these DO have a bit of story attached you're missing if you don't read them... >:D

----------

Number 10:

Sooo, I can't seem to find the OG post. It may have been on one of my original RP blogs, from back before I had a personal. BUT: This one is here because even though the quality is questionable, this was the first Goretober I drew that made me legit uncomfortable. Something about the eyes, man. I think I got the idea across that the vitreous humors inside of them are literally boiling QUITE well.

Number 9:

(I have this one linked with no repost due to triggering subject matter, so I will repeat the original content warning here:

"WARNING! Day 13 is below a readmore due to a depiction of a dead baby. It's not the focal point of the piece, but since injury and death of specifically babies is a potentially triggering subject for many, I decided to err on the side of caution. Do NOT click that if you have trigger issues regarding infant death."

I am serious, do NOT click that if you are triggered by depictions of infant death!)

Original Post: https://www.tumblr.com/themunflower/698046951200112640/goretober-2022-day-13-thanatophobia?source=share

Oh boy, so this made me legit uncomfortable for a couple of reasons. First off: Despite not being a parent and drawing shit like THIS for 31 straight days every October, I do have a soft spot for babies. Yeah, surprising, I know. Second: Adeleine is one of my fave characters from the Kirby series, and she's generally depicted as a nice girl. So drawing her having a full-on PTSD flashback to the day her old world ended had me feeling like the world's biggest asshole.

Number 8:

Original Post: https://www.tumblr.com/themunflower/179475710863/goretober-day-26-fallen?source=share

Similar to number 10, but the improved art quality placed it higher. Unfortunately, the similarity also stopped it from placing higher. Still, the fact that Cullan BARELY looks like a human anymore due to the fact that he's burning AND melting gives this one an "ick" factor that number 10 just doesn't have. Eh, 8 isn't a bad showing.

Number 7:

Original Post: https://www.tumblr.com/themunflower/151355944268/goretober-day-4-torture?source=share

This one is… It's mostly the implications that give me that uncomfortable little squirm. Questionable art quality aside, Alphys has snapped SO hard that not only did she manage to overpower the Human halfway into a geno run when they've got some levels on them, she's perverted the concept of Mercy into something WAY worse than the Human and/or the player could EVER do.

Number 6:

Original Post: https://www.tumblr.com/themunflower/188097491563/goretober-2019-day-2-acid?source=share

THIS IS AN ACTUAL EVENT IN THIS GAME. And it is legit uncomfortable to watch. Like, the best way I can describe it is that Uro seems to have her head on a fair bit straighter compared to many YN Fangame protags. So seeing her losing her mind after being forcibly dosed with something hallucinogenic to the point she starts violently bashing her head on GLASS to try to make it stop is genuinely distressing.

Number 5:

Original Post: https://www.tumblr.com/themunflower/731468910925348865/goretober-2023-day-17?source=share

WERE GETTING INTO THE TOP HALF NOW. ABANDON HOPE ALL WHO ENTER.

So this one… I actually had to take a moment a couple of times while drawing it. Not because of the gore, but because of the connotations. The way I tend to write Dark Ripple, her devotion to her boss is NOT a healthy one. Think Harley and the Joker, but somehow even MORE fucked up. Think those guys who ACTUALLY want a real-life yandere, just gender-flipped. Like, seriously, if this is the kind of relationship you want, get help.

Number 4:

Original Post: https://www.tumblr.com/themunflower/665418233647661056/goretober-2021-day-18-glitch?source=share

Fun fact about me: Radiation sickness scares the FUCK out of me. It destroys your body at the sub-cellular level, basically causing you to decay to death. That fear of mine? I was actually tapping into that when I drew this. After all, what is code but the equivalent of cells for a program?

Number 3:

Original Post: https://www.tumblr.com/themunflower/631282388600848384/goretober-day-6-medical-horror?source=share

WARNING! We got another that was under a readmore due to content extreme by even MY standards. So once again, I will be repeating the warning here. View at your own risk:

WARNING!! I'm not sure what to tag this as, so I'm gonna give it my best shot. Body Horror that might be disturbing, even by Goretober standards. If you've ever read "Uzumaki", the end of the chapter with the strangely addictive "mushrooms" should give you a good idea of what to expect, should you click that readmore.

This was… Yeah, I was not exaggerating when I said this was uncomfortable to draw. I don't even know where to begin with all the layers of squick that made this one of the rare Goretobers where I wondered if I was going too far. If you know anything about the character herself, it makes it even WORSE. So why did I do it? I wanted to prove something to myself by forcing myself WAY out of my comfort zone. Maybe I AM insane.

Number 2:

Original Post: https://www.tumblr.com/themunflower/178844421378/goretober-day-7-rabies?source=share

Where I live, one of the first things kids are taught as soon as they're old enough to understand is to stay TF away from any animal that "isn't acting right." And for good reason: RABIES IS FUCKING TERRIFYING. I watched a documentary about someone dying from it who agreed to let himself be filmed. I HAD FUCKING NIGHTMARES FOR WEEKS. I am NOT easy to scare, so that should tell you something.

Number 1:

Original Post: https://www.tumblr.com/themunflower/179202589378/goretober-day-18-wings?source=share

… I know only the aftermath is shown, but fuck me runnin', THE IMPLICATIONS. The absolute depths of despair and self-hate Lace had to have been feeling to do something so painful. JUST to feel normal, knowing it would only be temporary. The fact that she's barely even reacting to the blood and pain… She's at such a low point mentally she can't even feel PAIN. The thought that such a level of despair is even reachable legit makes me fear the very concept of emotions…

So, see you all again this year! :D

[kitsuna-ri]

So I lost my job yesterday and while I know it’s for the best (because ooh boy constant anxiety and stress) things were kinda fucked how it went down and I just want to make sure I’m not crazy. Here’s the rundown (it’s long, sorry):

Accepted SM assistant role last August. Was upfront about having limited experience, mostly either with accounts that had no budget or having long steps to go through to get a post approved. Said I was primarily a social WRITER but could make simple graphics and what not because I can use Photoshop and Canva. Basically hit the ground running, had virtually no real training and vague instructions. I was also suddenly in charge of way more categories, some of which had their own separate pages on social platforms and I would have to be responsible for all of them. I started with 5 categories, three of which consistently had multiple weekly or monthly events that needed posts. I also had to help boost, do mild comment and message moderation, and live tweet well into late hours or over the weekend. After getting settled I took on more work because we were a small team and I wanted to be as helpful as possible. I ended up taking on a weekly filming task that meant filming and editing the video in less than a day’s time. It took time because I had mentioned I don’t have strong video editing skills but I was willing to learn and try my best.

In late January, I was hit with a surprise move. I was told I had to be out by March and it was a few days from February. I was scrambled. But I still continued to take on what I could while panicking about my living situation. I get the move scheduled to not cost me too much missed time in the office. I asked my manager if I could WFH the day before my move just to wrap things up and was told to come in. I complied.

All this time, I have never once been approached about my quality of work from my clients or my boss. In fact, I even received a glowing yearly review and told I’m doing wonderful and I work great with my clients. We did have one of my categories break off and essentially took over their own social media with an influencer. It came as a big shock but I tried to roll with the punches and keep working hard for my other clients.

Then we had a HUGE event, like all hands on deck kind of thing. Still not given a ton of direction just “make as much content for this event as possible.” So I did. Now, around the end, I was having some trouble in my life (worries about my health, parents, etc) so I was admittedly burned out. I dropped a few balls. Nothing bad happened, no social catastrophe or anything, just didn’t pay attention when reposting a post and didn’t realize it was a carousel and not just one photo. I used a photo by prof photographer from a preview party and my manager felt the angle wasn’t good and took it down. Then, after she talked to me and was wanting to offer to show me some tips and tricks which I was eager for. Then there was an issue with a department she had basically dumped on me with little explanation and told me to use artist bios and I used one from the artist’s site and apparently that wasn’t ok. I told her I’d definitely be much more careful.

Then, I asked our intern to post a video on TT to continue a series we had started. Our intern was out but told me she could post things no problem even when I voiced concerns. She posted the video and apparently there was a typo. My manager completely loses it in in Teams but worse yet, in a group chat with one of my coworkers. I had a panic attack and was trying to explain what happened, apologizing and taking the Ls and offering solutions. She demands a conversation the next day so I agree.

