#and arguably other of the better issues. the art was incredible and as the issues went on it felt like the kinks were getting ironed out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

The most popular pages on Tumblr are about Minecraft, GIFs, and David J. Peterson.

#and arguably other of the better issues. the art was incredible and as the issues went on it felt like the kinks were getting ironed out

moistvonlipwig · 4 days

Note

how about 7/8 or 15/16 (or if you’re bored ALL OF THOSE! :D) for kara lena? :D

this took me a while because i had much to Ponder.....answers under the cut! snip snip ✂

7. What’s something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

see this is so hard because i am so used to biting and violence that i'm bad at praising fandom......um i like when people redesign kara's supersuit to look way better! i kind of hated both of her normal suits in the show LOL. (i liked her anti-kryptonite suit though, so, um, sorry brainy but maybe lena should design her next suit & you can keep designing for kelly cuz the guardian suit was nice as hell.) but there's lots of cool redesigns floating around the fandom. i also like fics that dive deep into her psychology and confront her flaws (since the show. didn't do that) or, alternatively, fics that explore a different version of her character with different flaws (e.g. anger issues) or a different relationship to krypton, its destruction, and her family.

for lena i think it's cute when people make fic/art where she turns into a little black cat. not sure how this got started/popularized but i like it. :) and similarly to kara i like when fics dig into her psychology and her backstory and explore her pain and anger and flaws in a nuanced way. particularly when said fics acknowledge that her anger at kara for the secret is justified regardless of the morality of any given thing she does about it.

8. What’s something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

ok going to attempt to talk about something i haven't complained about yet for both of them. umm well this is hardly unique to this fandom but i do think it's annoying when people Only interpret them through the lens of supercorp.* like yes, their relationship is an important part of the show and of both of their character arcs (...to the extent that kara has a character arc), but not all of their actions can or should be exclusively read as motivated by the other character or in relation to the other character. (i think people actually do this with lena more often than kara, which is not to say that people don't do this with kara, but with kara i also see people frequently reading her character from the lens of Her World Blew Up™ and not just "she's in love with lena". whereas lena i think quite often gets reduced to "she's in love with kara" even though if anything i think the show constructs her non-kara-related psychology and the way her non-kara-related backstory informs said psychology in a much more coherent way than they do kara's.) and i do ship sc but honestly their relationship becomes less interesting to me if i assume that all of their actions revolve around the other person lol. it actively improves the ship if they exist as independent characters. funny that.

*of course the flip side to this, which is an arguably even worse way to analyze the show, is people who dislike the ship insisting on downplaying the relationship's textual importance. i've seen people who dislike sc as a ship generate incredibly weak and bizarre analysis of both characters and of the show as a whole because they refuse to accept that kara and lena love each other in some way, that the kara/lena friendship is central to both characters' arcs, and, in the show's final two seasons, that their relationship is arguably the core emotional & thematic throughline of the show itself. so i'm certainly not advocating for ignoring or dismissing their relationship when you analyze the characters or show. that is also deeply annoying (perhaps even more annoying, since the people who do it often posture about not caring about shipping and thus being ~unbiased~ and ~objective~, which, lol). just, idk, don't ignore or dismiss other stuff either. Use Your Noggins.

15. What’s your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn’t matter if it’s canon or not.)

firstly i love the little disclaimer in this question...does this person think i've never been in a fandom before? but i would say my favorite for both is supercorp although guardiancorp is a close second for lena. for kara i think my second favorite would be superrojas but only as like a flirtation/fling, i can't imagine them settling into an actual romantic relationship lol.

16. What’s your least favorite ship for this character?

well not to beat a dead horse but kara/mon-el is truly awful. i've also gone over why i'm not a fan of supercat and i think the badness of kara/william kind of goes without saying. that said i realized i haven't yet kvetched about how inexplicably popular kara/alex is??? most egregious to me is the fics tagged with stuff like "oh it's actually not incest because one of them's an alien teehee 🤭" as if the problem with incest is shared DNA and not the power dynamics involved...like if you're gonna ship an incest ship say it with your chest bro. (also IIRC during s5 someone made an anti-lena post with a bunch of pictures of women from sg and the thesis of the post was like, these women would all be good girlfriend options for kara but lena wouldn't because she's ~abusive~ or whatever. but included among this group of good potential girlfriends for kara was alex which. Hm!)

as for lena i don't like lena/winn they're too similar and also i still hold a grudge against winn for his s1 nonsense lol. also whenever i see people shipping them i think about this post which always cracks me up so bad. [i don't like kara/winn either for obvious reasons but also i feel like no one really ships them? i could be wrong about that tho idk.] ummm some people also ship lena/mon-el and you know just as a blanket statement i think mon-el should stay away from women forever. oh and i think i've mentioned i don't vibe with agentcorp. just not my thing.

#sideguitars #up up and away #'use your noggins' - tumblr user moistvonlipwig may 2024

12 notes · View notes

incorrectklavekatz · 11 months

Text

The crows as cards cause I’m bored and why not, as usual my asks are open and I’m always happy to answer!!! Possible ROW and CK spoilers??? Obviously SOC spoilers

Kaz: king of clubs, symbolises strength, power and determination, his ambition towards taking down Rollins, and his effectiveness in doing so, as well as his power by the time ROW occurs in him having two people on the merchant council, the queen of fjerda and the wraith on the seas, in play can be useful, but in most cases doesn’t do much if the rest of the hand is shit, he needs his crows

Inej: Queen of spades, I was going to make her and Kaz match but I’d rather give her an individual one, symbolises intelligence, practical and intellectual, plans ahead of time, inej is always the one in the crows to provide insight to their issues, no matter how cryptic it may be at times, and she shows her ability to understand the consequences of all of their actions better than the other crows several times, in play a black queen can change the game if not countered by a red one

Nina: queen of hearts, pretty obvious as it is, heartrender, queen of fjerda, symbolises a powerful woman who is commanding and has a strong presence yet is compassionate, caring and protective of those she loves, her taking the parem to save the others in coming out of the ice court, as well as generally just being there for the crows in their times of need while still being a very independent and strong female character, in play can be incredibly useful for saving a hand

Matthias: king of hearts, symbolises honesty and spirituality, obviously spirituality to djel and his honesty about changing who he was to be a better man, and admitting that what he did was wrong along with coming to terms with how he was raised and how that effected him and how he treats others, also symbolises a kind gentle man, which he became because of Nina, sparing the boy who shot him, in play again not very useful unless the rest of the hand is good

Wylan: Ace of diamonds, symbolises a financial increase and can indicate a message from a new lover, his claiming of his inheritance from his father, and Jespers role in helping him achieve and maintain that inheritance with reading to him, in play can change the stakes of the game and is very fluid compared to other cards in what it can do, as well as changing the suit to how it sees fit regardless of the suit being played, changing to look like kuwei, asking to be beaten up further for dramatic effect etc

Jesper: Jack of Diamonds, symbolises youth, energy and potential, “maybe he was a bullet in a chamber, waiting to be given direction”, it can also symbolise future financial instability, his gambling, and can be used to represent an unfaithful employee, when he accidentally ratted them out to the dime lions, in play isn’t extremely helpful and generally can benefit the person before the player more than the player themselves, heavily depends on the other cards in the hand, much like how Jesper often puts trying not to disappoint others above his own general well-being and mental health

+ Bonus kuwei: ace of spades, mirrors Wylan, symbolises death, darkness and mystery, parem causing death, hiding in the tomb, nobody really knowing much about him, but can also represent new beginnings, fresh starts and rebirth, moving to Ravka and changing his name to fix his fathers mistakes, arguably one of the most important cards in play, can change the game entirely based on its high place on the list of outcomes on rolling the dice or drawing from a deck of cards chance, can also symbolise power, luck and triumph, whoever was ‘in possession’ of kuwei was winning the game

If anybody has any other opinions on this please let me know!! Also I am aware that technically they have all already been assigned cards in the collectors edition art for crooked kingdom but these are my own takes, might do an analysis post on their cards assigned in the official art if anybody is interested <333 also will do any other characters in the SOC duology and maybe some from the SAB trilogy if asked!!!

#I haven’t played card games much recently so if my analysis on how they work in play is off #ignore me #my cards and dice have been confiscated #jesper fahey #kaz brekker #inej ghafa #wylan van eck #wylan hendricks #matthias helvar #nina zenik #kuwei yul bo #six of crows #crooked kingdom #shadow and bone #kanej #helnik #wesper #incorrect klave talks

61 notes · View notes

resdayn · 8 months

Text

Overall I thought Nocturne was better from an art perspective and worse from... basically every other perspective than Season 1 of Castlevania. Which is really quite sad to me, considering it had double the episodes that Castlevania's first season had.

The art style and animation is incredible, and the music was quite good as well. The character design was also amazing, and nearly the entire main cast looked inspired and interesting. Honestly, it felt like the artists and animators were flexing the entire time.

But the pacing, the voice acting, the setting, the story in general, the sheer amount of exposition, and the dialogue were all lacking so badly. The show tried to accomplish way too much in 8 episodes and suffered pretty terribly for it. If they had scaled the story down significantly, they would have had a lot more time to get the audience actually invested in the characters and plot. It's quite hard to pull off the emotional beats that they attempted when the character has been on screen for 5 minutes total, and for me nearly all of them fell flat. It's especially disappointing that the season ended with the characters losing terribly, because it'll probably be a year at least before we get a continuation (if we get one at all).

Huge spoilers under the cut:

Getting to see Alucard at the end was exciting, but it didn't feel like quite the right time. We're just starting to know these characters, so throwing the arguably Most Beloved Castlevania Character into the mix doesn't seem like a particularly good way to get people invested in the rest of the cast. I guess it'll depend on if they can fix the pacing and dialogue issues, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. Either way, glad I got to see his SotN Kojima-style design animated, even if it looks a little divorced from the OG design.

#castlevania nocturne #castlevania #castlevania nocturne spoilers #alucard castlevania #richter belmont #maria renard #SPOILERS #my posts #castlevania spoilers #for the record if you disagree thats cool. dont tell me about it though because i dont care

33 notes · View notes

dazais-guardian-angel · 1 year

Text

honestly, episodes like this that are so stellar in almost every way just make it all the more frustrating when bones fucks up so bad other times. Like the quality of season 4 has probably been the most consistently good the anime has been since season 2, and yet the entire series still on average just reeks of tonal issues, pacing issues, wonky expressions that don’t do Harukawa’s art justice, cutting of crucial scenes or internal dialogue, and straight-up just completely missing the point and nuances of so many moments in the manga/light novels.

BSD has always been dark and gritty to an extent, but the anime has always been too “fluffy” (for lack of a better word, or I guess shounen-y) to truly understand and capture that, and it’s so frustrating when episodes like this one and Mushitarou’s episodes clearly DID have a lot of love and understanding and attention to detail put into them. Even the Dark Era episodes, which is my favorite and what I consider to be the best story content in the entire franchise, are imo honestly outclassed by the aforementioned episodes purely in terms of adaptation. But then episode 6 this season was incredibly rushed, and Dazai’s arrest scene completely butchered (and Nikolai’s bird speech, to an extent). Atsushi hallucinating Dazai in episode 8 was mediocre as well. Kunikida always has his core character moments shafted. Dazai is never allowed to be vulnerable or “uncool”. Season 3 had “Portrait of a Father” aka arguably one of the most important and most powerful chapters in the entire manga up there with Yosano’s backstory chapters, and yet it’s absolutely the most pathetic, hollow shell of an “adaptation” I’ve ever seen in my life and yes I WILL forever be salty about it.

But then they pull an episode like this out of their asses, where they actually tried. It’s so frustrating. </3

#bsd deserves so much better and i will always lament what we could have had #i fully believe that the anime is to blame for why so many people don't really take it seriously/understand its true depth #......i mean a lot of manga readers don't either lol but #the anime is a lot of peoples' first impressions of bsd and it just makes them go 'yeah its okay i guess'#but this season it feels like for the first time in a long time it feels like bones actually gives a fuck #and yet there's still so many 'bonesisms' throughout that remind you that this is still bones lmao #i kinda just think that since these chapters are so dark and heavy they really COULDN'T get away with making light of it/misinterpreting it #like they could with other much more subtle but still powerful and nuanced moments #it's all really in your face here so they had to do it well or it just would have all been completely godawful #versus other scenes they fuck up in other episodes only a manga reader would take issue with them lmao #anyway put me on the timeline where mappa adapts bsd as grittily as it does aot 👍

30 notes · View notes

superectojazzmage · 1 year

Text

Okay, so review for Across The Spider-Verse

In short, it was exactly as amazing as hoped, arguably more so.

Absolutely brilliant writing, direction, animation, acting, everything. Takes everything the first movie did right and improves on it while pruning out its tiny few flaws. Continues to truly capture the spirit and feel of the comics and staying as faithful to them as possible while still doing it’s own thing. Demonstrates a remarkable understanding of the character of Spider-Man and his mythos. Genuine and earnest in all the right ways, never demeans or sneers at the source material but rather lavishes it with the love and respect it deserves. Just incredible work from everyone involved.

Some specific notes:

The acting is great. Oscar Isaac and Jason Schwartzman in particular are PERFECT and steal the show as Miguel O’Hara and the Spot. The returning actors like Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, and Hailee Steinfeld get to really show off their chops.

The humor and drama are balanced even better in this film than in the first one. The down moments hit harder, the jokes get even bigger laughs, and they never step on one another’s toes.

The action scenes are fantastic just like in the first film. Incredible and very creative fights all around.

Animators REALLY like to show off. The first film’s experimenting with different art styles gets taken up to eleven here. Lots of crazy visuals and elaborate changes in look and feel from world to world while still keeping the same broad “vibe”, and they even delve into some Roger Rabbit-esque territory. It’s really impressive. That said, just like the first film, there are some scenes that can get really literally flashy and strobing, so be aware of that if you’re especially sensitive to flashing lights. I don’t think there’s anything that’d cause issues, but just a head’s up.

The writing for the Spot was great; they closely follow his arc from the comics of starting out as a dorky, incompetent joke villain and then evolving into a terrifyingly ruthless and vindictive monster with absolutely broken powers and it’s really well done, like a bizarro inversion of an anime “hero trains to get stronger” storyline. He’s definitely one of the big highlights and was a great pick for villain.

Peter B. is everything Spider-Man should be and his relationship with Mary Jane and baby Mayday are another major highlight. Marvel editors on life support.

Miles and Gwen both get really great character arcs themselves. Poor Miles really gets put through the wringer.

Miguel is spectacularly well-done, just the right balance of sympathetic, charismatic hero and total grouchy asshole, just like he was in the comics.

Spider-Punk is a Giga-Chad.

Jessica Drew is a weird outlier in that she’s not very faithful to the comics version and the points where she IS accurate are based off one of her worst runs, in total contrast to everyone else. I feel like she was maybe meant to be a different character and got reworked into Jessica for some reason mid-production, or maybe that they had to completely alter her to use her. That being said, as a functionally new character, she’s pretty cool. Issa Rae does a good job and her design totally fucks.

The overall plot is partly a really brilliant meta commentary on Marvel’s treatment of Spider-Man Post-OMD with middle fingers fully extended at Spider-Editorial and I’m living for it. There’s also some clear commentary on the nature of adaptations and what Spider-Man as a character stands for, amongst many other things. Some very dense and heavy themes underpinning the narrative, but none of it is intrusive and you don’t need any prior knowledge aside from watching the first film.

You can REALLY tell that this and Beyond The Spider-Verse were one giant script split into two movies, because the ending is honestly pretty abrupt feeling, though it’s made pretty clear that this is just Part 1 and Part 2 will pick up from right there, so as long as you’re aware of that it’s okay. It’s a massive cliffhanger.

All in all, we walked out of the theater EXTREMELY impressed and very hyped for the next film. This was a wonderful movie that really captured the essence of not just Spider-Man but Marvel Comics as a whole. 10/10 would recommend.

#across the spider verse spoilers #across the spiderverse #across the spider verse #spiderverse #atsv #spiderman atsv #spider man #spiderman #marvel #marvel comics #marvel universe #films #movie review #movies #comics #comic books #phil lord #christopher miller #LORD AND MILLER SWEEP

13 notes · View notes

brw · 1 year

Note

the last issue of the wasp solo is out as well and I really wish someone who is actually a fan of hers got to write it :/

putting my thoughts under the cut 😁

i do think this issue was the best of the lot and was a marked improvement but.... yeah :/ like I know I keep comparing it to Ant-Man, but you know, fuck you, they're both anniversary's comics written by the same guy in the same format, so I'm going to. Ant-Man was so high concept and was incredibly ambitious, bringing different decades of history to create an anniversary comic. It felt loving, considered, and well researched, like we know exactly what each issue is doing and why and how. It takes place across different times, different settings, different environments where each Ant-Man came from and where they thrived. There was a lot of love in that comic, and it was well executed.

Wasp's comic takes place in a random warehouse in the middle of nowhere, and partially in an alternate universe where she's not actually the Wasp because I guess nothing says anniversary like "Janet arguably would have been better off and would be more respected as a team member if she hadn't become the Wasp". Which is weird because in the actual story of the comic Janet wasn't that important; Nadia did almost all of the heavy lifting in figuring out how to destory the Kosmos creature, in fighting off Fantasma. Janet impacts shockingly little of the narrative in this anniversary issue, beyond the AU stuff.

It's also weird because the actual plot of this story is extremely similar to the Ant-Man/Giant-Man Double Feature comic, where the Kosmos aliens make a return and Hank has to beat them along with the Kree and some giant insects. It doesn't even feel like an original story, but a reimagination of a different comic that did a lot more to add to Janet's life despite her not being the main character. We got to see her in therapy, see her growth from when she first joined the team without rolling over her flaws, see her inner life with being a socialite and a fashion designer in a very simple but effective way while making it relevant. And yet a lot of that doesn't feel present here, for some reason.

