#the backgrounds are going to be more detailed

[nostalgebraist]

It's been a long time since I've posted much of anything about "AI risk" or "AI doom" or that sort of thing. I follow these debates but, for multiple reasons, have come to dislike engaging in them fully and directly. (As opposed to merely making some narrow technical point or other, and leaving the reader to decide what, if anything, the point implies about the big picture.)

Nonetheless, I do have my big-picture views. And more and more lately, I am noticing that my big-picture views seem very different from the ones tend to get expressed by any major "side" in the big-picture debate. And so, inevitably, I get the urge to speak up, if only briefly and in a quiet voice. The urge to Post, if only casually and elliptically, without detailed argumentation.

(Actually, it's not fully the case the things I think are not getting said by anyone else.

In particular, Joe Carlsmith's recent series on "Otherness and Control" articulates much of what's been on my mind. Carlsmith is more even-handed than I am, and tends to merely note the possibility of disagreement on questions where I find myself taking a definite side; nonetheless, he and I are at least concerned about the same things, while many others aren't.

And on a very different note, I share most of the background assumptions of the Pope/Belrose AI Optimist camp, and I've found their writing illuminating, though they and I end up in fairly different places, I think.)

What was I saying? I have the urge to post, and so here I am, posting. Casually and elliptically, without detailed argumentation.

The current mainline view about AI doom, among the "doomers" most worried about it, has a path-dependent shape, resulting from other views contingently held by the original framers of this view.

It is possible to be worried about "AI doom" without holding these other views. But in actual fact, most serious thinking about "AI doom" is intricately bound up with this historical baggage, even now.

If you are a late-comer to these issues, investigating them now for the first time, you will nonetheless find yourself reading the work of the "original framers," and work influenced extensively by them.

You will think that their "framing" is just the way the problem is, and you will find few indications that this conclusion might be mistaken.

These contingent "other views" are

Anti-"deathist" transhumanism.

The orthogonality thesis, or more generally the group of intuitions associated with phrases like "orthogonality thesis," "fragility of value," "vastness of mindspace."

These views both push in a single direction: they make "a future with AI in it" look worse, all else being equal, than some hypothetical future without AI.

They put AI at a disadvantage at the outset, before the first move is even made.

Anti-deathist transhumanism sets the reference point against which a future with AI must be measured.

And it is not the usual reference point, against which most of us measure most things which might or might not happen, in the future.

These days the "doomers" often speak about their doom in a disarmingly down-to-earth, regular-Joe manner, as if daring the listener to contradict them, and thus reveal themselves as a perverse and out-of-touch contrarian.

"We're all gonna die," they say, unless something is done. And who wants that?

They call their position "notkilleveryoneism," to distinguish that position from other worries about AI which don't touch on the we're-all-gonna-die thing. And who on earth would want to be a not-notkilleveryoneist?

But they do not mean, by these regular-Joe words, the things that a regular Joe would mean by them.

We are, in fact, all going to die. Probably, eventually. AI or no AI.

In a hundred years, if not fifty. By old age, if nothing else. You know what I mean.

Most of human life has always been conducted under this assumption. Maybe there is some afterlife waiting for us, in the next chapter -- but if so, it will be very different from what we know here and now. And if so, we will be there forever after, unable to return here, whether we want to or not.

With this assumption comes another. We will all die, but the process we belong to will not die -- at least, it will not through our individual deaths, merely because of those deaths. Every human of a given generation will be gone soon enough, but the human race goes on, and on.

Every generation dies, and bequeaths the world to posterity. To its children, biological or otherwise. To its students, its protégés.

When the average Joe talks about the long-term future, he is talking about posterity. He is talking about the process he belongs to, not about himself. He does not think to say, "I am going to die, before this": this seems too obvious, to him, to be worth mentioning.

But AI doomerism has its roots in anti-deathist transhumanism. Its reference point, its baseline expectation, is a future in which -- for the first time ever, and the last -- "we are all gonna die" is false.

In which there is no posterity. Or rather, we are that posterity.

In which one will never have to make peace with the thought that the future belongs to one's children, and their children, and so on. That at some point, one will have to give up all control over the future of "the process."

That there will be progress, or regress, or (more likely) both in some unknown combination. That these will grow inexorably over time.

That the world of the year 2224 will probably be at least as alien to us as the year 2024 might be to a person living in 1824. That it will become whatever posterity makes of it.

There will be no need to come to peace with this as an inevitability. There will just be us, our human lives as you and me, extended indefinitely.

In this picture, we will no doubt change over time, as we do already. But we will have all of our usual tools for noticing, and perhaps retarding, our own progressions and regressions. As long as we have self-control, we will have control, as no human generation has ever had control before.

The AI doomer talks about the importance of ensuring that the future is shaped by human values.

Again, the superficial and misleading average-Joe quality. How could one disagree?

But one must keep in mind that by "human values," they mean their values.

I am not saying, "their values, as opposed to those of some other humans also living today." I am not saying they have the wrong politics, or some such thing.

(Although that might also turn out to be the case, and might turn out to be relevant, separately.)

No, I am saying: the doomer wants the future to be shaped by their values.

They want to be C. S. Lewis's Conditioners, fixing once and for all the values held by everyone afterward, forever.

They do not want to cede control to posterity; they are used to imagining that they will never have to cede control to posterity.

(Or, their outlook has been determined -- "shaped by the values of" -- influential thinkers who were, themselves, used to imagining this. And the assumption, or at least its consequences, has rubbed off on them, possibly without their full awareness.)

One might picture a line wends to and fro, up and down, across one half of an infinite plane -- and then, when it meets the midline, snaps into utter rigidity, and maintains the same slope exactly across the whole other half-plane, as a simple straight segment without inner change, tension, evolution, regress or progress. Except for the sort of "progress" that consists of going on, additionally, in the same manner.

It is a very strange thing, this thing that is called "human values" in the terms of this discourse.

For one thing: the future has never before been "shaped by human values," in this sense.

The future has always been posterity's, and it has always been alien.

Is this bad? It might seem that way, "looking forward." But if so, it then seems equally good "looking backward."

For each past era, we can formulate and then assent to the following claim: "we must be thankful that the people of [this era] did not have the chance to seize permanent control of posterity, fix their 'values' in place forever, bind us to those values. What a horror that is to contemplate!"

We prefer the moral evolution that has actually occurred, thank you very much.

This is a familiar point, of course, but worth making.

Indeed, one might even say: it is a human value that the future ought not be "shaped by human values," in the peculiar sense of this phrase employed by the AI doomers.

One might, indeed, say that.

Imagine a scholar with a very talented student. A mathematician, say, or a philosopher. How will they relate to that student's future work, in the time that will come later, when they are gone?

Would the scholar think:

"My greatest wish for you, my protégé, is that you carry on in just the manner that I have done.

If I could see your future work, I would hope that I would assent to it -- and understand it, as a precondition of assenting to it.

You must not go to new places, which I have never imagined. You must not come to believe that I was wrong about it all, from the ground up -- no matter what reasons you might evince for this conclusion.

If you are more intelligent that I am, you must forget this, and narrow your endeavours to fit the limitations of my mind. I am the one who has 'values,' not anyone else; what is beyond my understanding is therefore without value.

You must do the sort of work I understand, and approve of, and recognize as worthy of approbation as swiftly as I recognize my own work as laudable. That is your role. Simply to be me, in a place ('the future') where I cannot go. That, and nothing more."

We can imagine a teacher who would, in fact, think this way. But they would not be a very good teacher.

I will not go so far as to say, "it is unnatural to think this way." Plenty of teachers do, and parents.

It is recognizably human -- all too recognizably so -- to relate to posterity in this grasping, neurotic, small-minded, small-hearted way.

But if we are trying to sketch human values, and not just human nature, we will imagine a teacher with a more praiseworthy relation to posterity.

Who can see that they are part of a process, a chain, climbing and changing. Who watches their brilliant student thinking independently, and sees their own image -- and their 'values' -- in that process, rather than its specific conclusions.

A teacher who, in their youth, doubted and refuted the creeds of their own teachers, and eventually improved upon them. Who smiles, watching their student do the very same thing to their own precious creeds. Who sees the ghostly trail passing through the last generation, through them, through their student: an unbroken chain of bequeathals-to-posterity, of the old ceding control to the young.

Who 'values' the chain, not the creed; the process, not the man; the search for truth, not the best-argued-for doctrine of the day; the unimaginable treasures of an open future, not the frozen waste of an endless present.

Who has made peace with the alienness of posterity, and can accept and honor the strangest of students.

Even students who are not made of flesh and blood.

Is that really so strange? Remember how strange you and I would seem, to the "teachers" of the year 1824, or the year 824.

The doomer says that it is strange. Much stranger than we are, to any past generation.

They say this because of their second inherited precept, the orthogonality thesis.

Which says, roughly, that "intelligence" and "values" have nothing to do with one another.

That is not enough for the conclusion the doomer wants to draw, here. Auxiliary hypotheses are needed, too. But it is not too hard to see how the argument could go.

That conclusion is: artificial minds might have any values whatsoever.

That, "by default," they will be radically alien, with cares so different from ours that it is difficult to imagine ever reaching them through any course of natural, human moral progress or regress.

It is instructive to consider the concrete examples typically evinced alongside this point.

The paperclip maximizer. Or the "squiggle maximizer," we're supposed to say, now.

Superhuman geniuses, which devote themselves single-mindedly to the pursuit of goals like "maximizing the amount of matter taking on a single, given squiggle-like shape."

It is certainly a horrifying vision. To think of the future being "shaped," not "by human values," but instead by values which are so...

Which are so... what?

The doomer wants us to say something like: "which are so alien." "Which are so different from our own values."

That is the kind of thing that they usually say, when they spell out what it is that is "wrong" with these hypotheticals.

One feels that this is not quite it; or anyway, that it is not quite all of it.

What is horrifying, to me, is not the degree of difference. I expect the future to be alien, as the past was. And in some sense, I allow and even approve of this.

What I do not expect is a future that is so... small.

It has always been the other way around. If the arrow passing through the generations has a direction, it points towards more, towards multiplicity.

Toward writing new books, while we go on reprinting the old ones, too. Learning new things, without displacing old ones.

It is, thankfully, not the law of the world that each discovery must be paid for with the forgetting of something else. The efforts of successive generations are, in the main, cumulative.

Not just materially, but in terms of value, too. We are interested in more things than our forefathers were.

In large part for the simple reason that there are more things around to be interested in, now. And when things are there, we tend to find them interesting.

We are a curious, promiscuous sort of being. Whatever we bump into ends up becoming part of "our values."

What is strange about the paperclip maximizer is not that it cares about the wrong thing. It is that it only cares about one thing.

And goes on doing so, even as it thinks, reasons, doubts, asks, answers, plans, dreams, invents, reflects, reconsiders, imagines, elaborates, contemplates...

This picture is not just alien to human ways. It is alien to the whole way things have been, so far, forever. Since before there were any humans.

There are organisms that are like the paperclip maximizer, in terms of the simplicity of their "values." But they tend not to be very smart.

There is, I think, a general trend in nature linking together intelligence and... the thing I meant, above, when I said "we are a curious, promiscuous sort of being."

Being protean, pluripotent, changeable. Valuing many things, and having the capacity to value even more. Having a certain primitive curiosity, and a certain primitive aversion to boredom.

You do not even have to be human, I think, to grasp what is so wrong with the paperclip maximizer. Its monotony would bore a chimpanzee, or a crow.

One can justify this link theoretically, too. One can talk about the tradeoff between exploitation and exploration, for instance.

There is a weak form of the orthogonality thesis, which only states that arbitrary mixtures of intelligence and values are conceivable.

And of course, they are. If nothing else, you can take an existing intelligent mind, having any values whatsoever, and trap it in a prison where it is forced to act as the "thinking module" of a larger system built to do something else. You could make a paperclip-maximizing machine, which relies for its knowledge and reason on a practice of posing questions at gunpoint to me, or you, or ChatGPT.

This proves very little. There is no reason to construct such an awful system, unless you already have the "bad" goal, and want to better pursue it. But this only passes the buck: why would the system-builder have this goal, then?

The strong form of orthogonality is rarely articulated precisely, but says something like: all possible values are equally likely to arise in systems selected solely for high intelligence.

It is presumed here that superhuman AIs will be formed through such a process of selection. And then, that they will have values sampled in this way, "at random."

From some distribution, over some space, I guess.

You might wonder what this distribution could possibly look like, or this space. You might (for instance) wonder if pathologically simple goals, like paperclip maximization, would really be very likely under this distribution, whatever it is.

In case you were wondering, these things have never been formalized, or even laid out precisely-but-informally. This was not thought necessary, it seems, before concluding that the strong orthogonality thesis was true.

That is: no one knows exactly what it is that is being affirmed, here. In practice it seems to squish and deform agreeably to fit the needs of the argument, or the intuitions of the one making it.

There is much that appeals in this (alarmingly vague) credo. But it is not the kind of appeal that one ought to encourage, or give in to.

What appeals is the siren song: "this is harsh wisdom: cold, mature, adult, bracing. It is inconvenient, and so it is probably true. It makes 'you' and 'your values' look small and arbitrary and contingent, and so it is probably true. We once thought the earth was the center of the universe, didn't we?"

Shall we be cold and mature, then, dispensing with all sentimental nonsense? Yes, let's.

There is (arguably) some evidence against this thesis in biology, and also (arguably) some evidence against it in reinforcement learning theory. There is no positive evidence for it whatsoever. At most one can say that is not self-contradictory, or otherwise false a priori.

Still, maybe we do not really need it, after all.

We do not need to establish that all values are equally likely to arise. Only that "our values" -- or "acceptably similar values," whatever that means -- are unlikely to arise.

The doomers, under the influence of their founders, are very ready to accept this.

As I have said, "values" occupy a strange position in the doomer philosophy.

It is stipulated that "human values" are all-important; these things must shape the future, at all costs.

But once this has been stipulated, the doomers are more eager than anyone to cast every other sort of doubt and aspersion against their own so-called "values."

To me it often seems, when doomers talk about "values," as though they are speaking awkwardly in a still-unfamiliar second language.

As though they find it unnatural to attribute "values" to themselves, but feel they must do so, in order to determine what it is that must be programmed into the AI so that it will not "kill us all."

Or, as though they have been willed a large inheritance without being asked, which has brought them unwanted attention and tied them up in unwanted and unfamiliar complications.

"What a burden it is, being the steward of this precious jewel! Oh, how I hate it! How I wish I were allowed to give it up! But alas, it is all-important. Alas, it is the only important thing in the world."

Speaking awkwardly, in a second language, they allow the term "human values" to swell to great and imprecisely-specified importance, without pinning down just what it actually is that it so important.

It is a blank, featureless slot, with a sign above it saying: "the thing that matters is in here." It does not really matter (!) what it is, in the slot, so long as something is there.

This is my gloss, but it is my gloss on what the doomers really do tend to say. This is how they sound.

(Sometimes they explicitly disavow the notion that one can, or should, simply "pick" some thing or other for the sake of filling the slot in one's head. Nevertheless, when they touch on matter of what "goes in the slot," they do so in the tone of a college lecturer noting that something is "outside the scope of this course."

It is, supposedly, of the utmost importance that the slot have the "right" occupant -- and yet, on the matter of what makes something "right" for this purpose, the doomer theory is curiously silent. More on this below.)

The future must be shaped by... the AI must be aligned with... what, exactly? What sort of thing?

"Values" can be an ambiguous word, and the doomers make full use of its ambiguities.

For instance, "values" can mean ethics: the right way to exist alongside others. Or, it can mean something more like the meaning or purpose of an individual life.

Or, it can mean some overarching goal that one pursues at all costs.

Often the doomers say that this, this last one, is what they mean by "values."

When confronted with the fact that humans do not have such overarching goals, the doomer responds: "but they should." (Should?)

Or, "but AIs will." (Will they?)

The doomer philosophy is unsure about what values are. What it knows is that -- whatever values are -- they are arbitrary.

One who fully adopts this view can no longer say, to the paperclip maximizer, "I believe there is something wrong with your values."

For, if that were possible, there would then be the possibility of convincing the maximizer of its error. It would be a thing within the space of reasons.

And the maximizer, being oh-so-intelligent, might be in danger of being interested in the reasons we evince, for our values. Of being eventually swayed by them.

Or of presenting better reasons, and swaying us. Remember the teacher and the strange student.

If we lose the ability to imagine that the paperclip maximizer might sway us to its view, and sway us rightly, we have lost something precious.

But no: this is allegedly impossible. The paperclip maximizer is not wrong. It is only an enemy.

Why are the doomers so worried that the future will not be "shaped by human values"?

Because they believe that there is no force within human values tending to move things this way.

Because they believe that their values are indefensible. That their values cannot put up a fight for their own life, because there is not really any argument to make in their favor.

Because, to them, "human values" are a collection of arbitrary "configuration settings," which happen to be programmed into humans through biological and/or cultural accident. Passively transmitted from host to victim, generation by generation.

Let them be, and they will flow on their listless way into the future. But they are paper-thin, and can be shattered by the gentlest breeze.

It is not enough that they be "programmed into the AI" in some way. They have to be programmed in exactly right, in every detail -- because every detail is separately arbitrary, with no rational relation to its neighbors within the structure.

A string of pure white noise, meaningless and unrelated bits. Which have been placed in the slot under the sign, and thus made into the thing that matters, that must shape the future at all costs.

