#this is mainly targeted at Waking Up and Chosen one

[creativriot]

Hoping with Sonic x Shadow generations acknowledging Shadow The Hedgehog means fun lil covers of the og vocal themes PLEASE

[living4mybrazilianalpha]

Trapped (part 2)

When Tom came back from work that night, he did not let any discussion happen. He freed Sven, including chastity, hugged him and kissed him and they fucked like if nothing had ever happen. Sven gave his best to please his man. Being almost 24 hours locked had made him as hungry as Tom had expected and his slave had never been that hot on him. They both came several times before falling exhausted. « Tom that’s the life I want. I love being yours for the better and the worse ».

Tom had once again made it. The hot fucking session avoided him from any debriefing for the previous night. Sven was taking that new step as a strengthening of their couple and Tom knew he could go even further. They took a shower together, Sven fixed a quick meal and gently Tom put him back the collar and the cage. Sven tried to protest but Tom kissed him once more and asked him to hush. Sven could only obey. Still enchanted by the earlier session. Minutes later Tom pulled him firmly towards the cabinet. He kissed him good night on the forehead and Sven too exhausted to raise any issue, lied on the thin mattress and fell asleep immediately.

The day after Tom freed Sven early from the cabinet. He fed him his morning piss and sent him to prepare breakfast. He gave Sven his daily punishment but increased the allowance to 200. For some time already Tom had chosen to use mainly the bamboo stick. He would go from soft to hard and back but always making sure a few very strong ones would mark Sven for the day.

Sven thank him as per their ritual : Kissing his man’s feet and loudly praising him for being the « best man he ever met ».

Before Sven left, Tom handed him a plastic card. « This is your new gym card slave. 60 minutes at lunch time every day ».

The following weeks were about enforcing the rules. Tom knew how enshrining each routine was important to strengthen his control. And he went very methodical about it.

From Monday to Friday, Sven would wake up in the cabinet where he would have spent the night naked, collared and caged. Tom would not lock the cabinet anymore, as Sven was willingly going there at bedtime or whenever he was ordered. And Tom had made it clear that any attempt to escape would lead to sanctions, namely one or more full week end of isolation.

First thing in the morning Sven would drink Tom’s morning piss, lick him fully, insisting on his feet, armpits and balls. Then the slave would be authorised to suck his Master. Long and deep as Tom had tought him. That long morning blowjob was paradise for Sven. He could feel and touch his partner’s body. Feel the pleasure going through his man’s 8 inch cock. And eventually swallow his partner’s juice or, when Tom felt like it, Sven would get fucked and seeded.

They would then both have breakfast (prepared by Sven and eaten on the floor for Sven). Then before leaving, Tom would discipline his partner with a set of bamboo strikes or intensive flogging. 200 remained the daily target. Sven would leave to work (without underwear) with a red ass and a cock banging in his cage.

By that time, that morning routine had became so important to the slave that he would regret if ever his Master would skip part of it. And it was common that he would beg for more strikes or stronger ones. He had understood the psychology of his Master, that building up that relationship was about him going further and further in humiliation and pain. And he knew he had no choice but to make it worse every day to keep that amazing Alpha focused on him.

At night Sven would strip naked as soon as back home, then focus on his man’s feet for quite some time as it was one of Tom greatest pleasures to have his feet bathed by his slave’s tongue.

Sven would then do the house chores and fix dinner. All his meal were eaten on the floor. From time to time though, Tom would deprive Sven from dinner. « You have not exercice enough today, your still a bit overweight, I want my slave to have a perfect body ».

Sven was usually sent to his cabinet early. With a kiss on the forehead. That kiss was another highly expected moment of the day. One of the important sign of care his Master would give him. Sven usually would sleep like a baby, exhausted from the cumulation of sex, gym and house chores imposed on him. That would leave him with little time to think and that was exactly Tom’s objective.

Week ends had their own routines. After the morning rituals, piss and discipline, Sven would usually be sent out to do the household shopping. He would also do the laundry and iron his Master’s shirts. He would usually cook a nice meal for their Sunday lunch. And depending on his mood Tom would allow him or not to sit and talk. In other occasion, Sven’s meal would end up on the floor of the kitchen, Sven’s hand tied up in his back, forced to lap and lick rather than eat.

Week end afternoons would be spent outdoor. Either hiking or at a nearby beach. At one point in the afternoon Tom would take his submitted boyfriend off the main track and force him to either lick his feet or suck his tool. Sven was always worried to be seen but turning enthusiastic and hungry once in action.

Once in a while they would go out for dinner. It could appear as a casual, even romantic date. Although Tom there again enforced a few rules. Sven would be butt plugged with a vibrating dildo that Tom could command at any time. Preferably when the rstaurant staff would be around… Tom would also order for the two of them. Usually he would favour the expensive seafood orders for himself with a glass of fine French wine. He would order some salad and mineral water for his partner. « dont ruin the efforts you are doing at the gym baby ». And Sven would thank him to be so attentive.

In a few weeks time Sven had had to adapt to a whole new relationship. Every step had been difficult but he had accepted all of them eventually. And he would never challenge any of the ritual or any of the decision his younger and now superior partner would make. He had totally accepted the humiliation and constraints. He knew that at least once a week Tom would release the barriers and give him what enchanted him, his 8 inch long and thick engine that he would not want to lose at any price. And after all that new life was exciting for a kinky submissive man like Sven.

Tom was not done yet though…

(To be continued)

[lumilasi]

Probably one of the most important side characters in NPC/Araknos family doctor, and a central character in the spin-off story in the same universe, The Mage and the Mobster.

Name: Angus Belmont

Age: 37

Blood Sage Warlock with dragonic heritage

Occupation: Doctor/ A "Shadowless"

Family: little sister Franziska, foster kid Clover formerly known as Oliver Blanc

Friends: Jurou Araknos/Blackthorne (Angus is his family doctor). Amalia Marek, a fellow Shadowless. Chester Knight/Azul Samaros, a former classmate/rival (this is a complicated friendship, where Azul is actually quite important for his personal story arc/in a way his closest friend, but they still kinda butt heads), DIojas Vermonte. The Vasile family.

Rival: Chester Knight Alias Azul Samaros

(Ex) Love interest: Vincent/Vince/Vee DeVos (A plague demon)

Current love interest (post main story): Lucas Arkwright (human)

Abilities:

As a blood mage, Angus has the ability to manipulate other people's mind and bodies either by touching them, or sometimes just looking at them in the eyes if the person is vulnerable enough or consents to it. He can also use his own blood to form weapons such as blades, whips and even shields. He can ALSO use other people's blood for the same purpose.

Angus has one special ability that is thought to be lost form of blood sage magic; a very special rune called Mind Prism that was thought lost to ages, given it was considered too dangerous to be used ever since its creation, and became forbidden knowledge. This symbol allows him to trap people inside their own minds, into a nightmare that they cannot wake up from, until the chosen amount of time runs out. Another insidious part of this spell is, that the affected person cannot die until they wake up, even if their body withers away. Their soul will remain trapped within their corpse until the time is up. The spell can also be used to trap a large number of people at once.

Angus does also know the equally near forgotten way to reverse the spell. He in fact, mainly uses the reversal spell if he runs into rare cases of someone having fooled around with this forbidden magic, not knowing what they were doing. He has only used the trapping spell itself twice in his life.

His dragonic heritage means that the shapeshift ability his kind have is a bit more advanced, where he can shapeshift much more than average blood mage, but only in one specific way; he can turn his bodyparts into dragon-like things, such as summoning wings, morphing his hands into claws, tough dragon like scaly skin, etc. He has a special form as well, that his friends have dubbed "Angel" because he looks like some horrifying demonic angel figure in it with wings and a halo.

He has some knowledge of nature magic as well, a necessity to learn after taking Clover in. It is also useful for his job as a doctor as he knows healing spells and potions that can be useful for more difficult cases

He is capable of undoing lot of dark magic curses and seals, thanks to having studied them and how they work a lot. This has also proven useful in both of his jobs, such as healing a patient suffering from a curse, or countering one thrown at him by his target as a Shadowless.

Personality:

Angus seems like calm and collected man, who comes off a bit cold and overtly logical scientist type. While he's quite closed off and doesn't have time for small talk usually, he is ultimately a caring person who takes his job seriously, both as a doctor and a foster parent. He has a rather dry and sometimes dark sense of humor, and is known to be intimidating to many patients, but also really good at his job. You generally do not dare to be a difficult, nasty asshole with Dr. Belmont. In truth he is hyper-aware of how people view him due to his past, and actually is far more patient than people truly realize.

Because of his background, Angus does have a darker, more vindictive side that he struggles to keep in check, and it tends to come out a lot more in his other job, where he can be borderline sadistic. Angus can also be extremely petty and overtly harsh in situations involving even slight harm or discomfort when it comes to his sister or adoptive kid.

Post main story, his negative traits do mellow out, and due to his somewhat healed self-esteem, Angus stops worrying over what people think too much, allowing himself to be much blunter and threatening if he wants to be. He is also bit more open about how he feels about things than what he used to be.

Weaknesses:

Angus' mental state isn't the best due to his low self-esteem, and he often feels like he's on the edge of snapping and doing something bad if pushed hard enough. He is in a way aware and afraid of his own darker side, and the nasty traits his toxic friendship with Vee created.

He tends to view himself as a bit of a monster, which is why he doesn't like letting people too close to him. He doesn't like showing his weakness, be it physical or emotional, which tends to lead a lot of exhaustion, both physical and mental. He gets better at this post main-story, but tends to still be difficult to socialize with.

BG STORY

The Belmont family was a well-known old mage family line known from being "chimeraic" I.E having all sorts of heritage among it, resulting in a lot of unexpected and peculiar magic abilities with the members. They lived in Switzerland, when the siblings were born. The family had not wanted to move to live in the "realm of the beasts" as they called the Mirror Realm, thinking they belonged among humans instead, although did look down on non-magic wielders.

Much to their dismay, neither child possessed the kind of magic they'd hoped: Franziska had awakened her cat sith ancestry, limiting her transformation ability to just one type and thus making her seem weak and useless in her parents' eyes. Angus in turn was born with something utterly bizarre, something they feared and couldn't understand as they had no saved record of such magic in their bloodline.

Their childhood was rather difficult as a result: Franziska was treated as useless, and Angus was seen as a freak of nature by his parents. Both hid their "abnormal" features even at home (out and about was understandable, because humans would've become suspicious and confused), as neither parent wanted to see their so-called "failure." Angus still studied his bizarre magic secretly, and managed to find out what it was exactly, learning to control it better slowly.

Then, when the two were teenagers, an incident happened in their house where an argument broke between Franziska and their father, with his mother trying to step in to stop it worried people outside would notice, which resulted in his father accidentally killing her with his fire magic. He blamed Franziska for her death in his rage, attempting to kill her too now.

Angus stepped in at that point upon seeing what was happening, and used the Mind Prism rune spell he'd recently learned, without really understanding what it did. This essentially caused him to accidentally kill his father by trapping his mind into a dangerous nightmare state, which gave him a heart-attack as he was already agitated.

The now-orphaned siblings ended up running away from home after this incident and setting the house ablaze, finding their way to the Mirror Realm where they were taken in by the Witch Covenant, a sub-section of the grand Arcane Council handling the matters of magic wielders of the world.

The life with the covenant was better, but people were still afraid of Angus' power due to its rarity. It also attracted something to him, a young Plague Demon called Vincent (or Vee) who revealed to him his magic originated from his created, the Herald of Pestilence. The two became friends, but unknowingly to Angus, Vee was becoming a toxic influence to him, making him cause chaos and havoc in the university they both went in. The two became quite notorious, until another student started to openly oppose them, a young Dark arts Warlock called Chester Knight. The trio kept clashing for the next two years, up until Vee's actions resulted in genuine near deaths to some students, which, alongside Franziska's concerns, made Angus realize what he was turning into. After Vincent was expelled and ran before he could be brought before the Overshadower Council (Group that handled matters of dark beings) Angus stopped his destructive behavior.

He was put on probation instead of being expelled, partially because he hadn't been directly involved in the incident and had actually tried to stop Vincent, partially because his rival's father, Lionel, spoke for him for some reason, and took him under his wing, mentoring him through rest of his studies. This did make things tense given the man was his rival's father, but after the first few months the pair just started ignoring each other essentially.

Sometime after he got his license and began to practice as proper doctor, Angus came across a young child patient who was clearly stuck in an abusive situation. being reminded of their own home life, Angus ends up observing his parents, eventually letting the Witch Covenant know about the horrible experiments the pair was doing to the boy. He also ended up essentially stealing the boy from his "parents," sensing he didn't have time to wait for a response from the Covenant.

In the end, the Covenant manages to jail the boy's "mother," whereas his sperm donor ends up trying to come and forcibly take the boy back, ending up dead just like Angus' father, though this time the action was more deliberate. After all this, The Covenant decides to let little Konjou stay with him, as the boy himself wanted to and his volatile powers would've destabilized and caused harm if he was forcibly removed from the space he'd now deemed safe. It was initially supposed to be just temporary until Konjou - now going by Clover - stabilized enough, but the boy ended up staying with them for good.

While he had managed to hide the death of his father, and the manner of death for Clover's biological father, someone eventually found out. He was approached by a young fae woman working for a man called Kenzo Yoma, who was the leader of a secretive but important organization in their new home realm, a group called The Shadowless.

He was essentially given a choice - an indirect threat posed as a job offer - of joining the ranks to work on keeping the Mirror realm hidden from humans, or people potentially learning of his usage of a forbidden ancient rune. Angus decided to accept the offer, as long as he was allowed to still work as a doctor.

The Shadowless extra info:

Their current head is Kenzo Yoma/Faydream, a Dream eater: he doesn't go to the field (anymore) but rather handles the communication and assigns the missions to whichever Shadowless he thinks is most suitable.

The uniforms for Shadowless are typically the similar, with just some minor adjustments for personal accommodation, such as him having his shoulder-bits open for his dragonic spines.

The uniforms are usually either black with red accents, or red with black accents.

The color typically indicates if the Shadowless is primarily an Investigator (Black), or a Hunter (Red). (The Investigators are also the ones with hoods, so Angus's primary job is intelligence gathering/tracking people down even if he can fight well.)

The masks all have the same Shadowless symbol.

They are generally seen as a fearsome group by the citizens, but also understood as important for everyone's safety.

They actually rarely execute their target, normally the person is either arrested, have their magic revoked/privilege to visit human realm revoked for a period of time, or in some rare cases just get off with a warning.

They ONLY handle things relating to human realm and keeping balance, not any everyday crimes within Mirror World.

Fun Facts:

The only people who know he is a Shadowless (technically illegally, this is typically forbidden knowledge outside The Shadowless themselves) outside his comrades are Jurou, Clover, his crazy ex-friend/fuckbuddy Vincent, Azul Samaros/Chester Knight and Angus' sister Franziska.

He does mention this to Lucas as well later, though Lucas has no clue what all that means, being an outsider.

His magic power originates from The Herald of Pestilence, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. This is why his magic type is considered Warlock magic specifically in this story, as not only is it useful for combat, but technically it originated by making a deal with a powerful entity. Angus did not do it directly himself, but it still counts.

Angus does kind of hate his second job because it caters to his darker tendencies that he tends to try and desperately keep in check for his day-to-day life. It is too tempting to allow himself to go beyond certain lines as Shadowless, because he'd get away with it....