Idk, I feel like I'm being extremely critical and I might do a reread to see if I pick up on more things but I guess for a Wasp anniversary comic it really didn't feel like it had a lot to do with Janet. I didn't feel like I had learned anything new about Janet, about her legacy, about her character, other than that in a reality where she never became the Wasp, she's arguably in a better place with not constantly being part of the Ant-Man and the Wasp duo and being the driving force of the Avengers. Which again, isn't really the feeling I want to have in my Wasp anniversary comic.

Anyway Avengers Beyond #2, while having the cardinal sin of Greg Land art, did a lot more in terms of being a tribute to Janet. I don't even think that comic was particularly astounding, but having Janet be away from Nadia and deal with a problem in her own way and not with science (which is not her strength and never has been and that's okay) and deal with a childhood friend who loves her but is sometimes annoyed with her does so much more to make a statement on who Janet is.

I don't think Wasp should have followed in the exact lines of Ant-Man but I really think this series could have done a lot more for Janet, without rehashing better comics from the 90s and without making Janet essentially inconsequential without Nadia's presence. Like idk, you could do a smaller scale version of Age of Ultron where Janet was removed from the timeline and a few different Janet's and maybe Rita DeMara and Tom Foster along with Nadia have to restore her because reality is ruined without her. Or incorporate the stories she used to tell in the later issues of Tales to Astonish where Janet would make up crazy stories for Hank or anyone else who was listening, have one of those become reality and have her and Nadia have to defeat what was created from her imagination. Or something, I mean hey, I don't write comics, but I just think that this could have been a better tribute to Janet than what we got. But again, maybe if I reread, I'll see it in a different light, I just find a lot of flaws that are hard to ignore :/

#asks #anonymous #wednesday spoilers #wasp spoilers

4 notes · View notes

yagodichjagodic · 11 months

Text

If you’ve followed me for any period of time then you know I have a shop. I make horror, kpop, & film inspired art/jewelry/plant accessories. I'm also queer AF & it isn't something I hide. 2023 has been a super rough year for me (for a lot of reasons), but struggling with my sense of self & my art has been overwhelmingly prevalent.

I'm trying very hard to work on my mental health, & just myself overall, so I decided to try vending again. I thought the place I chose was a safe call. It was a local artist flea that I used to do monthly, but hadn't been to in a year & a half.

My anxiety had been getting worse & worse leading up to the event (which was yesterday), but I worked through it as best I could because I didn't want to bail & get black-listed as an unreliable vendor.

A few hours into the event an older guy (late 50's early 60's) came up & started to look at my work. The first thing he saw were two clay heart necklaces. They featured sculpted eyes painted with rainbows & he says, "I don't drink bud light anymore."

I didn't understand what he was saying at first, or why....but then I saw what he was looking at & put two & two together. In retrospect, I think he was even waiting for my reaction. I asked if it was because of Dylan Mulvaney....I was still honestly unsure what was going on in this conversation. I feel really stupid looking back on it.

From there he started off on a really insulting & cruel tirade about LGBTQIA+ individuals. I was still trying to be a professional, & counter what he was saying, but I forgot how people like that really are. At one point he started yelling that I was offended too easily & how woke he was because he had a gay daughter. I just remember feeling so fucking bad for her if that was true. Like this overwhelming sadness came over me.

At this point I was starting to cry. I was angry, frustrated, & incredibly sad...& when I get that way, I cry. I felt so fucking stupid. Still kind of do if I'm being honest. This was the moment when I told him he needed to leave my booth. I was still polite (which I wish I hadn't been), but other vendors & people shopping were paying attention & watching now.

He refused to leave & I just kept saying, 'Sir, you need to leave my booth." Then he started yelling & making personal insults about me. So I started shouting back to get out of my booth. Finally he walked away, but not before screaming at me not to follow him, as if that was the issue when he was the one who wouldn't leave!

It was then that I had the opportunity to really look around & see that the vendor across the aisle from me had stepped up & was making sure he left my booth, & his partner who had been elsewhere while this happened (only catching the tail end) rushed over to check on me. I appreciated that immensely, she talked me into staying the rest of the day & checked on me throughout

But the thing that isn't sitting well with me is that the organizers of the event (who were only two tents away from me) just watched all this happen & didn't do anything...they didn't even make him leave. They just let him continue on through the rest of the flea.

Eventually one of them came over & mentioned how he must have been looking for a fight. When he came in the entrance he said, "I hate Harrisburg, I don't know when I even came to this fucking thing." & then walked in...

This whole situation is really messing with me mentally. The things that he said to me, the fact that arguably the most 'inclusive' & 'progressive' art market in the area did nothing to protect me or even ask that guy to leave. It makes me feel really fucking worthless.

I've been struggling so hard with that these last few months, feeling like I, or my art, has any value. I'm also in the nightmare process of adjusting my meds, have been since February. I'm just trying so fucking hard to work on myself & make things better, but it feels like I get knocked down at every turn.

I just needed to share this some place. All of this. I can't say anything on IG because I'm not trying to cause any kind of issues or 'dox' anyone associated with the market I vended at. I just needed to put all of this out there...& tumblr feels safe to me.

I just feel so invisible & worthless anymore. My art feels pointless, I feel pointless. Like, why would anyone protect me or care about me?

I really don't know why I keep trying...but thank you for listening.

#personal #the idol collective #lgbtqia #queer artist

5 notes · View notes

luckyladylily · 2 years

Text

So, the Bayonetta 3 VA thing. To start of, I don't have the money to but they game so the whole boycott thing doesn't much matter to me personally. That's not a choice I have to make, so no comment. If I do ever play it it will be at some far later date or after successfully pirating it. But the discussion at hand does bring up ideas that I think are worth exploring. Because this is about workers rights, kinda, but also the integrity of art. kinda.

Here is the thing, I am 90% certain that platinum didn't want Taylor back, low balling her like that and then hiring a VA that is far more well known and has plenty of work to choose from. She can almost certainly command a larger payout. If we assume everything Taylor says is true, which I do, then I cannot fathom that they get Jennifer Hale for a pittance. I'm going out on a bit of a limb here, but I think Platinum wanted to replace Taylor with Hale, probably because of the name recognition or perceived ability.

This was an offer designed to be refused, so they could say "we offered and she refused" - remember, they thought they were safe because Taylor was locked behind an NDA. That's PR maneuvering.

In terms of pay, obviously all workers, VA included, should be paid a fair, at very minimum livable wage. That isn't a debate worth having, any reasonable person would agree. But it doesn't stop at monetary compensation. We also have the question of transparency in the hiring process and wage transparency overall. If Platinum did bait the refusal (as I suspect they did) for PR reasons that's incredibly shitty.

But one issue that straddles the line between worker's rights and artistic integrity is how much ownership of a character does a VA have for being the first person to play that character? To what degree did platinum owe her the part?

Now, for the record, I personally think Taylor's performance was fine. Neither amazing or bad. I don't really think Bayonetta's voice has been a significant factor in the iconic nature of the character. Nothing like David Hayter with Snake, or Charles Martinet with Mario for example. This is most likely just the nature of the game but, for better or worse, Bayonetta's voice is replaceable. I think that if all this scandal had never happened many of us would have never even noticed or at least not cared as long as it was somewhere approximating a similar voice.

That might sound bad, but it is kinda standard for everything. The Hayters and Martinets are the exception, not the rule. In most cases the VA is just one part of a large team that brings a character to life. We swap out animators and no one cares, I would argue the animators of bayonetta mattered far more than the VA. A whole group of artists work together, character designer, modelers, concept artists, etc. all of them arguably made as large or more of a contribution than, to put a point on it, one of the two voice actors. How much claim to the character of Bayonetta do each of them have?

I saw one person say "if Bayonetta asks me to boycot the game of course I will". Would we say similar things if we were talking about Bayonetta's character modeler? I think it is ridiculous to pretend we would. We swap out most of everyone else on the creative team that brings Bayonetta to life and it isn't considered some artistic crime. But should it be? If they wanted to come back and work on 3 should room be made for them?

On the other hand, being attached to a character represents infrequent but reliable work, and reliable work is pretty thin pickings for VAs as I understand it. It probably hurts bad to see a job you thought would be yours go to someone else. How much should platinum be obliged to give the part to Taylor from a stability of work point of view?

Bringing this all down to a point, the question this muddled case begs is what does worker rights actually encompass? If we want fair treatment for workers, we need to actually be able to answer what fair treatment is, and what points on that list are realistic to achieve via collective bargaining.

6 notes · View notes

thumpersdae · 2 years

Text

tl;dr im changing the way i post my own artwork here, by having a goal of one (1) piece a week, posted on different days depending on what i have made. also im going to start to bring more attention to some of my other social medias. heres a helpful chart:

(more details under the cut)

So i've had a dedicated art blog on tumblr for a couple years now, and ive decided that maybe i could like, use it as a way to be better about making consistently.

basically, my issues with making and posting things in the past were me having issues figuring out how to pace my actual making in a way that is sustainable, and then also that creates these peaks/valleys in attention that i get for my work that are surprisingly frustrating. this made like 70% of this whole process emotionally uncomfortable at best, witch is a pretty uncool stat for a hobby im doing because i love it.

so now, instead of just posting whenever i have anything, i will be posting one piece of art a week. what day of the week it is will depend on the content of the thing im working on. ideally this will make it easier for me to manage doing at least one thing creative each week, without falling into the manic sort of "ive been awake for 28 hours and need to finish this and get 100000's of reblogs or ive failed" feelings i tend to get into.

also ive decided to start trying to be better about cross-posting and self promotion. ive had a Red-bubble for almost as long as ive had this tumblr and im going to try and be better about getting my more polished original work there. my Youtube has a couple AMVs and fan videos, theres not much, but i find it's a good place to keep animations, and i will be continuing to post similar things there. Ao3 is arguably the place i add to the most, ive been writing fics on and off there for 8 years, and will try to be better letting people here know when new things are up there.

also i have 2 new sites that im going to start working on. i started a Ko-fi because it felt silly not giving people the chance to support me if they wanted to be incredibly generous. i dont really expect anyone to contribute but you miss 100% of the free coffees you dont ask for (or something). also ive also built an OnlyFans, im planning on posting all of the visual art i will be posting on tumblr there for free, with the occasional paid post with more nsfw themes for people willing to pay for that sort of thing.

so thank you for reading about my update, i hope this means you'll see my stuff more regularly in the coming weeks. take care <3

#wordy wednesday #housekeeping #my art #self promotion #readmore please

3 notes · View notes

greensaplinggrace · 3 years

Note

do you have any darklina fic recs?

I certainly have a few! But first I want to clarify that I don’t really read fic when I’m writing it, and since I have so many fics in the works right now, I haven’t really been reading a lot of fanfiction. So this list probably won’t be as extensive as it could be.

Here are some other great fic recommendation posts, however:

DARKLINA FIC RECS by @vicioux

DARKLINA FIC RECS // part ii by @vicioux

Darklina Ruling the World Together Fic Recs by @clubofthestarlesssaint

Tumblr Ficlets

Aleksander’s First Memory by @kestrafagnor

Fivan Talk About Darklina by @jomiddlemarch

a little light in the great, big dark by @valkyrhys

Alina tells Mal she’s with Aleksander by @lorsanbitch

Darklina week day 5: intimacy & touch by @starlesscne

AO3 Fanfiction

if it ain’t me by larry_hystereks (Incomplete - 10/13 Chapters)

alina’s in her second year at Yale when she meets aleksander at one of his frat parties.

a hookup with the potential for more, only if alina wasn’t still struggling to piece herself together from last year’s breakup.

or: alina, zoya, their trust issues, and the men that fall for them

---

I’m only at about chapter 6 of this fic currently, but so far it’s one of my all time favorite Modern AUs. The characterization for Alina and Aleksander is incredibly well done, and the entire fic itself is so feminist and queer in such a refreshing way. Aleksander and Alina are bisexual as fuck, both with their own separate complex lives, and much of Alina’s own traumas and relationships are explored outside of Aleksander.

There’s some Zoyalina, with Nikolina friendship and endgame Zoyalai. There’s some mystery and some tension, but nothing too extreme, and a lot of the fic is merely an exploration in growth and overcoming one’s history and learning how to move on in healthy ways. I love it.

She Wears a Collar (With My Name) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

She is immortal, and whatever lingering hints of humanity she may have once had have long been bleached from her heart.

I will grant you one wish, boy, if it is in my power to do so. What does a Shadow Smith most want?

"You," he answers.

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 2: Role Reversal

---

This piece is just exquisite. This author’s writing style is one that I particularly enjoy. Their stuff is always so uniquely composed and crafted, and this one especially is a work of art. The way Darklina as a relationship is portrayed in particular is fascinating to me because it’s a role reversal but it’s still so complex. Aleksander’s character is nailed.

the bright sun was extinguish’d by athousandwinds (Complete)

Somewhere, deep in the dark forests of Ravka, a boy grows up on stories of Sankta Alina of the Wastes, the Sun-Scorched Saint.

---

This fic is just straight up magnificent. It’s so engaging and I love love love the way a role reversed Aleksander who joins the army is portrayed. He reminds me so much of Demon in the Woods Aleksander, as if he’s exactly what a grown version of that young boy would be. When I say I adore his characterization in this I’m not lying.

If I wanted any completed fic I’ve read to have a second chapter, it would be this one.

Winter in the Little Palace by redisxwing (Complete)

Written for Yuletide 2020.

Baghra and Alina's wildly different perspectives on the Darkling, and how things could have gone if nobody listened to Baghra.

Warning: Baghra is written as a harsh and arguably abusive parent, and this is darkfic about that relationship, with a side of shipping. Everything is terrible (except the parts that are pretty much okay).

Canon divergence pretty much as soon as Alina gets lessons in summoning.

This fic is likely not compatible with King of Scars (or any subsequent work).

---

As is said in the summary, this one makes Baghra a bit more extreme. If you’re a fan of Baghra, this fic probably isn’t for you. But since I’m not a fan of Baghra, I had no problems with it.

My biggest praise for this fic is in regards to the character interactions and the POVs. There’s a brilliant grasp of unique perspective and how to convey it, and that talent is carried over into the way character interactions are brought to life in the text. Also, there’s a scene where Alina gets kind of protective of the Darkling, which is one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to Darklina.

Good Ideas by FelixRivers (Complete)

Alina Starkov had a very good idea. Aleksander Morozova would definitely agree. (or: Alina wants to go camping and Aleksander won't complain)

---

This fic is just straight up adorable and hilarious. They’re such a cute couple and Alina’s POV is great. It’s just pure fluff and humor 💕

I’m not a bad girl, but I do bad things with you by SanktaJenya - @sankta-arya (Complete)

Winter had been hard on Old Baghra and Ana Kuya was worried about her, so she decided that Alina should make the trip to her cottage on the other side of the woods to bring her some food and kvas. On her way there, Alina meets a stranger...

Darklina Red Riding Hood/Company of Wolves AU

Darklina Week, Day 4, Fairytales

---

This fic has a splendid grasp of tension and atmosphere. It’s very enchanting and dark and intriguing, and it nails those aspects with absolute precision. I love the style and the way the fairytale is incorporated into the narrative. It’s truly a masterpiece.

The Wretched by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“We are strangers, but I want to help.” He growls at her, mocking and mistrustful. “I understand,” she said. “You think I am one of them. I certainly look like one of them. But I want to help you. Will you let me?” Prompt: fairytale. Alina saves a dragon.

---

Okay so I’ve mentioned this one before as one of my Top 5 fics of all time and I still stand by that. I can’t even describe why I love this fic so much except that the pacing is amazing and the prose is stunning and the story is beautiful. Aleksander is a dragon and Alina is a witch, and their relationship is just so...interesting and fascinating and lovely. I would literally kill for this fic. There’s such a softness to it as well. Such a tenderness. Idk, I just really love it.

Show Me Who You Are (I Want To Know) by Ceris_Malfoy (Incomplete - 12/?)

Alina takes her future in her own hands and makes her own decisions.

---

This is a great “what if Alina had stuck around after the reveal” rewrite. It doesn’t have Mal bashing and in fact still writes them as close friends, which is something I’m fond of in Darklina fics. Aleksander is allowed to be soft and Alina is allowed to be powerful, and I really enjoyed the take on their dynamics as a power couple wherein Alina is given a lot of control.

There’s something to be said for the way Aleksander is written in the scenes where he must be honest and earnest with Alina. I really enjoy the way they both come to equal ground, and I’m even more fond of the way Alina is allowed to grow darker without losing her light. She also engages a lot with quite a few other characters, developing tons of friendships and alliances on her own that help strengthen her as an individual character.

on this bridge between starshine and clay by @rhea-imagined (Complete)

"His breath narrows for a moment, his fist clenched tight before he forces himself to loosen it. She is his only opportunity for salvation, but vulnerability is not a cape he wears easily. “In those days, there was less prejudice against Shadow Summoners. But everyone fears the dark, in one way or another.” He does not look at her as he waits for the penny to drop, half-hoping it stays suspended in the air."

In which Alexander comes clean to Alina and tells her about his true identity in hopes that this will help convince her to take down the Fold.

A rewrite of the fountain scene in episode four, with a good!Darkling that is trying to make amends.

---

This is my all-time favorite good!Aleksander AU. He’s kept in character despite the major changes made to his motivations, and Alina is given a lot more agency in her own story. It’s the first fic in what might become a series, but it can stand alone beautifully.