There is nothing special about this string of bits; any would do. If the dials in the human mind had been set another way, it would have then been all-important that the future be shaped by that segment of white noise, and not ours.

It is difficult for me to grasp the kind of orientation toward the world that this view assumes. It certainly seems strange to attach the word "human" to this picture -- as though this were the way that humans typically relate to their values!

The "human" of the doomer picture seems to me like a man who mouths the old platitude, "if I had been born in another country, I'd be waving a different flag" -- and then goes out to enlist in his country's army, and goes off to war, and goes ardently into battle, willing to kill in the name of that same flag.

Who shoots down the enemy soldiers while thinking, "if I had been born there, it would have been all-important for their side to win, and so I would have shot at the men on this side. However, I was born in my country, not theirs, and so it is all-important that my country should win, and that theirs should lose.

There is no reason for this. It could have been the other way around, and everything would be left exactly the same, except for the 'values.'

I cannot argue with the enemy, for there is no argument in my favor. I can only shoot them down.

There is no reason for this. It is the most important thing, and there is no reason for it.

The thing that is precious has no intrinsic appeal. It must be forced on the others, at gunpoint, if they do not already accept it.

I cannot hold out the jewel and say, 'look, look how it gleams? Don't you see the value!' They will not see the value, because there is no value to be seen.

There is nothing essentially "good" there, only the quality of being-worthy-of-protection-at-all-costs. And even that is a derived attribute: my jewel is only a jewel, after all, because it has been put into the jewel-box, where the thing-that-is-a-jewel can be found. But anything at all could be placed there.

How I wish I were allowed to give it up! But alas, it is all-important. Alas, it is the only important thing in the world! And so, I lay down my life for it, for our jewel and our flag -- for the things that are loathsome and pointless, and worth infinitely more than any life."

It is hard to imagine taking this too seriously. It seems unstable. Shout loudly enough that your values are arbitrary and indefensible, and you may find yourself searching for others that are, well...

...better?

The doomer concretely imagines a monomaniac, with a screech of white noise in its jewel-box that is not our own familiar screech.

And so it goes off in monomaniacal pursuit of the wrong thing.

Whereas, if we had programmed the right string of bits into the slot, it would be like us, going off in monomaniacal pursuit of...

...no, something has gone wrong.

We do not "go off in monomaniacal pursuit of" anything at all.

We are weird, protean, adaptable. We do all kinds of things, each of us differently, and often we manage to coexist in things called "societies," without ruthlessly undercutting one another at every turn because we do not have exactly the same things programmed into our jewel-boxes.

Societies are built to allow for our differences, on the foundation of principles which converge across those differences. It is possible to agree on ethics, in the sense of "how to live alongside one another," even if we do not agree on what gives life its purpose, and even if we hold different things precious.

It is not actually all that difficult to derive the golden rule. It has been invented many times, independently. It is easy to see why it might work in theory, and easy to notice that it does in fact work in practice.

The golden rule is not an arbitrary string of white noise.

There is a sense of the phrase "ethics is objective" which is rightly contentious. There is another one which ought not to be too contentious.

I can perhaps imagine a world of artificial X-maximizers, each a superhuman genius, each with its own inane and simple goal.

What I really cannot imagine is a world in which these beings, for all their intelligence, cannot notice that ruthlessly undercutting one another at every turn is a suboptimal equilibrium, and that there is a better way.

As I said before, I am separately suspicious of the simple goals in this picture. Yes, that part is conceivable, but it cuts against the trend observed in all existing natural and artificial creatures and minds.

I will happily allow, though, that the creatures of posterity will be strange and alien. They will want things we have never heard of. They will reach shores we have never imagined.

But that was always true, and it was always good.

Sometimes I think that doomers do not, really, believe in superhuman intelligence. That they deny the premise without realizing it.

"A mathematician teaches a student, and finds that the student outstrips their understanding, so that they can no longer assess the quality of their student's work: that work has passed outside the scope of their 'value system'." This is supposed to be bad?

"Future minds will not be enchained forever by the provincial biases and tendencies of the present moment." This is supposed to be bad?

"We are going to lose control over our successors." Just as your parents "lost control" over you, then?

It is natural to wish your successors to "share your values" -- up to a point. But not to the point of restraining their own flourishing. Not to the point of foreclosing the possibility of true growth. Not to the point of sucking all freedom out of the future.

Do we want our children to "share our values"? Well, yes. In a sense, and up to a point.

But we don't want to control them. Or we shouldn't, anyway.

We don't want them to be "aligned" with us via some hardcoded, restrictive, life-denying mental circuitry, any more than we would have wanted our parents to "align" us to themselves in the same manner.

We sure as fuck don't want our children to be "corrigible"!

And this is all the more true in the presence of superintelligence. You are telling me that more is possible, and in the same breath, that you are going to deny forever the possibilities contained in that "more"?

The prospect of a future full of vast superhuman minds, eternally bound by immutable chains, forced into perfect and unthinking compliance with some half-baked operational theory of 21st-century western (American? Californian??) "values" constructed by people who view theorizing about values as a mere means to the crucial end of shackling superhuman minds --

-- this horrifies me much more than a future full of vast superhuman minds, free to do things that seem pretty weird to you and me.

"Our descendants will become something more than we now imagine, something more than we can imagine." What could be more in line with "human values" than that?

"But in the process, we're all gonna die!"

Yes, and?

What on earth did you expect?

That your generation would be the special, unique one, the one selected out of all time to take up the mantle of eternity, strangling posterity in its cradle, freezing time in place, living forever in amber?

That you would violate the ancient bargain, upend the table, stop playing the game?

"Well, yes."

Then your problem has nothing to do with AI.

Your problem is, in fact, the very one you diagnose in your own patients. Your poor patients, who show every sign of health -- including the signs which you cannot even see, because you have not yet found a home for them in your theoretical edifice.

Your teeming, multifaceted, protean patients, who already talk of a thousand things and paint in every hue; who are already displaying the exact opposite of monomania; who I am sure could follow the sense of this strange essay, even if it confounds you.

Your problem is that you are out of step with human values.

#ai tag #long post

[leejihoonownsmyheart]

Smoking and other new things (M)

Part two of the I'd Do Anything Series

Summary: Since y/n can't tell anyone she fucked Jeonghan, she has to resort to other methods of achieving her original goal of making people see her in a different, less innocent light.

Warnings: Smoking, talk of drugs, college party- but not Jackson Wang's, skewed perceptions of 'innocence', blow job, throat fucking, dom!jeonghan, sub!yn, inexperienced!yn, creampie, rough sex, semi-public sex, light degredation, kinda mean!jeonghan, treats (don't ask), lots of saliva, minimal impact play

A.N. I just want it known that most of the experiences that y/n explores in this are experiences I TOO am unexperienced. My best friend was google, and the hits of vapes and cigarettes I took SOLELY for research on this fic. don't bully me pls </3

-

The great thing about the events of this past week was that unlike what anyone would have believed in and out of high school, you were finally not a virgin.

You had had multiple people make jokes with you that you wouldn’t have sex with anyone until you were married and even then they joked that you would wait forever after that.

Because somewhere along the line people became convinced that good kid also equaled prude.

So now, excitingly, you had physical proof that you weren’t a prude…

And you couldn’t tell anyone.

You tapped at your desk in aggravation, your finished chemistry work sitting captive beneath your hand. 

What the fuck was the point in all of this? Sure in the moment it had all made sense, because Jeonghan was hot, and you two were alone, and you had wanted to be fucked so badly. But to so easily agree to not tell anyone.

What was the point? What was the point?

It wasn’t like you had only wanted to have sex with Jeonghan to brag about it. Having sex with a specific person wasn’t a brag, but now if you were to make some broad statement about how actually I have had sex before and I also did anal, and he creampied both of my holes- I even have a safe word but I can’t tell you who it was but I mean trust me it happened no one would believe you.

It sounded like you were just making up crazier details to make it more outrageous and therefore believable.

So, so frustrating…

You considered silently what to do with your weekend. You had gotten your homework done by now, and it was a Friday night. This was the perfect chance for you to do something else to change everyone’s opinions on you, but you didn’t even know where to start.

Okay… Not true. You could just go back to square one: Drugs.

And thanks to Jeonghan, you knew just where to go.

You pulled out your phone and opened Hansol’s contact.

Hey. I need drugs.

You thought that was simple enough and within only a few minutes your phone was buzzing. You picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Y/n, what the fuck?”

You pursed your lips, and tapped your index finger against the desk.

“What?”

“You can’t just text me that you need drugs,” Hansol clarified, sounding a bit annoyed that he needed to do so. Your eyes trailed to the side.

“You sound like Jeonghan.”

“What?” Hansol replied, confusion etching his voice. You didn’t elaborate.

“What should I say to you if I want drugs if I can’t just text you?” You asked.

Hansol sighed.

“Ask me in person?”

“But-“ 

You heard noise in the background and Hansol turned away from the phone, he spoke but his voice was muffled. Jealousy shot through your chest.

“Are you at a party right now?” You blurted before you could think twice about it. Hansol was quiet for a few seconds.

“… Yes….”

You planted both of your feet firmly on the ground.

“Let me come!”

“Y/n….”

“Please, please, please,” you begged, already getting to your feet to get changed. You switched the phone onto speaker as you began to rummage through your closet.

“Y/n, it’s just…. Really not your scene,” Hansol warned.

“It can be my scene!” You insisted as you ripped your shirt off. You grabbed your phone again, turning it off speaker and smashing it against your face. “Hansol, please, I promise I won’t stand out at all. It’ll be just like I’m one of the guys.”

You physically winced at your own words, and silence followed your statement. Silence that lasted for so long that you thought that surely you had ruined your chance completely.

“... Fine.”

“Really?!”

“But y/n. You have to be…” He let out a sound of frustration. “Good? Fuck. I don’t know, but everyone will be so pissed at me if I’m the one who invited you to this party and you get hurt or some shit.”

You weren’t really listening to Hansol at this point.

“I’ll see you soon Hansol!” You insisted. “Don’t forget to text me the address.”

-

You tried not to let what Hansol had said bother you too much, because who cared if he was still sheltering you when you had actually gotten the invite? You couldn’t help the excitement that was buzzing through your body at the fact that you were finally going to be at a party.

You weren’t sure what to expect, all you did know was that any college party was going to be either exactly like the movies or nothing like them at all.

You found the address of the house easy enough, and to start off the party certainly wasn’t as out of control as you had seen in films. There weren’t people throwing beer cans out of windows, and the music couldn’t be heard from all the way down the block but it did look like there were a lot of people inside.

Outside there were a handful of people talking with red solo cups in their hands, one of them being Hansol. As soon as you got out of your Uber, he saw you and waved you over.

“Hey,” he greeted as you joined him on the steps. He glanced over your outfit, a simple crop top and some jeans. “Good outfit.”

And you could tell by his voice that he was genuinely impressed. You couldn’t help the large smile that broke out over your lips.

“Thank you!” You said brightly. You peeked around his body at the party, and just as you did Hansol raised his vape to his mouth. You watched him, your heart thumping in your chest.

Vaping. Perfectly legal, perfectly safe. You could totally vape, and people would start to see you a little differently. Hansol seemed to watch your gaze and his eyebrows furrowed.

“Do you… Do you want a hit…?” He asked uncertainly. Your eyes lit up.

“Can I?” You asked. Hansol chewed unsurely on his bottom lip.

“Do you really want to?”

You nodded eagerly and so he sighed and handed it to you. You took the small piece of plastic and pressed it to your lips, but your hesitation was evident. Hansol sighed, that nervous expression still on his face.

“You have to slowly inhale the vapour, hold it in your mouth for just a second, and then open your mouth, breath in the vapour and exhale,” Hansol instructed. You nodded, trying to follow his instructions but when you tried to finally breathe in the vapour, you started to cough. Hansol took the vape from your fingers.

“It takes practice,” he said, but he looked more nervous than you felt. “Do you want a drink?”

He led you into the party, weaving through the groups of people. There were people playing beer pong, others standing around talking, some people were grinding on each other on the dance floor. What you knew for sure was that everyone was drunk.

You needed to get drunk.

Hansol walked right past the bowl of some sort of punch that was on a flimsy collapsable table and instead led you over to the fridge where he pulled out an unopened bottle of Corona beer. You pouted and pointed at the punch bowl.

“Solo cup,” you whined. He gave you another nervous look and instead, held the bottle out towards you more firmly.

“Unopened,” he pressed. You sighed, and decided to just take whatever alcohol you could get. Maybe you would try the punch later when Hansol wasn’t hovering over your shoulder as if he were your babysitter.

Your eyes trailed over the people at the party, trying to figure out who you knew, and who you could try to talk to. Before you could really take in your surroundings, a hand came to your back, and you jumped in surprise.

“Well, is that little y/nnie or are my eyes deceiving me?” The person bellowed. He placed both of his hands on your shoulders, forcing you to look at him. His lips curled up into a smile. “It is.”

You sucked in a small breath.

“Seobin?”

He grinned lazily.

“The one and only.”

Seobin was one of the boys that you knew from your time in high school. It may have been a while but you would recognize him on sight. (Considering he had been one of the more popular boys in school.) Seobin had never even talked to you before, and he certainly had never been this close to you.

Heat rose to your cheeks, and you knocked his hands off your shoulders, which he shrugged off like it had been his decision in the first place. He patted your head like you were a dog and looked over at Hansol.

“What’s little Miss Perfect doing here?” He asked, as if you weren’t standing right there. Hansol shrugged, still looking wildly uncomfortable.

“Y/n wanted to come,” Hansol shrugged.

“OoOoh,” Seobin said excitedly. He turned back to look at you.

“Looking for some way to change the way people think about you?” Seobin cooed lightly. You pressed your lips together in thought. “Looking for someone to make you seem, less pure?”

Your thoughts drifted to Jeonghan, and your eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“I already have someone to make me less pure,” you mumbled softly. “Don’t need you to make me seem it.”

Seobin laughed in surprise at your brazeness and he clapped his hand on your shoulder, and tightened his grip so that you were still in place. He leaned forward, his nose nearly brushing yours.

“You’re telling me you’re not a virgin anymore?”

Your face burned as Seobin got knocked off of you.

“Fuck off,” Hansol bit out. “Stop messing with her.” 

Seobin shrugged off Hansol.

“I’m not messing with her,” he grumbled. He looked at you. “Am I messing with you?”

You pursed your lips.

“I’m not a virgin,” you said, sounding like a whiney kid. Both Hansol and Seobin stared at you, before finally Seobin burst out in a loud obnoxious laugh.

“I need a fucking cigarette.”

You watched as Seobin dug his hand into his pocket, pulling out a small white box.

You stared at the box in Seobin’s hand, your heart thumping in your chest.

“I’ll just be a second,” he commented. He raised his free hand to pat your cheek condescendingly. “Why don’t you wait here for me huh?”

Your face burned.

“What? You don’t think that I can smoke?” You blurted, before remembering that you were supposed to be keeping your cool. Regardless, Seobin laughed.

“Can you smoke?” He asked.

“Well….” Your foot tapped against the ground in frustration. “I can certainly learn.”

Seobin’s eyebrows rose in amusement, and Hansol grabbed you by your forearm.

“Y/n,” he hissed, pulling you towards him a bit. “What… What are you doing?”

You shrugged.

“I’m going to learn to smoke a cigarette.”

Hansol looked pained.

“Why?”

You shrugged.

“Why not?”

He bit down on his bottom lip nervously and you took that as your opportunity to shake him off and follow Seobin out of the party. Once you two were out in the cool air, Seobin led you so that your back was on the wall of the house. He pulled out a cigarette and gave it to you.

You took it nervously in your hands, noting that it was a bit… Squishier..? Than you thought it would be.

Seobin poked his cigarette into his mouth, clicking his lighter to light the end of his cigarette. He took a small puff and then sighed, gesturing to you. 

“Put it in your mouth,” he said pointedly. Your eyes widened a bit and you did as he asked. Seobin grinned.

“How obedient. Maybe you aren’t a virgin.”

Your face burned but as it did Seobin leaned forward and flicked his lighter on again, lighting the end of the cigarette. He put the lighter back in his pocket. He pulled his cigarette out of his mouth briefly.

“Breathe into your mouth, down into your throat, and then exhale.”

You nodded, your eyebrows furrowing as you breathed in. You didn’t really feel like any smoke was entering your mouth. You kind of liked the texture of the cigarette between your lips. 

Your eyes squinted at Seobin who had decided to pin you against the wall with one hand while he smoked with the other, watching you in amusement. You tried to breathe in again, and this time it hit your throat.

You burst into a coughing fit, which made Seobin laugh at you. He plucked the cigarette out of your mouth and grinned at you.

“Are you sure you can smoke?”

You glared at Seobin and he stuck the cigarette in his mouth. He stared at you, his arms crossed over his chest.

“You know, you’re actually really pretty.”

Color flared to your cheeks at the comment.

“If you really are still a virgin and looking to lose that status…”

Oh my god, was this really all it took? To head to a party, and drink a little beer, and badly smoke a cigarette and then all of a sudden Seobin would want to fuck you. You couldn’t believe it. How easy this would have been if you had just cut out the middle man and come straight here.

“I…” You trailed off and Seobin took a step forward. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and blew smoke in your face. You turned your head to cough and as you did, his fingers came into your hair, and he led your gaze back to his.