Angus is aromantic bi, which is why he never really considered his relationship with V romantic, and nowadays just sees it as a toxic thing he's kind of ashamed of, especially given the things V coaxed him to do.

In turn, while he also doesn't harbor romantic attraction towards Lucas, he does grow very fond of him in other ways, and given Lucas is the only one he eventually let's physically close, it's pretty clear to everyone what kind of role the himbo human plays in his life.

His style is best described as "Casual with lot of black."

Angus does have a more demonic looking Blood sage form that is much more influenced by his dragonic heritage, but this one tends to only appear if he loses grip on himself and starts acting unhinged. (Post main story he learns to control it better, this is the "Angel" referred to before)

While people don't know that Angus can perform the forbidden spell, there are rumors that his Alter Ego Scarlet Drake can use it, which further makes him one of the most feared Shadowless despite not even being a Hunter.

While they were bitter rivals, later on Azul becomes that one person Angus tends to actually be more open and vulnerable around, because unlike everyone else, he feels like Azul always means what he says, and isn't saying certain things just to make him feel better. He does also get along with Azul's boyfriend quite well.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

While me and my friend, @disneyfan50 , are still messing around with our Owl House inspired AUs and changing some stuff with season 2 still coming out, decided to maybe at least explain the character roles in the AUs, this one being The Thunder House, an AU on disneyfan’s series, Descendant of Loki and my series, Marvel Descendants and Entity High:

*Henry Valens- also known as the Demon Man, Henry almost did join a coven when younger but ended up deciding not to as he didn’t feel like being limited in his magic, but this resulted in the Empress’s coven constantly chasing him and as a result, he’s been on the run for a while and survives on selling human junk from the human realm and on one of these days of almost no sells, he ends up with two humans running through his portal door after their book and as a result of them, his life changes forever. 

*Ophelia ‘Lia’ Lawson- a human from the human realm, Lia was always in charge of keeping her foster brother in check and as a result, was always getting dragged into his antics, which ultimately resulted in her being sent to his summer camp as well in order to ensure he actually behaved as their strict father expected both to have dropped their childish nonsense by the end of the summer, but both don’t go as instead, both run after a hawk who stole Samson’s book and in the process, both find themselves in a realm right out of Samson’s book. 

*Samson Lawson- a human from the human realm, Samson doesn’t know where he came from outside of the fact that he was found by Lia’s father and taken in and while he knows his foster father doesn’t truly care about them, he still loves his foster sister at least but often ends up dragging her into his antics based on his love for fantasy and after a incident involving snakes and fireworks, the two are almost sent to summer camp to straighten them out, but they never go as instead, they chase a hawk for his book back...and run right into a world right out of Samson’s fantasy book.

*Theo- rumored to be the lost god of death, Theo doesn’t recall what happened to him outside of waking up somewhere that was soon discovered by Henry while he was on the run from the empress’s coven and once the coven was gone, Henry and Theo ended up leaving together and despite insisting he’s scary, many doubt Theo there fully.

*Screechy- the demon that resides within the house, Screechy is The Thunder House in some sense and as a result, resides within the door if not roaming the house or even going beyond the town and despite coming off as creepy and annoying a lot, does mean well at the end of it all.

*Soren- Henry’s palisman he made out of Palisman wood when younger, Soren is a hawk palisman that when not being used by Henry and Samson with Lia eventually, roams the house or goes to get human junk for Henry to sell when Henry needs him to.

*Trinity ‘Trina’ Valens- Henry’s sister, Trina lost contact with her brother when she joined the Emperor’s coven after winning a fight she doesn’t like to discuss and in present, has risen to coven leader status, but after losing a fight to her brother, she ends up with the task to capture her brother, with the promise that his curse will be cured if she does so. 

*Locket La Valle- a student in Hexside, Locket is known to come from a powerful family but despite that, was a latebloomer which resulted in her friend, Erica, ditching her while they were children and in present, Erica mocks her fully for her failure to succeed at the Abomination Track, but after she sneaks two humans into school one day, she finds herself being moved to the Illusionist Track and even befriends the two humans.

*Celina Blood- a student in Hexside, Celina is known to be pretty crazy and is known to excel at her chosen track off the Potions Track and has a love for the human realm and its treasures at the same time, meaning she is eager to befriend the two humans Locket sneaks into school one day, easily becoming a loyal friend.

*Erica Sharp- the youngest of the Sharp children, Erica can often come off as cold and aloof to the people around her and when it comes to former childhood friend, Locket, she often made her life hard, especially when Locket failed at the track that Erica excelled in, aka Abomination, but after a few run ins with the humans, she ends up changing for the better slowly while befriending Locket again and even finding herself slowly falling for the human, Lia. 

*Eluf and Erico Sharp- the eldest of the Sharp children, Eluf and Erico are known for their mischief a lot of the time and their skills in the Beast Keeping Coven, but when it comes to their sister, they vary in getting along or turning nasty if she tells on them.

*Indra Storm- a student in Hexside, Indra is known to use her families status to get away with anything she wants, which includes tormenting others, with her main target being Locket a lot, but she still excells at the Bard Track while being the schools sports star.

*Thorn Warhammer- a student in Hexside, Thorn often tags with anyone really, but mainly tags with Indra and Erica, often joining in on the torment of students like Locket, but mainly focuses on excelling at his chosen track off Healing.

*Asmund and Ms. Sharp- the parents of Erica, Eluf and Erico, they are known to expect only the best from their children and as a result, can come off as rather harsh to their children, especially Erica. Being in the oracle and abomination covens respectfully, they own and run Sharp Industries.

*Empress Torunn ‘Tori’- once a kind ruler, something went wrong with Tori one day and she suddenly turned on people, becoming corrupted and almost nothing like herself and in the name of some being called Surtur, she made the coven system, with any witch being punished if they didn’t join, but she still seeks to extend her power to the human realm by any means.

*Deesei- the empress’ right hand woman, Deesei is loyal to her coven and willing to do anything for it, but is rumored sometimes to be the reason why Tori suddenly changed all those years ago, and has a great dislike for the Golden Guard when Tori gives her more jobs then Deesei.

*The Golden Guard/Frigga II- named after a late queen, Frigga has no clue what happened to the rest of her family but is loyal to the remaining member, aka her sister, Tori, and she is a child prodigy due to all her training and is loyal fully to the coven, and only starts to get doubts due to her run ins with the humans.

[greylunar]

Hey!! I'm a hot mess right now who cant enjoy art anymore so if you could help me solve this out I would appreciate but i understand if you can't so here's the deal: Is being rich while people are starving unethical? And if so how can I enjoy my favorite artists, rich people, knowing this? I mean it's obvious you want you and your loved ones to live comfortably but there's a point where is just too much, right? And all these big artists that I love they are way above the threshold of too much.

This is probably my favorite ask I’ve ever gotten only because I wasn’t really expecting anyone to ask me about this particular political and philosophical question, and I, an anarcho-socialist English major, have some thoughts on the subject, to say the least. Let me preface this by saying there’s no right answer to this question, as much as I wish there was one, and I can only give my opinion and how I’ve chosen to go about my life. That said the majority of people on this site are still pretty young. I’d encourage you to take my opinion with a grain of salt and ask other people you trust and read more theory so you can form what you think is the right way of going about consuming art for yourself! Regardless, I’m really proud of you for asking this and interrogating these sorts of topics within yourself, it can be hard to maintain the balance of keeping hope while attempting to live ethically within capitalist society, but the fact that you are trying is commendable, and it’s my hope that more people asking questions like this will bring about the change we wish to see in the world c: 

Alright, answer under the break!

For starters, yes, I do believe being rich is unethical. While there is a multitude of reasons for this being the case, the one you brought up (hunger) is more than enough reason on its own. Now, no one rich person could end hunger, or at least not permanently. Estimates on how much it would cost to end world hunger range from 7 billion to 265 billion USD annually according to the IFPRI, which sounds wild right off the bat, since those are two unfathomably different numbers, but basically the difference boils down to the 7 billion dollar approach aiming to reduce malnutrition to World Health Assembly goals in about 15 years, and the 265 billion plan aiming to actually end world hunger (reach a “zero hunger target”) within about 20 years by targeting the sources of hunger, mainly being poverty and agricultural infrastructure. 

So when you hear people say things like “why doesn’t Bezos end world hunger” one short answer is that he can’t. But the fact that he can’t doesn’t really matter because what really matters is he’s not trying. Without getting into liquidizing stocks and all that nonsense, if the ten richest people in the world made a one-time donation of 60 billion each, we would have enough and then some for the first two years of that zero hunger target plan by that alone. And the “poorest” of those ten billionaires would still have a net worth of 15 billion, which is still an unfathomable amount of money. 

I say all of this to point out why it still matters to say the rich aren’t doing enough to end world hunger, and not to say that this is my ideal plan for solving it (which involves a lot more social restructuring and abolishing the value-form). I think if someone wakes up with billions in assets it a capitalist society in which the median “living wage” (which includes covering basic expenses, building savings, and having “fun money”) in my country is roughly $67,700, they must have woken up on one of those days and thought “oh hey what if I ended hunger in my home town” or “oh hey what if I funded a food co-op in a food desert nearby” or maybe even “what if I fucked around and tried to end world hunger” and then they didn’t. They turned around and went back to sleep, or went to a business meeting where they continued to exploit their workers or did whatever it is they do that I will never understand. And I think that is unethical. 

Here’s the thing, and I’m sure some people will disagree with me on this one (I’m more than happy to read anyone’s replies and take them into account going forward) there’s a difference between corporate wealth and celebrity wealth. Do I fucking hate looking at pictures of Drake’s mansion? Yes, completely. Do I think that, like Mark Zuckerberg, he should be tried for crimes not limited to aiding and abetting ethnic violence in Ethiopia and failing to remove a militia event in Kenosha in which people planned to kill BLM protesters and then did, proceeding to lie about it in order to continue to profit off of the traffic and internet buzz white supremacists provide his site with? No, because Drake is not Mark Zuckerberg and there is a difference between what crimes it takes to make and uphold a 170 million dollar net worth versus a 98 billion dollar one. While I’m not jazzed to say the least about millionaire celebrities lounging in their wealth, in a way they are a very successful worker being rewarded by a capitalist society in exchange for a service they provide. So yeah, I feel more comfortable cheering on John Boyega for succeeding in a system set against him than I do any corporate capitalist.

That said, there are ways to support the art you love and strive to consume art more ethically. Support local artists, black artists and other creators of color, artists who support sustainable printmaking or give part of their proceeds to charities you care about. In terms of music, for every band you like that has problematic views there are thirty small bands with similar sounds you can support if you go looking. If you find a band you think is doing great work, support them on Bandcamp or buy a CD, and if you really want to listen to Kanye’s Power because its just that kind of day, listen to him on Spotify, where they’re literally paying people jack shit for it.  If you’re going to participate in a capitalist society (and if you’re not, let me know how since I haven't figured that one out yet haha), reward the people you feel good about supporting. 

Speaking of which! One of my favorite rappers noname has an online bookclub that uplifts POC voices by featuring two books a month.  It’s awesome, noname is awesome, and I feel good whenever I listen to their album for the thirtieth time because telefone is the best. There’s art out there for you to feel good about loving. Sometimes it just takes a little digging to find.

I think my last note is going to be this: art is human. Art isn’t capitalist. People have been making art before capitalism and they’ll be making art after, art is an expression of the pain and hope and past and future of us, and we need it. To try and cut yourself off from consuming art to distance yourself from capitalism won’t work, because we need art to be human, and it was never capitalist in the first place. You aren’t evil or unethical for wanting to consume art, that’s the most natural urge in the world. It is a sign that our system is unethical if it makes us feel guilty for the things that make us human. So consume art, love it, love the people who make it, because its the good stuff. It’s the stuff that makes the rest of this more hopeful and more worth it. I know this can all feel like so much sometimes. But you’re not alone. There so many people out there working to make the world better and brighter, and making art to get us through it. I love you, and I hoped this helped even a little bit and I’m sorry its so long haha. I hope today is a little better for you than yesterday, and tomorrow’s even better than today c:

[bnha-scenarios]

Okay, so, first thing first. The second half of September and the whole October has been a wild ride.

Apparently this game blew up on TikTok (and probably some other platform or something?), and now I could see that there are tons of you who downloaded the game. That's just... so... unreal, at least to me. I didn't think this project would get so much attention. Even now, I’m still waiting to wake up from this dream 🙃

Anyway, if you’re new here: welcome! Sit back and relax, ‘cause this is gonna be a long ride!

I want to take this opportunity to say that due to the amount of comments, especially on itch.io page and my Tumblr, I won’t be always replying personally one by one to everyone anymore. I'll still try my best to answer questions and all, but I think by now everyone's common questions should already be answered in the FAQ page. So, moving forward, questions I have already answered inside that page will be ignored.

Still, I want you to know that I do read and treasure every single one of your comments. Thank you so much for your encouraging words, support, and suggestions! I'm sorry I can’t reply to those writing in languages other than English and Indonesian. While I can throw simple comments into Google Translate, every now and then the translator butchers long sentences and gives me garbled translation which I can't understand 😥

  ☕️ Special Thanks ☕️ 

I'd like to also take this chance to say, many, many thanks for the coffee, you all amazing, generous people:

M.L. | Dominique | Genki | Sara | 1 Anon

Even in this hard time, you’re all so kind. Again, I can’t really do much, but as my way of thanking you, your names will be put under Special Thanks in the game ♡ 

Alright, now, to the real essence of this post: progress update.

My work had been pretty demanding nearing the end of this month, and it made me get really sick of doing coding in general. Still, there is some progress on the game, and that’s good enough for me!

More details below ↓

Character Sheet: You / Player / Main Character

Before I get to anything else, let’s talk about ‘you’ first, shall we?

Although the main character's name is changeable, if you don’t wish to pick a name for them, ‘Suzuki Kaede’ is set as the default name.

Why Suzuki? I figured I would just take from one of the most common Japanese surnames.

Why Kaede? I chose it because I wanted a common Japanese unisex name, because the main character themselves is supposed to be gender neutral. So, the name came up as one of the results in Google, it has a somewhat nice and neutral meaning (maple), and I find that it sounds pretty nice, I decided to use it.

To reiterate, throughout the game, I try my best to not mention any physical characteristics and avoid elements which leans heavily to a specific gender in the story. All the characters in the game will also call you with your last name, and only neutral suffix (-san) is used at first. But you could get an event where you would be able to pick how the love interest will call the player, starting from that point in the story (on top of neutral options, there will be choices with gender-specific suffixes which you could pick if you want to). Other than that, all characters will always refer to the MC as ‘they/them’.

Now, moving on to the thing which people has asked about -- the player's Quirk. Here's a text version in case you couldn't see it in the image above for some reason:

What happens when a woman with Enhanced Learning quirk and a man with Camera Vision procreates? A child with exemplary learning ability and a pair of exceptionally observant eyes, apparently! The hereditary Vision you got from your father enables you to focus or scan an object or landscapes. With all the cues and information from your eyes, it seems that you're able to analyze and 'see' particular details of your object of interest in the form of numerical data. Due to the mainly passive nature of your quirk, you have to rely on the traditional weapons for offense, which might not be useful at all depending on your opponent's quirk. It's a plain and nonoffensive ability which isn’t so suited for a hero according to most people, but whatever - you’ll show those noobs the power of a gamer!

