#tho it's almost weirder to miss a place and not the people. like i miss the land i grew up on but not 95% of the people i grew up with | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lunar-lair · 3 years

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ok say hello to my insanely new oc who ive made entirely to be a villain who is still an excellent adult and a decent parent, probably. cares too much abt kids. think reigen mob psycho with a drop or two of milla. worked under Nick From The Mailroom and was actually in on his scheme.

has always been rather cold and brash towards adults, but is more caring towards kids. in my brain he has a brooklyn type accent? rough and tumble, walks around without a tie, yknow? they keep him cause he sorts mail real good, though.

(added a read more because this got INSANELY LONG AKSKSK i spent like an hr on this h)

he was a delugeionist, but only because he kinda just wanted to rip the world apart a little; lysandre vibes, thinks a lot of it is scum and needs to go. thinks the *psychonauts* are scum and need to go. hes psychic but suppressed it, think aquato parents but extra toxic about it, and straight up just saying being psychic is unnatural. wouldnt go to loboto parent lengths tho. so he adopted that thought of 'being psychic is unnatural and wrong', which contributed to a lot of self hate that was never learned out. likely, he realizes hes a shitty person and thinks he needs to go too. so like...yknow hank, dbh? kinda the vibe im gettin right now. way more formal, of course, and while usually gruff, is more polite when its needed; can and *will* beat the shit out of you verbally in a factual way, though, and can talk more street-lingo if hes talkin to real thugs. (probably winged it on his own after failing college or smth, hes got the vibes.)

anyways, its this plot where he slinks off and starts planting mistrust in the psychonauts or something. and inevitably he just...shows up and starts kidnapping people. dismantling things from the inside and all that. he left and formed a group who also hated psychics at some point, likely friends of his parents and friends of friends, all from his hometown. all of them fight *insanely* dirty, and a lot of them are insanely vulgar. the kids are supposed to be kept away.

but theres a line to follow here.

this man is a fold to raz. hates the psychonauts, hates being psychic, adopted his parent's hate of psychics, hates the *world.* raz is young and unburdened and unjaded...mostly. hes not the shock of water some young characters can be when it comes to being the foils of other characters; think steven with a villain or something, right? but raz is sassy and a little jaded, and not total sunshine positivity.

hes a child this man could look down on and not be immediately annoyed by, who is worried by yet respects raz's realization of the world as it is, however little that is.

and yet raz is still his foil. he still mostly loves the psychonauts, despite it all, he loves being psychic, for the most part, he dodged adopting his parents previous values, he still seems to have an even view of the world as a whole.

raz is jaded, if only a little, but he moved past it and accepted that things could still be bright. this man is jaded, but he stayed in his stormclouds, never looked for the sun.

ok where. was i. RIGHT ok so. at the beginning of this...story? the man finds raz being talked down to by one of the office workers; someone with weak psychic powers whos insanely jealous of his prowess. an adult who envies the young prodigy. and theyre giving him some insane task to do, like cleaning all of the closets within the hour, but hes saved the world twice, so he smiles and nods along, because he said he would help around the motherlobe, and this adult is asking him to do something that seems simple enough.

and this guy, internally, goes 'bitch.' for a good long second bc 1. dude even if you envy a kid, kinda fucked to show that?? not their fault 2. WHY are you asking a 10 year old to do that. why is there a 10 year old here. holy shit thats a 10 year old oh my god hes so tiny (no one told him there was a 10 year old because they knew hed stomp right up to management but. regardless. he is going to stomp up to management after this and no one can really stop him. except maybe raz well see)

so yknow. dude fixes his slight slouch and walks forward and politely tells this woman that 1. hes 10 why are you jealous of him and 2. hes 10????????? and shes like shit hes 10. and apologizes. and walks away

and raz is VERY ?? bc she was doing what? why is him being 10 important? and its that young part of you that gets pissed when people try to keep you from doing things because youre young and hes DEFINITELY yet to learn that piling responsibilites that should be handled by adults onto a child is fucked up in its own special way (looking at you ford, *nick*)

and the dude calmly explains because yea. he gets that. and he still sounds gruff and a little peeved but he squats down to razs height and he talks simply and factually, telling him straight on why it isnt right.

and. huh. people dont really do that for raz. except for sasha, sometimes, everyone likes to dodge the truth a lot with him, because hes 10, and sometimes, hes too nice to tug it out of them.

and this guy, this man that raz is already polishing a trophy for 'good adulting' in the back of his brain with his striking statements about how adults should handle things and kids should-kids should...get to have fun. not be traumatized.

for the shock on his face when raz said hed already saved the world a couple times, whats some closets. he reigned it in, said that its weird he saved the world, because thats usually their jobs.

and this guy offers his hand on instict before he stands up, even though he doesnt seem very sweet and kind like the adults that usually offer raz a hand. and he takes it, i think. he takes it.

warm. warm, a little nice.

reminds raz of his dad, maybe. he wonders if this man has any kids himself, but keeps his mouth shut, because he thinks he already has the answer, and its yes.

(he doesnt have any. he would wish he did, but he knows hed fail to raise them right.)

and when he stands, he asks raz what he was asking that woman for, and he says hes doing tasks around the motherlobe because his papers are still coming in. the man doesnt ask. (he knows what 'papers' means, realizes this is the tiny junior psychonaut every room in the damn place has been buzzing about, and he has fucking words for forsythe.) he just offers for the kid to sort mail under his supervision.

and that sounds boring. at least, it usually would.

this man is interesting, and a good...person? a good adult? hes...hes new. hes new, and calm, and a little like sasha but a lot not, and he thinks he trusts him.

so raz grins and says yea, mail sorting sounds nice.

(debatably, raz does not take his hand. hes too jaded when it comes to adults. debatably, he does not feel any warmth from this man who has taught him every adult has been telling him wrong. debatably, im projecting. but thats the whole point of ocs, hm?)

and then holes crop up in motherlobe systems. people are kidnapped.

raz keeps seeing the strange man, keeps telling him things, keeps hearing back, gruff and factual and a little annoyed, but raz can almost-just-barely tell its not at him, with the way he talks.

he can tell. he can tell.

he can never tell. this man is making sure he can tell.

raz trusts the man, is still polishing that trophy for 'best adulting' he has settling in the back of his mind.

and then the man comes with a militia.

he did not seem jaded. he did not seem hateful. he never showed any anger or hate towards raz.

but thats because he knows kids dont deserve it.

an excellent moral or two. a rotten, broken heart.

and at first, they keep the kids away, because these people fight dirty, because this isnt their battle, because the man has been sending emails about why 15 year olds are in a secret psychic agency.

(he does not mention raz. by razs second visit, he had just marked the boy down as another reason to hate the psychonauts as a whole, and especially its higher ups.

hes also regretting his alliance to nick by about the third. if he had known the man would puppet a child as if they were a toy, he would have organized his own rebellion ages ago.)

but eventually, the psychonauts need all hands on deck.

they send the children to find the missing agents.

the interns are fought on the way. some of them avoid the child, know the boss would pummel them.

they get to the base, and the strange man, the one with the broken trophy for 'best adult' (still barely-polished, because hes still so sure) still nestled in the back of razs brain, is still there.

the junior psychonauts are spotted. one of the guards throws a few rocks aimlessly.

they surprise them. one almost hits raz.

its intercepted instead.

and the other junior psychonauts watch as this man, their enemy, a villain, in their eyes, reprimands the other man for even accidentally daring, for even trying. for doing something they might have done just a month or so ago, if they had decided he was too much weirder than they already had.

and he yells something like, "Why the hell is he even here?! This is an enemy base, of whats a rebellion! This is a *10 year old*! What kind of adult sends a child *near* something like that?!" and he truly sounds angry this time, raz finds. hes too angry to keep it in. he still sounds gruff and oddly proper. raz is standing there, arms hanging. hes baffled in a specific way, the way he was every time the man's brow furrowed when he mentioned a harrowing story, the way he was the first day they met.

and he asks, a little quiet, a little small, a reminder of how young he really is, "Why are you still trying to keep me safe? We're supposed to be enemies now."

And his brow furrows further before flattening out, and he tilts onto one leg, and he swears he almost kneels to a knee.

He cant believe it. He really cant.

"You're 10." he says simply, softly, that factual way. "You shouldn't even be here."

and raz pauses. the interns freeze.

"...well, here I am."

and i think...it would be so intriguing if this was done halfway out of the mind, because this man is so against anything psychic. it would be so *compelling.*

so raz steps forward and asks again, asks why hes doing this.

and the mans eyes harden, he tries to turn off that soft heart, trying to remind himself of all that he hates. because he hates the psychonauts, because he sort of hates the world.

and raz asks why he could ever hate the psychonauts, head tilted, before listing off the few he knows to be true. but other than that, how? and ok, the world sucks a little, yea, hes seen that, gets that.

and he appreciates that this kid isnt totally gung ho about existence.

but he hates that he isnt, too.

and its this back and forth. everything the man hates, why he hates it. raz saying why its good but admitting why its bad.

and hes swayed, just a little.

but the man stands up from the kneel hed inevitably instinctively put himself into, and walks forward, hand held out yet again.

"You shouldn't be in the Psychonauts," he tells him, soft, factual, brow furrowed. "Come with me. I'll bring you back to your parents, or wherever it is you want to go."

raz contemplates. thinks, for a long moment.

he grabs the mans hand, warm and firm, yet again, for a terrifying moment.

before he reaches up to slap a mental door on his forehead, and astral projects into it.

he thinks this man is good. thinks hes just jaded.

thinks hes the best adult hes ever met, one who just happens to hate a lot of things.

hes only 10.

hes not letting someone who can tell him so clearly whats wrong and right for adults to tell him go that easily.

aaaand yknow. raz does his razzy thing. learns about why the guy hates the world and the psychonauts and himself. helps him learn that its not all bad, that he was excellent to raz, and still is, that things can be bad and good all at once.

the man concedes that raz is very capable, very smart, and can do a lot. but that doesnt mean he should have to.

raz tells him, though, that he likes working for the psychonauts. its his dream. and he realizes some things he was told to do were kinda screwed up, now. that maybe, in honesty, he was dealt a bad hand.

but hes done what he can with that hand, and he ended up with a royal flush.

and uh! yknow!! then raz leaves his mind and he calls off the rebellion! its like a rhombus of ruin type adventure, except without the villain being present beforehand. its just not clustered in insanely close with a ton of other wild shit.

anyways this got really long? sorry?? its an oc i just saw good adult and slight father vibe potential in the vibe i instantly got on him and then i went feral???? rip maybe someone will read this and if you did. congrats i honestly really liked how the whole foil and good-yet-bad and consideration of raz being 10 thing worked out. this oc is almost like our representative in the psychonauts world the way reigen is for the audience in mp100. yea :) i match them up a lot but thats just cause they vibe a lot. anyways its 1:40 am now and i spent abt an hour on this hope it vibed mildly byeeee

#GOD THAT GOT LONG. ALSMSKKS APOLOGIES OH MH GOD #psychonauts #psychonauts oc #and my personal tag:#pn oc #trash talks #long post #like! insanely long!!!!!!! i am so so sorry maybe i should make a cut #psychonauts 2 spoilers #like a lot tbh alskssk #OK READMORE SUCCESSFULLY ADDED!!! THNX GOOGLE <3

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sheep-sorbet · 4 years

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These are... a lot I’m so sorry I just have a lot of feelings

-I think Zexion and Xemnas acting like siblings is absolutely hilarious. Xem is serious superior man until the rest of the org leaves and then he tries to gently bludgeon Zex because the bastard threw a book at his head earlier

-Zexion was the only one not afraid of Larxene who had her grudging respect-He can shoot a gun. He was raised by Braig.

-He can use a sword. He was raised by Dilan.-Ever since he was little, he was fascinated by weird creatures and would bring them home. Even drew the line at the giant snake (he hated the spiders equally though). He still does this at 20-something only now the warriors of light are in on it and they’ll occasionally bring him even weirder things

-no he doesn’t experiment on them he just thinks they’re Neat

-Zexion occasionally comes out in Ienzo’s personality, usually when he’s mad at one of the apprentices. He’s very petty.

-Even as Ienzo, he can be really unsettling sometimes. He can just kinda... snap to being happy and pleasant at a moments notice and his smile never wavers... he moves like a predator even if he does his best to mask it. And yet he’s still really easy to let your guard down around

-he was raised in an emotionless cult and it shows. He’s just... off. And absolutely despises showing ANY weakness (I mean, he was the smallest, physically weakest, youngest member in the org practically his whole life). He will walk on a broken leg without giving anything away and it’s driving the apprentices insane

-He is the apprentice’s secretary at this point. Everyone always go to him when they need something because the others are... themselves

-he doesn’t put up with any of the apprentices bs. If one of them is being rude, he will absolutely grab them by the ear and drag them off, size difference be damned

And finally, consider: Ienzo accidentally adopting a bunch of gremlins (Vanitas, Repliku & 3ku). By that I mean they follow him around everywhere and hiss at people and Ienzo’s just like “yeah they’re not socialized yet but I’m working on it :)” and 3ku bites his arm

DO NOT APOLOGIZE THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I ASKED FOR :D 💙

-i never considered the idea that they'd act like siblings; i personally always thought ienzo (or ig zexion, at the time) would have.... secretly harbored a grudge, now that i think about it. he remained as close as possible to xemnas, both because he wanted to keep an eye on his actions, but perhaps also because a part of him truly believed in what xemnas was doing, reaching for. after all, he was the only one freaked out when the org13 members started killing each other - it must have been jarring because at that point, that was the closest thing he had to a family. he wasn't close to everyone, and certainly not as a nobody- but he WAS manipulated by xemnas, and i feel like once things started going bad, the rose-colored glasses came off, so to speak, and he probably realized just how badly he'd been deceived. of course, that was only the beginning, too ;_;)

-yeah, there's no way he was afraid of larxene. annoyed by her attitude and upset with her eventual betrayal/plan to overthrow the organization, but never scared of her. in fact, i'd argue ienzo wasn't scared of anybody in the organization until vexen was assassinated.

-either he CAN use normal weapons like guns and swords and just chose to use a fucking book instead, OR he can't use any traditional weapons and got a book as consolation. i can't tell what's funnier honestly

- WEIRD 👏 KID 👏 IENZO 👏 yessss. i love the idea that he'd sneak off for however long and by the time anyone noticed he'd gone missing they'd find him on his way back with some sort of fucking creature. and now that i think about it, that would explain why he didn't seem to be afraid of the heartless at all in BBS- at that point he'd likely not seen one yet, and must simply have thought it was another fun creature to put in a box and watch SHSJHAHAJS

-hm, i personally think it's less like zexion "comes out" in his personality, and more that they're the same person, and that any habits he formed as zexion were/are hard to shake. if you play/watch in japanese, you see he's actually rather polite, even as a nobody; and is VERY good at hiding snark behind faux politeness.

-HDMSNMSFNNSNDG "sorry even i'd love to help you, unfortunately i'm in a call with sora right now because SOMEBODY WOULDN'T ANSWER HIS PHONE"

-i personally see it less as him being unsettling, and more like it's just very blatant that he spent his entire adolescence being gaslit to believing he couldn't feel anything and is now learning how to deal with emotions for...... the first time in his life, cuz he wasn't exactly expressive as a kid, either. his emotions, when he's able to stop dissociating for 5 seconds, are probably all over the place. i agree with you tho that he can put up a mask like it's nothing- but others would probably find that more concerning than scary.

-idrk what you mean by "moves like a predator"- he's analytical for sure, and hyper-aware of his surroundings most times, and that may be unsettling for other at times. deep down the other apprentices + ansem know it's a trauma response, and probably blame themselves for it. especially now that he knows that literally ALL of the people closest to him lied, tricked him and used him, for basically his entire life..... trusting, being comfortable, is hard for him. but he tries his best, and deptite his inherent pettiness, almost disallowes himself to be upset by it or hold it against them. he struggles a lot with guilt and he knows the rest of them do, too. he doesn't understand that it's okay to be in pain, and feels just as responsible as he feels they were- so it provably feels, to him, that if he were to deny them forgiveness or even allow himself doubt, then he'd be a hypocrite for wanting that same forgiveness. i can personally see lea making some sort of fuss about the way ienzo was treated as a kid and ienzo to actually be the one to tell him to shut it. but..... more on that later ¬w¬

-it took me a moment to remember who tf 3ku is and jfc there as so many rikus so fucking many. so many. but also he'd be an awful babysitter and they'd all love him for it GNDMDNF

#long post #THANK U FOR ALL THE THOUGHTS..... much to think about #ienzo #zexion #kingdom hearts #answered #asks #sheep speak #also sorry if it seems like im disagreeing w u a lot!! everyone has their own hc's and it's valid i just also have thought about him So Much #and my thoughts. they need to go SOMEWHERE

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normal-thoughts-official · 4 years

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Polycule ask: who gives who flowers? Besides Mel ofc giving their partners really lovely and meaningful ones. I’m mostly saying this bc I adore the idea of Maia’s partners just... showering her in beautiful and lively things. Also because I feel in my heart of hearts that Simon’s train of thought about Raphael is: hm. He’s old fashioned and likes nice things, but I wouldn’t know what to buy him. I want to court him (someone, mb Izzy or Maia: court?? Why are you talking like that)... flowers! :)

POLYCULE ASK! POLYCULE ASK! POLYCULE ASK! god i’ve missed those!! it’s been a while aaaaaaaaa and i lOVE this one im so excited!!! YES!!