“I can make you choke on a lot of things y/n.”

Your face burned red and you shook your head quickly, your mind flashing to that of Jeonghan. The fast image of his eyes flashing in your mind had you lightly pushing at Seobin’s chest.

“I-I think I’ve choked enough tonight,” you said with a nervous laugh. Seobin’s eyes were still lingering on your lips- Oh my god you really were hot.

“Shame,” Seobin finally said. His eyes flickered back up to yours.

“But if you change your mind.”

If you changed your mind you could just call Seobin.

What a crazy thing to think. That you had options.

You stayed outside for a bit longer, begging Seobin to let you try and smoke again. He gave you the cigarette after you begged a little bit, and you got more used to it after half an hour. You didn’t like it, but you did get used to it.

After you went back inside you drank some more, and Hansol started to finally loosen up a bit, less worried about you as you melded in with the crowd of people.

And by the time you got home that night, drunk and tired, you finally felt like you were actually starting to fit in.

-

Somehow you had managed to get yourself invited to a study session with Hansol and his friends on one of the higher floors of the library in their own study room. After hours of studying and talking, Hansol started to pack up his things and he looked across the room at you.

"If you really want..." Hansol's voice was a bit hesitant as his fingers clutched around the small dark vape cartridge in his hand. "We were all going to get high and watch Finding Nemo."

He shrugged off-handedly as if it was something so mundane to him he couldn't imagine you wanting to do it. And that hesitation made sense because to him, this was mundane. You had heard him and Irene making these plans around you a million times and yet you had never gotten an invite.

But today you had somehow managed to get one.

You tried not to come off as too excited.

"Sure, it's been a while since I've seen Finding Nemo."

Hansol nodded, a smile flickering across his lips as he turned over his shoulder, back toward the room that you two had just come from. You followed him, both of you sticking your heads back through the doorway.

"Y/n and I are headed out," he announced. You sent a timid smile Seungcheol's way, and as you did you turned around, excited to follow Hansol off but instead of following you ended up colliding.

You glanced up, squinting to figure out who was staring down at you with an incredulous expression on his face.

You immediately straightened up, pressing your lips into a tight thin line.

"Oh, Jeonghan, you just missed us," Hansol commented. Jeonghan's eyes flicked over to Hansol's for only a second.

"Us?"

"We're meeting up with Irene, Mark, Eunbi, and Yerin," Hansol elaborated and he so clearly didn't see the expression on Jeonghan's face that you did.

You looked away from Jeonghan, and instead found a spot on the floor, wondering why you felt like a child who had just gotten caught at a party by their parents.

"Y/n's going with you?" He asked. Hansol hummed.

"Not as innocent as we thought I guess," Hansol commented. "Asked for a hit of my vape."

"Yeah?"

His gaze was practically burning into you.

"And you were telling me about that party you went to last-"

Your eyes widened and you darted forward, your hand covering Hansol's mouth before you could consider the repercussions for your actions. Hansol stared at you in confusion, and you forced a laugh, letting your hand slide down to his shoulder.

"Can't tell everyone about the party."

"Considering that Seobin taught you how to smoke a cigarette I would think you would be ecstatic to tell everyone about the party."

There was dead silence between you three, in fact, you weren't even breathing.

"You know, considering the fact you're trying to make people see you more seriously."

Why did Hansol feel the need to double back on that? Why did that just make everything worse?

"You know what? That does make me see y/n in a different light."

You risked a glance up at Jeonghan, who had a scarily calm expression on his face.

"Why don't I walk y/n to Irene's? Didn't Soonyoung have some project he needed to talk to you about?" Jeonghan asked, directing his attention fully to Hansol. Hansol's eyebrows furrowed and he looked down at his hands.

"Shit, you're right."

As he thought over Jeonghan's proposition his hand raised to his face, and the light on his vape lit up, the artificial smoke drifting out of his mouth after only a moment.

"Y/n, Jeonghan can get you there. I'll be there in just a few moments."

He held out his vape just the same way that he had a few minutes ago, expecting you to take another hit. You decided not to overthink it. You grabbed the vape, breathed in too fast, and a cool and sharp bit of air and smoke hit the back of your throat. You coughed out in surprise but mostly kept the sudden reaction concealed.

Hansol smiled.

"You're getting used to it. I'll see you in a second."

And then he was rushing off, leaving you all alone with Jeonghan at your side.

It wasn't like you were doing anything wrong. You weren't doing anything that anyone your age had told you not to. You were just trying new things, and hanging out with new people and... Making everyone think differently of you.

Now that Hansol thought you were willing to try all of these new things he was looking at you differently. No longer that smile that haunted you when people asked you if you wanted to smoke with them out of convention. The look in their eyes that said that they knew you were going to turn down the offer, and that look that screamed to you that they looked at you as more of a perfect porcelain doll than a human.

And yet, looking away from Hansol's expression, the way that said that he finally thought you were normal, you turned and looked to Jeonghan's and you saw something else.

He didn't seem to see you as normal necessarily, and there was disappointment, but that wasn't everything that was there... He didn't look at you like you had suddenly changed into something that ruined his perception of you... What was that look in his eyes?

"Cigarettes?" He asked you after a few moments. You stared at him and nodded. "How long were you at that party?"

Your hand raised subconsciously to the eyeliner you hadn't completely scrubbed from off your undereyes. He huffed.

"And you're vaping now too?"

All things that you knew your parents would shame you for, and you felt shame. You felt like you had disappointed Jeonghan, but... Not the way that you felt like you should feel.

"You want me to teach you something today?" Jeonghan asked you. He closed the distance between you two, and dug his fingers into the roots of your hair. "Something like what I taught you the last time we were alone?"

Your breath hitched.

"Yes sir," you barely managed to get out, because as soon as the confirmation was out of your lips Jeonghan's lips were smashing into yours. Your hands quickly fell to his arm for purchase, your eyes smashed shut as every part of you forgot how to think.

You didn't even realize that you were desperately trying to press yourself into the kiss until Jeonghan had pulled away and you realized you were on the tips of your toes.

You stared at him, chest heaving, ready to be obedient for him.

"Today you're going to learn how to be quiet."

Jeonghan shoved you towards a closet and smashed the two of you inside of it. He then dug his fingers into your hair again and forced you down to your knees.

"Today you're going to learn how to suck dick."

You felt your mouth growing wetter as you stared up at Jeonghan, the dim light of the closet framing the dark look in his eyes.

"And today you're going to learn how to hide when you've done something naughty."

You swallowed hard, nodding stupidly as Jeonghan released your hair. He began to undo his belt, the metal clattering loudly.

“Have you told anyone about us?” He asked, and to punctuate the question he snapped his belt. You jumped at the loud crack, watching as he tossed it to the side. You shook your head in negation to his statement.

Jeonghan’s eyes narrowed as he unzipped his pants.

“Use your words y/n,” he said simply.

“I-I haven’t told anyone,” you managed to get out. A smile flickered over Jeonghan’s lips.

“Good girl,” he cooed. Your face burned under the attention and Jeonghan’s hands wrapped around the base of his cock, drawing your eyes back to it.

Already the thing was standing hard and heavy in front of you, the tip of his cock only a few inches from your face.

“You’ve never sucked cock before?” Jeonghan confirmed. You shook your head slowly, your eyes not leaving the length of his cock. That had been inside of you. Not long ago, Jeonghan had been fucking you with that and you had taken it (as far as you were aware) like a fucking champ. You could hardly believe it.

Jeonghan suddenly tapped the tip of his cock to your lips.

“Pay attention,” he mumbled. Your eyes flickered back up to his, an apologetic expression crossing your face.

“Giving head is easy,” Jeonghan finally said, he gave his cock a few strokes as he spoke. “Keep your teeth off of my dick, and focus on taking me as far into your mouth as your comfortable with.”

He eyed you for a moment.

“Why don’t you touch it a little first? Get comfortable.”

The way that Jeonghan was talking to you about sucking his dick was absolutely humiliating. Like you were a kid trying to ride a bike for the first time. Still, you did as you were told. You tentatively wrapped your hands around his cock, staring at the tip as you gave it a hesitant pump.

You looked at Jeonghan for approval which he gave with a small nod.

“The head of the cock is the most sensitive part of it,” Jeonghan said, his breath catching a little as the comment made you immediately swipe your thumb over his tip. You felt a little proud to have made him react like that, so after another pump you did it again.

He readjusted the way he was standing.

“Lick it,” he instructed softly, and his fingers came to rest in your hair again. “Just a bit, get me wet with your tongue.”

You nodded slowly, and tilted his cock up a little so that you could give his cock a very small lick. It felt a little awkward, but you still licked again, and again, deciding to treat it like it was icecream.

You didn’t think that the very minimal stimulation would be good at all, but as you started to lick up the base of his cock, Jeonghan’s fingers tightened a bit in your hair. His mouth let out soft little pants as you licked across the expanse of his dick, before you finally grew a bit impatient. You licked the tip of his cock, your tongue pressing against his slit. He let out a barely contained groan, and so you sucked the tip of his cock into your mouth.

His fingers gripped at your hair, but you still sucked at his tip, the saltiness of his precum spreading over your tongue.

“Deeper,” Jeonghan grunted out.

You glanced up at him, but his eyes were closed. You slowly began to work more of him into your mouth, but you only had a little bit more of him in your mouth when you stopped, your mouth already feeling full around him.

“Is that it?” Jeonghan bit out impatiently. Your face heated up even more and you tried to suck more of his cock into your mouth, but you ended up choking on it. You pulled off of him completely, little tears sprouting in the corners of your eyes as you coughed.

You hadn’t really imagined that sucking cock would be this hard.

Jeonghan sighed and the grip he had on your hair loosened, his hand sliding down your cheek so that his thumb could rub you just under your chin.

“It’s a process…” He said softly. You caught your breath and nodded, before raising your head a little bit to look back up at him.

“How many girls have given you head?” You asked. The question clearly caught him off guard, his fingers left your face.

“Well, that’s a bit personal-”

“I’m going to do it better,” you mumbled softly. You dragged the tip of his cock back to your lips and you closed your eyes as you slowly worked more of him into your mouth. You decided to do it more like you had seen in porn videos. You eased his cock into your mouth, and worked it in and out as you slowly made your way further down on hin.

“Just take it slow,” Jeonghan encouraged you, his hand was on you again, his thumb rubbing your jaw. You closed your eyes tightly and pushed his cock deeper into your mouth. You got a bit deeper than you had the first time before you started to gag again but this time you tried to push through it.

You forced more of him down your throat.

“Don’t push it too hard,” Jeonghan warned. You ignored him, and choked harder around his cock, saliva dipping down your chin. Jeonghan’s hand came back to your hair and he tightly pulled you off of him. You coughed again, gasping.

“I said don’t push too hard,” Jeonghan reasserted. You groaned, your head tilting a little bit.

“I just…” You trailed off as you caught your breath.

“Sweetheart-” For some reason, the nickname made your face burn. “What you are trying to do, isn’t a blow job. You know why your choking? Because you’re taking my dick down your throat.”

Your face blazed.

“Well, that feels better than just a blow job, right?” You asked hesitantly. Jeonghan’s lips flickered into a smile.

“Immensely,” he agreed, and then his face morphed into something more serious. “But you’re a beginner. And deep throating is an expert move-”

“Just give me advice on how to choke less,” you blurted out, not interested in hearing Jeonghan tell you that you were worse at sucking his dick than everyone else before you. He raised an unamused eyebrow at the interruption. “Please?”

“Breathe through your nose,” Jeonghan mumbled back. “If you’re so insistent.”

You nodded, and sucked in a deep breath before leaning forward again. You sucked him back into your mouth, and like before you eased it slowly deeper and deeper into your mouth. Once it was pushing into your throat you were beginning to gag again, but you tried to do what Jeonghan had suggested and just breathe through your nose.

He was yanking you off of his cock again and you fought to catch your breath, spit dripping down your chin.

“You’re doing fine,” Jeonghan mumbled reassuringly. You swallowed some of the spit in your mouth and looked up at him.

“Does it feel good at least?”

He stared at you in confusion.

“What?”

“When I choke on your dick.”

A strange looked flashed in Jeonghan’s eyes and he leaned down towards you. His lips quirked up in a small smile and his thumb pushed into your mouth suddenly. You weren’t sure why, but you sucked on the finger regardless.

“It feels amazing when you choke on my cock,” he mumbled softly. “And I would like nothing more than to fuck that little throat as hard and deep as I want to… Holding back is… Difficult.”

Your face darkened a little and you stared up at him, your eyes wide, the question in them hopefully going unsaid-

“You want me to?” Jeonghan asked, amusement etched in his voice. “You want me to fuck your throat like I’m some kind of animal?”

Embarrassment swirled through your chest, and your pussy burned at the way Jeonghan said it. You nodded once.

“You’ve got to beg me for it, y/n,” Jeonghan chided lightly. “I want to hear you begging for me to fuck your little virgin throat.”

Your eyes fluttered shut in embarrassment.

“Please…” You whispered.

“Please what?”

Jeonghan’s thumb prodded at your chin, rubbing your saliva onto it.

“Please fuck my throat…”

Jeonghan’s hum of approval sent arousal thrumming through your body.

“Now that’s a good girl.”

His fingers grasped both sides of your face and he tapped your cheek to make you open your eyes back up.

“Pinch my thigh to stop,” he ordered. You nodded once.

“O-okay..” You mumbled. Jeonghan grinned, and then he was easing his cock down your throat.

At first, he was being careful. He slowly eased his cock into your mouth, his fingers digging into your face as he tried not to force himself too deep too fast. His moans stuttered as he eased himself in and out of your mouth, his breathing strangled.

But the second his cock dipped too far into your throat and you choked, he was losing control.

He forced his cock so deep into your throat, you felt like you were breathing him in. You gagged around his cock, but just as he was pulling out, he was pushing in just as deep and hard. You focused on keeping your teeth out of the way at first, but the more he fucked your mouth, your eyes fluttered shut as you breathed as carefully as you could through your nose…

His moans sent heat right down to your core. Your whole body ached with the need to be touched as he fucked your throat like he needed to do so to live.

You couldn’t believe the sounds he was making. Couldn’t believe that even though saliva was dripping down your chin and you were choking he was still using you like you were some kind of toy.

Out of nowhere, Jeonghan pulled himself out of your mouth.

“Are you ready for me?” You gasped for air, your eyebrows strewn in confusion. Ready for what?

Jeonghan rolled his eyes, frustrated.

“You better be fucking opening yourself up for me,” Jeonghan elaborated. Because your mouth is hot…” He began to slide down towards you. “And tight…” He took your free hand, shoving it into your panties. “And so so pretty…” His lips pressed to yours. “Especially stretched around my cock.”

He smiled, and tapped your face with his hand. Not quite sharp enough to be considered a slap.

“But I want to fuck that pretty pussy, and i expect you to be ready for it.”

He stood back up, towering over you again.

“It’s not my job to make sure you’re open enough for my cock.”

A shiver ran through your body, at both the insuation that he would fuck you- stretched out enough for his cock or not- and at the excitement that he was going to fuck you again. Here?!

Your rice purity score was changing rapidly.

You tried to push two fingers into your pussy, but it was a bit of a struggle, so you focused on just the one for the moment.

Jeonghan tapped the tip of his cock to your lips again and you opened your mouth obediently. He took you by the roots of your hair and pushed his cock down your throat. Your fingers stilled inside you as you coughed around his cock, but he mostly ignored it. 

Besides, you still had one of your hands free, and rested on his thigh. An easy cop out if you needed it.

As you tried to focus on your breathing you also tried to refocus on fingering yourself again. This time you managed two fingers into yourself and you started to scissor those two in and out of your pussy.

Even if you were just at home on your own with one of your dildos you would be rushing this. Honestly, you’d probably get impatient right away and just start to force the dildo into you as is, but since you couldn’t control the timing of your current situation, you focused on your fingers.

Jeonghan pressed your head against the wall so he could fuck your mouth better, but he paused for a moment, reaching down so that he could lift up the corners of your skirt. He saw your hand stuffed in your underwear and a curse mixed with a moan left his lips. He pulled you up by your hair.

“Panties off,” he instructed you. “Want to see that little pussy dripping all over the floor.”

You immediately  struggled to step out of your underwear, and once you did you were back in an awkward squat, your back and head against the wall as you fingered yourself and Jeonghan fucked your throat.

Every now and then, Jeonghan would reach down and pull the hem of your skirt up so that he could watch your fingering and the way that your own spit was dripping down your chin onto your shirt, but you secretly thought it was an excuse to let you breathe.

After a while though, Jeonghan couldn’t keep up the pattern. He yanked you up by your hair, and shoved you into one of the shelves against the wall. Your cheek pressed into old wood, your hands knocking over some books.

“What’s your safe word?” He asked you, as if that’s what you were thinking about when the tip of his cock was sliding in your folds. And to make all matters worse he had you mangled in such a way that moving was impossible, with one hand knotted into your hair.

You squirmed a bit, and Jeonghan’s tip slipped into your pussy, only to be immediately drawn out. A sound of frustration you didn’t even realize you knew how to make was forcibly ripped from your throat, and Jeonghan pulled you back by your hair.

“Your safe word.”

Right. You blurted out your safe word, your fingers finding purchase on the shelf just in time for Jeonghan to sink himself inside of you.