In other words, the information in 'Stats',  ' Weapon Proficiency', 'Special Moves', and even the 'Affection' meter, are actually part of the MC's Quirk. This also means, the more you hone your Quirk, the more it could affect your gameplay. I'll talk about that on the Gameplay section below.

There is one thing that’s kind of related to the MC's Quirk and I wanted to clarify. Bakugou did call you this in the demo, and yep, you might have guessed it: “crosshair eyes”. Reticle, crosshair, whatever you want to call it -- it’s that symbol you usually see in the center of your screen whenever you play FPS games. This is the only physical feature of the player's character that I specified (and yes, canonically, Hatsume has a pair of similar looking eyes in the original work). In relation to this, the icon for ‘activating’ your Quirk matches the same symbol.

Gameplay

Introducing: Stats, Special Moves, and Video Games!

Stats

There are 5 basic Stats for all of the characters in the game (brownie points if you recognize where they're taken from!): Speed, Technique, Power, Intelligence, Cooperativeness.

Your own Stats start off low, but you will be able to increase it by doing various activities, such as studying, playing games, winning on Heroics lessons, going to certain places, etc. Different activities raises different Stat, and you're free to choose which particular Stat you want to develop.

What are Stats being used for?

Certain Stat will increase a certain character’s affection, though it won’t be as much as if you hang out with that character.

There are certain places which you can only unlock when a specific Stat reaches a certain point. I’ll talk about hang out places and characters’ schedules in another post.

Weekly one-on-one training matches in Heroics lessons will test a specific Stat or Special Moves each time. Depending on who you chose to become your opponent, that specific Stat will determine the outcome of that match. On one hand, winning these matches can increase your Stat, but on the other hand, there are also special events you could possibly unlock when you lose. Again, I’ll probably talk more in detail about this in another post, since I still don't have the coding part down, so things might change.

Special Moves

Every hero has a Special Move in this universe, and so does the player’s character! While they might not be as flashy as All Might’s iconic United States of Smash, some of your Special Moves will have a direct effect on the gameplay. For example, a certain Special Move could unlock more answer choices for certain scenarios. Another Special Move could be activated to give you hints on how many affection points will be added to a character for the available choices.

You have a total of 5 unlockable Special Moves, and it will be up to you to use this feature: do you spend your time trying to unlock all of it in hope to make your gameplay easier, or ignore them completely in favor of balancing your Stats while pursuing the affection of your chosen love interest? It’s your choice!

(More brownie points for you if you got the reference in that picture lol)

Another use for Special Moves would be in the Heroics lessons, seeing as it might test how your Special Move fares against the opponent you picked.

Video Games

I would say that this particular element plays quite a big role in this game, since the MC learns and develops themselves by playing games. While you do have a set of games which you’ve owned, you’re able to purchase new games from the Video Game store. I would recommend doing this, as there are some neat ones which will help you greatly in your playthrough. But if you're not interested to explore them, that's fine too!

Each video game has a different effect, and it’s up to you to discover them! Or, perhaps, you could unlock a Special Move that allows you to know what effect each of the game has? 😉

What are Video Games being used for?

Most games will only increase specific Stat(s), but there are also others that can unlock Special Moves.

There is one game which helps you to unlock Stats or Special Moves of your classmates, which you can use in the Heroics lesson to pick a suitable opponent based on your current Stats.

In addition to all that, there are 2P games which require more than one person to play, and you could play them with your romance target when they’re available. On top of building your Cooperativeness, choosing the right answers during the gaming session will increase that character's affection.

Others

The basic functions behind some activities like studying, buying video games, and playing video games are done. I will probably move on to code the functions handling the Heroics lesson’s battles and the behind-the-scenes of when the player chooses to go to certain places.

I've also finished the two main custom screens, which is the Quirk and Games page. If I have time and the motivation, I'm guessing I'll be adding the two other additional screens I had thought of doing. We'll see.

Assets

This part is my nightmare, because I’m a perfectionist who’s far too picky when gathering resources…

But no assets = no game, so I did find several assets which I did like. This includes backgrounds, audios, background musics, and some sprites I was planning to use for developing the phone call function. I’m not going to list down all the things I found here, because I don’t think any of you would be interested in a long-ass list, but here’s an amazing background picture which I stumbled upon searching the dark abyss that is the internet:

Full credits to the artist: https://arsenixc.artstation.com/

Writing

I would have to say there isn't too much progress on this side yet, but I did decide on some story elements I want to insert into the game and scripted in a few scenes for the first day. I also managed to code in the dialogs for some common activities / places, like the video game store and a small part of school lunch time.

Honestly, I should probably create a sheet to identify how many scenes I would have to write? So all of us know the progress for this part of the development? ..... Let's see how it goes when my OCD flares up...

Disclaimers

All assets included in the devlogs are not mine, and credits to the asset owners / websites will be included in the game! My Hero Academia / Boku no Hero Academia ⓒ Horikoshi Kouhei

[watchedog]

WIDOW VERSE INFO UNDER THE CUT !

Becca’s widow verse will mainly follow her main verse with a few important alterations, to canon and my own headcanons about her life. tw for kidnapping, experimentation, and child abuse. 

          This verse will follow more closely the TIMELINE of 616, where Bucky was 10-11 when George and Winnie died and Becca was about 5-6 years old. Orphaned at a young age, with no other family to take care of them, the young Barnes siblings were good targets with incredible genetic potential. In 616 canon its said that Rebecca was sent away to a boarding school, but with no extended family and living in 1920′s depression era new york, who would have had the money to PAY for a boarding school? In reality, this is just a lie told to the young Bucky to keep him malleable to the government as a ward of the state when young Rebecca goes mysteriously missing under the watch of her temporary guardian. Without the personnel to search or the resources to care, the young Rebecca Barnes was put down as a cold missing persons case and filled deep down where no one would double check their work. 

            6 year old Rebecca Barnes wakes up, but she doesn’t remember going to sleep.  She blinks a couple times, eyes adjusting to the darkness and when she can finally see, she’s surrounded by young girls, similar ages to herself and wherever they are its FREEZING. Her first though is not where am I, but rather where is Bucky? she wraps her arms around herself, pressing her body back into the cold wall behind her, wherever she was didn’t matter because she knew she wouldn’t be here long, Bucky was gonna come get her and bring her back home.

               7 year old Rebecca now knew that more than half of the frightened faces she had seen staring back at her in that cold place were faces she’d never see again. The ones she could remember haunted her if she thought about them too long. But Becca didn’t think about them often because she had to focus on herself and being ok so that Bucky didn’t worry too much when he finally came to pick her up. Sometimes, at night, when it was safe enough to cry, she wept so hard her body shook- and when those people came to get the girls in the morning her face was red and puffy, but her eyes were dry as a bone. 

              8 year old Rebecca was growing up in the age of science, and these girls were the lab rats. Those who could still stand at the end of the day were moved forward in their training, those who could not weren’t thought about again. There was no need for making friends here, no one wanted to anyways- especially not Rebecca. If one of these girls stood between Becca and seeing her brother again, the wouldn’t think twice about what these people told her to do- no matter how much she couldn’t scrub it from the inside of her eyelids.

              At 10 years old Rebecca realized that Bucky was never coming back for her, and she never cried again. Today was the first time she had ever been told to kill another human being. She knew that they were being tested, trained, but she never thought it was for this. They put a gun in her hand and two people in front of her and told her to kill one. When she hesitated, both died, and she was beaten, and then they started over. She only hesitated once.  At 13 years old Rebecca only recognizes 3 other faces from that night, but its not like they’re close, she knows they’d kill her without hesitation if it meant staying alive, because she would do the same. 

            At 15 years old and she doesnt remember who she was 10 years ago, the memory of being a Barnes is all but faded, a deadly widow is all thats left. Herself and 10 other girls are chosen for an experiment, she’s not told what it is and it’s not like she has a choice, so she does what they say. They poke and prod, draw her blood and take tissue where they can without putting her out of commission. By the end of the tests and exams its only 4 other girls and herself that’s left, she doesn't let herself think about what happened to the other five, she doesn’t care. They lay her down on a cold metal table, her wrists and ankles strapped down, hard leather between her teeth so she doesn’t loose her tongue. She feels the cold point of a needle enter her spine just below her neck and moments later a searing heat spreads through her body before she blacks out from the pain. When she wakes up, the other girls are no where to be found, but she can guess what happened. 

              At 16 years old her strength is something no other widow was go against. By the time she’s 18, she’s on her 2nd pass through the red room and the world is starting to change, her along with it. By the time she’s 25, she’s going through her 3rd pass, but there’s someone knew, a man she doesn’t recognize, not that there’s a face to see anyways, hidden behind goggles and a cowl. This man is not from here, but he’s strong and he’s fast and he almost kills her. This is where she needs to be, she needs to be stronger, faster, better than him- because if she fails again, there will not be another chance, no matter how few of those like her that there are. She will not fail again. 

[st-just]

Cities, Conquests and Tributaries of the Federal Republic

Because I already did one for the Empire, and world-building continues to be at least mildly engaging/keeps me writing, anyway.

The Free Cities: The core of the Federal Republic, and the beating hearts of cultural, economic, and political power. Beautiful and rapturous parasites, which trade ephemera and mesmerizing baubles for all the treasures of the world. Unending and many-coloured chaos, joyous festival turning to bloody riot in the blink of an eye. Without censor or police-spy, they are the generous refuge to every heretic and dissident in need of one, provided they bring a sharp knife and a friend to watch their back.

Quepta, Chirtial and Celmy itself all share a coastline, though travel by land is rendered deeply impractical by steep hills and the lack of convenient rivers. Inara totally dominates the island on which it sits, and Khasal sits on the opposite coast of its sister cities, but shares an easily navigable river route with Celmy. In all cases the cities’ hinterlands have been thoroughly mastered, but each has grown to the point where only daily shipments of grain and rice can sustain their populations.

The Broken Coast: The core of the Republic’s mercantile empire isn’t particularly impressive at a glance – vast stretches of rocky islands and small coastal planes, isolated from their hinterlands by mountains or plateaus. Its trade winds do, however, ensure safe and easy shipping up and down its lengths – ensuring that the small trading ports that dot every viable harbour capable of supporting a population can trust that ships will arrive regularly to buy everything worthwhile they can transport from further inland, and provide everything they lack. Formally, the vast majority are ruled by boqors or rajahs – whether extracting tribute from distant inland principalities, governing a federation of coastal towns, or ruling an independent city-state – but in every real sense power is held by the merchant factors and trading captains, and their Celmean friends and partners.

The Piper’s Wake: Before they were free, the cities were the troublesome and distant trading ports of an ancient empire. The specifics have long since been lost under the weight of a thousand different dramatizations, but what was once the empire’s rich and fertile core bears witness to how the matter was finally decided. Burned and brutalized (so they say), the fleshweavers and skinchangers of Khasal made common cause with the ecstatics and mad mystics or Chirtial and conducted one of the grander rituals of the age. A Caller of the Host, grander than any who have walked before or since, was made from the sacrificial flesh, and life rebelled as she played. The demon herself was slain by the crown prince as his empire tore itself apart around him (as the tale goes), but regular expeditions are still launched into the region – both to cull the goblin population, and entice or bind more advanced specimens for use or sale.  

The Spine of the World: A range of inhospitable and imposing mountains that would be difficult to cross even if they weren’t Drake-infested, mainly notable as serving as a hard northern border for the Republic’s influence for cartographers, with its few major passes serving as something of a trade artery for luxury exports to the Illyrin empire. More recently, mining prospectors have begun swarming the area like flies after the discovery of major silver deposits – and, with the increasing ease of transit, certain thrill-seekers and would-be dragonslayers have taken to braving the peaks. Being fair, they still have a high survival rate that the particularly zealous devotees of Askopar, who attempt to convince the wyrms to accept their inheritance as a Prince of Demons – something they are rarely amenable to, as they’re happy to quite lethally explain.

The New Cities/The Colonies: Past the farthest edges of the Broken Coast, and weeks of open ocean beyond that, lays the most remote real centre of the Federation’s power. Acquired through a (by now thoroughly mythologized) mixture of trade, fraud and force, the islands and coastline the dozen cities (glorified town, in most cases. Only barely glorified, in a few) are scattered across are a the source of untold fortunes for many back in the Inner World. Each city sends a steady stream of extraordinarily valuable imports back to its parent – rare furs, plantation crops, precious metals and jewels – and in exchange receives the weapons, tools, and especially people they need to sustain and expand their dominions. Enticing new colonists with land grants or the chance for riches is entirely commonplace, which does require regular low-level warfare with each other and the native populations to make good on them. And, although no upstanding citizen of the metropolises can be known to take part in it, the colonies lack both the freedom loving mobs and temperamental patrons of their parents, and so quite a few interests wasted no time at all making a fortune in the trade of indentured labour.

The Shipbreaker Isles: Given its utter dependence on maritime trade, as a general rule the great and the good of the Free Cities have a decidedly draconian view of piracy (the mob’s opinion may differ, given how popular epic and romantic tales of their exploits can be). But, in the final analysis, this really amounts to taking offence at pirates targeting their ships (the existence of a ‘Federal Navy’, the only officially existing common institution of the Republic, can be largely attributed to no one trusting their rivals to stop attacking their ships the moment they were out of sight of port without a sword hanging over their heads). Hence, the Isles, where pirate queens and kings can repair and recruit in safety, merchant factors on hand to buy any and all loot they can carry, their ships returning with a steady supply of gifts, luxuries, and fresh meat (naive young things with a penchant for violence, or people who have burnt every possible bridge but still have debts to run away from, generally). All with the tactic understanding that they only target Esheri or Illyric shipping, of course. Every settlement on the isles has been destroyed at least three or four times from punitive expiditions, and the Celmean willing to cut them loose without raising a finger is the only reason a general war has not yet resulted.

The Ashen Steppe: Only slightly more habitable a place than the name implies, this vast and lightly populated expanse has mostly served as a hard border for the Federal Republic’s influence, rapidly consuming all effort and attention paid to it buying off various nomad tribes rather than dealing with their raids, paying tribute to the appropriate leaders along the major caravan routes to the Commonwealth, and suffering the occasional invasion searching for land or treasure. In recent years, Esheri expansion has seen some growing hostility form the nomads, which Celmean agents have been more than happy to help arm and organize, culminating in two cities officially recognizing their chosen candidate as Khagan of the whole steppe – an entirely aspirational claim, at least for the moment.

The Kayal Empires: Conquest states in the purest form, this region represents the other major bridgehead of Celmean influence in the outer world. ‘Influence’ rather than ‘power’ or ‘rule’, as this is a region that makes cartographers weep and war profiteers grin. The result of a particularly ruthless and ingenious mercenary-adventurer who parlayed a civil war in one the continent’s more impressive empires into employment, power, and eventually a chance to claim the throne himself. It was quite possibly the most lucrative mercenary contract in history for his soldiers, as grand estates and piles of gold were freely distributed as reward for their loyalty. That was just under fifty years ago. Technically speaking his granddaughter is still empress, largely because she married a prince of the old ruling house and used the residual legitimacy of both names to rally an army to retake the old capital. Of course, there are a dozen other would-be emperors – both newly arrived and well armed adventurers, the now partially assimilated conquerors, or various flavors of native rebellion  - and all manner of small principalities and over-mighty pirate chiefs in between. If it wasn’t for how rich the land was, they might just be left to it – instead, the supply of over-ambitious and ruthless new arrivals hasn’t slowed once.