ok so first of all yes meliorn like u said always gives them flowers, and they always get meliorn flowers as well because they know this means a lot in seelie culture so it’s always a nice gife/expression of love for her :)

i also have the headcanon that meliorn gets some flowers for taki’s, which idk if counts as Giving Her Partners Flowers, but i think it’s a cute touch that helps her be a part of taki’s considering she’s less in their realm than the others and doesn’t visit as much. also, she gets the most beautiful, sunny, wonderful flowers for them and they always fit the ambiance so well and it’s really nice :) they aso always have faint but good smells that both maia and raphael can appreciate and that won’t get in the way of their sensory issues and that are also allergy-proof because MAGIC okay. like it’s just :’) wonderful

and you are CORRECT, all the flowers for maia!!! i have particularly soft images of izzy getting maia flowers kind of awkwardly because this is not something she’s really done before except for meliorn, which was easier because she knows seelie flower language so all she had to do was put together a meaning and BAM! done. but for maia she has to make a Pretty Arrangement without having a sorta... meaning chart to go by or something, so that feels weirder somehow?? and she’s kind of lost and probably gets to maia’s all sheepish in a way that’s very uncharacteristic of her with roses and shit (she went to alec for help because they are that kind of siblings and alec is a traditional man so roses it was. also she will be teased FOREVER because of that, which is only fair considering how much she got on his ass). the bouquet is probably too big and maia laughs when she sees it but izzy has that huge smile and looks at her with those big imploring eyes of her like “do you like it?” tilting her head you know, and maia smiles and is like “yeah, i like it, you nerd” and izzy absolutely beams at her

but also!!!!!! simon!!!!!!! and i’ll get to simon getting raphael flowers in a second because boy i do love that image but SIMON GETTING MAIA FLOWERS okay. it’s probably a spur of the moment thing like he went past a flower shop and saw something pretty (im picturing yellow flowers just because...... maia in yellow.... the way it would POP on her and she would look so amazing and gorgeous and lively and just PERFECT ugh) and bought it on impulse so now he’s seeing her in their date that was probably like a movie date or something, you know, definitely not customary to bring flowers to those, and maia laughs and is like “what is this? we came here to watch the new star wars” and he’s like “yeah i know but i saw those on the way and just... thought of you” and she smiles and says “that’s pretty cute” and they kiss and it’s SOFT

also picturing he takes it to her at taki’s or something and raphael teases him like “what, none for me?” and he gets all flustered you know like “sorry i just uh i just saw those and i thought of maia, you know, because yellow suits her so well, and i didn’t think that uh, i didn’t stop to look at others for you, but i probably should have-” and raphael laughs like “simon, relax, you can save the flowers for another time” and simon is like “so you do want flowers! okay good!” and maia just giggles as she places her flowers somewhere safe at their anticts. GOD I LOVE SAIAPHAEL SO MUCH IT’S UNREAL

and of course raphael!!! raphael gets them all flowers. he is that guy. absolutely. he likes to Court. personalized bouquet arrangements he puts a lot of thought into, honestly. i mean of course with meliorn there’s flower language for even for maia and simon he just... he likes to pick something that he thinks suits/represents them even if he’s just going by Vibe. he is that guy who gets them flowers and gets behind them and shows them the petals and shit and like

for maia i’m picturing daylilies so he’s just... he gets behind her and she’s already touching the petals delicately kind of in awe because daylilies are pretty and he’s like “see this? they are fiery. vibrant. intense, but delicate. like you” and she smiles and he goes, “but you know what i like the most about daylilies? they attract butterflies.” and he pauses as she turns around to look at him, surprised, and he smiles at her before taking a breath and going, “you see, daylilies, they are beautiful, and they spread that beauty around. they grow together, and they help all the other flowers around them. they build a family. they care for others. just like you do. everywhere you go, you make things better, and maybe you don’t even realize it” because LOOK im a sap and hes a sap and maia has seen herself as lonely most of her life but the way she cares for her pack and everyone she sees who’s struggling is fierce and beautiful and i just!! it really suits her!! and maia is speechless and she ends up kind of nuzzling his neck and giving him a little kiss on the cheek and he’s like “i take it you like it” and she goes “of course i liked it” and aaa

and for simon... i picture sunflowers. idk i just think simon is a sunflower kinda guy. also you know haha daylighter and shit. but really tho it’s an intense attention-calling sort of flower without meaning to, but it’s also beautiful and vibrant and livens up the place, and it also has a delicate, kind of lonely side? like idk you don’t see sunflower bouquets a lot, usually it’s a single sunflower. and the literal Dark Part you know the black part in the centre that’s swallowed up by the vibrant yellow and that people tend to ignore but that’s also there? not in the sense that simon has a Dark Side, but he hides his sorrows and there’s so much more depth to him. i also like to picture he says something like... “you know, the sunflower turns during the day, trying to always keep close to the sun. but i don’t think it realizes that it has so much beauty of its own” and simon is so very pleased and a little speechless and raphael smiles at him and teases him all like “oh, so now you have nothing to say?”

but he gets his revenge when HE gets RAPHAEL flowers cuz no i didn’t forget!! and i know i wrote that paragraph but i like to think that the first time simon got raphael flowers, that had never been mentioned before and it was a complete surprise. that time was afterwards and he was just teasing him (and maybe fishing to get more flowers because look he’s only human). but the FIRST time they weren’t dating but they were.... getting there and simon was like “HOW can i woo raphael” and everyone else is like “stop saying woo for starters” and simon is like “whatever meliorn how did you woo raphael” and meliorn tells him about the whole flower language thing and how he used that to ask raphael out and simon is like FLOWERS! GREAT! and essentially runs off to get raphael some

so next time him and raphael have a not-date simon shows up with this probably massive and very extra bouquet with many many kinds of flowers and raphael’s eyes widen absurdly and he’s like “simon, what is this?” and simon’s all like “flowers! i didn’t know which flowers you liked, so i just got a bunch, i guess.” and he starts rambling about all the kinds of flowers that he got and their names and why he thought they might like it and is all like “but then i thought, maybe he’d be more into something smaller, so i figured i’d also get-” and raphael interrupts him all like “simon. what is this?” and simon stops for a second like he’s almost panicking and raphael softens all like “i like them all. i just want to understand” and he’s softly touching the petals because this is only the second time in his life that someone got him flowers and for meliorn it had slightly different connotations as it was a cultural thing - not that it’s less special or meaningful, just like, different - and he has this little bashful smile and he’s so pleased and simon kind of goes “i wanted to ask you to go out with me” y’know and it’s SWEET okay aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i can’t BELIEVE i’m saphael trash

in short THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK

#maiabelle #saia #saphael #maiaphael #saiaphael #saiaphaeliorn #isabeliorn #The Polycule™#shadowhunters #sh #maia roberts #izzy lightwood #simon lewis #raphael santiago #meliorn #i don't think clary is a flowers kinda gal so i couldnt think of anything about her giving or receiving f #ask #anonymous

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parrrty-poison · 4 years

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ok so very long post. (not that it matters as i talk to the void askgdjjeh)

let's be real. who's the only two people i really think about when i’m seriously thinking about death? my sisters. my mom too, but mostly my sisters. and ok yeah, maybe what my mom would be like to my sisters if she was dealing with me being gone but that’s a whole other can of worms. in the end it’s always about my sisters. and i truly genuinely believe one of them hates me deep down and doesn’t really care about me, which, fair. i guess you don’t get over the people who were shitty to you in your developing years? except i got over her being shitty right back to me but whatever. i’m the oldest. it’s never been about me. and i think they probably feel like it’s always been all about me because i was so problematic back in the day, which was mostly because of my mom and what we came to find out was literally just my genes so there’s not much else i could have done. that doesn’t make me blame myself any less tho.

it doesn’t matter now. the point is, i pissed off my sisters more than i made them like me i think, and then we started living in different countries and it’s never been the same since then. i know i’m the odd one out in the family now. my parents say they don’t talk to me because they assume i’m always busy with school, which i am, but if they actually tried to talk to me i would find the time. i have way more time now. the problem is after all this time i have absolutely no idea how to reach out to anyone. they only care about me doing well in school anyway. which i do somehow, no matter how fucked up shit gets or how much shit i’m on to get through it. that’s my one real talent. so whenever i talk to them i only tell them what they want to hear and with my dad we’re already constantly dealing with enough other shit with the government by trying to keep me in school and in the country despite this country’s best efforts to get rid of me. so how could i ever bring up my feelings on top of that?? i’m always worried about our family’s financial situation no matter what and i am tired of being a burden because i wasn’t supposed to be anymore, i only am because of the government. so despite my best efforts i keep giving my parents enough to worry about.

and then my sisters. like i said, i’ve been the odd one out for a long time now and i have no idea how to come back from that. i know they’re literally always facetiming, which is the only way i get to talk to my little sister cause carla was here and apparently they can’t go a single day without talking to each other so while she was staying with me i got to hang out with both of them. it kept me sane for a bit there. even if i knew it wasn’t for me. 90% of the time i have no idea wtf they’re talking about and every time i ask them and they try to explain they just dismiss it and say it’s some tik tok shit or something. and yeah ok i refuse to get one cause honestly, social media is toxic af and i have enough shit to worry about already so i don’t have the mental energy for it. and honestly i don’t have the attention span for tik tok. but yeah, i know me living under a metaphoric rock doesn’t help but i’m trying to keep myself somewhat sane. but that means i have nothing to talk about with my sisters.

when carla was here she literally barely interacted with me cause she’s on her phone all.the.fucking.time. to the point where i know it’s straight up rude but i didn’t wanna say anything cause i know she’d just say i sounded like my mom. and i know most of the time she was just texting my other sister and honestly? it hurts ok? maricel was like 11 when i last lived with her and i was 18 so we had nothing in common and now i missed all these fucking years of being around her while she grew up. and somehow she’s still nicer to me than carla. maybe cause i didn’t get the chance to be as much of a shitty sister to her back in the day due to the age difference. she definitely didn’t get the worst of my horribly mentally ill unmedicated self. look, the facts add up ok? i’m not an idiot. i can see why things happen but i have absolutely no fucking idea how to change them.

and in the end what i have is this. somehow, despite my best efforts, which were actually pretty damn good despite everything, i am here again. i mean, my first semester of grad school, all the insane shit that happened in the span of less than 3 months really, that would have broken me back in the day. 2020 may have been a horrible year for everybody but personally, 2019 was a straight-up personal attack. and i made it through. without anyone knowing about any major breakdowns (I guess except for Tom and Borna) and with semi-decent grades. everyone in the program agreed that my first semester was one for the books in the worst possible way.

but i made it to 2020. and then 2020 happened. and i learned what being stuck in a 5x5 room for almost a month does to a person, aside from everything else. and i remember telling my therapist i hoped one of the things we would all learn from the pandemic was how long-term solitary confinement has never been an okay way of punishment. cause that’s the last time i felt truly seriously suicidal and literally had to physically fight myself not to do it. and it slowly got better.

but here we are again. and it’s not the same, not at all. it’s just it’s fucking winter and every winter i struggle to make it through like clockwork. in fact, i thought this time i’d be okay cause i made it all the way to late november just fine, which is unheard of. but i did. and then it all came crashing down like a fucking landslide. and god, i tried to stay on my feet for as long as i could, i really did. but when that wave hit it hit hard. it fucking knocked me to my knees. and for as long as i could i hid behing people, i clinged to them like a fucking lifeline even if i knew they’d rather be somewhere else. i got my sister to stay with me because i knew she hated being with my dad more. it was a win-win cause i couldn’t leave her there, i know how much she hates that place cause i hate it too. she didn’t pay attention to me almost the whole time she was here and i only had so much money to take her out places, seeing as i’m not being paid for work anymore. but as long as she was here i wasn’t allowed to be an alcoholic mess or kill myself. as soon as she left i went back to that.

And then Tom died. i don’t even know how to deal with this still. it only happened last week. but i don’t know how to tell people i need them. and i really do need them. but no one’s coming of their own volition and i never learned how to ask for help cause the couple times i did my mom told me to stop being crazy so i never asked again. and yeah. i’m 24 and i still haven’t fully managed to get past that but since then people have consistently proved to me that asking for help is a waste of time. so yeah, i have no idea how to tell anyone i’m on the verge of jumping off a metaphorical cliff. cause i hate sounding dramatic and i feel like any time i talk about my feelings at all that’s just what it’s like to everyone. dramatic. dramatic and uncomfortable.

and because i never do it, if i do it now it’s gonna be even weirder. i mean, last week i sat on the kitchen floor and listened to justin rant about how he feels his friend doesn’t want to be friends with him anymore and that feeling sucks, i know, but when i mentioned Tom he was like “huh?? oh yeah i forgot about that” like i hadn’t told him about it the night before. he hasn’t asked me how i’m doing even once, no one has. Jo did once and then she bailed. but yeah, i feel like i try so hard to be a good and supportive friend to justin and he just doesn’t give a shit about me. and i have a feeling he, and maybe most of my friends here??, thinks i simply do not have any feelings because i don’t show them in front of people. sure, i refuse to have anyone see me cry ever, but like that’s not the only way to show emotions??? but no one seems to get that???

So sure, no one cares about your feelings when you always seem to be okay on the outside, no matter how much shit you know is happening on the inside. My point is, my sisters hate me or don’t care about me and that’s the only people i really care about hurting. So. Yeah. Fuck what my meds say, maybe it is a good call to kill myself. Only time will tell i suppose.

#i guess heres the rant that ive been holding in forever lol #its the shit i could never write in my actual journal #cause it would require actual ink #and somehow that's harder than just screaming into the endless very public void that is tumblr?

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lynxgriffin · 6 years

Text

Led Zeppelin was right all along

It’s my FINAL PIECE of KH3 commentary! That’s right, I’ve finished the game! Commentary for me finishing it is under the cut!

Okay guys, this is it

It’s time to finish this sucker

It’s time for all of my feelings to get curbstomped and then cracked in half over a knee

Turns out I’ve caught a cold so this might be tougher to do

But I’m still going to do it

AWAY. WE. GOOOOO

And after beating this gummi boss again…

Ahhh there he is at last

The old fart

…So weird that it’s not Leonard Nimoy though

Xehanort: Let’s just try out this whole apocalypse thing and see how it goes

It’s rainin’ Heartless, hallelujah

LMAO there isn’t even an enemy counter, it’s just:

ENEMIES. YES, ALL OF THEM. ALL THE TIME. FOREVER

And I just blew up ten million Heartless with a train, THIS IS THE SHINIEST APOCALYPSE EVER

Ohh, once again, hate that tunnel

IT’S A TRAP

At least Aqua didn’t fall for that

Oh dang he’s got No Name there

NOOOO SUNSHINE BOY

Oh well now that’s cheating

FUKYEAH GOOFY

Donald’s fukkin pissed

Did Donald just Megaflare this bitch

ArE yoU kiDDinG mE

Oh great, one of you again

Aqua: Never mind, that is way damn too many Heartless

HE SCREAM, AGAIN

SORA PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER WE’RE STILL EARLY IN FINAL BATTLE MODE

Well that was five different layers of OH SHIT

Oh hey back at that chess metaphor HI AGAIN YOUNG ERAQUS

Wait the hell kind of chess move was that

MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE SALT FLATS

ThE FINAL WORLD, HUH

Chirithy!!!!

Chirithy: So yeah you’ve kinda died a couple times previously just by being unconscious a lot

Sora: YEAH WELL time to get back to life

Sora: THERE’S PUZZLES IN HEAVEN, TOO??

THERE’S PUZZLES IN HEAVEN YUP, BETTER GET TO THAT

Ohhhh no the sparkly stars are KHUX Keykids, aren’t they :(((

Ugh it’s the little star soul stories that are getting to me :(

Sora bein’ a pal even to all the souls in heaven, gosh darn

OH SURE JUST KEEP THAT FROM THE AUDIENCE

OMG this soul is longing for his kismesis, what a nerd

“What a weird place” YEAH NO SHIT

Well it’s nice to see THESE Soras are having a great time

Perhaps this game was taking the idea of Sorabits a tad too literally

Also actually two quick questions here:

1) Why is Chirithy in heaven?

2) Sora were you instagramming from heaven??

Sora: So heaven’s been a trip and all but I’ve still got endgame to do, STAY COOL FUZZY FRIEND

Wait a bloop it sent him back in time too??

Insert 2001 Space Odyssey reference here

Oh now we’re in DIFFERENT heaven??

Okay yeah now I have no clue where we’re going from here

Man here I was expecting to fight all the Norts and instead it’s…Heartless…Grim Reaper

I’m starting to suspect this is not the real Jiminy

This is kind of a weird callback to KH1, innit

Yeah I was just wondering that myself

Oh hey Youngnort

See? Grim Reaper Heartless, I knew it

I gotta say that after Sora dying and going to KH heaven this is…kinda weirder coming afterwards

I’m kind of worried about where this is going

This is like Three Days of the Condor, I TRUST NO ONE

WE FINALLY GOT A TITLE CRAWL???

WHELP. ROUND TWO, I GUESS

Guys, let’s…let’s not do this again

You ever get a sense of deja vu

OHOHOHOOOOO THIS IS DIFFERENT

“WHO ARE YOU??” “I’M YOU BUT STRONGER”

Terra: I’ll kick every ass! I’ll kick your ass! I’LL KICK MY OWN ASS

Gad damn the bullshit never stops around here, does it

We’ve done this before but I DUN CARE since this is my favorite boss battle music

Meanwhile the Unreal Engine’s just huffing and puffing trying to keep up

:O!!! EPHEMER!!

WHATRE U DOIN IN A HEARTLESS TORNADO

And all the dead Keykids came to help!

Ohhhhhh myyyyyyyyy goooooooooooosh

HAHA SO THAT’S HOW THEY INTEGRATED THOSE PEOPLE THAT WON THE THING

Congrats Keykids, U ARE ATTACKS

That’s…that’s really sweet actually

That’s a whole lot of Unicornis and Vulpes in there

OMG I was so busy watching those names I didn’t even realize I was supposed to avoid dying

FINALLY CURAGA???

I dunno Lea that was already a pretty big bad

Aw darn they Norted Repliku

Or wait no Pastku?

Pastku you’re such a little shit

Lea: That wasn’t blundering! That was failing, WITH STYLE

HE LOOM

Unreal Engine: Please…help…I’m dying Squirtle

Oh hey FINALLY super powerful magic users like Yen Sid get involved!

And Moses parted the Heartless Sea

And hey finally got Starlight!

Well ain’t this a familiar setup

I miss Leonard Nimoy :(

Well I’m glad we get to save and shop before we all die horribly!

….Wait haven’t we all already died horribly??

FINALLY We get to fight some Norts!!

Took out Xigbar first

Yeah Xigbar I’m really not sure all that hoohah was worth it

Are we gonna do this for each one or do we have to pick and choose?

Oh well that takes care of Pastku so maybe not

SKIRT RIKU VS SKIRT RIKU

Oh that’s creepy actually

OH NO! Repliku :(((

Sora…you just gonna leave that…okay

So now we got some Neophytes to deal with

Well I was gonna go after Mar first but I guess Luxord is our opponent now

AW DAMN I hated this part from before!

Oh wait that wasn’t hard at all you just look behind those stupid cards

Luxord: Well it’s been fun, time to die

Why does everyone’s teeth look blue??

Really liking all these remixes of the old boss themes tho

Aaaaand down goes Mar

And what’s nice is partners have mostly worn down the last Nort present!

Larx is an asshole to the very end

Door puzzles ohhhh nooooooo

Well thank goodness we worked out that nonsense

Who to help first? REDHEAD SQUAD

If that’s Xion I’m going to be SO UPSET

At least we get to fight WITH Kairi even if not as her

Lea is SO ANGER

Ohhhhh BUUUUUURN

Oh well that ain’t good

XION NOOOOOOOOOO

Absolutely not, Xemnas!!

*throws hands in the air* OHHHHHHHH

HE KNOWS

Oh fuck you Xemnas HDU

Ohhhhh sheeeeeeet

THE BOY IS BACK

JUST STAB ME IN THE HEART WITH THE OTHER PROMISE, OKAY

Called out by Roxas daaaayum

Gah dammit not again! STOP DOING KAIRI DIRTY

GET READY FOR: TRIPLE KEYKIDS ASSKICKIN

Hot damn but it’s satisfying to beat the crap out of Saix with Sora, Roxas and Xion all at once while The Other Promise just blasts in the background

Lea: I’m not mad I’m just disappointed

Awww maaaaaan

OH GOSH SEASALT TRIO HUG

THEY’RE ALL TOGETHER AGAIN SOB SOB

Now to the Wayfinder family! Took out Vanyeetas first!

Sora: Hey WTF that’s my face you got

Yeah I gotta agree I don’t know which part of that was okay honestly

WHELP no time to think on it gotta take out Terranort

Since we got back Roxas and Xion can we finally get Terra back??

Sora: TERRA PLEASE STOP, IT’S TOO WEIRD

OHHHHHHH!! OH OH OH

That was metal as all hell

YAAAAAAY

WAYFINDER FAMILY IS HERE

Ohhhh gooooosh

Everyone’s together and I’m full of rainbows

MAN so we got…three Norts left, don’t we

Guess the only way out of this is up

What we’ve just been cloning No Name the whole time??

Okay, FOUR left, we gotta deal with Ansem, Xemnas and Youngnort first

Oh sheesh that was Youngnort dying, thought it was me for a second

Youngnort: Just one last piece of cryptic bullshit to leave you with! BYYYYEEEE

Aaaand that’s Ansem down

Ansem: Must…pontificate more…before…I die

Haha took out Xemnas with flying rocket punch nanobots

Xemnas: Regrets…I’ve had a few…

But then again, too few to mention?

Sora: Life is pain, Xemnas! Anyone who says otherwise is Norting you

Oh boy oh boy, all we have left now is…the old fart…

Oh this is gonna piss me off good, ain’t it

YUP, I’M PISSED

YOU DONE HER DIRTY AGAIN

Nomura do we need to sit you down as a group and learn you some things about NOT DOING THAT

That was…kind of a cool moment I guess?? BUT I’M STILL MAD

Oh shitcakes

The world to come is death from above I guess

Donald and Goofy just coming in like “Hey…what’d we miss?”