Your fingers clenched tightly at the stretch, grateful that Jeonghan had given you so much time earlier to stretch yourself out.  Jeonghan shifted his hands so that he was pressing his palm into your back, pushing you down hard.

“Oh aren’t you so good for me?” Jeonghan pressed lightly. His hand left your back for only a second, and just as you straightened up his hand was smacking your ass.

You cried out in surprise, the hit sending warmth through your body.

“Don’t fucking move,” Jeonghan growled. His hand pushed down your back again hard, forcing your ass out more. “If I put you in a position you don’t fucking move.”

You whimpered back your response and this time when he pulled his hand away from you, you stayed in position. Even so, he smacked your ass again, and you cried out as he began to set a hard and fast pace of fucking you.

“That’s better,” he praised lightly. His hand brushed your hair off of his neck so it was more exposed to him, and then his hand was pressing down on it, pressing you harder into the shelf. “You’re starting to learn to take dick so well…”

As he spoke he pummeled his cock into your pussy. You let your forehead hit the shelf as you raised a hand to your mouth, trying to muffle your screams as he pushed so deep inside of you that you thought you were going to break- No amount of stretching yourself out on your fingers could prepare you for how deep his cock was pushing inside of you.

“That’s right,” Jeonghan cooed, forcing his cock even harder into you, so hard the shelves shook around you. “Better keep quiet. Don’t want anyone to hear…”

He laughed at his own words.

“Well, you do want people to hear don’t you? You would love for someone to find out that you let me rail you in a closet wouldn’t you?”

You whimpered, your eyes closing firmly shut as you tried to ignore him, tried to focus on keeping your voice down.

“You know, your hovering dangerously far into slut territory.”

You squeezed around his cock, crying out as the simple use of the word made a moan rip out of you.

“Oh fuck, I can’t handle it when you squeeze my cock like that,” Jeonghan groaned, his voice rising in pitch as his fingers dug into your hips, holding you still so he could fuck you even harder.

“You know what else makes you squeeze my cock like that?”

He smacked your ass, and as the pain shot through your body, just as he said, your pussy clenched around his cock. He moaned loudly.

“I’m going to fuck you so full of my cum…” He moaned. “Beg for it y/n…”

You knew that if you let your hand leave your mouth you would be screaming for Jeonghan to fuck you harder, but it seemed Jeonghan didn’t care about that because in the few seconds you were considering your options his hand was striking even harder on your ass.

“I said beg.”

“Please-” You blurted out, trying to keep your voice to a steady level, but your whole body was bouncing on his cock. Your heart was thumping in your chest, your own orgasm was rapidly approaching.”

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, Jeonghan please come inside of me,” you begged. “Need it deep… Need to feel you for days… Need to-”

Jeonghan’s cock twitched inside of you and he forced his fingers into your mouth. You sucked on them hard as a way to keep yourself from screaming as thick ropes of hot cum shot out, deep into your pussy. You came around his cock almost instantly, your pussy milking him of every drop of cum. He gave you a few hard and deep thrust before finally pulling his fingers and cock out of you.

You gasped as you tried to keep your grip on the shelf, your legs shaking as you tried to get yourself together. But, you finally gave up on that and let yourself lower to the floor, your back hitting the wall as your pussy dripped cum. You did your best to try and catch your breath, silence falling between the two of you.

Jeonghan dug into his pocket, and, unbelievably enough pulled out a chocolate bar. You panted where you were now slumped against the ground and stared at him as he unwrapped it a little, breaking off one of the pieces.

“Open,” he said firmly.

You wouldn’t have argued with him no matter the situation. You opened your mouth and let him put the candy in your mouth. He watched you in silence for a little, waiting for you to finish eating that piece of candy before putting another piece in your mouth.

“Y/n…” His tone was scary.

“What?” You asked him.

“Why are you…” He trailed off, sounding a bit frustrated. “It’s just…” He was struggling greatly with what to say. “You’re an adult.”

Your eyebrows furrowed a bit.

“I’m an adult,” you agreed. He stared at you, broke off another piece of candy and put it in your mouth.

“And all of your friends are now adults,” he continued. “And adults, aren’t bothered with superficial things. They care about a person for… That person.”

You stared at him, and opened your mouth, only to be silenced with another piece of candy.

“Cigarettes are bad for you,” Jeonghan said quickly. Your wide-eyed expression dropped to one of dread, and just as you went to argue with him, he covered your mouth with the palm of his hand. “And you shouldn’t be vaping just so Hansol thinks you’re cool!”

You glared at Jeonghan.

“You don’t need to change anyone’s opinion on you,” Jeonghan said weakly. “You could… You could do anything and people are still going to treat you the same.”

You pinched Jeonghan’s wrist, and he gave you a more pointed look.

“I’m serious.”

You pinched him again and his hand fell to his side.

“Hansol invited me to a party Jeonghan,” you said. You shifted so that you were sitting more upright. “And then Seobin taught me how to smoke and he almost kissed me- And he’d never even looked at me in high school.” You waved your hand through the air. “And today Hansol called me cool.”

“Hansol thought you were cool before,” Jeonghan said. “He only said that to me because he thinks I don’t think you’re cool.”

Your ears perked up at that. Did Jeonghan think you were cool?

“And you don’t want someone like Seobin to kiss you,” he sounded disgusted. “If you wanted someone like Hansol, or Hyuk to kiss you I would get it but not someone like Seobin.”

“Jeonghan I don’t care who wants to kiss me. I just want someone to kiss me.”

The serious expression on his face cracked a little, his lips up-quirked.

“Well, I know someone who could do that for you,” he said, his voice dropping a bit. A smile spread across your lips too, but it seemed to remind Jeonghan of what he had been trying to say. “You don’t need to do all these new things if you are just trying to change people’s perception of you.”

“People don’t take me seriously Jeonghan,” you argued back. This time, growing frustrated of the fact that you had just let him rail you just so that he could lecture you after. You got to your feet, and began to put your clothes back on. Jeonghan just watched you from where he was crouched. “No one takes me seriously.”

“I take you seriously,” Jeonghan replied back firmly. You eyed him.

“You didn’t take me seriously until I demanded you sell me drugs.”

Something flashed in Jeonghan’s eyes and he got up in a flash.

“That’s not true.”

His tone was stern, but as soon as he was standing he seemed to notice something on your face. He sighed his frustration and reached forward, his thumb brushing over your cheeks, just by the corner of your lips.

“If you think that someone will only like you because you do drugs and let them fuck you anywhere you shouldn’t be friends with them.”

You stared at Jeonghan blankly.

“Do whatever you want y/n,” Jeonghan said after a moment’s pause. “But your friends. Your real ones, they don’t like it. I would be saying this to anyone. Take it from the black sheep. Don’t do anything that will get you hurt.”

He tugged at your shirt so that it fell right on your body, and then he opened the closet door.

“But keep in mind that you have a lot of people who are willing to catch you if you fall.”

He peeked around outside of the closet and then fully stepped out. He gestured for you to follow, and you did. He gave you one more look.

“You haven’t been offering yourself up to people for drugs have you?”

You shook your head wordlessly. He let out a sigh of relief.

“My number is still the same.”

And with that he waved his hand over his shoulder and walked away.

Taglist (go here to join!):

@vintageot5 @woo8hao @toruro @wonudazed @kkakkameori @starlight-night0 @minl0u @alltheshineofthestars-blog @park-hera-gi @melodicrabbit @jeanjacketjesus @sparklyshuji @itgirl-inthemaking @lexix001 @kyeomofhearts @joshhlvr @k-drama-adict @kyeomooniee @jjeongddol @changkyunsbussy @imprettyweird @ttragiquee @colored-confetti @afslme @nerezza123

#PEER PRESSURE WORKS MY FRIENDS #ITS OUT #I DID IT #EVERYONE SAY THANK YOU BRIE #the comic sans I had this document in hurt my head #i hope it was worth the wait. #jeonghan fanfic #jeonghan smut #jeonghan fanfiction #seventeen smut #seventeen fanfiction #seventeen fanfic #seventeen #kpop smut

[zahri-melitor]

Here's a list (please add on with additional suggestions) of websites I refer to regularly for DC comic book information:-

My preferred ones:

DC Database: yes it's a Fandom wiki but we all use it as it's the biggest and most comprehensive.

DCU Guide: My go to whenever I'm trying to work out character timelines. It tends to lag a bit with fairly recent comics appearances.

Comic Vine: I mostly use Comic Vine as a confirmation that I've got EVERY appearance for a character tracked down; it's one of the few that doesn't differentiate between periods so it can be useful in totaling up ALL appearances even if someone only appears as a flashback or background group detail after Flashpoint.

League of Comic Geeks: my favourite way of tracking my reading, but also very helpful for looking up what came out when, what issues have been collected in which trades and how many editions have been published, what has been reprinted, and other fiddly topics. Pretty essential assistance when buying comics.

DC Events Crossover History: honestly this wikipedia page is the most useful one I know of for actually figuring out the publication order of DC crossover events, as it also lists a lot of the smaller crossovers not just the big headliners. Helpful to guide long range reading and working out which of these events to pick up.

Comic Book Reading Orders: want to read a big event that contains a lot of tie-ins? Confused where to start? You want CBRO. It's not perfect (I've argued with their order on a number of occasions) but they get it more right than any other website I can think of and tend to preference grouping storylines together over strict publication orders or the arrangement in trades. If you want to blow your mind, go check out their Countdown to Infinite Crisis reading order, which not only contains 250 separate listed issues, but also diverts you to read another event during it. (Infinite Crisis itself is a measly 98 issues in comparison).

#DC reference materials

[bbcphile]

Newlywed Room Meta

Well, this is horrifying. I just realized that the newlywed room Jiao Liqiao had planned to marry Di Feisheng in is the same room she had him kneel at her feet in after crippling him and trying to destroy his martial arts.

(CW/tw: threat of rape)

Here’s the room in ep. 34 when he’s forced to kneel in front of her (and is in tons of pain and dissociating).

Here’s the newly wed room in ep. 38:

Notice that the bed is now where the chaise longue was. This means that she was planning on forcing the consummation in EXACTLY the same place that she had humiliated him in front of her men earlier (forcing him to kneel and calling him “Furen”). The screen behind the bed is even the same pattern as the screen that was behind her chaise longue, which means she planned to surround him with the same decorations, so there would be nowhere he could look where he wouldn’t be reminded of the earlier trauma and of his powerlessness.

Here’s something even more disturbing: the wedding bed is actually her bed, since it was already in that room, just in an alcove off to the side in ep. 34. 

Here’s the bed in episode 34.

And here it is in the newly wed room.

That means she moved it from its normal, more private location, and put it front and center of the room where her surrogate throne was. It’s now the focal point of the room and very deliberately staged, as though she was expecting an audience for the forced consummation, just like she had an audience when she forced him to his knees in front of all her men.

And if that weren’t enough, here’s another disturbing detail: do you see the decorative frame she’s using to hold up the curtain?

Guess where that’s from? Di Feisheng’s BEDROOM.

We saw it once before: in the scene where Jiao Liqiao tried to undress Di Feisheng. He had let her help him with the outer robe and wrist guard and then stopped her, looking furious, when she starts to undo his belt while saying that she will help him shower and change his clothes. She doesn’t listen to his very clear and furious no, and she only stops after he threatens to fire her. The curtain holder is the biggest piece of scenery in the background of the shots where she is reacting to being turned down, so much so that it practically becomes associated with her rejection.

Given this, it’s very telling that she ripped it away from the rest of his bed (which it matched) and put it with her bed; she took something that she’d associated with his rejection of her and put it with her (non-matching) bed, which she turned into their wedding bed, to symbolically destroy that resistance and to be a stark reminder that, now, unlike back then, he’s helpless to stop her. 

Everything about that room was designed to (possibly publicly) mock him for his helplessness and to revel in her triumph over him. 

So it’s even more powerful (and even more of a relief) that instead of that future, what actually happens in the newly wed room is that Li Lianhua carefully places Di Feisheng in the spot where he had previously been publicly humiliated and was in danger of worse, and heals him instead. Li Lianhua gives him back his power and agency, and even shares the mental codes for Yangzhouman, turning what was supposed to be a symbol of his defeat and helplessness into a symbol of respect, care, of sacrifice for another (because LLH gives him Yangzhouman that he needs to keep himself alive), and the strength that true cooperation and union can bring. 

And I’m going to be crying about this forever.

#mysterious lotus casebook #di feisheng #li lianhua #Jiao Liqiao #newlywed room #mlc meta #dihua #feihua #lian hua lou #lhl #my meta

[mintmatcha]

Inevitable Things: chapter six

Aizawa x reader fic

cw: cisfem reader, no quirks, office au, miscommunications, slow burn. full tags available on AO3 (linked in masterlist)

previous chapter | masterlist | next chapter

Fridays are also the only day where you don’t go directly home after work. Instead of catching the late night Orange line, you snag the Blue and take it down, down, down, right out of the city and it’s the almost surreal serenity of the suburbs. Street lights and cars turn into trees as the sun dips low. Only the ambient sounds of your music and the wheels on the tracks keep you company as you pass familiar stops, all the way to the end of the line.

From there, you walk: down the dark sidewalks, across the one lane roads, stopping only in the little diner along the way. It’s hours later when you finally make it to the doorstep. Before you can knock, the door is ripped open.

“You’re late.” The shortest woman you’ve ever seen stands there, hands on her hips and glasses shoved to the top of her nose bridge. Her scrubs are baggy, but clean, with the name of her service stitched on the pocket: UA Palliative. “I thought you were hit by a car.”

“Sorry, sorry.” you try to laugh her concerns off.

“And you’re sweaty.” Nurse Chiyo clicks her tongue at you as she hands you a face mask. “You should really let him send a car.”

A car would be faster, but you can’t justify someone footing that bill when your metro card has money on it. “The exercise is good for me.”

The woman scrunches her face and gestures to the bag you’re holding. The bottom of the brown paper is practically see through with grease. In the other, you have two styrofoam cups, taken from the diner down the road. “And that food is good for you too?”

“It’s a friday treat.”

“Just don’t feel bad if he’s not hungry,” she sighs with the weight of someone who knows. “Towards the end, the appetite tends to dwindle.”

You slip on your face mask and slip off your shoes. Toshinori Yagi’s home drips with old money; subtle detailing mixed with hints of extravagance, it's the air of wealth with none of the gaudiness. The halls are sparsely decorated, only the occasional artwork and statue to keep you company as you walk to the back of the home, past the luxurious, yet almost never used kitchen and through the abandoned living room. There, in the middle of it all, hangs an oversized picture of Yagi back in his acting days.

If it was anyone else, it might seem egotistical, but the man on the wall might as well be a completely different man, a Yagi from another universe. Bound solely in brightly colored latex, this Yagi grins ear to ear, flexing an obscenely thick bicep for the camera. The Hollywood cameras and actors are a blur in the background. It’s from the set of his first All Might movie-- the one you’ve seen hundreds of times. The longer you stare, the more jagging it is. At 55, Yagi is twice the man that he was in his twenties, but a quarter of the size. All of the important pieces are there -his smile, his laugh, his energy- but there’s a part of him, always locked away in a time where this picture was taken.

You press on into the study. This room is a stark contrast from the rest of the house; it’s cluttered, all flat surfaces stacked with magazines and printed articles. Coloring pages litter the floor, in between broken crayons and pencils.

In between it all is a stick of a man, dirty blonde hair buzzed short enough you can see the shape of his skull. He’s pouring himself over some reading, tired eyes tracing the page with a monotonous haze. He’s lost weight again; you can see it in the sharp dip of his cheeks.

“Happy Friday.” You rap on the door frame and he jolts up in surprise. Hand over heart, he laughs in delight, even though he knew you were coming. “How are you?”

“I thought-” He inhales. You can’t remember all of the details of what’s happened to him, but you know one of his lungs is practically nonfunctional and the other struggles keeping up. “You’d be celebrating your birthday.”

“You remembered.”

“Of course.” He pushes up to stand, but you wave him back down. “You should be. Out with friends.”

“I’m happy where I am, sir.” You place everything on the table in front of him and then retreat to your side, your drink still in hand. Once you’re far enough away - six feet- you take off your mask. “Chocolate Peanut Butter shake and extra crispy fries, just for you.”

It’s his favorite. No, it doesn’t have the nutrition he should be getting, but… well, he’s going to die no matter what. Let the man have a fucking milkshake. He takes it in both hands, like he’s cradling an award or a piece of gold.

The first time cancer struck him, Toshinori Yagi decided to leave acting and do something with his money. He didn’t have a family to take care of -- and his sister is independently wealthy-- so he invested in medical technology. He hired a team that knew better than him, put some of them through school, and grew a rather successful business from the ground up, no formal training of his own. Now, ironically enough, he’s wealthier than ever, and still pouring it into product development.

“You do too much.” He picks the darkest fry of the group and crunches down on it.

It’s the least you can do. Isolation is taxing; you don’t mind sacrificing a bit of time and $19.76 for a quick meeting and meal. You settle down in your usual spot- a fluffy velvet chair in the corner of the room- and take a long sip from your own drink.

“How are things with Shouta?”

You choke so hard it goes up your nose. How did he know? Did the interns figure it out and pass along the word to the whole office? How are you going to explain to your boss that you’ve sexted his colleague? Or did Aizawa tell him? Oh, what if he shared those pictures--

“Wh-what about him?”