I love how Aleksander and Alina’s relationship is allowed to grow tense without breaking, and how it’s a clear sign of change but not abandonment. I love how both characters are able to think for themselves and become self-aware and are given the chance to think critically. I love the character interaction so much because it’s honest and fresh and engaging. Everything from the smallest action to the most off-hand thought is in character and meaningful and incorporated with an amazing style of writing. It’s a very refreshing piece, and the writing only makes it that much better.

Bunnies of a Feather Stitch Together by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Just as Alina called to the light, gathering and twisting it into a ball in her hands, the door swung open.

Kirigan blacked out the door frame. His appearance enough would have surprised Alina, but there was something clutched in his arm, something dark and floppy. It almost looked like the stuffed toys that had been passed around to the younger Orphans." - Alina and The Darkling bond over a love of soft things

---

Soft stuffed animal shenanigans. Bits of trans!Aleksander, which I’m very fond of, as well as just a lot of fluff with a bit of something bittersweet and sad in a good way.

Half Lie by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Baghra always talked of the demon that had stolen her daughter." Or, Alina learns the hard way that the Darkling isn't the only one who deals in half-truths

---

This one is trans!Aleksander, and it handles it in a very interesting way. It’s quite sad, and deals a lot with Baghra & Aleksander’s relationship through Alina’s POV. I want to give a warning for transphobia, because it does center around that a lot as the premise, but it really is worth the read if that isn’t a trigger for you. This is one of my favorite trans!Aleksander fics, and the way it handles emotion and grief and pain is quite extraordinary.

The CEO and Helioseismologist by mrthology (Complete)

Aleksander Morozova doesn't get sick. He's the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, one that he had built from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears. He exercised daily (usually), maintained a healthy diet, and kept himself fit.

He wasn’t sick.

Too bad no one believed him. And too bad Genya decided to call Ivan to take him home before also calling Alina to take care of him.

Maybe, just maybe, being sick wasn't so bad. Especially not when he has such a wonderful girlfriend.

---

Both of the fics in this series are great, but I love this one in particular because I’m an absolute sucker for hurt/comfort. Anyone who’s been on my blog for a while knows that it’s my all time favorite trope to read, and this fic fits the hurt/comfort trope to a T in the best of ways. It’s very tender and in character, and Aleksander and Alina are so soft with each other. It’s adorable and really makes you feel for Aleksander, and the caretaking is done perfectly.

All the different layers of dark (thousand little suns) by Anuna (Complete)

One month after the Winter Fete, Aleksander returns to the Little Palace, and Alina has been missing him.

Episode five canon divergence in which Alina had never left Os Alta.

---

This one is soft emotional hurt/comfort smut. They’re both so open and vulnerable with each other, and it’s so beautiful to read. I love the writing style and the emotion in this one. It makes my heart ache in the best way.

An Honourable Man by liviy695 (Complete)

A reimagining of the scene after the winter fete. Alina catches a glimpse of a caring Darkling after he returns from integrating the Conductor. Plus, no Baghra interference.

---

This one is what it says on the tin, in that Baghra doesn’t interfere and they’re allowed to talk after the Darkling interrogates the Conductor. But more than that, it’s a great imagining of how a scene where Aleksander reveals Marie’s death would have gone. There’s a sort of quiet to it that I appreciate, with grief and solemnity weighed against care and vulnerability.

I see the real you (even if you don’t, I do) by Anonymous (Incomplete - 8/?)

A series of questionable decisions lead Alina to meet the Black General a bit earlier. Butterfly effect ensues.

---

I’ve only read half so far (I hadn’t realized it had updated!! 👀👀) but I’m already in love with this fic. Alina’s dialogue and perspective is perfect, her relationship with Mal and the other cartographers is great, and I really enjoy how much personality she has. Aleksander is so smitten, but more than that, his characterization is soft but not weak. It feels almost as if he’s swept up by Alina, instead of the other way around, and I quite like that.

Of parenting by Anuna (Complete)

Alina finds out how her husband handled yet another parenting situation.

---

This is pure adorable Darklina parenting fluff and I live for it. Yet it doesn’t lack depth and in fact explored Alina and Aleksander’s relationship with parenting quite well.

i have a longing by LRCee - @ladylyannastark (Complete)

“So, Alina Starkov, risk-taker, how did you end up being editing’s newest wunderkind?”

Alina Starkov is rising in the publishing world. Singlehandedly responsible for editing (see: rewriting) the hottest book of the year, she lands a coveted spot at Morovoz Publishers. It's the position she's always wanted, at the biggest publishing house in the country. Life is perfect. That crush on her boss though, that's gotta go.

---

OKAY! I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH!! Let me tell you, as someone who is not too fond of Boss/Employee dynamics, I was very wary going into this fic. But boy did it deliver in a way that was perfect for me.

The relationship that develops between Aleksander and Alina is complex but healthy, and it never feels as if there’s too much of a power imbalance or anything that would make Alina feel forced or unhappy. The tension lies purely in how she fears others will perceive her, and not in how unhealthy her relationship with Aleksander is. For somebody who’s often attracted to unhealthy ships, I have to say that my favorite fics are usually ones that don’t have that type of dynamic between the characters. This fic delivers on that.

Also, Aleksander’s POV surrounding his struggle with his Russian heritage and his feelings for Alina is amazing, and has some of the best writing and characterization I’ve seen.

You receive: an evil demon; I receive: human souls by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

The next morning while she tried to tell herself it was a dream, that of course there wasn’t a fucking demon in her house, she found a note taped to her fridge.

“You might eat this shit,” it had written, “but I would like some fucking souls please.”

Darkling Week Prompt 7: free choice. Alina has a demon in her house.

This is absolute crack, and I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me.

---

May I just say that this is the most fun I’ve ever had when reading a fic. It’s interesting with a bit of mystery, and Aleksander as a little shit of a demon is hilarious. Alina in this fic is great too. It’s such a unique take on her POV, especially when you reread it after knowing the ending. 10000/10, this fic is brilliant in every way and I love it.

I had been lost to you, Sunlight by BrytteMystere (Complete)

A Girl became a Woman, became a Sankta, became a Goddess.

Or: An Immortal Alina calls upon merzost to reunite with the Prince of Shadows she lost long ago. She may have lost herself in the process.

But then again, maybe time and endless wars did that instead.

---

You really just have to read this one to get it. It is utterly haunting and fascinating in the best of ways. The writing style is strange and novel and fits so well with the story being told. The composition of the fic as a whole is genius.

I Look Inside Myself (And See My Heart Is Black) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"When is a monster not a monster? Why, when you love it, of course."

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 6: Favorite Quote • King & Queen • Monster

---

Once more, this author comes through with an absolutely breathtaking writing style and story. The imagery is elegant yet brutal, simultaneously horrifying and glorious. There’s a certain way these stories are written, like fairytales, where the beautiful becomes the macabre and becomes ever more stunning because of it. It’s very dark but in a good way - an almost bewitching way.

Afterlife by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“You are asking me to leave?”

“Not asking, shadow,” she said. “Telling. Time to get unlost, loser.”

Day 3 Darklina Week prompt: Modern AU (I mean, barely)

Alina expels ghosts from purgatory.

---

@aceofnowhere once again bringing the best of the paranormal to the Grishaverse. Literally everything you write is amazing idk why I’m even pointing out individual fics when I could just rec your whole page. But anyways!! This is fun and interesting and Alina is a badass. Aleksander is, of course, compelling and dark and kind of a little shit, and it’s all incorporated seamlessly into an existential paranormal narrative.

Once Upon a Shooting Star by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"But most of all, she was drawn to a vast darkness that reached out above all of them, a void so hungry for companionship that she knew she could fulfill."

---

Let. Alina. Be. Feral!! Anyways, I clearly have a type when it comes to storytelling, and it’s whatever the fuck this person has got going on. Feral!Star!Alina is literally the light of my life. Her interactions with not only other people but the world in general are so well done, but my favorite parts about this fic are the numerous ways her relationship with Aleksander is described and depicted.

I love the dark and light imagery, especially with how it’s portrayed as them filling in the gaps of each other’s lives and supporting each other instead of trying to block each other out. There’s such clear passion and joy and love and devotion between them. The central focus of this fic is on her and Aleksander’s relationship, the interplay between them and their powers and the way her light fills his loneliness, the passing of adoration and trust and reliance between them. It’s very beautiful and I love it.

A Blaze of Light by Keira_63 (Complete)

They discover the Sun Summoner in the burnt-out remains of the Shu laboratory in which she has spent the last seven years of her life.

Or, the Darkling finds himself with a Sun Summoner whose greatest wish is to burn Shu Han to the ground. He is happy to oblige her.

---

👀👀 Badass Alina and Badass Aleksander. The ultimate power couple, and Alina burning a path through Shu Han before they both burn a path through the world together. The darkness and rage in this one are handled very well, and the way that rage turns to coldness and then resolve is done so well. This fic is very cathartic and also very furious, and reading it is certainly a trip down emotion lane.

One more for the Road by Rist (Complete)

He returns to the war room shaken, and finds an Alina that cannot leave without at least having tried.

---

This one hurts so much but its soooo gooood!!! Very smutty but also very tender and very bittersweet. Sad and soft all at once. I just... love the way Alina and Aleksander are written so much, and Alina’s complicated feelings for him are explored in such detail and depth. This one is truly worth the read.

434 notes · View notes

raibebe · 4 years

Text

Of needles and seduction

Genre: Fluff and smut Words: 15.2k Prompt: Johnny tattoo shop AU featuring best friends Yangyang and Jaemin Warnings: contains smut, Daddy-kink, size-kink, mentions of mirror-sex

A/N: This is very self-indulgent, I’m sorry. While I do have piercings myself, I know next to nothing about tattoos, so I’m sorry if anything is inaccurate. Also I don’t advise what some characters in this are doing for yourself. Just a quick special thanks to @burtonized who has listened to me ramble about this story and Johnny and helped me write this by giving me ideas and support. Thank you darling! This fic is a beast, I have never written anything this long,it’s insane. If smut isn’t for you, you can stop reading after the phone call and still have a pretty decent story. If you feel like, you’ve seen this post before, you might have. I deleted the original one because tumblr decided to delete it from the tags.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” You asked for what you felt was the tenth time in the past five minutes. “It’s going to be fine. The shop is clean and sanitary,” your friend Yangyang groaned while running his hands through his messy, blonde hair. It was getting way too long, hanging low into his eyes. “I’m just saying that this doesn’t seem like a safe place,” you mumbled but followed your hyper friend through a more than dubious looking side street of Itaewon. “Jaemin got his piercings done in the same shop and those healed just fine, stop being a baby,” the blonde said while rolling his eyes. He quickly checked his phone for the address of the (probably illegal) piercing and tattoo shop and took a sharp turn into an even shadier looking street. “I still don’t get while you need me to come with you when you want to get your nipples pierced for god knows what of a stupid reason.” “It’s easy,” Yangyang grinned at you, “Ten said I wouldn’t dare to do it. And I’m going to prove him wrong and you’re going to document the progress.” “Do you ever listen to yourself talk? You’re literally paying someone to stab you into your nipples to shove a piece of metal through it just to prove a point.” “It’s just one nipple though.” “How does that make it any better, Yangyang?” You deadpanned. Your friend groaned again. “I knew I should have taken Guanheng with me. He would have been supportive.” “He would also be supportive of getting ‘I love Tacos’ tattooed on your ass.” “He would,” Yangyang agreed with an exaggerated dreamy look on his face. “What a madlad.”

You sighed but couldn’t help smiling at his antics. You had befriended the hyper exchange student when you had been assigned to be partners for a group project for your mandarin class. Yangyang had only taken the class for extra credit and easy good grades while you were struggling like crazy and had seriously questioned all your life choices that had let to you taking the class. (But mostly you regretted listening to Renjun who had convinced you it would be an easy class.) The group project turned out to be rather easy when you had a native speaker as your partner and you had become fond of the younger student, staying in touch with him and helping him find his way around the big campus. If you had known that he was a package deal with a bunch of other equally hyper and questionably crazy exchange students, you might have thought a little longer about keeping in touch after the project was over. But who were you kidding, the other boys and Yangyang were incredibly dear to you and if Kun had his regular morning coffee, the others weren’t even that chaotic.

“That’s it,” Yangyang suddenly exclaimed, pointing at a small beat up looking wooden door that looked like it was ready to fall out of the doorway any second. But a little green neon sign that hang next to it flashed the word “open” onto the street indicating that a shop must be hiding behind it. Your arguably best friend quickly grabbed your hand as if he had been sensing that you were about to complain again and dragged you into the shop. A little bell jingled quietly when Yangyang closed the door behind you two. You took a deep breath to calm your nerves (hell you weren’t even the one to get stabbed with a needle) and took a look around the small room. It was small and poorly lit and every free space on the walls was plastered with drawings and photos of both freshly done and healed tattoos. You had to admit that whoever had done those had done a good job, they looked really neat. You guessed that at least two artists must be working in the shop. A good portion of the art were very neat black and white works (some looking freakishly realistic) while others were very vibrant and artistic.

With a confident bounce in his step, Yangyang went up to the counter to a man with wild bubblegum pink hair wearing a black tank top that showed off the ink on his arms and torso, all kept in black except for a deep red rose on the side of his neck. His eyes were lined with dark eyeliner, making them seem like dark bottomless orbs, and they were fixed to the screen of a laptop that was covered in stickers that were a wild mixture of cute characters and various rock and hip-hop bands. “And what brings you here?” The man asked with a surprisingly deep voice, turning his head towards your friend. “A friend of mine told me I could get pierced here,” Yangyang spoke, his hands fumbling with the loose threads of his sweater. “And if that was the case, what would you want to get pierced?” “My nipple.” At that the other man raised one of his perfectly arched eyebrows. “People usually start off with getting an earring or something.” “Go hard or go home,” Yangyang grinned, making the other man snort. “If you have 70.000 Won in cash, I can look if one of the piercers is free.” When your friend got out his worn wallet and put a couple of bills onto the counter, the other man smiled for the first time. It didn’t quite fit his whole dark punk aesthetic but you couldn’t deny that he was really good looking.

“Don’t run away now kiddo, I’ll see if someone is free,” he grinned, “I’m Taeyong by the way.” When he disappeared behind a curtain made out of pearls into the back, Yangyang turned towards you with the biggest smile on his face. “I told you it was going to be fine.” You just hummed nonchalantly, still not entirely supportive of the whole idea. “One of the guys is ready in a bit,” Taeyong said when he came back to the main room. “Are you getting anything?” He asked, looking at you. “Oh no, she’s a scaredy-cat, just here for moral support and to document that I actually did it,” your friend answered for you. Your face immediately heated up under the intense gaze of the pink haired tattoo artist. “Too bad,” he just shrugged. “So technically you need to sign stuff for legal issues and whatnot. But since this place doesn’t exactly exist on records, we’re skipping that part. You’re not on drugs or any meds, right?” “I’m not,” Yangyang shook his head, making his hair flop back into his face. “Any issues with fainting or other medical conditions?” “Nope.” “Great. Had a good meal before coming here?” “I had breakfast,” Yangyang shrugged. “You had a slice of cold pizza from yesterday,” you groaned. “That I ate in the morning, therefore it’s breakfast,” he argued. “Well in that case,” Taeyong interrupted your bickering and threw a granola bar into Yangyang’s hands, “Eat that and let your girlfriend treat you to some proper food afterwards.” Before the blonde could deny anything, you had already opened your mouth to tell the other man that in fact you weren’t dating.

“Sure, sorry for assuming,” he shrugged and sat back behind the counter, taking out an iPad and began drawing something, probably a tattoo design. “Nervous yet?” You asked Yangyang who was uncharacteristically quiet while munching on the granola bar. “Shit, I’m really doing this,” he replied, exhaling shakily. “You don’t actually have to, Yangyang,” you tried to comfort him. “And let Ten just get away like that? No way. I am doing this. I’m not his little baby Yangyang anymore,” he said like the stubborn child he was. You could just sigh and roll your eyes at him. “He might have just been joking, you know?” “One does not simply challenge Liu Yangyang like that and not expect consequences.” “Kun is going to actually flip and pop a vein,” you tried to reason with your friend for a last time. Kun was doing a lot of coordination work for the exchange students with a Chinese background and had taken on almost a fatherly role for the younger students that hadn’t been in Korea for long. And even though Ten wasn’t even that much younger than Kun, he almost lost his otherwise calm composure when the Thai boy had announced that he successfully had pierced his ear by himself yet again after he had convinced a poor med student to smuggle some equipment for him. And from there the situation had somehow escalated into Ten daring Yangyang to get a nipple piercing. “Well he can’t do anything about it once it’s done. We’ll just make sure he’s with someone who can call an ambulance if he ends up having an aneurism.”

“Someone still wants their nipple pierced?” A new voice interrupted your conversation and a tall man with dark inky hair came into the room, making the pearls of the curtain clink against each other. One side of his head was shaved while the longer hair on the other side framed his handsome face beautifully. He was wearing a loose black T-shirt paired with ripped jeans with almost as many holes as there was fabric that hugged his long legs perfectly, showing that he had also ink on his legs. From his lobe dangled a little silver chain and of course his arms were covered in intricate designs, one arm strictly black ink while the other sported some colorful pieces as well. In the center of his plush lower lip sat a black ring and just beneath his left eye two little silver balls were reflecting the low light. You couldn’t deny that the man looked absolutely stunning despite his unusual appearance.

“Yes, me,” Yangyang eagerly answered the man’s question and walked towards him, tugging you with him. “Too bad,” the piercer grinned cheekily and winked in your direction, making your heart flutter in your chest and heat rise to your face, before he extended a big hand to shake Yangyang’s much smaller one. “I’m Johnny,” he introduced himself before leading you both into a smaller room in the back with a simple black padded bench in the middle of the room and a desk tucked into a corner. The walls were plastered with art and photos like the main room, showing that Johnny apparently was able to pull off a bunch of different tattoo styles. He seemed to have a thing for florals and roses though. The only free space was taken up by a full body mirror at the opposite wall. Johnny sat down on the little stool that was standing by the desk and motioned for Yangyang to sit on the bench while you sat down in the only other chair in the room, made of worn looking black leather.

