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runningfrom2am · 10 months

Note

Omg I neeeed a part two to hard to carry it’s so good!

your wish is my command :))

(i feel like this is literally so boring so apologies in advance lol)

hard to carry (II)

part one

pairing: jj x kook!reader

wc: 2.4k

After a week, JJ still couldn't get you off his mind. He resisted the urge to send you a message over Instagram several times, and his usage of the app spiked since you entered the username in his phone. Not that you posted anything new, but subconsciously, he was waiting for you to. More than once, he found himself tilting his phone away from his girlfriend while they were laying in bed together, hoping she wouldn't catch a glimpse of the latest picture of you he was staring at, desperately trying to recreate the feeling he got when he first laid eyes on you.

JJ is torn. Even as he sits on the takeout counter at The Wreck, laughing and talking with the girl he's loved for years, he can't help but compare her laugh to yours.

"No, JJ, we have to do something for Sarah's birthday, I'm just saying that it's a good option!" Kie laughs, wrapping her apron around her waist as she steps around the counter.

"Yeah, yeah, you're right." JJ chuckles, glancing down at his phone as it vibrates in his hand. Disappointed again when it was just a message from John B, not from you.

"JJ! Off the counter," Mike calls out, seeing a customer walking towards the door. JJ goes to jump down, stopping with his hands gripping the edge next to him when he looks up at the customer and sees that it's you.

You carefully close the door behind you, looking down at your phone taking the last few moments before you have to talk to an employee of the restaurant to place a long order with the list you got from your parents. You want to make sure you remember everything alright, avoiding stuttering and embarrassing yourself.

You look up as you approach the counter, smiling when your eyes land on JJ. "JJ the pogue!" You call out, smiling wide. "Do you work here?"

JJ smiles, relaxing again on the counter. "Hey! Uh, no, I don't." He shakes his head, looking back over his shoulder as Kie walks out, wiping off her hands, ready to take your order.

She swats at him to jump down and he does, his eyes not leaving you for a second while you speak.

"Weird that you're sitting on the counter in an establishment you don't work at." You tilt your head at him and he chuckles, shrugging and looking over at Mike when he intervenes.

"Agreed, sweetheart." The man says, brushing past behind you to join his daughter behind the counter.

"Uh... what can I get for you?" Kie asks, glancing between JJ and you as you stare at each other.

"Oh! Uh, I've got a bit of a list that I've totally forgotten, I was hoping to get everything to go as well. Just give me one sec..." You laugh in embarrassment, looking down at your phone again.

"I can just read the list, if that's easier." The girl suggests and you nod, handing it over to her.

"Thanks, I appreciate that." You say as Kie takes the phone, typing in the computer from what you have written down in your notes app.

"What's the name for the order?" She asks, sticking her tongue to the inside of her cheek as she notices how JJ is watching you so intently.

"Y/N." You answer, catching JJ's eyes again briefly as he leans back against the counter in front of you.

"So, JJ the pogue, how was that watermelon?" You ask as Kie writes the name down on the receipt and passes it off to her dad before handing you the debit machine, which you quickly tap your card on, leaving a generous tip. Her and the man she's working with seem really nice- you assume that it's her dad, since they look quite alike. You've always also valued small businesses, and getting to know different local restaurants and stores on the island has been a favourite hobby of yours since you arrived.

JJ nods in response. "It was really good! I was right- you had a good eye, Y/N the kook." He grins, and you don't notice as the father and daughter working both lock their eyes on the two of you at the same time.

"Okay-" You laugh, shaking your head and reaching up to brush away the hair that's fallen into your face. "You're right, that does sound so bad." You say, leaning against the counter next to him and picking up your phone from where the curly-haired girl left it.

JJ smiles at you, moving over a little to give you some space. He looks back over his shoulder when he hears Kie drop something, seeing instead that she just slammed something down on the counter while she was getting your drinks ready. "Do you two know each other? Or..." Kie asks when she notices both of your eyes on her. Your smile fades, suddenly getting the vibe that she's not pleased about the two of you talking.

"Yeah! Sorry, I'm Y/N. You knew that, though, I guess." You chuckle and she nods, looking over at her boyfriend and waiting for further explanation.

"We met at the grocery store last week, she helped me pick out a watermelon. The one we ate for breakfast yesterday, she said it was the second best one they had." JJ explains, cringing internally as Kie nods skeptically, raising her eyebrows to show she doesn't believe it. Or at the very least, doesn't care. "This is Kie, by the way. My girlfriend." He turns to you now, feeling guilty already for having to say that at all. Deep in his gut, he hopes he doesn't scare you off.

"Oh! Lovely to meet you!" You smile, hoping to make a good impression despite your slight disappointment. Of course JJ wasn't single, but you hadn't let yourself consider that until this point.

"Likewise." Kie grumbles, stepping away to grab something from the back.

"So... uh, what brought you to The Wreck?" JJ asks you as she walks out of sight.

"We heard some five-star reviews." You shrug, smiling at him then looking up to Mike. "Also that the owners live just down the block, and are upstanding citizens." You say, making the man chuckle and shake his head.

"That's real sweet." He says, returning his focus to his cooking. "Your parents are the Y/L/N's, then, yeah?" Mike asks.

"Yes sir." You nod.

"Well, welcome to the island! I'm Mike, Kie is my daughter." He explains. "And JJ isn't even supposed to be in here." His tone shifts as his eyes land on the blonde boy next to you, making him tense up.

"Message received, sir." JJ salutes him. "I'll get out of your hair, then." He stands up away from the counter, heading for the door.

"I'll see you around, yeah?" He says to you, trying to commit your eye colour to memory as the bell above the door rings when he opens it.

"See you!" You smile and wave as as he leaves, walking just out of sight.

Mike diverts his eyes from the interaction, chewing on his lip as he focusses on not burning your food. He hates JJ, of course, and would love nothing more than him and Kie to break up, but even imagining the possibility of him cheating on her makes his blood boil. He remembers seeing that look on JJ's face in the way he used to look at his daughter, and now in the way he looks at you. Maybe he should let your food burn after all.

"It was nice to meet you both! No doubt I'll be back, this smells fantastic." You smile, holding the bag of takeout on your hip as you head for the door.

"Bye, tell your parents we'll have to meet them for dinner or something sometime!" Mike smiles at you and Kie just rolls her eyes.

"Of course. They would love that." You nod. "Bye, Kie!" You add in for good measure, smiling at her. You hope that if you do make good friends with JJ, the way you hope you will, you can befriend her too and make a better first impression.

"Later." She replies sarcastically as you open the door, slipping out and letting out a sigh as the door shuts behind you and you make your way to where you parked behind the building. That was tense.

"Hey! Y/N!" You look up before you open your car door, seeing JJ walking up to you.

"I thought you were kicked out." You laugh and JJ shrugs.

"Yeah, and I left."

"Right, of course." You giggle.

"Uh, nice car you've got." He changes the subject. He's not sure why he even waited, or why he even came to talk to you, but he just knew he had to. He couldn't let you leave again without learning something, anything else about you.

You look back at the vehicle behind you, suddenly having never seen it in your life. "Oh, thanks. It's my pride and joy. We've been through a lot together." You joke.

"Yeah it's cute. Suits you." JJ admits, smile tugging at his lips as he looks between you and the car.

"And! Get this-" You say excitedly, pulling your keys from your pocket and fumbling with them in your one free hand before starting it from outside, the Bluetooth speakers automatically connecting to your phone and blasting the same Taylor Swift song you were listening to before you parked. "Bose speakers! Isn't it cool?"

"That is sweet, yeah." JJ nods, but he doesn't even so much as glance at the car again. "We should take it for a ride sometime." He suggests hopefully, making your smile falter a little.

"Yeah! I mean, I don't know, I feel like Kie didn't like me very much." You say quieter, tucking the keys back into your pocket.

"She doesn't have to come." JJ shrugs, making you nervous. Both of you feel guilty even as he says it, but there's just something about you that makes him unable to resist the urge to ask.

"She's welcome to! She does seem lovely. She's gorgeous, by the way." You regain your smile, again, hoping to keep your possible new friends on your good side.

"Oh, yeah, thanks." JJ says, looking down at his feet briefly.

"Does she just... Not like you having girl friends? Or is this about the kook thing again? That would be weird though because I feel like she qualifies, her parents living down the street from me and all." You ask, genuinely curious.

"Uh.. could go either way, honestly. She's gone full pogue. Her parents hate me for that." JJ laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. "She kind of hates me these days too, to be honest."

Watching his movements, you can finally admit to yourself that you are absolutely jealous of her. He's gorgeous. "What do you mean?" You ask, shamefully hoping that this means their relationship is on the outs.

"Ah, well, shit. I don't know. We just fight, sometimes, and, I don't know." JJ tries to explain, not wanting to air out their dirty laundry to someone who's essentially a stranger. A beautiful one, none-the-less.

"Oh..." You nod a little, unsure of what to say. "I'm sorry to hear that-"

"How about that drive, huh?" JJ interrupts you, staring into your eyes again.

"Oh- uh, yeah! We'll work out a time... I'll just message you?" You ask, taking the change of subject and running with it. "I've got to get this dinner home, my parents are waiting..."

"Shit, yeah, of course." JJ nods, giving his head a quick shake to ground himself in reality again.

"Bye, JJ the pogue!" You say, winking at him as you open your car door, placing the food on the passengers seat.

"Later, Y/N the kook." He teases, giving you a quick wave and turning to head back to his bike. God- he hopes you'll text him.

By the time Kie gets home and slams the front door, JJ is left in nothing but his pyjama pants, just about ready to go to sleep. He was hoping for a message from you that never ended up coming. You knew right away was not a good time, considering the new news that he has a girlfriend.

"Hey, baby-" He calls from the kitchen, Kie quickly following his voice and storming in.

"Don't!" She says angrily, throwing her bag down on the counter. "What the fuck was that, JJ? Who is she?"

JJ sighs and rubs his eyes with one hand while she stares him down. "I told you, she just moved here, and we met at the grocery store- why are you-"

"No! Don't ask me why I'm being weird about it. I saw the way you looked at her! Are you fucking kidding me? In front of my dad, too? God- JJ you are unbelievable!" She shouts, shaking her head at him in utter disbelief.

"Alright- alright." JJ holds his hands up defensively. "If we want to play that game, let's talk about that touron I know you hooked up with at the kegger. Shall we? Let's go all in." He snaps, crossing his arms.

Kie's eyes widen at this. "What are you even talking about right now?"

JJ purses his lips together and nods quickly. "Oh, well, Pope told me he saw you- so don't even try to act like I'm the crazy one right now."

"It was one time!" Kie admits. "I don't even know his name- I couldn't find you and I got bored. Fuck, like, I'm sorry but this is different."

"It is different! Because I haven't done anything! I've never cheated on you! I'm loyal to you, always, I loved you through everything! I saved you from that stupid camp, and then forgave you for cheating on me, I never even said a word!" JJ shouts now, gripping the counter behind him.

"Don't you dare throw that in my face." Kie says, tone quieter now as she shakes her head at him. "I never asked you to do that. Honestly, maybe it would be better if you hadn't, actually!"

JJ nods sharply, leaving the kitchen and huffing as he walks to their room, throwing on a t-shirt. He has to get out of here. He can't imagine even coming back. He doesn't want to.

"JJ, If you walk out that door we are done." Kie says, appearing behind him as he pulls his shoes on.

JJ shakes his head a little, quickly shoving the door open and walking out without a second thought. The fresh air feels like it lifts a weight off his shoulders. He's upset, but can't help but feel relieved. He walks down towards John B's rebuilt home that he shares with Sarah, which luckily isn't very far from their own new house on the cut.

Before he reaches their door, he pulls out his phone and opens Instagram, opening your account and sending you a message.

JJ: how about that drive?

It surprises him when you reply within a minute.

Y/N: sure :)

The guilt has faded away almost completely now, and he'll burn the bridge of dealing with Kie when he gets to it.

highly requested part two!! hopefully this didn't disappoint! (i'm definitely disappointed in it but that's neither here nor there)

taglist: @taurusvic, @casualsludgeshoetoad, @maybankspov, @sagcas-latte

#jj maybank x reader #jj maybank #jj maybank fanfiction #jj obx #jj maybank x kook!reader #jj maybank x you #outer banks #obx #obx fanfic #jj imagine #jj maybank imagine #jj blurb #jj maybank headcanons

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finallyfantasy7 · 11 months

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you're crisis core fan, right? I wanted to know your opinion about Angeal. like I can't forgive him for what he did to Zack. where is honor in making your friend and student who loves you kill you???

Yay, my first ask, thank you!

When I'm letting my emotions rule my judgement I absolutely hate what Angeal did to Zack. Zack's life was one betrayal after another, one disappointment after another, one trauma after another, and Angeal should have wrapped Zack in a comfy blanket and been his emotional rock forever.....

...buuuuut....

When I think about it rationally I can't see any better alternative to what Angeal did.

Angeal and Zack were all about protecting people and the world, and as much as Angeal wasn't a monster, and wasn't to blame, his ability to create monster sadly was a threat to everyone.

This was their only chance. Angeal had to absorb all the copies and die as quickly as possible. Hollander was a threat, wanting to recreate Angeal's abilities. If he succeeded it would have became almost impossible for Angeal and Zack to ever stop them.

And those copies were attacking people as long as they were out there, they even attacked Zack. Imagine if they killed some innocent kid. That kind of thing would have weighted on Zack's conscience a lot more than accepting Angeal's request.

So he had to die, he couldn't do it himself because he wasn't in control when he absorbed all his copies, and Angeal couldn't have picked anyone else but Zack to kill him. No one Angeal knew or trusted was powerful enough to fight Angeal Penance except Sephiroth, Genesis, and Zack, and

Sephiroth would have refused just like he refused any mission involving Angeal. Not to mention Sephiroth wouldn't care about Hollander getting his hands on Angeal's genes.

Genesis didn't care about collateral damage at all at that point. And he would certainly support Hollander to do what he wanted in the hopes of getting a cure.

Which leaves Zack. Zack who took every mission Sephiroth refused. Zack who was strong enough to defeat Angeal Penance. Zack who understood the importance of destroying Angeal copies. Zack who apprehended Hollander and who certainly wouldn't allow anyone to approach Angeal's body.