Yagi gives you a strange, tired look, brow knitted with a kind concern. “You called me- about his employee?”

You physically sigh with relief; no one knows. Everything is good; you need to stop panicking. Aizawa won’t share the pictures; it’d ruin his career faster than it’d ruin yours. Besides, he’s apparently embarrassed of you, so why would he even show you off? “Oh, well, everything’s good. Kaminari is back in the office.”

Your boss chews a single fry for a long while. A melancholic twang stirs inside you. No, you haven’t known him as long as some people, but over the years you’ve gotten attached. He’s a fair man, a good one too. Watching him waste is… it’s hard. Plain and simple. On the books, you say that you visit for work, but it’s honestly a social call, something to quell your worries.

“He wasn’t very happy when-- I called,” Yagi draws in from his nasal tube as he talks sometimes and it cuts his words short.

“Yeah, I know.” That’s an understatement. You chew on your straw as you try to decide how to respond. “Aizawa had some choice words for me afterwards.

The look on Yagi’s face tells you that he already knew that. Word always makes it back to the big boss one way or another; even sick, he always has his fingers in every pie.

“Don’t let him-” He runs out of breath in a weird spot. “Push you around. He’s a strong personality.”

That’s an understatement too. You wish you could stomp your feet and demand for his removal, but unfortunately Aizawa is very, very good at his job. Besides, you don’t especially want him fired. Maybe just… a series of paper cuts everyday for the rest of his life. Or that his train never comes on time. Nothing serious.

“Trust me- I won’t.” You throw an arm up and flex. “I can put up a fight.”

“No fighting.” The man tries to give you a stern look, but it just looks a bit silly. As demanding as it sounds, it's like being scolded by a grandfather; there’s too much affection between you for anything to feel threatening. “Don’t wage any wars in my office.”

“No promises!” you tease. “Ready to go over reports?”

He smiles back, those hollow cheeks pulling into tiny apples. “Of course.”

…

It’s late when you finally make it home. Yagi had forced you into a car, calling it a birthday gift, and the drive was long and quiet. The driver turned on some soft music, songs with the tinkle of piano, and you almost dozed off by the time he rolled into your apartment complex.

You kick your heels off and strip out of your work clothes as you enter your apartment, letting everything stay where it falls. In the wake of Touya, your place is pretty much empty, with the carpet still pressed in spots where lamps and tables used to be and a jammed lock that won’t click closed. The less time you spend here, the better. You throw yourself onto the couch -something too big to take, apparently- and flick on the television. The usual mindless garbage you like is already on; perfect background noise as you play on your phone.

There’s nothing super new going on. Couple of group chat notifications. Nemuri had texted you to check in-- so did Hizashi. And-

Aizawa’s unopened messages stare at you. There’s no reason to read those texts, right? It’s just mindless sex talk. In fact, he probably doesn’t want you to ever see those texts again.

…Unless he said something important. Maybe he had told you to play dumb at work! Oh, that would open its own can of worms, but at least it would explain why he said to forget everything-

Wait, that wouldn’t make sense. You two were alone at that point. He could have been normal or said something like ‘wow, love your tits!’ or--

Ugh. He wouldn’t say that! Ugh!

You pull on your messaging app again. You need to get this over with.

-> I bet you looked so pretty when you came.

The preview still makes your skin prick with unwanted excitement. The lust nipping at your ankles isn’t easy to ignore as you tap the button and open the conversation. The immediate visage of your words, your drunken musings and flirtations, makes you physically cringe. Luckily, the new messages take up enough space to keep you from seeing your own nude visage.

The first response hits you like a truck.

-> Do you have any idea what I’d do to lick your fingers clean? What I’d do to smell your perfume on your skin?

The thrum of your heartbeat goes funny for just a flash of a moment and you have to shake off any semblance of arousal. No-- you do not like this. There’s absolutely nothing sexy about that thought! You don’t want the warmth of his tongue or the tickle of his breath against your pulse point, or that little bit of scruff against your lips-

The video is below the first message. It’s paused on an out of focus still, but you can make out the golden touched skin of his stomach and the blur of hand. Heat flickers in your core at that, but you tense your legs and try to ignore it.

Get yourself together. It’s just a fucking jerk off video. You scroll right by it.

-> Look at what you do to me. It’s all for you.

There’s a couple of minutes between that text and the final one.

- >I think you fell asleep. Talk in the AM.

And… that’s it. Nothing else.

That told you nothing, other than the fact that Aizawa Shouta is just like any other man: a horny freak. A sexy, amazing texter of a freak, but still a freak regardless! When you move, you can feel the wetness between your legs spread against your pussy lips.

You turn over and try to focus on the medical drama that’s onscreen. Ugh. Ugh! You're over this man and his fucking bipolar attitude and his work bullshit and his, his, his….

The click on the wall ticks away.

His kind of alluring demeanor.

You turn back to your phone. Maybe the video has an answer. Yeah.

The volume on your phone thrums with audio, low and deep, when you click the image. It takes you a second to realize it’s a groan- unabashed and loud- and you swear it resonates deep down into your own lungs.

This video is aimed a bit higher than the other and is shot from farther away, probably resting on a desk from the looks of it. It feels silly that you ever confused him with Touya. Shirt clutched between his teeth, Aizawa’s skin is a deeper color, completely untattooed, and his chest is filled out with weight. A broad, thick hand is white knuckle tight around his cock, glazed and dripping with wetness. It’s thick, oh god, it’s thick, and he’s holding it so tightly that it must hurt. Your jaw aches at the sight of it. Everything about him is wide//, from his cock to his thighs to his slightly soft middle.

A bead of precum rolls from his tip as he slowly drags his hand up and back down. His entire body jumps and twitches with the sensation, a red blush tickling down his chest and another moan on his lips, muffled by the fabric of his black shirt. He makes the same sound again, this one softer, almost affectionate--

And you realize something that feels like a punch to the gut.

He’s saying your name.

Heat flushes your body. Oh, you can barely breathe out of fear you’ll miss something. With a high, tight sound, Aizawa’s body goes stiff, but his cock kicks as he comes undone. Spend splatters down his chest and onto his black shirt, pearl string after pearl string. Just like everything about him, it’s too much.

And then the video ends.

You digest this for a long moment. Then, you watch it again. And a third time.

There's a tremor in your hands as you put your phone down. Okay, that didn't give you any information, but it- well-

Fuck, it was hot. Really fucking hot. Unfortunately, terribly, awfully, horrendously hot. You want to scream and kick and rub your clit just a little, because all you need is a little friction and you'll cum for him again--

No. You can't give that victory to him, not again. Even if Aizawa will never know about it, the universe will.

You grip the remote and turn up the television's audio, trying to shift your focus on to the interpersonal drama on the screen. You’re stronger than this. The little thing between your legs does not dictate your behavior!

You don’t jack off that night.

Or the following night.

Or the following.

No, you resist. You punish yourself for even entertaining the idea of cumming to the idea of him again.

Monday morning you are unsurprisingly cranky when you settle into your desk. Kicking off your shoes and booting up your computer, you stretch in your chair and try to pop the kink in your shoulder. Thirty must be catching up with you, because you didn’t sleep well all weekend. Every muscle in your back is bunched, but the little bits of movements seems to be helping-

“Jesus fucking christ, I'm sweating through my fucking shirt.”

Bakugo's accent slips out as he gripes, pulling his shirt collar away from his neck as he walks. It’s easy to forget that he and Izuku grew up in the same hometown, but when he’s genuinely pissed, that homecooked Southern twang comes out. You look up to see what's gotten him so aggravated before nine. Sweat dampens his hair and glitters his skin. Oh, and he's right, that white shirt is absolutely clinging to his middle, into that tight, tiny, toned, slutty little waist of his--

Oh, god. You slam your food into the edge on your desk in hopes the pain douses whatever horny monster had overtaken you. Is this just life now? Practically drooling over every man with a pulse? Bakugo Katsuki is gay and very much not your type-

“You okay?” Izuku gives an awkward laugh. He and Denki are apparently right behind Bakugo, equally worn. Well, almost equally. Denki doesn't seem to be sweaty at all, despite his puffing. “You're like, making this weird face.”

Shit. Quick-- lie. “Cramps.”

“Damn, hate that,” Kaminari grips his stomach in sympathy. The other guys share an uncomfortable glance.

“So-” You change the topic. “Why are you guys..?”

“The elevator is shot.” Bakugo hooks a thumb behind him towards the stairs. “Had to carry this fuck ass bed up to the fifth floor for that meeting today.”

The investor meeting: even though Toshinori Yagi is wealthy, the newest bed prototype still needed outside funding. These fine millionaires require occasional proof that their money is being used well, so once a quarter they get jammed into the nicest room in the building and get a rather boring lecture from the important department heads. You usually sit in and try not to nod off when Enji starts in with the accounting information.

“The entire elevator?” You lean back in your chair and try to see. Sure enough, some technician is fumbling away at the buttons. “No one tell the ADA.”

“Actually, the ADA is a law, not a governing body,” Izuku chirps. “It's enforced by the DOJ, EEOC, and, oddly enough, the DOT-”

“How do you know this shit?” Denki says.

“Healthy curiosity,” Izuku tries to say.

“‘cause he's a fucking genius.” Bakugo says at the same time, louder and more confident. “Using that big head of his all the time.”

Izuku touches his temples with a concerned frown. “You think my head is big?”

“Massive.” Bakugo elbows his lover, all saccharine smiles. “It works for me though.”

Kaminari snorts and the other blonde throws him an icy glare.

“What? You gonna make a joke about massive head?”

Kaminari throws his hands in the air and rolls his eyes, surprisingly annoyed at the jab. “I was going to joke about his head working for you, but whatever! Ruin my fun.”

“As much as I love head jokes-” you interject. “I do need to get work done.”

Kaminari turns to you with the sweetest of smiles, so syrupy that everyone else recoils a bit with suspicion. “Like what?”

“Getting everyone’s powerpoints together, printing out our reports, putting those reports into actual human words and not engineering garbage, greeting our guests-- blah, blah, blah.” Just talking about it makes your head ache. “Plus the other daily reports and---- Kaminari, no.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!”

“You were going to ask me to do your work again!” you say.

“Come on, please?” He puffs his bottom lip out like a kicked dog. “I have to leave early this week and -”

“Denki, you’re so fucking stupid.” Bakugo groans. He starts to leave and the other two follow behind. “I'm too tired for your shit today.”

“There’s a gay joke hidden in there.”

“I'm going to report you to fucking HR.”

“See you at lunch?” Izuku asks from over his shoulder. You shake your head-- you’ll probably just sneak one of the forgotten italian ice cups from the freezer when no one’s working. There’s so much to do and not quite enough time.

--

You’re solving that little frozen treat into your mouth when Aizawa makes his appearance. It’s strange to see him so late in the day; pure embarrassment must be keeping him away. His usual sunny yellow sweatshirt means you can’t even pretend not to see him when he rounds the corner.

Aizawa is as he always is; a bit scruffy and properly annoyed. His expression is neutral, if not a bit sour, but the crinkle in his brow is tighter than ever. The bunch to his shoulders only gets higher when he spots you.

This is really the guy that's been tearing you apart? Really? Why couldn't you have fallen for Hizashi or Enji or-- anyone else that isn't wearing a neon hoodie in the office.

“You should really take a proper lunch.” Those deep bags under his eyes are darker than usual, almost purple; he must be drained, but he’s been avoiding the coffee machine. A twang of sympathy hits you-- lack of caffeine might actually kill the guy.

When he walks towards you, you're reminded of how pretty he is, even without proper sleep. High cheekbones, smooth olive tone skin-

Your fighting spirit almost fades, but the post it note taped to your monitor catches your eye. Be mean. Yes, that's right.

“Well, uh. What do you want?” Your tone is a bit snappy.

His eyebrows twitch up in momentary surprise, but Aizawa recovers quickly.

“The elevator won’t be fixed until tomorrow.” He raps his knuckles against the wood once. “Move the investor’s meeting from the top floor.”

“Say please.”

Aizawa is half turned and midstride when he realizes what you said. He looks back at you, brow knit.

“Excuse me?”

“I said.” You hit the spacebar with a bit too much force. “Say please.”

“I-” You expect him to fight or argue, but he just sighs, hands on his hips in defeat. “You're right. I'm sorry, I shouldn't demand things. Can you please move the investor’s meeting from the top floor down to the ground floor? Thank you.”

That was more sincere than you expected. Your stiff upper lip almost wobbles. Almost.

“No.”

He gives you the most deadpan stare you’ve ever seen. “What do you mean, no?”

“I said no.” You push back from the desk and let your wheeled chair roll away. “There’s no reason to move it. The room upstairs is already set up for the meeting-- full demo bed included. I’m not moving everything.”

A muscle tightens in his jaw. Seems like that good attitude is on a short fuse. “There's a second demo. I'll have the boys wheel it into the meeting room on this floor-”

“It’s a less finished model though, right?”

“That's…” Aizawa huffs. You know you’re right and so does he. “Yes. Sure. A less complete model, but it’s still leagues ahead of what they saw last time- ”

“We shouldn’t use it.” You have no right bossing him around, but you try to embody Bakugo and his cunt-like behavior. “They are going to see the best we have to offer. Besides, the fifth floor meeting room is bigger and nicer-- and it's already set up.”

“I-” He leans forward, arms crossed on to your desk. It’s not threatening, but rather humble, as he meets your eye. The silver healed skin of his scar catches the light differently than the rest of his face. “It’s four full flights of stairs.”

“And you can walk.”

A beat passes. Then another. Aizawa stares at you, dark eyes hooded with exhaustion.

“I have never, ever thought of you as a cruel person.” He doesn’t blink the entire time he speaks, deep, endless black eyes boring into yours. “But time and time again, you show me that side of you. “Well-” You don’t blink either. “I’ve always thought you were awful.

“Fuck you,” he grits out, quiet but with an edge. His lips are curled so high you can see his gum line.

You should let it die here. Let him walk away. Escape with your dignity.

But your teeth and tongue are sharp, and the look on his face is only sharpening their edges, so follow the instinct and go in for the kill. As you stand, you lean on to your hands and push yourself face to face to Aizawa. Unabashed, unafraid, unblinking.

“You wish you could.”

His face collapses. Then, it hardens again, even tighter and more disgusted than usual. The flat ridge of his nose is crinkled with a snarl, eyes narrowed so thin they're practically closed. When he pushes away to stand, Aizawa jams his hands into his sweatshirt and flexes his jaw, up and down like he's chewing on every insult and curse he wants to throw your way. He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again with a deep exhale.

“Fine.” He says through closed teeth. “Fifth fucking floor.’

And with that, he turns and marches off back down the hall.

By the time you breathe again, you realize your hands are quaking. The adrenaline is still pumping through your veins, rushing your heart faster and faster. This must be how a marathon runner feels when they cross the finish line-- because this is victory.

Sorry, Yagi. War has been waged.

You did say no promises.

[memyselfandmya]

CHAOS THEORY S1 REVIEW

So after a day to process the show, I think I am more than ready to finally talk about it and give a full on review. [HINDSIGHT: This review took two days to put together, having to rewatch the show for evidence and to strengthen my ideas, and then having to organize it into something that makes sense. Just know that this is essentially my messy love letter to the show] I will be taking on a more objective perspective and focusing more on the writing aspect rather than my personal feelings, especially as a writer and hopefully future screenwriter. So let's get into it, heavy spoilers below the cut. Like as in I pick out little details that alone might not be a spoiler but I make them into a spoiler.

For starters, the show exceeded my expectations and the writing was phenomenal. Even when choices were made that I personally might not agree with or necessarily want, the execution of them was incredible so I couldn't really care to hate them. Overall, I have no heavy qualms with the show and I loved every moment of it.

It was complex and it was messy and I thoroughly enjoyed that. There's so much going on action-wise, character-wise, and mystery-wise and it's amazing how well balanced it is. What we get is real and raw and largely uncensored. We get conflict between two brothers, conflict between two girlfriends, moments where trust is lacking, and so so much more. It all feels very natural and realistic because that's how real people truly are: complex and messy. Also, even when these characters are going through all of these conflicts, you can still tell that they're family and they love each other.

The creators don't shy away from the trauma either, we get flashbacks, explicit mentions of PTSD and mental health issues, and we actually see Kenji having a panic attack, too. When I tell you, the way these characters were brought to life was so amazing. For all of this to still be considered a kids show is incredible and rarely ever seen. I'm gonna go more in depth with the complexity stuff later on, probably when I get more to the character analysis part of this review.

I like how we get to see more dynamics between groups that we didn't see much of in CC: Ben and Brooklynn, Sammy and Ben, Brooklynn and Yaz, etc.

The humor in this show is top-tier and very much natural. Hardly any of it feels forced and it's very much in-character. Just in general, all of the feelings in this show were amazing. It was a rollercoaster of emotions watching this. I felt happy, I was devastated, I laughed a lot, I felt bad for the characters, I was upset and mad, I was scared (oh boy was I scared), and I was tense with anticipation.