She realizes like late morning that she had berated me in front of our coworker and apologized. But we were still having our convo. In this talk she’s telling me suddenly that my work has only ever just been “ok” which is the first time I’m ever hearing this feedback. We had monthly one on ones and she Never. Said. Anything. But now suddenly I was a problem and I needed to reconsider things, see if this is the right position, and she said she’d work with me and I was like “ok. I’m going to improve, I’m not going to screw up like this again.”

So the process was I sent her the design and proposed copy of what I wanted to post and she’d give me feedback. She NEVER came to shoot with me or show me tricks or tips except like once near the end. Instead she started “not giving a fuck” Because she was getting demoted from director to manager and was mad about it. She started half assing things and even being really curt and rude to clients. Meanwhile, I’m busting my ass to create only the best with minimal to no direction or real advice but I was noticing improvement. Plus, my clients were so happy with the work I was creating and how I was working with them.

I had another one on one and she tells me I’m doing great, she’s happy to see me taking everything to heart, etc etc.

This continues and other than one misunderstanding, I thought everything was great! I was doing more with video editing and really trying to make dynamic designs.

This month comes around and we’re suddenly hit with three BIG events in one of my categories, all happening at the same time, two events in one of my other categories, and I had also agreed to take one one other category which had weekly events as well. That meant for this month I ended up having 10 events to promote. We also lost our ability to boost ads so everything was relying on purely organic engagement. I made assets, I tried to balance posting with the three big events because they all had to post on the same IG/FB page. I didn’t want any one to be out shined and wanted to make sure the page didn’t seem spammy with so many posts each day because my other coworker also had two categories that shared the same page. So A LOT was being posted.

We have a meeting and someone asked if we were posting about a specific collection on social. We said yes, for sure. Because I had been posting. Then he continued on to say that he knew the lack of bids was just because this collection had way too high prices. Didn’t say anything else about social or our posts.

But my manager messages me basically berating me for not posting enough and why the fuck wasn’t I working hard. I was like ???? And explained my reasoning and immediately got told I was wrong and I had ten days to get posts up to three per event per day. So I proceeded to bust my ass.

Now, here’s the thing, I couldn’t post if she didn’t review my stuff. So I sent her all these posts to hit this new goal annnnnnnnnnnnd I got nothing back. For a day and a half. I had to ask for them three times before finally getting the feedback. But I still kept working. Then I unfortunately got food poisoning.

BUT because we had our new director starting, I took pepto and sipped on ginger ale so I could make it into the office. And I did. I did wind up leaving early but I had still been creating work and sending it.

However, because I suppressed my food poisoning the next day I was MISERABLE. So I finally decided to take the day. I sent my manager a message and hear nothing back so I make sure all my shit is handled and ended up having to do a whole video while feeling like death. But I did it.

I still had things ready and scheduled so I at least would be good to go. Now, in the afternoon my manager finally messaged me only to try and yell at me about a post my other coworker had done. She did say “apologies” and then asked if I’d be in the next day. I said I was going to do everything I could do I wouldn’t fall behind.

The next day, I did go in. A few hours later she suddenly showed up (she doesn’t work in office on Fridays). I’m working on some stuff, I had already sent her some things to approve, and she suddenly messaged me asking if I had a sec.

And that’s when she walked me to a conference room that HR was in. I even asked her if everything was ok while we were walking and she was like “mmhmm”

They didn’t let me pack my stuff, I had to ask my friend to get my things. They tried to be like “this isn’t a firing for anything bad…you just weren’t the right fit.” And my manager kept saying “we had all those discussions” but I’m over here like ?????? We’ve had maybe TWO and one was THIS WEEK!!! And it takes more than a day, hell a week, for HR to process a firing. I had formal write ups and yet I was done.

I’m so mad and also scared and just ugh. Fuck Capitalism, fuck that lying bitch, and just…fuck my life.

[summonhouse]

im going to ramble abt art websites for a bit and its maybe going to be disjointed and potentially mean bc 1. i speak for myself im not here to convince anyone of anything so i dont care about sounding nice? and 2. im feeling a little offkilter lately BUT

these are no more good art websites and its a pain to see a new art website crop up every week and everyones like, thisll be the one guys! bc i dont think in this day and age its possible.

first; websites should not be profittable. ive been thinking abt this w like, twitter and tumblr and deviantart too where the problem is that people want to make more profit- they dont want to break even, theyre not trying to cover the cost of hosting and paying employees, they need an excess. it shouldnt be like this bc thats how we get the lower in quality, thats how we get this trying to appeal to third party money providers and not users and its always bad and more than that its just unnecessary. every art website that people love are the ones that remain stagnant because its reliable, people do not want continual updates to the ui of something they depend upon for posting and money. new experimental features esp on art websites are just.. useless unless theyre asked for and the garbage fed to us isnt what we asked for.

what makes a good art website? something you can post images, gifs, perhaps low quality videos on, have larger text posts for pinning and smaller text posts for status updates. id say an important feature is a gallery and featured page- profile customization is also important, at the very least have icons, text around a username, descriptions, and headers.

can you tell im thinking of deviantart? i think deviantart is the premium art website and i am so sad everyone left at eclipse- honestly not even that sad at eclipse. it was bad, it was broken, deviantart now has a fuck ton of little holes in it where pages just dont load right, ill get on the fucking new notification page and user profile later, but the way that, in the old days, it had huge spanning galleries, and it had “post type” search too! and it was annoying at the time, we hated this, trying to pick what kind of art your posts were, but it helped make searching for specific posts so much easier (now trying to find gifs on my old accs without it is impossible..). thumbs were good easy ways for ppl to spread content meant to be spread while immediately linking to the actual post- it stopped people from reposting art or using html linking the image itself without a hyperlink to take back to the post and credit, because the thumb was immediately easy to use and way easier than working around it. there was so much... community. like ok from 14-16 i was harassed hard fucking core by adults on deviantart because i was an annoying whiny kid that used dA as my support platform, because from 11-14 it really was! everyone was nice to me- my art was hot dog shit, but i dont think i EVER got a comment calling it bad. i got a LOT of comments telling me that it was good, and i really did believe that! being a preteen drawing dogs online and getting genuine support, often from other artists of my ilk but not uncommonly by artists who were immediately visually BETTER than me really really helped me get to where i am now- i never doubted myself because i was surrounded by people who were so happy to draw just like me, and people loved to see everyone elses work and characters- the joy for characters and stories is really what propelled popularity even when my art wasnt good enough to uphold this. i remember seeing a post a long time ago mentioning that like... sites like dA remained bc they werent just for visual artists which is a great point too- it hosted lurkers really well, artists were really friendly to people who commented on their stuff even if they didnt post anything, im p sure it did fairly well for people who wrote a lot of content, i know some people got popular just because they commissioned people a lot, not bc they drew anything but bc their characters and name got popular.

i miss the old dA notification page, it was SO GOOODDD the folders for where you could store old notifications, the way it was so perfectly set up to maintain a bunch of different notifications all categorized by type, the way that they took note to stop posts that were submitted in multiple groups from appearing again and again in your notifs, the birthday warnings, it was just.. so sweet! page customization too- it was just so fun finding cute little things to put on your page, and so versatile and useful too because you could get like, boundary or commission status or language stamps on there! and like, when i was 14 i had recoded my page a few times over myself, it got me interested in html coding! and now its all gone- for what? because the sleek look is modern, and modern things get more money from investors, and the platforms dont appeal to users anymore, they appeal to investors, because they want more money- they need more money. its a hole they dug for themselves, kind of- i feel like people down the line hosting THEM want more money and so it dominos.

i loved points too, ik people thought they were useless and the worth was hard for ppl to get but $1=100 points was SO GOOD like i know buying points w usd incures a fee and so ur not getting 2000 points if you spend $20 but trading between people for a lesser fee was SO FUN i got banned for doing this a few times LMAO but it really brings a community together. it encourages younger ppl without paypal to try and do commission artwork without breaking the law, and it wasnt as if points were WORTHLESS, because i know i traded usd for them!