I’m honestly really glad they’re here tho, TRINITY ALLLLL THE WAY

The whole gang here together again IRONING OUT THE PLOT POINTS

Trophy here???

OH HEY WE’RE BACK HERE

A town of nothing but Norts

OH I forgot THESE WEIRDOS were in trailers somehow

The hell is happening anymore

An Organization so nice we fought ‘em twice!

The scary music is playing but I have no clue where to goooo

Well it took me five minutes just to find the dang guys before Thundaga finished them off

Oh really now!

ONE MORE TITLE CRAWL FOR Y’ALL

HE WAS AN ANGRY GOAT WHO SAW THE MOVIE INCEPTION ALL ALONG

SHEESH that was a nutty battle that took awhile

Well I think I won THAT battle anyway

Is this gonna be a THAT WASN’T EVEN MY FINAL FORM or what

More callbacks!

This is the fight that never eeeeends, yes it goes on and on my frieeeends

OH that was fuckin weird but COOL

I LOVE THE TRINITY

EVERYONE ELSE AGAIN TOO

HAHA OH DAMN

EVEN ERAQUS GETS TO REAPPEAR

Yaaay my favorite terrible dad

That look from Eraqus OMG

Babbeh Eraqus so cute

Now YOU get the goofy apocalypse weapon, Sora!

More dad reconciliations sob

Oh gosh I’m so glad we get this before we end

ohhhh noooo

Oh no you know shit’s serious when you enter a blocked scene

DOES EVERYONE FINALLY GET TO GO HOME NOW

Man everything’s just so shiny now

A CHIRITHY FOUND A VEN

NEW OUTFITS FOR SEASALT GANG FINALLY

THE EXPANDED SEASALT GANG

YAAAY NAMINE BACK

LET HER LIVE HER LIFE NOW

MOTHAFOCKIN BEACH PARTY FOR EVERYONE YES

FOR REALLY EVERYONE FOR REAL??

Also dang sing us out Utada

*points and points* THAT? FINAL SHOT???

WHERE’S THE BOY

What did you do to my son Nomura

LOOK IF YOU’RE GONNA POP HIM OUT LIKE THAT I AT LEAST WANT TO BE VALIDATED FOR MY THEORIES

THE CREDITS ARE ROLLING AND THERE’S STILL THINGS I FEEL LIKE I’M MISSING

Also just interjecting here but damn that endgame was so long IT FELT LIKE A WHOLE ‘NOTHER GAME

And now the pretty march music with the Super Longer Credits—I CAN’T BELIEVE DRAKE BELL WAS YOUNG ERAQUS

*points* WHY IS FURRY SQUAD VOICED HERE??

Well if nothing else gonna get me a kickass OST out of this

HERE we go, post credits stuff

Here’s the Furry Squad!

LUXU WAS XIGBAR WELL OKAY

What fresh bullshit is thiiiiiiis

OH HEY WE’D ALMOST FORGOTTEN ABOUT THEM

Hey where is Ava

Oh fuuuuuck yoooou Luxugbar

Whaaaaaaaat

THE BOY

SHIBUYA????????????

*throws hands in the air* I GOT NOTHIN FOLKS

I GOT ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN

THE END PAGE!!!! SURE AS HELL IS WHAT THAT IS

OKAY SO LIKE

PLEASE, HELP ME OUT HERE, SECRET ENDING

IS THE NEXT GAME JUST GONNA STRAIGHT UP BE VERUM REX?

NOPE THERE IS NOTHING MORE THAT’S JUST IT

WELL THAT WAS

A WHOLE DAMN LOT WASN’T IT

Nomura I am in fact going to die and go to your house and haunt it and push all of your things off shelves like a cat

ALL OF THE THINGS

OFF OF. YOUR SHELVES.

Okay so overall I did really enjoy the game but also I’m just ????

?????????

??????

Like my reaction is pretty much just

LATER NERDS THIS HAS BEEN LYNX SUFFERS THROUGH KINGDOM HEARTS 3

I HOPE YOU HAD FUN CAUSE I DID

I think I’m gonna go lie down now

#kingdom hearts spoilers #kh3 spoilers #lynx plays kh3 #lynx suffers for your entertainment #??????????????

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savefrog · 5 years

Text

Anyway, here's my belated take on the Pokedex situation. As preface I have a degree in game design lol

Adding 100+ new Pokemon every major installment is not a sustainable practice. It's tragic but true

I don't think it's impossible to have a game with all the Pokemon in it, the previous games have managed.

However there's a thing called Scope. The bigger the scope, the less time is being spent on perfecting smaller details. This is partially the reason why I think a lot of indie games have outshined AAA games. Bigger scope means more art/concept/animation/programming/design, obviously...but also more testing (and testing doesn't JUST happen at the end of development, that would be a mess)...more things that need to wait for feedback from higher ups...more time spent on communication and figuring out what gets in and what gets cut...more chance for time-consuming errors...etc etc

The previous games had all the Pokemon, sure, but take a look at the meta game. While I think Game Freak does a great job giving overlooked older Pokemon fun hidden abilities and new moves, we're at a point in the meta where there's a tier (ZU) for Pokemon too useless for even the lowest tier (PU). They are just simply outclassed - there's another Pokemon out there that does the exact same thing mechanically that they do...JUST BETTER. They're redundant. And this happens even in the lowest tiers.

While a lot of people don't care about that and battle with their fave Pokemon regardless of whether or not they are good, it's not exactly prime game design. And I don't blame Game Freak, how the hell do you test and consider almost 1000 seperate Pokemon??? The overwatch team still struggles to balance their cast with 31 (ok, they're not entirely comparable but you get it)

Focusing the scope on a smaller cast of Pokemon would mean that more time and attention can be put into balancing them and making sure they all have a place mechanically. Making even the less popular Pokemon have a role!

And besides mechanics, we now have Pokemon camp to interact with these Pokemon face to face, something that'd be less feasible with more Pokemon!!

I'm also sad Pokemon will be put aside, as there's a lot of weirder and overlooked Pokemon I love (so far have been lucky to see my faves in previews tho B-) ). Honestly I'd love a main game that doesn't introduce tons of new Pokemon but just focuses on developing the ones we have and making them fit in the world.

However, Pokemon is a franchise made for a market. New Pokemon generate buzz and help the game sell (important to offset the cost of development, games are incredibly expensive. I know you're thinking "yeah right, it's Pokemon" but no company wants to take that risk, game studios close constantly. And while I highly doubt Game Freak would be at risk of closing, they're at risk of other smaller projects suffering). The Main games are accompanied by a TCG, TV show, spin offs, Merchandise etc etc. There is (sadly) no time for delays. Honestly if they could delay it a year just to keep improving the game I would want that SO MUCH.

And I haven't even mentioned how terrifying of a task it actually is to animate, model, design, program and even just Organize that many Pokemon. We've taken it for granted. Im not fully caught up on the "Are they the same models" debate but even just transferring the models to the switch would be a monumental task. It is entirely possible that the switch renders things differently, or the rigs broke or any number of things that even if they didn't completely remake the models would make devs have to fix 1,000+ 3d models. AND MAKE NEW ONES FOR TRAINERS, ENVIRONMENT, FX, PROPS, PLUS LOW AND HIGH POLY VERSIONS OF THESE!

And considering the pipeline, they may have had to get the models done EARLIER so the riggers and animators could get to work. They didn't have the entire development time to do it, and they sure as hell aren't being lazy.

But I can say I'm interested to see what Pokemon can achieve by managing the scope like this. I'm a sucker for Pokemon world building and seeing Pokemon in the wild in their environments is awesome! I'd love them to feel organic, like they fit together in this world, and with people. So while I'm definitely sad about the Pokedex cuts, I support the decision and look forward to seeing the Pokemon who miss out this game get to reappear in other forms of poke media. They're still around!!

#pokeblogging #long post

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smolfangirl · 6 years

Text

A little fresa story V

This is it. The last fresa part. It’s been taking ages to finish, but it’s here now, and I might be a bit emotional. I have lots of people to thank and credit tho, so I’ll save my breath :D

Thanks and/or credit go out to:

@huffletiika for the date night idea and the patience with my attempts at Spanish

My roommate for the actual, very true quote about answering a phone

@miris-xo for, well, everything

A gif from the TV show Bones that I can’t find rn even though I tagged it for this purpose :( but it was my inspo for the scene where Matteo comes home

Also @lutteoheart for the basic idea for the last scene with Aurora, I changed quite a bit, whoopsie

And, dear mortals and bots, one last time: @ac-ars and @sky-girls used the name Rory first. I used my own brain to end up with this name (also because of my roommate who is obsessed with Gilmore Girls and keeps trying to talk me into watching it), which is why I didn’t give them any credit.

Word count: 5.6k

///

“Can I say something weird?” Her voice is nothing more than a whisper. Luna leans against Matteo’s chest, so close to him that their conversation moves on quietly and calm. His hand softly ruffles through her hair while their favorite movie flickers over the TV screen. He ordered their favorite pizza and even lit some candles to set the mood for this special evening.

But somehow, Luna isn’t feeling any of it.

“Weirder than your comment last week? What was it?” Matteo pretends to think, the amused snort impossible to miss. “It’s strange when you pick up the phone and someone answers?” Her idiot fiancé chuckles and wiggles away from the finger she tries to poke him with. “Hey, you have to admit that was priceless. High-quality comedy, even.”

Luna grunts. Moves away a bit, until he pulls her back into his arms with a laugh as warm as her hands when she hides them in the sleeves of his hoodie. “Okay, okay, I’ll let it go. What did you want to say, little moon?”

With a sigh, she stares at the empty crib by the sofa. “I miss her.”

Glancing up at him, she discovers a sad smile on his face. “I miss her too.”

“Does this mean we’re a horrible couple or just good parents?”

Matteo rests his chin on her head, releasing a heavy breath. “I don’t know… but is it too bad if we drive to your parents and pick her up?”

She wants to answer immediately, she wants to grab her jacket and the car keys and walk out of the door. Her leg already twitches towards the ground, because she misses her little sunshine this much. She wants to hold her in her arms and cuddle with her until one of them falls asleep.

But something holds her back.

Something; the dreams, the ideas, the plans that added up for this night during the past days and weeks. It doesn’t matter that none of them received the luxury of turning into reality. As long as she can indulge in his voice when it drops as he’s almost breathing the words, as long as his touch fuels her heart, Luna is fine with whatever they do in those few sacred hours alone.

Or that’s what she thought.

Because in this moment, the house feels empty. Lifeless, almost. Every decision, every minute is about their daughter since she was born, she’s the fixpoint they both revolve around. However, now that she’s being spoiled by her grandparents tonight, Luna’s mind runs all over the place like a Ferris wheel on the loose.

“I don’t know,” she finally mumbles. “I miss her, but this is our first date night.”

“I don’t know either.” A pause. “You know what’s funny? Gastón was so sure we couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves, but we haven’t even made out like lovesick teenagers yet.” His lips hover over her, way too pointed. He’s being dramatic, like he loves to be, but it makes Luna giggle, and when she catches a breath a minute later, her shoulders are less filled with tension.

“How about this, chico fresa? You can try to kiss me, and in an hour, we’ll see if we still want to give up and get her?”

Matteo raises an eyebrow, the hand in her hair frozen. “Try to kiss you? Are you planning to resist me?”

“Well, there’s some popcorn waiting in the kitchen…” Luna explains while she struggles to get up. However, his grip on her tightens and with his best smug grin, he leans in to press his mouth on hers, a slow, savoring kiss that says, ‘I know you’re not serious about resisting me’. The second one steals a sigh from her and by the third, she surrenders to the soft movements of his lips.

///

When Matteo lets go of her to finally prepare the popcorn, the last minutes of the movie play. Luna sits through the credits without seeing them. Her mouth tingles from kissing him endlessly, but also from smiling so much. It almost hurts – or maybe that’s just her stomach protesting for a snack or two… (Since when does she feel snacky only two hours after dinner?)

Eventually, she gives in and follows the sweet smell into the kitchen.

Wrapping her arms around Matteo’s waist, she asks him how much longer they have to wait to get the bag out of the microwave.

“Always so impatient, munchkin,” Matteo teases her, without giving her the satisfaction of an answer. She snuggles closer to him and grins, “Except when it comes to marrying you.”

He shakes his head. “Rude and uncalled for.”

“Aww, I’m sorry, my chico fresa. But see, I wanted to talk to you about that anyway, and you just gave me the perfect set-up.”

In a smooth twirl, he faces her to lift her on the counter, so they’re eye to eye. Luna hurries to send him a smile, because if she wants to avoid one thing, it’s any doubt in his mind about her love for him. “I was thinking, what if we, hypothetically I mean, hired a wedding planner? One of these fancy people with lots of connections and the weird talent to make literally anything happen, no matter how extraordinary. Like these tv shows? I mean, we could still focus on Rory without having to postpone the wedding again. It might strain our budget a bit but,” she says, although Matteo doesn’t let her finish.

“You know the budget is no problem,” he replies before he caresses her cheek.

The noise of the microwave cuts through the silence, mixes with the obnoxious pop song from the movie credits. Yet his gesture alone turns this moment into something precious, intimate. Like the popcorn or the DVD-player don’t matter. Don’t exist.

“If you think a wedding planner can help us, we’ll hire one,” he adds.

“Really?”

“Of course.”

This time it’s her who pulls him close for a kiss. And when the microwave gives off a little pling and he attempts to break apart, she waves him off, whispering the popcorn can wait.

Eventually, they stumble back to the couch. Too lost in each other, it’s a miracle already that they’re not dropping their snack left and right. Luna selects her favorite scene from the movie but looses track of it quickly when Matteo starts feeding her and rewarding her for every bite, with a peck on her hand, her shoulder, her neck. She pays him back by throwing a piece of popcorn up in the air for him to catch.

He throws one for her next. Back and forth, it soon turns into a competition filled with laughter until her stomach hurts and her lungs plea for more oxygen.

“Try one more time,” Matteo instructs her, barely breathing after her last failed attempt. The piece of popcorn he catapults into the air hits her nose and falls on her cheek from where she catches it with her tongue. “Not bad,” he presses out in between more hysterical giggles, and in revenge, Luna threatens to hide some sugared corn in his hair.

Shrieking, he ducks. “Mercy on me, please!” he begs, hands lifted in surrender. (Luckily for him, the bowl is almost empty anyway.)

“Hmmm…” Slowly, Luna moves closer to him until his breath tickles her skin. “What would I get for giving you peace?”

“Always so demanding, little moon.”

She rests her head on his chest again to glance up at him with her best puppy eyes. “That’s not an answer, Matteito.” For a moment, he returns her gaze, speechless. Then, a smile unfolds on his lips. “You know, I could show you the final cut of the music video. But only if you promise to not get any of this sticky stuff close to my hair.”

“Deal.”

///

Contigo todo cambió

Veo un mundo diferente

Dejé de sentirme solo

No cerraré mis ojos nunca mas

Estás siempre en mi mente

///

“What do you think?” His voice cracks from all the excitement. His left leg shakes a bit, and the way he looks at her, Luna can’t help but think of Simón’s dog when he watches his leash being taken off the shelf.

She chuckles. “Honestly?”

“Always.”

“I bet you my left skate that there’s at least one gossip magazine that thinks the sunrise after the moon means you dumped me for some other girl. But other than that, I absolutely love it. Your ass in those outfits will have the fangirls go crazy.”

Dumbfounded, Matteo stares at her. His face mirrors the turns and jumps his brain takes, and if Luna concentrates enough she can see smoke coming out of his ears.

A few seconds later, he catches himself and grins slightly. “That sounds like a safe win for you. And horrible news for Rory. Who would even be the one to tell her?”

Silence.

“Oh my god.”

“Did we really just forget about our daughter?”

Helpless, Luna throws a glance at the clock on the wall. 9pm. Way past bedtime for little Aurora, and almost two hours after their mini-breakdown as well. “I think we did,” she whispers.

Matteo looks like he bit into a lemon. “We’re such horrible parents.”

“Oh god, we might be,” Luna agrees, cheeks paler than a moment ago. Guilt takes over, she can’t believe she didn’t think of their chica fresa for one second while goofing around with Matteo, when usually not a second goes by without her daughter being in the back of her mind somehow.

But when her parents bring her over not even half an hour later, a part of her decides this has been the best date night in easily a year.

///

It’s not the right weekend to sit alone in a hotel room with an overpriced bucket of ice cream from the room service while crying to the rhythm of the rain on the window pane. There are other weekends, other days for Luna to sob into tissues until they cover half the floor.

This isn’t the weekend. This shouldn’t be it.

But here she is, lonely yet not entirely alone, while everyone important and famous in the skating community is celebrating in the lobby. If she takes a deep breath and remains silent for just a few seconds, she can hear them shouting and cheering from downstairs.

In a mindless gesture, her hand rests on her belly. Maybe her absence will cause rumors, a drop of gasoline in a flame that’s already smoking. No, it will definitely cause rumors. Since her planned break from the work as Argentina’s most promising skating trainer leaked to the press, they’ve been watching her every breath. Day for day she wakes up to new theories and emails begging for an interview, and the desperate need for a vacation and more time for her family are the nicest speculations the media had to offer.

And the ones closest to the truth.

Luna sighs. If Matteo was here, maybe she’d have a laugh over all the stupid gossip, or maybe she wouldn’t be so exhausted from crying. But he’s back home while she’s here, and there’s nothing she can do to stop the tears from rolling over her face.

Without wanting to, her mind jumps back in time to a competition years ago, the last test leading up to her first ever world championship, where she found herself in a situation painfully similar to her current one.

Back then, she sat in a hotel room just like now, crying on the floor. Back then, she doubted everyone and everything, and mostly herself. She leaned against the bed, sobbing and shaking until her eyes burned and throat dried out. Because of Matteo, because of a fight with him and the break they hastily agreed to take. She cried because she missed him, and because her skate at the final rehearsal for the most important sport event of her life went terrible. Catastrophic, even. Jumps she couldn’t stand, turns she began too late for the music, a fall.

Leaving the rink, she didn’t even know how to look her trainer in the eyes.

And then she cried because that just made her miss Matteo more.

(A week later, Luna had cried once again, tears of joy mixed with the sadness that he wasn’t with her for her victory and that he hadn’t even send a text.)

Now, it’s different. There’s been no fight, no competition and still… the result remains. Luna cries because she misses him, she misses her sunshine of a daughter, she misses all the little drama coming along with having a young family.

With her hormones all over the place, indulging in a distraction seems impossible. No colleague, no idol in the world could make her feel better now. This mood swing demands to be felt, so she’s staring at the hotel ceiling, trying to come up with a solid reason to call her husband during dinner time. Maybe he’s breaking the rule of no phones by the table to wait for her number to light up on the screen?

Luna still ponders over his opened contact when a call comes in.

Matteo.

“Chico fresa, hey, oh my god, what a surprise!” Her tongue almost trips over the letters, earning her an amused chuckle from the end of the line and another teardrop on her cheek. “Hi, my little moon, how are you?”

Her sniff ends in a deep breath ending in a sob, and she’s not sure she can speak. “It’s so nice to hear your voice, you have no idea how much I miss you and… and I…” She stops, blowing into a tissue.

“Luna, hey, are you okay? Hang on, are you crying right now?”

She pauses. Nods. “I miss you, chico fresa. I want to be home, with you. With…”

“Mommy?!” A high-pitched voice filled with excitement creaks through the speaker. Hurried little footsteps follow, and Luna wonders how a heart can both heal and break more at the same time. “Mommy! Mommy!”

“I’ll put you on speaker,” Matteo announces and a second later, Luna can hear their little chica fresa giggle. “Hello Aurora, darling!” She keeps her voice steady, tries to smile. Her baby girl doesn’t need to deal with her homesickness, besides, smiling is almost easy when she imagines Rory’s face beaming with happiness. “Is everything okay? Is daddy being nice to you?”