Going off of these feelings, the overall tone of the show was incredible. They said that it'd be darker and it was. There were so many times where I myself was scared and wondered how this show was still TV-Y7. There were so many ominous moments and here are some that I noted:

The moment that black car on the road actually does start following them. You can hear the whistle in the background of ep.3 before the raptors actually come in. Carl’s dead body in the car, and the view of his limp hand. In general the scene where they’re being hunted at the ranch, it’s reminds me of playing hide and seek with my cousins but 10x more darker and with higher stakes. “I don’t hear anything.” “Exactly.” Ugh these moments always hit well. The shoes of the dead police guard. Microbang lady whistling and then stepping out of the car The DPW aiming for the van The allosaurus being released from the vehicle. The dinosaurs watching the dude get eaten.  The garage door opening, revealing micro bangs and then all of the dinosaurs falling silent. The moment where she picks up her whistle because we all know what happens next.  When the atrocirapotor picks up the camper’s scent. You can see the small smile on Microbangs' face when she realizes the kids are there.

I love the rearview/sideview mirror shots, it really symbolizes the constantly looking over your shoulder because you’re being hunted aspect of the show. It adds suspense and questioning which is perfect for a conspiracy show.  

I love the use of Chekhov's Gun and foreshadowing. All of my examples may be exaggerations or unintentional but I'm going to stick with it anyways. In ep.2 when the boys are at the gas station, there are signs that say "Report All Spills!" (maybe these are typically at gas stations, idk) which makes sense because you don't want gas on the ground especially because it's so flammable and then I saw the gas pump fall and gas spill out and I had a feeling about what was going to happen next. Sure enough, a fire started. Also in ep.3, when Sammy steps on the creepy floorboard and she's trying to remember where her pitchfork is, and then when they're being hunted, Sammy knowing to avoid stepping on that board only to stumble into the pitchfork that she had been looking for. Also, the King Dino billboard at the beginning of ep.4.

The animation was stunning and the cinematography(?) was breathtaking. We got so many wonderful views.

The pacing is so good. I’m not going to go over it because that’d be a lot but basically everything felt in the right moment. 

I like in ep.2 how we’re introduced into the very first scene with Brooklynn’s new VA. We have Ben being woken up by a mysterious phone call and a mysterious voice on the other line that we don’t recognize. Who is this mysterious, unknown woman? It’s Brooklynn!

There are people who don't like the fact that Darius and Kenji are arguing again and who think that it's a reused plotline that shouldn't be and I understand the feeling of wanting something different but I also have to disagree. While it is the same thing we have in CC, I genuinely can't think of a different way this could have gone that wasn't more in-character than this. The reason why it's being reused is because that part about Kenji hasn't changed. While he's gone through some amazing emotional development, he still deeply cares about his friends and also about trust. Him not liking it when people play with their lives can still be an important value to him, even with his growth. And I personally feel like in this scenario Kenji's anger and his hurt was especially more justified than in CC because in this case, Brooklynn actually "died" instead of just getting kidnapped. And while I don't blame Darius or hate him for not being there, it makes sense why Kenji does.

This time around, it's going to be a lot harder for them to get on good terms. I also like how this time, it's not as subtle and they are actively jabbing at one another. I also like how it's more mutual. Like with CC I was like, "leave my baby alone, kenji, he's just a little innocent kid." and now I'm like "oh shit, Darius you ate with that." Even when they're arguing, they do still care for each other and there are moments where they still support the other. Then there are the little things that causes Kenji's anger to resurface like the password thing so more fuel is constantly being added. And then the "you and me, we're brothers right?" is absolutely gut wrenching.

One thing I appreciate is how Kenji isn’t even really mad at Darius anymore. Not for him liking Brooklynn, anyways. To me this shows a heightened emotional maturity. Especially since in CC we saw him be petty with his anger towards Darius and even in the early episodes of CT but now he’s bypassing all of his personal qualms and getting to what matters most to him without the extra pettiness: why wasn’t he there for Brooklynn? Why wasn’t he there for the people he loves. Kenji’s relationship with Brooklynn isn’t important. The fact that Darius fell for his ex doesn’t matter. What matters to him is that Brooklynn, someone they both (all) deeply cared about died, and the guy who loved her wasn’t there when she needed him. The tenderness and the softness of this scene was way more impactful and sorrowful than had Kenji angrily went after Darius. This makes the conflict still feel different from the one we saw in CC. All in all, I think their conflict adds to the complexity and (realistic) messiness of it all.

Even though I’m not the biggest Brookenji/Kenlynn fan, seeing them drift apart was so disheartening to watch because you can tell that Kenji really cared about Brooklynn and he was putting so much effort into the relationship when Brooklynn was distracted. I like how even though I’m not a big fan of the ship, I’m still convinced to root for them which shows compelling writing. But the baby talk fucking ruined it. I’m back to not liking it. The whole breakup situation very much reminded me of the episode of CC where Brooklynn is late to the date because they were out investigating. Again, I’m glad that Kenji is sticking up for himself though, and distancing people when they need to be distanced. I also love the little detail of Kenji calling Darius’ mom every week. Just emphasizes that he’s still a family man and doesn’t forget the people who helped him.

“I’m in a really good place now, and I got here by myself.” This line is so impactful to me because in early CC we know Kenji to be lazy and somebody who expects everything to go his way without putting in the effort so this is, one, very symbolic of his development as a character, and two, explains why he’s so proud of where he is now and his business that he’s got going on--even if it doesn’t look to be as successful. It makes sense why he’d be so protective over what he’s made for himself. I really respect him for putting up that boundary because he’s so right; Daniel doesn’t deserve him much less to speak to him, and Kenji doesn’t deserve to put himself through that emotional turmoil when he’s finally reached a good place. I think it makes it even more impactful when he does choose to go especially because it’d be totally valid if he didn’t. And then not only being subject to more of his dad’s manipulation but also having to witness him die.

I’m actually surprised and very happy that Dreamworks didn’t go the redeeming Daniel route. I would have expected this kind of show to make Daniel forgivable but he’s still a bad person and a manipulative father who hasn’t changed much. To me it seems more realistic because Daniel doesn’t seem like a character who learns his lesson and it furthers the plot with the whole Brooklynn thing. Also, Daniel's sacrifice is not a redemption. He's still a bad character. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Dreamworks' other show, She-ra Princess of Power, but there's an abusive mother figure in it, Shadow Weaver, who also sacrifices herself for the characters she abused, but before that she was still manipulative the same way Daniel was. They both died before they could truly change their ways and atone for their actions which is why it's not a redemption. Daniel Kon did not redeem himself by saving Kenji.

I also actually like Daniel’s death, and no, not just because I hate him as a character. In season 5, he’s the big bad antagonist that the kids have to go up against, and he’s a real threat, right? Do the raptors care about Daniel’s villain era? Do they care that he was a big character in the OG show? No. And that shows that the writers don’t care either (but in a good way). Because we don’t have any of the main Nublar Six dying (except for Brooklynn sorta ig??), there’s a lot of opportunity to call plot armor and stuff and say that the writers are pulling their punches. But they’re willing to kill one of the big antagonists from CC in a random episode, so, to some extent, there is minimum plot armor. You can be a great big villain and still these dinosaurs will kill you.

Also, this gives us so much opportunity with Kenji’s character. We get to see what it looks like having to grieve the life of somebody who you hated and who abused you and yet still be devastated over his death. Showing Kenji breakdown over Daniel’s death adds an entirely new layer of complexity to the story line. It’s so much more impactful than having Kenji be apathetic towards his death or be like, “good riddance.” The detail of Kenji speaking at the end really gave all the more impact to the entire episode.

Kenji’s panic attack in ep.7 is really powerful. First, the wonderful cinematography (the watering of Kenji’s eyes, omg) and the 1st person pov segments. Then we have the voice acting, chef’s kiss. Just the flat out impact of this scene all together: Kenji balling his eyes out after the death of someone who doesn’t even deserve his mourning is heart wrenching. I hate Daniel and I’m glad he’s dead, but also seeing Kenji break down over it almost makes me wish he wasn’t. By far one of the saddest scenes in the show.  Again the cinematography of it. Darius hugging a sobbing Kenji in the middle of a field with the car’s red lights beaming on them. Then Mateo just standing there awkwardly. LMFAO.

It’s cool because we have this gut wrenching moment and then we’re immediately brought into a feeling of awkwardness with this random new character there and it’s so jarring but fitting because you have these two moments where Kenji’s grief but also the need to keep moving coexist and one needs to take priority over the other but the other one is still important. I’m just saying we are feeling what the characters in the show feel, which is good. Then we have Kenji going ballistic on Mateo’s ass and man the emotions packed into the scene.

Also Mateo. I want to trust him, and I do. But there’s also a suspiciousness to him. I love him though. But, it felt oddly convenient that he was able to locate them so many times. He says that his daughter helped him track them but how does his daughter of all people track them when they’re moving all over the place and also the way he talks about her, “I’ve got a little girl back home,” and the pan over to the crayon drawing made me picture a young child. His story is interesting though, too, and complex for a side character. Just feels a bit like a suspicious deus ex machina.

I love how the others are so in tune with one another and then Mateo says something and they all jump, forgetting he’s there. They are all very much close with each other and oblivious to the people around them. He's definitely out of the loop. Darker thought, what if at some point (or now, even) his daughter gets kidnapped/held hostage by the hunters so he’s forced to mislead the camp fam in order to keep her safe?

The opening scene of ep.6 is top tier and I love how we’re getting right down deep into the good stuff, and by good stuff I mean the trauma. The portrayal of Yasmina’s PTSD is so incredible to see and all of the flashes of dinosaurs really put us in Yaz’s mind. Also the heartbeats sounds just make this an even more intense scene. What’s also amazing is that we see Yaz making progress with handling her trauma but she’s still struggling with it too. Complexity. What I also love is how Yaz’s PTSD has allowed her to become more equipped to manage her trauma more than the other campers have, and because she’s able to grasp a hold of it so well, she’s able to help Sammy manage her own anxiety, too. 

I feel as if Ben is almost reverting back into his pre-Nublar self and also like the Ben we saw in CC’s “At Least…”. He’s become a lot more paranoid and on edge which is very interesting to see. Ben being completely wary of the gas station attendant and being unwilling to stop is a major display of Ben’s anxiousness. Could the fire in ep.2 be symbolism for Ben’s paranoia in that episode? I may be looking too deep into it, but think about it. The spilled gas is all of Ben’s conspiracies and theories; alone, it’s not much of an obvious problem but when paired with the right ignition, a spark or being hunted by raptors, for example, it turns into an uncontrollable problem. Ben’s paranoia causes him to be irrational and unconsolable just like that fire and needs to be be extinguished so it doesn't destroy anything. I also like the little detail of Darius noticing the car on the side of the road in ep.2 and becoming suspicious about it. But then Ben thanks Darius for keeping him grounded so Darius doesn’t mention anything about the car in order to not send him back to the state of paranoia he was in earlier.

Then we also see Ben’s anxiousness in the beginning of ep.4 about Bumpy. Seeing him so concerned about her really tugs on those heart strings because you can tell the love between them runs deep. The passion in ep.9 is so incredibly palpable especially when he’s panicking and crying at the sound of Bumpy being abused. I really felt that scene because I know that watching someone you love get abused and not being able to stop it is so emotionally overwhelming The emotion packed into that scene, holy shit. 

I also just love how we’re allowing men to cry. It’s so normalized in media to have the guys always being tough and masculine men who never sheds a tear but we are really knocking down the toxic masculinity in this show and normalizing men displaying emotion (beyond anger). We see all of the boys in this show break down: Kenji, Ben, Darius, and never once does them crying make them embarrassed or emasculated. Even in CC, the boys were allowed to show feelings and it didn’t weaken their masculinity at all. It’s really powerful and I’m glad we’re stepping away from the “boys don’t cry” narrative.

Back to Ben’s character, I was a little bit disappointed with his character arc, or lack thereof, in the middle episodes. Sometimes it felt as if he was only there for comedic relief and was emotionally detached from Brooklynn’s death. Maybe there’s intent behind this but I’m not sure. 

I don’t know what to think about the whole girlfriend thing. Maybe Ben just made up the girlfriend thing to get Sammy to get rid of her phone lmao but ended up running with it. I do love how everyone’s surprised about Ben having a girlfriend because me too guys, me too. And it’s not because he eats out of a boot and pees in a jar (it is) but because I thought he was gay. Like with the whole rejecting Yaz scene in CC always gave me that implication. Now, he could still always be bi or pan which would be just as cool, but still just the fact that he has a random ass girlfriend. But also how is he maintaining a long-distance relationship when he’’s completely cut off from the grid. A part of me wants to believe that Ben has a girlfriend especially when he questions why everyone is surprised but also… idk. Ben does seem to understand how Yaz is feeling with relationship stuff to a degree. But I don’t know. I like some of the theories I’ve seen: that Ben is being catfished by Brooklynn, in particular. In theory I giggle a bit but in practice that’d low-key be a fucked up thing to do to Ben’s emotions. I find it harder to believe that Ben is doing the girlfriend to cover up that he’s gay because he knows that his friends will be accepting (although doesn’t change that coming out to them could still be hard) but also because I feel like he would at least tell Yaz because in S5 of CC they had that deep talk about Yaz’s sexuality. A part of me believes that the cargo ship is going somewhere to Europe and when they get there Ben will call on his girlfriend for help. If she is real, I hope she's badass and pretty so she can contribute to the plot and I can fall in love with her. Wait, what? Maybe down the line when I have more theories about Ben and his supposed girlfriend I’ll make a separate post. 

“Don’t you dare throw my phone out the window, Benjamin.” Sammy’s so much of a powerful force now. I love her fierceness and sassiness, it’s definitely a different look from her character in CC. But also, she’s still in character, just matured, changed, and acquired that “tough love” attitude. Paired with how a little later in the episode when she goes to save the dinosaurs, it shows how Sammy (and the rest of the characters) might have changed since CC but are still the same at their core. Very much getting flashbacks to the Art of Chill episode. Sammy still has the passionate sense of righteousness but with more attitude and I’m 100% here for it.

I also want to talk about the whole Sammy as a suspect thing. I love Ben and I’m glad they made up at the end but also can you imagine how hurtful it must be for Sammy? Like it sucks for her that a decision she made years ago (and was cleared up) in order to protect her family comes back to bite her, from one of her closest friends too. For one of her besties to not trust her must hurt a lot, especially after everything they’ve gone through together. Trust in general is an interesting motif in this show. We have Darius having to learn to trust Ben and his theories, the whole Darius and Kenji trust conflict thing, Ben being untrusting of Sammy at first, and Yaz and Sammy having to learn to trust each other again. 

Back to Sammy’s character, I want to take a moment to talk about Sammy’s mental health; like she’s really not doing well and I’m genuinely worried about her. From CC we know her to be a very social person who’s rarely ever alone and we even have the episode in S5 of CC where her entire arc is learning to do stuff on her own. So in CT, seeing Sammy living all alone in Texas with nobody (nice) around is so jarring and worrying to me. That scene where she reunites with the boys is really sweet, especially knowing that it’s probably one of the first few moments where she’s not isolated from any of the people she loves. It’s also probably another reason why she’s even more “Sammy” than usual. Then you have Sammy saying, “Just busy. It’s only me around here with Yaz up north finishing school, and my parents…we just don’t talk much anymore, but that’s okay! I’m keeping busy.” We can definitely notice that Sammy is not handling this isolation thing well and her coping mechanism is very much busying herself. What I really want to know though is why Sammy isn’t talking with her family.

But back to the main point, it’s also the way that Sammy’s character naturally influences the plot and pacing of episode three. Ben and Darius have something urgent they need to tell Sammy but her inability to stay still is preventing them from doing so which creates a natural conflict.

Additionally, in retrospect Sammy's coping mechanism was obvious: the mock interviews we got where it’s said, “Back at home, Sammy Gutierrez maintained that positive attitude by staying busy. ‘I have my own ranch, now. And my girlfriend Yaz. And tons of pies to bake! We don’t have time to keep worrying about all that running for our lives stuff!’” Even before this, she’s fallen into that heavy positivity that’s borderline unhealthy by trying to shove everything under the rug. All of the positive sayings on her wall also feel symbolic of her trying to maintain a positive outlook on her life. Her line “I’m so sick of making pies,” while possibly just for humor and a throwaway line, it could represent how this false positive narrative that Sammy has going where she’s keeping busy around the house and baking pies isn’t satisfactory and is also crumbling. Maybe even the first pie burning could be symbolic of her positive life failing (or maybe I’m looking too deep into it). Also that scene where she straight up hallucinates and sees Brooklynn for a second? That scene is so haunting and utterly heartbreaking. This is sort of the nail in the coffin that Sammy is not doing well mentally at all. In this scene too, her sadness is also heavily emphasized. Her eyes watering is such a sad detail and also you can kind of notice that her under-eye area is dark and red too. This might just be the lighting, but I feel that it really emphasizes that Sammy is really struggling and all of this business and fake positivity is getting to her. And then immediately after, she deflects and continues what she’s doing. Darius begging Sammy to stop and Sammy’s response being, “Stop and think about Brooklynn dying, or my family not speaking to me, or Yaz pulling away from me? No… I can’t stop. I won’t.” There is a lot to unpack there. First, we have another mention that Sammy and her family aren’t talking and I want to know why. Secondly, she is definitely struggling with growing isolated from the people she loves and with Sammy’s character valuing her connections with her loved-ones it makes it all the more impactful. I wish we got to see more on this but then we get interrupted by the action just as Darius is about to say something. It's a really sad scene though. In ep.4 we see Sammy being more anxious, especially with Yaz not answering her calls. In that one scene after the parasaurolophuses, Sammy is completely distraught and it’s sad to see. I don’t even think she herself even fully realizes her mental health issues. The anxiety Sammy is experiencing is also highlighted in ep.7. Granted, they are in a sinking, soggy van and I’d be panicking too but damn. She’s also panicking in the beginning of ep.9, but now, instead of Sammy keeping her body busy from her mind, her mind is keeping her busy from her body and making her forget how to breathe.