But most importantly, Zack who Angeal knew could emotionally handle it. He already saw Sephiroth losing weight just from Angeal and Genesis being away. He saw Genesis succumbing to degradation-caused insanity.

And he also saw Aerith before he left for Modeoheim, sent a copy to protect her, made sure Zack would have the love and support he needed, and wouldn't be alone.

And he was right. Zack was heartbroken, and sad, and burdened by what he had to do to Angeal, but he mourned, and he cried, and Aerith was there when he needed her, so then in the end he recovered and he grew up, and he rose to the challenge - choosing to become for younger generations what Angeal was for him, giving them what he had lost.

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echo-heo · 1 year

Text

Problem with Discord's new (and old) font(s) and its treatment of non-Latin text

Before getting into it, I'm gonna say that I'm not going to criticize its aesthetics or "readability". These feedbacks are rarely helpful from the designer's perspective especially coming from people who don't know much about what goes into designing a typeface, and because readability is really, really subjective.

I was happy to hear that discord was changing its font, especially when I found out that they are adding support for Vietnamese. Previously, discord used Whitney, a humanist sans serif font with Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic support. Unfortunately, Whitney doesn't support all Latin characters in Unicode, and crucially it doesn't support Vietnamese characters.

Text font not supporting a script is usually not a problem, the fallback font will take care of it for you. The problem occurs when there's partial support. Vietnamese uses Latin, but it also has a ton of precomposed vowels with diacritics. This is what Vietnamese looks like on my phone, where the font change hasn't taken effect yet:

here's the same text with unsupported characters highlighted in red:

It might not look that weird because the fallback font on my phone happened to be somewhat similar in style to Whitney, but depending on the device it may be completely unreadable. I submitted a feedback a while ago asking them to address this issue

This is why when I heard that discord was changing its font to add Vietnamese characters, I was excited. This is what the same text looks like in gg sans.

All characters harmonious!

However, after receiving the update I was disappointed because the new font now no longer supports Greek and Cyrillic. This alone is not really a big problem, because Greek, Cyrillic and Latin characters rarely occur in the same word. Although it is disappointing that they are no longer harmonious, it's not that big of a problem. The problem though, is that they decided to include Δ, Ω, μ, π (capital delta, capital omega, lowercase mu, and lowercase pi) into the font.

Depending on the device and rendering settings, it might look like it fits well with the fallback font, being almost unnoticeable, or so noticeable that it's hard to read. These four glyphs are often included in typefaces that only support Latin as they are often included in Latin lettersets because of their use in mathematics and science, so I thought it was simply an odd oversight.

Then I found out about this:

(As of 2022/12/3 9:22 pm UTC+9 I couldn't recreate this. It may be because of css setting or because they've already fixed it. I'm hoping it is the latter) They decided to include katakana characters to be only used in the shrug emoticon.

I was massively disappointed when I heard this news because it means they did not care at all about global accessibility when making the new font. I was under the impression that they were doing it at least partially to address this issue. I was under the impression that maybe they've heard us complain and complain about the font only having partial support for Vietnamese. Maybe they've realized the core problem. But no, it's clear that they still don't know what the problem is.

Maybe I should have realized it sooner. Did you know, Discord limits the amount of diacritics that can be attached to a single character, even though in a lot of non-Latin writing systems diacritics are crucial because they represent vowels, consonant clusters, et cetera?

Moreover, did you know that Discord has a limit on how many diacritics you can have in a single message? This means if you have a copy pasta in abugida writing systems such as Devanagari, Thai, Khmer, Lao, Bengali, Burmese, et cetera, the vowel diacritics are just going to disappear after a while, rendering the text unreadable?

Affected portion underlined in red. I assume these are done to prevent zalgo, which really shouldn't be done by Discord itself, not to mention that typical "zalgo" diacritics are usually IPA diacritics with actual use, which can often stack in a zalgo-like fashion.

Did you know that Discord enforces strict text line height, even though some writing systems need more horizontal space than latin to be legible? Anything outside of the bounds are cut off and rendered invisible.

Anyway, do you remember when I said I wasn't going to talk about aesthetics and readability? I kind of lied. I am going to talk about them.

A lot of people seem to be saying that the new font is bad and that it's significantly less readable than the previous font. I have doubts about whether this is actually because of the font itself or because they're simply not used to it yet. My guess would be the latter. However, that doesn't mean the solution is to make these people shut up and wait till they get used to it.

There is no universal solution for readability and legibility. The truth is that different people have different needs, and this is no different when it comes to typefaces. Ideally, discord should provide an option to change fonts. Many platforms do. They've been refusing to implement it because, I dunno, brand image?

There is also a bigger problem with how UI designers design in general. They only design around Latin in mind, even though different writing systems use space differently. Many Brahmic scripts use ligatures and diacritics stacking above or below the main character. If you care about non-Latin scripts not appearing illegible, make it so that UI elements can accommodate for that, or something.

I'm bad at writing conclusions, so there you have it. Me rambling about a thing that I care about that apparently everyone else should too.

#accessibility #writing systems #type design #discord #typography #long post

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ryverbind · 2 months

Text

Faceless Fixation (Sal Fisher): Beg For It [21]

TW: smut :P

_______________

dacnorthxx started following you.

sallysusedtoiletpaper: VI WHO IS THIS WHO IS NORTH WHY IS THIS INTERACTION GIVING ME LIFE??? t0ddles2: @sallysusedtoiletpaper frontman of dark autumn complex sallysusedtoiletpaper: @t0ddles2 oh omg ok... I've never heard of them are they any good?? ashypoops: I haven't heard of them either. What genre? More importantly DOES VI HAVE HER VERY FIRST SHIP toodswithoutthed: @ashypoops I WAS ABOUT TO ASK BC THE CHEMISTRY!?!? they're obsessed w each other... I went stalk his profile. Ship name options: northlence, violeth... t0ddles2: they're rock/metal. even if u don't like the genre, they're worth a listen sallysusedtoiletpaper: WORD I just followed him and their band account >:3 also @toodswithoutthed I'm personally a fan of violeth. I'm linking this shit in the faces fan discord ashypoops: THERE'S A FAN DISCORD??? can u send me an invite pooks🥺 sallysusedtoiletpaper: @ashypoops ofc😘 sallysusedtoiletpaper: OMFG SOMEONE BEAT ME TO THE CHAT EVERYONE KNOWS NOOOOOO

———

Yea, so I lost my job. Big shocker.

Once my boss found out that I dipped mid-shift, the text was typed out and sent by the evening.

In any other situation, I'd be fucked. Indefinitely. Completely broke and flailing to get a new job. In fact, that was my first thought. As soon as I got the text, I clicked onto my bank account to check how much I'd have to live off of until I found a new job--

--only to find out that I had over $2,000 just sitting around, which was such a nice surprise. I don't think I've ever had so much money to my name before in my entire life. And all the transactions were straight from all my streaming apps. All within the past two weeks since being back in LA.

To say the least, losing my job couldn't have happened at a better time. Now, I can put my focus into something I actually enjoy doing.

But first, a trip to Nockfell, which is proving to be more chaotic by the second.

"Todd, dude, there's a chemistry to this thing, okay? It's a ritual," Larry says, all seriousness and business face as he stares back into Todd's uninterested gaze. "I can't fly without it."

Todd blinks, a flash of frustrated disappointment crossing over his features. "You're not taking an edible before the flight, Lartholomew."

Ash had a ticket ready for me before she even got to LA yesterday. Her entire mastermind plan was to abduct me whether I liked it or not-- not that I would've said no to begin with. And besides, having her at the apartment to help me pack last minute made pre-flight stress non-existent.

Travis is camping out at my apartment. He was more than happy to kick me out of my own house, claiming that my bed is comfiest anyway. Regardless, he said he had no desire to return to Nockfell anyway. And dad was just excited for me to go visit considering how much I've complained about missing the little town over all these years.

Sal and I haven't spoken since his last commanding text to me. Right before his very sudden face reveal. He's caught in an almost petrifying silence-- has been since he put his prosthetic back on. I, on the other hand, very much resemble a little puppy whimpering and begging at his feet. Metaphorically, of course. I wouldn't dare to physically exploit my internal thoughts.

The really sickening truth is that I'm so desperate to see his face again that I'd trip him down a flight of stairs just to recreate yesterday's scene.

Just kidding. I don't mean that. I definitely don't.

"All our seats are kind of screwed up, so I have no idea where you're sitting, sugar." Ash pokes my cheek, her chin in her palm and elbow propped on the armrest of her seat. "I bought them kind of last minute so I took whatever they had available."

A little smile tips my lips as I turn my attention away from the grumpy smurf and focus on my stunning best friend. Her viridian irises glow with renewed joy and energy like our plans check off so many bullet points on her bucket list. "That's okay," I reply, tilting my head. "At least we actually have seats, right?"

Ash grins, her maroon shaded lips accentuating the light freckles along the bridge of her nose. "See?" she chirps, arm winding through mine to pull me closer. "You get it. When do you not get it?"

Our plane calls for us to board, and so begins the toxic, anxiety-inducing split-up of the century. I lose all The Faces somewhere in the crowded line that gathers at our gate in just a matter of seconds. That's okay though, I'll probably end up sitting with some old lady that smells like an odd mixture of peonies, Dial soap, and Lysol. You know, a funeral home and two colds away from death. So long as she's nice, I'll catch her dentures when they fall out of her gaping mouth as she naps.

Anything for MawMaw.

I hobble my way into the plane, brain set on finding my seat before stressing about all other one hundred and fifty two things I have to worry about later. People are everywhere and it's, expectedly, a huge plane. Three rows-- two seaters against each wall and a row of three seats down the middle. Sickening, really. Social anxiety's worst enemy is looking for means of escape only to be met by even more people.

I block everyone out as best as I can, pretending that the people I bump into are just very dense pieces of furniture. Or, actually, even better-- a bunch of really buff kitties. Yep, just passing through a horde of Maine Coon's and Munchkin's.

I spot row F, my pupils zeroing in on the letter like a scope on a gun. Target acquired.

The majestic way I veer around what my mind imagines is a really tall Siamese and their spouse, a yellow Persian, is something that the directors of The Matrix are pissed that they couldn't come up with. I swing my foot around a figurative pair of paws and reach my free hand out to grip onto my seat-- F20. That's right bitches, I did it.

I swing my suitcase up, somehow managing to actually get it into the overhead compartment. I give it a good shove with both of my hands and a grunt, then pull the backpack off my shoulders to keep it at my feet when I sit down.

But now that I've stopped, cats are pushing past me and it's so aggressive and rushed that they suddenly aren't sweet, fluffy kitties anymore. They're people again and I'm starting to get dragged away from my seat by this sea of shared distress.

Nimble fingers latch onto my wrist from the seat beside mine-- the seat against the window. The hand tightens around me, giving my body a good yank forward. I use the aided force to weave my way around a few more people up until the hand pulls me into my seat.

I huff out a breath, pushing my hair out of the eyeholes of my mask. And begrudgingly, I turn my head to meet bright cerulean hair.

Sal isn't looking at me, he's facing the window. His entire stature gives off a mixture of unbothered and ashamed. He shouldn't feel that second one-- never. Granted, he shouldn't feel angry half as much as he does but that's besides the point.

Ever since it happened, I could tell that the abrupt exposure of his face has been heavily weighing on him. I don't owe this man a single thing-- he's been awful to me in so many ways, but I give credit where credit is due. Not only did he own up and apologize to me yesterday, he helped me to my seat... and he is handsome. Regardless of how he views himself.

He's my biggest enemy and I, his. But if I plan on getting fucked during my visit to Nockfell, I have to give him the Beating of Truth.

"So," I mumble, chewing on the inside of my cheek. If you couldn't tell, I'm absolutely forcing myself to do this even though it's the last thing I want to do. "How are we working around Ash, Larry, and Todd when we get to Nockfell?"

Sal's head tips up a bit, like he's wondering to himself if I actually just spoke to him. Then his head pivots sideways so that he can side-eye me.

"What?" He asks, voice genuinely shocked and confused. It makes my heart stutter a bit. Any time he speaks in a tone that isn't aggressive, it completely reboots my system.

"How are we going to follow through with this arrangement?" I try again, simplifying it into Sal terms. He has a wide vocabulary range; maybe using bigger words will snap some sense into him. For added effect, I lean onto the armrest separating him and I, trying to show that he doesn't repulse me or anything of the sort.

Sal doesn't move away, instead, he adjusts his body so that he can address me. Fully turns his prosthetic face to me and settles into his seat. I didn't realize how tense he was when I first sat down, but watching him relax now shows me how much my simple mention of our agreement settled his mental turmoil.

He's quiet for a moment, eyes dancing across my mask and body before his gaze meets mine again. "You still want to?" he finally decides to ask, eyebrows lifting beneath his prosthetic.

"Yea," I snort, scrunching my nose up as if his question is ridiculous. "Why wouldn't I?"

Okay, stupid question. I know the answer and the words came out before I could stop them. In more ways than others, that was a genuine response though. I can't accept that Sal would be so put off by his own appearance because I truly think it's so lovely. I have to remember though that not everyone sees themselves the way I see them though.

Sal's brows bunch together again, his eyes narrowing. "Stupid fucking question," he echoes my own thoughts, voice even and void of tone. Whoopsie.

I roll my own eyes, sighing. "Well, to settle the whole debacle," I start, aiming to just bite the bullet and extinguish the awkwardness and misplaced fear vibrating between us. "I think you're quite the catch."

Friendly banter is weird. Borderline uncomfortable, but... not quite. Just so that I'm ready to get this over with but I'd be prepared for it to happen again.

A nasally snort leaves Sal and he rotates his head so that he's facing the pair of seats in front of us.

"So," he prods, ignoring my statement. "North?"

Mission success. I know he'll never admit it and he doesn't need to, but I think he appreciates the compliment.

"What's it to you?" I counter, adjusting my position in turn. I sit criss-cross applesauce in my seat, making sure my feet don't touch Sal because God forbid. "You still get to fuck me."

"Not much," he says lowly, hand moving to ruffle up his fringe. There's that dagger tattoo again. And then his head tilts just a bit, haunting sapphire blue piercing straight through my soul like the weapon etched onto his skin. "But you're mine. North can't give you even an ounce of what I can."

Fuzzy fingers, a pounding heart, and the worst case of cold sweats possible dominates my body for the rest of the flight. My brain replays that statement over and over again, plaguing me with recurring physical reactions like I've just heard it in real life again. I wish he hadn't said anything at all if it was going to leave me like this.