“NO,” Rory shouts at the top of her little yet powerful lungs, making Matteo wince. “Aurora, you're hurting my feelings here.” Then, her husband declares, “Just for the record, that is still her favorite word that’s not gibberish. She’s a liar.”

A hint of a laugh hushes over Luna’s mouth. Her mood already lifts, the weight on her chest fades and as her hand finds her belly again, gently stroking it, she thinks that perhaps she’s done crying for today.

Little Aurora, however, isn’t as happy anymore. “Coglio!” she yells at her dad, once, twice.

Luna frowns. She waits for a second, allowing her brain to catch up on the meaning, and when realization hits, it’s not so surprising anymore that Matteo remains silent.

“Matteo?”

“Yes, my love?” A casual tone, too casual in fact.

“Was that supposed to be an Italian curse word?”

Silence. Then, a groan. “I used it for Gastón once, okay? Once. He annoyed me so much with his stupid puns and it just kinda… slipped. But since then, she keeps repeating it, while ‘please’ is just too hard for her to say, I guess, since she only heard that one about a million times.”

“You’re…” she takes a breath to scold him, half-serious about the annoyance she’s intending to show. But he cuts her off with a smirk that she can hear all through the phone, which sounds dangerous enough all on its own. “No, no, no, don’t act like you’re all innocent here. I first thought I’d let it slip, you know, to be a nice husband, but now you asked for it, chica delivery. Would you mind explaining to me why your daughter keeps mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like baby talk for your favorite curse word, hm? Because I definitely don’t use it, so you better not give me shit right now.”

Speechless, Luna listens to his ramble.

Matteo has a point, of course, maybe she used cabrón one too many times in front of her baby girl. But to be fair, she never expected him to find out…

“Don’t you have anything to say to your defense?” her husband inquires, chuckling.

She clears her throat. “I mean, I can still blame Simón for teaching her naughty words. You’ve got nothing on me, chico fresa.”

“Ah, that’s where Rory has the whole lying thing from.”

“While it’s your fault she’s as dramatic as you are. If you could keep your dignity while throwing tantrums, you would never stop.”

By the time Matteo gasps in pretended offense, Luna’s grin deepens. The few days apart from him made her long for these silly banters more than she ever deemed possible. At home, not a day goes by without at least one teasing comment in the other’s direction, and over the years she grew as used to it as to the comfort of his touch. Since she arrived here at the conference, stepped into halls too crowded to get reasonable internet connection to chat with him, it becomes more and more obvious to her how much they both enjoy gently mocking each other.

When Matteo begins to argue he’s not that dramatic, therefore his daughter can’t be either, said little troublemaker cries out. He sighs. “Can you hold on for a minute? She’s ready for dinner now and…”

“She won’t eat unless you sing to her?” Luna finishes the sentence. “I told you, she learned from the best.”

“Aww, thanks, babe,” he giggles in a pitched voice, before he pauses and adds, “She is so damn extra. Hm, you tiny troublemaker? Insisting on your demands like the cute diva you are?” In a sing-song Matteo tells Aurora how soon she’ll outdo every spoiled starlet he ever met in the course of his career, but from the content babble that follows, Luna figures dinner won’t be a problem for today. Or for as long as Matteo sings, really.

The next time her husband takes a short break from feeding their chica fresa and complains about Rory’s eating habits, Luna suggests calling his best friend. “You could ask him about spoiled toddlers, I’m pretty sure he can tell you a weird habit or two about Felicia as well.”

“Hm, yeah… no. This is really weird. And I’m not talking about the singing.” He sounds horrified, which brings back pictures of one particular evening where Rory decided to be extremely picky.

And a bit gross.

“Oh boy, please don’t say she wants to eat her veggies with chocolate yoghurt again.” With a glare into the ice cream bucket in front of her, Luna notices her dessert melted and now resembles that yoghurt way too much.

She pushes the bucket away.

“Nope,” Matteo replies, to which Luna breathes in relief. Maybe she can still enjoy her sugar treat, after all. “Trust me, this is worse.” (Or maybe not.)

Taking the spoon out, she licks it, while she wonders what could be worse than veggies and chocolate yoghurt. Nothing comes to her mind, although she’s sure Matteo will explain whatever it is in great, disturbing detail.

Of course, he doesn’t let her down. “Remember when you were full of pride that our baby will be half Mexican and half Italian and said that it will be so cool?”

“Oh boy, please, just make it quick. What did she do?”

“She put spaghetti in a tortilla. Or, forced me to put spaghetti in a tortilla for her.”

“Ugh, what? Gross!” Luna gasps, quickly covering her mouth with her hand. It’s not that late, but she isn’t exactly keen on provoking any attention from other hotel guests, or worse, be heard by the paparazzi lurking outside. Sighing, she gets up to close the window.

Spaghetti in a tortilla, that must be the weirdest and most cliché combination Aurora has come up with so far.

“I know,” Matteo says. “It’s such a disgrace to the pasta.”

///

They stay talking on the phone for easily an hour more. Matteo puts her on speaker as he changes Aurora into her pajama and with a smile, Luna listens to the lullaby he puts her to sleep with.

However, as nice as being part of the nightly ritual is, his silence warns her the moment he closes the bedroom door behind him and walks back into the living room.

“Luna,” he whispers, her name as fragile in the air as a floating bubble. “Are you okay? I didn’t expect you to be crying when I called you.”

“Yes,” she mumbles back. “I just missed you and it got a bit too much.” Laying on the bed, her legs dangle from the edge, draw circles into the air that give her thoughts a calm rhythm to think to. It’s a bit embarrassing to look back on all the tissues she wasted with her crying, especially when the reason was so… not exactly meaningless, but simple.

“Aww, little moon, is the convention that bad? That you can’t be three days without your favorite fresa?”

Luna snorts, although it comes out weak towards the end. “Let your pregnant wife be emotional, okay?”

“But you’re having fun, right? Meeting some cool people who you can show off to with your medals and titles?”

He’s only half serious, but sometimes, Luna wonders if Matteo forgets that she’s not the center of the figure skating world. So far Luna felt like the others were the ones impressing her, not the other way around. She got introduced to people who won everything there was to win, who competed in three, if not four Olympics, who dedicated their whole life to this sport since they were little kids. And yes, she claimed the title as world champion for a few years, and she’s infinitely proud of her Olympic gold medals. But she’ll never be close to achieving legend status like the skaters around her, and that’s okay for her.

“I am having fun,” she admits, quickly smiling, yet carefully as to not let it slip into her voice. “You know, it’s actually nice to be more than just your wife for once. No one really cares about you here, or only very little.”

No reply, not even a snort. Just silence.

“Your ego can handle that, right?”

///

When Matteo unlocks the door, he swears he’s going to fall on the sofa and won’t move again until it’s time to go to bed. Interviews tend to be fun, but Jazmín didn’t interview him, no, she interrogated him. Squeezed him like an orange for breakfast juice, and now he feels drained of every last bit of energy. Not even blasting his favorite songs on the ride back home helped to forget her over-excited laugh or the never-ending questions, about the meaning of each new song, about Luna, about his family.

Just the thought of having to promote this episode next week makes him want to delete every single social media account he has.

With a sigh, he slips out of his jacket and loudly announces to Luna that he’s back. No answer, instead, silence greets him. Perhaps she’s napping somewhere, wouldn’t be the first time, although jealousy stings him at the mere thought. Not only can Luna spend more time with their chica fresa, she also manages to doze off before dinner, yet doesn’t struggle to fall asleep at night while Matteo can only dare to dream about day-time naps.

If you ask him, it’s not really fair. (But he chose this, after all.)

He trots into the living room. Knowing his sleeping beauty, he needs a solid plan to wake her up, but all ideas fall short as soon as he discovers her on the couch. The view in front of him surprises him, charms him, all while a warm fuzzy sensation lingers in his chest.

He might have expected his girls to be asleep, but he didn’t expect them to be asleep together. Luna’s hair is spread out over her shoulders, head supported on the cushions and her mouth opened just enough to give his wife a peaceful (and maybe a little bit dumb) expression. On one side of her, Matteo spots an open book, little Aurora’s favorite, a story full of tiny adorable animals and terrible rhymes. Too many times did they read it to her until her eyes slowly fluttered shut, too easily can he recall those lines. But it doesn’t quite matter, not when his daughter rests against Luna’s still growing bump, snoring gently.

It’s the cutest thing he has seen all week.

They neither wake up from his soft hello kisses nor from the picture he snaps for the next family collage. Only when dinner warms up in a pan and the delicious smell of risotto fills the room does Luna join him.

“I didn’t notice you were home,” she mumbles, hugging him from behind the exact moment the baby decides to kick. Right into his back. It doesn’t really hurt, but Matteo winces anyway. “Damn, this one’s definitely a troublemaker.” A short kiss for his wife and he leans down to gently follow their little one’s movements. “Hm, tiny peanut? Hello to you too.”

“You know it’s weird how you say peanut when it feels more like a watermelon.”

He chuckles and checks how much the risotto heated up. While he feeds her a spoonful, he replies, “I’m not gonna call our baby a watermelon just because it’s more accurate. You were the one who suggested to wait with the name and all. So, peanut it is.”

“But why peanut? Why don’t you say… I don’t know, raisin?”

“Because raisins are gross, duh. They’re the wrinkly grandmas of grapes, I’m not eating that.”

Luna chuckles as she shakes her head. “You’re not supposed to eat our baby.”

“Sometimes I get the feeling you think I’m stupid,” Matteo pouts, earning him a soft pat on his cheek. It’d be a cute gesture if it wasn’t for her answer. “Only sometimes?”

“Haha, you’re so funny, Valente.”

She sticks out her tongue at him.

Matteo sighs in surrender, then changes his mind. “So, since we’re talking names now, what do you think about Violet Drizzle? Or Sven Olaf?”

“Sven Olaf? Like from Frozen?” With the nod he gives her, his wife seems to realize where this is going.

She pops her finger bones like she’s about to step in the ring.

“Sure. Why not Misery? Or what about Ben Jerry? Unicorna?” Rolling his eyes, Matteo tries to shake off the laughter. Fails. Coming up with ridiculous baby names isn’t hard, he knows too many celebrities and their children, but he didn’t expect Luna to play along so quickly. (And fairly, so brilliantly.)

Within the blink of an eye, he follows her suggestions with five more. In the span of three minutes, they’re bickering like it’s the most important competition of their lives. Ideas are traded back and forth, and so is their laughter.

But none of their names clearly outdoes the others, and they’re both too stubborn to surrender. Except when he’s about to suggest a draw, Luna makes him laugh so hard he almost burns dinner.

His wife snorts, although the huge grin on her face gives her away. “Jeez, chico fresa, if you’re as careful with Fresa Risotto as you are with our dinner I might have to raise my kid alone.” Snatching the spoon out of his hands, she shoves him towards the sofa. “Why don’t you just go and wake Aurora up? She asked about you all afternoon.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he salutes before he caresses her bump one last time and leaves the kitchen, grinning. His daughter already blinks her eyes open at him.

She’s tired. Still tired and clearly confused and not quite landed in reality yet. Once the last shreds of sleep let go of her, though, she squeals and claps her hands in excitement. Just like her momma, Matteo thinks as he picks her up to press a kiss on her forehead.

Aurora beams with joy.

“Hello, my sunshine, did you sleep well?” When she babbles something that he assumes to mean yes, he asks if she wants to be a little airplane. Of course, Rory nods – she’ll never say no to her favorite game after all.

When Luna calls him for dinner, he’s still whirling his baby girl around and around and around.

///

“Did you call Simón today?”

He’s sitting in front of the couch, Aurora on his lap. Since her favorite toy disappeared without a trace, she’s been whiny, but cuddling with him distracts her enough to give Luna time to find it.

His wife nods. “Yeah, he sounded really excited to be back on tour. Greetings from Pedro, by the way.”

“Thanks. Did you talk to him, too?”

“No,” she replies, and sighs when Rory’s little plush cat remains nowhere to be found. “We weren’t on the phone for long, Simón seemed kinda… busy.”

Matteo sends her a look. Usually, they ended up chatting for hours especially on a day like this, with no concert in the evening. “Huh?”

His chica fresa plants her hands all over his face. When he kisses her little sneaky fingers, she giggles. “Come on, Matteo,” Luna meanwhile groans at him. “I told you about Emma and him. You said he obviously had a type and all. Now, if I could just find this stupid kitty…” Before he gets a chance to remember Emma, Luna waddles out of the room.

Matteo prays she finds the plush toy quickly. He wants his intel, after all.

///

She’s clumsy. Not normally, all this training to become a world champion wasn’t for nothing. But her bump makes it hard to navigate her own body sometimes, and she can barely spot her feet. Can’t spot them at all, to be correct.

So, of course she stumbles over the bright red plastic car on the floor.

Matteo blinks at her confused, then breaks into laughter. She tries to catch the kitten in her hand, almost catches it. Accidently throws it up into the air again, reaches out again. Ultimately fails, because it’s keeping her balance or the plush toy.

Her husband still laughs. “Don’t bother,” he manages to get out once she tries to bow down enough to grab it. (Her belly. Naturally. She feels like a walrus.)

But it’s not Matteo who picks the kitty up or presses it against his chest with a cry of joy. It’s her daughter, who must have escaped her daddy’s grasp and now clutches her fingers around the worn out plush. Dragging her regained treasure along, she crawls back to Matteo before she sits down to stare at Luna.

A frown appears on her forehead.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” Luna asks. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find Mr. Whiskers earlier.”

Rory stares. And frowns. And stares. The grin on Matteo’s face slowly dies.

“What are you planning, fresita?” he whispers, although too late. One last skeptical glance and their baby girl tosses her cat into the air and watches it fall down.

Matteo is rolling on the floor. “I can’t believe I have two Lunas now,” he pants before losing his breath from all the laughter.

Rory beams with pride and repeats it a second and a third and a tenth time.

///

He makes it up to her with a massage. Their little sunshine is dozing off in her bedroom, their favorite show flickers over the TV screen and he even prepared a hot chocolate for her.

“Didn’t you want to tell me something about Simón’s new blondie?” he asks so casual that she’ll probably figure he’s been thinking about it for at least an hour.

Rolling her eyes, Luna gently slaps his arm. “Rude, chico fresa. Emma might be blonde too, but she’s not like Ámbar.”

“You still meant to tell me.”

“You’re right, I was.”

He presses a kiss on her neck. Maybe she’ll scold him for setting her up on a distraction without letting her finish, but her skin is warm and soft and he’s just a man who loves his wife a bit too much. (To his surprise, she even robs backwards on the couch until she lays against his chest.) “So,” he whispers into her ear, “how do I know Emma?”

“She spent a few weeks in the Roller back during my last year of school, remember? I think they met up during the promo gigs or something.”

“And they’re good together?”

Luna tilts her head for their eyes to meet. She smiles. “I’m pretty sure they’ll marry each other one day.”

His hands wrap around her bump. Carefully traces the baby’s little kicks, while he thinks if Simón was half as happy as he feels, the guitarist would get incredibly lucky. “You believe he might overthink what he said about not wanting to get married ever?”

“Sure,” she smiles, again, and steals a kiss from his lips. “That was after Ámbar, after all. Emma is different. And you know him, he’s an old romantic.”

“Like me.”

“Nah, you’re just cheesy.”

Offended, he gasps. But in the totally not fake dramatic argument that follows, they both think how they wouldn’t trade this for anything else in the whole wide world, because as long as they’re together, everything will work out fine.

#soy luna #lutteo #my sl fanfiction

25 notes · View notes

harryfeatgaga · 6 years

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i love everything about harry! his hair, his penis, his tattoos, his penis, his hands, his penis, his rings, did i mention penis?

WEDJNBHGUEIDJNBEDIJNBHEUIJBHDUJ ME

Anonymous said: Sis....I know I shouldn’t bring her up on this #blessed day but l*u didn’t post a picture of harry and her on her story, or her insta, and we all know how much she loves the attention!!! SHJDJDJD this further confirms that Harry dropped her ASS!! 😩🤭😝😍👌🏽we love ONE man

STOP I KNOW I KNEW SHE WASNT GONNA BUT I STILL HOPED UGH ALL THE PICS SHE MUS HAVE WE’LL NEVER SEE

Anonymous said: Harry writing his name and then writing mother fuckers lmao he’s such a DWEEB! My dweeb ass son 😭😭😭😭😔😭😔😭😔😔😭 I love him 😔

Anonymous said: is the nakey pic from when he was in italy last year? Helene really had that in her camera roll the whole time I wanna know what else she got in there 🧐

YES LIKE BITCH WTF SHARE MORE

STOP I FUCKING KNOW

Anonymous said: I feel Harry night do another May release and if not that then October or September 🤔👀

I HOPE SO

Anonymous said: harry’s version of jalboyh is what the world deserves, ariana doesn’t compare. i said what i said. even miss grande herself has said his version is her favorite.

TRULY

Anonymous said: im not trying to sound like a dumb bitch but that pic of harry got me sooooo sad fuck ..

which pic but yeah mood

Anonymous said: Paige I'm just starting the cakes so you better save up at least one post if I decide to post a pic on here 😂

LMAO YES

Anonymous said: Soupy Styles lmao I'm crying who nicknamed him soupy 😂

WASEEM HAS THE BEST NICNAMES

Anonymous said: if medicine isn’t on hs2 i’ll actually unstan i’m so sick of his shit i’ve been begging for months 🤧

WELL I DONT THINK ITS GONNA BE LMAO HE WROTE IT FOR HS1 SO I THINK IT WAS JUST A SPECIAL TOUR SONG

Anonymous said: does anybody genuinely believe anna is better than medicine, like is there a single person who really thinks anna is superior?

UM PERSONALLY I LOEV ANNA THEY ARE THE SAME LEVEL FOR ME

Anonymous said: listen, you can dislike mmith and you can even like two ghosts but if you don’t stan woman with every fiber of your being i don’t claim you

WHO DO YOU THINK I AM

Anonymous said: hi i’m bored what’s ur fav harry song

I THINK SOTT OR ONLY ANGEL

Anonymous said: Don't worry gurls I'll give you lots of Hontent when he becomes my man 😘

MHM YA ME TOO

Anonymous said: Omg he calls that girl with the confections “little red” as she’s a red head CHRIST WHEN IS HE GOING TO LOVE

GODDDDDDDD

Anonymous said: I’m just ready to love harry and for him to love me in return. Get your shit together universe

YEAH MOOD

Anonymous said: Omg I saw ppl still in the tags of the photo w Camille like “stay bitter 🤪” like girl they’ve been broken up for over six months and she has a new boyfriend like this is an old picture??? From when they were dating so it’s not surprising they’re in the photo together???? Bye and someone else like “they look so happy together” like no offence but they broke up sooooooo like obviously that didn’t work out btw probs answer in tags lmao

honestly idc ill answer this it was weird then its even weirder now like they've been broken up almost a year like these people were more invested in it then he was like cannot ejndbhehudjikl

Anonymous said: this girl asked me if i knew it was harrys bday today... girlie i’ve been in tears all day bc of it

SHE DIDNT KNOW WHO SHE WAS TALKING TO SMH

Anonymous said: I have a good concept

SEND

Anonymous said: U know what? I'm the straightest woman I could possibly be but when I'm horny and go to watch porn, penises disgust me. Like they're so ugly!! And the balls are even uglier!! (Harry baby u are excluded from this narrative)

I never watch straight porn jfnbhghufjkv

Anonymous said: OKAY LITERALLY THO WHAT DOES THAT SHIRT SAY BECAUSE IM GETTING AN ANEURYSM TRYING TO READ IT

I KNOW

Anonymous said: We will be taking a short intermission from the birthday festivities thank you everyone please return back to your seats in 10 minutes

LMFAO

Anonymous said: Harry needs to take better care of his $1500 cashmere sweaters. That striped cardigan is looking A MESS.