“Let me see your chest before we start this whole thing,” Johnny spoke to your friend after he had grabbed a pair of silver framed glasses that sat low on his elegant nose and slipped on a fresh pair of black gloves. With only slightly trembling hands, Yangyang pulled his sweater over his head, keeping his hands buried in the fabric. “Looks good to me. Left or right one?” “Ehrm, I haven’t really thought about it,” he confessed. Johnny chuckled. “Spontaneous decision to get your nipple pierced?” “He does it to prove a point to a friend,” you supplied before Yangyang had the chance to answer. “Seems like a valid reason,” the tattoo artist grinned, “You play guitar or anything where the strap could irritate the new piercing?” “Just the violin,” Yangyang supplied, demonstrating how he would hold his instrument. “Then I’d suggest we go for the left one,” Johnny concluded, grabbing a bunch of stuff he needed. “Is it going to hurt badly?” “No idea, mine aren’t pierced.” “The first one is fine,” another voice chimed into the conversation and a pink mess of hair appeared in the doorway. “My client is there and Jaehyun isn’t back from his break yet, have an open ear for the door.” Johnny just hummed but it seemed enough to satisfy Taeyong who disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared.

“You ready?” Johnny asked one last time. Yangyang took a deep but shaky breath and nodded. “You better film this so Ten knows it’s real,” he said, holding out his phone towards you. Rolling your eyes, you got up from your actually really comfortable chair and took the phone from your best friend’s hands while Johnny disinfected Yangyang’s nipple and drew two little circles where the bar would go through it before grabbing a small mirror to show him. “Let’s do this,” your best friend nodded and you pressed record. “It’ll be quick,” Johnny promised, disinfecting one last time before he grabbed a pair of tongs to hold the nipple in place and freed a needle from a foil package. “I’ll count to three and then I’ll start, alright?” “A-Alright.” “Last time to chicken out.” “No, I’m doing this,” Yangyang gritted out, closing his eyes. After that everything happened really fast: Johnny counted to three and steadily pushed the needle through Yangyang’s nipple, who bit his lip hard. He then let the needle dangle from the nipple while freeing a little barbell from another foil package to insert it through the canal he just had made. “And that’s it,” he announced when he secured the little balls on either side of the barbell. You ended the recording when Yangyang left out the breath he had been holding in. “Now no sports, especially no swimming or sexual activities for a while. Clean it well and don’t worry if it gets sore, that’s normal. It can take a while to heal, so be patient and don’t let it get infected. You can get a smaller barbell or a ring once it’s healed. Just come back to get it changed to be safe.” “Fuck I really did that,” Yangyang cursed and looked down to his chest, “I think I need a minute before I can get up.”

“Take your time, I don’t have any clients for another half an hour,” Johnny reassured him, putting the used materials into the trash. “Just please don’t vomit all over the floor or hit your head while fainting.” “That has happened before?” You asked, eyes wide. “Not on me but it’s not unheard of. You sure you don’t want anything?” he asked, turning towards you. His silver framed glasses had slid down his nose a little and you couldn’t deny that the man looked really hot, looking at you from beneath his lashes. “She’s too scared,” Yangyang teased. He couldn’t feel too bad if he still could do that then. “Too bad, I think you would really suit a little conch or something,” the piercer motioned around his own ear to indicate what piercing he meant. “A conch?” You asked, turning towards the mirror to try to imagine it. “Wait let me show you.” Johnny quickly got up to search through the drawers of his desk before he pulled out a little box with a bunch of jewelry, grabbing a small hoop. He stood behind you in front of the mirror. “Hold still for me,” he breathed and bend down to push your hair behind your ear before he carefully put the fake piercing in place. For a moment you could swear that time had stopped. You felt his breath fanning over your skin gently and could smell the intoxicating smell of his cologne. You were so close to each other, you were sure that if you turned your head, your noses would brush against each other. But before you could do anything stupid, Johnny pulled back and gently turned your head so you could see the little silver ring. “I think I could put an even smaller one if you wanted,” he said, watching you through the mirror with an intense gaze from his dark eyes. “I’ve never thought about getting a piercing,” you admitted shyly. While you did get your lobes pierced when you were a child, you never thought of it much. “It looks good. Not so much like daddy’s good girl anymore,” the piercer grinned. You almost choked on air when the words left his plush lips, feeling the heat rush to your cheeks.

“How much?” “For you I’ll do it for free, darling,” he grinned, running a hand through his thick dark hair, making his muscles shift beneath his inked skin. While your brain was still short-circuiting from the nickname, Yangyang seemed to be back to 100%, destroying whatever the atmosphere between you and the tattoo artist just was. “Are you really going to say no to a free piercing, dude?” You could just groan and roll your eyes at your best friend. “Stop calling me dude, Yangyang.” “Only if you get that piercing.” “That’s blackmailing.” “Just do it, it won’t even hurt right?” “It’s just a bit of pressure,” Johnny assured you, his lips curled into a smile. “I can always take it out if I don’t end up liking it,” you thought out aloud. “The beauty of temporary body modifications,” Johnny sighed before he stepped in front of you to take the fake piercing off again. With his face so close to yours again, your eyes traveled over the little silver balls beneath his left eye, over his elegant nose down to the black ring in his lower lip and you briefly wondered what it would feel like to kiss him. “So what will it be?” You looked over to your best friend who had put his hoodie back on and nodded his head enthusiastically, making his fluffy hair flop into his eyes. He really needed a haircut.

“Alright, let’s do this,” you decided. “That’s what I like to hear,” Johnny grinned and moved to get his stuff ready. “Need me to hold your hand?” Yangyang grinned when you took his place on the bench. “I wouldn’t want to contaminate you with girl germs,” you teased, sticking your tongue out at him. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind some girl germs if they’re coming from such a pretty girl,” Johnny cut in when he rolled back over on his stool, his glasses pushed back up his nose again. You couldn’t even fight the heat that crept onto your face at his words, he sure could feel it radiating off your cheeks from where his gloved hands were touching your skin. “I’ll do it where I placed the fake one, just with a smaller ring, alright?” He spoke softly when he disinfected your ear. You could just nod, anxiety taking over, making your heart race and skin prickle. When you heard the plastic bag that held the sterile needle rip, you pressed your eyes shut and balled your hands to fists. “Take a deep breath for me, doll,” Johnny mumbled, gently caressing your skin where he had grabbed your face to stabilize you. “In and out.” You shakily did as he asked you, his low voice comforting and calming your anxiety a lot. “Now you breathe in and let me count to three, then you gently release that breath. Can you do that for me, darling?” “Yeah,” you breathed, eyes still closed so you missed the soft smile on Johnny’s face. “Alright, deep breath in. One, two, three,” the pain of the needle piercing through your skin made you clench your fists harder, “And breathe out.” You tried your best to release the breath evenly until the pressure of the needle was just a low thudding. “You’re doing great, darling,” the handsome piercer reassured you, “I’ll just push the ring through and we’re all done here. Take another breath for me.” This time the feeling wasn’t as painful, just a really uncomfortable feeling of pressure. “All done, pretty,” Johnny concluded, clicking the ring closed. “Open your eyes.”

When you did open your eyes again, he held the little hand mirror from before in his still gloved hands so you could see the little ring that sat against your ear now. The skin was a bright red and you could feel your pulse throb around the metal but it actually fit the shape of your ear really nicely. “Thank you,” you smiled at Johnny. “It’s been a pleasure,” he winked before gathering the used needle and tissues to throw them away. “Take good care of it and try to not sleep on that side for a couple of nights and it will be healed in no time.” “Let’s go home, big baby,” Yangyang chirped in, already on his feet to leave the room. “I’m starving.” “There’s a good ramen shop a little up the street, not too expensive either,” Johnny recommended.

“Thanks for the piercings, man,” your best friend thanked the artist when he took you back to the main room. “No big deal,” Johnny shrugged and sat down where Taeyong had sat before, putting his long legs up on the counter. “Well, have a nice day, maybe we’ll come back for more some time,” Yangyang grinned, opening the door to leave the shop. “Oh I’m sure you will,” the artist replied, locking eyes with you before winking. “Take good care of that piercing, doll. You know where you have to come to if you want more.” You nodded shyly before bowing to the man. “Thank you, Johnny.” “I’ll see you again,” it wasn’t a question. Somehow you and him both knew that this wouldn’t be the last time you would step into the shady tattoo shop.

The next time that you found yourself in the shady streets of Itaewon came faster than you had thought. This time you were accompanying Jaemin to his tattoo appointment after Jeno had ditched him because he had to take over a shift at the cat café he worked at. (That poor boy had to take antihistamines before every shift because of his allergies but couldn’t resist the charm of the kittens.) “You’re a lifesaver seriously,” the hyper boy repeated while jumping up and down excitedly, “Sitting still for hours on end is really so boring if you have no one to talk to.” “Can’t you talk to your artist?” You asked confused. “He threatened to stab me with the tattoo gun the last time when I was trying to talk to him while he worked,” Jaemin pouted. You could only imagine how irritating Jaemin and his moods could be to someone who wasn’t used to him. Ever since he had decided that he wanted to commit to what he had dubbed a soft punk look, he had been going to the shop somewhat regularly to start a collection of tattoos and piercings. It had started a year ago when he first had dyed his hair to a light blue color. Shortly after that he had first gotten his ears and then his nose pierced. The two lip rings in his lower lip were his newest addition as far as piercings went. The tattoos came a little later. After much consideration he had made the decision to start a floral piece on his arm, the center would be a hummingbird, all with black ink for now.

After a little bit of Instagram stalking you had easily identified the intricate flowers that adored Jaemin’s upper arm as Johnny’s work and the thought of seeing the handsome tattoo artist again had made your heart beat faster in your chest. Not that Jaemin needed to know that you weren’t coming with him for his sake but rather because of your desire to see the dark haired flirty man again. You had been thinking about his dark eyes behind his silver framed glasses and how he scrunched his eyebrows when he was concentrating a lot for the last weeks. (Not that you had replayed the video of him piercing Yangyang an unhealthy amount of times or anything…) Every time you took care of your new piercing it reminded you of how his fingers felt on your skin and how his deep voice had gently guided you through everything. Not to forget how easily the pet names had rolled from his lips. And oh god his lips… His Instagram account featured a good amount of pictures of himself both casual and while working and the way his plush lips would curl into a confident smirk did things to your heart. His latest update had been the actual death of yours though. It had shown the new tattoo he had gotten recently: It was an intricate eagle that spread over his muscled chest, the feathers of the wings blending seamlessly into the other art covering his strong shoulders and biceps. Did you already mention that he was freaking shirtless in the picture? And that he was hiding a seriously ripped body beneath the wide T-Shirt he wore the last time you were at the shop? So to say that your thoughts had started to spiral after seeing that post was a little understated.

You still felt a little uneasy when you followed Jaemin through the backstreets of Itaewon but when the shabby door with the neon green ‘open’ sign came in sight, you felt the feeling disappear, only for it to be replaced with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Jaemin grinned widely when he pushed the door open and his good mood was always infectious, a smile creeping on your lips. This time a new man sat at the counter, lazily rocking back and forth on the chair with his phone in his hand. His hair was dark and hung into his eyes and he wore a dark, long sleeved hoodie, so you couldn’t see if he had as many tattoos as his colleagues but if the tattoos on his hands and neck were any indication, he must be pretty covered as well. You recognized the rose on the back of his hand from one of Johnny’s Instagram posts. When the man looked up, you saw that he didn’t only have tattoos but piercings as well: In his lower lip sat two rings right next to each other, a ring dangled from his nose and two little silver balls sat in the hollows of his dimples that showed when he smiled at Jaemin. “Back for more?” He asked with a deep, rumbling voice and got up to greet Jaemin properly, bumping their shoulders together. “Got an appointment with Johnny for my sleeve,” the blue haired boy replied. “I see the snake bites healed well.” “Done by the best piercer of the shop.” “You know it,” the man laughed, throwing an arm around Jaemin. “Brought your girlfriend?” “I’m just a friend,” you quickly corrected the piercer. (Why couldn’t you just platonically join a friend for his tattoo session?) “Alright, just a friend, I’m Jaehyun. Johnny should be ready by now. You know the way?” Jaemin nodded and pulled you with him to Johnny’s room.

When Jaemin pulled the curtain to the room open, you weren’t prepared for what you were seeing: Johnny was standing in front of the full length mirror with his black button up shirt unbuttoned, applying cream to his still tender looking eagle tattoo on his chest, making his beautiful sunkissed skin glisten. “You’re early, Jaem,” he spoke. “Jaehyun said you were already ready,” the blue haired boy shrugged and plopped down onto the black bench. “Oh you brought company,” Johnny turned around when he spotted you and grinned, “I knew you’d come back, doll. How’s your piercing healing?” You had to summon all your strength to rip your eyes from Johnny’s strong and glistening chest to meet his dark eyes. “It’s fine as far as I know, doesn’t hurt anymore,” you stumbled across your words. Couldn’t he just button his shirt back up? “Let me see.” Before you could protest he had made two big steps and was right in front of you, the intoxicating smell of his perfume filling your senses. He gently tucked your hair back to have a look at the piercing and you swore you could feel electricity buzz beneath your skin where he had touched you. “You took great care of it, darling. Not regretting it yet?” “No, I like it.” I like you. The words had laid on your tongue but you managed to swallow them back down.

“Stop flirting with her, I’m the one paying for your attention,” Jaemin whined from where he was sitting. You of course immediately felt all your blood rush to your head but Johnny just chuckled. “I haven’t seen any cash yet, boy.” The tattoo artist gave you a last wink before turning towards his actual client, buttoning his shirt back up but leaving the last two buttons unbuttoned, letting the head of the eagle just barely poke out. Taking a deep breath you sat down in the worn leather chair while Jaemin handed Johnny a bunch of bills that the taller quickly counted. “Alright, I’m all yours for the next five hours or so,” he grinned, “You saw the drafts I sent you?” Jaemin nodded while he took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his T-Shirt to expose the ink on his arm. It was already beautiful even though it wasn’t even halfway done. The hummingbird was still missing its shading and he hung in the air for now, the flowers and leaves stopping above its head. “Yeah, I’m still not sure about the color though. Can’t we just do more flowers instead?” “Sure but the inner arm and near the elbow is going to hurt like a bitch. So it’s either that or you let me color that hummingbird.” Jaemin groaned dramatically, turning his arm to look into the mirror. “He does look weird just half-finished like that.” “So color it is?” Johnny asked while rolling up the sleeves of his shirt a bit, exposing his own tattoos: A snake like dragon curled around his entire right arm, kept in all black ink. “I really liked that green-blue watercolor thing you sent,” Jaemin supplied when he turned to lie down. “Right, then I’ll do some flowers directly surrounding the bird and color that thing.” He snapped his black gloves on and turned to prepare his machine and the colors.

“Come closer with that stupid chair,” Jaemin whined, making grabby hands at you. After Johnny nodded, you pushed the chair closer with great effort. “Are you going to whine for the whole time?” You groaned but smiled fondly at your friend. “Most likely,” Johnny answered instead of Jaemin and rolled over on his little stool, his silver framed glasses back on his nose and a pen between his lips. “I’ll freehand a bunch of flowers first to make sure they fit around that little guy nicely.” “And I thought you liked putting others in pain,” Jaemin joked when Johnny adjusted a little lamp and began to draw flower after flower. It was really fascinating how quick his hand drew delicate petals and leaves, filling up the space around the hummingbird. “Oh if I put others in pain, they usually like it,” he grinned, his voice dropping an octave. You almost choked on plain air and had to try to mask it as coughing but if the way Johnny’s eyes twinkled was any indication, he had seen right through it and dared to be smug about it. “Wow my third appointment and we’re already talking about kinks?” “Sorry Jaem, not interested,” the artist laughed, “I’m more into cute girls.” He leaned back to examine his drawing, throwing you another quick wink. You barely held in a squeak. He really wasn’t even trying to be subtle about his flirting anymore. “Ready for the big gun?” “Oh dick jokes now, nice,” Jaemin chuckled while you were sure your head was about to explode from how much blood was collecting in there. You covered your hot cheeks with your hands in a hopeless attempt to cool them. “Oh look Johnny, she’s getting shy already.” “I haven’t even started yet, baby.” That was it. This man was going to be the death of you. You really didn’t need to know what it sounded like when he spoke those words that were dripping with honey. “Why did I agree to come with you?” You groaned, hiding your face in your hands. “Because you missed me”, Johnny said at the same time as Jaemin said: “Because you’re a good friend.”