Neither of us said another word. The only sound between the two of us was the constant cracking of my knuckles accompanied by me putting my feet on the ground-- then sitting criss-cross again-- then having to readjust again and again and again. He left me quite literally restless and I'm sure he's relishing in just the knowledge of it.

Landing in Nockfell was a quick divergence from bubbly hearted affliction in my being. A good distraction from Sal.

Perpetual autumn. Nockfell never gets too hot or cold. The air is always misty, the sky always grey and cloudy. Tall, ever-growing trees dominate both night and day, stealing all the light from the sun and hiding it in their leafy treetops. Nockfell houses the kind of atmosphere that I've dreamt of returning to for years now; the gentle eeriness and chill that I've longed to bask in ever since I left.

We step out of the airport and into the small parking lot where a suspiciously blue haired man is waving at us with a big, dad-like grin on his face. Not a question in my mind. That's Sal's dad-- the cropped, receding cerulean hair was the first obvious sign but as we grow closer, his bright azure eyes are the second giveaway.

"Wassup, daddio!" Larry exclaims, wrapping Sal's father up in a huge bear hug (which is so Emo Buff Daddy of him). I nearly forgot that Sal's dad, who I now know as Henry, is also Larry's step-dad. Crazy.

"Not much, big guy!" Henry chuckles, rubbing Larry's back affectionately once the hug comes to an end. He pats Larry's shoulder, that big smile still on his aged face. "You guys brought the friend back! Convinced her to come huff up our humid air?"

Henry moves over to Ash, Todd, and then Sal to hug all of them. He purposefully places a discreet kiss on top of Sal's head before turning to me.

He holds his arms open suggestively and my heart flutters. "You okay with hugs?" He asks me. "Everyone's family here."

A grin of my own sneaks onto my face as I take a little step toward Henry and wrap my arms around his middle.

Henry's arms latch around my body, shielding me from the moist, heavy air of Nockfell and anything else that could possibly hurt me here. His embrace is so comforting, so familiar, so protective that tears I've been holding back for weeks suddenly rush to the surface.

I love my own dad, he's perfect, but being hugged by his near doppelgänger reminds me of how much I miss him. I wish dad and I weren't apart so often. But that'll change soon with the money I'm making.

I don't allow myself to weep, I hide the tears and pull away from the comforting hug I needed so desperately to smile sweetly at Henry. Lovely man, his own smile widens.

The group of us piles into Henry's old 2000 Nissan Pathfinder to navigate around Nockfell.

We first stop at Ash's place-- a home I haven't seen in a decade now. Everything is so nostalgic-- the tall, two story, white-painted, wooden home and the canopy of evil-looking trees that hide it from the road reminds me of a time that's been ripped away from me.

Ash leans on the door of Henry's SUV, the window down for her to speak to me before she disappears. "I'll come by Sal's or the apartments later to scoop you up, 'kay? Parents and I have a meeting with some guys to transfer ownership of some things to me before the move." She chews on her lip, a deep yearning in her pretty eyes. "I'd let you stay with me if I could."

I shake my head at her-- I don't want her to feel guilty for handling business. "No that's okay." I tell her sweetly, grabbing onto her hand. "I'll kickback with the guys."

Ash smiles, squeezing my hand in hers before breaking off to head to her house.

Now, I never imagined I'd end up coming back to Nockfell in general, but to stand in Sal Fisher's home? These were even more improbable odds.

And worse, Todd suddenly slips out of the house with the very mean (he's ditching me!) excuse of meeting with Neil for a late lunch. That just leaves me, Larry, and Sal standing in the spacious kitchen of their shared two-story home. It's quaint, roomy, and pretty nice. I imagine it's kept up specifically because Sal tends to it.

And Sal, he doesn't say anything. Which is typical behavior from him. He only, swiftly, spins on his heels, luggage in hand, and disappears into a room right past the stairs. Okay, fair. It's late in the afternoon-- naptime.

And now it's down to two.

I look to Larry with a grin. And he's grinning back excitedly, wiggling around like an antsy child who's about to go on a field trip.

"I can't believe we managed to get you over here," he whisper-yells, screaming silently. You know, just open-mouthed and head tipped to the ceiling in pure excitement.

"Even Copernicus wouldn't be able to debunk this turn of events," I joke, watching Larry dance around his kitchen. I put my bags down. I'm sure we'll figure out this situation later when Ash returns.

Larry opens up his refrigerator, moving around some bottles before uttering an expletive. "Ah, fuck," he hisses out, quickly lifting his head which results in him slamming said head into the freezer door. I pause, wincing, eyeing his silhouette warily while awaiting whatever he has to say next.

He resurfaces from the fridge, rubbing his aching head and chewing on his bottom lip. "I left my fucking bags in Henry's car." He curses again, glancing up at me with agitated eyes. "I have to run over to the apartments real quick." Larry starts inching away from the fridge and I feel my heart leap. How could he forget his luggage in the car? And is he really about to leave me here with the master of aggressive seduction himself? We're bound to tear this house apart either via sex or a physical fight. I just don't know which one.

"I'll be like... ten minutes at most," Lar says, squeezing past me and around the kitchen table, rerouting to the front door. He gives me a look that screams vulnerability and urgency. "Please don't kill Sal, and don't let him kill you. Okay? I'll be back in a jiffy."

I blink at him, running my tongue along the inside of my dry mouth. This is not going to go well. "Okay," I say anyway. I can already see the headline on the newspaper-- 'Masked Streamer, Sally Face, Brutally Murders and Chops Up Rising Streamer, VioletViolence, With Kitchen Knife.'

Larry nods at me, pinches his lips together in a moment of concerned hesitation, then disappears through the front door.

I stand in the empty kitchen for a moment, watching the back of Larry's head through the front door window. "In a jiffy..." I murmur to myself, recalling the most soccer-mom words I've ever heard come from Larry's vicinity. It was so odd, I mean he would never say something like that, but here we are.

The house is empty aside from myself and Sal. What the hell am I supposed to do? Watch The Office?-- well, that actually doesn't sound bad at all.

I can literally do anything I want, though. I have been given the most opportune opportunity to act upon my will as I see fit. With that in mind accompanied by the suspiciously good conversation a certain blue-haired individual and I shared on the plane, I think I have an idea of what I could do. And I know I'll have a willing partner.

This will either end in a homicide via kitchen knife or an orgasm. I'll take my chances.

A sly little grin fights its way onto my lips as I spin on my heels, trekking over to Sal's room. His door is closed, giving him an ample amount of darkness to hide in while gaming or sleeping or whatever he's doing. But for me, it's the ample amount of darkness to create a moody setting. It's perfect.

The cold, metal doorknob sits comfortably in the palm of my hand as I give myself one last chance to think about this. I really shouldn't do this, but the timing will never be this good again. With everyone moving to LA, I may never get a chance this convenient since someone will always be around.

That's the last little bit of encouragement I need to twist the knob and slowly push the plain, white painted door open.

The wood squeaks on its hinges, making Sal turn his head up from his PC. His dark, shadowed eyes meet mine. They go from curious to a bit miffed in half a second— but he doesn't say anything, really just ignores me and turns back to his setup.

My heart races. He didn't turn me away or tell me to get the fuck out of his room. That's a good start. But that also means I can actually follow through with my very sudden plan— a plan which has no plan. I didn't even brainstorm what I could do because I genuinely didn't think I'd get this far.

I watch him closely, noting the way his computer casts a cool, blue glow against his prosthetic. His hand moves the mouse around and he clicks on various things, really paying me no mind at all.

My teeth clamp onto my bottom lip as I step past the threshold of his room, grabbing hold of the door and slowly closing it behind me. Once it latches into place, I wait, simply observing the man with my back to the door. For good measure, I turn the lock. You know, just in case I manage to get somewhere.

And he still doesn't look my way. The fact that he's ignoring my presence right now makes anticipation build up within me. My heart thumps a little faster than it already has been. My cheeks feel warm, I can't keep my hands still. It's like my brain is kicked into overdrive, forcing me to take notice of every little thing.

I lick my lips and take a step forward, scratching at the skin on my knuckles. I take another step, then another, my body growing warm with anxiousness all because I may stand in front of this man, present myself to him, and come to regret it. I really might embarrass myself. Just because we agreed doesn't mean he wants me at this exact moment.

But before I'm even really prepared, I'm standing right beside him. And he's sitting there without a care in the world, comfortably propped up in his gaming chair and pulling up different comments on what looks to be YouTube.

I've done about all I can for right now, but we are on limited time. So I watch him for a moment. He has to know I'm right here— I wasn't quiet, I didn't avoid his field of vision. I'm right here.

And I still get nothing.

Time to think. Should I say something insulting? That usually gets him riled up. Maybe then, one thing will lead to another.

I bounce on my heels for a second as I think up a quick insult. "Is this how you waste your time? Figured you'd at least reply to some of your fans if you were going to read their comments. Kinda shitty of you." Low blow probably. I don't really mean it, but I'm sure he'll take it seriously. His fans mean a lot to him, it's the best way to gain his attention.

But Sal doesn't even react, only scrolls through a few replies under a comment and clicks 'like' on a some. He doesn't flinch. Doesn't look at me. Never makes a sound.

I roll my eyes. Playing hard to get are we? He fusses at me for not complying all the time— he's such a hypocritical asshole. I hate that I'm into it.

I swallow thickly, putting my hands behind my back to try and hide my nervous fidgeting. "Sal," I try, cringing a bit. That was desperation— he has to know that.

Again, nothing.

He really must be trying to piss me off, that or he isn't interested at all. But thankfully, the zero interest half doesn't stink like I was afraid it would. Instead, it spurs me into action.

He can ignore my words all he wants, but he can't ignore me.

"I'm going to touch you," I warn because consent is important. "If you don't want that, you need to tell me."

I wait a good thirty seconds but he stays silent.

I pinch my lips together then grab onto the armrest of his chair, pulling it back just enough to place my body between him and his computer. He simply looks up at me with disinterested eyes, so I go further, fueled by the spark in my soul and the rage of him purposefully pretending I'm not even there.

I take a step forward and put a gentle hand on his shoulder for balance, then easily slide myself onto his lap. His thighs are warm beneath my own, his skin smooth under my fingertips. The dark ink on his biceps contrasts beautifully with the milky color of his skin and it's quite an honor to finally run my hands over his art.

I watch the way my fingers drag down his arm then up again, returning to his shoulder. I'm on top of him and he still hasn't said a word, still hasn't touched me. At this point, I'm yearning for something— anything.

The only good sign I'm getting is that he hasn't pushed me off.

I glance up, looking into his blue eyes that are darkened by the shadows of his room. They're watching me closely, no ounce of emotion reflected in them. He's just observing.

My other hand travels to his prosthetic face, gripping onto his jaw in the way that he does to me so often. "Think you can ignore me?" I whisper, a little smirk quirking my lips despite how badly I wish I could contain it.

A slight furrowing of his brows is what I get in return.

Ha, got him.

He still doesn't say anything, but I've piqued his interest at least.

"Larry's gone," I say next, my eyes traveling to the rough prosthetic in my hands. I run my thumb over the underside of his jaw, feeling a number of scars.

"I assumed so," he says, voice a bit deeper than it normally would be and toneless like it seems to have been all day.

My gaze meets his again, and this time there's a little fire in his pretty eyes. There's desire, interest, slow-building exhilaration. I love seeing this look on him.

"Mhm," I hum, moving my other hand from his shoulder to the side of his neck. "Are you going to sit here and ignore me like the asshole you are, or are you going to have mercy on both of us?"

Sal slowly blinks, eyes traveling over my form, drinking me in like I'm the last drop of water on earth. "You called me an asshole for a reason," he bites out. "Don't expect much. Unlike you, I can actually hold out."

"But what's the point of holding out?" I counter, tilting my head to the left. "Larry's heading to the apartments. We have about ten minutes. That's enough room for one of a couple options. Stop being a little prick and do something."

"More like twenty. Larry takes his sweet ass time." Sal's eyes narrow. "You think insulting me is going to coerce me into this, you little bitch? Thought you knew our dynamic well enough by now." My words are getting to him. That's exactly what I want.

"I do know our dynamic," I whisper, leaning my head down so that my face is level with his. I look into his cerulean eyes and they gaze back at me, one pupil dilated. Then, I bend lower until I'm at the nape of his neck, his hair tickling my jaw.

I use the hand holding his face to tilt his head up and away from me, using the angle as leverage to place my lips onto his warm skin.

I hear a muffled sigh from him in response and it takes everything in me not to smile.

My mouth moves slowly along the side of his neck, placing meaningful, wet kisses along his throat. But when I get to the hilt of his tattoo, I bit down gently.

He flinches at the feeling of my teeth digging into his skin, then completely aborts his mission to ignore me completely.

Sal's hands fly to my waist, one gripping tightly onto my hip and the other trailing up my back and into my hair, gripping the strands tightly before yanking my head back.

My teeth are ripped from his neck immediately and Sal pulls me away from him by the base of my neck. I gasp, staring into his captivating azure eyes from just centimeters away. His prosthetic nose bumps my mask's and he holds me there without a word.

His eyes trail down my face and heavy breaths follow his gaze. His cold fingers are curled into my neck, his nails digging into my skin.

I swallow, wondering if maybe I should have just minded my own business, stayed in the living room and waited for Larry to come back. Maybe I pissed him off.

I lick my lips and blink at him, my mouth gapes open as I try to find something to say. He's silent. It's not awkward, just scary. Scary is ten times worse.

Sal must see the regret and fear in my eyes because his own eyes lessen their harsh glare a bit and then he rasps out, "Can I touch you?"

Every inch of my body goes rigid with shock, anticipation. "Yes," I say, my voice barely above a whisper. My fingers tighten ever so slightly on the underside of his jaw while my heart runs an entire marathon in my chest. Now is not the time to get nervous because I sweat when I'm nervous. I need to be horny– not nervous.

Sal takes a deep breath, eyes set on mine. I feel his chest rise ever so slowly, then go back down the same exact way. The pause between us is utter agony and I feel like I'm going to start spazzing out or something. Honestly, with the way I'm sitting on top of him, I might just fall over and die on the spot. That feels less incriminating than whatever is about to ensue.