THAT MEANS HE LIKES TO WEAR IT

Anonymous said: Narry were in love

rip

Anonymous said: Alessandro said "we have matching rings, bitch" I SHIP

loves it

Anonymous said: I found an excerpt from Love is a Mixtape and ITS SO GOOD! I’m going to order it from amazon haha but it turns out at least the beginning is set in my hometown! I’m from Charlottesville so like if Harry ever wants a tour of the places in the book....😏😘

OOOOOH

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flameaurasphere · 6 years

Text

250518 & 260518

Dear Diary,

Last night was magical. I haven’t had this much fun in 4 months. 🤩

When partner-in-crime and I entered the holding room for the performers (which, coincidentally, was the choir room -- ah nostalgia), almost everyone stared at us as if we weren’t welcomed lmao, but I’d understand why. While waiting for our soundcheck time, I mingled with a few of my (choir) juniors who were performers too. I guess it was nice to be exchanging some words after a couple of years of not seeing them. :”) Soundcheck was alright; we took a few pics in between time. One of the student event coordinators, David, was really friendly to us. We were supposedly correspondents for the event’s Instagram account for the night, but we didn’t really post anything lol. Dinner was provided but it sucked cos it was everything that would damage your throat -- curry chicken, fried egg, pathetically stir-fried cabbage.

Alas, it was time for the performers to assemble at the waiting area. The nerves were getting on me, but judging by partner’s body language, she was probably more nervous than I was. I’m so glad that our friends found us at our waiting area to cheer us on before our turn. During the item before ours, we went thru all our lyrics one last time as fast as lightning -- almost like an Eminem rap lol.

Before we knew it, in the blink of an eye, it was our turn.

Partner started off shaky, so I was looking at her the whole time, mouthing the words to her. Our first item was “Everything Has Changed”, and our second was “Up”. We’ve had a few mess-ups, but I couldn’t have expected a better performance than this. 👌 The light was too fking bright, but I looked at my friends’ direction anyway (for moral support) and smiled throughout. I was so ecstatic when we’ve finished the songs, I had to hi-five partner. I think we received a decent applause. xD

Right after, one of my juniors spotted us and praised us, who then brought us to another one of my junior (who, coincidentally, is partner’s cousin). We then broke off and looked for our own friends. I pretty much stayed in the hall the entire time cos I didn’t want to miss the finale item.

All the performers were invited to the stageground to dance and hype ourselves up. A talented band of students played “A Sky Full Of Stars”. During the climax of the song, this bazooka-sized party popper popped and it was the most beautiful sight in the history of my school. :”) Such a heavenly view. This is a night I’d never want to forget.

We stayed back to clean up the place. To celebrate, partner & I ate McDonald’s for supper. However, the food was more surfeiting than satisfactory. Oh gosh I could feel my pimples returning. Her friend, Abel, tagged along. He’s a weird guy with weird antics, but lowkey he cute lol. Man, I’m gonna miss partner oh so much...

I decided to slide into one of the performers’ DMs. She’s the only person (outside of the band that performed the Coldplay song) that caught my eye. Her name’s Erin and she’s a year 4. She has auditioned for the school’s talent show for the past 3 years, but without any luck, until she auditioned this year with her bandmate & guitarist, Andrew. Ah, cute backstory. :”)

Met up with a couple of guy friends to attend a Vainglory event. Welp, the two guys haven’t met before, but my friend went bonkers and started blabbering all kinds of inappropriate jokes. I’m sure my other friend, Spencer, probably has a weird first impression of him now. xD Spencer’s kinda cute -- he has unusual curly hair, but what sets him back is he’s vertically challenged and, although he’s buffed (he’s in the strongman club), his build is small. However, I’ve noticed he’s less chubby than he was the first time we met. Hahaha, he was this fking awkward guy, but today, we’ve unleashed his deep, dark & dirty side.

We played Vainglory Blitz, King Of The Hill style. Our team name was Salt. We won the first match-up (largely due to the opposing team’s poor team comp) but lost terribly in the next one. I kinda cheated tho... I was looking at the big screen cos I didn’t have vision in the middle sentry, and I saw the opponent Rona taking out the sentry, so I hurried down to stop them.

I remember the shoutcaster saying, “Team Salt has to focus more on winning the game, and less on being salty.” We screwed up so badly cos they were taking the objectives too quickly, and obliterating us one at a time. Ugh, staying true to our team’s name, I was really salty about the loss. xD Well, at least we won 500 ICE and brought home a Razer plushie.

We had dinner at Chir Chir -- some Korean fried chicken place -- as recommended by my friend. I usually don’t order salad, but the mango salad was great and could be shared among 3 people. Since we were broke, my friend suggested we go to the heartlands and have McDonald’s for dessert.

Everything after this is M18. Proceed at your own risk.

On the train ride, he showed me this blogpost about a girl’s fking bizarre masturbation experience. Wtf, could my day get any weirder than this?

Well, it did. My friend thought it’d be fun to bomb each other with hardball, sexual questions. In that 1.5h, we learnt about each other more than we’ve ever did. Some of the questions made me uncomfortable, but it was fun cos we usually don’t have such convos on such taboo topics. Spencer also sorta figured out I wasn’t straight. Rip lol.

~Flameaura

#dear diary #diary #flameaura

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nightandstarlight · 7 years

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Demeter, Apollo, Ares, Centaur, Siren, Nymph, Agamemnon, Jason, Sun Chariot, Caduceus, Aegis, Golden Fleece, Olympus, Tartarus, Elysium, Ogygia, The Labyrinth? :3c

Asdfghjkdhslñ so many omfg why iLY ((I have to say tho i didnt really think about having to answer more than one of these at a time before i rbed the qs and since im on mobile and theres no way im gonna remember all of them im probsbly gonna do one first and then like edit this post to add the rest or something so it might take a while))

‡Demeter: do you have any pets?

>Unfortunately i dont my dad never wanted us to have any :// last time i had an actual pet living in my house i think it was when i was like 10 y/o or so and they were a couple of turtles who used to escape all the goddamn time like we would literally find them on the street trying to get away from our house even tho we had a enormous backyard and we treated them as well as we possibly could?? idk they prolly hated us so my parents mightve given them away i dont even remember,,, and thenn like two years ago i think i got a pet sheep called peter.. Peter the sheep was only around for a week tho and he wasnt even officially my pet but i loved him as if he were i still miss him and think about him often.. basically that summer when we went to visit my dads brother in misiones we took him with us from my dads farm ? (not really my dads farm but i dont wanna get too sidetracked here lmao) to my uncles farm for breeding or whatever so it was a solid 6-7 drive with him in the bed of our truck and me just starting at him and trying to get attention goD i never thought id care about a sheep that much anyway once we got to misiones we couldnt take him straight away to my uncles farm for whatever logistics reason i never asked about because all it meant was that he would have to stay in my uncles backyard for a couple of days and i would get to spend more time with him !! so thats what happened !! I took tons of pics and recorded him doing nothing and loved him from afar and then i was there when we dropped him off at my uncles farm.. and then i never saw him again.. the saddest part is that weeks later when we were all back home my uncled called my dad to let him know that Peter wasnt even fit for breeding bc rumour has it he had a third testicule lmao so he was technically useless rip peter the sheep ,,, aaaand now that i live alone i really wanna get like a cat or something but i never learned how to take care of anything so im scared i wont know how to if i have to do it all by myself

if i could add tags to this on mobile id apologize for talking so much about peter instead of just answering the question but i cant soz

‡Apollo: What kind of music are you into?

>alt/pop/rock/indie/pop punk,, i dont really like defining it by genres because who knows for sure what do they even mean anymore but the second best way i have to describe my music taste is ~basic white girl who thinks shes special~ and that makes me feel even weirder,, if you want i could try to make a playlist once im back in my apartment like next week or so lmk

‡Ares: whats a big pet peeve of yours?

>probably when people dont listen,, (u mean deaf people?? thats pretty fucked up dude) no lmao i mean people who pretend to listen but dont care about what you have to say or even worse when theyre so self absorbed that they dont even try to act like theyre paying attention and just straight up talk on top of you or interrup you constantly and not even bc they have something important to say but just because they can like whyy ohh or even worse when they do all that and then have the nerve get angry/offended if you dont pay enough attention to them??? Boyyy oh boy i hate that but i *cough love my parents i love themm

‡Centaur: Last book you read?

>all the bright places by jennifer niven,, didnt actually read it but i listened to the audiobook a week ago so i think that counts,, and if audiobooks dont count i read Evenfall by Santino Hassel back in march

‡Siren: Last song you listened to?

>((when i answered this (at 3:30am) i wasnt listening to anything but)) spotify says it was devil in me by halsey,, rn (13:40) im listening to alone by halsey

‡Nymph: Last dream you remember?

>i cant remember any recent ones atm but a couple of weeks ago i dreamt i was dating veronica from riverdale?? I probably posted something on here about that and it was so sweeett other than that idk maybe something about my classmates i see some of them pretty often in my dreams and theyre usually really nice cause i almost never remember any bad dreams/nightmares

‡Agamemnon: whats an achievement that youre proud of?

>i cant think of anything rn maybe getting into uni or coming out to my mom

‡Jason: have you ever travelled abroad?

>nope,, the closest i was to leaving the country was in 2014 when i was gonna go with my english teacher and class to nyc i got my papers and everything ready but then everyone started to come up with reasons why they couldnt go so i was gonna have to go completly alone/with friends of my teacher and their students which i didnt know at all so i got scared and decided not to 3 i know (hope) i’ll get another chance to go tho

‡Sun Chariot: whats your favorite mythological creature

>umm maybe sirens or gorgons im not 100%sure

‡Caduceus: whats your favorite color

>too many for different purposes but mostly purple?

‡Aegis: whats your favorite book or series?

>all for the game by nora sakavic atm

‡Golden Fleece: whats your favorite animal?

>ive loved dolphins since i was a kid but felines are too perfect in too many ways they make me weak at the knees

‡Olympus: describe your dream job

>so i know id looove to have an office job really stable and monotonous and everything like translating books but i also know that im terrified of getting stuck? And i feel like a job like that doesnt really leave much room to grow professionally so even if at the time im happy with just doing that the idea of looking back one day and realizing i sat at a desk and did the same thing for 20 years is not the best (which is ironic bc im wasting my youth ™ doing exsclty that for free basically but yea idk ) Dream job as in actually ~dream~ job would have to be like whatever people did on that show extreme makeover home edition?? I used to be obsessed with that show when i was a kid and i still think its a great idea even if its not as extra and over the top like that was id love to help people that way i could also make this longer but its lowkey too personal

‡Tartarus: Whats a short term goal you hope to achieve?

>going back to therapy and not quitting this time? making friends? Id say improving myself as a person but i feel like thats more of a long term goal but not hating myself rn would be nice,, also something tangible would have to be passing my calc II final that i shouldve taken a year ago and didnt cause i got scared + too depressed to study properly lmaao

‡Elysium: if you could have a superpower, what would it be?

>telekinesis and or being able to teletransport sounds cool

‡Ogygia: describe your dream husband/wife/life partner?

>patient, better at comunication than i am, respectful but that should be obvious, loves puns and bad/dad jokes, loves me? Also loves kids and is okay with adopting cause i definitely wanna adopt childrepn someday

‡The Labyrinth: have you ever died and came back as a vampire?

>not sure if im allowed to talk about this but i bet no one is gonna read all this cause its wayy too long lmao also i dont care anyway so yes, yes i have

half a day later im done!!! i know its a lot I hope its not too boring tho lmao

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thirstyfortom · 8 years

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wow, you write very well and detailed! the plot is amazing too. can I request a scenario of rfa (and v + saeran if you can) being yanderes while they're dating mc?

Oh, thank you so much! So… I didn’t intend to go full yandere because I wasn’t sure I was comfortable with (not because of the theme, I just wasn’t sure if I knew how to do this), but that kept getting darker as I wrote, and it turned out really abusive and angsty. I’m not proud about Jumin and Saeyoung ones tho, they’re not that great, but I hope that’s what you wanted. :)

TRIGGER WARNING: ABUSIVE BEHAVIOR, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP

RFA + V and Saeran being yanderes ANGST

Zen

Whenever you hang out in public, he'll always have an arm around your shoulder or waist

In bed, he enjoys fucking you in front of mirrors, he loves to watch himself giving you pleasure

Won't let you cum till you tell him how great he is at everything and how no other man you've ever been with could ever be compared to him

He won't forbid you of wearing certain clothes, but he won't pretend he's not bothered, he'll pout and insist you have to change because he was the only one that deserves to see you at your best

If he's not able to convince you, expect to find dark hickys all over your neck, collarbones and thighs after sex, that way you can't wear low cleavage tops and short skirts

He's not afraid of getting into fights if someone approaches you, fuck the scandals, you're his

You always have a seat reserved on the front row during all of his musicals, and he makes sure the seats by your sides are empty, he doesn' t want anyone distracting you from giving all your attention to him when he's performing

At first, he would never let you be photographed or give interviews, HE is the public person here and anything concerning your relationship would be answered exclusively by him

He used to say this was for your protection, but you knew he just didn't want you getting the same kind of attention he gets

But then, he realized he enjoyed to show you off to media, so he'd spend days training you to say the right things and find the right clothes, so he'd dress you up like a doll

He was determined to turn you to a modern day princess and your relationship should always come across as a fairytale in the public eye

But he started actually believing in this, so any attitude of yours that didn't meet his expectations would be harshly scolded

You didn't feel human anymore, everything you did felt so robotic, made only for other people to see

He was the actor here, but you felt you were the one always pretending to be this perfect princess

Neither of you knew what was real now, not even your love

Yoosung

He will hold hands with you in public and tight the grip everytime some guy (and girls, eventually) look at you and smile

In bed, sometimes his insecurities get the best of him and he can’t hold an erection for long, your warm touch makes him lose control of his body immediately

You would always reassure him it was fine, the sex was still great, anyways, and you loved him so much

But he didn't like your tone. To his ears, you sounded like you felt pity for him, and he hated!

Still, you always managed to praise him a lot, and you just hoped he could notice that every moan and compliment you gave were sincere

He could almost read people's mind on the streets when you went out. "What is she doing with him? Poor girl can get someone so much better" He was always wondering when you would realize that too

He wasn’t strong enough to fight for you, so the only thing he could do was make himself weaker and weaker, so you would feel obligated to take care of him

So he’ll hurt himself everytime you get late from work/school, everytime you talk to another guy, everytime he feels you’re not giving him love and attention enough

He hates your pity, but if this will make you stay, he doesn’t care

Jaehee

Trust always was a low point in this relationship, even though she would never admit to you and to herself

You were always so sweet to everybody, sweet… or were you just flirting to everybody?

She gets it, ok? You’re a little younger than her, you’re pretty and bubbly, there isn’t a single person who wouldn’t fall desperately for you like she did

But she knew those guys would be coming to the cafe just to see you, they didn’t care about coffee at all

So hiring another person and putting you on paperwork felt like a natural move to protect you and her feelings for you

You missed talking to people, seeing their smile everytime you would hand over their delicious and beautifully made drinks

But you would never complain, you didn’t want to upset her, she would be so cold when she was upset and the sex would feel so awful

Because this would be clearly about her pleasure only, and sometimes you could swear your frustration would turn her on more and more

In fact, making you feel frustrated was an habit now. She would make you overwork so you’d always look frustrated, stressed out and tired. If you’d be like that, you wouldn’t look that cute to other people now, right?

She became what once hurt herself so much, but she couldn’t even realize it, she just wanted to be the only one to see your true beauty and sweetness that would be hidden behind those dark circles under your eyes and the ill aspect of your skin.

Jumin

You didn’t remember the last time you went out by yourself, if he wasn’t with you, at least two bodyguards would

His arm is always around your waist, he wouldn’t let his guards down not even around his own father

He is very possessive and demanding on bed and this is a huge turn on for you at first

But you could always tell when something went wrong at the office, because he would take it out on you very roughly,. Most of the times, you would feel the pleasure through the pain, sometimes you wouldn’t, it was just that scary pain

In the beginning, he was very understanding that you had different habits from his, but it got really perceptive when he was slowly pushing his eating and sleeping habits onto you. It was for your own good, he would say.

Controlling you was for your own good, he would say

Things started to get weirder when you went out by yourself for a couple hours. A friend of yours was in town, she was going through a tough time and could use a friend now, she seemed so sad and afraid, you felt that taking the bodyguards could be intimidating

When you returned home, you never seen his eyes that dark and never heard his voice this low and husky. “Where were you?” “Why didn’t you take my calls?” “Are you leaving?” “Are you trying to escape like Elisabeth did that time?” Oh no, not this again…

He got you a bracelet with a tracking device, the bodyguards got very detailed instructions about never leaving you alone if he was not around, a female bodyguard was hired exclusively to watch over for you in the bathroom, that was the level of insanity going around that penthouse

You and Elisabeth were his precious little kittens, but if you’d gonna behave like an wild animal, he’d need to tame you at all costs

Saeyoung

He is not too clingy in public, but he’s always by your side or a little behind you

In bed, he will make you scream his name out loud and tell you’re his, only his

If he was too busy, he would hire Vanderwood to keep an eye on you when you’d go out

As much as you enjoyed Vanderwood’s company, it was uncomfortable, and you told him. He didn’t like it, but dismissed his services on a very passive-agressive way.

“I’m just worried about your security, MC, it’s a shame you don’t care about yourself as much as I do… but I won’t tell you how to live your life”

Still, he needed to know if you were always ok, so he attached GPS devices on your clothes and would always hack security cameras on the streets to watch you

He also installed cameras and wires at your apartment, but he didn’t tell you.

Hacking your laptop and phone started as a hobby , but quickly became a habit, he’d love to trace patterns in your interests

But everytime you ‘d search something he considered inappropriate (like photos of that cute guy on that boy band) he would take down the internet at your home or send you a virus, this also worked as an excuse to go to your place or make you go to his,

This happened so often that you felt you were actually living together, but not in a very natural way

He got obsessive about your online activities, he felt he could know you better like this than actually talking to you.

Everybody is more honest when nobody is watching, and although you were so special, you weren’t any different . Watching you like this would make sure you would never lie to him.

He just wanted to be the one who knows you the best, it was the least he could do after pushing you away like that. Now he wanted you closer as possible.

None of the tasks he did for his previous job felt filthier like this one, and he got surprised how much this satisfied him

Like Saeyoung, not clingy in public

But he showers you in compliments in front of others, and gets slightly angry if people don’t respond in a way he considers adequate

Even when you don’t take his compliments as he desires, he will get frustrated. “You need to start seeing yourself as the magnificent person you are, MC. It really bothers me you’re uncapable of”

He puts you on a pedestal, and everytime you do something that doesn’t go according to how he pictured you should do, he will scold you for not reaching your full potential

Takes tons of pictures of you doing several activities during the day, and sometimes, he takes pictures of your reactions when he touches your body and praises you, those ones became a collection

A very prestigious art critic pointed out how the model would look despaired in some of the pictures, which V hated

Now he was determined to only get your joy in his photos, so he would create every possible situation that could make you smile. But still, nothing was good enough for him, you never looked happy enough, and he would be very clear about how frustrated he was with you

You watched as your boyfriend was only seeing you through pictures, you didn’t feel like a real person who could show her emotions genuinely

But what hurt the most was that you didn’t see your boyfriend’ eyes anymore, they were always behind the camera lens

Saeran

He’s too shy to show affection in public, but he’ll walk with beside you, glaring at people like a hound dog

In bed, he is very instable. Sometimes he treats you like a porcelain doll and touches you like you’re gonna break, he feels so guilty for everything he did, so treating you like this feels like he’s finally doing the right thing

Other times, he’ll be rough, very rough. You’ll have dark bruises due to hard hickys all over your body, he enjoys tasting your blood, he says is the most delicious thing he ever tasted

He can be like this out of the bed too, the shy and quiet Saeran or the loud one who’ll snap at you over the silliest things. You never know which Saeran you’re gonna face

He hates it being like that, he feels like shit and knows this is too much for someone so bright and lovely as you to handle.