and like, everyones like.. twitter is better. twitter is chock full of algorithm nonesense, theres ads between every post, video audio doesnt really work right (if you click on a video on mobile it just decides you will hear every video you pass now. which will be in between every normal post in the form of a fucking ad), images get compressed to hell and ive never heard any information as to how to avoid this, gifs turn into bad videos, you still cant post multiple gifs (i think youre supposed to but well it doesnt fucking work!), just fucking try and host pixel art on here, theres on way to say long form things to people easily- “use threads” real talk, as a user, if i see a thread i do not click it, its too much work if not offered to me. i am 1 person and i represent hundreds who see your tweets. if you scroll down onto any featured popular post you will see nsfw or violent bigotry. i used to report every bit of bigotry i saw and got fast reception, near immediate banning- since owner turn over, a post disparagingly saying faggot has not been responded to in the past 48 hours. the community is fucking insane and i cant blame them, its how twitter is built- there is no separation between official posts and casual posts, like on deviantart wher ethere was differences between journals and statuses- everything youd post as a status that would have gone under the radar is a big proper real post, every comment you make is a big real post as well, it forces a lot of passing commentary to the forefront of peoples attention which of course incurs drama. and ofc its an ALGORITHM BASED PLATFORM which means it REWARDS RECEPTION, inlcuding NEGATIVE- any of your posts that you intended to have as private and only for your 5 followers if it gets enough traction gets blown out of proportion and every single other user will see it only as the post itself, as a big number post which means its open for ridicule. i feel like it was host to more psyops than dA ever was? dA had a bunch of trolls but never any govt psyops like that drug minor one

anyways new art platforms dont work out bc they dont have enough people or draw- if you just are allowing people to post images and text posts, even if you have better page customization id just use twitter because despite its cons it has the major pro of, you know, having people using it- if you make a new art platform every week, theres no real point to pursue any of them, id just wait and see which one flourished- and because i dont participate, they dont get clicks, they dont continue to grow, and they ALL die. anyways moderation is impossible in the way people like- i know everyone wants to believe their niche discourse is clean cut and actually go to show deeper oppression but moderators on websites do not care- discourse is ever evolving and so heated that they cannot afford to throw out a guess and likely no one ever explains themselves, just say This ideology is something or other. and we all want it to be so simple that everyone has the Right opinion on pro/antiship, or fetishes, or terfisms, or mogai, but i promise no matter how easy it seems to you there are thousands who violently refuse and will make up their own buzzwords about how their side is right and the other is something or other. like aside from banning slurs or cruelty they really cannot do much and likely would not ban people who have a special word in their description that you and you alone recognize as a dogwhistle for x ideology. this is the problem i know a few art websites had where they had to say clearly what they would and wouldnt allow and NO ONE was happy. also to revisit that point on hosting a lot of people, an art website that is JUST an art website is like.. its not going to get community or that response i mention from other ppl. if i get on a website just to post art, why would i comment on anyone elses?

and like, dA i know it has like front page or new algorithm which spotlights a LOT of fetish content, but honestly like. you just have to accept that theres going to be fetish content, its an art website, if you want new unseen artists spotlighted you have to acccept that in the fallout of that theres going to be fetish content.

so uhmmm theres nowhere to go and nothing to do. get your asses back on dA eclipse was glitchy and sucked and showed dA didnt respect user opinion but it has not been that bad. its functional at the very least and its only ever dysfunctional because YOU all left. i cant get reception not bc dA is broken but because theres no one left to see it

[vergess]

(reposted because??? tumblr ate or deleted the first post???)

So. Lots of pain meds at the moment, so this is a little bit nonsensical, but, I have been playing the newly released video game I was a teenage exocolonist (available on steam, not linked because tag visibility) while I am laid up in bed.

Lots of opinions, basically all positive. There’s a specific thing I want to talk about in more detail, but this post got too long so I will just link a future post on the gender politics of nature, nurture, and future as presented by the twins Dys and Tang.

So instead here’s my Most Recommendable Qualities (mostly free of spoilers):

Native linux compatibility:

you know how I am about that. I cannot believe I’ve become the very linux guy I so hated when I was working retail…

Upsettingly beautiful art

2D gaming is my first love but man the medium has come a long way since needing a flashlight to play pokemon. Sometimes I forget how far, and then games like this pop up with the gorgeous art and expressive characters, and I inevitably find myself wondering why the “”“"mainstream”“”“ video game market (in as much as such exists these days) focused so obsessively on photo realistic 3D when inevitably a well directed art style is what matters most.

The backgrounds and environments in the game are all extremely lush, with a gorgeous, colorful style that if I had become an art critic instead of a writing critic I would probably have better terminology to describe. Like, uh. Water colors or some shit. Stained glass. It’s all very luminous fuck dude I don’t know, the closest I’m going to get here is to write a poem and I’m not going to write a poem where the fuckign developers might see it. I need to be sober for that.

Characters:

I’m a character driven asshole, we all know this. It’s why I read so much fanfiction and play so much melodramatic fantasy and spend several hours of my life openly sobbing about a single fucking issue of Sandman. So, you’ll understand when I say, "people keep recommending me dating sims and I keep bouncing off of them because the characters never Do A Thing,” what my major criticism of a lot of Large Cast Of Dateable Character games is.

None of those issues arise here. I’ve played a few runs now, making a conscious decision on each to focus on a specific character. One. SIngular. Except, the thing is, you can’t do that. Not in the sense that the game won’t “let” you. You could certainly just dump all of your time into skills and one character. And the timeline of the game would change to reflect your isolationism.

Characters you don’t interact with during runs have their own “autonomous” storylines written, and each divergence your player character makes has its impacts meticulous tracked to create different character experiences every time, even as each character holds very tight to a narrow set of repeating traits. This only further emphasizes the fundamental strangeness of the player character, as the only one capable of being fundamentally different across timelines.

Also all the dateables are just, oh god, SO cute. And, by the time they are capable of fucking, very fuckable. Extremely attractive designs. Honestly everyone is super cute. The whole cast is magnificently designed. And that includes…

Monsters & World Building:

First of all, let’s get the important personal opinions out of the way. I think I would fuck the antagonist….uh….commander, whatever his title is. He looks like a fucked up centaur and I’m into that. There are also Adequate Amounts Of Tentacles. If you’ve known me long, you know that is a high bar, but the game clears it admirably and with diversity!

The alien fauna are all very FUCKING COOL. There’s a bit of throwaway dialogue from An Adult (your dad?) that talks about expecting the planet’s ecosystem to be ‘more alien’ than it is, and I respect the space program’s attempt a tpreparedness but for me, the whole uhhhhhh. Situation. With regards to the alien animals is PLENTY alien, and SO satisfying.

If you’ve ever been like, “god, I wish someone who wasn’t orson scott card would do all the cool shit they did in fucking speaker for the dead” then by GOD is this the game for you.

Accessibility:

The content warnings are extremely detailed. I reviewed them all, and having seen several of the ones I was most worried about, I feel they accurately described the situations without spoiling them. I did end up upsetting myself rather badly with one thing which happened, but it is hardly the developer’s fault that I misunderstood the context in which the “teenage pregnancy” CW would apply. I personally want to specify that (IN THE ROUTES I HAVE SO FAR PLAYED) the pregnancy is a very wanted, safe, and cherished.

The game players very well on controller, which is a must for me. There are a handful of UI elements that I have not yet been able to access by controller, but I think this is more a factor of my being bad at remembering buttons than the game’s design. If you have a mouse, that will solve the issue entirely. My GF speaks highly of the keyboard and mouse gameplay.

Turning off screen distortions and weather effects generally made the game very visually understandable for me, with large, clear iconography. If you have significant visual impairments, I don’t know if this is a good game to play. Picking up items on the ground can be tricky in some cases and there’s nothing for eg a high contrast or greyscale mode if you need that kind of thing.

Stability.

It’s easy to forget that near-launch properties are supposed to be complete games that function well. This game is very complete (VERY, INTRICATELY, COMPLETE) and very stable. With as complicated as the sets of cause-effect-timelines are, I expected it to be much easier to create minor paradoxes in dialogue.

So far, the only time events have seemed to happen slightly out of sequence due to relationship progression or what ever else, was when I made a conscious effort to be as obnoxious as possible at one point just to see if I could make it misbehave.

I haven’t been able to make it crash from within the game so far. I’m hardly a Q.A. tester anymore, but I do tend to be pretty aggressive to my games, so I feel confident in saying it’ll run steady for you if you get it.