The Soya Principalities: The most powerful and organized states which lay inland of the Broken Coast trading network, the principalities – which really have rather less in common then the Celmean travel guides imply, and in many cases would take great offence at being lumped together – are, officially speaking and as far as their rulers are concerned, entirely free of foreign control. While this is entirely true as far as your average peasant is concerned, in practice a few rather fundamental transactions have been made – Khasali court mystics and physicians, a particularly dashing trader from Chiritial who won the princesses’ hand, Celmean mediation over the succession ensuring the more pliable child inherits – and, in all cases, the most important of all – foreign control over ports and tarrifs, and free navigation of rivers and coasts, in exchange for generous gifts to sustain the royal court without resort to taxation.

The Paramountcy of Joyi: The other major outgrowth of Celmean power inland form the Broken Coast, the Paramountcy is a new and intentional creation – stabilizing trade routs upriver and overland to the increasingly valuable mountains to the north. Originally the scheme was to subsidize and glorify some chieftains near the waystations and trading posts on the route – but, in the sort of luck that you usually get for praying to archdemons, one of the chiefs chosen had ambitions of his own, and has used the sponsorship and support to conquer vast swathes of the region, and been recognized as ‘paramount chief’ by his allies for his efforts. The partnership is undeniably mutually profitable, though both parties are certain the other will betray them at a moment’s notice.

[serenhyunjinity]

demon! changbin

“there’s no escaping me baby. you either sell your body and join me, or you will live a very painful life”

word count: 1500+

“I shall now bow down to the devil” this all started out as a joke. Okay, maybe doing a satanic ritual on a friday night wasn’t the typical activity for a group of college friends to partake in but heck, they were bored out of their minds. So that’s how the five girls ended up bundled up in y/n’s bedroom, with candles lit on the floor around an odd looking symbol created from an old marker found beside her bedside table.

The lights were completely turned off, causing the only source of light to come from the six candles placed dangerously close to y/n’s body. “If anyone is there, please show yourself” a friend of y/n’s, hayun, asked carefully as she gripped tighter onto the hands of the two girls on either side of her. Unfortunately, y/n was chosen to be the one to sit in the middle of the circle, mainly so that the spirit could easily connect to the world and show themselves.

Yet all that filled the dorm room was silence, the sounds of the girls breathing being the only noise that could be identified. “Well this was a flop” Yeorim sighed as she let go of her grip on the other girls and walked over to the light switching, flicking it to turn on the bright beam of light that removed any trace of darkness. One by one, the candle lights were blown out as y/n was helped up from the spot which had caused cramps to form in her legs.

“I’m never doing that shit again” the girl chuckled after taking a sip of her water that was placed conveniently near her on the table. All that effort and absolutely nothing happened, it was kind of disappointing but then again, maybe it was a good thing that nothing had happened.

-

The night went on, with everyone leaving besides y/n and her dorm mate Jieun who had by now, left to go into her room and potentially sleep after the eventful day. So with this, y/n had made the decision to also get some rest, flicking off the bedroom light and climbing lazily to her bed under the covers. Closing her eyes, she expected to fall asleep soon enough, well that was until a noise erupted from the other side of the room.

“Jieun what are you doing?” she breathed out in confusion, but earned no reply, too scared to even open her eyes. That was until she said fuck it and immedietly opened her two eyes, but was met with nothing but a candle on the floor, luckily not lit. Weird, it must have been placed on the edge of the desk. Yet as she was about to close her eyes, a dark shadow was cast upon in the corner of the room, her pulse getting faster and faster.

“Finally noticed me?” a male voice filled her ears, the figure that before was at the corner, now edging closer and closer. Frozen. It had been almost impossible for her to move once hearing the voice of the figure that was edging towards her. Y/n you’re just dreaming, wake up, there is nobody there.

Suddenly, a pair of fingers grabbed the girls jaw, forcing her to look up, staring into blood red eyes that were staring lazily at her. “What? Did you not expect to see me even after you summoned me earlier?” the person, most obviously a man who was no younger or older than herself, chuckled before moving closer. The view of the sharp details of his face coming into view as he tilted his head to observe y/n. “So you’re my little sacrifice? Hmm im not mad about that” the grip of his hands on her jaw tightened as he snapped her head towards the side. His thumb traced over the hickey that had formed on her neck from the previous day, from some football junkie who lived on campus, that was one wild night.

“Not so innocent are we?” letting go of her, y/n was finally be able to move but caught sight of the male in front of her. He wasn’t at all tall, but he had something about him that sent fear rushing through her veins, who the hell was he? All of a sudden as y/n was attempting to configure her own thoughts, the mysterious male moved towards her, his red orbs not leaving her body. “Let’s have some fun” a smirk formed on the intruder’s lips as his body was only inches away from the girls, who still had no intention of moving from her spot next to her bed.

“Who the fuck are you?” the girl breathed out, her voice wavering as the mysterious boy stared into her eyes. He didn’t seem human. Dark trails of blood red were highlighted throughout his black locks of hair which nearly covered his eyes. Never in her life had y/n even came to stumble upon this boy, so why was he in her dorm room in the middle of the night?

“Seo Changbin, the demon that you sacrificed yourself to, remember?” he couldn’t be serious. Maybe it's all a dream, yeah right, as if a random man would be in her dorm room saying all of this, demons aren't even real. “Why would you do a ritual if you didn't even think our existence was real?” he asked, confused. Okay what the fuck, he could read people’s minds? This was complete and utter bullshit.

-

An hour had passed, the so called Changbin was still in the dorm terrorising the poor girl who just wanted to sleep so she wouldn’t be too tired for her part time job in the early hours of the morning. Y/n sat on the bed, her legs gripped tightly between her arms as her eyes refused to look at the demon walking around the bed. Changbin’s piercing eyes never left her figure, almost as if his eyes were set on his target.

“Can you leave? I have somewhere to go in four hours” y/n tiredly whined, causing the boy to smirk before placing himself on the bed, opposite y/n. A deep chuckle left his lips as he scooted closer to the girl, who had now backed up to be met with the headboard of her bed. His finger gripped her chin, causing them to have direct eye contact.

“There’s no escaping me baby. You either sell your body and join me, or you will live a very painful life” chills ran through out y/n’s body, his words were cold and almost too serious. Neither of the options he had given her had been better than the other. She could either live in hell and leave everything behind, or she could stay where she was but have even worse outcomes.

“If i did sell my body...what would happen?” she breathed out, hoping it wasnt going to be a terrible outcome like becoming satan’s sex slave or anything of the sort. His eyes somehow turned a deeper red, his thumb brushed against her cheek, moving the stray hairs out of her face and tucking them behind her ear which was red at this point.

“You would become my wife and help me take care of those who weren't accepted into heaven” wife?! This couldn't be real. Sure it sounded a whole lot better than working with satan himself but this was just so weird. “As for your life here on earth, you'll die, at least in the eyes of the humans that roam this earth, but don't worry, I'll make it out like you died of a heart attack” yes changbin, because dying of a heart attack makes everything so much better.

With that, it was time for y/n to think about her next and final decision that could change the rest of her life.

-

“I’ll do it- I'll sell my body”.

Y/n couldn't look the demon in the eyes, fear completely taking over her body for what was going to happen in the near future. How was she going to even sell her body? The girl slyly looked up at the figure standing directly in front of her. His eyes were the same, deep red but a dark aura was now surrounding his body.

“Kiss me” the demon blankly replied to her decision, completely catching her off guard, kiss him? This was some serious business yet he wanted a kiss? Men are men. “I'm not being a pervert, that's how you sell your body to me” he sighed as he grabbed y/n’s waist, bringing her body to his own.

With one small touch of the lips, she now belonged to seo changbin.

-

“The body of L/n Y/n aged 20 was found dead in her college dorm room, we suggest that all students become more aware of their health from now on. But also, never take part in satanic rituals like she had during the night of her death”.

[scripttorture]

In a fanfic I'm writing, a character goes through multiple types of torture as a form of punishment. (These are going to be mainly whipping, lack of food, and being chained to a wall, but due to my own personal squeamishness I'm going to be keeping these offscreen.) She is able to escape her torturer/abuser, and escapes to what is essentially a magical copy of her house. (Part 1)

In this copy, she is able to access anything that she would have been able to access in the real version of her house other than Wi-Fi, phone service, and any other way of contacting the outside world (mainly due to being in an alternate dimension; house is fueled by magic.) Because she has stimulus and is hiding from her torturer/abuser, would this help to mitigate the effects of being in solitary confinement? (Part 2 of 2)

-

Probably not. Sorry.

 I think you could argue that she has a reason to want to be isolated and that that could help her voluntarily stay isolated for longer but she’s basically being driven to this. So I don’t think that ‘cause’ would reduce her stress or lessen the effects of isolation.

 But even people who voluntarily isolate themselves for long periods (some of whom are presumably more resistant to the effects of isolation) develop symptoms and I don’t think this scenario is closest to truly voluntary isolation.

 I wouldn’t compare this scenario to hermits or long distance sailors. I’d compare it to prisoners who are targetted for abuse by other prisoners.

 One of the consistent reasons prisoners give for not reporting abuse is that policies to protect them which amount to solitary confinement. A decent number of prisoners will choose to deal with physical abuse rather then face solitary confinement. And those who do choose solitary confinement will often ask to be put back in the general population.

 This strongly suggests that solitary, even when chosen, is still an incredibly damaging and painful experience.

 We know that solitary confinement makes mental illnesses worse. It does this across the board for every condition that has been tested.

 Combining that with the number and severity of mental health problems torture causes solitary is- Well bluntly it kills.

 You haven’t given a time frame, which is fair enough you may not have decided on one yet, but the heavy implication is that we’re talking about prolonged solitary confinement. This character is going into hiding. She’s likely to be confined for well over a week. Probably months, possibly years.

 These are dangerous time frames for a character who started out healthy. For a character who enters this scenario with severe mental health problems it would be a lot lot worse. Partly because they just wouldn’t get the chance to heal.

 I think that leaves the question of what the right choice for this story is.

 Based on the summary I get the impression you want to minimise the effect of solitary confinement here and avoid adding even more symptoms for the character to deal with. The best way to do that is to minimise solitary confinement.

 That doesn’t mean you have to remove the idea of her running to this safe harbour. I feel like that’s an integral part of the story.

 But is there a reason that this magic must cut her off from everyone? Is there a reason that she can’t occasionally leave and socialise?

 If the abuser can use magic to track and chase her outside of this one safe place why can’t she do the reverse? And if she can do the reverse she can work out how long it would take for him to catch up. Which means she can work out how much time she has outside of her safe zone.

 This would not be a relaxed or nice situation to live in. But it would give her a way to satisfy her social needs.

 Similarly depending on how the magic works in this setting you could have other people occasionally stumbling upon this house. Deliberately or accidentally.

 If you’re picturing it as being at a sort of magical half-way point, a liminal space, then couldn’t others stumble across this threshold? Especially if it’s only designed to keep a specific group of people out.

 They wouldn’t need to stay. The visits could be irregular and somewhat random. They could be as much a source of stress as of comfort.

 But again, it would give her a way of fulfilling a basic need.

 You could also imagine this refuge as a series of shared spaces, rather then a singular one. She’s created her own house. Perhaps if she opens the backdoor she’d find herself stepping into someone else’s safe space. Perhaps there could be a community in this place.

 You could also use magic to change the way the character perceives time. Perhaps she realises her own limits and puts herself in to an enchanted sleep, waking at a set time years later when her abuser may well have given up looking for her.

 Magic also creates another option that’s worth considering: I’ve mentioned before that there isn’t any way to bypass our need for company, we’re social animals and this need is a fundamental part of the way our nervous system is constructed. I have said in the past that to have a character completely unaffected by solitary confinement they would need to stop being human.

 You have magic. That is an option.

 And if she’s desperate enough to run into this limited lonely world for relief then she might be desperate enough to try something that drastic.

 Of course you might want to stick with solitary confinement and everything that goes along with it.

 It would be an awful experience for the character but if you’re sensible about time frames it could still be survivable.

 I’d suggest six months as an absolute maximum if you really want to test the character to destruction. I think 1-3 months is a more reasonable period in terms of survival.

 It would put back the character’s recovery by a very long time. Probably years.

 Her existing symptoms would get a lot, lot worse. And she might find that particularly distressing if she expected escape to mean she’d feel better.

 She’d also develop new symptoms, some of which might be more frightening then the symptoms of torture. Because most people tend to associate psychosis, hallucinations and irrational impulses with… bad portrayals of incurable ‘insanity’. These are disturbing symptoms to experience anyway, that cultural baggage makes them even more so.

 Once again, I highly recommend Shalev’s Sourcebook on solitary confinement for accounts of these symptoms.

 Sticking with solitary confinement means that it’s likely a good portion of the narrative will end up being about symptoms and about recovery.

 There’s nothing wrong with deciding that’s the story you want to tell but it can be incredibly daunting if it wasn’t the story you were planning on.

 Beyond that you might want to take a look at my post about researching and writing difficult topics.

 Because it can be really really hard. Both in the sense of actually writing and emotionally. All of the stories I’ve finished that dealt primarily with things like torture have been difficult projects.

 Recognise your limits and be kind to yourself. Take breaks. Don’t force yourself to continue when you’re distressed.

 The work will still be there tomorrow.

 I hope that helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[potaetaezz]

|| Sweet Like Coffee || 16

prev << >> next

pairing: Nct Dream x Reader  [female]

genre/au: fluff | angst | enemies to lovers | Everyone is just a clueless bunch of weirdos, you get the drill… or so you thought.

warnings: slight swearing, immature content, underage drinking

A/N: its’s my first fanfic so no judgment lol | here we go~

_____________________________________

His words were sharper than a blade, more direct than an arrow, and they were aimed at you. They hit the target; your heart. You felt them sink in, you heard your breath hitch. You could almost feel the blood leak out, leaving a bruise across your chest. Your breath now shallow, heartbeat slow. But that wasn’t enough, it was never enough. You felt his words wrap around your beating organ like a snake, imprisoning it. And then compress it, crush it, until it cracked, shattered into pieces too small to pick up, too frail to save. His words were chosen to hurt you, and they did. But they did more than just that, they damaged you.

Your heart ached, you froze, soaking in the embarrassment like a sponge. Jaemin didn’t even spare you a backward glance as he walked away from you, from what he said. He saw your smile fade, he watched your hope fall, and he chose to walk away. Someone’s hands were squeezing the air out of your lungs, gripping your throat. A tear threatened to fall as your lips trembled. He was cruel. He never changed. He was always the narcissistic cold person who spilled coffee on you and apologised with pick up line. People like that never change. It was too easy to forget his true self, too simple to neglect his reputation. One that you never truly believed in. Until now.

You were trapped in memories, in emotions and you couldn’t escape. As if drowning in water. 

You just stood there, staring at the steps where he sat just moments before, at the door where he turned his back on you, at yourself in the reflection of the moonlight. Your shadow, as pathetic as you had imagined. One tear finally escaped your eyelashes, rolling silently off the curve of your lip. Your eyes began to water, fill up with anger and hatred and despair. 

You remembered the girl, the one with effortless hair and beautiful dress. The one who’s eyes only saw Jaemin, filled with affection and longing. An ache tugged at your insides, begging you to turn away. But you couldn’t. You remembered his words, smothered in a callousness you had never heard before. Words that you begged him to take back. Words that you never wanted to hear again. 