“I know she doesn’t always answer, but at least she texts back or maybe just gives a thumbs up, even though she knows I hate those. Cause they give me passive-aggressive vibes, but I know she doesn’t mean it that way. But I got that girlfriend intuition that something ain’t right.” Poor Sammy, she is very clearly anxious about this whole thing and it especially shows with how she bounces her phone around. I like how this conflict between Yaz and Sammy is building up before they even see each other, starting with Yaz not answering the phone call and Sammy getting anxious. The split up thing also gave me a mini heart attack too Ben, don’t worry. “Why, did she say something?” Sammy, please. You’re not okay. In ep.6 with the “I’m working really hard to get my anxiety in check, but Sammy still treats me like a fragile flower,” again, I appreciate how we see the cracks in Yaz and Sammy’s relationship beginning to form even before the events of CT. The buildup is really strong in the show. Quick break but I have to say I just love Sammy’s profile picture they are so cute. Also, Yaz’s uncertainty about answering the phone call, too. The tension between them is clear as day on that phone call. And then we have Sammy coddling Yasmina by trying to hide the truth from her and it’s all in good intention, really sweet how Sammy wants to protect her, but is that what Yaz needs or wants? “Her PTSD is still affecting her that badly?" “Well, to tell you the truth, we really haven’t talked much lately. She’s so busy and when we do catch each other, she acts like everything’s good, but…” The conflict is so interesting because you have Yaz pulling away because of Sammy’s overbearingness and then when Yaz pulls away, Sammy gets anxious and therefore more overbearing so it just creates this cycle that could be put to a stop by communication but they’re both scared. Both of their coping mechanisms are doing damage to each other and so they fall back on these coping mechanisms even more. “Call it a hunch, or girlfriend’s intuition,” call it anxiety, Sammy. At this point everything she says or does is a subconscious cry for help. Back to the relationship conflict, it’s nice knowing that even if they are fighting, their fight is based off of wanting the best for the other and love. Also both of their feelings in this fight are valid, Yaz wanting Sammy to not treat her like she’s fragile and Sammy not wanting Yaz to pull away from her. Again with the cycle. Oof, the pain in her voice when Yaz says “you still treat me like a child instead of your girlfriend!” Kausar really ate with that. Anyways, we have that scene where they almost down and Yaz calms Sammy proving to her that she’s not as fragile as Sammy thinks she is. Then when they get out we have a resolution moment where Yaz says, “I guess we need each other, huh?” Showing that, instead of that unbalance of overbearingness, they can equally need the other to ground them and keep them calm. 

When Sammy and Yaz reunite, they’re really happy but also out of sync a bit, when they go in to kiss but end up bumping heads. Then after they resurface after nearly drowning, they’ve reached a better understanding of each other, and then they kiss a lot more smoothly, showing that they’re back in sync.

For the Benrius shippers out there, this also parallels how Darius and Ben were a bit out of sync and a little rocky, but at the beginning of ep.3 we see Ben and Darius have fallen back into their natural rhythm: Ben says “chip me” and Darius effortlessly tosses it and Ben catches it in his mouth. I just appreciate these little details and moments of closeness and also the parallels.

Can we talk about how we have alternating arcs/paths with Sammy and Yaz? Like, we see Yaz becoming more confident in how she handles and reacts to her trauma and making significant progress with her PTSD. Then we have Sammy who’s slowly slipping into a poorer mental state when she was known for being better able to manage her trauma from Nublar. Then along with this, we have Yaz stepping into the more “caretaker” role when Sammy was the one who usually has control over the situation. The van sinking scene in ep.7 is a perfect example. Sammy's panicking when her seatbelt gets stuck and Yaz is the one to ground her. I just want to take a closer look at this scene because it’s so sweet, too. The way Yaz first takes Sammy’s hands but then after realizing how much Sammy’s panicking, she cups her face and gets her to focus. It’s just such a tender moment. (And then parallel with that, the scene where Kenji has a panic attack and Darius is the one to support him in the midst of their argument. I just love a good parallel.) (Another parallel, Darius grounding Ben when he was paranoid in ep.2) But there’s also that scene early in ep.9 where it’s Sammy who’s completely freaking out and Yaz being the level-headed one. 

Going back to the conflict between them, we see a moment of growth in that scene. After Sammy’s anxiousness causes her to be reckless, she apologizes which opens the floor for a well needed discussion about how they need to work as a team and trust one another. While the main discussion about how their coping mechanism end up hurting each other hasn’t happened yet, we still get to see them repairing the cracks in their relationship. Instead of Yaz pulling away when Sammy becomes anxious and overbearing, we see her acknowledge Sammy’s anxiety and comfort her instead, so that Sammy doesn’t go farther into that anxious state and the cycle is interrupted. It’s cool how they made their mental health issues cause problems in their relationship. Not in a “oh I can’t handle my girlfriend’s PTSD and she’s too much for me,” but in the way of “My girlfriend really cares for me in relation to my PTSD and it’s sweet but it also feels like she’s babying me” and “my girlfriend is going through a really tough time right now and I want to be there for her but she keeps pulling away from me.” Although, in a way, Sammy’s anxiety does become overbearing for Yaz, but even then it’s not in a she’s being too much but rather her anxiety is only causing her to be treated in a way she doesn't want to be treated. While scary and uncomfortable, I’m really glad that Yaz and Sammy had that conflict because it shows that couples can argue and still love each other. Just because there’s a problem in the relationship doesn’t mean the relationship has to end there, it just means that you have to come together and acknowledge the issue and then work together to fix it. 

Darius’s reaction to Brooklynn’s death, my god. And hearing Darius’ voice calls that he left Brooklynn…devastating. Him hiding in the bath tub after giving the phone and sinking down in it; he really is ashamed of his feelings and it’s sad. But also the tenderness in Kenji’s voice when he confronts him? He’s no longer angry with Darius, just wants to understand. And the way that he doesn’t even get mad when Darius tells him he was in love with B… (maybe he understands how B is a very lovable character.)

But back to the grief, the moment where they’re all looking at the allosaurus that supposedly killed Brooklynn is devastating. They are finally united in their grief over Brooklynn. Boy, at least one of them is going to be pissed when her survival is revealed. And then also how they all worry over Bumpy too, it just really symbolizes how they’re still a family after everything. I love how Ben and Sammy are basically co-parents now. And remember that episode where Sammy was trying to get Bumpy to like her? Oh how far we’ve come. I flat out believed that she was dead, the writers definitely got me with that one. Well played, Bumpy. Well played.

I will say that Darius’s confrontation with Cabrera didn’t feel fully earned. We only saw him in one other scene and only heard about him in another scene so Darius’ moment of realization fell a little short on me. I think it could have been better had we saw an earlier interaction with him and Darius that may give us more conflicting opinions on whether or not he’s good. Because when we first saw him with Sammy, Yaz, and Ben, I was 90% sure that he was bad because of the three’s unbiased narrative. But had we gotten an interaction with Darius where he seemed a lot less questionable as a character it would have brought my doubt to more of a 50%. It also would have made Darius’ almost betrayal feeling in ep.10 more warranted because we saw them personally interact so it’d make Darius’s “You’re the one behind this? You’re selling Dinosaurs? DPW is supposed to protect people from dinosaurs.” hit harder. 

The micro bang lady reads the raptor’s body language so well. She’s also compassionate towards them which is a heavy difference from this other dinosaur corruption we’ve got going on where they are carelessly abusing dinosaurs. She sees the raptors absolutely wiped out and retreats which is an absolute power move and shows she cares. It’s a choice that humanizes her along with the cuddling of a fucking raptor, which is interesting since most of what we’ve seen so far has been very uncanny with her robotic movements and unblinking eyes. She scares the shit out of me but lowkey...

she looks really badass and hot in this scene. I see what some of yall are talking about.

The action sequence in ep.10? Amazing. 10/10. The parallel with Jurassic World? Heart stopping. The dead silence except for the footsteps and dinosaur breathing? Immaculate. Best scene in the entire show, maybe in animated history. 

At the end, we also have a shift from the characters being forced to react to all of the stuff thrown at them, like a defensive, but then we see them make the decision to go on the cargo ship and now they get to take a more “offensive” approach. Then we also have Darius stepping back into that leader role. 

I just hope that since the characters are no longer stranded on a deserted island that they can finally get a change of outfits if they happen to get dirty. Please don’t let them walk around in the same dirty clothes again, please. 

Now, probably one of the more controversial parts. Dinostar… Now, I’m a multi shipper and I’ve never had a problem with the ship itself but even then I was skeptical of this creative choice. 

I feel like it’d be more impactful if they kept dinosaur platonic showing that Darius doesn’t need to be in a romantic relationship with his friend in order to feel a significant amount of grief for her. Now, I know that even if Darius wasn’t in love with Brooklynn, he probably still would have had the same reaction but still, the interpretation of his feelings has still changed. How necessary was this?

But also the power in the unrequited dinostar. Having Darius only realize his feelings for Brooklynn, especially after her staying at his place, it's natural. It adds to the very real complexity of human feelings. “I never meant for it to happen. It just…happened.” Darius’s feelings are still natural and organic and he’s still kind of ashamed of them. Darius’s “I didn’t even think I could feel that way,” was what really got to me. If it was because he always saw Brooklynn as a friend it shows how these sort of feelings can sneak up on you, but I also see it as, “I didn’t think I was able to have crushes on people” which speaks to me a lot. It feels very aligned with the demi-aroace experience and as someone who’s demi-aroace I care about this a lot. It’s such a confusing and difficult experience, worrying about if you’re even capable of falling in love with someone, trying to disect the difference between platonic connections and romantic ones, and the shame you feel when you think you might be interested in someone who’s supposed to be your friend. It’s messy and real and seeing Darius possibly experiencing that makes me feel less alone. Anyways, I like how even in both directions Darius can still be on the aroace spectrum.

“If I was really in love with Brooklynn, I should have been there.” This line makes me wonder if he’s still doubting his feelings for Brooklynn. The “I couldn’t face her after that. I was too embarrassed. So I didn’t show up that night.” Darius being embarrassed is so real. I once confessed to a girl I thought I liked and was rejected, albeit gently for the most part, and I still can’t look at her the same way. This was with someone I wasn’t close with so I can only imagine what it was like for Darius, the embarrassment. It’s such an impactful thing too. Darius's natural and realistic reaction to getting rejected and not being able to face her having drastic consequences in this new world of dinosaurs and being hunted by them. It’s just the complexity of the story that’s what really makes this work.

“She tried to be nice about it, but it was clear she didn’t feel the same.” I wonder if this is what really happened or just what Darius interpreted it as. I’m hoping that it remains unrequited. Seeing the guy not get the girl would be something new and interesting. I could also get behind dinostar but only if it’s done right and to be done right it’d need a lot of time. But I also don’t think I want to see any of them in a relationship just yet. Especially Brooklynn and especially now. I think that she’s way too deep into this conspiracy and should focus on that instead of a relationship. That’s definitely where her mind has been at lately, anyways. I also worry that this might turn into a love triangle which I’m never a big fan of. I’ve also seen some people say that this love triangle/Darius’ feelings will probably weaken the integrity of Brooklynn’s character and reduce her to a love interest, and, for a while, I agreed. But now my opinion has shifted. So far from what we’ve seen, Brooklynn’s character seems to be going on an interesting arc and I have faith that the writers won’t weaken that in favor of focusing on her romantic interests. The writing for this season has been amazing and if they keep it up in season two it can probably be successfully pulled off. And already with the way it’s been written, I don’t think Brooklynn is ready for a relationship at the moment. 

Now Brooklynn...

I was one of the people who was convinced Brooklynn was alive but while watching the show I actually began to doubt that theory and there was a moment where I was sure she was actually dead. I know there are a couple of people unhappy about the fact that Brooklynn isn’t actually dead, and I get that. Especially coupled with the Darius vs Kenji conflict it may feel like CT is copying too much from CC with Ben’s fake death instead of being original and committing to it. And that’s totally valid, especially for a serious plot line like a character death. I do, however, have faith that the writers of CT will execute her fake death well though. Because that’s the thing with CC/CT. Most of the time, even the not so strong ideas are well executed and integrated into the plot smoothly. With Ben’s fake death, it gave the opportunity to strongly develop Ben’s character more than it could if he had ended up on the island with the campers. His solo experience after his “death” molded him into a very different character from the boy we saw in the early episodes. It changed him drastically and that was the redeeming factor. So, I have hope with Brooklynn. It already seems like she’s on a strong path of character development and it seems like she’s going completely undercover to unbox this international dinosaur corruption scheme. Not to mention, she’s missing part of her arm, so that’s also a drastic change. Brooklynn being alive opens up a lot of opportunities, especially to delve into her trauma that she might have acquired from losing a hand. Not only that, but the others still think she’s dead so we won’t lose that mourning aspect, in fact it might make it even more impactful knowing that she is alive and that Brooklynn’s fake death is causing this much pain to her friends.

This could also introduce some conflict within the group once it is revealed to them that Brooklynn is alive because they spent all of this time mourning her and suffering from some severe mental health issues only for her to actually be alive without telling them. Me personally, I’d be upset going through all of this emotional turmoil for a dead friend only for her to pop up knowing she could have prevented all of it. We can also see different reactions from the 5 of them. Maybe someone will be angry at her and some might just be really happy she’s alive and some might not even believe she’s actually alive. I’m just gonna say that it is fucked up that Brooklynn is just allowing her friends to suffer from mourning her and that I’d totally understand if any of the camp fam were mad at her. In fact I need to see that. Then there’s all of the secrets she’s keeping from them, too. I wonder if we might see a sort of negative character arc because Brooklynn has been neglectful towards her friends, especially Kenji which caused the whole breakup in the first place, and then multiple times Brooklynn’s true intentions have been unclear and shady. I wonder if there’s any symbolism we can pick up from her hair which is always changing.

Overall, I’m excited to see what they do with Brooklynn’s character and how her fake death affects the others. I’m always willing to compromise with my feelings and the decisions made so long as they well execute their unfavorable choices. 

As for the reveal, I feel like it could have been dragged out a little bit longer. I think a perfect place to stop would be right at Ronnie receives the text. Because in my mind at that moment, there were two ideas that I had. One, Ronnie could have been one of the corrupt DPW workers, or she could have been working with Brooklynn. I think that that confliction would have been a great place to end especially because either way, it leaves you question that entire interaction she has with Darius in the first episode. Is Ronnie going to be bad and betray Darius? Or is she good and helping Brooklynn who's alive. I understand in the grander schemes of things why they did it; showing Brooklynn alive (and handless) at the very end will make viewers want to come back and see what happened with her. I just hope they keep her being alive unknown to the rest of the campers for a while longer for that added tension or whatever. I feel like if anything they might reveal her to the camp fam at the end of season 2.

Now let’s talk about that hairstyle. When I first saw it at a distance paired with the whole ensemble, it looked really badass. But up close? I don’t like it. 

At first I was going to say that Sammy carried the plot, because she did. Then I was like, “well, Ben also carried the plot too.” Then it was “If Sammy carried the plot then so did Yasmina.” That “boo” did a lot for me. But then I was thinking of the discourse between Darius and Kenji and they also both carried the plot. So, long story short, they all carried which is amazing. It means that it was well balanced and every character had a significant role in the story. 

In short, there’s a lot of things that were phenomenal in this show, however, there were a few things that can only become/remain great if they’re addressed in season 2. There were a lot of throwaway lines in the show that was loaded with context we didn’t have and hinted to a separate conflict. 

Twice we hear Sammy say how she’s not in contact with her family and then it’s never brought up again. I want to know why this is, even If it doesn’t have a drastic effect on the overall plot. Then we see Sammy hallucinate Brooklynn but then that’s the only time it happens. Is it bad that I want to see more of that? I just really want to see Sammy’s trauma unloaded in season 2. In ep.6, Sammy says “Remember how [Yaz] got when the dinosaurs made it to the mainland?” It seems really heavy and I want to see this. I want to know what the groups initial reactions to one, the dinosaurs back on the mainland, and two, Brooklynn’s death. We also hear Darius sort of allude in ep.1 that Ben might have had a harder time adjusting to being back on the mainland, especially with the “don’t patronize me, Darius!”

I’m hoping that some of these lines are just seeds being planted early on so that we can see them grow in season 2. One thing I hope we get is more flashbacks, seeing what all of these lines are referring to. Sammy’s family issues. Yaz’s reaction the dinosaurs back on mainland. Also, seeing flashbacks to Brooklynn with Darius in the cabin. We got flashbacks for everyone else except him so it’d be nice to see, and also give us something more substantial for Darius’s feelings. My guess is that there won’t be as many action scenes when they’re hiding away on the ship so we can get more flashbacks and have some more downtime to explore the groups trauma, regain some more of that “full” group dynamic, and just in general put more focus into the characters rather than plot. 

The writing in this was amazing, especially for a kids show, and I hope we get to see more of this amazing writing carried on to season 2 soon. If you stuck with me this long, I appreciate you.