Politics etc:

The queerness is all very excellent, super queer in very believable ways, especially given the cultural aspects of the worldbuilding. Characters behave queerly outside of just all being bi-for-the-player. The trans characters were all extremely appealing to me with strong characterization that included but did not obsess over their genders. There are at least 2 trans teens in the player character’s peer group and 2 trans adults of very different ages and character types, and there’s even a cute little intergenerational trans solidarity bit you can get sometimes. In addition, of course, to the ridiculously complete gender personalization.

You would not believe how many games forget that “bro” and “cowgirl” are gendered terms, but this one remembers.

The racial politics are, from my perspective, adequate to not interfere with my gameplay experience. The human characters do consistently refer to the environment and native animals in very colonialist terms but they’re literally colonizing the planet so…. The point is, there is not a native people being eradicated, though there are… territory wars(? I guess.) with both wild animals and antagonist peoples.

If you’re particularly sensitive to colonial narratives, handle with care, but I felt the writing in the routes I’ve seen so far handled most of the issues well. Plus I mean. THe title. Is “teenage exocolonist” like. I think the whole “colonialism is a major narrative theme” ituation should be made clear by that.

In terms of the human diversity it’s pleasingly broad. There are characters of all ages, builds, complexions, races, personality types. There’s a massive range of disabilities both physical and mental, as well as plenty of fun sci fi accomodations.

I mean just among the dateables I can remember top of the head, theres:

ambiguously asian twins who really said Autism Has Two Genders,

ambiguously brown fat girl with developmental disability,

ambiguously brown Gym Bro (derogatory) who is, and this is true, literally named 'ambiguously brown

ambiguously white farmboy who has clearly been eating his space wheaties and also helps invent space cannabis with your dad

unambiguously black girl who looks the autism twins dead in the eye and said 'no autism has one gender and is me’

unambiguously white tomboy who goes full samus

A dog (human)

Hatsune Miku (gender neutral)

Venom (twink)

There’s something here for everyone, all of these characters are super fascinating concepts honestly. I know I keep harping on that but it’s true so there.

Scenario writing:

It’s a bit difficult to separate the player character writing from the scenario writing for reasons that rapidly become clear in the game. Both are very good, though, so that’s fine. The writing is just really very good.

The variations on the timeline that you are able to uncover through repeated play are fascinatingly diverse even as certain events remain immutable, and the whole thing really plays with the concept of time travel and the other-self so beautifully. Really one of my very favourite explorations of the topic already, and I’ve only seen… IDK 4 endings along 2 routes? And there’s 29 endings???

It’s very good. The point is that it’s very good you should go play it.

It’s on steam. It’s app 1148760 on steam and it’s very good, it’s definitely worth more than what they’re charging. I mean have you seen what a $60 console game looks like these days, and then this is like. $25 and SO very much.

[flowerwrites06]

break my mind’s eye I — jjk

Plot: Jungkook thinks marriage is the only way to seal a deal. 

Pairing(s): Druglord!Jungkook x Fashion Designer!OC (Name: Belle) 

Rating: G | PG | M | R 18+

Type: Drabble | Oneshot | Two Parter | Series

Parts: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Special 

Word Count: 7k+

Genre: Mafia | Angst/Smut/Fluff

Tags & Warnings: drug dealing, marriage through trickery, explicit smut, drug use, dubious consent, prostitution 

Authors Note: finally i was able to conclude that bmme can be reposted!! please welcome back this precious gem of mine 

The first time she saw was before one of her fashion shows. Small event compared to the likes of Gucci or Louis Vuitton but for her the biggest night of her life was about to happen. Unfortunately minutes before the show started, Belle got a call from her uncle to pick Taehyung up from their place and his tone sounded utterly bleak.

Walking away from a highly angered manager she rushed off to pick him up only to find him sitting outside on the porch in the cold wind, laughing a little to himself before swearing at no one. It was the first day Belle found out the things he had been taking.

Weed, ecstasy…she even found a small bag of cocaine hidden in his hoodie after getting him cleaned up.

“Where the hell did you get money for cocaine?” Belle tried to search his expression but Taehyung was too busy stumbling as he finally fell onto her bed.

“I know a guy. I promised to pay him back soon.” Taehyung mumbled turning to rest on his back, his limbs refused to stay still to a point where Belle started to get annoyed.

“Tae, how much do you owe this guy?” She asked, heart thumping a little knowing cocaine especially was not inexpensive and that mixed with other drugs…

His body being ruined was one heart-wrenching thing but she dreaded the amount of money this all cost.

Her brother stayed silent closing his eyes to let out a few breaths which caused her blood to boil even more.

Belle understood why Taehyung turned to something so putrid to relieve him of their recent troubles. There was a moment in time where she even thought to do so, maybe to ease some of the pain of they both went through. But it was getting out of hand.

-

The next morning Belle fixed him up a proper breakfast to distract him from taking another dose of the things he bought. Or was loaned anyway since he didn’t have a job or savings to pay for any of the products she found.

Taehyung didn’t even come to the table.

Instead as she walked towards the bedroom, she found him shirtless snorting something up his nose as he quickly threw his head back. Just hearing his sigh of relief made Belles’ stomach churn to near sickness.

Fuming, Belle grabbed whatever pieces of his stash she could find on the table and threw it in the bin pushing it away when he tried to savor anything that could be fished out. She saw his eyes widen so much that it almost seemed his eyeballs were going to fall on his hand.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” Taehyung yelled, voice growly while his nose still had remnants of white powder dripping and his eyes bloodshot more than ever. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get shit like that?!”

“I don’t care, you’re done with this!” Belle stood her ground but kept her voice calm, her own glossy eyes fixated on his.

“You don’t fucking get it!” Taehyung winced, face contorting it looked like he was about to cry. “I need it, okay? And I got that shit from a guy that works in the Jeon Cartel!” He gestured over to the entrance of the apartment. “I can’t ask for anymore, I haven’t paid for anything.” He yanked at his hair whining under his breath like a spoiled child not getting the toy he wanted.

Belle shook her head slightly, tears forming at the brim of her eyes. “Tae…” Her voice grew shakier now. “How much do you owe them?” Her bottom lip quivered watching his chest rise and fall heavily.

He stayed silent averting his gaze.

“Taehyung.” Her tone quickly turned firm though her heart pounded painfully. “How much do you owe them?” Belle truly hated acting like the oldest between the two.

Taehyung used to take care of her every single day almost more than her own parents since they mostly focused on their oldest son because he had ‘a lot more potential’. Her stomach ached looking at all the potential slowly going down the drain right in front of her eyes.

“A few hundred…six…maybe seven…” Taehyung muttered trying not to look directly at her when he spoke. He probably knew exactly the kind of shock gripped her face and he was damn right.

Belles’ entire body turned cold, her fingers almost wanting to fish out the substances herself just knowing how much money it cost to get it. But she curled them up into fists wanting to look strong. “I don’t…know how it feels…I do know it hurts and I know why you’re doing this but…I can’t lose you too.” She whispered, vision getting blurry as a lump grew in her throat. “You’re my big brother, you’ve always looked after me.”

Taehyung bit down his bottom lip lowering his head in slight shame.

“Please let me look after you.” She pleaded in a whisper trying to search his expression, to see any sense of softness or thought.

Her brother sobbed a little, running his shaky fingers through his matted hair before nodding but still trying not to meet her gaze. “Okay.”

Belle let out a trembling sigh of relief, a tear escaping slowly down her cheek when she finally relaxed. “I have savings you can use to pay for the drugs you asked for.” She stated in a gentle tone this time as Taehyung stared at her, shaking his head.

“That’s your boutique money, you can’t—”

“Yes I can.” She forced a smile across her face to reassure him. “My boutique can wait. I want you to get better.”

Taehyung gulped down carefully padding over his sister before leaning his head on her shoulder at an attempt of a lazy hug. “I’m so sorry.” He whispered against the fabric of her sweater, a light whimper under his breath. “Thank you.”

The chill that spread through her body now warmed up as she wrapped her arms around her brother, feeling like the younger sister if only for a second. “Who do we have to pay?” Belle asked sniffling a little.

“My debts’ too high…” Taehyungs’ grip tightened around the girl. “…the guy who gave me the drugs tells me I need to go straight to the boss for questioning if I come back again.”