Cool fingers grasp onto my thigh, his palm flattening against my skin. His hand drags up to my side, followed by his other hand leaving my neck to grab the other side of my waist. The feeling of him touching me, just like he'd asked, fills me with memories I tried so desperately to forget just a couple weeks or so ago. This is deja vu in the best way.

In one swift motion, Sal lifts me up and plops me on top of his desk. I brace myself with my hands on either side of his keyboard that lays behind me. Questions of concern start flowing through my brain because this is an odd place to be.

"Don't knock over my shit," Sal breathlessly informs, eyes glancing up to me. HIs hands move to the waist band of my bottoms and I suck in another anxious, anticipatory breath.

I nod quickly, watching him with wide eyes as he looks down at my waist, his hands circling to the front of my stomach and fumbling with the button of my shorts. Oh my gosh.

I gulp, looking at anything but the man between my legs, currently pulling down the shorts I'd traveled in. His cold fingers brush along the outside of my thighs, causing goosebumps to rise all over my skin. He's slow, purposeful, dragging this out to get whatever reaction out of me that he can. It feels like my heart is about to explode.

I have no idea what he's about to do, he doesn't warn me either. I don't have the guts to watch this scene play out. The prospect of his dilated pupils, messy hair, and that glare in his captivating eyes is too much-- so much that warmth pools between my thighs before he can initiate anything.

"You look scared," he murmurs and I flinch at the gentle, comforting tone he uses with me. I've never heard something such as this come from him and be directed at mebefore.

"I am," I answer honestly, licking my lips while his fingers slowly pull my shorts down my legs. I lift myself a bit to aid him, shivering when my bare legs meet the cold surface of his desk. "A bit."

"Why?" Sal asks, hands pressing onto my thighs. With how warm my skin is and how cool his fingers are, the contrasting temperature is enough to spark an aneurysm. He drags those hands of his up my legs until he reaches my panties, hooking his digits into them.

I shake my head, chin quite literally tilted up to the ceiling. I'm not quite sure what has me so scared. Am I afraid of myself? Him? Getting caught? Being dropped again?

One risky hand leaves my hip and Sal's prosthetic comes into view. He's hovering over me, in a standing position now. His hair falls onto my shoulders, shielding us from the rest of the world like a curtain. I blink up at him, breath caught in my throat as a rush of chills invades my body.

"Hey," he says. His voice is a bit on edge, but it's concerned. So concerned that it distracts me from my own fear for a moment. "You're okay," he continues, his hand gripping onto my chin and pulling my head down so we can be eye level. I look between his bright eyes-- his eyebrows are risen a bit, as if to communicate to me that I can trust him. But can I?

"I'll take care of you. If you want to stop, if you don't want to start-- let me know. Say anything and I'll end it immediately." He tilts his head a bit, eyes glancing over my face. This is different. This looks vulnerable. "If I made you uncomfortable at all, I--"

My head shakes in opposition. I don't even have to think about it. "No, it's not that. It-- I trust you." The words spew out of my mouth and I immediately regret it. Something smug takes over his expression and I press my lips together, grabbing onto his wrist connected to the hand that's still holding my chin. "I trust you with this. If I was tied to train tracks, I wouldn't even think of calling you." I narrow my eyes at him to exemplify my point. His eyes squint as if he's... smiling? I'll ignore that. "But you've never... made me uncomfortable. You always ask. You always check. So..."

I watch him nod slowly, our gazes never disconnecting. He seems to contemplate what I've said, measurably formulating his next move. "Do you want to talk about what's stressing you then?"

My head rears back and my eyebrows furrow, his hand falling away from my face. "What brain eating amoeba has overtaken you?" I blurt out, holding a hand out between us. It's incredibly odd-- this is out of place. "You are never concerned about me-- what is this?"

If you can't tell, I'm not a fan of change. I greatly prefer stability even if it's toxic.

Sal drops the caring act almost immediately, his eyes rolling so hard that I'm worried they'll sink into his body. "I can't go down on you if you're freaked, can I? I wouldn't even feel comfortable doing that. I'm an asshole, not a monster."

I pause, every facial feature relaxing as his statement slaps me in the face. Key words: go, down, on, you, asshole, monster. Yep, only monstrous assholes go down on their enemies. I'm the very brave, very eager, very shocked recipient of this going down.

I take a deep, shaky breath, blinking at Sal who watches me with what looks like a raised eyebrow. "Okay," I breathlessly whisper. "How are you-- are you..." Why am I rambling? What kind of answer am I looking for? Obviously the prosthetic is about to come off and I just have to contain the desperate, whore-like rage within.

"Shut up, Vi," he chuckles over my nickname, grabbing onto my thighs and tugging me to the edge of the desk as he sits in his chair again. My fingertips press into the wooden surface while my heart threatens to pound its way through my ribcage. "Just let me taste you."

Cue internal screaming. I'm so going to faint-- and the addition of watching his pretty guitar-playing hands leave my skin to unbuckle his prosthetic is pushing me to astronomical heights. I don't even exist anymore. I'm just a wisp, a little phantom fairy watching her favorite sex movie play out in real time. It's called Faceless Fixation. She's the Fellatio Fairy. I don't even-- whoever is writing my life needs to give me a break.

I'm shivering like I have hypothermia by the time Sal carefully pulls the prosthetic off his face, making sure to not mess up his hair. And then he glances up at me. Bright eyes hesitant, sort of wide. Eyebrows risen just a bit and lips pressed together like he wants to say a thousand things but can't. He looks so nervous and it's a moment we can both share.

For reassurance (I think we both need it) I smile at him. Just a slight upward tilt of my lips as I press my thighs together. He's so beautiful. Every scar, every indentation, every feature, every little freckle. Just wow-- he's a sight to behold.

Sal's gaze flits to my lips, then down to my legs and he grabs onto them again, purposefully pulling them apart. His black polished nails dig into my skin as he gazes down at my underwear. I'm so used to watching his reactions and feelings portrayed only through his eyes, but watching the way his jaw tenses and the moment his lips part like he can't wait any longer makes me feel like I'll implode.

His fingers run up my legs to my hips, dipping into my panties and pulling them downward. I gulp over the sight, relishing in the deja vu. How kind of him to not rip these this time.

I lift myself up as he shimmies them down my legs, finally pulling them from around my ankles and holding them up for me to see. I blink, warmth rushing to my face at his boldness. And Sal, well-pleased, quirks a little seductive smile at them before switching his gaze to me.

"I haven't even touched you and you're soaked," is what he murmurs, eyes dancing over my half naked body with very little focus on my face. It's like he's glued to what hides behind my clenched thighs, eagerly awaiting what he'll find between them. "You're inflating my ego way too much," his voice is a bit louder this time-- darker, more sinister. The pronunciation of his words shows off charming, slightly crooked front teeth and sharp canines. I'll never know how I haven't ascended already.

I shiver, trying and failing to hide my reaction. But it doesn't really matter, seeing as Sal caught onto it anyway and his hooded eyes are on mine, a dangerous glint clashing with the hypnotizing azure shade of his irises.

His hands are on my legs again, fingers roughly squeezing my skin. He isn't putting off his plans again though. When he separates my legs and I try my best not to push him away out of fear, Sal leans forward and presses his lips to the inside of my left thigh.

I take a deep, shuddering breath as I bathe in the feeling of his soft, jagged lips moving along my sensitive skin. I commit the image to memory, absolutely astonished over the way his blue eyes are closed while he inches closer and closer to my pussy.

I'm unable to take a full breath at this point, my body is tense while I try to hold myself in an upright position, pathetically falling apart as his mouth dances along the inside of my thigh like he's studied and perfected each step he takes. His hands are molded into my skin, they've become a part of me. He's pressing my thigh up to his face, leaving the most inebriating kisses. I wish he would stop teasing me already.

At the same time, I'm obsessed with the way he's handling me. Delicately, carefully, but he's in full control and making me wait. Testing me. Seeing if I'll push him, hoping I'll give him a good reason to punish me.

Sal's eyes open again, glancing up to meet mine. I suck in a breath, watching as he opens that dirty mouth of his and bites into the sensitive skin at the top of my thigh.

I hiss, wincing at the slight pain but my eyes never leave his. They could never. And he loves that, takes it as a challenge because those sky blue eyes close and he bites down harder, sucking my skin into his mouth to leave his mark.

Some kind of satisfied, sickeningly delighted feeling swells in my chest at the knowledge of having a mark from him on my body. It's primal, it's a little weird, but I adore the idea and maybe he does too. After what he said to me about North on the flight to Nockfell, I'd guess he's more than happy to stake his claim even if it's invisible to the outside world.

Sal finally pulls his teeth from my leg, revealing a gnarly, dark purple mark in his wake. He places a quick, soothing kiss to the abused skin before trailing his way closer to my pussy. He masks his destination with more wet kisses and bites and I'm so worked up by now that a light sheen of sweat has formed on my forehead. I can't be doing this-- this is complete torture.

"Sal," I groan out, flinching at the sinful tone of my voice. It makes him pause his movements as well. "Please," I tack on, the word quiet and agonizingly pleading.

He hums against my skin, eyes zeroed in on mine. I hate being so direct, it's terrifying, but it's worth it if it'll end up with his tongue buried in me, right?

"Beg for it," he says lowly, a slight rasp to his voice. His tone makes me shiver, as well as his words and I would drop to my hands and knees if he told me to right now.

My lips part upon hearing him and I release a shaky breath, thighs drawing together until he stops them with his tight grip. My heart is running a marathon, my limbs are trembling and I'm wondering if maybe this is all just a really awesome dream.

"Please," I repeat, voice coming out as a whine. For once, I don't regret it because this is what he wants. "I'm desperate." I don't know how else to portray to him that I need this-- the wait is nearly excruciating. "I need to feel you."

Sal pulls away from my skin, tongue lapping at all of his bite marks before a sadistic smile pulls at his lips. "How much do you hate me?" And he's waiting, waiting for a wordy explanation of my distaste for him. But now, with the way things have changed between us-- even if it's slightly-- describing my loathing somehow feels harder.

So I snort, trying to coerce him into putting his mouth on me again regardless of the location. But all the shivers, waiting, and very slow building orgasm is slipping away into the distance. "A lot," I whisper shakily.

He gives me a look, eyes narrowed and lips pressed together as if I've disappointed him. "You can do better than that, Vi. Where's the fire?" He leans toward the thigh he hasn't captured with his mouth yet and skims his teeth along my skin. "Should I give you an example?"

I lick my lips, a sudden fluttering in my chest making me feel light headed. I hesitantly shake my head-- the longer he isn't paying attention to me, the farther I am from cumming. I can come up with something to say can't I? Of course I can. He's infuriating enough.

"Alright then," he mumbles monotonously, finally ditching my thighs. He yanks me a bit closer, eyes still rifling through my soul. "Then tell me. And if you stop," he warns as I swallow against the pounding in my chest due to his positioning, face mere inches from my sopping cunt. He's dragged this on long enough. "I stop. Keep that filthy mouth of yours moving."

He waits for me to launch into a monologue of detest. His mouth so close to my clit, breath tickling my skin and forcing a quiet little whimper from me.

"I fucking hate the constant foul mood you're always in," I force out, feeling my heart leap into my throat the second the words leave my mouth. Because Sal keeps his promise and with an inebriating grunt of approval, he finally attaches his lips to my clit, tongue running over it like he's desperate to soak up every inch of what I have to offer.

The feeling of his mouth on my pussy is incomparable to any other type of satisfaction in the world-- this is what I've waited for. And he happily makes up for the lost time, expertly flicking his tongue over the bundle of nerves and sucking it farther into his mouth. He moans against my cunt, hands dragging up my thighs to cup my ass and force me even closer to him. He squeezes my skin, a reminder to keep talking.

I dig up all the things I can't stand about him, slathering them across my brain so I can tell him about it. "You're a brick wall. No matter what I say, you refuse to listen. How come you're never open to hearing anyone out?" I whimper between words, squirming around on his desk and trying my damn hardest not to ruin any of his belongings.

Sal lifts my legs over his arms, pushing them onto his shoulders and I swear I'm about to combust. The way his tongue maps figure eights and circles around my clit does nothing to help, only sends me further toward falling apart.

I squeeze my eyes shut, fingers curling over the edge of his desk, heavy breaths and quiet moans falling past my lips no matter how badly I wish I could keep them inside. "You have some kind of God complex. You think you're right about everything, have to be in control of everything and I can't stand it. I can't stand you and your constant need to have everything you want."

His teeth graze over my clit and my mouth falls open, waves of pleasure rolling through my body like I've never experienced before. He moves downward, his tongue buried between my folds and licking up every bit of my arousal that he can get. Upon getting a better taste of me, he moans and I can feel the vibration of it everywhere, all the way up to my fingertips.

"I hate how easily you turn me on, how wet I get just from a simple touch," I admit, teeth clamping down onto my bottom lip as his tongue explores the inside of my pussy like he's been starved of me for far too long. His nails dig into my skin, the action eliciting a stinging sensation that only adds to the pleasure he's giving me. This is everything. "And you're so unfair. So pretty, so damn attractive with that horrible personality of yours. Why can't you be pretty through and through?"

I open my eyes again to watch him, drowning in the prospect of his face buried between my thighs, cheeks flushed and hair a mess. I watch as he drags his mouth up to my clit again, drawing patterns and shapes I don't care to know over the bundle of nerves. The rough, slick feeling of his tongue on such a sensitive place is addicting. So long as he's around to bring me to new heights like this, I don't need anything else. Maslow's hierarchy of needs has never been so wrong-- this is my sole need.

I can't help myself-- I reach a hand out, my fingers burying themselves into Sal's hair. It's soft. Just as soft as I knew it would be. And he doesn't seem to mind, only continues to suck on my clit and abuse it with his tongue. I close my hand into a fist, lightly tugging on his hair. I need something to hold onto.

"And your stupid fucking mouth," I groan out, sucking in a breath that never fully fills my lungs. His tongue dips into my pussy again, making another little groan follow my first. My thighs are clenched tightly at this point, quaking furiously. Sal never tries to stop me, doesn't calm me. It's clear how much he enjoys bringing me to ruin. "All the awful things you say, so many dirty words and you are so good with your tongue. I've never craved and loathed something so much in my life."

Sal smiles against my pussy-- I watch in pure amazement as the corners of his lips curl upward like what I said was everything he's always wanted to hear. It's so lewd, so perverted and I absolutely will never forget this moment.