After a beat of silence in which Johnny arranged his actual tattoo gun and Jaemin stared at you while his smile grew bigger and bigger, he asked: “Now which one is it?” “I’m not answering that,” you mumbled from beneath your fingers. “No answer is an answer as well,” Jaemin singsang but luckily the low buzzing of the tattoo machine saved you from any further embarrassment… For now… “Now hold still or I’ll actually stab you,” Johnny warned before he dipped the needle into black ink and began to trace the lines he had just drawn on with a fine needle. “Yessir,” Jaemin joked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Johnny was unusually quiet while he worked, completely tuning out the chatter of you and Jaemin about shitty professors and assignments. You were absolutely fascinated by the confidence he radiated while dragging the needle over his client’s skin. He went back and forth between two different tattoo guns and rubbed Jaemin’s skin every now and then to get rid of excess ink. Soon Jaemin’s whole upper arm was decorated with delicate flowers and leaves and Johnny leaned back to both take a deep breath while stretching his back and to look at his work. “Let’s take a break before I do the color,” he proposed, wiping down the skin. “It looks great,” you complimented his work, taking a picture for Jaemin so he could see it himself. “Damn that pain really pays off,” your friend grinned, zooming in and out of the picture before posting it to his Instagram. “Does it hurt badly?” “You get used to it,” he shrugged, not taking his eyes from his feed, “It’s more like someone continuously scratching you.” “I can show you if you want,” Johnny chimed in from where he was cleaning his tattoo gun from the black ink. “I don’t think I’m spontaneous enough for a sudden tattoo.” “Not even if I offer it for free again?” He laughed. “I’m not mentally prepared for that,” you tried to reason. “I can still show you how it feels though. Without ink.” You shyly nodded and held out your arm for him that he quickly wiped down with disinfectant when he was done putting a fresh needle into the gun. “Just don’t flinch, darling,” he softly spoke before the buzzing of his tattoo gun filled the silence. You expected it to hurt a lot more when the needle touched your skin but it really wasn’t that bad. It was an odd kind of pain you couldn’t really describe. “It’s not that bad,” you told him, looking into his beautiful brown eyes behind his glasses. “It hurts more when it’s directly on the bone or at a more tender area,” Johnny explained and turned the gun off again, bending down to look at the slightly reddened skin of your arm before chucking the used needle into the nearby trashcan. “Let’s patch that up real quick, just treat it like any other scratch.” You nodded and let the handsome man put a band-aid over it. But before you could pull your arm back again, he leaned down to press a kiss on the cloth “For a good and quick healing,” he breathed and grinned smugly when you quickly turned your head away to hide your heated face.

“When you’re done flirting, will you finally put some color into me?” Jaemin interrupted, grinning widely. “That’s what she said,” you mumbled under your breath, making Johnny chuckle. “All you need to do is ask, darling.” Before you could even wrap your mind around what the tattoo artist had just implied, he had already rolled back over to your blue haired friend to take a look at the hummingbird. “Alright let’s do this,” he grinned before wiping down the skin once more. The buzzing of a new machine filled the room and Jaemin scrunched his eyes shut when the needle dipped in turquoise ink met his skin. “This is nasty,” he complained. “Don’t be a baby,” Johnny murmured, dragging the needle over your friend’s skin that accepted the ink quickly. “You want to hold my hand?” You giggled. What you didn’t expect was for Jaemin to actually reach out to you with his unoccupied arm, making a grabby hand. “Jeno always holds my hand,” he whined. “You’re such a big baby, Nana,” you sighed but still laced your fingers together, yelping loudly when Jaemin squeezed down hard. “You said it didn’t even hurt, you big liar,” you squeezed out between gritted teeth. “You’re not the one getting stabbed,” Jaemin argued, “That shit hurts different than the black.” “It’s a different needle,” Johnny explained, “People usually say it hurts less than outlines though.” “It’s not more or less, it’s just different.” “Well it’s going to hurt more if you keep seizing up like that, relax.” “You’re one to fucking talk,” Jaemin sounded upset. “Don’t curse at me for giving you a pretty tattoo,” Johnny just said, dipping his needle into the little pot that held the color again. “Talk him through it,” the artist said to you, looking up from behind his glasses that had slipped down his nose again.

“Hey, remember that time when Donghyuck was so drunk he wanted to jump from the roof into the pool at that frat house?” You quickly said, the silly story coming to mind first. The memory made Jaemin giggle. “Jeno and Mark had so much trouble holding him back once he managed to climb out of the window,” the blue haired boy chuckled. “They were lucky they didn’t fall off.” “That would have made for an even better story though,” Jaemin laughed. “They could have hurt themselves,” you said, scandalized, “You’re hanging out with Renjun too much.” Jaemin didn’t answer, instead he just hummed and wiggled his dark eyebrows.

“Did you ever go to college?” You asked Johnny out of curiosity even though Jaemin had said that the artist preferred to keep quiet and concentrate on his work. “Do I look like I went?” He just laughed, cocking one of his stupidly perfect eyebrows at you when he looked up. “Well, I didn’t want to assume,” you shied away under his gaze. “I dropped out of high school to learn tattooing,” Johnny shared while painting Jaemin’s skin as blue as his hair, “I wasn’t good in school anyways. So art school or something wasn’t an option either. Not that I would have had any money for that.” “What made you want to pick up tattooing then?” You asked curiously. “Art usually is very temporarily and if you make a mistake, you can just erase it or paint over it with another color. Not so much with tattoos. I like that. It’s immortal as long as you don’t start shooting lasers at it.” “I’ve never thought about it like that,” you confessed. Tattooing had never seemed like art to you but that was exactly what it was. Just not on a canvas but under your skin. “Thinking about getting one now?” Jaemin teased, squeezing your hand that he still held. “I haven’t even told my parents about the piercing,” you scoffed, “They would disown me.” “Well too bad, I know a pretty good tattoo artist,” he joked and poked his tongue out. “Do you now?” Johnny asked, a grin on his lips, wiping down Jaemin’s arm before going in with a lighter color. “Yeah, he works in this shady ass shop in Itaewon and I am pretty sure you can buy drugs there as well.” “Those are not for sale,” the artist chuckled when he saw your scandalized expression. “It’s just anesthetics for certain piercing procedures, calm down doll.” “So sadly, it turns out you can’t buy drugs at their shop but it still looks shady and I’m pretty sure they’re paying part of the mafia so the police won’t come to investigate.” “I know nothing of transactions of this sort,” Johnny commented before you could get an actual heart attack. Illegally tattooing and piercing was one thing but mingling with the mafia was a whole other thing. “Anyways, he does pretty cool tattoos and pierces as well,” Jaemin continued, a grin on his lips, “Also talking male to male here, he’s pretty ripped.” At that Johnny started grinning as well. “Wanna know his name?” Jaemin asked you when Johnny turned to clean his needle and you just rolled your eyes but nodded, wondering what he was getting out of all of this. “It’s Jaehyun.” “Excuse me?” Johnny exclaimed with wide eyes when both you and your blue haired friend started laughed at his stupid joke. “This kid,” he mumbled and shook his head before putting the needle back to Jaemin’s skin who seemed to have forgotten to whine about the pain.

The rest of the appointment was spend with you and Jaemin chatting about this and that and a short video call from a red eyed Jeno who had finished his shift at the cat café and wanted to apologize and promised to buy you two dinner after you were done. “I think that’s all I can do for today,” Johnny said after he had stared at the little hummingbird for a while, “Your skin took the color well but if I do any more, I’ll stress the skin too much. I can go in another time if I need to fix anything.” Jaemin nodded, sitting up so he could inspect the colorful hummingbird in the mirror. “Wow that looks sick,” he commented, his eyes going wide, “Totally worth the pain.” “That’s what I wanna hear,” the artist grinned, grabbing some paper towels to rub the tattoo down once more. “Let me snap a picture to post.”

After both men had taken about 20 photos each, Johnny quickly wrapped Jaemin’s arm in plastic wrap, reminding him how to take care of it. “Text me for the next session, I think we could fit some pretty roses at the bottom. Maybe add a dash of color here and there or other animals,” the artist smiled, slipping the glasses off his nose, gently placing them on the table. “I’ll think about it but first I gotta slave away behind the bar to make more money,” Jaemin sighed, shrugging his jacket back on. “And you darling?” Johnny asked, putting on his confident smile again. “When will I see you again?” You just stared at him, at a loss for an answer. Did he really want to see you again? But before you could even open your mouth, Jaemin had already pulled your phone from your grasp, unlocked it and shoved it towards Johnny. “Put your number in already,” he sighed and rolled his eyes dramatically. Laughing, Johnny did as your friend had said. “Very smooth, Jaem.” “I- I guess I’ll text you,” you stuttered when Johnny gave your phone back, your fingers tingling where his touched yours. “I’ll be waiting, darling,” he winked, raking a hand through his inky strands. “Alright, time to leave, before you start drooling,” Jaemin destroyed the intense atmosphere and grabbed your arm to pull you back to the main room and out of the parlor, leaving a laughing Johnny behind in his room.

“I wasn’t even drooling, what the fuck Jaemin,” you argued when you were outside, your phone clutched to your chest. “Stop complaining, I got you his number, you should be thankful,” he just grinned, absolutely shameless, tugging you along through the little street. “I will not thank you for embarrassing me in front of him,” you pouted, unlocking your phone to confirm that Johnny had indeed put his number into the contacts with a little black heart behind his name.

“Is it too early to text him?” You asked when you and Jaemin sat in the subway on the way to his and Jeno’s dorm to take him up on his offer for food. Your friend just laughed at you, making an elderly man scowl at the two of you, who shook his head in disapproval. Well, Jaemin’s visuals didn’t help him when he acted like this in public. But as long as he didn’t care, you wouldn’t care either. “Text him after we’ve eaten,” he advised you. “Then you don’t seem as desperate as you are,” he added, which earned him a punch to his not tattooed arm.

All through dinner, Jaemin retold every embarrassing moment that happened at the tattoo parlor, making Jeno laugh so hard that he almost choked on his rice. You really needed to find new friends. These ones were just harassing you at this point. (Aside from the fact that Jaemin had indeed managed to get you Johnny’s number, you’d thank him later when he couldn’t make fun at you.)

Later that night, you laid in bed in your own dorm room, staring at the screen of your phone. Your fingers were hovering over the keyboard but you really couldn’t think of what you should text Johnny. You didn’t want to seem weird. With how confident he was, he probably did this a lot and you were too proud to make a fool of yourself. Groaning you tossed and turned in your bed for a while, still staring at the empty chat box that by now must be mocking you for your cowardice. Sighing you typed out another short message to immediately delete it again. Should you just send him a simple ‘Hi’ or ask him if he had eaten? How the rest of his day went? In moments like this you whished you were more confident in yourself.

The sound of an incoming message suddenly filled the room and made you jerk. When you saw Johnny’s name on the screen, your heart first stopped for a second before it started beating about three times as fast as it should. How did that happen? With shaking hands you unlocked the phone to see that you in fact didn’t delete the last message but accidentally send it. Luckily it wasn’t as embarrassing as it could have been and Johnny had just answered that he was glad that you had finally texted him. Before you could think of an answer he sent another text asking you why you were still awake this late when he expected you to be a ‘good girl’. You could practically hear his smirk and you couldn’t fight the heat that rose to your cheeks. You replied that you were already in bed and were about to sleep if he was concerned about your sleep pattern that honestly wasn’t the greatest ever since the semester had started. ‘Oh, sexting already’ he replied, making you shriek in embarrassment. Was this what your message had looked like? ‘You alone?’ He asked and with a furiously beating heart you answered with a simple yes.

A couple of seconds went by with no answer from him which definitely didn’t lower your anxiety before the loud sound of your ringtone tore through the silence, Johnny’s name on the display. You quickly answered it to not wake up anyone on your floor, pressing it tightly to your ear. “Hello?” “Good evening, miss,” you heard the rumble of Johnny’s voice, “Missed me already?” “You’re the one who called,” you argued, making the man on the other end of the line giggle. “That is true.” “Why did you call?” You asked curiously, shifting to lie down on your back, staring at the ceiling. “Just wanted some company. My last client just left and I’m cleaning up the shop for today, the others already left,” he explained. “Jaehyun and Taeyong?” “Yeah those two guys,” he sighed and you heard him rummaging in the background. “Is it just you three at the shop?” “Yeah, it was just me and Taeyong at first but Jaehyun is an incredibly quick learner once he had found someone who was willing to teach him a thing or two. So he quickly joined the two of us.” You just hummed, your fingers playing with your hair, unsure of what to say. It was somehow easier to talk to him like this when you couldn’t see his eyes twinkle in mischief or his lips curling up in that confident smirk. Like this he was just a boy who wanted company and not an insanely handsome, heavily tattooed man who flirted shamelessly. “Do you usually work this late?” You asked to fill the silence and out of curiosity as well. If the shop wasn’t legal there sure weren’t any laws regulating how long the artists were supposed to work. “I don’t,” Johnny laughed, “But thank you for your concern. I was just tattooing a friend for free after my last paying client left because he was in the area.” “You do that a lot? Offering up your services for free?” “Just for friends and special people, doll,” he chuckled, “Why? Are you considering getting inked after all?”

Well were you? You didn’t even know at this point. Whenever you had thought of tattoos you had only ever thought about big bold and very black lines, of skulls, names of exes on your skin forever and warped pictures of people’s faces. But never of delicate flowers, bright colors and intricate designs. Johnny had made it obvious that it was art that he was doing and that it wasn’t just some technical procedure to get color beneath your skin. “I- I don’t know,” you confessed, “I never thought much about tattoos until Jaemin started getting them.” “I thought so,” the artist chuckled, “But I bet I could design a pretty piece that would compliment you nicely.” “I don’t think I’m the type for it though,” you argued, thinking about the amount of ink on Johnny’s body and you hadn’t even seen half of it. (Not that you planned on doing so but you were curious to know if there was more hiding beneath his clothes.) “It doesn’t have to be an obvious one. Just something only you know about.” That really got you thinking. His tattoos were really delicate and you had seen that he could write in really pretty cursive. “I don’t want to pressure you into anything, darling. But if you ever want one, you know who to ask.”

“Yeah, thank you Johnny,” you murmured, lost in thought about how you would look like with multiple tattoos. “I like the way you say my name.” “You- what?” You stuttered when he caught you off guard like that, making him laugh. “You’re cute,” he said once he had calmed down. “Stop pouting,” he added when you weren’t answering. “How did you know I was?” Johnny chuckled again. “I just knew.” “Thank you for keeping me company,” he said when you hadn’t said anything in a while. “It’s alright. I like talking to you,” you confessed. You could hear a door closing and his deep chuckle on the other end of the line. “You probably hear that a lot…” you murmured, embarrassed at how the words had slipped past your lips. “I actually don’t,” Johnny said, “I appreciate the words, darling. I’m all done cleaning up now, thank you for keeping me company.” “It’s fine, no need to thank me.” “You should go sleep now, it’s already late. Sweet dreams, doll. Maybe I’ll even visit you.” “Goodnight, Johnny,” you squeaked. The last thing you heard before he ended the call was another chuckle and a hushed goodbye. Smiling widely you turned your face into your pillow to muffle the scream you let out. How could this man make your heart beat faster like that with just a few simple words? And why did this short phone call make you so happy? Sighing, you put your phone to your nightstand and cuddled tightly into your blanket, the thought of Johnny’s smooth voice guiding you to sleep where he indeed did visit you.

After that initial phone call, Johnny called you more and more often. Sometimes when he was on his lunch break and his colleagues were still working, sometimes later at night when your head was spinning from studying and he was cleaning up the shop. You two talked about your days, you complained about professors, deadlines and assignments and he told you about tattooing and his sometimes crazy clients. And every now and then Johnny would bring up his offer to tattoo you. Which made your thoughts spiral every single time. In class you would scroll through Johnny’s Instagram account, imagining what some of the intricate, more feminine designs would look like on your skin. After much consideration you definitely ruled out anything big or colorful. But something small wouldn’t hurt, right? Well it would, you would be giving him permission to stab you with an automated needle a bunch of times which in itself sounded really scary. But Jaemin’s tattoo looked nice. And after his skin had peeled, the hummingbird truly looked absolutely incredible and you couldn’t wait for him to visit the shop again to keep working on the sleeve.

So in a whim of bravery and with the help of the little glass of wine you had drank you told Johnny that he should tattoo you. “Are you for real?” He asked. “I am,” you giggled, “I’ve thought about it a lot the past weeks.” “I am honored, darling. What will it be?” “Something small and no colors please,” you told him. “That’s all you’re asking for?” “Yeah, I… I like the simple black stuff you do,” you stuttered, suddenly really nervous and unsure if this was actually a good idea. “I’ll design something that’ll match you perfectly,” Johnny promised, sounding very eager. You could hear some rummaging on his end of the line. “I could fit you in Friday evening after my last client. It won’t be too late and I need some time to come up with a design that’s worthy of being in your body.” You swallowed dryly. If you said yes, you couldn’t back out anymore. You would be getting inked. Secretly. Without telling anyone. Not to mention illegally. In a reasonably shady shop that was owned by the most gorgeous man you had ever met. Taking a deep breath, you nodded before you realized that he couldn’t see that. “I’ll be there,” you promised. “I’m looking forward to it, doll,” Johnny said before he wished you sweet dreams just like every time when he called you late at night.

The neon light in front of the door to the shop was already shut off when you arrived the next Friday late in the evening but the door gave away when you pushed it open with trembling hands after taking a deep breath. “I thought you weren’t going to come, darling, you left me waiting,” Johnny greeted you, jumping down from the counter he had sat on. He was wearing a simple black t-shirt with a little white rose design over his heart that fit him perfectly. His hair was elegantly swept back, exposing the freshly shaved part on the side. “I’m sorry,” you mumbled, fumbling with the sleeves of your hoodie. “Don’t be nervous, I’ll take good care of you,” he promised, quickly locking the front door before taking you to his room where he motioned for you to sit on the bench. “Do you trust me?” He asked, tipping your head up so you would look into his dark eyes. “I- I think I do,” you stuttered. “I won’t tell you what you’re getting,” Johnny grinned and your eyes widened in shock. “You will like it and it’s not that big.” “I’m not sure, Johnny,” you voiced your concerns but he just pressed his index finger to your lips before you could say any more. Your breath hitched and he could definitely feel your shaky exhale against his finger. “You said you trust me, doll.” Taking another shaky breath, you nodded and a smile spread over his plush lips. “I need you to take off your shirt and lie down on your left side,” he spoke, his voice casual but you could feel something shift in the air between you. At a loss for words you just nodded again and did as Johnny asked when he turned around to gather his stuff.