You remembered his face. 

The one you wished to erase, but never could. The one etched in the darkest part of your brain. His appeal, his perfection flawlessly captured. A face you hadn’t seen in a long time, one you missed. But now, thinking of it, thinking of him, you felt sick. Disgusted by him, by yourself. For actually thinking he cared, for believing he could possibly like you back.

 Just moments before you had accepted your feelings which you had swallowed, hushed in the past. Just moments earlier you were filled with an immense sense of hope. But you should’ve known better. Your stupidity was the cause of this. You let this happen. And that foolishness sickened you.

You tore your gaze from the door, from the past, and faced the worn path home. 

Falling into the arms of your bed felt nothing like Jaemin’s, but you would never admit it. Embraced by the duvet, you felt weak for once, overwhelmed by fatigue. A worn-out heart, mind, tired of caring. It’s better not to care, but it’s easier said than done. You dared to endeavor a positive outlook, as you stared at the ceiling. You tried an optimistic approach. You attempted to comfort yourself by saying ‘it’s okay’, but it was Jaemin. You wanted nothing more than to hide under the blanket forever. Maybe that should’ve been your birthday wish and not ‘for Jaemin to come back to school’. 

Your eyes wandered to the book on the dresser. The ‘goodbye gift’ as he called it. You were curious as to what he wrote, but you couldn’t bear to open it. You wouldn’t let yourself open it. You had too much of Jaemin already today.

And soon enough, you fell into the arms of sleep instead. Wrapped in a peaceful slumber. Where your mind couldn’t think and your heart couldn’t beg. 

———

Wednesday [8:15]

Waking up was the easiest part of the day, because for that split second, that moment right before you breathed, you forgot. You forgot everything. And it was peaceful. It was great. It almost tricked you into thinking the day would be okay, but you were tricked before. You wouldn’t fall for it again. You learned your lesson. 

You didn’t tell anyone what happened last night. Not even Lila or Renjun. If you said it aloud maybe the pain would be worse, perhaps the ache would pull you apart instead. To relive that by saying it aloud, would be torture. To actually hear yourself explaining how pathetic you are to someone else, would be agony. So you kept it to yourself because there was no other option than to suffer alone.

“Uhh y/n, DC or Marvel?”

“Wh-what?” you said. Renjun pulling you from the prison of your thoughts.

“DC or Marvel?”

“Oh, Marvel, for sure.” 

“Good.” he laughed, “Everyone agrees apart from Haechan.”

“It’s not my fault Batman is a legit legend!” Haechan whined.

You caught Jeno’s gaze, one that was as enticing as it was affectionate. It was a familiar gaze, one you had held on the porch the night of Haechan’s party. Although it was familiar, it was different. He looked as if he was surveying the deepest parts of you, but at the same time admiring them. You held his gaze, not backing away, but something felt different. Something similar to longing stretched between you both. It twisted a part of you the longer you held it.

And then a familiar voice drew your eyes away, and you held your breath instead.

There he was, glowing, daring to smile, eyes locked with yours.

He was standing in the distance surrounded by a growing crowd of mainly girls. His hair was tousled, his shirt wasn’t tucked in. He looked like he just woke up, bags draining the colour from his face, but he was smiling. He looked happy.

Jaemin.

You had got your wish, but it didn’t feel so good. 

He broke your gaze and pushed himself through the crowd. He started walking, walking towards you. It felt like it did at Haechan’s party, just the two of you amongst the chaos, surrounded by a crowd. As he got closer and closer you begged him to stop. Begged him to turn around, to walk away just as he did last night. But it was too late.

His hand gripped Jeno’s shoulder, but his eyes were on you.

Although you couldn’t face him. Not after what he did.

“Jaemin!?” Jeno gasped, eyes wide but soon jumping up to pull him into a man hug. “Where the hell have you been?”

Haechan soon got up and gave him a full hug, Renjun after that.

“I just took some time off.” He said, eyes still focused on you. 

It turned your stomach to look him in the eye, to hear him speak. It hurt to watch him laugh. His presence sickened you, but you still wanted to wrap your arms around him and fuse your lips with his. You still wanted to kiss the pain away.

Lila even got up to give Jaemin an awkward side hug. Once she sat down, all eyes were on you. Watching. Waiting. 

But Jaemin knew you weren’t going to get up, he didn’t want you to, that you were aware of. So he sat down beside Renjun before you could even think about standing up to hug him. Even from there, his scent, the amber, overwhelmed you. 

You faded in and out of memories, of wants. 

You tried to swallow the growing lump in your throat, the reminder of last night. Butterflies were eating into your stomach. Your heart rate was rising. When his eyes glanced over to you, when they skimmed over your features, your breath would shake, your heart would flutter. 

He was becoming a liability, your liability, and you hated it. You hated every ounce of it, of him. He affected you in ways no other had, he did something to you, he ruined you. Only fools fall for someone like him, only fools ignore the warnings, and god are you one fool.

As he was laughing, smiling, you wondered if he even remembered last night. If he even remembered the words he used too easily. 

‘I warned you.’

The words rung in your ears, stung goosebumps to your skin. They screamed at you. Louder than silence itself. They pierced through you, belittling you. Making you feel small and weak. You did think he cared, a part of you did. You did miss him, a part of you did. A part of you liked him, fell vulnerable to his charm. But another part of you wanted to yell at him, yell at him for making you feel that way; small and stupid. A part of you wanted to make him say sorry, and another part wanted to ignore him. 

But regardless, he stayed on your mind. He affected you. He hurt you. He made you feel special. He bruised you. He made you smile. He did so much to you, too much. He messed with your emotions, played with your heart, but every time you caught his eye you saw hope. You saw yourself in his reflection and you almost looked happy.

But you couldn’t forgive him, you couldn’t let go. Not this time.

‘I was warned and God I wish I listened.’

Knowing you’d have to see him every day, have to hear his voice, was the worst part. If he wasn’t in you could at least focus on your work, ignore what happened. But seeing his face daily, reliving that night every time you met his glance, was torture. 

Because he didn’t care, not one bit.

It was clear he had told no one about it either, for there was no awkwardness. He was grinning, everyone was laughing. It was just you, who felt a surge of uncomfortableness settle around your throat.

Jeno cleared his throat, gathering your attention.

“Hey, y/n,” he started, “can we talk?” 

He gathered everyone’s attention as well, as they all looked on in curiosity. Haechan gave him a discreet wink, but you saw it. And so did Jaemin for that matter. You tried not to look at him, but his frown caught your glance. His eyebrows were furrowed, jaw clenched.

‘Was he annoyed?’

It almost acted as an incentive, an encouragement to stand up after Jeno. You followed him out the door. Once you were in the hall, out of sight, his smile turned serious.

“You okay?” he said, “You seem quite out of it.”

Your response was too quick; “Yeah I’m just tired.”

He lowered his head, staring right at you, eyes soft and understanding. “I know about it.”

“About what?” you snapped.

His eyes fixated on the floor as he spoke, “The whole Jaemin thing.”

“He told you huh?” You felt even more betrayed than you had yesterday.

“Just don’t jump to conclusions okay, he didn’t mean i—”

“Stop right there. I don’t need any more advice Jeno.” Your voice was calm, but inside you was a raging fire, “Your last advice turned out to be wrong, it made a fool out of me.”

“Look ju-“

“I have looked, I have listened, and look at me now.”

His cheeks flushed a shade of pink, his eyes still focused on the floor.

The bell rang. You could tell he had more to say, but you left him, regardless. You spun around the corner back into the cafeteria.  But something got in the way. Someone, got in the way.

You spun right into your worst nightmare.

Your face collided with Jaemin’s chest. Your arms gripped his jacket for stability.

 You fell into his arms.

You stopped breathing. Not even daring to move. You could’ve stayed there, perhaps forever. But that wasn’t an option.

You felt his hands loosen their grip, begin to let go. You could tell he hesitated. His movement brought you back to reality. You pushed yourself from his clutch, from his warmth. The warmth that taunted you, teased your heart. 

Tentatively, you drew your gaze up, taking in all of him as if you were breathing in air. Until your gaze met his. You looked directly into his eyes, so closely, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. They sparkled with fading starlight. They twinkled with hope. The same hope that suffocated you. He looked at you with such intimacy, such vehemence. 

You took a step back, away from the intensity.

Eyes now glued to the floor, you walked right past him, without another word. Your shoulder collided with his as you pushed past. Finally, he was the one left standing alone.

———

[7:23]

Ten came home late, busting in the door as usual.

“I’m home,” he said.

“Really? I’d never guess.” 

“Haw haw, oh, by the way, someone’s outside looking for you.”

“For me?” you asked. 

He nodded his head, gesturing to the door.

You leaped up from the couch and headed for the door. You would’ve thought it was Renjun, but Ten knew Renjun. You unlocked the door cautiously, just in case. 

You opened it to see a pale Jeno standing in the middle of the empty hallway. 

“Y/n..” he began, but you stopped him before he could continue. You weren’t even surprised to see him at this point, many random people had just shown up at your house that you weren’t even fazed.

“Follow me.”

You lead him into your room. The hallway was too cold and too familiar to talk. Your bedroom had more security, more privacy. Ten didn’t even take a double glance as you lead a boy into your room. 

You took a seat on your bed, but he stayed standing, looking at you full on. 

“Okay,” he sighed, “You don’t have to believe me, but I need to tell you.”

You just offered a nod in response.

“Jaemin’s a good guy y/n.” before you could scoff, he continued, “I know you don’t agree but he has his reasons.”

“Like what?”

“I just- I can’t tell you. He has to tell you himself, it’s not my place. Just please, don’t jump to conclusions.”

“Conclusions about what? Tell me Jeno.”

He hesitated for a moment, “…I can’t. I really can’t.”

You looked him in the eye, a chuckle rising, “Then why’d you come?”

“I need to know something, and you have to be honest.”

“What is it?”

“Do you have feelings for Jaemin?” He said it so abruptly you almost choked on air.

“I-I don-“ But that split second of hesitation told him all he needed to know.

Even just by the look on your face he knew. The spark in your eye that lit up at the sound of his name, the softness of your expression. He told you before, ‘you’re face thought before you did.’

“It’s okay y/n. It’s okay to like someone.”

“But it’s not Jeno, it’s not okay to like someone like Jaemin. I shouldn’t. I can’t.”

But he never saw his expression in the mirror, he never saw his tell signs. He never witnessed the way he glanced at the floor or the way his eyes dimmed when you admitted it. 

“What’re you not telling me?” you asked.

All that he offered was silence amidst the tension. 

“Jeno, What is it?…Jeno?” You prodded.

Until he exploded, “I might like you y/n! Okay? Happy?”

Your heart dropped. Stomach turned.

“Oh, Jeno…”

“No, listen. It’s okay. It truly is. You have feelings for Jaemin and that’s great. He deserves someone to like him, to truly care for him. After all, he’s been through, he deserves that. He needs that.”

“But Jeno I-“

“Listen y/n, I know you don’t like me back, I’ve accepted it. I’ve dealt with it. Can we please just move on from this?”

You needed a second to digest everything. So the guy you had liked for ages likes you back, but only after you’ve moved on. That’s when you tasted the true cruelty of fate. That’s when you saw it. He cared about you, it was obvious, from the thought he put into your gifts, to the way he looked at you.

 But you didn’t care about him in the same way. It disappointed your heart, twisted your stomach. Although despite his feelings, he helped you with Jaemin, he encouraged it. You understood how much courage that must’ve taken. Jeno wasn’t lying to you, you knew that now. 

‘Perhaps I should trust him after all.’

The silence invaded once again.

“So you like me huh?” you laughed, attempting a joke after the tension was released.

“Don’t get big-headed on me now okay?” His smile was enough to assure you everything truly was okay. The genuine broad grin that showed his teeth, the speck of naturalness in his eyes. 

“So we’re cool? Friends again?” he asked.

“Definitely.” 

“And please trust me, Jaemin is a good guy. I know it.”

“Okay. Thank you.” you smiled back. 

———

That night you had not one, but two guys on your mind. 

The ‘what-if’s’ with Jeno crept in, making you doubt your feelings. Making you uncertain about your choice. But then the anger that you felt towards Jaemin came in like a cloud that fogged your decisions. No, there was no decision. You had made that a long time ago. 

But you doubted if you could ever honestly forgive Jaemin. For the words he spoke. For the glance he spared. And the girl, you had no idea how to digest that. All the ‘if’s and buts’ just confused you further. So far that the only thing that could save you, free you, was the abyss that was sleep.

———

Thursday [3:14]

Your plan today was to avoid Jaemin in order to think things through, to consider your thoughts. But as you well know, not everything goes to plan.

 - - - 

Final class of the day was Biology, and funnily enough, it was your favourite. 

Thankfully there was no awkwardness between Jeno and you, just pure platonic friendship. You were worried that it would affect things, affect your friendship. Although nothing had changed, it was exactly the same; filled with bad jokes and lots of laughter. You knew it was because he was okay. You knew he was, and that eased your heart and your mind. Jeno had become one of your closest friends, one that you couldn’t bear to lose.

You took your seat at the very back. You had no friends in this class, so you could actually study and learn. No distractions. As you pulled out your books, you heard the class hush. Everyone quiet apart from one distinct voice. You couldn’t help but look up. And of course, as the cruel fate would have it, there he stood.

As you popped your head up, Jaemin looked right at you. The cruel curve of his smile almost bending into a smirk. His eyes sharp.

He was talking with the teacher, who was gesturing towards you. And then he started to walk down the center aisle of the class. All the girls holding their breaths, waiting, hoping. However, you were begging for him to not be your new lab partner.

He stopped beside your desk, the smug look on his face told you otherwise, and he took the seat right beside you. He looked as if nothing had ever happened. You would love to take a look inside his brain and figure him out, hear what he’s thinking. Because while you’re imprisoned by a cage of awkwardness, he’s grinning and smirk like never before.

He pulled his seat a fraction closer to you, but you could hear it. All eyes settled on you, a mix of jealousy and anger plastered on the girls’ faces. You just kept your eyes ahead, staring at the board. 

Until he leaned in closer, his scent wafting through the air. You turned to catch his eye, staring at you with such intent, such severity, it could ignite something inside of you. The ache returned, threatening to pull apart by the thread. You outlined the curve of his lips. And he opened them to utter such quiet words that you could’ve easily missed, so hushed they almost blended in with the silence. So soft, you wondered if he said them at all.

“I didn’t mean it.”

Your heart almost gave out right then and there. Because despite the coffee incident, you forgave him. Despite the day he pulled out his jumper, you forgave him. Despite the bet, you forgave him. Despite everything, you forgave him.

And despite everything, you still fell for him.

_____________________________________

a/n: I hope you liked it!! You’re probably wondering how does Jeno like y/n, but if you notice how he looks at her and all, you’ll see it :) This is the second last chapter, so yes, ‘Sweet Like Coffee’ is coming to an end. And no I’m not crying. Jaemin finally broke the silence, but was it just y/n’s imagination or was it true. Did he mean it? And also what the hell did he write in the book? All will be revealed next chapter. Stay tuned!

____________________________________

See you soon -> Tuesday 19th xx

____________________________________

[ckret2]

Weird

Yesterday, Ghidorah attempted to cuddle Rodan. It freaked the hell out of him.