Oh god, Taehyung…what did you get yourself into?

-

Much to Taehyungs’ discontent, Belle insisted on coming with him with the envelope of the payment in her hand. She figured cash would be more believable instead of bank transferring especially since there was so much money piled up for just debt. Her older brother looked at her a little surprised at how well she knew how to maneuver these things. “Being in the fashion industry doesn’t just mean I draw and sew clothes, you know.” She replied simply as she drove the both of them to the address Taehyungs’ guy told him to go.

During the trip she wanted to mention how sneaky it was to just give them the address and not come along. But then again…this wasn’t exactly an ethical business to begin with.

Of course it wasn’t difficult in the slightest to find the Jeon household considering it was on the outskirts of the city. A large sandstone colored mansion with vines growing off of the sides and golden detail on the windows and pillars. They drove in front of the closed entrance where Taehyung told them his name and that he was being expected which thankfully caused the large gate to slide open with a painful screech sound.

Heart pounded so hard it could have ripped out of her ribcages, the hair on the back of her neck stood up and her palms a little sweaty. The guards lined up in front of the door with their suits and shades making her homemade white floral dress look like peasants work. Even from here she could recognize that those uniforms were not made from some random ordinary designer. Even though the design itself was quite ordinary.

Taehyung walked out of the car first before Belle followed suit.

As soon as she walked out, one of the guards held his hand out.

“Ma’am, the boss requests that you give away your car in the duration of the meeting.” He spoke in a robotic tone.

Belle wasn’t even sure if he was looking at her directly since the shades were so dark but she gave him her car keys anyway. The feeling of emptiness eerily seeping through her already nerve-wracked body. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how Taehyung must be feeling around all of this.

They were led into the mansion by three guards. The entrance was really just a big hall that stretched across the whole expanse of the building. When they passed a large open archway then Belle could see the furnished details; a few couches circled around in the middle of the large space with the fireplace behind the sitting, a bar on the far right with some maids tending to the dust while there were stairs on the left leading to the upper level.

Why would they want meet them personally for a few hundred dollars? It looked like a small loss looking at the quality of this whole building down to the outfits their guards were wearing.

Maybe it was more greed than the amount of the money.

“Please be seated. Master Jeon will speak to you shortly.” The same guard declared before moving back to his post and standing there like a statue.

Taehyung and Belle sat at the couch that faced the fireplace. Thankfully the maids were kind enough to turn it on since she hadn’t realized how cool it was going to be in the house. They offered them tea which they both turned down. An empty stomach meant less likely for her to throw up from the anxiousness. Taehyung, on the other hand, lost interest for food altogether barely eating anything but crumbs.

She noticed the hollowness of his cheeks and the darkness under his eyes. How long had it been since she saw a smile stretching across his lips? Taehyung used to be filled with light and passion beyond anything Belle had ever seen. He was the reason she pushed herself to pursue her own dreams despite the side-eyes from their parents. He defended her passion. He protected from unfair treatment always giving her shine he thought she deserved.

Now Belle had to repay the favor. She needed to encourage her brother to restart his path back to one that made him happy instead of one that slowly destroyed him to the core.

Footsteps brought her back out from her thoughts, eyes trailing over to the stairs. A tall built figure dressed in an all-white suit with a button-up shirt to match, loosely done up so his gold necklace could glimmer in the light. Belle noticed the gold cufflinks shimmering from his wrists. Hair styled somewhat neatly with a side part and strands hovering his eye when he moved, lips a rosy hue and his face looked for younger than she expected.

When people said ‘drug lord’ she imagined a stumpy old creep with similar attire except traditionally unkempt with facial hair and untrimmed chest hair that hung over their shirts.

Despite his pleasant appearance, Belle was not going to be blinded to the fact that this man thrived off of her brothers’ suffering.

The man finally met her gaze after only glancing a little at Taehyung before sitting down on the couch in front of them. Legs spread apart ever so slightly, he leaned back with one of his arms extended out. “Mr. Kim.” He spoke in a soft tone, eyes going back to her older brother now. “Do you recognize who I am?” He searched his expression.

Taehyung kept his head lowered but nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Who am I?” He pressed on like a father calmly scolding his child.

“M-Master Jeon Jungkook…” He muttered helplessly almost glancing up to meet his gaze but quickly looking down once again.

“So you do know…” Jungkook nodded, pressing his lips together. “Here I was thinking you consider me a joke. Taking bags and bags of my products while assuming I won’t try to track you down. Is that you what you thought of me?” His tone grew firmer.

Unlike Taehyung, Belle kept her head up, maintaining her gaze on the stranger. It seemed like Jungkook had a good eye for noticing when he flickered over to look at her instead.

“No, sir.” Taehyung shook his head frantically. “I-I just n-needed to get my money together.” He explained in a shaky voice not noticing that his precious ‘sir’ was staring at Belle a lot longer than she was comfortable.

Maybe he was waiting for her to duck her head down like her older brother.

The urge to do so was stronger than ever but Belle persisted. Until Jungkook glanced over at Taehyung again.

Her brothers’ fingers trembled violently at this point. Belle itched to comfort him somehow but she wanted him to try and face on his own to some extent. Coming here and sitting next to him was already being far too lenient but she couldn’t let him do this completely alone. Not when the healing process was so fresh and people like Jungkook would do anything to make sure he stayed addicted.

“Where’s the money?” Jungkook gestured towards him.

Belle took a small breath, placing the envelope on her lap onto the glass coffee table. “One of your men said he owed seven hundred.” She spoke up now trying to keep her voice as steady as possible even though her heart was beating out of control. “The envelope has eight just in case he wasn’t accurate.” A chilly feeling brushed over her body when her savings just sat there on the coffee table. Nothing but petty money for Jungkook but to her, it was the only way she could afford the vacant building in the city for her boutique.

“And you are?”

“His sister.” She muttered, glancing over at Taehyung who let out a deep sigh.

Jungkook stared down at the thick envelope for a few minutes with a raised brow. “Jongho…” He curled his fingers in towards a guard who quickly rushed over to stand beside him. “Please escort Mr. Kim to the second living room for a moment. I’d like to have a word with Ms…”

“Belle.”

“Belle…” The corner of his lip curled up before he gestured again towards the man called Jongho and he immediately led Taehyung away from them.

Belles’ heart raced seeing his helpless face looking back at her not sure if he was trying to apologize or if he was terrified of why they were being separated. “Why’re you taking him away?” She asked, being as polite as possible but her tightening fists told a different story.

“I’m not going to hurt him.” Jungkook murmured. He leaned in to rest his elbows on his knees, eyes searching her expression closely. “I thought it’d be better if I had a private conversation with a more steady minded person rather than your brother.” He nodded behind her.

Her brows furrowed glancing down at the closed envelope before staring up at him. “We got you the money, why do we need to have a conversation?” Belle’s voice was low just enough for only Jungkook to hear and no one else. Not that she could raise her voice even if she tried from how closed up her throat was.

“Because I’m honorable to an extent but I also hate people taking advantage of my kindness.” Jungkook shrugged lightly. “Your brother had been freely given all the products he consumed and he waited three months to give me my payment.” He let his sentence linger in the air to add more effect. “Three months of losing product and receiving no profit in return is not a risk I like making, Belle. Nor do I want to make it again.”

“So…what’re you saying?” Belle thought of the worst possible scenarios. Would they take Taehyung away and punish him? Or kill him? Was he being punished right now and Jungkook was just lying to prevent a scene? She watched his soft eyes trail up and down her form trying to be subtle but Belle caught it immediately feeling the urge to hide away into the couch.

“I’m saying the deal’s changed.” Jungkook declared in the most casual way like you would cancel a simple outing to the mall. “Look I can get money anytime I want to…you know that, don’t you?” He tilted his head a little searching her features. “I asked for this personal meeting on the basis of principle. Taehyung and many people like him need to understand that we stand by codes just as much as anyone. I’m not a money pig that just drools and accepts cash when it’s given to me.” He raised a brow.

Belle winced lightly, shaking her head. “Then why are we here? What do you want?”

Jungkook did nothing for a minute and gave her a soft smile. “Something he can take a little more seriously than cash…well—someone.”

Blood drained from her body from her aching head to her toes. Belle pierced into his smug gaze hoping…praying that he didn’t meant what she thought. The last thing she ever looked to be afraid of but now became the ultimate bane of her visit.