One of his hands lets go of my ass, trailing down my thigh again but moving to the inside this time. As his teeth gently nip at my clit and his tongue laps at my pussy, the tips of his fingers press against my opening, a silent request for more of my profession of hatred. A profession I'm more than happy to give him.

"I can't imagine how much I'll hate the way you fuck me just because I know it'll be better than any sex I've had before," I tell him, watching his mouth move against my cunt with furrowed brows and my lips parted in intrigue. Oh, he's so good at what he does.

Sal's eyes meet mine again. Eye contact with him when he's in such an erotic position is incredibly intense. I feel like my entire body is going to crumple before he can finish me off and it all counts on if he's able to hold me up or not. But as soon as his cerulean gaze meets mine, two of his fingers sink into me. The action is slow, drawn out, and drags a nasty moan out of me in turn.

Sal whimpers against my pussy, taking care of me like he promised he would. When his fingers reach as far as they can go, he curls them, causing me to flinch at the sensuous feeling. There's so much going on to the point that every inch of my body feels impossibly overwhelmed.

My sensitive clit gets sucked into Sal's mouth again, but then he pulls away. His fingers make up for the absence of his tongue, pounding into me in the same salacious way he's done before.

"Is that all you've got?" he grumbles breathlessly, glazed eyes glaring into mine. This is the expression I'm used to with him-- anger and dominance.

I choke on the breath I try to take, my thighs pressing into his neck as his fingers slam in and out of my soaked cunt, digits only pausing their relentless pace to curl into me. I try to fight against my one working brain cell, try to form words for him, but-- "I can't." is all that I'm able to create, the two short words coming out as an imploring cry.

Sal stands, finger-fucking me into an alternate dimension. He hovers over me, his hair brushing my shoulders and neck. I watch him, an absolute mess beneath him but I can't look away-- even through the panting breaths that morph into whimpers and moans.

His eyes glance between mine, seemingly contemplating something in that meticulous mind of his.

"Yea, you can, gorgeous," he grinds out behind clenched teeth, using the hand that's gripping my ass to press me against his chest. Our even closer proximity somehow forces his fingers deeper into my pussy, his thumb rubbing my clit. "Tell me more." My mouth is dry, I'm going to cum soon, and hopefully I don't actually fall over before that.

Sal takes a page out of my book, leaning closer to me and nipping at the skin of my throat. A little gasp falls past my lips and I finally let go of his hair, dragging my hand down to his neck. Those fingers work me to the core, never ceasing their movements and pushing into me with so much perfectly applied force.

His mouth moves along the side of my neck, his lips still wet from my juices. I have no idea what gave him the confidence, but I'm not mad. Everything that couldn't be done with his prosthetic can be done now and he's taking advantage of it. "Speak," he snaps, tone not so gentle or comforting like it was when this first began. "Or else."

My mind is blank. "I'm about to cum," I begrudgingly whisper, completely overtaken by his fingers thrusting into me and his thumb focused on my oversensitive clit.

I shut my eyes, my free arm wrapping around his shoulders. Every inch of my body is tense, senses heightened and alert. I don't think I can possibly hold on any longer-- I doubt Sal needed my confirmation to tell that I'm close.

His digits curl into me again, repeating the action. I follow up with a loud whimper, my nails digging into the skin of his neck as he sucks on the skin behind my ear. I wish he'd have ditched the prosthetic sooner because I've really been missing out.

The hand still gripping onto my butt retreats to my stomach, fingers disappearing under my shirt and crawling across my ribs to my bra. He treats it as if it isn't even there, hand easily dipping beneath the fabric. His palm envelops my breast, squeezing gently and massaging the skin. It's such a considerate touch compared to the way he treats the rest of my body-- he knows exactly where the sweet spots are.

"Cum," he commands, lips brushing the shell of my ear and fingers pounding into my sore cunt, thumb running over my hardened nipple.

My head drops onto his shoulder and with one more curl of his fingers, I do as he says and fall apart in his arms. I burst almost instantly, doing anything to keep myself silent over the feeling of his fingers gently caressing the inside of my pussy, riding me through my orgasm just like he did the first time. My teeth sink into his shoulder, a muffled whimper following soon after. Sal tenses up in my arms, a pleasured breath falling from his mouth and fanning over the side of my neck.

"Good girl," he purrs into my ear, lips skimming over the warm skin at my throat. He leaves one more sloppy kiss to my neck then pulls away to look into my eyes again. I can hardly hear anything he says as my teeth are forced away from his shoulder, still reeling from the orgasm that slammed into me nearly unannounced. My limbs feel like jelly as chills run up my spine. "You listen to me so well," he continues. I can't even look into his eyes; I just watch the way his lips move. How his tongue presses into the back of his teeth to pronounce a syllable. His sharp canines that undoubtedly left their own bruises on my skin.

I gulp, unable to peel my eyes away from the mouth that masterfully brought me to climax. For the first time ever, I wonder what his mouth would feel like against mine. How soft his scarred lips would feel, not on my skin, but captured by my own. What his tongue would taste like. What his teeth would feel like nipping at my lips.

Sal doesn't move away from me-- keeps our close proximity with his nose nearly brushing my mask's. He slowly, delicately pulls his fingers out of me but only continues to gaze into my eyes.

This is dangerous territory. Very dangerous. Because the impossible is coursing through me right now and I... somehow can't find it in me to hate him in this exact moment.

But then he blinks. Stands to his full height, moving away from me. His azure gaze turns to the desk I'm sitting on and he grabs my panties, offering them to me. Not an ounce of emotion evident on his face. I'd always wondered what he'd look like simply because I was curious if his face gave away his emotions better than his eyes could. It's pretty impressive how he's able to keep a straight mug though, RBF and all. Especially when he lifts the hand he fingered me with to his mouth and licks my cum off. He doesn't even look at me as his tongue runs up the length of his digit, just turns away from me and walks to the other side of the room.

I'm floored, jaw dropped and pussy wet. Again. That's really fucking hot.

I watch him strut away, follow his movements as he drops to his haunches and opens up his suitcase with his clean hand. He grabs something then faces me again, beginning to walk back with a finger still in his mouth.

My chest tightens at the sight. He can't be doing this to me. Not when Larry is going to be home any minute-- he needs to keep both his hands at his sides.

Thankfully, Sal has some mercy on me and finally finishes cleaning his fingers, eyes darting up to mine again. He walks up to me, right where I'm still sitting on top of his desk and drops fabric onto my bare thighs.

My brows furrow and I look down, grabbing lace. I lift it up, unfolding it to see that it's a near replica of the lace underwear he'd ripped off of me in Vegas. Only it's a completely brand new pair. No rips, no issues. My heart swells a bit at the gesture-- he bought a new pair like I'd told him to. I wasn't even serious, but he did it anyway.

I puff out my cheeks, contemplating what to say. Thank you's are virtually nonexistent between us. My eyes flit up to meet his again and he stuffs his hands into his pockets, watching me.

"You taste good," he nonchalantly comments, causing an infuriating blush to heat my cheeks.

"Thanks," I murmur, holding up the lace panties to show that I'm thankful for them too. "You taste pretty good too." He does. I'll have to return the favor to him when I get the chance.

A barely audible snort comes from him and I almost smile.

"I'd fuck you, but Larry will be back any minute and Ash probably isn't far behind him," he says, turning on his heel and walking toward the door. "I suggest you put your clothes back on. Panties are clean, I washed them."

My eyebrows raise and I pinch my lips together. Huh. "How kind of you," I say half sarcastically. Only half because it's helpful that they are clean-- it's almost like he knew he'd place me in a predicament where I needed fresh underwear. "You trying to kick me out?" I add. Of course he is, I'm just trying to make my way out of here as awkward-less as possible.

"Hell yea," he says proudly, "I have shit to do."

"Are you calling me a distraction?" I ask, looking toward him as I shimmy my underwear and shorts up my legs then start working on the button.

Sal tilts his head, hand on the doorknob. "And a mild aggravation."

"Oh, wow," I gasp, feigning surprise. "Mild? I must be working my way onto your good side."

"Fuck me good enough and we'll see how far you get," he replies, eyes watching my every move but face still unreadable as I begin walking toward him.

I roll my eyes. Of course. I pinch my lips together and give him a disinterested look. This is my lesson to never try to have a casual conversation with him again. He clearly doesn't want it, which, fair. Our agreement is sex, not friendship. "Okay," I say dramatically when he opens the door for me. "Bye, Sal."

The man nods his head, acknowledging the shift in the room. His eyes stay glued to mine like they have been the entire time I've been here. Now that I'm not distracted by his mouth on my pussy, I realize that this is an odd thing for him to do. He looks at me every once in a while, but not in such a... scrutinizing way.

He purses his lips and says, "Bye, y/n."

Every nerve-ending in my body suddenly shuts off. Everything is still. I have no thoughts for a moment, no physical reaction. Just stillness. I don't breathe, I don't move. I just watch him.

There's no way— he has to have mixed up my names. It has to be that.

And then everything hits me. Sal Fisher just said my name. And not the fake one that I've been hiding behind. He said my actual name— the one that's on my birth certificate. And now my hands are shaking, my heart is racing, my breaths are uneven, and I feel like I'm going to throw up.

"What the fuck," I say shakily. I'm not ready for this. I'm going to completely switch his thought process around-- "did you just say?"

The look in his eyes changes, they light up a bit as if he's caught me. And still he decides to mess with me. "Huh?" he innocently asks.

Okay, I'd really like to wake up now.

My eyes narrow. So that's the game he wants to play? This isn't the time and I don't have the mental capacity to handle this. Not only am I recovering from a mind-blowing orgasm, but I was just getting over the overwhelming anxiety I suffered from yesterday.

"I'm not y/n, if that's what you're thinking," I rush to tell him, even adding in the fakest little smirk I've ever slapped onto my face. Anything to get him off my tail, whatever I can think of to save my ass. This really can't be happening to me.

He's still watching me speculatively and it's making my brain itch. "You know," he finally starts, voice disgustingly pleased. "I went out on a limb with that one." I watch in horror as a little smirk begins to grow on his face. I don't want to accept it yet, I really don't, but I think I'm fucked and not physically.

At the end of the day, he's still managed to fuck me in multiple ways. I cannot stand Sal Fisher.

"What are you even talking about?" I ask him, clearing my throat quietly while taking a safe step out of his door and into the living room. I try my best to keep my eyes on him while extinguishing the fear from my gaze. If I act horrified, he'll sniff me out instantly. That is, if he hasn't already.

Sal chuckles deeply— it's, shockingly, an amused and prideful one rather than something sick, dark, and twisted. He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. I try my best not to adore the way his scars stretch with his laugh and the sight of his pretty teeth. "Any other woman would have assumed I was sleeping with someone else if I called them by another name," he says lightheartedly, tilting his head down a bit. "But you didn't. And that can only mean that I'm right."

I open my mouth to decline, fear thrumming through me. He caught me red handed. I can't fucking believe this.

"And don't try to deny it, you won't change my mind. I've been very sure of who you are for months now."

My head slowly begins to shake of its own accord. He never fails to shock me. "How..."

Sal shrugs. "You couldn't have timed your introduction more horrendously. Think about it," he says, chewing on his bottom lip. "I bitch at y/n over a phone call, then the next day, a wild VioletViolence pops into my life and isn't too surprised by my shitty personality. The second you were added to the Discord server, I had my suspicions." He shrugs nonchalantly, like the confirmation doesn't bother him in the slightest. "I talked it over with Larry and Todd too. They're pretty sure of your identity as well. They were just nice enough to wait for you to tell us on your own." His eyes narrow, sly like a fox. "But I'm not nice and wanted to know for myself. Wanted to scare you a bit too."

I swallow over the bile rising in my throat. Scare me, he did. I have no idea what to do with myself. I must look like a deer in headlights nearing its death sentence. "It... it doesn't bother you?" I decide to ask in a small voice, unable to blink as I watch him closely.

That same smug little smile is still lighting up his marred face as he says, "Regardless, I still can't stand you and I'll still fuck you stupid."

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A/N::::::: OMFFGGGGG I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS CHAPTER FOR AGESSSSSS PLEASE!!! more specifically the end of it! i've had this last scene written since like... 2022 o_O

i want to give a HUGE thanks to my very good friend, Phoebe, who inspired me to write the catalyst of the smut scene with this AMAZING piece of art that they drew :3 i am soooo so grateful for having the opportunity to see the art in general, but getting to write it too??? OMG so incredibly grateful <33

side note: this is my first time writing a smut scene like this one-- well, actually any time i write a different kind of sex it's new for me LMFAO i am exploring EVERYTHINGGGG and i also have no idea if this is any good. so like last chapter, if y'all could give me some tips or things you like and didn't like, i would GREATLY appreciate it :3

i'm going catch up on my neglected homework. as always, have a wonderful morning/day/evening/night. my heart belongs to all of you <3

#sal fisher #sally face #larry johnson #ash campbell #todd morrison #travis phelps #enemies to lovers #sally face fandom #sally face fanfiction #fanfic #smut

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regencyofhell-if · 5 months

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So...I fucked up, but in I think a good way?

Let me explain.

Regency of Hell somehow got turned into a novel instead of an IF, so I've been making attempts to pace back, but rather than redo everything I've already done, I'm thinking of keeping the project a novel instead.

I am fully aware that this is going to disappoint a great deal of you, but I'm in talks with a publication company thanks to one of my friends who is a local legend in the poetry scene recommending my work to them. If I complete the final draft of the book by spring, I will finally have accomplished my lifelong dream of being a published author.

Obviously, I can't name the company I'm working with here, but I will give more information as things fall into place and everything is set into concrete. What I can tell you so far is this:

There will be three books total. That is not changing.

Book one currently stands at 278 pages, and that is before editing. Everything is still in that horrifying stage between rough draft and second draft where I just keep picking it apart like a worn old scab.

I'm still open to recreating this IF as a sort of "choose your own adventure" type of story, but for now, it's all going in a different direction.

Twine is still evil.

It took me a long while to admit to myself that writing interective fiction is not something I can personally do. I tip my proverbial hat to the amazing IF writers out there who can do it, but my pea-brain can't help but make an absolute mess of things when multiple choices are involved. So rather than see the project die, I'm going to just go in another direction and take a shot at accomplishing something I've wanted since I was a kid imagining my name on a book jacket in the library.