Rodan—who still doesn’t know that Ghidorah isn’t a member of his own species, still doesn’t know that Ghidorah is an alien, and still doesn’t know that what happened yesterday was a cuddle attempt—is beginning to realize just how very little he knows about the creature that’s been sharing his island, and how dangerous that might be. So he goes to a friend to help sort out his head.

This is part of an ongoing series of Rodorah one-shots. If you don’t wanna read the others, all you need to know is: Ichi’s the one that developed the crush on Rodan and Ni’s less keen on it it; Ghidorah is a mild empath (telepathically reads/projects emotions); and Rodan doesn’t refer to anyone by their canon names because his species names people based on the volcano/island/geological feature they call home. Links to the other fics are in the source at the bottom of this post.

###

When he was flying at just the right angle, from the corner of his eye Nido could catch a flash of gold on his right shoulder, reflecting in the sunlight.

It made his stomach do loops that the rest of his body couldn't quite keep up with.

A smear on one shoulder, the shape of a face on his chest, a silhouetted neck and head curling down his back. Three golden impressions, left by the golden one in his stone skin. What did it mean? Was he being claimed? Decorated? Was it an accident? It felt like a claim, but it was hard to tell with the golden one. He was just...

He was so weird.

It wasn't a surprise that he was weird. He had three heads, that excluded him from anything remotely approaching the category of normal. He’d been weird the second he showed up. But still. Even on top of that. Nido couldn't have anticipated the multitude of ways he'd be weird.

He couldn't talk. He was currently struggling to learn how. Some words he couldn't say normally at all; it took two heads, trading off the syllables, to make those words recognizable. He'd yet to provide a name for himself. The temporary nickname Nido had offered him, "Golden One," came out of them sounding more like "Gidiwi."

He seemed nervous of the human colony on the south side of the island and Nido couldn't imagine why. Sure, they crawled into everything and they'd stick up a hive anywhere—they'd even built one over Nido's volcano while he was asleep, some of the remains still clung to the rim around the crater—but they didn't carry diseases, they weren't venomous, they ate more dangerous parasites, and they made such surprisingly complicated hives. Nido even knew people who'd domesticated whole colonies of them. They'd make drawings of their owners that were several times larger than them! Nido didn't want the responsibility of training and taking care of a whole colony, but he thought the wild humans on his island were charming little critters. But the golden one didn't. He was always watching them and he was meticulous about knocking their dainty new hives off of the freshest layer of volcanic rock. Why? Did he think they were going to damage the rock? It was rock; Nido could make more. Did he think they were going to bite him? Even as thin as his skin was, surely he couldn't think they'd be able to pierce it?

And that was another thing: even as thin as his skin was, he wasn't doing anything to thicken it. Nido had very nearly resorted to dragging the golden one into his nest to try to build up his armor (admittedly, just one of several motives for trying to get him into his nest); and even once the golden one had gotten there, he'd acted reluctantly to get in the lava. In the lava! Like he thought it was dangerous! What did he think it was, water? He would barely dip his feet and tails in it, and he always kept his wings hiked high so the lava couldn't touch them. He was never going to build up any sort of armor like that. No wonder he was so naked.

And yet, for all that, the golden one wasn't unhealthy. He was fast, he was agile, he had powerful wings—wow, did he have powerful wings, yesterday he'd shot up into the sky like the fastest thing Nido had ever seen. (Nido knew the golden one was showing off; he was mainly flattered to be chosen as the target.) He was the strongest warrior Nido had ever fought—possibly the strongest on the planet. There wasn't a thing about him that seemed sickly or frail. He was just...

He was just weird.

Particularly after yesterday's... whatever that was.

Nido didn't typically patrol his territory only a couple days apart. He'd been doing it more frequently since waking up, yes, but that was because he'd been asleep for so long and needed to relearn the lay of his land. He'd been about ready to settle back into his usual schedule: once or twice a month, a little less than monthly during winter. But even though he'd last patrolled just the day before yesterday, he found himself circling his island again, needing to get away from the golden one and trying clear his head enough to make sense of what had happened. From this far out, he could distantly see his island over one wing, and the golden one crawling around in the trees in that odd way he had of getting down on his wings; and, over Nido’s other wing, there was that flicker of gold.

Yesterday.

Yesterday, the golden one had finally touched Nido, for the first time since he'd had been wounded. The touch had almost started out the same—a forehead pressed to his chest—but then...

The sun was blessedly hot and bright today; but unpleasantly muggy, which spoiled it a bit. No doubt from the unusual storm yesterday. Nido tried to focus on the sun and the clear blue sky, rather than the glimpses of gold on his wing and island.

After yesterday—after the strange way the golden one had touched him—for the first time, Nido felt nervous around him. Before, he’d been sure that he understood what the golden one really wanted from him; and now he wasn’t. He wasn't even confident anymore that the golden one was actually a tragically mutated member of Nido’s own species. If he forced himself to look past the wings and speed, paying attention to the rest—the scales, the fanged snouts, the long limber length of him, the way rain followed him—he had far more in common, didn't he, with the monsters that slithered deep beneath the waves, the kind that crept on islands in the night to eat his kind in their sleep...

Nido hadn't slept well last night.

But they'd slept on the same island for so many nights now—if the golden one had wanted to eat him, surely he would have by now. That couldn't be what he was after, right?

Right?

Or did Nido just want to believe that? Could he trust his own judgment on the golden one? After the other thing that happened yesterday—when...

He needed to get away from his island—get somewhere he couldn't always see the golden one glimmering in his peripheral vision. Get somewhere he could talk to somebody else.

He spiraled back down to his island, landed on the volcano’s rim, and called, "Hey!" Not that he needed to. The golden one was watching him long before he landed—one head following Nido's every move, another watching him askance. Sometimes he wondered at how those heads seemed to act separately from each other.

But never mind that now. It was time for another vocabulary lesson.

"Look." He picked up a rock—that got all three heads' rapt attention—and dropped it right at his feet. It rolled partway down the volcano's side. "Near." He picked up another rock, and tossed it away from the volcano, into the trees close to the golden one. "Far." He patiently waited to see if the golden one understood.

And as Nido watched the golden one puzzle through the new words, one head focusing on the rock on the volcano and the other peering through the trees for the one that had landed next to him, he thought to himself: how could the golden one be a threat? He couldn't be. Not when he was so enthusiastic to learn to speak, so attentive to everything Nido said, so eager to receive more.

After—amusingly—exchanging a glance with himself, the golden one apparently had drawn his conclusions. Uncertainly, one head bent down to pull up a tree, roots and all, while another asked, "Fire?"

"No. No." Nido wasn't a teacher, how did other people do this? He tried again, dropping another rock by his feet: "Near." Tossing a second into the trees: "Far." And then, reeling back, chucking a third as far as he could, so that it landed on the coast: "Faaar."

The golden one perked up, making a noise of comprehension that sounded something like "Ihi." He searched the trees for the rock, picked up, and dropped it straight back down. "Niear." That almost sounded right. He picked it back up, tossed it, and whipped around his tail to smack it. The spined cluster at the end of his tail rattled. The rock soared off into the distance.

So exaggeratedly drawn out it was almost funny, he said, "Fiii-iii-iiire."

The golden one looked up at Nido, waiting for a judgment. Nido couldn't quite get his beak to shut. He didn't see where the rock splashed down. He was mildly worried it was heading for orbit.

Right. That tail could take off Nido's head with one blow. Good to know.

"... Good. Far." They'd have to work on the golden one's pronunciation, but he clearly understood the concept. That was the important part.

He hopped down the volcano to meet the golden one. "Nido, fly far. Far far far." He felt like an idiot, using this hatchling talk; but they had such a small pool of words they both knew...

"What far?" the golden one asked.

Hoo. West across the continent, the ocean, and to the next continent. They hadn't covered "continents" yet, of course. Or directions. "Up," he said, kicking a rock westward demonstratively.

"... Up?" The golden one uncertainly tipped a couple of heads upward toward the sky, the other looking at him quizzically.

Nido flung out his wings irritably, for a moment unable to stick to the limited vocabulary they'd built up together. "No, you poor thing, the other up, navigationally." There was no chance the golden one understood him.

He seemed to understand the exasperation, though, because he huffed a burst of lightning that crackled out in the air between them.

Try again. "Up. Up. Up. Up." Nido flung alternating rocks toward the sky and toward the west. Same word for both directions.

The golden one watched him, tips of his tails twitching back and forth so they rattled faintly. After a moment of contemplation, he pointed east and said, dubiously, "Down?"

"Good," Nido said, relieved. "Fly up, far far. Back..." No, he hadn't taught the golden one "back" yet. How do you communicate the concept of "having returned after being somewhere else" by chucking rocks? "Nido nest," he said tentatively, "sun... down."

"Sun down?" The golden one pointed east.

Well. He'd be back before dawn, certainly. But the golden one was right; Nido had meant to indicate the sun would be on the other side of the world, "down" if you were looking down toward the ground, but the sun could never really be down, could it? No matter where it was related to you, the sun was always upwards. At nighttime, you were down, not the sun. Nido would just confuse the golden one if he tried to insist that the sun could, in fact, be down.

Nido squawked in irritation. He'd kill for a rock big enough to use as a globe right now. He should make one tomorrow. "Sun... far up," rock kick to indicate west, "near down," a kick east.

The golden one considered that, then said slowly, "Sky...?" And stopped, apparently lacking the next word.

Was he trying to ask about night? "Dark?"

"Dark?" He ducked his heads, holding a wing over them to shade them from the light.

"Dark. Good." Okay. They'd solved that. "Fly far. Nido nest, sky dark."

"Good." The golden one flopped down among the trees, wings and feet tucked under his body, as if to suggest that he'd patiently wait right there until Nido returned.

The pose looked so impossibly uncomfortable, pinning his own limbs under the weight of his body—and yet he seemed perfectly content in it. His limbs almost vanished like that. It made him look even more unfamiliarly serpentine.

Nido's exuberance over taking another step forward with communication vanished as he was reminded, once again, that he wasn't quite sure what was living in his home.

###

The landscape below was so different from what Nido had expected it to be when he was born. Islands had become continents, land bridges had disappeared, volcanoes risen and fallen. In minute ways, it was different even from what it had been the last time he was awake.

The volcanic trail, at least, was consistent.

As Nido flew west toward the Pacific Plate, the ocean appeared above him; and from there the volcanic trail curved right, almost all the way to the world's rightmost point, the axis around which it turned; and then curved around to the left again. The wind switched direction several times as he followed the trail, pushing him west, east, and west again; which direction the wind pushed told him how close he was getting to the axis as reliably as the temperature did. 

It would be much faster to reach his destination by flying straight across the ocean; but far more nerve wracking. By following the volcanic trail, he always had land to his right wing, even if if it was only islands. And anyway, it ultimately got him where he was going.

Infant Island.

Of all the people in this world, most of whom he knew personally, there was no particular reason why she-of-Infant-Island had to be the one he talked to. He’d chosen her for two reasons. Her island was along the volcanic trail, which he hadn't had a chance to explore since before he'd hibernated, and he needed to see what islands had risen or fallen since then. And he wanted to see how Infant herself was doing, both because he liked to check up on her from time to time—alone as she was—and because she'd taken the worst damage out of everyone during their brawl, and her usual method for recovering from serious wounds was "just curl up and die."

He outpaced the sun as he flew, watching it fall behind him toward the eastern horizon, such that it was barely dawn by the time he reached Infant Island. He wondered a few times what he'd do if it turned out Infant had died and was between reincarnations, or if she was currently at one of her other homes scattered nearby. But there she was on a low hill. He announced his approach, and felt her prod at his mind as he spiraled down to her island.

Several humans scattered out of the way as he claimed a perch near Infant. "Hey—"

What do you want?

Her thought came across far sharper than Nido had expected—not quite openly hostile but hyper guarded, like she was ready to lash out if he made any false move. He leaned back, surprised. "To hang out," he said, which was technically honest if not leaving out a bit. He wanted perspective, more than anything else; but you got perspective through hanging out, and if hanging out was all he accomplished he'd still consider it worth the round trip.

After that battle? She thought it like she couldn't imagine why anyone would want to hang out after such a fight.

"Sure!" He said it like he couldn't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to hang out after such a fight.

He could feel her pressing into his mind, checking his thoughts and emotions—it felt like the psychic equivalent of getting his face squeezed in her front legs and turned back and forth while she inspected him. He politely endured the mental manhandling. Nido... what were we fighting over, exactly?

Nido squawked in surprised amusement. "You don't know? You don't know why were were fighting?" he cried. "Good! I thought I was the only one but I didn't want to ask."

He could finally feel some of the tension surrounding Infant dissipate. She relaxed, settling down.

"I've almost recovered. I didn't know you could do that, that was a good move." He spread his arms, puffing out his chest, showing the gnarled black stone over his wound. "How's your damage?"

She gave him a baleful look, and spread her wings. Wing.

"Oh." He scrunched his neck down apologetically. "I didn't do all that, did I?" He could have—he didn't hold much back in a fight—but he didn't remember leaving that kind of damage.

She folded what remained of her wings back down. No. They did. Three heads and golden scales. Filtered through Infant's memories, he looked even more unfamiliar.

Nido shuffled on his perch a moment, uncomfortable. "That's a bit far," he conceded. "I guess you can get a new pair, but he should've stopped sooner."

I don't want to use up another egg for it, she thought tiredly. We've got an idea to fix it, anyway. And Nido automatically knew—in the way you automatically knew things when you were talking to Infant—that by "we," she meant "me and him."

Him.

Nido didn't know that one's real name. He was certainly never going to ask. He was some ambassador from the freakish denizens of the dark seas to the people above, and the fact that he had legs didn't do anything to dispel the sense of fishiness about him. If he had a nest—a home—Nido didn't know where or what it was. So knowing only that he constantly circled through the oceans, Nido nicknamed him after the deepest, darkest, coldest part of the ocean.

He called him Mariana.

"Oh," Nido said uncomfortably, scanning the horizon for any sign of Mariana. Where Infant was, Mariana was rarely too far—Nido had hatched knowing that. "That's good."

He could feel her amusement, but she took mercy and changed the topic. What do you know about why we were fighting?

"Nothing," he lamented. "The golden one thrashed me on my own turf, so I was following him around, as you do—"

As you do, she agreed genially.

"—and I thought we were just going to check out that weird noise that sounded like someone screaming over and over, but then you two showed up, and—well, if there's fighting going on, I'm not going to say no." Even if Mariana was there.

He wasn't forcing you to go?

Nido clicked his beak a couple of times, somewhat affronted. "You've known more of my kind than me, you should know better! The winners don't force the losers to follow them around. It's a mutual arrangement." He explained all this with great dignity. "The winner won't even let the loser follow them around unless they've proven they're strong despite the loss. They part ways unless they're both impressed by the other." He said all this with the confidence of someone who'd learned this years ago, rather than someone who'd only sort of figured it out by instinct in the days after it had suddenly become relevant to his life.

She had a feeling about her like he hadn't answered the question she'd been trying to ask, but she'd found the answer she'd been looking for anyway. The air around her head thickened as she brooded over something. Nido scooted a little away to give her room to think.

And, in doing so, he caught sight of her injured wing again. He looked at the ground, and pecked at an odd-looking rock to see how it tasted. Bleh.