“Take a couple of deep breaths for me, darling,” he instructed you when he rolled over on his little stool, his glasses sitting low on his nose and his hands already gloved. “It’s going on your ribs,” he told you so you wouldn’t flinch when he quickly dragged a razor over the area before disinfecting it. “I’ll draw a quick sketch first. I don’t want to mess it up when it’s going on your beautiful skin.” You felt the tip of his pen meet your skin in a gentle stroke, tickling your skin so you had to giggle. “Don’t make me mess this up, baby,” Johnny scolded, playfully slapping your back. “It tickles,” you pouted. “I’m trying to be gentle with you,” he said and you could hear the smile in his voice. While he was sketching, you closed your eyes, trying to figure out what he was drawing. But all you could figure out was that it was something rather small which calmed your nerves a bit.

“All done,” the tattoo artist announced after a while and quickly pulled his little side table with his tattoo gun and ink closer. When the low buzzing noise filled the air, you pressed your eyes shut even tighter, balling your hands into fists. Technically you knew it wouldn’t hurt badly, Johnny had shown you before. But you were still getting stabbed a bunch of times and fuck, you were really doing this. Letting this man put something on your body that was going to be there forever and you didn’t even know what it was going to be. “Relax, darling. I’ll be as gentle as I can be,” he promised, running a hand up and down your back. “It’s going to be on me forever,” you said. “It is. Your own personal piece of art on your body. Just for you to have.” That was a beautiful way to see it, you thought. It’s not just some pigment stabbed into your skin but art. Something unique no one else had. And Johnny would be painting it on just you for you and you alone. “Okay, let’s do this,” you breathed. “That’s my good girl,” Johnny praised and the words made your stomach twist with a feeling you didn’t want to further explore.

The pain was bearable. It was weird at first and the ribs sure hurt more than it had on your arm and the bones somehow seemed to amplify the buzzing, making it travel through your body. You had to grit your teeth when Johnny went over what seemed to be the middle part of the tattoo, where he grazed the skin in quick successions. “That hurts.” “I know, baby. But you’re almost done. You’re doing so well for me,” he soothed and gave you a small break to breathe before he went back in.

“All done, darling,” Johnny announced a little later, turning off his machine and rubbing the tattoo down with a wet paper towel. “Can I see it now?” You asked. “In a bit, keep your eyes closed,” he spoke softly and took your hands in his now ungloved ones to first guide you into a sitting position and then off the bench and over to what you assumed to be the mirror. He turned you so your side was facing the glass and put one of his big hands on your waist. It felt hot on your exposed skin and made goosebumps break out on your skin. “Open your eyes, doll.” You did and looked directly into his dark chocolate brown eyes behind his glasses. “I’m too scared to look now, is that silly?” You asked, losing yourself in his eyes and leaning towards his body that just seemed to radiate heat. “It’s beautiful, just like you,” he assured you, squeezing your waist reassuringly. After taking a deep breath, you tore your gaze away from him and turned to look at yourself in the mirror where a delicate, black chrysanthemum was awaiting you on the skin over your ribs. It indeed looked beautiful, absolutely stunning. It was small but looked so delicate and realistic and fit well with the curves of your body. “It’s stunning,” you whispered.

“Thank you, Johnny.” “No need to thank me, darling,” he chuckled and when your eyes met again, his were dark and almost hungry. “But I think I should reward you for being so good while I tattooed you.” Before you could ask what kind of reward he was talking about, he had already connected your lips in a passionate kiss and pulled your body flush against his. You couldn’t help but sigh now that you finally knew what the metal of his lip piercing felt like against your lips. Johnny was a good kisser and you were boneless in his strong grip not long after he had slipped his tongue past your lips after you had moaned into the kiss when he had started to push you backwards to the bench again, hoisting you back up. “Let me make up for the pain I’ve caused you,” he breathed against your swollen lips when you broke apart to breathe. “Just keep kissing me like that,” you demanded, burying your hands in his soft black locks to kiss him again. He chuckled and let you dominate the kiss for a while, toying with the black ring in his lip and exploring his mouth. Meanwhile Johnny’s hands started to wander from their place on your waist down to grope at your ass, pulling you forward against him, so you could feel his growing erection between your legs which made a spark of arousal shoot through you.

“Let me make you feel good, baby,” he breathed heavily while kissing down your neck, gently taking the skin between his teeth. “Please Johnny,” you begged, feeling the arousal simmer low in your stomach. Grinning he pulled back and raked his dark eyes over your figure before making quick work of your belt and sliding your jeans along with your panties from your legs, only shortly struggling with your shoes. “It’s not Johnny now, baby,” he rasped when he kneeled down in front of you, pulling you towards him roughly, so your glistening core was exposed to him. “It’s Daddy,” he added before licking a broad stripe through your folds and flicking his tongue at your clit. You could just mewl and throw your head back in pleasure. You didn’t know that this would be such a turn on for you. “Say it, baby,” Johnny demanded, lazily dragging his tongue over your sensitive bundle of nerves. “Please Daddy,” you whimpered and you could feel his low groan vibrating against your core. He wasted no time to attach his plush lips to your clit, gently sucking and grazing his teeth over the little nub, making you mewl and shiver in pleasure. He definitely knew what he was doing, altering between stimulating your clit to the point where it almost became too much before he focused on dragging his tongue through your folds, gently prodding against your entrance before it gave away. When Johnny moaned you could feel it travel straight through you, making your head swim with pleasure. Looking down to the man kneeling in front of you, you were met with his dark eyes, staring straight up into yours. Moaning, you threaded your fingers into his soft hair and pressed his face closer to your core, not even taking the chance that he could move back. “Feels so good, Daddy,” you moaned when he spread your labia with his fingers so his tongue could dive deeper into you, stimulating your velvety walls. When he hummed it send sweet vibrations through your core and you could feel your orgasm approach almost embarrassingly fast. “Mmmh, so close Daddy.” “You wanna cum, baby?” He rasped, his hot breath fanning over your clit that he was lazily rubbing with two fingers. You bit your lip and met his dark eyes, nodding furiously. “Then beg for it, doll. I could stay here for hours,” Johnny spoke before he turned his head to mouth at your thigh, gently biting and sucking at the sensitive skin until it bruised under his ministrations. “I would just keep you right on the edge for hours until you’re a shaking mess for me, begging for release.” His lips split into a wicked grin when he saw how his dirty words affected you and he slowed his fingers on your clit until it was just enough to keep you stimulated but not enough to make the knot in your stomach snap. “Please Daddy,” you whimpered. “Please what baby?” He rested his head on your thigh, looking up at you from innocent eyes as if he wasn’t driving you insane with just his fingers. “What is it beautiful?” He repeated the question, replacing his fingers with his tongue. “You wanna cum?” “Yes please,” you whined, grinding your hips against his tongue to get more friction. “Well if you ask so nicely…” Johnny immediately slipped two fingers inside you with almost no resistance from how ridiculously wet you were and began pumping them in and out of your core fast, crooking them to search for your sweet spot. “Come on baby,” he growled, locking eyes with you again when he closed his lips around your clit. Almost screaming his name, you came hard when his fingers finally found your sweet spot, rubbing at it mercilessly to help you ride out your orgasm. Your thighs were shaking and you fell back onto the bench, the leather sticking to your back where you just laid for a while, your head spinning, breathing heavily.

“You look gorgeous like that,” Johnny complimented you, when he got back up from the floor, raking his clean hand through the mess that was his hair before he shamelessly took his fingers that were covered in your essence into his mouth, sucking them clean. Through half lidded eyes you could see the way he was still straining against the fabric of his jeans and the sight made your mouth water. “You’re still hard,” you said breathless. “I am,” he said matter of factly. You wordlessly let your thighs fall open for him, exposing your core to him. “Oh baby,” Johnny cursed, pressing the heel of his palm against his bulge, “As much as I want to fuck you right now, you still have a fresh tattoo, doll.” “Please, Johnny, I want it,” you begged. “Shh, baby,” he soothed you rubbing a hand over your thigh, “Let me dress that tattoo and then I’ll take you upstairs to fuck you on an actual bed like you deserve.” You nodded, amazed by his amount of self-control.

Johnny worked quickly and efficiently: Cleaning your tattoo one last time before putting some ointment on it to keep it moisturized. At last he gently taped down a small sheet of plastic foil to keep it safe. “All done, beautiful,” he spoke before pecking your lips, “You still want to come upstairs with me?” “Yes Daddy,” you answered and you swore you could see his eyes darken just from the word alone. “Hold on tightly,” he ordered before scooping you up into his arms, holding you up by your thighs. Squealing you quickly wrapped your arms and legs around him, holding on tightly. “I’ll get your clothes before we open up tomorrow,” he mumbled when he carried you through the back door of the shop that lead to a dusty staircase. You pressed your body closer to his, nuzzling your face into his neck where the smell of his cologne was the strongest, to have some of his warmth seep into your skin when you started to shiver from the cold air. Lazily you let your lips travel over his skin, sucking a mark next to a splash of ink.

Johnny quickly grabbed the keys to his apartment’s door from atop of the doorframe (not really safe) and unlocked his door while holding you up with just one of his arms, the display of strength making your head spin. With quick steps he crossed the way to his bed and gently laid you down on the soft sheets, immediately crawling on top of you, crowding you against the mattress. “I knew you would look good in my bed,” he rasped, kissing your neck while his hands made quick work of the bra that you were still wearing for some reason. “You’re gorgeous, doll,” he breathed after he had sat up on his knees, looking down at you with dark eyes, his big hands roaming your body. Feeling shy under all the attention and compliments he was giving you, you tried to hide your face behind your fingers but he wasn’t having any of it, quickly grabbing your wrists in one hand to pin them above your head. “Don’t hide from me baby. Daddy wants to see how much you’re enjoying yourself.” You could just nod, trying to force down the whimper that almost spilled past your lips, he hadn’t even done much yet and you were already feeling arousal pulse through your veins. “I couldn’t hear your answer,” Johnny teased, gently grabbing one of your boobs to massage the soft flesh. “Yes, Daddy.” “That’s my good girl,” he grinned, releasing your wrists to slip his T-Shirt over his head, revealing his strong chest where the eagle majestically spread its wings and the hard lines of his abs. “Like what you see?” He asked smugly, climbing off the bed to unbuckle his belt and slip his jeans off his narrow hips, revealing strong, muscled thighs. One of them was covered with the face of a growling panther while the other was decorated with a colorful koifish tattoo that disappeared beneath the fabric of his dark boxers that were doing very little to hide a prominent bulge. “Let me,” you breathed and crawled over to hook your thumbs into the waistband. But before you pulled them down, you pressed a couple of kisses to the cherry blossom branch tattoo that seemed to stretch from his back over his hipbone and further down, mingling with the koi tattoo further down. With every centimeter of skin you exposed, more ink from the blossoms became visible and you kissed every single one of the delicate flowers. When his length finally sprang free, you had to swallow dryly: His cock was huge and hung heavy between his legs. Licking your lips you looked up to him, to find him grinning down at you. “Go to town, baby.”

He didn’t need to tell you twice, you were itching to feel his heavy weight on your tongue. You pressed a sweet kiss to his tip before placing a hand at the base only to find him surprisingly soft as you experimentally pumped your hand once. “It takes a while for it to get fully hard,” he groaned when you moved your hand up and down his shaft a couple of times, feeling it pulse beneath your fingers. Damn if he wasn’t even fully hard, how big would he be if he was? Holding him at the base, you licked a broad stripe up the whole length before you swiped your tongue around the pink head, pulling another groan from Johnny’s lips. Taking a deep breath, you finally took him in your mouth and hollowed your cheeks, tasting his skin. The weight on your tongue felt just right and you couldn’t help but moan as you slowly started to take more and more of him until you felt him hit the back of your throat. Shit, you were barely able to fit half of his length in your mouth like this. “You’re so big,” you moaned when you pulled off of him with a wet pop, spreading your saliva down the shaft with both of your hands. Johnny just hummed and grabbed a handful of your hair to shove your mouth back onto his dick. He cursed when the velvety heat surrounded him again and gently began to thrust in and out your mouth. “Fuck you look so good with my cock in your mouth,” he breathed heavily. You could only moan where your lips were stretched around his length and hollow your cheeks when he pulled out, the grip he had on your hair keeping you in place while he snapped his hips. “Shit baby,” Johnny cursed when he pulled out, panting while he rested the head of his cock on your outstretched tongue. “I could cum like this.” You whined pathetically, looking up at him with pleading eyes. He chuckled and gently slapped his cock against your lips, smearing them with precum. “But you don’t want that, don’t you, baby? You want my cock inside you? Stretching you out?” “Yes Daddy, please. I need it so bad,” you blabbered, not even knowing where those words were coming from but you seemed to have said the right thing with how Johnny’s dick twitched in his hand.

“Then get on your hands and knees for me, baby. Ass up.” It was almost comically how fast you complied, baring yourself to him. “Such a good girl,” he praised, grabbing your asscheeks to knead and pull them apart. “Beautiful.” “Please Daddy,” you begged him, arching your back further. “Patience baby,” he chuckled. A frustrated groan got stuck in your throat and turned into a drawn out whine when he pushed two of his fingers inside you, pumping them quickly and curling them to find your sweet spot again. Soon two fingers became three and he had reduced you to a moaning mess with how he abused your sweet spot once he had found it again. “You think you’re ready for my cock, baby?” “Yes. Oh god, yes please,” you begged while shamelessly grinding back on his fingers that he had stilled inside of you. “Spread your cheeks for me,” he ordered while quickly grabbing a condom from his bedside table and rolling it onto his cock. Balancing your weight on your knees and shoulders, you reached around yourself to pull your asscheeks apart so Johnny could see your core clenching around nothing. “You’re such a good girl for me,” he rasped, running his palm along the curve of your body while lazily thrusting his cock through your folds, making it glisten with your essence. Finally you could feel him nudging at your entrance with the thick head of his cock. “You want it, baby?” “Yes please Daddy,” you gasped, trying hard to be good and not grind back against him. “You’re such a good girl for me,” he chuckled, “And good girls get what they want if they ask so politely.” With that he finally sank into you in one agonizingly slow thrust until you could feel his hip bones press against your skin. You had to screw your eyes shut and bite your lip to suppress a whimper. You had never felt so full before.

“Fuck baby, you’re so tight,” Johnny groaned, grabbing you by the dip of your waist with his big hands, grinding you on his cock. “I’m so full, Daddy,” you gasped when he slowly pulled out until only the head of his cock was inside you before he languidly thrust back in. “Yeah? You like that? Being stuffed full of my cock?” You could only moan and nod where your head was pressed into the sheets. His cock was so big that it seemed to press against every good spot that was inside you, setting your nerve endings on fire, the pain from being stretched like that only adding to your pleasure. “You‘re sucking me right back in baby,” he cursed and gripped your waist harder, pulling you back on his cock as he picked up the pace, low groans falling from his lips. Your moans got progressively louder and louder the faster Johnny snapped his hips. “Hands behind your back, baby,” he ordered panting and immediately grabbed both your wrists in his hands to use them as leverage so he could fuck into you faster, the change of angle and pace making you moan his name. Your head was swimming with pleasure and you could only moan and mewl beneath him, imagining how he would bite his lip while watching his dick disappear inside you over and over again, stretching out the delicate skin of your sex. “God baby, your ass looks amazing,” Johnny groaned, praise after praise falling from his lips that reduced you to a moaning mess.

With one particularly hard thrust he buried himself to the hilt inside you and draped his body over yours, his hot breath fanning over your face when he spoke, a deep rumble in his chest while grinding his dick right against your sweet spot that had you seeing colors behind your closed eyes. “Wanna see you bounce on my dick, doll. Can you do that for me?” Taking a deep breath, you nodded. Your ability to form coherent sentences had left you as soon as he had begun to fuck you in earnest. “You’re such a good girl,” he purred and gently pulled out, making you whimper from the loss. You felt the bed dip next to you and when you opened your eyes, you were met with Johnny’s pleased smirk as he leaned against the headboard of the bed, his cock resting against his hip, too heavy to properly stand up and you couldn’t stop another whimper. “Come on baby, I know you want it,” he grinned, crooking a finger in a ‘come closer’ motion. Dragging your limbs from beneath you with great effort, you climbed onto his lap, immediately claiming his lips in a messy kiss. You buried your hands in his stupidly perfect hair to mess it up and tug at the inky strands, causing Johnny to moan into the kiss. “Hmm, my baby is feisty,” he chuckled when he broke the kiss, the pupils of his dark eyes blown so wide that they seemed almost black. “But you promised me to ride my dick,” he reminded you. “And I’m gonna,” you slurred, reaching between your bodies to grab his cock, giving it a couple of strokes. “But turn around for me baby. Wanna see how much my fat cock is going to stretch you out,” he rasped, playfully biting your lips. “But I want to see you too,” you complained. “Oh you can,” he grinned and pointed over your shoulder. You reluctantly turned around before you saw what he meant. Right across from the bed was a big mirror and you gasped because of how fucked out you already looked. A couple of tears had rolled down your cheeks and messed up your makeup and your lipstick was smeared around your lips.

You carefully grabbed Johnny’s cock again and held it steady so you could sink down on him, watching yourself in the mirror until you sat snug on his lap and had to close your eyes because the feeling was so overwhelming. He felt even bigger like that. “You okay, baby?” He asked, grabbing your hips tightly to help you swivel them on his cock, making it press into your walls just how you liked it. “How does your cock feel even bigger like this?” You gasped as you leaned forward and slowly started to ride him at first to get used to his size and figure out the best angle for you. Your legs shook with the effort to keep your rhythm but the look Johnny had on his face, his eyes glued to where you two were connected, made it worth it. Suddenly a wicked grin spread on his lips and he snapped his hips up when you lowered yourself again, tearing loud moans from both of you. “Fuck, do that again,” you demanded when you raised your hips again. “What’s the magic word?” Johnny teased, holding you up so you wouldn’t drop down again. “Please, Daddy.” Groaning he started to snap his hips up every time you ground down on him, making your skin slap together with an obscene noise.