I almost didn't want to post this update because I knew it was going to upset a lot of you, but at the same time, I couldn't just leave the page in limbo. So I'm sorry if this isn't the news you wanted or expected. However, I'm still hoping to have your support when I get the publishing deal. It would mean the absolute world to me.

I'm going to end this note here and just say thank you to everyone who has supported RoH thus far. This isn't a closing chapter, it's just a new beginning with plenty more to come.

I love you all and hope you have an amazing holiday season.

Nik

#regency of hell if #update

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dododan · 4 months

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Rick and Morty - Analysis of the final episode "Fear No Mort"

The finale of the seventh season was brilliant and exciting. I think the creators did a great job with this episode and you won't be disappointed watching it ^^

I had a lot of thoughts about this episode - what was going on with Morty, what fears they had to face and what consequences this might have for the future....

A lot of it was sitting in my head and I wanted to share it, so spoiler alert!

If you haven't seen the new episode of Rick and Morty, don't read it or you'll spoil all the fun of watching.

And I apologise for my English if anything is not understandable.

Morty's fears

Morty struggled with many fears when he entered The Hole. You can see from the beginning that he feared Rick would leave him. He was afraid of being unaccepted and laughed at because of his difference. He feared that Rick would kill himself because he had not dealt with his trauma. Or that Morty would end up like his own father.

But most of Morty's fears and nightmares revolved around Rick and that he would leave. I also think Morty feared that Rick's departure/death would be his fault, which is why he couldn't openly admit it.

Nonetheless, Morty faced these fears himself, realising that he was afraid of the extent to which he was dependent on Rick and afraid of his leaving. As well as the fact that Rick didn't jump into The Hole after him but stood by and watched. By realising the truth Morty was able to get out of The Hole.

It is puzzling that Morty became 'fearless' because he overcame the nightmares The Hole created. He has overcome his fears, so what implications will this have for his further development?

Most of Morty's fears were about Rick, in which case Morty would try to be more open in their relationship.

Morty overcoming this fear means that he can talk to Rick more openly and confront him because he is no longer afraid of Rick’s leaving, but this does not mean that Morty no longer cares about Rick. You can see it when he told Rick that "you don't want to face it because it's fucked up shit" and somehow he wanted to spare Rick that.

Maybe next season Morty will try to help Rick and bring up topics they didn't talk about before because Morty was afraid Rick would leave?

Maybe the topic of Diane and Rick Prime will come back next season, because it's hard to determine if Rick (C-137) has actually dealt with it or is just pretending.

I also wondered about the other option of Morty becoming "fearless". By Morty overcoming the fear associated with the passing of his life, won't he start to distance himself from his grandfather and become a more independent person by doing so, pushing Rick away? But that's actually just a loose thought that popped into my head. I rather doubt that this is what will happen, because just because Morty is no longer afraid doesn't mean that he has stopped caring about Rick.

How does The Hole work?

Does it recreate fears and the world based on the knowledge of the person who fell into the Hole (e.g. like the detoxification machine in „the Rest and Ricklaxation” episode [s3 e6]), or does it fully recreate the real world, bringing the fears into confrontation?

The episode is very twisted and not made any easier by The Hole itself. I've watched a lot of horror films and the theme of overcoming one's fears to break the illusion is quite familiar. Across the board, it's one of my favourite motifs, as it leaves you questioning until the end whether the protagonist actually got out, as the nightmare world is virtually indistinguishable from the real world.

Having said that, I'm not sure if The Hole refers to any particular film. I usually have a hard time picking out pop-culture references.

And this is where the spoiler already comes in, so if you haven't watched it, catch up on this episode.

The twist of the episode is that Rick never went into The Hole. He preferred to wait for Morty to deal with his fears himself. The reason he just sat and waited was because the nightmares or fears could overlap and create contradictions. All in all, a logical explanation and typical Rick behaviour. That said, I think Rick was somehow monitoring Morty's condition (maybe through some implants?), because if his life was in real danger he would rather have reacted. I think initially Rick thought The Hole was untrue or exaggerated, which is why he left Morty alone.

But what is puzzling is how The Hole itself worked. On what basis did it know who was afraid of what? How did it create the world of nightmares in which Morty was stuck?

Theory one - The hole created the world on the basis of Morty's knowledge and his guesses

If this theory were true then Diane's whole plot and what we learned about Rick would go in the bin. The character of Diane and her conversations with Rick or some touching on their shared past would be worthless to the character of Rick himself. It would contribute nothing to the development of Rick and the facts about his past, as it would only be Morty's imaginings or his guesses.

It would also be a solution that would somehow disappoint the fans.

Theory two - The nightmare world created by the Hole is just like the real world

And this theory changes everything.

The Hole somehow replicated the real world and the behaviour of the other members of the Smith family and Diane and Rick.

The behaviour of the other family members was authentic. Jerry being afraid of the spider and rejecting Morty for eating the spider. Beth's reactions to her mother's return, or how Rick from the nightmares (that's what I'll call Rick, who appeared in Morty's nightmare and overcame certain fears with him) behaved throughout the episode.

I think if Rick had jumped into the Hole, this is how the action of the episode would have gone. He would lose himself and Morty would have to rescue him. But Rick's fears will be discussed in a moment.

Also in favour of this theory is the fact that if the Hole had been based on Morty's subjective perception of the world, then Rick would not have rescued him at the moment of the show, but abandoned him for Diane. But this was not the case.

The Hole recreated the fears and behaviour of the real Rick. With one exception, when Rick recognised Morty as irreplaceable and when he admitted that he would not abandon him. Rick had always thought of his family as theoretical, and that any of them could be replaced.

Even if Morty knew that Rick valued him in some veiled way, he would never admit it because of his pride. Therefore, Morty realised at that moment that he was afraid of how much he depended on Rick and how much he defined himself by him.

If this theory seems true, what about Diane? Diane was true to some extent. The Hole did the impossible and recreated Diane, or rather who she was at the time of her death. An alternative was presented where Diane survived but Rick died. Rick met Diane and we had some interesting interactions between the two, so it can be assumed that the kind of Diane that Hole showed us was the Diane of the C-137 Dimension. A strong and intelligent woman who loved Rick very much. Unsurprisingly, the real Rick in the episode 'Wet Kuat Amortican Summer', admitted that Summer reminded him of Diane. In several ways they are similar. Since we believe that Diane and Rick from the nightmares were real to some extent, there is a question related to Rick and Diane's past. It seems to me that Diane must have been a very intelligent person. Certainly not to the same extent as Rick, but her thesis was about super intelligence. I also think Diane may have been connected to the government. I got the idea when Rick admitted that the robot hands came from a robot created for the federal government. Rick was somehow connected to the government and may have been working for them. This is not surprising, looking at the fact that Rick is the smartest man on Earth. The government may have offered him a job in exchange for financial support for his research. During this job he met Diane. Which overall leaves us with more questions....

Why didn't Rick jump into the Hole at the end of the episode?

Rick's expression at the end of the episode when he heard that Diane was in the Hole made me believe for a moment that Rick would go down there.

Such an ending to the season somehow wouldn't have surprised me at all, as it would have shown Rick's great desperation to get Diane back even if it wasn't the real Diane.

But he didn't, the question is why?

Was it Morty's words that stopped him, that it wasn't worth going in there because it wasn't worth it and it was just fucked up shit?

Or did he not jump in because he feared that in his nightmares, Diane would not be there? Maybe in his nightmares, he would be forced to replay Diane's death again and again, unable to do anything?

Maybe he feared that Diane would walk away from him because he had changed so much and she no longer wanted him?

Or did Rick know he couldn't cope with his fears and wouldn't get out of his hole because he knows exactly what he fears and knows he can't overcome his fears? And that brings me back to the fact that Rick from the nightmares reflected the fears of the real Rick.

Rick's fears from the world of nightmares In the episode, not only did we see the fears Morty was facing, but up until a certain point we thought we were also seeing the fears Rick was harbouring. Assuming that The Hole was recreating the real world Rick's fears from nightmares may have mirrored those of the real Rick. The fear of not knowing everything. The fear of losing Morty. The fear that he had changed so much that he would let Diane down. Fear of being happy. Looking at what happened to Rick from the nightmare world, I think the real Rick would have lost himself like that too. He would feel an inner fear of happiness, that it would end and that he would lose Diane. Rick wouldn't get out, but would give in to that illusion. Rick has sought self-destruction at many points in the series and you can see that he suffers from depression, so at some point he would have given up. He would have wallowed in this illusion, fearing that it would pass in a moment. That's why I think Rick gave up the jump because he knew he would lose. It was Morty who helped the fake Rick break out of the nightmare. If Rick had jumped in at the end of the episode I doubt anyone would have been able to save him. Morty did something Rick would never have done. He faced his fears and won, which is why he pinned Morty's picture on the board. Such a small digression, but it's very cute that Rick had Morty's picture in his wallet. He probably carried it around with him all the time and knowing Rick, probably no one in the family knows he had the photo. Pinning Mortie's photo on the board shows Rick's appreciation of Morty and what the boy has done. Morty has surpassed Rick and become better than he was because he did something Rick wouldn't have been able to do. I don't know to what extent, but in my opinion this is a reference to the first episode of season two, 'A Rickle in Time', and Rick's words that Morty is supposed to be better than he was when he fell into the abyss when their house fell apart.

Such observations:

When Mortie takes over the nightmare (or rather, he seems to do so so he can fall into the trap), Diane stutters like the characters in the simulation from the episode "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!" [s1 e4]. In general, this episode is itself a reference to how Rick got stuck in the simulation in that episode.

It makes me wonder if Rick actually has that anti aging serum? If he did have it then why does he need Project Phoenix? Why did Rick use a younger version of his "Tiny Rick" clone in the episode "Big Trouble in Little Sanchez" instead of using the rejuvenation serum?

#rick and morty spoilers #rnm spoilers #season 7 spoilers #rick and morty #rick sanchez #rick and morty season 7 #rick c137 #diane sanchez #jerry smith #rick and morty fandom #morty smith #morty prime #rickandmorty

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motherofplatypus · 10 months

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Miraculous Finale Review: Part 2 (Recreation)

Welcome back y'all, I hope you had a nice break from Conformation, because we are continuing our ride to the abyss.

You think S3 ending was bad? You think Simpleman was bad? You think Ephemeral was bad? You think Penalteam was bad? You think Evolution was bad? You think Destruction was bad? You think DERISION was bad? Well, say hello to Recreation, where you'll be taken for a long ride to the tunnel of The Writers Gonna Prove You're Wrong By Showing You How Much Worse They Could Go.

Yeah, idk why i put that gif there, but i really like it when i found it.

Anyway, may the great lord have mercy on the poor souls watching this episode. Because this? This is just a huge, massive, gigantic, gargantuan, cosmic, heaven through hell level of no. In every single way possible. This is a disgrace on every writers out there. Everything is so wrong that I don't even know where to start.

I'll just go with something small and talk about the fight between Bugnoire (ugh) and Monarch. Remember when Hawkmoth beat the crap out of both heroes with just the butterfly miraculous, a miraculous that's not designed for a direct fight? Now he has one that can one hit K.O, one that can transport him anywhere, two that grants defense, one that can transform him into any element, one that can paralyze the opponent by showing them their deepest desire, one that can grant any superpower (stupid power), one that can disrupt his opponents power, one that can shrink and multiply himself where each of his replica can use the One Hit K.O power, and one that literally can turn back time (sure he can't use it anymore since it eats away his life, but desperate time takes desperate measures).

There's countless combination where he can win with literally no effort. How the hell did he lose, if not because of divine level plot armor?

And the way Ladybug (I aint calling her Bugnoire. But I'll admit i like the costume) so easily took the rings? Something that should've happened in Intuition? So not only did they kick Adrien out from the finale, they also had to insult his intelligence by showing how easy it was for Mari to do it. Hooray for Girl Power That Exist By Degrading Male Characters Into Moronic Dumbass Creatures.

Also, Ladybug now can summon a Lucky Charm to her liking? I mean, a piano, a baseball bat, and handcuffs? And she can do it infinitely now. So what's the point of the goat miraculous then?

"But the cat and tiger have similar power."

The cat caused bad things to happen to whatever they touch, and those bad things tend to be destructive. The tiger only cause destruction by punching it real hard Sure, Ladybug has more utility whereas goat has more flexibility in terms of power, but I'm adding it here because it's just total BS.

And we were robbed of LB and CN vs Monarch, but I already rant about it in part one, so I'll save room for other points.

Quick reminder on previous post, remember the whole quantum essence thingy that makes those walking Q-Tips able to track Ladybug because they're inserted with the essence of both the Ladybug and Black Cat power? Now Bugnoire has both, why aren't they going after her?

On to the next one, how is Lila isn't affected by the nightmare? And no, I'm not buying the "She actually got it, but it's off-screen" excuse. She already used it on her sudden friendship with Kagami, and if you think that excuse can be used again, in the finale, you're dead wrong.

Then things got worse with the end credit scene where Lila (she called herself Iris, but i refuse to call her that) just rolled in to a new school just by asking Damocles to let her in. Hello? Administration? I get it if she's the mayor's kid or something, but she's nobody. Classic miraculous, you never fail to disappoint me with your lack of logic.

Speaking of lack of logic, we got Mirakungfu (?) Luka and co. Just when i thought the show couldn't get any worse with their lack of explanation (sarcasm), they introduced this.

Where or when or why or how any of this was written in without prior hint or scene or anything that isn't going to get explained from a tweet where That Guy gonna block anyone who as slightly as disagreeing with him, i have absolutely no idea, and I'm used to it. I mean, sure, why not? Drop all the plot convenience, plot armor, retcon, and Deus Ex Machina in the finale. Heck, I'm suprised that Goku and Naruto didn't appear to find the One Piece under the Eiffel Tower and they become the World's Greatest Chef to finally defeat the Founding Titan who controls an army of Shinigami.

Dear Neptune, who the hell wrote this scene?

Makes sense.

And I honestly don't know how it could get any worse, but at the same time we know it will get worse.

And Su-Han, you said you left to get some help from the temple in Multiplication, where is that help? Don't tell me the help is Luka and co who just learned how to kick asses off screen a few weeks ago? Good grief.