A visit thought to be quick and sweet with cash exchanged. How could she be surprised? These people wanted so much but still asked for more. What more could she expect from the man that took just to have the power to take some more? “Taehyung’s a good man.” She whispered. “He won’t do this again.”

“That’s what a lot of people tell me for years about their relatives or friends, Belle.” Jungkook murmured under his breath keeping the conversation to themselves despite the maids and guards standing around. “My grandfather heard it…my father heard it…every single time those people come back begging for more and then we get blamed for the dead bodies.” He sighed in slight defeat but she didn’t buy it in the slightest.

There was nothing noble about this request. If he were any other man gaining the audacity to say something like this, he would expect a hard punch on his nose. Except now it wasn’t just her own safety in question. Nor was Jungkook any ordinary man who could be taken by police or a punch looking at his build. “What am I supposed to do?” Belle murmured, heat flushing in her body making her more exasperated than grateful at the running fireplace.

Once again, a smile stretched across Jungkooks’ rosy lips. If it were taken out of context you’d think he was some sweet boy admiring something. But the reality was far from that lie. “You’re not going to be my prisoner, if that’s what you’re asking.” He smiled a little wider, eyes glimmering. “I’m not that evil.”

Debatable.

“You’re a lot more intelligent than you let on.”

“You just met me.”

“But I meet a lot of people…a little too many. So I tend to rely on first impressions and hope I’m right.” Jungkook shrugged.

“And if you’re wrong?”

He chuckled under his breath gesturing over to his guards. “They’re not there for decoration…and I don’t always negotiate like this. I’m just having a good day.” She saw his expression grow dark but the smile still remained making him look utterly sinister.

Visions of Taehyung tied to a chair, sobbing flashed across her mind making her mentally slap herself back to reality. She couldn’t look weak in front of him of all people. That’s what he wanted…for people to cower in front of him as he spewed his threats around to get everything he asked for. But denying him completely and storming out wouldn’t exactly be the smartest decision either considering she didn’t actually know where her brother was. The mansion was still mystery to her and Jungkook could easily hurt any of them as he so subtly stated with that stupid, fucking smile.

“So…what do you say, Belle? Do we have an accord?”

-

Taehyung was led back into the main living room, slightly yanking off of Jongho’ grasp and giving him a glare when he walked away. He looked over at Belle, her back facing him standing in front of Jungkook. “Belle?”

Belle looked over her shoulder and gave him a smile as she walked closer. She let out a sigh of relief seeing no sign of injury on the older male.

“Did he do something to you?” After the longest time, Taehyung sounded like an older brother again looking after Belle whenever she looked the slightest bit distressed. “What did he say?” He whispered.

She stayed silent, gaze lowered to look at his T-shirt before flickering up to force a smile at him. “It’s going to be okay.” Belle murmured. “He even offered to pay for your rehabilitation and get you back on your feet.”

Brows furrowed now gaining the urge to glance over at Jungkook but he couldn’t seem to stop searching his sisters’ expression. “Why would he want to pay for—”

“I told him to.” Belle gulped, smile fading away into a small frown.

“Belle, we can’t pay him back for all of that.” Taehyung held onto her bare arms feeling the cold skin underneath his.

She nodded. “Yes we can. He’s only asking for one thing.”

“…What?” He whispered.

Belle bit down her bottom lip, chin quivering a little before she smiled again even though her eyes grew glossy. “He wants me.”

Taehyungs’ heart plummeted making his whole body feel heavy. “No…” He shook his head, grip tightening around her arms as if she was going to disappear if he let go. “He can’t do that.”

“I agreed.”

“Belle!” It was more a loud whisper than anything but it managed to turn a few heads. “He’s going t—”

“I know what he’s going to do.” Belle rubbed his chest soothingly. “But this is the only way I can help you.”

“You have the money, why won’t he take it?” He gestured towards the envelope on the coffee table which now looked long forgotten.

Belle lowered her gaze. “Because he thinks you’ll just do it all again. He doesn’t trust you.”

“And you trust him?” Taehyung retorted causing heat to bubble up inside Belle.

“I trust you to do your part in this promise.” She tightened her jaw, wincing as the lump in her throat grew painful. “Unless you have a better idea to escape a pissed off drug lord then you will do this.” Tears flooded at her eyes threatening to escape but her gaze persisted on him. “Please promise me you’ll try to get better from now on.” Her lips quivered. “I didn’t know how else to help you. But now you need to help me. You need to heal and get back on your feet.”

Taehyung brushed against his fingers through the hair rested on her shoulder. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me.” Belle shook her head as an attempt to reassure him but he didn’t look at all convinced. “I’ll be fine.” She smiled faintly, a few tears escaping down her cheeks which he wiped off gently.

“I’m so sorry…” He whimpered, fingers curling around her hair. “This is all my fault, I should’ve just come here on my own.”

“He would’ve killed you.”

“But you’d be happy.”

Belle chuckled sadly. “You really think I’d be happy if I lost you?”

“But you wouldn’t be here.” Taehyung side glanced over at the guards who looked completely unfazed by the whole ordeal while Jungkook had his back turned to them, gazing out into the garden outside.

“Everything’s going to be fine.” Belle wasn’t sure if that was directed at her brother or herself. Was this meant to be her big fork in the road? The path she was supposed to determine her whole life. Maybe her parents were right. Maybe she was amount to only one thing… but she’d be caught dead before she cowered begging before people like Jungkook. If he wanted her then he could have her. But he’d be an idiot to think she wasn’t going to use that to her own advantage one day. “We’re allowed to see each other so you’re not losing me, okay? I’ll be there whenever you need me.”

Taehyung sighed in frustration averting his gaze, boring holes in the back of Jungkooks’ head with his glare. “I want to kill him.”

“Then we’ll never get out of here.” Belle replied simply.

Finally Taehyung succumbed to his sisters’ wishes, pressing a soft kiss on her forehead before letting go, physically deflating as he was led out of the mansion by one of the guards.

One of them, same Jongho walked over to her. “I’ll drive him back safely, Ms. Kim.” He gave her a reassuring smile before following Taehyung out of the mansion.

The double doors closed blocking out whatever light that came from it leaving her empty.

“Taehyung will call you when he gets home. So you know he’s safe.” Jungkook spoke up now in a gentle tone but Belle kept her back to him. “And your personal belongings will be moved here in a few days.”

She licked her lips before lowering her gaze, letting a few silent sobs before wiping the tears away. “Where can I freshen up?” Belle looked down at her fingers seeing the light mascara smudges, trying to wipe at the corners of his eyes to wipe any traces away.

Jungkook seemed like he gestured towards one of the maids because a kind looking woman padded over and touched her on the shoulder.

Her grey hair wrapped up in a bun and the smile lines around her face showed when she gave her a sweet grin, making her look like the only person that seemed somewhat trustworthy in this building. “Let’s go upstairs, dear.” She held onto her arms and led her towards the stairs. “I’ll get some new clothes sent up as well.”

Belle didn’t glance at Jungkook but she could feel his gaze on her when she was led up the stairs to the now shared master bedroom.

-

Similar to what a hotel suite would look like, the master bedroom adorned a modern design with an opaque black curtains drawn to keep the room cool and ambient with the warm lights. A king-sized bed with classic white sheets with some gold detail matching the aesthetic of the whole mansion itself. There was a marble partition that had a small gap on the bottom with a modern looking fireplace on to keep the room warm, situated on the immediate left when they walked in.

On the other side of the partition was a desk with a closed laptop and some files. Another open archway on the right that led to a walk-in-wardrobe with lit up shelves that accentuated all the different shoes and shirts.

Upon walking through the archway into the wardrobe, on the right, there was the private bathroom just as big as every other small area in the monster of a bedroom.

Belle was led into the bathroom by the kind maid where she saw a shower that could have been the size of her laundry room, a sink just in front of it with a bathtub on the far end. The white bathtub contrasted against the grey marble floor with a large window that showed a forest-like view.

“It’s an illusion.” The maid explained as if to reassure her that her baths were not going to be displayed out into the world. “The Master asked for a glass case that held shrubs but the foggy forest is an intricate painting by one of the familys’ personal artists. He likes the feeling of being disconnected from the modern world when he’s relaxing.”