"It got rougher than I was expecting," he admitted. "I don't know if the golden one and Mariana were settling some kind of grudge, or if it was a turf thing... or if that's just how they always fight..." He tipped a head dismissively. "Mariana doesn't spar for fun, though, does he?"

They have a history.

"I'm not surprised." They seemed like it.

What kind of history, though, Nido wondered?

He thought again about how, now that he'd noticed it, the golden one looked alarmingly like a sea monster. The kind he'd hatched knowing to fear but had never actually seen before. Was that how he and Mariana knew each other? Some underwater grudge they'd taken onto land? Why did he even have wings, then, if...?

Infant was staring at him.

"What?"

You're worried about something. Is that why you came?

"No! No no no. Not at all," he lied. "Are my thoughts getting into your personal space? I can scoot away—"

Hold still. She crept up to his side, reaching for his head.

"It's fine," he insisted; but he held still, and he flinched but didn't draw back when she tapped his head. Because although he didn't want to think about it—and he definitely didn't want to talk about it—nevertheless, he wanted somebody to know:

Yesterday, the golden one had terrified him.

He had caressed Nido's wings, his back, his chest, the way you were only supposed to caress the one you were mating with—the one you knew you were mating with. As though they had been lovers for years. He had done so while pressed chest to chest with him, his face pressed to the wrong side of his throat, everything backwards and unnatural and strange, as uncanny as trying to mate upside-down.

He had licked him—licked him!—like he wanted to see how he tasted before eating him, and had tested his teeth against his hide. He had coiled around him, like he was constricting him, like he was preparing to crush. Like the things that crept out of the ocean to wrap around his kind, squeeze them to death, and swallow them whole.

None of it added up. What was it the golden one wanted? Did he want to mate with Nido—did, through some incomprehensible delusion, he think he had been Nido's mate for ages now—or did he want to eat him?

And was Nido himself in any fit state to figure out which it was?

Could he trust his own judgment?

Because that was the thing. The other thing that scared him.

There had been that moment, just after—everything. Once he'd been untangled and had corralled the golden one into a more appropriate level of physical contact for their current level of barely-knew-each-other relationship. When he'd seen the imprints that the golden one had left on him (was that the point of the strange touches, maybe? no, no, it couldn't be, you don't need to lick to leave imprints), when Nido had butted the golden one’s forehead—

For a moment, he'd felt—something he hadn't felt before, an emotion he couldn't quite identify, but that reminded him a lot of what he thought love was probably supposed to feel like.

That scared him as much as anything else. Because it didn't feel right. It didn't feel like him. It felt too fast, unnaturally fast; it felt undeserved and unjustified; it felt pasted on to emotions that were nowhere near that place yet. The feeling had appeared and fluttered away again, like infrequent sunbeams peeking through clouds; and he hadn’t felt it later when he looked at the golden one, and he didn't feel it now. So why had he felt it then?

And could Nido trust his own judgment on the golden one, really, if he was somehow already in love with him and hadn't realized it?

Infant stepped back. Oh.

The "oh" wasn't something that could be translated into any words; it was an emotion by itself, a sense of sudden realization. It made Nido think of the "ihi" sound the golden one made when he figured out a new word.

Infant's thoughts tumbled stormily around her head for a moment; but before long, she asked, Do you know that they're... like me?

And the moment she asked, he realized that yes, he did know that. After their first fight, the golden one had flapped his way over to Nido's nest, sat down, and issued him a second challenge: a roar that inserted panic into his mind the same way that Infant inserted her thoughts into his mind. With the battle and the injury and the days of recovery, he'd utterly forgotten to wonder about that—but it was a wonder, wasn't it? It had been so easy for that lone roar to slip his mind, he supposed, because the golden one had been so mute after the battle.

"Yes. He's shown me." He clicked irritably. "Once. I can't believe he's been watching me make a fool of myself trying to explain language to him when he could just communicate directly the whole time."

You've been teaching them language?

A sardonic caw. "If you can call it teaching! You should have seen me trying to explain the difference between 'rain' and 'water.'" He could feel her prying around for the memory. He let her have it. There was a lot of memory there. It had been a protracted discussion.

They're probably weaker at it than me, Infant thought. They don't seem to be able to send messages. They can only send emotions—or change other people's. And it's strongest when they touch. You understand?

He thought about it. A chill ran up his back. Oh. "Yes."

You're worried about what they're doing on your island. So am I. If they're trying to change your emotions... She left off with only a vague sense of unease, letting his own imagination conjure up the implications.

He brushed the implications off. "No. I don't think so."

His answer—and his confidence—surprised her. How can you be so sure after this? You know very little about them.

Yeah, well. That was the problem, wasn't it? That was why he was here. "You know more?"

He could feel that she did, and then he felt that knowledge closing off from him. She didn't want him to know.

Which meant her knowledge was useless to him, wasn't it? Even if he was dying to know. (He wondered if it was that the golden one was a sea serpent.) Sullenly, he said, "I'm sure."

Then you think those really are your emotions?

"No way! But he's not trying to change my emotions, either." He bent forward, stretching his wings, preparing to take off again. If Infant was holding information back now, then there wasn’t much reason to hang out any longer, was there? "I'll visit again soon. It's good to talk to someone who can talk back."

He could feel Infant sifting through a dozen different thoughts she wanted to throw at him; but finally, she settled on, Be careful around them.

"I will." How could he not, after being licked? He took off, cried a farewell, circled the island, and headed back out toward sea.

###

He took the scenic route home, stopping every once in a while to check on volcanoes that he could tell held still-incubating eggs to see how they were coming along—dawdling, more or less. He'd promised the golden one that he'd be back after nightfall and didn't want to come back too early. The sun appeared to roll unnaturally fast across the sky as he flew east; by the time he could see his own dark ocean glittering in the distance, the last light had faded from the sky behind him.

The golden one was curled up on the ground, of course, like a fool who didn't know what a nest was for. His heads were huddled around some glowing lights that the humans had set up near the edge of their colony, using them to illuminate a chunk of human-made detritus that a couple of them were gnawing at determinedly. So ridiculous—so endlessly ridiculous. That was a perfectly good way to crack their beaks—er—their teeth? their teeth.

"Hey!" He fluttered down to land next to the golden one, who stood with a hiss and used a wing to block the worst of the wind from his landing from blowing onto the human colony. That was more concern than he usually showed for them. "Hey. Down."

"Down," the golden one affirmed, glancing toward the east to show that he still remembered his lesson.

Which was great to see, but not what Nido was looking for. "Golden one down."

He puzzled over that a moment, then slowly lowered his heads until they were about even with Nido’s. Nido leaned forward and, just as he'd done yesterday, butted the middle head.

Except this time Nido didn't immediately pull back. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, pressing into the touch, keeping their foreheads together. And there, again, blossoming in his mind and welling in his heart as clearly as though it was his own, was the emotion he'd felt yesterday. The love—not-quite-love—love-ish thing. He could feel it pounding in his chest, fluttering in his stomach, and trickling down lower. It felt like something new and frightening, something uncertain and overwhelming, something as overpowering as it was fragile. Like a plant that had shot up too high too fast, a sapling as tall as a tree but still spindly and green and threatening to break under its own weight. For a moment he got lost in the emotion, exploring it.

But he wasn't actually trying to see what the emotion was. He was trying to see what the golden one did about the fact that he saw.

Inside the too-tall-too-fast proto-love, something bubbled up like the giddiness that came from being in free fall and unable to breathe; and then something awful and unsafe shot through it, as abrupt as a bubble popping, alarm-panic-fear-danger-anger. The golden one jerked back, getting on his feet and raising his wings threateningly.

That was what Nido had needed to see. If the golden one had been trying to control Nido’s emotions, then he would have kept at it, wouldn't he? Kept pressing in, kept pushing those emotions on him. But he'd pulled back. He wasn't feeding Nido false emotions; Nido was picking up the golden one's emotions.

The golden one wasn't happy about it.

The golden one really wasn't happy about it.

Two heads snapped forward into the human-made light to shriek a warning at Nido, while the middle withdrew into darkness. Nido cawed a counter-warning back. He wasn't about to be threatened on his own island. The golden one’s left head raised and curved forward to loom high over Rodan, as though to provide a long-range tactical view of the fight; and the right head hissed, lashing out, jaws open to bite. Nido flapped up, talons ready to catch the attack and return it—when the middle head struck, fangs tearing into his own right throat.

A wing hit Nido, just a glancing blow, but enough to knock him away. He tumbled to the ground, scrambled to his feet, and hopped backwards out of range. Writhing in and out of the light, the golden one wrestled with himself, two heads hissing and snapping at each other, the third weaving between and curling around their necks as if to strangle them both. He tumbled to the ground, hissing and shrieking and screaming at himself, and for the life of him Nido didn't know what to do about it but stand there with his wings half-raised like an idiot wondering whether this was a fight he was supposed to be getting involved in.

It resolved itself in a few seconds with the golden one slamming himself on his side, right head cracking against the ground with the middle jaw locked around its throat. Panting, the left head surveyed them—then looked up at Nido.

And Nido kept standing there. Like an idiot. Lamely, he said, "Sorry." He didn't know what he'd done wrong—all he'd done was hurry up their communication, hadn't he? Was the fact that the golden one was into him supposed to be secret? It couldn't be. Yesterday he'd been nuzzling Nido's back, he wasn't exactly subtle.

The head that had been nuzzling him yesterday was the one pinned to the ground, wheezing and struggling. Why was he attacking himself?

"... Stop. Stop—" Had they covered that word? Nido didn't think so. He hopped closer, speaking to the middle head: "Up. Get up. Get off of— What are you doing, you're just hurting yourself—"

The left head hissed, snapping at him. Nido took to the air, clawing at his face. "No! I don't know what's going on, but you're not going to tear yourself up on my island! If it's me you want to fight, then—"

"Stop."

Nido froze except for his wings. Had they covered "stop" after all, or had the golden one picked it up just now?

The golden one gingerly let his right head up and stumbled unsteadily to his feet. He moved like he was inebriated; his motions were exaggerated, off-balance, and uncoordinated. "Nido nest." His voices were tight. "Gidiwi far."

Nido had really messed up. "No, no no no—" He landed. "Far bad. Golden one, nest. Near. Golden one nest?"

The golden one ignored him. His takeoff today wasn't half as graceful as it was yesterday—but it was still strong enough to threaten to blow Nido off his feet. He had to hunker down to protect himself from the gust.

And then the golden one was just a silhouette against the stars, high in the sky, heading south.

How much worse would he make things by following the golden one?

The golden one's silhouette faded as the stars disappeared behind newly-forming clouds. Cold rain began to drizzle.

Nido spread his wings.

###

(Replies/reblogs are welcome & encouraged! Check the “source” link below for my masterlist of Ghidorah-centric and Rodorah fics, as well as my AO3 and Ko-fi links.)

[dracula-in-purple-story]

Pride Month 1/3[BONUS]

Pride Month is here! How would the Cephero celebrate it?

Author’s Note : All of this is ENTIRELY NON-CANON. I’m still working on my writing skills. Thank You and Enjoy, hopefully.

“Wake up, guys! It’s the first day of June. Smell the fresh air of rainbows!” Fior shouted as she smacked pans to pans, causing ruckus in Cephero Household. Erek chuckled as he mixing through salad dressings. The first two people who appeared crashed down the staircase.

“Fior, it’s freaking six in the morning!” Hachi screeched as he glared at their tiny girlfriend. Tres grumbled underneath him, making Hachi quickly removed himself from her. Erek quickly grabbed the first-aid kit after he finished making the salad. Luckily, the injuries on both of them are not severe at all. 

“If I got a sprain during target practise, you would get your ass whoop, Fior,” the menacing squid threatened before kissing the smug inkling on the forehead. Erek sighed dreamily as he pulled their boyfriend up. Hachi squinted a little bit between Erek and Fior. 

“What’s with those ink colours?” he asked as he never seen three colours fused in the same tentacles. Pink, purple and dark blue. Those ink colours are swimming around their tentacles in order. He only knew that he can have another colour on the tip if he have an intense make-out but definitely not this. 

“They represents bisexualities, Chi~. We teach you after breakfast if you are interested.” Sei answered from the upper veranda. Huit is right behind him, brushing her teeth. She looked at him curiously like her twin brother did. Sei had three colours in his tentacles too, but it’s pink, yellow and light blue instead. He winked at Huit before jumping down in his squid form.

~~~~~~~~~~

They went to the Square after they ate their breakfast. The octoling twin, even Tres, were amazed of the tentacles displays around them. The people are displaying more than one ink colour. Octolings are either amazed or tried to learn from their inkling friends. 

When they make sure no one is watching them. They quickly morphed into their squid/octo form and went into the manhole. They arrived at Octo Canyon to see the Squid Sisters and Off The Hook, laughing and gossiping. Dedf1sh is feeding one of her pigeons. One thing is noticeable, all of them have three or more ink colours. Pearl and Marina have many shades of pink and red; Callie have pink, green and blue; Marie and Dedf1sh have green, yellow, orange and black.

Callie spotted them first, grinning as she wave at them enthusiastically. The others noticing them too. “AGENT THREES, FOURS AND EIGHTS! HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!” 

Erek and Callie hugged each other tightly; Fior went inside the cabin to help feed the pigeons; Tres is having a staring contest with Marie unconsciously. Hachi and Huit are gawking at their mother figures’ tentacles. Different shades of pink and red are another level of awesomeness. The tall squid chuckled at them before comedically pushed their jaws up, “Guys, manners.”

“But, Sei~! Marina and Pearl look so cool with their colours. What do they represent?” Huit questioned before gazing at them again. Pearl smirked, “They represent lesbian, yo! It means girls who love girls only!” This make the twins disappointed, Hachi because he’s a boy and Huit because she love her boyfriends too. Marina realised this before adding after Pearl, “Don’t worry, you guys can still make shades of your own pride too! People won’t mind. When I celebrate my first Pride Month, the lesbian crowds still partying with me even though I only got one shade of pink and red.”The twins were smiling widely as they glanced at each other, high five along the way. 

Marie finished her staring contest before remarking, “Although I understand that octolings are still learning, but why didn’t you change into your pride, Tres? Did you forgot your pride colours?” A typical situation if you knew Agent F3 well.

Tres grimaced, “I don’t know what to identified myself with. Besides, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing to describe my pride anyways.” She took out the Hero Blaster from the Ammo Knights Enhancifier and start her target practice with some new dummies Sheldon had upgraded. Marie sighed a bit, “Are you bisexual?”

“No. I don’t really think gender is that important.”

“Pansexual?”

“I thought so at first but seeing how Sei acts around, especially night time... Nah.”

“Hm, don’t care about gender yet no sexual desires...”

“Yep. The internet said something about sickness so I figure it’s that way, Marie.”

“What about asexual? It’s a term for people who feel like they don’t need to have sex to prove their love or something.”

Tres stopped before looking at Marie with her eyes glinted. “...there’s a term?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Agent 8s and F3 are sitting on the floor, facing Marie as she took out some big piece of paper and stick it on the wall. “Okay, agents. Pride Month is basically a month where we celebrate our sexualities and gender identities. Cal, go haywire with your colouring. Any question before we start?”

Huit raised her hands, “Is it necessary to have pride colours?”

“Nope, it’s not necessary. Pride Month officially started around fifty years after the Great Turf War. It started off with rainbow colours to represent gay, boys who love boys only. Then, as Pride Month started to get popular, the government officials decided to help identifying and creating more colour patterns with the citizen. It took 10 years but they were satisfied about the results, like this.” Marie finished as she twirled around her tentacles.

Hachi raised next, “How do you do those ink colour fusion? Does it hurt?”

Marie pondered for a while, “We would help you with fusion later, M8. Ink fusion is a hard trick that only discovered twenty years ago by some drag queens. It would take a while to master the technique but it doesn’t affect you or so whatever. So, it doesn’t hurt. Your colours would switch back to proper ink if you entered the Deca Tower though.”

The twins raised together in unison, “How Pride Month came to exist?”

“Before the term ‘Pride’ exist, even before the Great Turf War, people who feel confused of their feelings are being set to arranged marriage. People who being found to date the same gender were... punished heavily. Few years after the Great Turf War, the population were low in numbers, especially inklings. To start populate the country, the government decided to pass a law and force the citizens to make babies. It last for at least 30 years before the queers decided to protest against this law. Citizens got shotted by the corrupted government officials. Pride Month then came exist to celebrate LGBT+ and honour the people who died during the protest.”

The octoling twins, including Marina and Dedf1sh, were shocked at hearing this information. Guess Inkopolis have their own dark history. As there are no more questions to be answered, she nodded to her cousin.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Okay, agents!” Callie shouted as she pointed to the paper where it’s full of colours and labels, “Today we are going to learn the basic LGBT+ terms and their colours!” The octoling twins are fidgeting around excitedly to figure out which one is for them. The orange inkling girl just smiled a bit as she found a colour pattern which label as ‘Asexual/Ace’.

“First of all,” Callie pointed at the rainbow pattern, “this represents gay, as Marie said, boys who love boys only. It’s also the first colour pattern to be created that led to an official Pride Month.”

“This, on the other hand, represents lesbian. Like Off the Hook! Before this colour pattern exist, the lesbians use the rainbow colour patterns. Due to some conflict, the lesbian colours were created since gay are terms for, you know, boys.”

“That pattern represents bisexual, like Fior and Erek. It means they love male and female equally. And that pattern represents pansexual, like Sei. It means he love you no matter what gender you are, even if you are genderless!”

“This pattern here represents transgender. Means that people wanted to be the opposite gender. Most reasons for this is mainly they are not comfortable of their current gender.” 

“This pattern over here is polysexual, like me! It’s almost the same as pansexual but the difference is that I don’t really love all genders. Not really. I love multiple genders but not all!”

“I ran out of Sharpies so I’m gonna drag Ahato into this! This ink colours right here represents aromantic. It means they didn't think it’s necessary to be in a relationship. They prefer to be alone for the rest of their life. Am I right?” she glanced at her cousin and sanitised friend, who nodded in confirmation.

“And finally, the asexual colour pattern! This came out official 12 years ago so most people, not all, know about this but they are valid too! They are usually people who didn't think it’s necessary to commit sexual acts in a relationship.”

“Oh, of course! People who only love opposite genders exist too! Most of them would participate because they want to hang out with their queer friends. The rest of them usually take a break from Turf sports since they somehow don’t know where to fit in but they support us either way!”

The information is overflowing for the three of them but hey, they learned something new!