Still talking about the Mirakung-fuck-the-logic, we got Bunnyx. Yeaaaay. Oh wait, it's the adult version. The younger one still exiled.

What did she said? She can't meddle with the present, but Luka and co can? Yeah, that's right, and she proceeds to transport them to Paris, which literally her meddling with the present.

"Well she's not actually doing something there, so technically she's not wrong."

Technicality, technicality. Well technically I'm gonna whoop yo arse with a baseball bat if i met you, writers. Be ready.

Moving on to Gabriel's wish. He won, hooray or oh nooo, I couldn't care about it anymore. Anyway, we're shown how to make the wish, by calling the true form of Tikki and Plagg and call upon Gimmi.

First off, it's a waste of time showing their true form if in the end you're just gonna call someone else. It's like having the reception to dress like a queen just to ask them where the manager is. But you all know why this happen, since they need more dolls to sell.

Second, if all he needs to do is to call their true form, then why on heaven through hell didn't he just do that in Deflagration? He doesn't need to unify them, he just need to call. His victory was literally at hand and he can win, but OF COURSE they gotta drag things even further because they forbid logic to even exist in this stupid show! This is the entire conflict of the show, his main goal, and something he already knows how to do it, so tell me why on earth did—y'know what? Fuck it. I never see anyone complain about this plot hole, so certainly its not even relevant.

And now, the time has come, to talk about the reasons why this finale is not only bad, it's straight up something that will go down in cinema history as the worst thing that could ever exist. So take a deep breath, cause we're near the end.

The pure, unfiltered, audacity they had to not letting Adrien learn the truth of either his father and Chat Blanc. The two most important things of his character, all gone wasted. All because they forbid this boy to show actual emotion and becomes an interesting character that exist outside of being a simp and a trophy wife.

"But he know about Chat Blanc from his nightmare."

Mate, that's his nightmare. Nightmare is terrifying, but it's not real. We know that's something that happened, but he doesn't. That's just a horrible nightmare that he constantly has because of the akuma. He never know that it's actually real, and will never know.

Plus, that's Anticat, not Chat Blanc. Different name, different identity, different everything, but the same BS.

And then another pure, unfiltered, audacity of Gabe telling Marinette to not tell Adrien about the villain he is but instead the time he tried to be a good father? This is the funniest joke I've ever heard in the show.

What exactly did you try to do to be a good father? Making pancakes that even flies said "I ain't eating that shit"?

You literally imprisoned your son, never spent time with him until you know you're dying, cut him off from society, make him as your forced labor for your brand against his will and violates the rights of children, not letting him love the girl he wants, forcing him to get together with his ex, fly him off to the other side of the world away from his friends, akumatized people that you know is after him, gave your son nightmare to get your ultimate plan to work, using parental authority to abuse him mentally, and you were trying to turn him into a villain!

Audacity.

And then there's another pure, unfiltered, audacity of making Marinette (deep sigh) forgave Gabriel.

"But she didn't actually forgave him."

She showed him kindness. She offered him another chance in his last moment. After everything he did. After all the people he hurt. After he literally responsible for her losing her life as a teenager.

He turned your whole family into villains, the whole world into mindless puppets, turned a pregnant lady into a villain, and have you forgotten that he turned your partner into a literal world destroyer that gave you PTSD? Sure, Chloe made you suffer and you won't forgive her, but him? Who did the same, if not universally worse? You could show him kindness?

"But it's because she's worried about Adrien—"

Adrien. Adrien. ADRIEN! THE PERFECT BOY THE PERFECT SON THE PERFECT THIS AND THAT AND AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH I HATE THAT GUY! HE IS ONLY PERFECTLY WASTED AND USELESS! SNAP HIM OUT OF EXISTENCE RIGHT NOW! HIS EXISTENCE RUINED EVERYTHING!

I would love to end things right there and then because I'm sick of it. But no, the king of the worst thing to ever exist in history have yet to be talked about. This is the realest and most absolute fucked up thing in history of kids show.

Gabe becomes a hero

I know we shouldn't ask what they were thinking, but just why? What did he do to deserve a statue and the title of a hero? He's a fashion designer in public eyes, and that's about it. But that's not what's fucked up about it.

How could you even think that a girl who was mentally abused by her mother, never raised properly by her father, had to ask her mother why she doesn't love her, never known love, was disowned by her father for his own incompetence of raising her, and left with her abusive mother to be raised with most likely another series of abuse, as someone who is irredeemable?

And how could you even think that a terrorist, who's so fully aware and willingly imprisoned his son, cut him off from social life, prevents him from loving someone he choose, literally turned him into his slave to work for his business, and who would straight up beat him up once he learn he's a superhero, as a sympathetic villain?

"But people in the show doesn't know that."

Yes. That's true. But we know. We've seen what he had done. We've seen how rotten he is. We've seen how slowly crumbling into dust is a fate he deserves and we enjoy every second of it. And yet, after every vile things he had done, until the very end, Thomas and co still putting him under the "sympathetic villain" spotlight.

I know many of you who read this will try to defend Thomas and the writing. Trying to reason and excuse what he did here. But I'm sorry, I will not accept it. Even if he apologize, i will not accept it. Because this is beyond messed up. This is basically him spitting on the face of people who have been abused. This is him saying abuser deserves to be glorified.

Tell me folks: what logical reason do you have that you see a child abuser as someone who deserves to be seen as a hero?

This is no longer a matter of whether someone is an asshole or not. This is concerning on terrifying level.

I'm here to say this once, to all of you who still support the show: I'm concerned and sorry for you. The show that you loved, the show that brought you joy, the show that you may have recommended to other people and praise it, it was created by a monster.

Im not even gonna bother scoring it. This is not something that kids should watch. The message is too horrible to be let slide. It doesn't matter how good the animation and action is, they've spat on victims of abuse, and they're happy with it.

That being said, this has been my review. You can agree or disagree, just keep it civil with someone else who have an opinion. I know i might missed a lot of points, and I'm genuinely sorry if in the last part of this post i might be a bit too offensive even for salt post standard. But now, I'd like to hear your opinion. Was i exaggerating stuff or i made a wrong statement. Was i wrong for calling That Guy like that? Let me know, cuz you might help me see things in a different light.

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gamebunny-advance · 2 months

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Kun3h0 Accessories DLC + Patch Notes v.1.0.1

Added:

GAB accessory

Karrot-98 accessory

Changed:

Updated top.

Fixed hair bug. (Hair would easily slip off model.)

Minor improvements.

(More pics and notes under the cut.)

So I finally finished up Kun3h0's accessories and fixed up her top.

So, we've got her GAB and her drill, the Karrot-98.

GAB started out as this little dino thing that I just cut up and sculpted onto.

The original plan was to sculpt onto the original arms after I cut off the wings, but they kept bumping into the head, so I opted to completely resculpt them.

Now they can still turn their head, but that's the only point of articulation. I really should have sanded it more, you can really see the texture still in the clay, but such as it is.

The collar isn't the most elegant thing in the world, but at least it's there~ It's also disappointing that I couldn't get the edges of her screen completely straight and even, but it is what it is.

Overall, I think it's a decent recreation of the original design, even if the purples aren't quite right.

I should take a pic of them next to my other GAB recreations so y'all can really see the difference in scale. I believe this is the smallest GAB I've made so far, and also the only one that has the big heart-shaped tail~

Next is the Karrot-98, Kun3h0's magical drill. I don't have any "before" pictures, but it's made from another accessory that came with the doll, a little clay, and a piping tip that I had lying around + extras.

I don't have a set design for the Karrot yet, so I just kinda painted it with colors I already mixed. When Kun3h0's holding it, it does kinda get lost in the pinks of her outfit, but by itself I think it looks fine. If I come up with a better color scheme for it, then maybe I'll repaint it.

Next, I completely re-did her top. This time, I doused all the fabric in fray-check first to keep it from pulling apart while I was sewing it together, and I completely redid the sleeves. Originally, I had painted the arm guards onto the sleeves because I didn't think of any other way to do it. This time I tried making them with craft foam to better replicate that they're supposed to be two different materials. I'd say it was mostly successful.

Since it's kind of a pain to slip the sleeve into the guards, I don't have any pics of the top without them on, but the sleeves are more form fitting, so the top looks more like a proper tracksuit without the guards on. It's a slightly better look than the original IMO, but it's still not perfect: the guards are basically like a Miku sleeve, so you can still see into them even though the only opening is supposed to be through the cuff (which are barely visible in this pic, but they can stick out for a more accurate look.)

I would show the new top next to the old one, but I kinda destroyed the old one trying to test ideas for this new one XP (in fact, the collar IS from the old one, I just ripped it off and reapplied it to this one).

Lastly, I fixed her wig a little bit.

I don't have pics of it, but I just stuck some velcro to her scalp and the inside of the wig, so now it should stop slipping off while still being removable.

I'm just against completely gluing it down because I still have a lot of yarn left from this project, so I would eventually like to make her some alternate hairstyle wigs just to use up the yarn.

Now I feel pretty confident in saying that she's actually "done." There are a few places that I could touch up with paint, but as for "making" anything else for this doll, I did everything I really wanted to do.

Admittedly, Kun3h0 is one of my most self-indulgent designs (as though everything I make isn't in some way self-indulgent), so to have a physical object which embodies so much of what I like, truly satisfies me. We'll see if I still feel that way about her a week from now, but at the moment, she is the culmination of almost every creative skill I have, and I'm very pleased with the results of that effort, more so than possibly anything else I've ever made~ <3

I may post more pics of her when I can actually dedicate some time to making a proper scene and/or backdrop. There's a lot of little details that I like that I haven't really taken pics of. I dunno if I have the courage to do it, but it'd be cool to take some pics in an actual arcade with her~

#gbunny makes #gbunny draws #OCs #kun3h0 #GAB #custom doll #doll custom #ooak doll #i'll post about the other one soon #he just has one last thing that I'm working on #and i can probably finish it tomorrow #(or later today since i'm queueing this post)#maybe i've already posted about it by the time this post goes up

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csprslvt · 8 months

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teachers aide, part 3

chapter three

Summary: Ellie is jealous of readers and Abbys frequent meet ups.

Warnings: recreational drug use, foul language.

The prospect of meeting up with Abby was a little nerve wracking, you saw her multiple times a week however when she saw you in class it wasn't normal you. It was professional you, scholarly you, physics major you. It was a different you that Ellie saw when you laid in her bed high and a different you that your family saw when you came home for vacations. The you that Abby would meet today at lunch was the closest to how you actually were, that is if you had a stable sense of identity. You and Abby had coordinated lunch through texts, you exchanged numbers in the past with many students in case they had questions about assignments and Abby was one of them. The two of you decided upon Ruston Coffee, it was a quick walk on campus and had your favorite drinks and treats.

You got dressed in something you felt the most comfortable in, you were in a good mood, practically glowing, getting free lunch was always exciting especially for a slightly broke college student. You wondered why exactly Abby wanted to take you out, was it really to make up for the embarrassment or did she need an excuse to spend time with you? Either way you were getting free lunch so It doesn't really matter.

Once ready you grabbed your necessary belongings and headed out, the walk was about seven minutes and you enjoyed the crisp fall air brushing across your face. Once entering the smell of coffee beans and vanilla filled your senses, enveloping you in a sense of calm it was truly a very cozy place to be. Abby was already there, she spotted you and smiled, showing off her perfect teeth. She was sitting down at a booth and beckoned you to join her.

“Hey.” She said softly as you sat down, “I got your favorite.” She pushed a mug towards you as well as a plate with your regular meal on it.

You looked surprised, it was your order, perfectly done all ready for you.

“How’d you know?” You questioned, taking a sip of the drink, Abby looked slightly nervous until you gave an approving smile.

“That is my favorite.”

“I'm observant, and I have a good memory. I see you here nearly every morning and noon and you get the same thing.”

“I'm a woman of habit.” You shrugged. Abby smiled watching you enjoy yourself, digging into your meal. Her eyes scanned over your face, your body language, your relaxed posture. Everything seemed so natural she could tell you felt comfortable with her, and that made her heart pound with joy. You were beautiful, a different kind of beautiful she saw in class. There you were strict, powerful, in your element and here you were simply at ease. It was adorable and she couldn't get enough of it. She wanted more of you.

“So, I wanted to say I'm sorry about Owen, I can tell he annoys you.”

You took a break from eating, looking up at Abby through long lashes, she swooned.

“None of my students annoy me. I'm just… disappointed in their behavior at times.”

“Either way, I'm sorry. He embarrassed both of us in front of everyone.”

“That's his apology to give, not yours, so don't worry Abby.”

Oh how she loved when you said her name.

“Still though, it was embarrassing”

“That I can agree on”

“So how's your classes going?”

“Being a med student is a lot of work, but I'm managing, TA’s like you help a lot y/n”

“That means a lot, I try my best to be a good TA since I want to be a physics teacher and professor one day.”

“You're doing an amazing job and I am really glad to have you.” Abby spoke softly, resting a hand on yours, hers were much larger, stronger, calloused but in an odd way it was comfortable.

You smiled, “I'm happy to help.”

Abby loved everything about you, watching you smile at her made her fall deeper into your trap. Almost like a siren song. You were tantalizing, she wanted more more more.

And so routine took place, you would meet up with Abby at lunch, get the same thing and talk. Sometimes she came with questions about lessons and you had answers. After a while of this routine, someone got jealous.

You were in Ellie’s dorm once again, yet this time she had a sour look on her face.

“Are you mad at me or something?” You mumbled, laying on her chest looking up at her. “You've hardly spoken with me today.”

“I saw you, yesterday, on your little date.”

“Date?” You sat up, “What date?”

Ellie rolled her eyes, “Don't play dumb, I know your high but you can't be serious.”

“Date?”

“Yesterday at lunch I saw you all cozy in a booth with Anderson.”

“Oh no that wasn't a date, I've been tutoring and meeting up with her at lunch this past week.”

“Looked like a date, the way she looks at you.”

“What?”

Ellie then sat up, “You cannot be that oblivious.”

“Els, what the fuck are you talking about?”

Her eyes softened a bit at the nickname. Still she had her guard up.

“She looks at you like she… like she likes you.”

“Oh please Ellie this isn't kindergarten. Anderson is my friend, just like how you're my friend.”

Ellie’s mood deflated.

“So you just snuggle up with all of your friends then hm?”

You were too high for this.

“No, just you.”