Normally the design would impress her greatly. The idea of having the illusion of a calm forest without the hassle of actually moving to one was genius and the greyish light gave the bathroom a relaxing morning feel. Right now however it made her feel more trapped than ever. Even the view outside was just an illusion in her new cage. Nothing felt solid and real at this point like Belle was a ghost floating around in a dream that never seemed to end.

“Your towels are over on the stand there, dear. I’ll have robes and a change of clothes brought to you outside soon.” The maid smiled patting her lightly on her arm. “Don’t fret too much, darling. I don’t think the master has any intention of hurting you.”

“It’s not him hurting me that’s making me nervous.” Belle smiled sadly, grateful that the woman even cared to reassure her somehow.

“Ah…” The maid smiled and nodded knowingly. “I’ll get you some of my special tea…it calmed me down on my wedding night.”

Belle’s heart sank seeing the woman smile at her a little sadly too. “Is the secret ingredient whiskey?” She tried to lighten the mood which successfully made the woman chuckle. Somehow seeing the way the woman helped her in her own way reminded her of why she was in this glass case in the first place. She remembered Taehyung smiling again, throwing away all the things that tarnished all the peace in his heart and being free. She needed to be strong.

“Not really but…I’ll see what I can do.” She whispered the last bit with a cheeky smile before turning on her heel to leave Belle in a few moments of solitary freedom at the very least.

-

It may have been dark by now.

At least when Belle peeked the slightest outside the curtained window, the sun had been dipping into the hills to give the sky a pinkish hue. Her heart pounded at the lack of notifications from her brother. Her body felt fresher now that she had a comfortable long white nightie with a thin robe to keep her arms somewhat cozy. But skin still heated up significantly with her anxiety.

Then minutes passed before her phone buzzed and her heart released a thousand sighs of relief seeing Taehyung’s name.

“Belle?”

“Yes it’s me.” Belle whispered with a biggest grin on her face from the sheer relief. “You went home okay? They didn’t hurt you?”

“No, no they were just… fine.” Confusion trailed in Taehyung’s voice. “That guy has way too much fucking power, they just dropped me off and left saying they’ll come back to drop me off at the rehab center. Normally his men tried to rough me up whenever they saw me.”

“That’s because they knew you’re the guy that doesn’t pay.” Belle cringed mentally hearing herself defend their actions but…she was a little too good at considering perspectives, she guessed.

“I guess…also I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking you if you’re okay.” Taehyung corrected but Belle let his words linger in the air for a moment.

Sitting in the luxury bedroom wearing a clearly quality robe with people working at her beck and call, in a first glance people would call her lucky. Digging deeper into the surface and seeing that Belle was manipulated into being in his position then people would call Jungkook a monster.

Was it only one of them? Was it both? Was it neither? Was this just a game that Belle had no choice but to play for a time until her brother got better? How far did Jungkook even think this through? Why was he so interested in manipulating Taehyung the most? Did he do this to every sister, brother or parent that came around? Did they even come this far?

“Belle, you still there?”

“Yeah…yeah, I’m okay. I’m just sitting.” She quickly explained.

The thoughts crowded in her head making it ache but thankfully the maid—her name she found out was Nana—gave her a piping hot cup of tea apparently laced with some herbs that helped calm anxiety and nerves. It was an ancient herb given to young girls so they could go through their wedding night without having an anxiety attack or breaking down. Blowing away some of the steam, Belle took a few sips ignoring the bitter taste on her tongue.

“I don’t know what he wants yet but I think I have an idea.” Belle spoke solemnly.

“You really don’t have to do this, Belle.” Taehyung whispered desperately.

“We don’t have any other choice.”

“You could just come back home and I’ll just handle it.”

“You had three months to handle it.” Her voice grew firm quicker than she even expected but she kept her head cool. Silence ran on the other end of the line making Belle sigh to calm herself down. “We just need to keep our heads. We’ll be fine.” She didn’t mean to make her tone sound so dreary but this wasn’t exactly the cheeriest of moments in her life. Her fingers absentmindedly played with the fabric of her soft nightie trying to empty her mind for a little while. “I need to go, okay? I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay…Belle…”

“Yeah?”

“…I love you. Be safe.”

The lump in her throat grew again suffocating her when she forcefully swallowed it down. “I love you too.” Belle whispered before hanging up. Taking longer sips from her tea now, it took a few seconds for her feel her limbs loosen like ice melting near a fireplace. Her body cooled down from her heated anxiety to a comfortable warmth she could melt into without the worries of the troubles around her.

For a moment, she could close her eyes and relish in the new found relief wanting to silently thank Nana for providing her this cup of momentary tranquility.

The door opened with the familiar white-suited man walking in giving her a glance as he shrugged his blazer off. “Nana got you some clothes…good.” Jungkook muttered, walking into the walk-in wardrobe and placing his blazer back before taking off his cufflinks when he walked back in the bedroom. “Is it comfortable?”

“Yes.” Belle replied, brushing her palms across the smooth sleeves of the robe. She never worked with satin a lot but whenever she felt it under her skin it gave her the tingle of pure luxury. “I just spoke to Taehyung…he came home safe.”

“I told you he would.” Jungkook murmured, unbuttoning his shirt and shrugging it off his shoulder before placing into a hamper for the maids to take care of.

Belle noticed the stencil like silhouette of a phoenix etched into the right side of his chest as he walked over to his side of the bed. “You kept to your word. Thank you.” Not that you deserve it but…common courtesy.

She caught a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips while he unbuckled his belt and threw it on the floor.

“Do I sense a little bitterness, Ms. Kim?” Jungkook mused.

“Why? You don’t like a little bitter taste on your tongue?” Snakes must get used to it by now, she thought.

“I know you’re not a fan of me.” He stated the fucking obvious. “But you could say no anytime. I’ll just deal with your brother without bothering you again.”

Belle tightened her jaw, gripping onto the fabric of her nightie averting her gaze forcing a long silence to plunge into the room.

Jungkook finally sighed. “I didn’t mean that.” He muttered but Belle was mostly trying to focus back on the relaxation the tea gave her again. “Our accord is as solid any other contract so I’m not allowed to touch your brother…while you’re still with me anyway.”

“Is this how you get all your girls?”

He chuckled walking over and standing in front of Belle, forcing her to look up at him. “Would you be pleased if I said no?” Jungkook placed an index finger under her chin while his thumb hovered for a moment over her lips.

“Only if it’s the truth.” Belle replied simply, her knees melting into the surface of the bed.

Jungkook smirked moving his hands into her hair. “I don’t invite just anyone in my bed, no. But you’re not just anyone.”

“Why do you think that?” She asked as he slowly leaned in closer, fingers sliding down the crook of her neck letting the sleeves of her robe and nightie slip down with a mere touch.

“Because you were the only one brave enough to come this far.” He whispered pushing down the other side of her sleeves to leave her shoulders exposed. “Girls love the bad boys but never seem to understand what they’re asking for.” Cold fingers brushed against her collarbones, across her chest up her neck until he finally caressed her bottom lip with his index finger.

They want a fairytale. Beauty and the Beast. But eventually they find out that the Beast was never a prince in the first place. They realize that a mere kiss won’t break the curse.

“You know exactly what you’re asking for… don’t you?” Jungkook asked in a tone of a warm coo.

I’m not asking for this, Belle bit her tongue. But I do know what I’m getting myself into. What you gave me no choice but to get into. She stared at him determined to keep his gaze no matter how much she wanted to close her eyes. He wasn’t going to overpower her, not in that way. I received a beast instead of a prince…but you’re not getting any vulnerable fucking princess either. Keeping her eyes on his, she parted her lips and took his finger into her mouth barely waiting for Jungkook to make any move before she began suckling on it.

“Of course you do.” The mere action was enough of an answer for the male as his smirk grew darker. Jungkook took his finger away pushing down her nightie and robe further down until her breasts were displayed to him.

Belle was grateful for the warmth from the fireplace spreading through the room at his point. But in mere seconds Jungkook used his glistening finger to brush across her nipple causing it to stand erect almost instantly. A light gasp caught in her throat as she pressed her palms on the surface of the bed making her chest push out a little. When she threw her head back a little, he quickly took the opportunity to devour her lips, tongue pushing against her teeth which she kept clamp shut.