God you wanted to die on his dick. “Do you now?” Johnny laughed. Shit did you say that out loud? “Want to feel how deep it goes inside you?” He rasped, wrapping his strong arms around your waist. You went lax in his hold and mewled helplessly. Who knew that a little display of strength and a big dick were such turn ons for you that your brain was reduced to mush. Grinning he carefully pulled you up and against his chest and draped your legs over his after he had planted his feet firmly onto the mattress. “Watch, baby,” he ordered as he lifted you off of him until only the tip was barely inside you anymore before letting you drop down again. You mewled and thrashed in his hold, the feeling just on the edge of too much. Feeling him deep inside you was one thing but actually seeing it was a whole other thing and it messed with your head. Curiously you pressed your hand down on your lower stomach when Johnny had started to piston his hips up into you instead of dropping you down onto his cock every time and you swore you could feel him move inside you. A drawn out curse left your lips and you threw your head back onto his shoulder.

With the way he was snapping his hips up you could feel your orgasm approach at lightning speed and you were so far gone that you shamelessly reached between your legs to stimulate your clit. “Fuck baby, you’re so hot like this,” Johnny groaned, grinding his dick inside you as you quickly rubbed your clit, toeing right on the edge. “Please Daddy,” you cried out, not sure what you were even begging for. “You gonna cum on my cock?” He rasped, snapping his hips harshly, “Wrapped around my big cock stretching you out like this?” You nodded your head furiously, your eyes screwed shut. You were so close that you could already feel your toes curling. “Show me baby. Show Daddy how good his cock makes you feel.” That’s what pushed you over the edge, the way he was panting in your ear, his voice strained from how he was drilling into you. The coil in your stomach snapped and you almost screamed his name, your body curling inwards and thighs shivering as your orgasm washed over you, making a bunch of colors explode behind your lids. In the back of your mind you registered Johnny’s curses and how he was grinding his cock inside you to help you ride out your orgasm. “Such a good girl,” he praised when your body went lax on top of him, your chest heaving with heavy breaths. You briefly wondered if you had ever cum this hard and you couldn’t think of any other time. “Thank you Daddy,” you panted, turning your face to press a messy kiss to his plush lips that were bitten raw. He chuckled lowly when you whimpered when his still hard cock shifted when you tried to turn around.

“Will you let me fuck you for a little longer, baby?” He asked, running a hand through your sweaty hair. Instead of answering him, you lifted yourself off his dick to turn around on his lap, capturing his lips again. “Want you to ruin me,” you whispered between kisses, “Want you to ruin me for any other men. Want to only remember how you feel inside of me.” Johnny growled deep in his chest before he pushed you down onto the bed, hungrily licking into your mouth. “You’re the one who is ruining me,” he panted, rising to his knees. He quickly grabbed your legs and threw them over his shoulders before he sank into you again with a low groan. This time he didn’t waste any time with building up the pace and immediately snapped his hips harshly, chasing his own orgasm. “You’re taking me so well, baby,” he panted, folding your thighs to your chest so he could push into you even deeper, making you see stars with how he was nailing your sweet spot with the new angle. And even though you had just cum, you felt another orgasm build inside your stomach. A row of curses left Johnny’s lips when he could watch his dick slide in and out of you again and he gripped your thighs so hard you were sure you’d have bruises there tomorrow. But that was something you’d worry about later, right now your world was only made up of the handsome man with his huge cock that was currently rearranging your guts with how vigorously he was snapping his hips, making your skin slap together with lewd sounds.

“I’m gonna cum baby,” Johnny grunted, his hips losing their rhythm. “On me,” you managed to choke out, still lost in your own pleasure. Another groan left his bitten lips before he quickly pulled out and ripped the condom off, jerking his cock with quick strokes, his eyes fixed to yours. All it took was a couple of jerks before he threw his head back and you could see his abdominal muscles contract before the first burst of white hot cum spurted from his dick and covered your chest and stomach. With parted lips he stroked himself through his orgasm, milking rope after rope from his cock until he hissed with overstimulation. “Fuck,” he cursed before giggling when he saw the mess he had made of you, his cum dripping from your boobs and running down your stomach. He cursed again before claiming your lips. “You want to cum one last time, baby?” “Please Daddy,” you whined, spreading your legs further for him. “My good girl,” he sighed, sinking two fingers into your heat, quickly crooking them to stimulate your sweet spot while his thumb was putting sweet pressure on your clit, making you thrash beneath him. “You look so good covered in my cum,” he rasped before he kissed you harshly to swallow your moans and cries of pleasure. You desperately held on to his shoulders, breaking the kiss when your head was spinning from the lack of oxygen. While speeding up his fingers, Johnny began sucking bruises low on your neck and over the soft skin of your cleavage. “Shit, I’m gonna-“ you didn’t get to finish your sentence because right that moment he had sucked one of your nipples into his mouth which was just enough to send you over the edge for a third time that night, your lips parted in a silent scream of his name and your thighs shaking and closing around the handsome man kneeling between them. “That’s my good girl,” he praised breathily and gently rocked his fingers to help you ride out your orgasm before he pulled them out, instead winding his strong arms around your body, holding you to his inked chest.

For a while he just held you close, not caring that his cum was now also stuck to his chest. “Fuck that was a lot,” you chuckled, burying your face in the crook of his neck, inhaling his calming scent. “Not what you thought would happen when you get a free tattoo?” Johnny softly spoke, carding his hand through your messy hair. “Not at all.” Another question was burning inside your head but you were too scared to ask it. You didn’t want to push him and ruin the mood. “I should clean you up and see if that tattoo is still okay. Then we can cuddle, alright?” The tattoo artist said before he detangled your bodies from one another to get up from the bed. He looked around on the floor for a cloth and you could finally see where the cherry blossoms on his hip were coming from. A big samurai was stretched over half his back, surrounded by the pinkish blossoms. It seemed like it wasn’t a complete piece yet, the samurai staring at the still untouched skin of Johnny’s left shoulderblade. “Your back tattoo is really pretty,” you mumbled to fill the silence while Johnny was wiping his chest clean before he gently did the same to you, taking extra caution when looking at your still fresh tattoo. “Thank you,” he smiled, pressing a kiss to your forehead, the metal of his piercing feeling warm on your skin, “We should change that foil real quick.” You just nodded and let him do his work, exhaustion settling into your bones.

“Do you do this with all your clients?” Shit. You hadn’t meant to ask that, the question had just slipped your lips and you could feel Johnny freeze where he was dressing your tattoo again before he secured the last piece of tape. He sighed and slipped beneath the covers, pulling you against his chest, so you could listen to his heartbeat. “Not all of them,” he answered eventually, “I haven’t slept with a client in a while. It happens sometimes but usually I don’t think much about it.” “And now you do?” He just hummed nonchalantly, playing with your hair. “They usually don’t come back after I fuck them.” He paused, holding his breath. “Will you come back?” Your heart started to race and you could feel a bright smile spreading over your lips. “For more free tattoos and piercings?” “Oh, yeah, I guess,” he sounded so deflated, the confident tattoo artist suddenly gone. “You idiot,” you giggled, pillowing your head on his sternum so he could see the smile on your lips, “I like you Johnny. I’ll come back if you want me to.” Now he was also smiling, his features softening. “Don’t make jokes like that, my heart is fragile,” he joked, wrapping you up in his strong arms.

“Which one was your first one?” You asked him when the silence between you stretched while you traced the scales of the dragon that wound around his arm. “My first tattoo?” Johnny shifted around for a while before he showed you his other arm that had all kinds of different designs on it, some in bright colors, some strictly black. “That little guy over here,” he said with a smile on his lips and pointed to a little sunflower at the bend of his elbow, “To remind me to always look at the sun, at the bright side of life.” “It’s cute,” you breathed, touching the yellow petals. “And then it went downhill from there,” he chuckled, “It’s addicting.” “Let’s hope I can stay abstinent.” “What a shame, I’d love to cover you in my art,” Johnny confessed, tilting your face up so he could claim your lips in a kiss. “Maybe one or two more,” you breathed in between kisses, making him chuckle against your lips.

#kafenetwork #johnny #seo youngho #johnny suh #nct #johnny smut #johnny fluff #nct smut #johnny imagines #johnny scenarios #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct fic #johnny fic #johnny fanfic

4K notes · View notes

davidmann95 · 3 years

Note

Comics this week (9/29/2021)?

Anonymous asked: This week's comics?

Inferno #1: So Hickman's making his last story before he leaves the X-Books because the plan no longer has space for him about hubristic scheming overseers with grand visions being righteously overthrown by the younger rabble, huh? You can't fault the man for self-awareness.

S.W.O.R.D. #8: With these last two issues, yeah, I think I'm finally starting to get what the hubub's been about all these years with Storm.

The Marvels #5: Fine, again I'm just getting this for dad.

I Am Not Starfire: My store finally got it! Even though it's pretty much the Very Solid YA I expected, mostly knowing of it via that weird moment it was a minor flashpoint makes it weird that that's 'all' it is.

Justice League #68: Fair's fair: nothing in the solicit for this issue was technically a lie. What we got however was either a bizarrely extended gag - which is definitely possible - or a winking self-admission on Bendis's part that he won't be doing anything new or interesting with the book. So sorry Ram V, I'm liking the Justice League Dark backup but not enough to keep up with this any longer.

Wonder Woman: Black and Gold #4: 5 perfectly nice stories here; not much else to say.

Superman '78 #2: Definitely enjoyed this more than the first issue, giving Torres more room to flex and blending in a nice little touch of Bronze Age Superman sensibilities.

Action Comics #1035: Hilarious this doesn't make even a cursory effort to line up with how Authority or Son of Kal-El portray what goes down here, but this is a really really good issue so I'm more than willing to let that slide. Damn though, I know I was pretty much the only one who liked Superman of Metropolis alright but I guess that was a fluke with Lewis, because these Tales of Metropolis backups continue to stink.

Superman: Son of Kal-El #3: And Taylor flip-flops back onto his better side. The showcase second page for Timms isn't nearly as neat as it wants to be - there's no flow to speak of when that'd do so much to put it over - but it's still a very nice book to look at and this sells a gaggle of Big Moments incredibly well.

Batman/Superman #22: This however is exactly as neat as it wants to be. Yang better be getting the assignment of his goddamn life to be leaving this behind.

Legends of the Dark Knight #5: Mostly uninterested in this incarnation of the book, but knew I'd pick up the Brandon Thomas issue and I was far from disappointed.

Batman: Reptilian #4: What a gross, mean-spirited, distasteful, thoroughly enjoyable read this continues to be. And almost doubled over cackling when Ennis did the most Ennis possible thing and made clear the entire impetus for the project was (rot13) ernqvat gur jvxv ragevrf sbe 'Ongzna Ebthrf Tnyyrel' naq nfxvat uvzfrys "bxnl, juvpu bs gurfr shpxref pna V gvr ng yrnfg n YVGGYR ovg vagb Ivrganz". And this is probably Sharp's best showcase issue yet, with how much he manages to show off in what's in theory 22 pages of almost pure conversation.

Echolands #2: JH Williams III continues to produce, this is all that matters, for this book and arguably culture as a whole.

Crossover #8: This is getting gratingly barely-tolerable, as opposed to the deranged joyride of balls out offensive nerd-glurge it came roaring out of the gate as.

The Good Asian #5: I'll have to sit down with the book once it's done given how much this recontextualizes; another fine issue.

Adventureman #5: The text piece at the back makes something of a case for why this wasn't the last issue of the first trade and before the hiatus, but for god's sake, it so clearly should have been. Still a ton of fun though.

The Department of Truth #13: And on the exact opposite end of 'what if all those old stories were true(ish)', of course this is still as good as it gets.

DIE #20: I don't know how one could discuss this without discussing the entire series and everything surrounding it - which I may well do, though not on this blog I don't think, something more expansive - but I don't think there's ever been a book before* where I was able to say with certainty, long before the last issue dropped, "I'm going to get the coffee table edition of this too". Almost surely my favorite work from Gillen even among others seemingly so much more tailor-made to my interests, Hans needs to be chained to a desk and kept on an IV drip and trained on that Uberman sleep schedule so as to never stop producing sequential art, and possibly my favorite book of the last several years with all said and done.

(*Aside from Multiversity, though that's an Absolute edition - finally happening! - rather than coffee table.)

#Week's Comics #Opinion

13 notes · View notes

radramblog · 3 years

Text

Eldritch Moon my beloved

I think most Magic players are going to have a favourite set. Often that’s going to be one they started playing with, or one that really got them into the game, or one that had a limited or standard format they really enjoyed. A lot of people won’t, and that’s okay, they’re allowed, it’s hard to pick favourites sometimes.

But for me, it’s Eldritch Moon, aka the last time we went to Innistrad, and things got a bit more tentacular.

Eldritch Moon had a lot working against it from the get-go.

The Shadows block immediately followed the Battle for Zendikar block, one which a lot of people Didn’t Like. Whether it be for some of the more questionable art direction, for the relatively weak cards and boring parasitic mechanics, and for arguably some of the lamest story the game has had to date. More relevantly, though, it was a pair of sets where a fan-favourite plane was essentially dominated by squid monsters and lost a lot of its unique identity in the process- gone was the fun D&D-esque adventure world, replaced by stark wastelands and a war story with like one good story article. It’s the Tazri one.

And then the next set was Shadows over Innistrad. Another return to a fan-favourite plane, with a huge mystery being built up as to why everything was going to shit again. Why Avacyn and her angels were turning on humanity, why there are all these funky stones everywhere, what exactly Nahiri was doing fucking around on the plane of someone she apparently doesn’t like very much.

There were cryptic hints in the set itself. Its title is a reference to the Lovecraft story, Shadows over Innsmouth, with a fair few cards alluding to the story itself. A few cards did have subtle tentacles in the art, as well as subtle warping of flesh and world. The most damning clue came in the form of a puzzle regarding different flavour texts for the card Tamiyo’s Journal, which gave a particular phrase- “Remember this: they came as three”- flavour text from a Battle for Zendikar card referring to the three Eldrazi Titans, only two of which had been dealt with in that story.

Despite this, people still denied that this was the plot-to-be. There were still rumours that it was somehow Marit Lage again after all this time, or that the threat was a new one, or that it was somehow the Gitrog Monster’s fault. Personally, I wanted to believe this, and desperately didn’t want the next set to be Eldrazi-themed- I’d gotten pretty sick of them from BfZ and OGW and was very much enjoying all the new Werewolves and Madness cards and Delirium mechanic. This was at the point where I was drafting at FNM weekly, and the fun differential between the two blocks was stark.

But of course, the mystery was revealed. It was old god Emrakul the whoooole time! Quelle fucking surprise. And yet it ended up being significantly better than the previous block, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the story is just kind of better. We get to see distinctly through the cards and the plot how the influence of Emrakul has affected the regular citizens of Innistrad, and how all its various factions- the Church, the vampire manors, the packs of werewolves, et cetera- were all twisted in her visage. We get to see the desperate fight against them, with all these gothic horrors warring against eldritch horrors, and against themselves. And we get both Jace doing some surreal journey-to-the-centre-of-the-mind shit while Liliana gets to be the hero and Tamiyo gives us an ending that raises more questions than it answers.

Also, Sorin gets stuck in a rock. Fuck that guy, Nahiri was always cooler, and fuck War of the Spark for apparently just having them make up off screen.

Secondly, the cards. Flavourwise, the three Eldrazi Titans’ corrupting influence manifests differently for each- Ulamog consumes and drains the world, Kozilek corrupts the mind and wreaks havoc on space, and Emrakul? As we see, Emrakul twists flesh into new and horrifying shapes, that the set’s cards display in loving and disgusting detail. While Ulamog and Kozilek’s drones were clearly a part of themselves, the Eldrazi of Innistrad all used to be something much more reasonable before Emrakul made it to the plane.

There are three types of Eldrazi in this set. Firstly- the transform mechanic from Innistrads previous has been played with to suit the needs of the flavour. With the exception of Ulrich, every single double-faced card represents a creature from the world, be it Human or Werewolf or otherwise, that is touched by Emrakul and makes a permanent transformation into something else. There’re masses of limbs, shapes echoing Emrakul herself, and flesh in configurations that Should Not Be. The shift on every card is stark, and in every case, you have to actively put in effort to push them over the edge- and off a cliff which they cannot come back from. This is especially true with the Meld mechanic, with the cards fusing into this giant monstrosity that literally dwarfs every other card on the table.

The next type of EMN-drazi is the Emerge creatures. The mechanic was extremely fun, almost all the cards were eminently playable in at least one format (mostly just limited), and the art is spooky. The flavour of some guy on your table getting fucking chestbursted and having fucking Elder Deep-Fiend pop out is incredible, and each is a great way of showing how the regular fauna of the plane (and flora, like, I think Lashweed Lurker is a plant or something) are mutating in response to the creature’s presence.

Finally, there’s the cards that make 3/2 Eldrazi Horror tokens. There’s less of these and they’re less intense, but by and large they’re a representation of the regular people being affected by the whole thing. Just about every card that makes one of these involves a creature dying in some way (Desperate Sentry, Otherworldly Outburst) or being spawned by an existing mass of flesh (Hanweir, Howling Chorus), and it gives this sense that everybody is affected by this effect.