Something about that answer satisfied Ellie but still you had basically friendzoned her. Could you be this stupid? “But I'm just a friend.”

“Ellie, where is this coming from?”

“You know what, nevermind just stay away from Anderson.”

You knew you wouldn't, you liked spending time with Abby and Ellie, whatever feud they had was beyond you. So, you lied. “Okay can we just, nap? I'm tired.”

Ellie looked into your eyes, she wanted to be firm with you, to tell you no that she shouldn't be laying with you, but oh, holding you felt so natural, so right. She couldn't say no.

“Okay babe.” Ellie pulled you down with her, laying on her chest she had her arms around your waist.

Ellie felt better now that she thought you'd stay away from Abby. Of course, you weren't her girlfriend, but that didn't stop her from being a little jealous, perhaps possessive over you. She had you first, maybe it was petty and immature to think that way but for once in her life she wanted to be selfish. She wanted you to herself. And she would fight for that.

#abby x reader #ellie x reader #gaming #the last of us 2 #ellie williams #ellie tlou2 #abby anderson #angst #fem reader #eventual smut

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allmoshnobrain · 9 months

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𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

part 13 of ? | masterpost

word count: 2785 | ao3 link | fic's playlist

I let myself get lost in the warmth of his embrace and his touch, forgetting about the nagging thought that he would soon be leaving. I couldn't help but recall earlier, when I was told I "loved too much." Maybe there was some truth to it because right then, I loved him so much that I'd do anything he asked - even ditch my plans of not going with him to New York.

✦ summary: Dave and Nore cherish their last day together before the band’s departure to New Jersey.

✦ on this chapter: NSFW!!!, dave mustaine x female!oc,oc is cliff's cousin, +18, language, slice of life, angst (mild), fluff, mxf sex (explicit), recreational drug use

✦ a/n: this is my attempt at writing a cute/romantic chapter for dave and nore before things start changing and chaos comes. hope you like it, feedback is welcome!

✧ kiss me hard before you go ✧

The afternoon of my date with Dave started off cool, with a nice breeze that wasn't enough to make us feel cold. We took the opportunity to have lunch together and then catch a movie. Despite everything, I felt happy. I tried not to dwell on the fact that it would be our last day together for a while, as Dave and the guys were leaving the next day. But even with that in mind, it was nice to have some alone time with him. It was a new thing for me since we usually had fun with our friends, whether we were hitting up the bar or partying after their shows.

"So, what's the plan now?" I asked as we left the cinema.

It was still early, with the sun slowly setting in the sky. I knew we were heading to the beach cottage Dave had rented later in the evening, but for now, I let him take the lead on what we should do. He pulled out a joint, taking leisurely puffs before passing it to me.

"I've got a cool idea. Come with me," he said, flashing a warm smile as he held my hand.

I couldn't help but smile as our fingers intertwined. After almost two months of being together, these little affectionate moments had become part of our routine. Maybe part of why their upcoming absence, even if just for a while, bothered me so much was because I couldn't imagine life without Dave by my side. Being without him was something I didn't even want to think about anymore.

We strolled through the city, chatting and laughing while passing the joint that Dave had brought along. As the sun started to set, we ended up at a small amusement park near the beach, with the rides lit up and twinkling in the twilight. Families and groups of teenagers were having fun, enjoying the late afternoon.

"An amusement park?" I grinned at him. He returned the smile, clearly seeing the excitement in my eyes. "It's been forever since I've hit up a place like this!"

"I figured it'd be a cool place to hang out with you," he said. "Hey, wanna jump on that Ferris wheel?"

"Sure thing." I flashed a grin.

He took my hand and led me to the line, which luckily wasn't too long. After a few minutes, we hopped into one of the cabins and settled in next to each other. I burst out laughing as we started going up, and he sparked up another joint.

"Dave! I don't think we can smoke up here."

"Who cares?" he smirked, making my heart skip a beat. I playfully rolled my eyes, grinning back at him. He brought the joint closer to my lips, and I took a drag. His thumb traced the outline of my lip. "You know, it's not too late to change your mind, right?"

"About what?" I asked, curiosity taking over as I glanced away from the view, which was getting higher and higher.

"About coming with us tomorrow."

I chuckled softly.

"Dave, I already told Lea I'm crashing at her place for a while. It's all good." I held his hand, gently stroking it. "But you know I'll be right here when you get back, right?"

He smiled, a hint of disappointment in his eyes, but then kissed my forehead tenderly.

"You're trouble, you know that?" he whispered, and I laughed.

"What are you on about now?"

"That I can't stay away from you," he said, his lips meeting mine in a kiss. He pulled back, a mischievous grin on his face. "I think I'm addicted. And that's a dangerous thing."

"Well, what if I told you I feel the same way?" I whispered, gazing into his eyes.

"Then I'd say I'm damn lucky," he replied with a smile, before leaning in to kiss me again.

We made the most of the late afternoon, jumping on all the awesome park rides. From the goofiest carousel to the craziest roller coaster, everything was way more fun when we were together. Even though we'd been dating for a while, I still couldn't believe how much I was head over heels for Dave, how effortlessly he brought me joy, and how damn lucky I was that he felt the same way about me.

By the time we left the park, it was dark outside. The electric lights of the rides lazily blinked in green, yellow, red, and blue. I gotta admit, things seemed way more intriguing to watch after an afternoon of smoking — everything took on new shapes, colors popping in a whole different way. I casually glanced at a group of teens cracking up and chatting as they strolled out of a tent covered in blue and white stars.

"Predict your future with Madame Vasilova," Dave read the sign next to the tent entrance, a smirk on his face. "Wanna give it a shot?"

"No way," I replied, grinning back at him and raising an eyebrow. "You're not gonna ask her some cheesy question like if we'll be together forever, right?"

He burst out laughing.

"Nah, are you? C'mon, I know that cute look on your face when you're curious."

I chuckled as he grabbed my hand and dragged me into the tent. I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the dim lighting and taking in the smell of incense. Madame Vasilova sat at the table, an old lady with a serious expression. She looked up as she shuffled her cards.

"First time?" she asked, a smile on her face. She had a heavy accent that matched her name. "Have a seat."

I sat down on the chair in front of her while Dave stood next to me, clearly intrigued by the whole scene.

"Hmm... I don't know what to ask," I admitted. The lady grinned.

"Don't need to ask anything. Just pick three cards," she said, spreading out the deck face down. I glanced at the cards, curious, and randomly grabbed three. She gathered the rest of the deck and laid out the chosen cards: The Lovers. The Hanged Man. The Wheel of Fortune. She pursed her lips, slowly running her fingers over the cards before starting to talk. "You've got a big heart, my dear. Someone who loves too much. But that can also bring pain to the soul. Important choices are coming your way... They'll shape your life. Choose wisely."

"Thanks," I mumbled, unsure how to react to that information.

She simply smiled at me. I pulled out a few bucks from my purse and paid her, and then Dave and I stepped out of the tent.

"Well, that was... different," I remarked, and Dave chuckled softly.

"Yeah, I guess it's normal. Those people always say these confusing things."

"And you didn't even want to ask anything!" I pointed out, and he chuckled.

"Yeah, I figured I didn't want to ask if we'd be together forever or not. What if she said you were gonna dump me?"

I huffed and rolled my eyes.

"I'd make her swallow that whole deck of cards," I grumbled, and Dave burst into laughter.

"That's my girl," he playfully said, planting a kiss on my forehead. "You hungry? Let's grab some dinner, and then we can head to the cottage later."

"Sounds good. I'm starving anyway," I grinned, holding his hand tightly.

The beachfront restaurants were pleasant and beautiful. We picked one that didn't seem too expensive and snagged an outdoor table. The night was getting cooler; even though it was spring, now that the sun was gone, the late afternoon breeze made me shiver a bit from the cold.

Once we finished eating, we strolled along the beach promenade, hand in hand, enjoying the cool night breeze and chatting softly. It didn't take us long to reach the cottage, a cozy little house tucked near the beach. I had no clue how Dave managed to afford the place; all I knew was that he adamantly refused when I offered to chip in.

He unlocked the door, and I walked in, flipping on the lights. The cottage had a cozy living room with a couch and a doorway leading to a tiny kitchen. The bedroom was roomy, with a dark wooden bed and light blue sheets that matched the wall. There was a backpack sitting on the bed, which I knew Dave had brought earlier in the day, packed with towels and a change of clothes for both of us. In the back of the room, there was a glass door that opened to a small balcony, giving us a view of the moonlit sea. I tossed my purse on the bed and opened the door, totally enchanted by the breathtaking view. The moon was casting a peaceful glow on the calm sea; I could see some boats parked far away. I looked up at the sky, filled with a bunch of stars I'd never seen before, and let myself get lost in the sight.

My heart raced when I felt two strong hands sliding around my waist, his arms wrapping around me from behind and pulling me against his body as I felt his warm breath against my skin. My own breath faltered as his lips touched my neck, kissing and exploring it slowly. I sighed as one of his hands left my waist, moving to my back and unzipping my dress.

“I don’t think you’re gonna need this anymore.” he whispered against my skin as he lowered one of my dress’ straps. I chuckled softly, turning to face him. He smiled. “Wanna come inside?”

“Yeah.” I whispered, allowing him to take me back inside the room.

He sat leaning against the bed’s headboard, pulling me onto his lap. I sat on his legs, straddling him, and chuckled softly, feeling my face grow warm, when he put his hand under my dress’ skirt, squeezing my ass firmly. I wrapped my arms around his neck, letting him pull me closer, meeting my lips with his in a slow kiss, and whined softly when he squeezed my thigh, his rough hand against my skin.

I pulled away from his kiss, blushing, as his hand went to my face, gently caressing my cheek and tracing the outline of my lower lip with the tip of his thumb. Dave looked at me, his brown eyes deep with lust, his hand pulling down my dress and revealing my breasts. I shivered, feeling the night’s cold air against my skin. He took my dress off, leaving me in only my underwear on his lap, and kissed me again slowly, his tongue moving against mine while his hand explored my body. He let out a low grunt when I moved my lips to his neck, leaving small kisses on his skin as I settled in his lap.

“So you’re getting braver now?” he asked in a husky tone, and I pulled back, feeling my face grow warm. After two months together, we had already fucked several times, but I still felt a little shy when it happened. He laughed softly. “I’m just kidding, babe. Come here.” He grabbed my hand and pressed it against his pants.

I blushed when I felt his erection against the palm of my hand; I moved my hand slowly against his jeans, my fingers searching for his pants’ button. He moaned softly, pulling me closer as I unzipped his jeans. His lips crashed into mine again, his kiss was now intense, hungry. He pulled back and took his clothes off quickly.

“Ah!” I exclaimed, surprised, when he pulled me back close, almost aggressively. He moved my panties aside quickly before penetrating me forcefully, one of his hands holding my ass firmly while the other gripped my waist. “D-Dave!”

“Sorry.” he whispered in a husky tone. He moaned, tilting his head back as he helped me move up and down on his cock. I held onto his shoulders, burying my face in his neck, feeling my whole body warm up and letting small moans escape while I felt him move inside me. “Am I… Hurting you? Are you ok?”

“I was just… Oh, my God. ” I moaned, and he chuckled breathlessly. “I was just surprised. It was… Hmmm… It was so sudden.” He held me tighter, pushing his hips forward as I rode him slowly. I moaned, surprised by how good I was feeling. “Dave, I… Oh… ”

“You like it?” he asked, his breath quickening as he tugged my hair lightly, pulling my face away from his body so I could face him. I moaned as he held my waist with his other hand, helping me ride him, up and down, slowly, the sound of my skin slapping lightly against his filling the room. "Feels good, right?" I nodded, my face heating up, and I let out a moan as he brought his hand to my clit, massaging it softly. I picked up speed, my fingers tangling in his hair, moaning low as I moved in his lap. He growled. “You're so good at this. You're gonna make me.. Oh, gonna make me cum. Fuck, Nore… Wait a sec.”

I got off his lap and sat on the edge of the bed, both of us flushed and breathless; I watched him as he got to his feet, opening the bag and looking for something. He took a condom out of the bag, opening it and putting it on quickly before walking back to me. He leaned over, still standing, and grabbed my waist, laying me face down on the bed and pulling me close to him by the hips, resting his body weight on his other hand as he held me by my waist. He climbed onto the bed, his knees wrapped around my legs, and leaned over me, biting the side of my neck and then my ear as he pulled my panties off. I let out a low moan as he penetrated me again, gripping my hair tightly in one hand as he moved forcefully inside me.

“Feels so good inside you.” he panted, and I moaned softly in response. “So tight, oh, fuck…” he increased the pace of his movements, resting his head on my shoulder as he moved on top of me.

I knew he was getting close to coming just by the way his movements grew more intense, desperate for more contact, moaning escaping between his clenched teeth as he held my body tightly. He kissed my neck, moving faster and faster until he shuddered, letting out a deep groan when he finished. He collapsed onto the bed next to me, and I giggled at the sight of him, face flushed and eyes closed, trying to catch his breath.

"I waited all day for this, you know?" he said, his voice husky. I settled on the bed, moving closer to him, and smiled when he hugged me.

"So, you just took me on a date to fuck me afterwards?" I asked, teasingly, and he scoffed.

"Don't even think about it," he grumbled, opening his eyes with a furrowed brow, and then chuckled softly. "But I can't deny it was one of the best parts of today."

I laughed softly, burying my face in his neck. He took off the condom, and tossed it in the bin at the foot of the bed before kissing me lightly on the lips.

“Don't even think I'm done. I'm not leaving here until you come too.” He whispered in my ear, and I felt my face heat up. I pulled away, giving him a look with raised eyebrows, realizing that my face was totally red. "What's up? I told you I wouldn't let you sleep tonight," he chuckled at my reaction before planting another kiss on my lips.

The night flew by as I let myself get lost in the warmth of his embrace and his touch, forgetting about the nagging thought that he would soon be leaving. I couldn't help but recall the tarot reading earlier, when I was told I "loved too much." Maybe there was some truth to it because right then, I loved him so much that I'd do anything he asked - even ditch my plans of not going with him to New York.

But he didn't ask for anything. He just held me tight in his arms and loved me in a million different ways, between sighs, moans, and eager kisses that left us both worn out and wrapped around each other. I dozed off with his arms still wrapped around me, his soft snores against my neck, full of all the love bites he had left on my skin.

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