But he’s so afraid you’ll see you’re making a mistake being with him, it’s probably a matter of time for you to notice you’re too good to him

So, before you realize that, he has to find a way for you not to feel so good, he needs to lower you to his level

His snaps will be more aggressive, he’ll tell you how useless you are at everything, you’re stupid, futile, you’re so lucky that he’s patient with you, you ‘d never find a guy who could bare you like he does

And slowly you start believing in that, you never noticed how much you and him are alike. Yes, you’re lucky you have him, if you two are so wrong for the rest of the world, at least you can be wrong together.

He feels like shit, the only way to make you stay is if you feel exactly like him

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papermoth-bird-blog · 6 years

Text

New Orleans: Clowns & more curious things.

I’ve always thought the best way to really learn a city is to walk until you can’t walk anymore, and then, take the transit. I know I have a tendency to romanticize things, but New Orleans is feeding this reciprocally. I mean, it’s definitely more dangerous than the cities I’ve spend time in before, but it also has an air about it that draws you in. This is the start of Carnival season & many of the houses are decorated with beads and Banners already. Some even have floats parked in their backyards (7th ward). King cake is front & center in terms of deserts. It’s the most sugary thing I’ve ever tasted- crunchy, gooey, buttery- like candy-cake. Almost felt like something a 7 year old would make if left to their own devices in the kitchen. Not usually my style at all, but it was worth it for saying I have. Other local foodie things that I liked a lot more were Swamp pop (particularly the Satsuma one) & Voodoo chips- which Asa and Leon definitely got me hooked on. Apparently you can get Voodoo chips everywhere in the states- but it’s definitely a Cajun thing, so I’m glad I tried them here first.

New Orleans is as bright & filled with life, as it is dark & full of death. The houses are colourful and decorated, but many of them still have the spray paint markings left on them during the post-hurricaine search. For every fun-feathery mask, there is a decapitated Crocodile head. For every person playing jazz, there is a person behind a curtain reading palms, or tea leaves, or tarot cards or crystal balls, or what have you.

Yesterday, I decided to get my palm read... because when in Rome. And let’s be honest, the reason I’m here in the first place is for similarly mysteriously-provoked reasons. I decided to go to Bottom of the Cup, which is one of the more established fortune-telling joints- and honestly, you probably pay a premium for that too. I was fine with it though, cause I’ve been pretty good so far about staying on the low end of the budget. So I’m sitting in the cafe for a good 20 minutes patiently with my camomile tea, when my reader rushes my me & kinda grumbles for me to come in. It was a man, which I didn’t realize would be strange for me- but I don’t think I’ve every had my fortune told by a man before. He honestly looked like something out of Tim Burton sketch book. Tall, thin, austere-looking. He was wearing black skinny jeans, rolled above the ankle with shiny black boots. He also had on a peacoat that had the collar popped up beside his ears- which he kept on, even when inside, because everyone is freaking out about the “cold” in NOLA right now (it’s 8 degrees.. which is unseasonable cold here, but by comparison, it’s fine). He didn’t ask me much, but my Sign, which is Aries. He told me I didn’t have typical Fire hands- actually more Watery (but I had fire fingers apparently). Which is funnny, because most people, when guessing think I am a Pisces through&through. Honestly, I thought what he told me was pretty accurate- that I would be unhappy to settle doing one thing for too long, that I tend to have really deep-genuine connections that are slightly ephemeral by nature (because it would take a lot for me to settle down with one person). Something about a triple life-line? anyways. Anyways, what was more interesting, was (maybe cause of my broken fate line?) he brought up that he really think I should do DEATH MEDITATION. I kept a pretty good poker face, but I was all WTF IS THAT. Basically he wants me to sit there & visualize my body decaying & sinking into the ground- apparently this will both help with any anxiety I feel (dunno bout that) & open me up to receiving messages from spirits. Of course, I’m thinking of the whole “go to new orleans to learn about death” thing. So might have to give that a shot soon. I have a recording of it too-- so for any of my close friends- we can listen to it together (Katie & Mare... I know y’all might want to). Charlie also mentioned I should be careful with my manifestation, because I’m very very good at it & I should use it more sparingly. Which I again, kinda poker-faced, because That has been another huge thing that has come up in my life more recently- I am really good at manifesting exactly what I’m seeking. Even freaky, off-the-beaten path type stuff... stlll looking for a witch for a place that has no seasons though, Mare. (As another tangent, I have this thing where I test out if I can manifest certain songs as I’m walking though areas where the radio is playing. So far, fleetwood mac, rising appalachia & bob dylan have alllll met me there- which sure, could be co-incidence, could be magic???)

This, however wasn’t the most novel, or most curious thing I’ve been up to so far--- which has to be Clownless. Which, as you may remember from my previous post, is the all-clown cast adaptation of the 90s classic film ‘Clueless’. It was “staged” in the Marigny, in a very DIY type-theatre in what was either an old warehouse, or a large garage. The front was open & held a art show with works featuring clowns. Bright ones, Macabre ones, all sorts. Many people were dressed as clowns too- which made Asa wish that we had had time to dress-up before hand too (alas, we were at Sarah-Jane’s art show, which would have definitely of been less-appropriate). We were all jammed in the car tho, which meant we definitely looked like clowns as we all tumbled out of the front seat when we pulled up to the theatre. The play itself was a host for crude, queer, self aware comedy. It was definitely funny, but a little “sticky” at times. Overall, so glad I went, cause I mean, when else am I going to get that opportunity again?! It is funny how often clowns are coming up for me on this trip so far- I really don’t think the world is usually so clown-y. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s the Zeitgeist.

After the show, we all went back to the house and got into a big discussion about how odd Louisiana is as a place. I mean, it has a lot of influences- French, Spanish, English, American & the huge legacy the Slave trade has left on the place. The liquor laws were the fist thing. (I already talked about that though). Asa started to tell me about this strange tradition here called “Prison Rodeos” which is as barbaric and horrifying as you can imagine. It’s like modern day gladiator trials. Prisoners can win money by staying in a chair for the longest amount of time while a bull attacks them, and other “fun” stuff like that. And people go to these things. In droves. On the bright side, they also have prisoner craft-market things that the prisoners can sell their woodworkings, or leather-workings, or what have you. Asa showed me the really beautiful ostrich wallet & the really odd “Highwater dragon” sculpture that he got when he went. The fact that there are more people in the prison system today than were ever slaves really jumps out to me here. It’s “out of sight, out of mind” though, and so it isn’t really being thought of as the HUGE issue it really is. It’s been a super humbling experience in that way.

Though not as horrifying (?) I was also told about other traditions that come from the swamp- including a certain kind of roast that I now forget the name of. But basically, it’s a roasted hog, stuffed with a racoon, stuffed with a Nutria (Which is a giant, swamp dwelling, dog-sized rat). And apparently this is an actual tradition. I’m not one to judge, but I sure am glad I am a vegetarian & have a valid cop-out for indulging in that one.

Another tradition, which is far more familiar to me is ‘Fais Do-Do’. Which is the Lousianan answer to a Ceilidh. These fiddle parties, however more likely take place in a neighbourhood street, more so than a kitchen (probably cause of the heat). I’ve yet to go to one, but I’m working on manifesting one while I’m here still.

In the 7th especially, I’ve found a lot of people have been greating me with “I hope you are staying warm.” Which I’ve just smiled about because, in Canada, this is late summer/ early fall kind of weather (which is kind of my favourite). I mean, there are still flowers in bloom here! Full blown blooming Magnolias. Too be fair, it is unseasonable cold here. A couple of days ago it was 8 degrees! Which happened to have been the same temperature it was in Halifax that day (but okay, it was unseasonably warm there that day). Yeah, I do wish that I was experiencing the normal 18-degree “winter” they have usually, but it’s definetly been okay with me. The only thing being, the houses and buildings aren’t entirely equiped for weather like this. The floors are tiled, ceilings really tall- designed to keep the house as cool as possible, which is great, except on days like these when they are then cooler than even the outside temperatures.

If this was winter, I really started to wonder what summer was like over here. I mean, I can only imagine it being a little bit unbareable. Asa’s friend Satori described New Orleans as “Seasonally Biblical” in reference to not only the heat/humidity, but also the awe-striking influx of insects (including, termits & other kinds of swamp bugs). Apparently there is pretty much a mass exodus from the city, for those that can afford to leave.

I love how people dress down here too. A lot of the people in the Bywater dress super gothic (and for that I am happy). Lace, black, pin-stripes- It’s a style Jack White would be pleased with. Many of the folks are also wearing fur in this weather- very 1920s vibes, but with slightly weirder & wilder cuts/colours. On my first day I even saw a man dressed up like a full voodoo priest (not even in a hokey way). He was just casually sitting on Elysian-Feilds, eating an ice cream bar. It was kinda glorious.

Every morning, I’ve been the first to wake, which has kind of been nice. I usually eat my breakfast in the backyard with the cat & listen to the mardi gras beads lining the fence blowing in the wind. I then journal a little & think of all my gratitudes. It’s super peaceful & grounding. Missing the hali-fam rituals though. Overall though, I’m quite enjoying the amount of alone time I’m getting. Travelling alone so far, as been super rewarding. I feel braver & confident & more autonomous than ever. The only down side, I’ve discovered so far, is that you have to ask strangers if you still have powdered sugar on your face apres-beignets.

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jungsdaily · 6 years

Text

What if we were better then? When we were wrong?

The title of this post is the actual title of a single. It belongs to an independent band that you might not even know who they are but I knew. I may belong to a small group of fans that knew this band did exist. The single itself actually doesn’t represent the title, the lyric is redundant and doesn’t really tell what it means. Simply, it doesn’t have any correlation at all.

But it means something for me since I listen to this song because I knew someone from the band and guess what, he owns special place in my heart.

I originally not attracted to him at the first sight, our meeting was plain. Unlike the other guys I have told you here. I clearly remember that day, the first day of me starting internship in London. I thought this guy was the staff and I acted really polite until I found out he was also an internship student. Nothing special from him. He basically shut all day long, he barely said a single word.

Then like what I did to everyone I knew, I gathered information. I asked him few questions relating schools, parents, job, nothing special (again). I got enough information but I guess something is still missing. He didn’t disclose who really was but my gut told me that he is not ordinary. I started to develop a curiosity and I have to tell you that I’m good with stalking or deducting somebody’s background based on available information.

It was odd when he started his internship in the middle of the month, unlike me who has to start at the beginning of the month (and my other friend). It was weirder when he worked under the Chief not the manager, once again unlike me. Deducting from those facts, I thought his parents have some influence or power in the institution. But I didn’t look for his background that much then since my mind was to busy occupied by everything that went wrong that time.

Until someday, it was only me and him in the room. It was only both of us for two days and we started having conversation. Not the general one but more specific.

He started to ask me what I’m doing. And I answered either I worked on a task or write a blog. And I started to ask him what is his favourite music or movie.

“So tell me what’s your favourite music?”

“60s rock I guess,” and I listed the band I knew from that era because I also like rock music from old times.

“Beatles?”

“No. I don’t listen to them and they are not rock.”

“Guns n Roses? Metallica?”

“They came from 1980s.”

“Rainbow? Dream Theatre? Nirvana?”

“Nirvana is popular in 1990s.”

“Led Zeppelin?”

“Yes, I listen to some of their songs. Well I guess the artists that I listen to, you barely know it.”

“I guess so. Then, what kind of movie that you usually watch?”

“It depends on my mood. Basically I watch everything according to what mood I’m on.”

“No favourite?”

“Depends, I told you. But I like some kind of mind blowing movies like Stanley Kubrick’s, Scorsese, David Fincher.”

Here we go, finally I found the common ground. Then we talked a lot about movies.

Next day, we had another conversation and for the first time I involved in an argument with him. At first I told him that I’ve been to lots of places in UK and only Nottingham left. I said that I want to go to Nottingham where he studied.

“There’s nothing there. Why bother?”

“Are you sure? I mean there must be something.”

“I swear there’s nothing. You know that most of place that you’ve been before has similar layout? That’s how it is. City centre then surrounded by residential place, nothing else.”

“I agree with that but still it’s different. Like when you go to Europe, they may have similar ‘template’ I would say but the vibe is different, the people are different.”

“No, they are not. Compared to Indonesia, there’s no distinct differences.”

“I agree but can’t you feel? Londoners and people from Oxford are different.”

“Can you tell me how is it different?”

“I just feel it.”

“They are not. I don’t feel that way, neither do my friends. They think just like me. You are the only person who said that UK and Europe are different.”

“Because they are. Have you been around?”

“I have. And I see nothing, they’re all the same. You see if you come from Jakarta then go to Bandung, you’ll feel something else. Either it’s the people, the city, or the food. Same things go when you visit Bali or Semarang or Solo. See, Indonesian are distinct and that’s why I like it more.”

“I don’t know if it’s just me but I sense the unique vibe on each city. Yes they are all might look the same here but the people. Like in London, I’ve never been discriminated or something, they are all nice.”

“Have you been into villages? Those people are damn racist.”

“Really?”

“Yep, I’ve experienced once. Perhaps you need to go deeper and further.”

“Well, probably. But never once in my life I encountered such discrimination. Most people are nice to me, they are helpful. Even in London, that’s why I’m wondering why my friends keep telling me that London is bad.”

“When do you usually go? Day or night?”

“Both.”

“You are such a positive person. But it’s still the same.”

“Okay, I’ll just go with your opinion.”

Since that day I think I have different point of view towards him. I thought he’s unreachable person to talk to. Turns out he’s a nice person to build a conversation with. However I doubt my feelings, I ignore it. I didn’t think he’s special, he just what he is.

The only thing that hold me back to get attracted perhaps his smoking habit. I don’t like smoker and it’s my preference. For me smoking is not good for health and why bother poisoning one self slowly like that? Moreover smoking is dangerous for other people too. Instead of smoking tobacco why don’t you just smoke weed?

Well for me weed is better tho.

One day I asked him to join me and my friends to have lunch. And it made me sad that he wasn’t really satisfied with the place I recommend. No hard feelings, I told my self. He might just has his own preferences. Later on, we bumped to each other without me realised it. He touched my shoulder when I walked past through him, that was when I was busy talking with the guy who occupied my mind all the time. Later on I realised, he was there and I ignored him.

Suddenly I realised that it was too quick for me to let him go. Yes, it’s almost the time he finished his internship meanwhile I was still there continuing another month.

Two days before his last internship, there was an event organised by the institution we were working on. Nothing special occurred that day until we were told to get off. However he and my friend didn’t want to come home early. It was basically his idea. “What if we just hang out?” And yea we hung out.

We have no idea where to go because there’s no cafe or restaurant nearby and I was skint without quids. So we stopped by Leon. My friend looked for a table for us meanwhile I decided to order first and here he is, he ordered with me. Like you can order it later by yourself or with my friend but he chose to stand by me and looked at the menu displayed above.

“So what’s your recommendation?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never been here before. I saw Titus ate the burger or something few days ago and it looked delicious,” I hesitated.

“I see. What are you going to order?”

“I will just go with latte since I’m poor.”

“Okay.”

Things went awkward and I saved myself by ordering the latte and he ordered a burger. I just realised it today, he made a move and I wasted it. What a fool!

Or perhaps I just misinterpreted it today?

Later on we were gathering in the table and we discussed some things. Things that happened during the event, our future, what will we do next? To be honest, he barely engaged into the conversation, it was only me and my friend that speaking and he was just observing. Finishing meal, we decided not to stay longer but walk around Westminster. We went to Vauxhall bridge, they took some pictures, then we walked through south bank until we reach London bridge, the Parliament, and we stopped by the Westminster’s Pier. We sat on a bench across the Scotland Yard. For the first time I realised, Scotland Yard lies close to Westminster station, facing Thames River and the London Eye.

We sat, they smoked, I recorded the London Eye’s light followed by music thumping by the river.

“Send me the video, please,” Titus asked me. Then he asked me too, “I want the video too,” he said.

“But I don’t have your number.”

“Here,” he gave me his number. After I sent the video to them, I talked about the number. Like it means nothing once we go back because they will have different number. They are using UK’s number so It will be changed eventually once they return for good to Indonesia.

Titus told me not to worry because the Whatsapp feature will change the number automatically or something. In fact, my close friend’s number cannot be changed automatically.

Therefore I think I’ve missed my chance a lot.

Later when they finished smoking, we walked to the station. The time tells us to come home. It’s been a long evening we had and long conversation. Me and Titus head to same direction, actually. We could take a tube from Westminster station meanwhile he had to head to other direction. Somehow me and Titus managed to drag him go to Westminster station.

Without a clue and it was my mistake actually, he went with me taking Jubilee line instead of District line which was faster for him to stop by Embankment and change to Northern Line. Titus went off first, it was only me and him. We talked about our Europe Trip and once again I feel connected. Like we have been to similar places and he was so happy when he told me about his Europe Trip experience last summer, just like I did. I still remember the tone and his face when he shared his story with me, the excitement and the similar experience we had.

So he followed me to Jubilee line platform and I asked him where he lives, how he get to the place and et cetera. I gathered enough information once again but not enough to really understand him.

Once we step onto the train, we stood side by side. He was so tall that I have to look above, beside him I felt so small. So small and crumpled. It was awkward honestly, I didn’t feel comfortable because it was our first time stand so close like that. Then we managed to continue our conversation. Perhaps that was when I started to develop a feeling for him?

After two stations or three he went off and we said goodbye, I waved my hand.

We met again later on his last day internship, he was wearing batik. Nothing special that day, we don’t have assignments. I barely felt any sadness because he will be gone. In the evening, the sadness kicked in.

They shook the staffs’ hand to say goodbye and I followed them until we got stuck in front of the elevator meeting our supervisor. As usual the supervisor threw jokes especially for him. The supervisor acted as matchmaker, he kept saying a name and he didn’t seem comfortable with that. I was throwing the same joke, “Just say ‘Amin’ who knows the future?” I said to him. He didn’t say a word.

“Who knows that you’ll get married with that woman,” I continue. Then he said,”You won’t be invited then.”

There he goes. At a moment I was frozen and he shot me right. I think that’s where it all started, I like him.

My brain tried so hard to process what did he mean but I ignored it once again because I just didn’t want to get hyped by a simple meaningless word. Then I remember the day when we attended the event, the day before we headed to eat in Leon. He got the same joke and I said, “Why are you so plain about this?”

and he said, “I need to reply this message,” without looking at me. He stared on his phone. Then nothing goes beyond that.

That evening, the last day. When we took picture together, the sadness kicked in. I was regretting the time I had whilst he was there, never once I asked him to go out. I was regretting the time when I had the opportunity to gather as much information as I could but I didn’t do it.

After we met the staff and got lectured, we took off. Once again it was only me and him in the library and I would like to say goodbye one last time. I encouraged my self to ask him out, “Can we have dinner tonight?” He said he couldn’t because he already had a plan. And there’s no more after that because he has to stay with the Chief.

I wasted my opportunity.

“We forgot to take picture.”

“We did.”

“Only us three,” he said. He wanted to take picture only us three without the staff.

“That’s fine, there will be next time,” I said. Until today, there’s no next time for us.

For the last time, I didn’t want to miss my chance again. He asked me for a direction to go to his friend’s place and I was willingly help him. I accompanied him taking the tube and showed direction, I hope he got to his friend’s place safely. And that was the last time we met. “Turns out you’re such a nice friend to talk to. I thought you were a quiet person.”

“I am a quiet person,” he said.