~~~~~~~~~~

“I think I am between polysexual and pansexual, brother. What am I going to do?” Huit whimpered as she tried to choose between one. Hachi patted her back pitifully, since he had chosen pansexual. Tres had already chose one and started her ‘training’, as she stated, with Sei. 

“Well, sis, I wish I got more time but,” he sighed as he looked over to Fior who is tapping her feet impatiently, “she’s been doing that for a while. Why don’t you let an expert to help you with?” 

Huit pouted before playfully shooed her brother off as Erek came up to her. “So... need help?” 

“Yes, I’m very confused on whether I’m polysexual or pansexual. Brother choose his sexuality on the spot and here I am... I’m... confused.” Huit cried as she glanced between the two colour patterns. Erek smile gently, “It’s okay to be confused, Huit. This takes a lot of time. Look, one of my friend thought she’s unusual until she realised she’s an aromantic. She’s 38 back then. Why don’t you mixed those colours up or switch it back and forth?”

Huit brightened up quickly. “Well, what are we waiting? Teach me how to do stuff like that!” The soft boy chuckled as he switch back to his blue ink colour. 

~~~~~~~~~~

“In order to mixed those colours up, you gotta rest your mind. The clearer the mind, the better your concentration is, Hachi.”

“After we done that, Tres, think of the colours in front of you. It’s not that complicated to make that face, girl.”

“As soon as you memorised the colours, think of it as your own ink colours! Don’t be upset if you only managed to get fused for a while. I said it’s a great progress!”

“Okay, this... um... okay. Hachi, you and your smartass, you learn way too quickly!”

“Tres... I know it’s hard for you to clear your mind but... it’s not really threatening if you keep pouting like that.”

“Okay! We are definitely doing good, for starters. You managed to get two colours to fuse in your first try!”

“You are lucky you are so damn cute, Hachi. Be glad because you embarrassed me. Don’t octo party on me!”

“Why the heck is your tentacle bloody red? You supposed to- GAH! Stop punching my stomach!”

“Great job, Huit! You deserve something good for this. Crusty Meals’ on me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It took 5 days but they finally managed to put their Pride colours. Now, they are finally going to participate some Pride Month celebration. Inkopolis Square are decorated colourfully with LGBT flags and people setting out their foods and drinks to sell. Sei looked at his group of lovers before speaking out proudly, “As we finally have our little training done, we can have some fun now. Since this is almost end of the first week, we can only enjoy some party before the real fun start.”

“Real fun?” Tres muttered out distrustfully. Erek quickly noticed her tone before reassured her, “It’s mainly some activities that only occurred in Pride Month. It’s like League but with people invent some games to let us play and earn points! Usually it’s the group of winners from the previous Pride Month activities gets to create the game.”

“And last year, us three and the Squid Sister won so we get to create a game. Don’t get your hopes high because we ain’t telling,” Fior smirked before drinking some Creamy Chocolate Milk. Tres shrugged it off and dragged Erek to a fruit salad stall. 

Suddenly, someone with a creepy clown mask came up to the octoling twins and whispered, “Kids, do you want some balloons?” The twins screamed loudly before realising that person is laughing uncontrollably. They calmed down a bit before that person took off their mask.

“Pearl! Why do you have to do that? To us!” Hachi shrieked but Pearl took no notice about that. “Just gotta scare my favourite pair of twins, kiddos. Anyways, heard of the Pride Games yet?”

[pumpkinmainmutual-blog]

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[veinereastath]

Worth the sin - John/Fem!Deputy one shot.

Alright, I finally made it. A short one-shot, based on the headcanon that I published on my page earlier. Words count - 1,921 Warnings - not really. It’s just weird... Something. Kinda romantic, I think. And a little bit scary. Pairing - John with Female Deputy. My OC, actually, but her name doesn't appear in the fic. Also, Jacob is mentioned.

Well, no reposting, copying and all that stuff. You know the drill. xD Also, I'm not native English speaker, so I'm sorry for eventual mistakes. Enjoy!

    The night sky was black as the raven's feathers, covered with flecks of snow. Hundreds of glittering stars were hiding behind the clouds from time to time, as if they were too shy, afraid of the curious eyes of people and animals from below.      The water in the lake was almost crystal clear and cold. It cooled his heated body. Small drops of sweat glistened on his skin like shards of diamond, rolled down his shoulders, torso, his face. He was naked from the waist up. His wet hair lost its order, harmony went into oblivion. The perfectly arranged hairstyle was now a mixture of delicate curls of the color of bitter chocolate, balancing on the border of black. 

    He sighed. The sound was quiet, gentle, full of relief. A warm breath escaped from his lungs to glow in contact with the cold of air and then disappear to become part of his invisible layers. The icy blue of his eyes was hidden behind the eyelids. His raised head made the line of his jaw even more distinct than usual, as if it wanted to get everyone's attention, to shout "Here I am, look at me and admire”. 

    The admiration required respect. For a woman who in that moment was barefoot, and was noiselessly approaching the lake, respect was not a stranger, but at the same time - it was distant. Did she respect the man who was her target? Yes, although she would never admit it, even to herself. Her PRIDE forbade her to do something like that. The woman was dressed in loose, black pants that were torn and dirty in several places. The white, delicate blouse was stained in fresh blood and also damaged in the vicinity of the arm, constantly sliding off her body, revealing partially naked, warm skin on the neckline and arm. Her long hair was a chaotic patch of different blond tones, stuck together, dirty, sticking to her face. She had a light skin with a pair of dark brown eyes. Vigilant, but expressing mainly exhaustion. Although the woman was losing her will to fight every day, hour, minute, she did not let go. Because the man who was now in the cold waters of the lake had something she needed.     

   The key was where it always was. Suspended on his neck, shimmering in the moonlight. It called her. It wanted her to come closer, to grab it in her tired, bloody hands, to break it from the man's neck. But the woman knew that it was not the key that was calling her. It was a memory – Hudson's screams, imprisoned in the bunker, helpless, waiting for salvation. For her misfortune her only hope was Rookie, on the verge of strength, tired and weak. But at the same time extremely desperate. 

   She was approaching from the back, on slightly bent legs. She moved like a predator, she had the instincts of a predator. For now they were dormant, but only waiting for the right moment. She stared at the man's back, the muscles beneath the skin. He was not packed, no. He was slim and muscular in proportions that she would call ideal. If not the fact that she didn't believe in the existence of an ideal.

- You just don't know when to stop, do you?

   She froze for a moment, but still stared at his back. The bastard didn't even turn around, he did not move. And although she couldn't see his face, she was sure he was smiling. As usual – mockingly. It seemed that this smile was reserved for her. Many times she saw him smiling towards Hudson, or other members of the resistance. But each time it was something different than when he smiled at her. As if there was some hidden message in it.

   - Yes, I know it's you. But don't think I'm some kind of clairvoyant. Jacob notified me on the radio that you managed to escape from him and you're probably heading for the Valley. My valley. And that you are not alone. Where is your companion, Deputy? Where is the wolf – The Judge - that you managed to drag to your side?

   She didn't respond. She was quiet. She wanted to answer, but knew that if she would spoke now, she would lose consciousness. Deputy was too weak. He, of course, knew it. He must have heard her breath. Chaotic. Once it was a heavy sigh to turn into a quiet melody of the exhaust after a few moments. And then again, gasping, on the border with a growl.

- Jacob really made you an animal. - John paused for a moment, but still did not turn around. - He liked to talk about you. If I didn't know him, I would say he cares about you. But this is Jacob. He can't do it, not in that way.

   Finally he turned to face her. The water was a little below his waist, so much so that she could see the glistening of metal elements on the belt, that was holding his pants in place. He was smiling at her. Subtle, but still mocking, as usual. Droplets of cold water dripped in equal rhythm from his beard. They also ran down the face, freeing themselves from wet hair. She looked him straight in the eyes. Dark brown against ice blue, like a poetic battle between good and evil, darkness with light. Hells with heaven. She looked down, and saw her goal. The key that hung on the long cord again began to call her. It was jerking, it danced almost imperceptibly below the scarified SLOTH on John Seed's chest. She moved towards him, slowly but surely. Staring at the key. Her eyes almost closed from tiredness, but she still kept the consciousness of the mind reasonably well. Bare, wounded feet crushed grass under her feet. Soon she immersed them in cold water and shivered, but did not stop. She did it only when the distance between her and the John was about two meters. And he? He just stood and watched her, digging an enigmatic look at her.

   - Free her. - She spoke in a loud, but weak whisper, squinting tired eyes, parting lips slightly, sighing. - And your problems will end. I will end. 

    A mocking chuckle emerged from his throat, which was both music for her ears and a ghastly scream. White teeth flashed ominously.

   - Problems help keep your mind awake, Deputy. Thanks to this, one does not fall into lethargy. That's why I do not want to - I will not let you go.

   She was silent, staring at the key with sick lust. He noticed this. He murmured like a cat hobbling to the owner and cocked his head subtly. There was something in his blue eyes that she could call warmth. But she didn't believe it. She didn't want to believe.

   - Give me the key. - She said simply, trying to give her voice a firm tone. Like a father issuing an order to his child. She wanted to wake up memories of John's childhood, about which he told her with such passion, she wanted him to succumb to her and fulfill her demand. Of course, it couldn't succeed.

- You want it? - He said teasingly, touching it with his long, tattoed fingers. - Than come and take it.

   She sighed unintentionally, swaying slightly. It couldn't be that easy. It must have been a trap. But she didn't see him carrying any weapon… Oh, okay. He had it. A lone gun laying on a large boulder, stacked on his blue shirt. Far. Too far to reach it in time, not to mention pulling the trigger. It's a trap. It's a trap. 

   The trap she was about to enter. The vision of touching the key, having it just for herself was too tempting. Her steps were slow, cautious, but there was a wild, unbridled GREED in her eyes. She stood right in front of him, staring at the dance of the drops of water flowing down his body for a very short moment. And then she greedily reached out a bloody hand toward the key, grabbing it. She felt its weight, the monstrous cold of old metal... 

   No. She felt a surprising lightness. Lightness typical of something that was just a primitive mockup. THAT was a trap. And she entered it, like a mouse deprived of the ability to analyze the situation. Without a way out. She looked at him. There was a mocking dance in blue eyes, but also satisfaction. John looked at her from above – but the difference in height was not too big. The narrow lips curled in another mocking smile. She released the false key, but the Baptist was faster. And in a much better form. He easily grabbed her wrist, hard, painfully. She moaned, trying to struggle. All for nothing. John stood in the same place, unmoved as a marble statue.

   - Gotcha, little lamb. Now you're mine, and only mine. Just like it should be. - He spoke softly, mutteringly, flashing white teeth in her direction. She stepped back instinctively and in a panic reflex placed her free hand in the middle of the sin engraved on his chest, wanting to push him away. Her skinny fingers spread out on his skin like a spider on a web.

   - I have sent armed convoys for you and the Chosen in airplanes. I've lost the best people through you. Jacob as well, same with Faith and her goddamn Angels. And what do we have here? It went so easily. The lamb came to the wolf herself. Willingly. - He still mocked her and smiled. The woman was trembling with fear, uncertain. She realized that without a weapon she was nothing. A worthless, gray civilian, incapable of defending anyone and anything, including herself. The question she was going to ask in that moment was hanging in the air. It was heavy, it overwhelmed her. She felt legs bend under her. She was afraid of the answer. Or rather the fact that she knew what the answer was. John left her too many clues during her stay in the Valley. Way too many to leave any doubts.

   - What do you want from me? - She did it and immediately began to regret it. She felt his warm breath on her face. She was too scared to breathe. Rookie didn't even know that she was holding her breath - but the body reminded her, suddenly demanding higher doses of life-giving oxygen. The answer, the vision of which frightened her, didn't appear for a few very long moments. It was suspended between them. Between a woman who had nothing to lose, and a man who had everything to lose.

   - I think you know. - He answered finally, looking at her with the eyes of a predator staring at it's prey. John, like always, did not answer literally. But he didn't have to. He knew that she knew the truth behnd it and enjoyed it.

   - Lust is sin. - She said dryly, involuntarily tracing her fingers to his right hip, where she sensed four letters forming a word that would be her curse from that night.

   - You're worth the sin. As well as pain, which is its consequence. - He muttered, passing his wet hand over her bloody jaw with delicacy. A delicacy that frightened her. But at this stage... There was no turning back.