Long enough for him to get impatient and bite down her bottom lip a little. Then she allowed him to push through and explore her mouth. Jungkook knelt down but kept their lips locked as he sneaked his hands under her nightie, pushing the soft fabric, nails grazing against her skin causing a tingle down her spine.

Belle lifted a little to let him push the dress further up until he completely pulled both pieces of clothing off over her head. Before she could even comprehend her exposure, he picked her up a little and shifted so she could rest her head on the silk pillows. Her heart raced against her ribcages but she stopped being sure of why at this point, instead she thought about the herbs Nana gave her. Maybe thinking about how it can help would psychologically increase its effects? Stupid but maybe.

When she looked down at the male out of curiosity, she saw him discard his pants and boxers before climbing back onto the bed.

Belle kept her legs closed loosely before he pushed them apart, hands gliding down her inner thighs to her panties. His thumb pressed against the clothing right against her hiding nub making her jerk her hips a little at the suddenly awakened nerves.

He didn’t waste any time to hook the hem of her panties and strip it off her before dipping down in between her legs. His mouth feasted on her clit, tongue licking around her slit before sliding in teasingly slow and moving back to suckling on her bundle of nerves.

Her chest rose and fell as her eyes focused more on the ceiling, biting onto her bottom lip, light whimpers emitting from under her breath.

Jungkook released her clit with a pop sound before settling his hips between her legs. His already hardened shaft teased her slit a little more, wet sounds tickling her ears before she felt him stretch her out.

A moan finally erupted from her throat, clenching around him making him groan.

“It’s okay…” He whispered in her ear when she turned her head to the side. “Does it hurt a lot?”

Belle’s head felt like it was trying to find a straight line in a completely scribbled piece of paper. Her core ached for a moment. She felt Jungkooks’ thumb rub at her clit making her walls relax a little as she focused on the light wash of pleasure rushing across her lower body. Slowly she shook her head moving back to face him again. “No…it’s okay.” She whispered, meeting his gaze when he still wasn’t moving. Leaning up she pressed a shy kiss on his lips.

It took mere seconds before Jungkook began moving in and out of her, still slowly rubbing circles on her erect clit.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, their foreheads pressed against each other as he grinded into her slightly nudging the spot that sent sparks through her body.

His pace quickened, both hands pressed down on the surface of the bed as he thrusted into her in a steady pattern letting the sounds of skin slapping linger in the air.

Belles’ skull felt numb, her mind locked up all her thoughts and allowed her body to succumb to his consistent pounding. Head threw back against the pillow as he chased his own orgasm, her own juices spluttering onto his lower belly. She hummed lightly under her breath which seemed to encourage Jungkook to go faster until the bed started to shift.

Jungkook lowered down a bit more, pressing wet kisses on her neck, trying to muffle his moans against her skin as his thrusts grew sloppy.

Belle felt a gentle wave of pleasure before Jungkook quickly pulled out with his release splattering all over her belly. She let out a small sigh, rubbing circles on her clit again to prolong her small climax before her bundle felt too sensitive to touch making her legs close up again. She watched the other male catch his breath still kneeling in front of her before crashing on the space beside her.

Whatever piece of physical satisfaction swirled around her body melted quickly into her chest clenching painfully. It didn’t take too long for her to notice all too clearly what spilt on her skin but Jungkook had already pulled out a wash cloth and wiped her clean. The traces still burrowed in her mind now.

Jungkook threw the wash cloth away before resting back on the bed again, shutting his eyes for a moment. Both of them catching their breaths and finally dwindling back to their fucked up reality.

“I can’t break this deal.” He murmured looking up at ceiling similar to her. “If I do, I’ll have to kill your brother.”

Belle swallowed the lump in her throat, a small tear spilling from the corner of her eye. “Am I supposed to be your sex toy until you’re done with me?”

“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not allowed to have…sex toys.” Jungkook sighed. “There’s another reason why I changed the deal.”

She finally turned her head to face him, brows furrowing. “What did you not tell me?”

The male took a deep breath before meeting her gaze. “My uncle and aunt have been forcing me to get married to someone of their choice. It’s gotten so pressing to a point where they’ve paid them to seduce me so it doesn’t look arranged.” Jungkook explained, running his fingers through his hair before resting on his head on his arm. “My rejections have stopped working. So I thought I should get a courtship with someone I choose before I’ll have to succumb to my uncle and aunts’ wishes.”

Belle could practically hear her own heart slamming out of her ears, more tears burning in her eyes. “So… you just…saw me and decided that you were going to make me your wife?”

“Did you want me to ask for your parents’ blessing or something?”

She averted her gaze back to the ceiling. “My parents are dead.”

“…I didn’t—”

“Of course you didn’t fucking know, we don’t know each other.” Belle inhaled a shaky breath before closing her eyes to calm herself down.

You are a fucking beast.

“Darling I gave you a chance to turn back.”

“So you wouldn’t hurt my brother.”

“Your brother was already dead if he kept going the way he did.” Jungkook winced a little before sighing in frustration. “I told you I’m not trying to be evil. A lot of people look at me when they want to see power. The world I live in chews up people who are too merciful.”

“My brother is innocent.” Belle sobbed lightly, forcefully biting down her bottom lip.

“He’s vulnerable to what I offer. Did you really think he was going to stop taking drugs just because he paid the money?” Jungkooks’ question lingered in the air for a while. “Correction: just because you paid the money.”

“So you want me to be your wife…” She swallowed thickly. “…or you’ll kill my brother.”

“When you say it that way, I do sound evil.” Jungkook pondered. “But yes. Everything else in the deal still stays the same. You’re free to do whatever you want.”

“Except leave you.” Belle corrected.

“Except leave me.” Jungkook confirmed in the most casual fucking tone ever.

Belle did nothing but stay silent and turn to her side, back facing him making the male sigh in slight defeat. She felt his hand on her shoulder squeezing slightly as if it was going to give her any kind of comfort.

“A lot of marriages can be worse than this, you know.” He squeezed it again. “You’re going to have to work with me for this to run a lot smoother, yeah? You did so well today.” Jungkook pressed a gentle kiss on her shoulder. “I promise it won’t feel so bad after a while.”

She knew now. Kissing the beast didn’t break the curse.

It made one.

NEXT CHAPTER >>

[seobseobs]

"i love you"

bff!sunghoon x reader (no prns) • 0.3k

platonic; fluff, angst

[ hoon thinks he's not a good bff to y/n :( , one mention of d word metaphor , cusses?? , y/n calls hoon babe platonically (we love it!!) ] - reposted

back to suite

sunghoon is an awkward guy. he finds saying stuffs like "i appreciate you" such a cheesy manner and he admits he would rather die than saying that. and that's where you came in: to be the cheesy one in the duo!

he could never get over how easily you utter those words and compliments to people around you, especially him. he only recently dyed his hair blonde which he did a good job at hiding it from you btw and when you first knew from enhypen's instagram post, you didn't hesitate to send him a text and squealed about how he looks so good with it. and he loves you, he really does.

but when you're always so vocal about your thoughts and admiration like this, he wonders how did you both even became bestfriends in the first place. because he's surely failing in that department.

how did he even let you enter his life and affect him a great deal? because you enjoy teasing him to the point his ears turn red, you say things like "wow! my best friend looks so cool!" and "engenes are going to love this one!" at literally every thing he does (and he really appreciates you knowing how much engenes mean to him) and you're just so supportive it makes his heart hurts a little.

what did he do to have such an amazing person like you in his life? you're so lovable and he can only hope he affects you the same way (spoiler: he does) because he feels he doesn't cheer you on enough. or compliment you enough. or show you off enough. he thinks he's not being a good bestfriend. and he knows if he'll tell you this, you'd smack the shit out of him and list a 100 reasons on why he is.

he lets out a sigh, eyes closing off to try and clear his mind until a row of notifications from his phone jolts him a little.

y/n 🤪🥰 : it's probably too late to say this but wtv

y/n 🤪🥰 : ty for ur cuddle service yesterday hoonie 😭🙏💞💞💞

y/n 🤪🥰 : i rlly needed that :(( really, thank you so much babe :(

✒ if you don't get it, their love language is different. y/n -> words of affirmation, hoon -> physical touch. but hoon fails to notice that smh. (imo hoon's is actually quality time?? but my mind fucking blanked at the end LMAO)