Then there’s no conversation between us again. No rendezvous afterwards. And I just hang my feelings right there.

Even to text him “How are you?” I don’t have the guts.

There are lots of things I want to say to him like, “How’s your band? Are you making a new song? I will wait for it.”

“How’s your life has been going?”

Will it be too much for me to expect him meet me? Or it was just my delusions that he actually gave me opportunities while we were in London? To think about it again, I missed a lot because I was too focused on the other guy. I regret it now.

#curhat

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thedanceofblades-blog · 8 years

Text

you had to walk into mine

// Closed and already completed with @swordwithoutsheath; just transferring it over from Google Docs in honor of Sunday. Here there be smut. And Mario Kart.

Katarina is a creature of habit. She shows up at the same coffee shop at the same time every two days, and she gets the same thing from the same barista. If the same barista’s flutist brother is there, she sticks around for a few minutes to listen, but that's the only real variable.

Today, she arrives early. She gets the same thing from the same barista, yes, but she actually sits down afterwards.

Yone gives her a suspicious look from behind the counter, but says nothing. She grins at him as though he had.

Honestly, she doesn't know if Yasuo is even going to be playing today. He did have a late night, after all—

(that moment of recognition, the pause after:

“This isn't… weird, is it?”

A sharp-edged smile, a dry voice just loud enough to hear over the music. “Do you want it to be?”)

—and no one would really blame him for wanting to sleep it off. But she hopes he'll show up, because he was flustered and cute and she has nothing better to do.

There's a nagging little voice that sounds an awful lot like Riven saying she probably shouldn't be trying to meet anyone outside of work that she met inside of it, but she technically knew him before (sort of, by name and Yone’s talk about him only), and also fuck it.

Mostly the second thing. Riv worries too damn much.

Yasuo is—well, to his credit, he's not so hungover that he can't drive, which means he's not so hungover he can't play. (Yone had left water and painkillers at his bedside, as if he knew exactly what his little brother had been up to the night before. Yasuo tries not to feel a prickle of shame at the thought.) So here he is, a flute case in one hand and a frankly massive water bottle in the other, wanting nothing more than to crawl back home and into bed and forget last night had even happened.

No such luck.

Right when he walks in, right at the two-person table near the door, ten feet from the stool where he plays, there she is. Oh, god. Yasuo isn’t sure if it’s the leftover regret of breaking his streak or the sheer discomfort that comes with the knowledge that the girl looking up at him over the lip of her coffee cup was giving him a lapdance not eight hours ago, but his stomach clenches and turns a little.

And here he thought that being hungover would be his biggest problem while playing.

To his credit, Yasuo is as polite as ever as he takes his place, nodding and bowing and smiling to everyone—including her—before he gets started.

The lights in the Bunny aren't exactly the best in the world, so she didn't get to see him blush last night. It's cute. He looks a little bit ill, but he's still cute.

Kat kicks her legs up underneath the table, resting her feet on the opposite chair to observe. Yasuo keeps his eyes either closed or away from her, which is a little disappointing, but she guesses she can understand. Some people give a shit about their dignity, or whatever it is that gets violated upon realizing that you know your stripper's real name.

(Not that it's that different from her stage name, but still.)

She watches his fingers. Damn, she thinks—and then realizes how long it must have been since she last got laid if she's getting fixated on them that easily. But it has been a while, and Riven can't give her too many disapproving looks because she knew him from before, okay?

Katarina stays until he takes a break. Her coffee's been gone for a solid five minutes, but she doesn't care so much about having an excuse to be there anyway, so it doesn't matter.

"Figure I might as well come watch you at your work," she says cheerfully as he goes for his water. "Return the favor."

Yasuo doesn't think he's blushed quite so hard since...

Well, since last night, honestly. He nearly spits out his water, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as if that will cover up the near-miss spray he almost hit her with, coughing around the throatful of water that just tried to jump into his lungs.

He wonders, with some horror, if she's literally trying to kill him.

"I, uh—fuck—" Yasuo interrupts himself with another cough, holding up a hand until the fit subsides. "I hope you liked it," he says, feeling more sheepish than he has any right to.

Beat.

"Uh. In--not in the same way that—goddammit." Well, this is definitely not the most successful conversation he's ever had.

It's been a long, long time since she got someone to do that. Maybe never, since the kinds of people who showed up at her workplace were usually a little more unflappable than this.

Of course, this wasn't exactly the Bunny now, and their conversational turn was a little different when she wasn't carefully three-quarters of the way naked on his lap. But whatever.

"Who's to say I didn't like it in the same way?" Katarina asks, all sly triumph, fingers fluttering on the side of her empty cup.

Yasuo can't really envision a universe in which someone would pop a boner listening to him play the flute of all things, but—well. Weirder things have happened in his life. He feels himself blushing a little harder regardless.

"I mean, I guess it's—it's possible, but—did you?"

That was definitely not the question he wanted to ask, and he certainly didn't want to say it in such an almost squeaky tone. Fuck his entire life.

Oh god. Oh god. That's adorable. That's the kind of adorable that makes her want to get out of her chair and squish him.

Katarina tilts her head, leaning her cheek on her hand, mischief glinting in her eye. "Maybe," she drawls. "If I said yes, would you check and make sure?"

Okay, the answer is no, because she's nowhere near frustrated enough to consider a musician doing musician things to be on the same level as porn. But this is more fun.

Yasuo's brain just sort of... flatlines for a solid three or four seconds. His jaw falls open and stubbornly stays that way for the duration, making him look like a blushing moron in front of this dangerously attractive woman staring him down.

Fuck.

"'m technically on the clock," he finally manages to stammer out. Good save, Yasuo. Good fucking save. Now she probably thinks you're an idiot. "Maybe later."

...He's not sure if that's any better.

Yeah. Yeah, she does think he's an idiot. But in a good way.

"Yeah?" Kat says, pointlessly hiding a laugh in the rim of her empty cup. "I'd tell you to buy me a drink first, but I guess you already did."

She at least has the decency to not say that part too loudly when the poor guy's brother is right there and knows what she does. Yone doesn't mind taking other people's bra money, but it would probably feel a little more awkward if he knew that some of it was his sibling's.

"I'm Kat, by the way," she continues. "Since we haven't been properly introduced yet."

Yasuo's mouth stays very, very dry no matter how much water he tries to drink, so he just... he just gives up on that. It's probably a side effect of the hot redhead coming onto him in a coffee shop of all places.

God, his life is weird.

He caps his water bottle, since it won't do him any good anyway, and clears his throat until he's confident he can actually talk again.

"Yasuo," he manages, and his voice doesn't crack or falter or even squeak a bit. "Nice to, uh... meet you."

Katarina almost considers going for a sarcastic handshake, but she's fairly certain that Yasuo could short-circuit at any moment. (She's not even doing anything to him right now. This isn't that weird, is it?)

She gives him a smile, a little nod of acknowledgement. "You too," she says with restrained mirth.

Katarina usually leaves receipts to languish in her pocket until the laundry melds the paper with the fabric, but she reaches into her pocket to pull out the one from the previous hour, stealing an abandoned pen from the next table to scribble her phone number on it. Because her life has reached that kind of point, she guesses. Life is short and he's hot.

Or something like that.

She folds the receipt into an actual, monetary tip, because she hates the people who consider flirting to be tipping just as much as the next person and she can only assume that a musician with no official etiquette has it worse than her, and she flicks it across the table in the general direction of Yasuo's chest. She misses, but the paper bounces off of his shoe, so that's close enough.

Kat gets up out of her chair, collecting her cup. "Now we're even," she says, and she turns to leave.

4:27 PM hey

4:27 PM this is yasuo

4:27 PM flute guy

4:28 PM uh. fuck. is this even the right number?

1631 hope it is

1631 depends on if you wanted to talk to me or not

4:32 PM ...

4:32 PM you could start by telling me if i'm right or not

1632 depends who youre trying to talk to

1632 :)

1633 this is kat. lol.

4:33 PM ちくしょう

4:34 PM you nearly gave me a heart attack

1635 want me to make it up to ypu

1635 and what does that say

4:35 PM 'goddammit'

4:35 PM ......dare i ask what you mean tho

1636 ill have to remember that one wont i

1636 feel like ill be seeing it again

1637 what do you think it means?

4:36 PM lmao, probably

4:36 PM well

4:36 PM considering how you were talking at the shop

4:37 PM something you'd put in overtime for

4:38 PM .....that wasn't a dick thing to say was it

1639 lol

1639 almost smooth. you dont talk to many strippers do you

1639 anyway i fuck for free. anything else is illegal

4:39 PM i try

4:39 PM sometimes i succed

4:40 PM *succeed, even. fuck

4:40 PM good to know i guess :p

1640 you suck sometimes? glad i ran into you

4:43 PM ......

4:43 PM not sure how to respond ot that

4:44 PM give me a minute to think up a decent comeback

1646 two minutes

1646 got anything?

4:47 PM ......nope

4:47 PM kat 1, yasuo 0

1647 damn right

1647 what do i win

4:47 PM ...

4:48 PM ; )

1648 ...go on...

1649 really dont leave me hanging here yas

1649 i have plenty of ideas if youre out

4:49 PM your ideas are probably better than mine anyway

4:50 PM shoot :p

1650 i wouldnt be so sure

1651 wouldnt say no to some role reversal of the other day

1651 but if you cant dance im sure we can come up with something

1651 strip mario kart?

4:51 PM you really don't want to see me dance, lol

4:52 PM .....explain the rules first, then we'll talk

1653 like strip poker but less boring

1653 whichever one comes behind takes something off

1653 ...lol

4:53 PM at the end of every lap or every course?

4:53 PM wanna be sure i understand the rules 100% before i commit

1654 depends how many tracks were playing

1654 amd how many layers you have on

1654 im not picky about how fast you lose to me

1655 and if you run out of clothes too fast we can always bet other things

1655 im also flexible on what those things are

1656 ... ;)

4:55 PM you know what they say about assumptions, kat

4:55 PM i am pretty damn good at mario kart

4:56 PM though i don't mind a bit of high-stakes gambling now and then :p

1656 is that a challenge, fluteboy?

1656 i like your ass anyway

1656 something tells me the feeling is mutual

4:57 PM ......you havent even seen it

4:57 PM (...yet)

4:57 PM and since its hot out, maybe by the course is better

4:58 PM that way it isn't over too soon :p

1658 dont worry yas i wont judge you for that

1658 we all get too excited sometimes

4:59 PM lmao

4:59 PM if you can manage to get me THAT excited over mario kart, i'll give you a dollar

5:00 PM .......or is that illegal

1700 think it's just betting at that point

1700 maybe give me a candy bar or something instead just in case

1701 when are we doing this?

5:01 PM good call

5:04 PM i'm free most evenings, so

5:05 PM you tell me

1705 well

1706 im free now and yesterday

1706 and the same next week

1706 mostly work evenings obv

5:06 PM you make a compelling argument

5:07 PM where do you live

5:07 PM and shoud i bring snacks/?

1708 edgeview, building closer to the school, 405

1708 and i wont sayno

1708 ...depending

1708 but ill try anything at least once

Katarina throws on a shirt and comfortable pants after tossing her phone to the side, just in case Yasuo was living next door the whole time and can show up in thirty seconds. After a moment's reflection—she's sure she can beat him, because she's sure she can beat most people, but it might be close enough for her to want more than the minimum number of layers for decency--she hikes her shirt up and puts a bra on underneath it.

No socks, though. She doesn't want to look too prepared.

Yasuo doesn't really bother with anything fancy—after all, the whole plan is to just tear it all off one way or another anyway and god he can hear Yone silently berating him even as he climbs into his car—; just a clean pair of jeans, boxers, sandals, and the nearest clean T-shirt he can grab on his way out the door.

And a baseball cap, but that's more because it's sunny out than any sort of precaution. He's confident in his Mario Kart skills.

Finding the place is easy enough, thank heaven, as is bringing up the bag of miscellaneous snack food he picked up on the way.

Knocking... that's the hard part. This is a bad, bad idea. If he were thinking, he'd just drop the bag by the door and go back home, and then he wouldn't have to disappoint his brother when he walked back in their door.

...

He knocks.

Okay. Too long for him to live downstairs, but he's close. She'd assume the dorms if not for Yone... hmm.

Not that it really matters too much. Kat pushes herself off the couch, swinging the door open and grinning up at him. (God, he's taller than she thought. She hadn't really looked when he wasn't sitting down.)

"Hey," she says, stepping back to sit on the arm of the couch. "I hope you're ready to embarrass yourself."

God, she's short. He'd noticed that, somewhere in the back of his mind, in the coffeeshop, but... God, she's short.

Yasuo hoists the bag of miscellaneous junk food into the air, flashing a lopsided grin that shows much, much more confidence than he's actually feeling about this whole endeavor. He follows her inside, yanking the door closed with his ankle and dropping the bag on the couch cushions before following shortly after. "Please," he says. "Even if I don't kick your ass—which I will—I've got nothing to hide."

...That came out simultaneously better and worse than he had hoped.

Kat swivels on the couch arm, fingers quick to tug the plastic open to examine its contents.

Its contents are very colorful. They are also all labeled in Japanese. Unhelpful.

"Red one's mine," she says, nodding at the little basket of controllers as she grabs for the remote. The television flares into life with a fuzzy click. "I don't care about the other ones."

Yasuo helpfully empties the bag, picking out his favorites and laying them out in a row. The others he'd just sort of assumed she'd like, since he had no idea if an American stripper would be particularly fond of うまい棒. (He loves the stuff, so the bag is almost a third full of it.)

"I can tell you what everything is—if you want," he adds. Kat doesn't seem to be the sort to shy away from unfamiliar experiences.

The only other choice of controller seems to be black or blue. He takes the latter. "Ready to get your ass wrecked?"

...That was also the best and worst thing for him to say. He's on some sort of roll here.

Katarina picks up one of the packages he'd arranged. The picture denotes something round and pleasant-looking, maybe with powdered sugar involved; it's hard to tell.

Katarina raises an eyebrow at him. "On the first date, Yas?"

Yasuo raises an eyebrow right back. "We're playing strip Mario Kart," he points out dryly. "Not exactly a traditional first date by... anybody's standards, 's far as I know." Although who knows; Kat might just be weird.

He picks up his silently claimed controller and one of the うまいぼ, putting the latter between his thighs to unwrap it. "My brother is friends with the guy who owns the Asian market," he adds by way of explanation for all the Japanese food he's brought. "We get honorary employee discounts."

Kat nods approvingly. "Smart," she says, as if employee discounts are the only reason anyone would befriend a grocer.

She runs a cursory eye over Yasuo's attire. He took his shoes off already for some reason, leaving him about as clothed as she is. Worst-case scenario, the main part of the game would only take about seven courses (six, if he went commando).

...She set it to go through all of them anyway.

"Not traditional," she allows, "but I don't have to trust you to play strip anything with you." Kat pulls her hair out of her face and starts flicking through the characters.

Yasuo isn't sure if he's meant to laugh at that last remark. He does anyway, because it's kind of funny either way. God, where is his life going if he's started laughing at stripper humor?

He's just... not going to think about that, because otherwise he can hear Yone's berating voice in his head and that's the exact opposite of sexy.

Once he chases his brother out of his brain, Yauso quickly flicks to Luigi, because anyone who doesn't love Luigi is wrong.

"So," he says, taking a bite from his うまいぼ while he cycles through the vehicles, "aside from this—" he nods towards the screen—"what do you do with your downtime?"

This is the weirdest place to have a normal conversation. Not that that's going to stop him.

She almost, almost picks Toad just for the psychological warfare, but it isn't worth the speed hit. Daisy instead, then, just for the sheer hell of it.

"Besides this and bothering musicians?" she corrects him, lounging back on the couch as the first course loads. "A little of everything, I guess. You?"

Katarina nearly runs him off the road through sheer determination on the first curve. It sets both of them behind, but it's worth it.

"Used to do a little of everything," Yasuo says, biting off a chunk of うまい棒 before the course loads all the way in. Around the mouthful, he continues: "These days I'm stuck at college, honestly. 's amazing how much of a timesink that shit can be."

And that's about as much as he can say about himself without making himself balk. God, no wonder he hasn't had a date since he came to this country.

Katarina's lips pull into a secret smile. "I studied astrophysics and aeronautical engineering," she says, just to be a dick. "I know what you mean."

Not that she finished. But she doesn't have to tell him that.

He pulls ahead of her before a lightning strike hits. She pulls a face; might be a little more evenly matched than normal.

But that just makes it a challenge.

—holy shit. All right then. It occurs to Yasuo that he's even more out of his depth than he'd originally thought.

"God, now I feel boring," he says with a self-deprecating laugh. "I'm just studying music."

One of the 'bots sets off a squid, and Yasuo makes a strangled noise of annoyance. Not that winning or losing, in this instance, is a bad thing in either direction, but god, he's too competitive for this shit.

"You're cute," Katarina says. "You don't have to be interesting." (She grins afterwards, just to make sure he knows she's teasing.)

Yasuo is just a little too good for her to feel safe just chattering away, so she focuses on the game for a little while. On the third lap, as soon as she hits the longest straightaway, she—very quickly—leans over, kissing him in the hopes that maybe it'll make him wipe out somewhere.

Yasuo snorts. "Oh, believe me, I don't think I'm boring," he says. "Just my major. You have to be at least a level fifteen friend and pick all the right conversation options before you unlock my tragic backstory, sorry."

When she falls silent, he does too, eyes and focus narrowing until his mind is solely on the game. So much so that, when he feels her lips against his cheek, he honest-to-God doesn't notice for a second. When he does, he starts, glancing over at her in confusion—

—and falls straight into the drink. Fucking Lakitu bullshit motherfucking—

He watches her kart rush past the line and peels out of his shirt in a huff.

Katarina takes several seconds to examine the results of her ill-won victory, a smile spreading over her face. (Turns out fluteboy doesn't look bad half-naked. Who knew?)

"I don't know how that's going to work, Yas," she says. "I'm used to being the mysterious one with the sob story. I've even got the scars for it."

...Huh. Come to think of it, she wonders if he'd even managed to see them all—the lights in the Bunny aren't exactly conducive to noticing details, and Yasuo wasn't exactly looking too observant at the time. Oh well.

She turns sideways on the couch, draping her legs over his lap as she starts the next round.

Yasuo stretches a little for her, trying not to look too smug. There's something very flattering about being ogled by a woman who's paid to look good.

"Who says we can't both be?" he counters. "Not every scar's physical, you know."

That unexpected bout of deepness out of the way, Yasuo turns his focus back to the screen—or tries to, because suddenly her legs are stretched across his thighs and no. If she thinks she can use her feminine wiles to make him suck at Mario Kart twice, she's got another thing coming.

"Nice try," he adds, glancing at her sidelong.

Very nice. He should put that on a shirt.

"I don't know what you mean," Kat replies as innocently as she can. "If I were trying, you'd know." But since he can apparently be distracted—or at least startled or confused—by a kiss on the cheek, she doesn't think she'll have to really try all that hard.

The starting horn sounds. As soon as they pull far enough ahead of the bots for her to feel safe splitting her attention, she speaks again. "So what, we take turns brooding and being mysterious?"

Yasuo snickers. "Seems fair to me."

...god, he's starting to feel a bit nippy already. A part of him (the part that's thankfully getting a bit louder now than his own brother's concerned voice in his head) hopes that they start doing something a little more heat-generating soon.

(Fuck, this was a mistake.)

"Gotta say," he says, trying to ignore the goosebumps her air conditioning is causing, "I'm honestly impressed that that's what you studied. 's the sort of shit that always went right over my head."

Katarina nearly overcorrects her turn in protest. "Yasuo," she says, mock-stern. "Just because my father is MIA doesn't mean I need you to make dad jokes for him." Honestly now.