Of course, that was also a thing in Battle for Zendikar block. The whole thing was Eldrazi, Eldrazi, Eldrazi, with even vanilla 4/3 worms having something to say about fighting them. They key difference of Eldritch Moon is that the flavour of the world is still preserved outside of this Eldrazi presence.

What I’m saying is- the gothic horror of Innistrad is still present despite the eldritch horror of the set’s antagonist. There’s still a corrupt and violent church (albeit with a few more tentacles now), there are still cults and Frankenstein zombies and vampires and werewolves. Innistrad’s tone is compatible enough with the Eldrazi’s that the combination enhances the two rather than diminishes them.

The final thing I want to say is just- the set’s really fun. It has a bunch of my favourite classic limited cards- Thermo-Alchemist, Ulvenwald Captive, and Boon of Emrakul- along with multi-format all-stars like Grim Flayer and Collective Brutality. It has big potential get-there moments with the Meld cards and some of the flip Eldrazi, and splashy interesting cards like Emrakul herself and Harmless Offering. The set drips with flavour that enhances the gameplay, with very little wasted space.

It’s a set I only really have two complaints about. Firstly- lol Ulrich isn’t good and wasn’t what basically any werewolf fan was after. And two- it suffers from an eternal issue that Magic only recently solved, in that it’s a Small Set with a pile of mechanics that it cannot possibly fully explore in its 200 or so cards. The biggest victim of this is Meld, as they could only fit 3 pairs in under the restraints of the set size. And that’s a real shame, considering that it’s a mechanic that we’re probably never seeing again, especially considering the recent Midnight Hunt. I really think there was a missed opportunity to not have a few leftover Eldrazi in that set- whatever happened to the Dronepack? Or the corrupted vampire houses? I suppose, though, that “I want more!” can be the best complaint a creator can get.

Eldritch Moon had big shoes to fill. However, in my eyes, it didn’t just fill those shoes. It filled them and kept filling them until its distended toes burst out the front and sides of the shoes and just kept growing, and bending in really weird ways, and I think I’ve lost the plot of this metaphor. It’s my favourite Magic set, and I don’t see that changing for a while.

#ramble #mtg #mtgemn #eldritch moon #this was the first storyline where jace actually got to be interesting

8 notes · View notes

uncloseted · 3 years

Note

I wish people weren’t so black & white in their view of skins. Yes teenagers do go through these issues and it needs representation but you can acknowledge that and also see the show does glamorise some aspects of serious topics. (Drug abuse, eating disorders) it’s kind of evident in people’s anonymous confessions that I see a lot. People seem to wish they were more like Effy/Cassie or feel like they missed out if they haven’t had drug filled teenhoods. The Cassie ones are sad because a lot of people seem to echo the statement that Cassie worsened their ED’a or encouraged it because they wanted to be like her.

So I think there's kind of a larger question in here that a lot of media has been struggling with recently- should media portray life as it is, or as it should be, and what should media do to protect those who may be vulnerable?

It might not be obvious to people who are newer fans of Skins, but Skins was incredibly groundbreaking and controversial when it came out. Up until then, shows that dealt with "teen issues" were basically like Degrassi; ones where "real life problems" were discussed, but the "bad thing" the character did was always punished, and there was always a lecture about why the Bad Thing was Bad and they shouldn't do it ever again. That rang hollow to a lot of people who had seen the people around them do Bad Things without any serious consequences. So when Skins came out and started showing things as they are (albeit in a heightened kind of way), it was huge. I don't think they knew what would happen, or really had any guidelines for what "safe depiction of dangerous activities" might be. They were trying to tell stories that were authentic to the teenagers they knew, and all the writing was informed by actual teenagers' experiences. I bring this up because in retrospect, I think it's very easy to say that they should have known better. But there wasn't really any point of comparison for them to learn from. They were going into this blind, and I think one can make the argument that mistakes were made because of it.

Back to the original question I posed, I'm honestly not sure if there's a good answer. Maybe we need both Skins and Degrassi, to show the ways in which things arguably should be (a person tries drugs, immediately gets in trouble, never does them again), and the ways things actually are (sometimes people try drugs, use them in party settings, and nothing particularly bad happens), to provide a balanced look at the issue. Maybe we should be trying to mimic real-life statistics as much as possible in our representation. We certainly need to be thoughtful about which stories are being told and which are being left out of the conversation, which in a weird way, brings me to my next point.

Eating disorders are an especially complicated thing to show on screen. By and large, media representation of people with eating disorders is a Thin, Pretty White Girl who just doesn't eat. Usually at some point, someone will tell them that Not Eating is Bad, or they'll faint, and then they'll recover and it's never talked about again.

Cassie was groundbreaking, because she was a Thin, Pretty White Girl who just didn't eat, but she talked about how she got out of eating, was shown putting weights in her pants to pass a weigh-in, and was hospitalized for her eating disorder (although we never really saw what that was like for her). Instead of telling her Not Eating is Bad, Allen told her You Want to Eat, Actually, and even after that, she struggled with her eating disorder before eventually recovering (I guess??) and then never talking about it again. There's not actually a huge difference between Cassie's portrayal of anorexia and the "very special episode" portrayal of anorexia that we were used to before that. But she was (and still is) controversial, because her portrayal shows some of the (less graphic) ins and outs of what life is actually like for someone struggling with an eating disorder.

My issue with the approach the Skins writers took with Cassie is that it's simultaneously too much and too little. It shows just enough of her life that some people tore it down for being an "instruction manual on how to have anorexia" (which, 🙄, in my opinion), but it didn't show enough of the grossness of the reality of actually having an eating disorder, which would help people to better understand what having an eating disorder actually looks and feels like. Other eating disorders, like bulimia, almost never get shown on TV, because there's not as pretty to show, and I think that's a real problem. We also rarely see men with eating disorders, or fat people with eating disorders (or even average weight people with eating disorders), or people of color with eating disorders, or LGBT people with eating disorders, which reinforces this idea that eating disorders are just anorexia, and anorexia is a Vain Straight White Girl Problem.

The reason I find the concern around Cassie's character a bit eye-rolly is that I think it's not an honest depiction of what's actually happening. I do absolutely believe that Cassie's character acted as a trigger for some people with eating disorders, but I think that's the key- some people with eating disorders. Cassie's character wasn't inspiring anorexia in perfectly mentally healthy teenagers as some sort of social contagion; she was impacting people who were already struggling.

And that's where this becomes complicated, because some people with eating disorders will purposely and compulsively seek out triggering material in order to further their disorder. I don't think removing Cassie from the equation would have actually made a difference in that regard, because triggering material is easily accessible and literally everywhere. I think the argument can be made that Skins should have added a trigger warning to episodes where Cassie is explicit about her disorder eating habits (and I do think they should have), but I think on the whole, she created more good than she did harm. She helped people who don't struggle with eating disorders to understand some of the internal logic of the disorder and to see what it's like to actually live with, and she helped people who do struggle see themselves represented in a way that they hadn't been before.

I guess I just think that instead of wringing our hands about what we can and can't show on TV, we'd be better served by adding warnings so that people can avoid potentially triggering content (and so that, in turn, that content can be more honest in its discussion of eating disorders), and providing support for people who are struggling so that they can recover. We should make it mandatory that any image that has been retouched must acknowledge it, and we should show more diverse body types in media and in advertising. But it's easier to wring out hands in a "what about the impressionable children" kind of way than it is to make systemic change to support people who are predisposed to mental illness. Instagram influencers are a much bigger culprit in shaping body image issues than Cassie ever could have been.

I feel kind of similarly about the drug usage of the Skins kids. Should Skins have shown teenagers doing illegal drugs at parties? Probably not. It did definitely make doing drugs look cool and fun. Did Skins need to show that kind of thing for realism, or to get its target demographic to tune in? Maybe. At the end of the day, I think teenagers would be (and are) doing illegal drugs with or without Skins' influence. It's not like we saw a giant spike in teenage drug usage from 2007-2012 that immediately disappeared after episode 10 of series 6 aired. Art imitates life and life imitates art. To me, the bigger questions here are, "what other factors (home life, peer pressure, curiosity, a need for novelty, anxiety, depression, etc) are leading teenagers to want to do drugs?", "if teenagers are going to do drugs, how can we make sure that they do drugs in the safest way possible," and "how do we help teenagers who struggle with addiction recover in an evidence-based way?"

I'm not trying to say that media plays no role in people's life choices and perceptions. We know that it absolutely does. But I think Skins as an individual TV show has a tiny, tiny impact, even if it's your favorite show and you watch it constantly, when compared to all the other factors that contribute to eating disorders and drug use. We absolutely need to be thoughtful about how we tell these stories, and we have to make sure that they're tailored to the audience who's watching them. But we also need to be thoughtful about our media consumption as a whole- which stories are being reinforced over and over again, which stories are entirely missing from the narrative, and which forms of media we're being exposed to all day, every day. We need to be thoughtful about the way we talk about and teach about difficult issues in our day to day lives. We need to have comprehensive support systems for people who are struggling. Those types of actions will do much more than taking even the most graphic portrayals of drug use or eating disorders off the air ever would.

10 notes · View notes

thinkingisadangerouspastime · 3 years

Note

I just want to say, before I say anything, I'm not accusing you of saying this and I understand that you feel how you feel. I'm just asking this in a very general way and was wondering your thoughts. Why is it so verboten to think Zuko might have had a slight crush on Katara? There seems to be a rush to not just deny it but to treat it like it's some sort of horrible thing to even suggest it and I'm not sure why that is?

Katara is presented as a beautiful, lively girl who is a powerful bender. Why wouldn’t Zuko be a little starry eyed over that? It doesn’t mean she likes him back. Idk, I’m not exactly sure where my point is, except that being shouted down for just advancing the idea that maybe Zuko had the hots for Katara is a little frustrating? I’m not saying he was wacking off in his bunk thinking about her or expected to get some while they were hunting Yon Rha.

Also, unrequited crushes happen in ATLA-verse? Toph/Sokka anyone? Why does that never get screeched on but saying “Hey, Zuko loved Mai but he was probably looking at Katara and thinking ‘noice!’ a couple of times” the worst thing in the world? Is it the Water Tribe/Fire Nation thing? I mean, if it’s that, I wish people would just say that and stop screaming at people for their headcanons and whatnot. [theend]

Lol do not worry anon I know this isn’t an accusation!! Not only have I myself never perpetuated this rhetoric, but I don’t think I’ve really heard it before! Maybe once or twice?? I might just keep to chill parts of fandom, lmao, and that’s why I’m not very familiar with it. But I’ll do my best to theorize what may spark conflict based on the info you provided me!

(I’ve talked very briefly here about Zuko having/not having a crush on Katara before, if you were wondering.)

My main guess is that it’s not the headcanon itself that makes people frustrated, but how some shippers probably treat the HEADcanon as canon-canon (not an issue exclusive to Zvtara, btw; all big fanon ships have this problem - Zvkka, anyone? lmao). I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with headcanoning that Zuko had a crush on Katara! But in that same vein, there’s nothing inherently wrong with others acknowledging that the headcanon has no basis in canon either, if that makes sense. And headcanons don’t need canon basis! Headcanons are fanon! That’s why they’re so much fun! I ship Kuzaang like there’s no tomorrow, but I can also acknowledge that there wasn’t anything in canon that demonstrated Aang having a crush on Kuzon. Kuzaang is strictly fanon, and I love that about the pairing! It means I have incredible free reign, hehe.

But yeah. I don’t think it has anything to do with their different nations! Like I said - it’s probably solely an issue of some shippers (and undoubtedly just a loud minority) treating the headcanon as canon.

I don’t think saying “Hey, Zuko loved Mai but he was probably looking at Katara and thinking ‘noice!’ a couple of times” is the worst thing in the world, lmao. I do want to make a distinction here, though; this example you provide is actually an example of aesthetic attraction, which is not the same as a crush (crushes are indicative of romantic attraction)! So saying/headcanoning that Zuko thought Katara was pretty (as anyone with a brain would say, let’s be real) does not actually equate to him having a crush on her.

But back to the crush headcanon. I mentioned that I (personally!) don’t think it has canon basis. I will admit that I am not alloromantic, so crushes in themselves are a little confusing to me (I mean,, people just randomly like someone?? based on their appearance?? without even knowing them?? hell nah), but even disregarding that, I don’t think it would make much sense within canon for Zuko to have had a crush on Katara.

Again, disclaimer: there’s nothing wrong with the headcanon! Fanon is meant to contradict canon! To expand canon! To rewrite canon! Fanon is transformative. That’s the entire purpose of fanon. Go wild with that headcanon!! Make art!! Produce fics!! Support content creators!! Hell yeah!!

So what do I mean when I say that I personally feel there’s no canon basis for Zuko having a crush on Katara? Well, for one, he joined the Gaang in episode 12 of Book 3. That’s episode 52 of 61 overall. So in everything prior to that, Zuko not only has no idea who Katara is but he is also neck-deep in imperialistic rhetoric (you know, racism, superiority complexes, all that jazz. not fun for anyone non-FN). No possible crush there. In “The Western Air Temple” episode itself, Katara (understandably) threatens Zuko. She means what she says, and I think Zuko recognizes that. A crush there wouldn’t make sense - they’ve only properly met this second time and Katara (understandably) hates Zuko’s guts for what he’s done to the Gaang and to her personally.

Episode 53 is “The Firebending Masters” - Zuko’s too hung up on his firebending not working to think about anything else (Katara obviously still does not trust him yet, either, meaning Zuko is pretty much on edge around her. again, she threatened him, and Zuko no doubt took her threat seriously).

54 and 55 are “The Boiling Rock” episodes; not only are these Maiko-heavy but also in general… I mean, Katara’s not really in them. At least not from Zuko’s POV. So nothing implies a crush there. And then after those episodes, it’s worth considering that Zuko probably thinks Mai is dead. That he left her, the girl he loves, to die at Azula’s hands. We know Zuko tends to hold guilt to his chest, so concluding he blamed himself for Mai’s “death” is not illogical. Why would he all of sudden switch his sights to Katara, even if it was just a simple crush? While he’s grieving? That doesn’t track to me.

And then, of course, “The Southern Raiders.” This episode has been talked about to death, so I’ll keep it brief, lmao. I will draw attention to only one line, spoken by Zuko:

This isn’t fair! Everyone else seems to trust me now! What is it with you?

As we all know, TSR was not a flattering episode for Zuko. He was a racist asshole to Aang and - as aforementioned - acted as if he was entitled to Katara’s trust. Obviously, Zuko grows through the episode, and we see by the end that he respects Aang’s wisdom and respects Katara’s decision to walk away from Yon Rha (which is awesome!! I adore this brief but incredibly crucial arc of his!!). But my point is that nothing demonstrates romantic interest from Zuko to Katara. If anything, his initial motives are pretty damn selfish (i.e. demanding her to trust him because he feels like he “deserves” it already).

Emphasis on “initial” motives, of course. Obviously he grows more sincere!! (Tis the point of the episode for Zuko.)

So they end TSR on new, peaceful terms. Personally, I don’t think their relationship would be magically sunshine and roses after that (Zuko did some fucked up shit to the Gaang, lmao), but I do think things are getting better between them! Still, there is nothing indicative of a canon crush.

Next episode, in EIP, they scoot away from each other at the possibility of being together, yk? That doesn’t mean they hate each other’s guts, lmfao, but EIP is meant to depict imperialist Fire Nation propaganda - who wouldn’t be uncomfortable with that? Like, the entire Gaang is demeaned in that play. There’s nothing romantic about it. It’s a similar situation later with June - this is a lady that doesn’t know anything remotely personal about Zuko or Katara. Of course they’d react in a horrified and flustered manner when this - for all intents and purposes - total stranger suggests that they’re together! That’s creepy as hell! Definitely not indicative of a crush, lmao. And considering that the Gaang never teases Zuko about having a crush on Katara (compared to how I think Toph teases Katara about Haru?), i.e. the people who know them the best, there’s no reason for the audience to think anything is going on between them.

For other references, here are a few addressing EIP, June, etc.

And after all that… Well, now we’re in the finale. What time is there for romance? There’s a reason the canon couples don’t reunite until after the war is won! (Minus Sukka, I guess, but they’re not professing their love on the battlefield, per se, lmao.) Zuko chooses Katara to go with him because she’s a powerful waterbender and the only person who’s been able to handle Azula in the past (besides Aang, arguably, who’s obviously occupied with Ozai), not because he “likes” her in a romantic sense.

All of this is to say that to me, Zuko having a crush on Katara is strictly fanon. Which is awesome! Fanon is fantastic, and I actually really like these types of headcanons (like, Teo having a crush on Aang? GOOD SHIT). Some people are just jerks about it. That said, I can still understand why people might get frustrated by those who preach this headcanon as if it’s pulled straight from the text itself. I absolutely think it’s ridiculous to harass others over a headcanon (which unfortunately you see on both sides of the ship war), but in that same vein - of course it’s frustrating when those loud few act like their fanon is canon and proceed to shove it down others’ throats, lmao. It’s an imperfect situation, basically.

TL;DR - The headcanon in itself is great, and no one should be getting freaking harassed over it. But it is strictly fanon, so when some shippers treat it like canon, that’s understandably going to frustrate the rest of the fandom. Headcanons are a double-edged sword, lmao.

So that’s my personal theory as to why people get pressed over this headcanon. If anyone else has a different idea, please feel free to rb/comment with it!

#also anon you 100% do not have to agree with any of this!! tis just my own thoughts and theory 🥰#amy answers #anon #amy analyzes

37 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

dcmarvelfangirlcreations

Nina's Art & Stuff

dev1l

𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐄𝐍

alcoholiccamo

Pörn

lovenduhh

star princess

fuckfacechamp82

FuckFaceChamp82