She sneaks glances at him every time there's an opportunity to do so without crashing. Sure, she'll probably be able to actually look at a lot more of him than just his chest if this goes well, but... still. It's the principle of the thing.

...Yasuo is just going to pretend that he meant that to be the most brilliant joke he's made in months, rather than just a happy accident in his second goddamn language. He grins broadly, giving a theatrical shrug.

This, unfortunately, coincides with a lightning strike followed by a red shell from one of the 'bots.

And a fuckton of a lot of swearing. He falls behind horribly, and all the determination and gritted teeth in the world do little to save him.

It's an awful way to lose, but all Yasuo gets is a sympathetic wince. Partly because he jerks to his feet and starts peeling his trousers off before she could even think of any other reaction, and that's just a little bit distracting.

Yasuo, Katarina is quickly realizing, looks very nice. "Wouldn't have pegged you for a flutist," she says, half to herself and without really realizing she's talking.

She doesn't know what her mental image of a flute player looked like, but it didn't coincide with the mental image of someone who knows what the inside of a gym looks like, somehow. (Although it's not like violins and strippers mesh in her mind, either, so she should really have known better.)

Yasuo gives her an absolutely baffled look for that comment. "What's a flutist supposed to look like?" he asks, all cool gone in face of total confusion.

Maybe he's just good-looking enough to have startled the sense out of her somehow. Not that that's likely, given her profession and how many men (and women, probably) she sees on a nightly basis, but... hey. A guy can dream.

"You're gonna lose one of these times," he mutters, shifting in hopes of keeping back the chill.

She folds her legs back over him as soon as he settles in. "I don't know," Kat says. "Scrawny, maybe." Honestly, she has no idea.

It's been a while.

She starts the next round, partly as a challenge to his last statement and partly to redirect the conversation away from how her brain has stepped away from the controls in celebration of the (presumptive) end to her dry spell.

He wins. She's not even entirely sure how he wins; nothing particularly catastrophic happened to her. He just ends up in front of her and nothing she does stops it.

"Hm," Katarina says thoughtfully, and pulls her shirt off without ceremony.

Yasuo snorts and rolls his eyes. "Flutists go to the gym too," he says. "Y'know. When we have the time." Between the café and classes, he doesn't usually. But he tries, dammit.

All thoughts of arguments briefly vanish in the face of Kat in actually decent light, all pale skin and pronounced curves and goddamn Yone is going to be so—

No. He's not going to think about his brother right now. Cross that bridge later. The current bridge is the slight arc of Kat's spine, causing her ribs to leave slight shadows in the cold light of the television. Yasuo forces himself to stop staring, though not before the sheer volume of scars across her sides hits brain and he starts to wonder, despite himself.

"So," he says, partly to distract himself and partly to distract her so he can win more than just one race by the end of the day, "do you do strip Mario with all the boys, or am I special?"

"I could teach you how to dance," Kat says. "It doesn't take long once you get used to it." She's selfless, really.

She bites the inside of her cheek as she considers her reply, grunting her displeasure as she swerves away from a star-powered Wario straight into a green shell. "No one's seen me naked outside of work in a couple of years," she answers. "But don't worry. I'm not so desperate I lost my sense of taste."

He's relentless, sticking close to her, targeting her as specifically as he can with everything he can get ahold of the second she starts to catch up again... which never takes long, because they left the bots far behind midway through the first lap.

No one should be turned on by someone else's Mario Kart skills, and yet here she is. Katarina almost doesn't care when he zooms over the finish line first. Almost.

She leaves her pants untouched, reaching up to unclasp her bra and flick it at him in the hopes that maybe breasts will be more distracting than legs.

...It's colder in here than she thought it was. And Yasuo's eyes keep flicking between her and the screen and if she's feeling chilly than he must be feeling worse, right? There's no harm in continuing this later. It’s the selfless thing to do.

She breathes, biting down on her bottom lip before putting her controller on the back of the couch and sitting up. Yasuo jerks a little as she moves to straddle him, but it doesn't seem to be in protest.

"Call it an intermission," Katarina says, angling her hips and pushing down, her hands on his shoulders. She smiles into something that's almost a kiss. "Show me what you wanted to do to me yesterday."

—well then.

Yasuo has already gone this far. There's no reason to beat around the bush anymore, right? (Unless she's into that.) He puts his controller down on the arm of the couch, hands immediately moving to her hips, trying not to squirm under her at the sudden pressure. Shit, it's been too long.

"Wouldn't have thought I'd ever see the day," he says, kissing a line down the side of her neck, "that someone would get hot and bothered playing Mario Kart." First time for everything, he supposes.

He stops at her shoulder, frowning at the friction every time one of them shifts. There's still way too much fabric in this equation.

"You really want to see?" Yasuo asks, fingertips slipping (barely) beneath the waistband of her panties.

His mouth is soft and his stubble is scratchy and they both leave tingles in their wake. Kat's eyes are lidded, a lazy smile on her face, a shiver jolting down her skin as his fingers tuck themselves underneath her remaining clothes.

She very much likes what his voice does when it's quiet and challenging, she decides. (And she doesn't, as a rule, turn down challenges.)

"Mmhm," she answers. She laughs, arching her back to press closer to him. Her breasts graze his skin, just barely. "I'll try almost anything once. And you don't look nearly crazy enough to want the things I won't say yes to."

Really, though, the guy should work on his phrasing. If she didn't already feel like she had a good read on him, she would have worried he was using this as a lead-up to ask to shit on her or something.

Yasuo bites down on his lower lip, a lopsided smile crinkling his eyes. "I wouldn't worry about that," he tells her. "I have a rule—don't do the weird stuff until the second time." (Frankly, the question was less one to ascertain how kinky she is and more one to ensure she actually wants this. But hey, good to know.) "Makes it easier to get a feel for the other person, you know?"

He turns her, pushing her down onto her back on the couch. Her pants are quickly removed, and he starts to kiss a line down her body.

For a split second, Yasuo considers getting up and muting the television just so the end-of-race music will stop, because it may be the least sexy tune ever. But there's a gorgeous redhead under him, and he's gotten this far... He can deal with some cheesy music for a while.

Kat snickers again, wriggling against the cushions to try and get comfortable.

She wants to make a clever reference in return (because honestly, that was not among the fandoms she'd've assumed they shared), but what actually comes out of her mouth is: "I wouldn't mind getting a feel for you."

Which is possibly the corniest thing she's said in her life, and she will not apologize for it.

She exhales, watching him as she reaches down to pull the tie from his hair and brush her fingers through it. As he keeps trailing kisses down to her stomach, she internally laments her choice of underwear—not because Batman is ever a bad choice, but because it's very thick and comfortable cotton and she won't be able to feel as much until he takes them off.

Which will hopefully be soon. Kat squirms a little, her knees falling a little farther apart. (So he has more room on the couch between them, of course. She's just being considerate.)

Her controller slips off of the arm of the couch and drops onto her shoulder. She bats it away.

Yasuo has to draw back for a second, just to give her a Look for that line. "Now I'm not so sure about this," he says dryly, but he's quick to contradict himself by bending down again and kissing her pulse. His hands start to trace the lines of her body, enjoying the smooth warmth of her skin.

The controller clatters to the floor, which startles Yasuo a little, but he recovers quickly enough. And hey, he's already mostly tuning out that end screen music. Progress.

"What do you like?" he murmurs.

Her eyes are closed, her body slack against the couch excepting the tension under his hands as she moves into his touch. Katarina strongly suspects that part of her might be melting at the question.

Fucking charmer. She's keeping this one.

"Uhhm," she says. He's still wearing his hat. She takes it off because it's just unnecessary and she can't do much about his underwear from here. "Just--keep touching me." Katarina reaches for him, her fingers tracing muscle and tendon and bone, exploring him in turn. She can reach the waistband of his boxers, she finds, but not nearly as far in as she'd really like to.

"I take the lead enough at work," she says suddenly. "I like having it taken back."

Within reason, but she's not interested in the intricacies of language just at the moment. She cranes her neck and manages to get at the space between his shoulder and his pulse, kissing it, biting a small mark where it's easy to hide.

Oh, he can work with that. Yasuo turns his head slightly, giving her better access to his throat. A quiet sigh passes his lips—contentment and relief after so long in an empty bed. (Or couch, as the case may be.)

He kisses a line down from the hollow of her throat to her navel, glancing up and flashing a wicked grin. His fingers trail down her ribs to her hips, until his hand is braced comfortably on her thigh.

Is he waiting for encouragement to continue? Is he teasing? Is he just being a little shit? The answer is yes.

Katarina happily takes advantage, exploring his neck with her lips and tongue until he moves too far down to continue.

Not that the loss hits her too hard given where he ends up. She looks down at him—flash of heat at his smirk, the hollow feeling between her legs deepening—and she waits for just a second to see if he's going to do anything else.

He doesn't. A muscle in her thigh twitches under his palm.

"What," she asks (and no matter how hard she tries to make her voice sound irritable it refuses to do it), "are you waiting for an invitation or do you need me to explain where everything is?"

"Oh, I've been around enough to know where everything is, don't worry," Yasuo tells her with a snicker. He kisses below her navel, shutting his eyes as he inhales the scent of her. (There's nothing all that poetic about it; nice soap and the general smell of her apartment linger on her skin, with an undercurrent of something he can't quite put words to. It's something he won't admit he missed about... this.)

It takes a hell of a lot of scrunching, but Yasuo manages to position himself (mostly) comfortably between her thighs. With a sultry look that he hopes doesn't betray what he's about to do, he purrs "いただきます" and promptly gets to work before she can react.

She's heard that before. She's heard that before, but her underwear is finally off (okay, dangling from one ankle, but that's close enough for her right now) and maybe flutists are a repository of innuendo for more than just fellatio or maybe she's just incredibly wound up but the instant he ducks down she stops being able to think for a few seconds.

"Oh," she gasps. And then, when she figures out where she knows that phrase: "oh god you didn't just," and then a breathless and hitching laugh.

Terrible joke or no, Kat shudders, trying to grind up against his tongue. A low sound rises to her throat and she bites her lip on it, returning one of her hands to his hair and experimentally giving it a gentle tug.

Yasuo chuckles, though he doesn't move back at all, keeping his focus (mostly) on Kat and her pleasure. It's been a while since he's done this, and he's out of practice, but he still remembers a few tricks.

One hand reaches up, massaging her breast while the other keeps hold on one of her thighs, and he groans quietly, letting the sound rumble against her skin.

She wants to say something. She wants to say something clever and sexy and encouraging, something that could adequately convey how incredibly fucking glad she is that he showed up in the Bunny and was cute and wasn't weird about anything, and that he proceeded to take everything else completely in stride.

None of her cooperates. Her eyes slide shut, her spine arching awkwardly as she tries to move closer to his mouth and his hand at the same time. Kat does manage to wrestle her throat into submission, but only gets a hitching whine out before it closes.

Her leg slips sideways in her bid to splay out for him as much as she can, her heel thunking off of the couch entirely.

And onto her controller, where it had managed to skitter away out of reach.

The endgame music cheerfully replaces itself with the fanfare announcing a new round and Katarina curses, trying to sit up before realizing how very much she can't.

...oh, fuck. Yasuo jumps up, letting go of her and scrambling as fast as he can to grab his own controller. "Next time we do this—" this extremely specific thing that he never anticipated doing, let alone enjoying this much—"I may have to tie you up before we actually start anything. I don't want to lose on Rainbow Road because I'm too busy eating you out," he says dryly.

Though that would make for an interesting game for them to play. One of them plays bots while the other... distracts them. He might just have to suggest that after they're done with this race.

She misses the initial speed boost by grabbing the controller too late, but so does Yasuo, so at least there's that.

Katarina's laugh is raspy and uneven as they round the first corner. "Most people wouldn't consider that losing, Yas," she says. "But if you really want to tie me up, I won't stop you."

Internally, she revels a little (a very little) at next time.

Neither one of them is playing as well as they ought to—Wario actually ends up in first place for a few seconds, much to her consternation—but it's still frighteningly close. She wins, sort of, but she really only pays enough attention to that to realize that it gives her some kind of permission to take the rest of his clothes off.

But she pauses the game first this time, and she puts the controller on top of the television where it can't throw itself underfoot, and then she goes to crouch onto the floor in front of the couch and help him out of his underwear.

Even his dick is pretty, Kat thinks almost angrily. Or maybe she just thinks it is because she desperately wants it right now.

Settling down onto her knees, her hands resting on his hips, Katarina leans forward—fair's fair, even if she doesn't have anything (arguably) clever to say beforehand—and gives his cock a preliminary lick. Just a little, just with the tip of her tongue, to see how he feels about it.

Yasuo considers, briefly, shooting back with something clever, but he's far too focused on both the game in front of them and the one they've made for themselves to actually say anything aloud. And then her nimble fingers are pulling down his briefs and fuck it's such a relief to have his hard-on not constricted by the cotton that he unconsciously lets out a breathy sigh before she even touches him.

And then.

This is the sort of thing he would have had dreams about as a teen, Yasuo thinks distantly. A bright-eyed redhead kneeling between his thighs, pupils blown and face flush, the bright red of her lips and tongue and oh fuck.

Yasuo grips the couch cushions, his head falling back as he groans. It's been way, way too damn long.

Katarina grins, not that Yasuo can see it at the moment, deciding that that's enough encouragement for now. She moves her left hand from his thigh to loosely wrap it around his cock, circling it with her tongue before sucking the head into her mouth.

She watches him through hooded eyes, stroking him slowly, scratching the curve of his hip gently with her fingernails. Turnabout, she reasons, and moans deliberately around his cock so he can feel it.

Fuck. She doesn't have the patience for this. Kat pulls off of him, pushing her hair out of her face.

"I have a bed if you're interested," she says.

Yasuo gives a full-body shiver, eyes refusing to stay open no matter how badly he wants to watch her. Fuck. Forget his teen self, his present self is going to be having dreams about this for months.

He almost complains when she pulls away, but she makes her offer before he gets the chance. All his previous doubts fade away, as does all his self-control. "Please," he says. (As does his dignity too, apparently.) "Any longer on this couch and I think my spine might snap," he adds, to recover from the vague embarrassment of devolving to begging so quickly.

It occurs to him, when he wakes up blearily under a pile of frankly unreasonably soft blankets (under the watchful eyes of at least ten different plastic Stargate characters, judging him from her bookshelf), that he hadn't bothered to actually kiss Kat on the mouth before he started kissing her in other places. That... has to be some sort of record. He's not sure if he should be proud or embarrassed.

The first thing Katarina is aware of upon waking up is someone else's limbs wrapped completely around her body. It's actually really, really impressive.

And very warm. And there is no way to get out of the cage of arms and the leg hooked over her thighs without waking up the owner of said arms and leg. Which she doesn't think he deserves, really. If he were bad in bed, she would absolutely wake him up, but... well, but he wasn't. So she's stuck.

At least she can reach her phone, barely. So there's something.

It takes twenty minutes, but Yasuo finally stirs, his arms tightening experimentally before he seems to figure out what she is and what she's doing there. She turns her head, but can't quite do it enough to look at him.

"Morning," she says. "If you let me up I can make you a coffee or something." Because as much as she likes it when Yone breaks through his customer service face to give her a look of concern or disappointment or growing dread, even she thinks that waltzing into the café with his bleary-eyed, sex-and-then-shower-and-then-sex-in-the-shower-itself-and-then-sleeping-in-a-stranger's-bed-rumpled brother in tow would be a bit much.

"Morning," Yasuo mumbles, his voice scratchy from sleep. Lazily, he cranes his neck down to kiss the crown of her head. (If her mouth weren't still too far away, he'd go ahead and fix the little problem that now won't stop nagging at the back of his mind. Damn it.)

It takes a few seconds for her offer to crawl through his ears and into his sleep-addled brain. When it does, he disentangles himself—with some considerable effort—and flops onto his stomach, face buried in a pillow.

"Coffee's'nice," he murmurs. Warm mattresses are even nicer.

Katarina snickers to herself, stretching the kinks out of her spine now that the human octopus has finally freed her.

He could have worse nighttime habits, though. At least this isn't inconvenient enough not to be a little bit cute. It's not really a point against him.

She doesn't bother putting her clothes on when she leaves the bedroom; her blinds are down if not closed, and there's no way anyone could see much from the street with the floor she's on. (And even if they could, she might consider the morning light slanting through the slats to be worth it.) She's between trips to the grocery store, so it's not like she'll burn her tits on wayward bacon grease or anything.

Kat's coffee maker hasn't seen as much use since she discovered the cafe, but it gurgles into life with only minimal grumbling and produces its mostly adequate product in short order.

And then she realizes she has no idea how he likes his coffee, so she just puts the pot on a pizza pan with some milk and a bowl of sugar and an extra mug and wanders back into her room.

She carefully places the sheet next to his shoulder. "Coffee," she says by way of conversation, and starts attacking her own cup.

Yasuo rolls over like a log on a slope, and makes a noise similar to one too. With a grunt, he pushes himself up until he's sitting propped against the wall, taking the cup in one hand and the pot in the other. "Thanks," he mumbles, still half-asleep despite his best efforts. He pours in an almost—almost—embarrassing amount of milk with a paradoxically small spoonful of sugar, stirs it, and fairly chugs the whole damn thing, scalded tongues be damned.

He's been a university student for long enough now that this is just his routine at this point. ...Minus the naked redhead, though that is a nice bonus.

"Sleep well?"

Katarina reaches up to pull her tangled hair away from her shoulders, smiling at the ravenous way he downs the coffee.

"No other way I could sleep after that," she says—testing the waters, mostly, seeing how comfortable he is with what they did after the initial lust has faded.

She scoots to sit next to him, their shoulders touching as she sips her coffee. "You?"

Yasuo glances at the carafe, idly wondering if there's enough left for him to have another cup, or if that would be rude. After a second's deliberation, he decides that fuck it, might as well.

"Can't argue with that," he says with a lopsided grin. "Probably the best night's sleep I've had since..." He wrinkles his nose. "Since before I started school. Damn."

Another drink of coffee, this one much less ravenous. Yasuo glances at her sidelong. "Guess I should be thanking you," he adds.

Kat grins into her mug, more pleased than she feels like admitting. Smug? Smug works.

"I can think of a few ways you could thank me, if you're taking suggestions," she offers, taking a moment to drag her eyes down his body like she hadn't spent a good chunk of the previous evening examining it in detail anyway. "If you wanted to make this a regular thing, just to blow off steam..."

Yasuo lies back a little, casually sipping his coffee. He's pretty sure she's seen enough of him up close that she doesn't need to scan it quite like that, but who is he to deny the pretty redhead who practically gave him breakfast in bed—and after a night like that? He's pretty sure there's some phrase about horses that applies here.

"All right, Commander Shepard," he says, cracking another grin. "Seems fair to me."

Her heart honest-to-God skips a beat. He didn't, she thinks. He doesn't. He can't. Is the Japanese translation that weirdly true to form or was the first thing he did upon coming to America to just play fucking Mass Effect?

Either way, he deserves so much better than her. Damn.

Kat laughs—a surprisingly natural sound, startled and delighted. "Is this your favorite spot on the Citadel, Vakarian?"

Yasuo grins, laughter easily bubbling up in his throat. "Starting to look that way, Commander," he says, leaning over to bump his forehead against hers before finally—fucking finally—kissing her on the lips.

(This is fast becoming the weirdest, most specific roleplay he's ever done. And honestly, at this point, he can't bring himself to mind.)

Katarina kisses him back cheerfully, reaching with the hand not occupied with her cup to find the tangle of his surprisingly soft hair. His mouth tastes more of coffee than of morning breath, which she appreciates, and--wait.

"We didn't do that yet, did we?"

#you had to walk into mine #au: battle bunny #x: ready for trouble? | (interactions)#p: starting at the end | (yasuo x katarina)#swordwithoutsheath #x: my pleasure | (nsfw)

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