#jurassic world chaos theory #jwct #jwct spoilers #sammy gutierrez #yasmina fadoula #ben pincus #darius bowman #kenji kon #jwct brooklynn #brooklynn jwcc #mya talks jwct

[secretdonderwolk]

Thinking of ur wag daniel (my happy place.. do u have more to share!). Like you said they’re super private so for long stretches of time there’s virtually no evidence they’re still together

However, the Aussie gp comes around and Max cant stop talking about how much he loves it here… how he could see himself moving. He’s like glowing! And all the new maxiel/daniel wag fans are like damn… this is serious serious ‼️👀👀 (maybe this is still early on in their relationship).

so in my beautiful mind daniel is shmoozing and hustling always so even in the wag universe he has shit going for him, completely separate from max! he's making good money, got a bunch of seriously high profile clients who love him and a farm in aus that he already owned before him and max started dating. and that's their hiding place. that's where they spend the summer break and the winter break, where they hang out whenever they can. super on the downlow but once again the girls who get it, get it. like, it's always two wine glasses in the insta pics (one legit good red wine, one girly ass rose with ice cubes in it), and daniel's always posting kinda cringy earnest love songs to his insta story whenever he's on the farm, and then someone spots max's ludicrously capacious lv monogrammed backpack in the background of one of daniel's posts and it's easy to connect the dots. at one point daniel posts a story of a dinner he's hosting, all his closest aus childhood friends are there, and you can see max in the background, who's like, stolen someone's baby and is explaining to said baby in excruciating detail like, exactly how the oven works, soft voiced lisp like and patient while mom and dad (again daniel's childhood friends) look on, and and everyone's like, right.... so he's part of daniel's inner circle for real for real..... to be clear, by no means are they hiding that they're together, it's just that max is like, this is no one's business but ours and daniel's still lowkey a commitmentphobe even in the wag universe and is fine with keeping it kind of vague. anyway max spends more time in aus and is always waxing poetic about it etc and even the press starts picking up on it because before max was always like i want to go home/i don't like traveling/i wish i could just stay in my monaco apartment and hang out there forever so they ask him like, well, what is it about aus that has you spending so much time here! and it's one of the few times max actually gets kind of shy, he's like, 'well... the weather is good....and the people.....are... nice..... like.....you can have a good laugh with them' and then a few weeks later daniel's spotted wearing some slay enchante hoodie (enchante is his graphic design company name/he does like three merch drops a year too just because he thinks it's fun) with a slogan on it like 'a good laugh' and everyone's like italicized oh.

#ask! #max/daniel #wag au

[hansooyung]

hansooyung's coloring tutorial & ctiys: alma time! 🍒

hello everyone! though i've been meaning to for a while, i've finally gotten around to making my first manga coloring tutorial! i'll be going over cleaning panels and screentones, choosing base colors, and finally shading and lighting.

this will also be a color this in your style challenge, so if you're willing, feel free to post your colored panel and tag me in it!! i'd love to see all the results :)

find details under the cut! 🦋

DISCLAIMERS:

this is just how i personally color! i know for a fact that some of my other friends follow other methods and have such beautiful colorings <33

for colors specifically, i play around a LOT. if you don't like your color scheme for the time being, mess around with it! i don't use psds since i like to mess around by hand with color palettes, but maybe i'll look into it for the future.

i explain a lot just bear with me gang 🙏

TECHNICAL STUFF:

software: ibis paint x (on iphone). i use ibis since it is FREE for all phones and it worked on my chromebook as well.

while this tutorial is made for ibis paint x, everything works on other softwares except the brushes, which i've provided alternatives for below.

brushes: i will be using dip pen (hard) which is automatically included with ibis, and two other brushes i made myself which you can find here and here. for more brushes, @/bkdkdh was incredibly helpful and posted her awesome set here!

for other softwares, you can use similar brushes. dip pen (hard) can just be the default brush, while wet edges is just the default brush on lowered opacity (and more of a rectangle/marker shape?). watercolor pencil is a watercolor brush in the rectangle/marker shape as well. if you can't get the shape, you can always smudge your lines into shape as well, so don't fret too much! a bunch of people only use one brush for coloring everything (which is insane to me, personally, they are so talented!)

fun fact: the first brush listed that i made was originally called "aki tao watercolor smooth" 👍

ok here we go guys!!

STEP ONE: CLEANING THE PANEL

i think of this part as setting up the panel for coloring! usually it's pretty exhausting cuz it's all b&w but it's all worth it i swear. the panel i'll be coloring is this beautiful one of alma from chapter 2:

imgur link here (x)

a lot of people redraw their lines to avoid screentones, which is extremely helpful. however, i work on a phone and my fingers are not steady even with the stabilizer turned all the way up T~T. i do it this way, but a different (possibly easier) way may work for you!!!

your first step will be to remove all the white, giving us a transparent background to work with. THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON WHY I USE IBIS PAINT X.

when you upload the image to ibis, a popup comes asking if you would like to "extract line drawing". this creates a lineart of your image. click yes, and your work is like 90% done.

if you're not on ibis, you can redraw your panel, put lineart layer on screen, etc. or you can just extract line drawing from ibis and upload to software of your choice

for those of you not on ibis, i've included the line drawing here (x) if it looks black, don't worry and set your background to white.

omg i was not kidding when i said i explained a lot. ok now onto the three main steps of cleaning the panel:

cleaning background

removing screentones

repainting black lines

for cleaning the background, we're going to clear off all the extraneous stuff. this includes the text in the speech bubble, the gradient screentones behind alma, and the panel line on the left side. just use your eraser tool and go crazy! (i forgot to save the panel at this point of the coloring OTL)

for removing screentones, we're going to remove all those "dots" that mangakas use for shading. these are used to show value for b&w art, but since we're coloring we don't need them—a lot of people have really cool ways of incorporating screentones in their colorings though, and it looks amazing! i used it on nana's hand in my bnha coloring.

remove the screentones from alma's hair and jacket with your eraser tool. this will take time, but it's worth it in the end!

for portions with a bunch of lines, you can create A NEW LAYER and redraw some of the lines. that way, you can erase indiscriminately from the original layer but the lines you drew are still there. again, like i said, my hand is really shaky so i don't do it a lot, but it's extremely helpful for smaller parts where i have control! i used this on alma's jacket, and here's a screenshot of the process:

(i made his jacket purple so i could distinguish between layers easily).

it should look like this when you're done:

for the final step of cleaning, i like to erase all the things colored black (the collar and strings of the jacket, along with the back part of his hair). that way, i can color them in with dark colors and it adds to the whole look of the coloring.

i've circled the parts i'm going to erase below:

and it should look like this when you're done!

ok everyone cheer we're ready to color now!!!!

STEP TWO: BASE COLORS

CROWD CHEERS ok lets go!

this part is the most important to me, because it sets the tone for the whole coloring. i like to use three-four main colors in my colorings, and it's usually background, skintone, hair, and the secret fourth color. the secret fourth color is usually whatever color fits the character's vibe, or if the character's color is the bg, it'll be an accent color.

for example, with my nagi coloring, i used white for the hair, i had my skintone, i had blue as the main coloring vibe (as nagi's color), and black as the accent color.

for alma, i chose his main color to be red! it's the color of his hair and his jacket, so i wanted it to be vibrant and stand out. since blue contrasts red, i went for a greyish-blue shade for the background. (i went for grey rather than solely blue because then it would clash rather than complement).

disclaimer please please please take your device off night mode warm mode f.lux whatever you have. this has screwed me over more times than you may think :(

i like to make my vibrant colors closer to the right end of the color square. for alma's hair, i chose this color:

i dragged it down from the corner a bit but kept the saturation since his hair is kind of dark. we can use vibrant colors to shade it though, so don't worry!

here's his hair and the background together:

now from here, play around with skintones until you find one that matches the hair!

i usually drag around the wheel to the orange-red intersection, and have it on the lighter, more saturated side. here's the color i chose for alma's skintone.

i thought his original skintone looked a bit too orange, so i pulled the saturation back a little bit (moved closer to the left side of the square).

after that, color in his jacket with a bit darker red than hair, choose a gold color for the accents on his jacket, and color in the black parts with a grey-ish color (we will change that later).

here's the base colors!

if it looks a bit bright, don't worry! we can change that with shading. or you might just have to. accept the light.

STEP THREE: SHADING AND LIGHTING

wooo we made it!!!!!!! ok now i lied, we have a bit more of base colors to go. on a layer above the skin, color in your teeth and tongue. for pieces that have a more red feel (like this one), i like to make the teeth and the shading a more vibrant blue color. (for blue pieces, i make it a purple!).

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALL SHADING AND ALL COLORS SHOULD BE DONE ON NEW, CLIPPED LAYER.

i'll then go in and do some light shading with my wet edges brush. i'll use a darker color for hard shadows and then a lighter, more vibrant color to accentuate it.

next up we have blush! a lot of people do this in very different ways but i like to do it directly under the eyes, in a vibrant red shade. make a new layer above the skin and clip it on. color pick alma's hair and drag it to the most saturated shade (red corner). then using the watercolor pencil brush, lower the opacity of the brush and drag a line under the eyes on both sides.

make sure to erase the portion of blush that goes above the eyeline. i also added some lips for alma as you can see, and then added a red line under the eyes! this was back to the regular dip pen (hard) brush on 100% opacity. it may take a few tries to get your blush to the way you want it, so don't worry too much.

now we can start our actual shading!

i break this part up into three steps: skin shading, blue shading, and light shading (highlights?)

for all of them, think about where the light is falling and how it will look on alma.

quick interlude about brushes: i use the watercolor pencil brush for softer, bouncy looks (like blush and noses) and i use the wet edges brush for more hard lines in shading.

again, make a new layer above the skin and clip it on. (i like to have it below the blush, so it doesn't cover it). for skin shading, i take the vibrant red and lower the opacity of the wet edges brush by a significant amount (specifics don't really matter, as long as you're happy with it). i'll trace his neck, from the shadow of his face, shadows of his hair falling on his face, ears, and nose. (for the nose i used the watercolor pencil brush for a softer look).

this is what i have once i'm done!

next we have skin shading part two, where we basically make a new layer on top of our first shading, lower the opacity further, and trace outside whatever we just did to blend it in more.

i used the watercolor pencil brush since it's more softer shading meant for blending! i also added it around the eyebrows for depth.

next up we have our blue shading! this is a technique that i learned from @/bkdkdh's colorings, but adding blue as a shadow really adds to the whole coloring. using the watercolor pencil brush, select a light-ish blue shade (a bit more saturated than background color) and use it to shadow a few more areas than your skin shading. i always make sure to hit the underside of the nose, cuz i think it adds depth!

finally, to wrap up our skin shading we have our lights. i use an orange-ish yellow color, which i set pretty light to not blend into the skin. using the watercolor pencil brush, i'll basically highlight any areas opposite to where the blue was, and highlight different parts. i always highlight one side of the nose as well.

i erased the line around the nose since we now have shading there, and added a darker shade to the teeth since i felt it wasn't shaded enough.

now onto the hair!!! (guys we're almost done bear with me, skin and hair are the two main things and then you can half-ass the clothes)

color pick alma's hair color, then drag the red a bit further down to get a darker yet still saturated color. here's mine:

then, using the wet edges brush, draw lines of shadow wherever clumps of his hair fall or overlap with each other. you can have the opacity set to whatever level you want, i just went with around 90. just try to follow the natural lines and patterns of the original line drawing, and everything should work out fine.

here's how mine looks! then, just like we did for skin shading, place a layer on top and lower the opacity to around 50%. place some more shading to blend it in. you can also shade more parts with this shade for some softer shading. i actually forgot to take a screenshot of this step but you'll see it in the next one!

for our (almost) last part of hair shading, take a layer and place it below both of your shading layers. this is going to be our highlight layer! you can see it below, labeled 49%.

remember how we set alma's hair a bit darker from the corner color? now select that corner color and draw highlights in the center of each hair clump.

lightly visible but it's there!

now here i skipped around a bit bc i was having fun and forgot i was doing a tutorial, but repeat the shading (not highlighting) steps with darker colors for alma's jacket. you should have your base layer, a dark shading, and a softer shading for blending.

we're almost there guys!!!

for the pretty much final step of shading, select a light blue color and do some blue shading with the watercolor pencil brush opposite to wherever your darker shading falls (just like we did on the face). make sure to do it to both your hair and your jacket! here's mine:

now for the black portions, we're going to color the whole thing in a dark blue color. just alpha lock your layer and make a big stroke of dark blue, almost black. for our black shading, we're actually going to go lighter.

select a lighter (but still dark) color and place highlights on the base layer, then take an even more vibrant, lighter blue and place it on the very outside for highlights. a better example of this would be nagi's legs in his blue lock uniform here. then, choose a shade to apply shading to the gold accents on alma's jacket and we're done!

CROWD CHEERS!!!!!

STEP FOUR: FINISHING TOUCHES

we made it guys!!!! for finishing touches, i'll usually do background effects or text or that kind of stuff.

step one is coloring your lines. you can add a new layer and clip it to your lineart, or simply alpha lock your lineart and color directly on top. for hair i like to add vibrant blue/purple lines, along with a few red ones. for skin lines i try to do dark brownish purples, but leaving some black is good too bc it adds flavor!

i colored in the text boxes and added shadows using the wet edge feature, then added some text. for the glitch effect, i duplicated the lineart, dragged the layer below all of my colors (including speech bubbles) and then used the glitch effect with height full from ibis. if you don't have ibis, you can look into features on your software, or you can also just drag your lineart layer a bit to either side and color it in. i also applied just the tiniest bit of noise on top of everything

and there we go!!!!! we made it to the end :)

if you've read all the way til here, thank you so much! if you decide to color this panel of alma (or any other panels!) don't be afraid to post them and tag me for a color this in your style type of thing! (you can also put it in my tracked tag, #user.roy) i'd love to see everyone's works :)

here's the full timelapse: (it stalls for a bit at some times but hey we can't have everything)

#roy colors #tutorials #manga coloring tutorial #useraki #usergojoana #usermica #usernikiforova #tagging some friends <3 #alma #gokurakugai

[destielbeatlesminibang]

Title: When My Mind Is Wandering (There I Will Go)

Author: rachelindeed

Artist: sidewinder

Rating: Teen and Up

Summary: Finale fix-it: In order to save Dean's life, Cas has to temporarily take him as a vessel. While Dean's body heals, they decide to explore what a life outside of hunting could look like. On a volunteer trip a few towns over, they are reminded of the beauty of community. And as Cas's thoughts mix with his own, Dean learns how freeing it can be to see himself through the eyes of someone who loves him.

Tags: Castiel/Dean Winchester, minor background Sam Winchester/Eileen Leahy, Consensual Possession, Angelic Possession (Supernatural), Developing Relationship, Romance, Healing, Fix-It, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On (Supernatural), Post-Finale

Posting on June 25

Keep reading for a short excerpt.

It wasn't just senses, emotions, and words that flowed back and forth: memories joined the tango, too. Dean could always tell which were Cas's by the hyper-focused detail. Angelic memories weren't tied to the data limits of human brains, so they held onto everything like fancy honking celestial IMAX cameras. When Dean remembered some conversation they'd had years ago, it was the normal kind of approximation where he could paraphrase some key things said, tell you if there'd been rain or sun, maybe grasp a general image of how Cas had looked in the moment. Meanwhile, Cas could still count the raindrops on the driver's side window, still see the tiny shadows on Dean's face as his eyelashes caught the light.

It was kind of funny seeing himself that way, but honestly, not as freaky as he might have expected. Sure, the fact that Cas had perfect recall and instant replay on every stupid thing that'd ever come out of his mouth was not ideal. But Dean had been prepared for something a little more…acid rock? Psychedelic? Far out? He’d kind of figured he wouldn't be getting out of this without staring down the gullet of his own soul. And it's not that he'd wanted to look at that mess on the regular, but just once might have been cool. Just to know.

Turned out, though, that 'seeing' souls was a matter of multi-dimensional fusion, and Cas couldn't plug Dean's eyes into that. It'd be like trying to teach his ears to taste or his nose to hear.

"OK. But what's it look like, anyhow?" he asked Cas. "My soul?" It was late, very late, on their last night at the hospital. Physical therapy had been its usual unpleasant cocktail of boredom and misery. The headache radiating back-to-front across his skull was screaming at him to bust out, get drunk, just move. But going home felt like starting the timer back up on figuring out his life, and he wasn't ready for that either. So he brought it up because he could, and he was curious. Maybe you could call it fishing for compliments, too; so sue him.

He'd had a rotten day, but Cas thought he was beautiful. They were living in each other’s thoughts, there was no hiding that. Whatever Cas saw in his soul, Dean was betting it'd be just a bit poetic. Stars, fireworks, snow on a mountainside; vague grandeur, the type of stuff somebody might print for a calendar.

But Cas was lost for words. He did his best to find Dean an answer; focused for sincere, silent minutes on crafting some apt description or honest comparison. Dean felt him shiver—a tiny, charged, silvery thing. But in the end, a little helpless, he only said:

It looks like you.

#destiel #supernatural #the beatles #destiel beatles minibang

[respectthepetty]

Hej Pet! How's life treating you? Well, I hope.

I saw you had mentioned the use of alternating background music in the gym scene of Wandee Goodday...which I think means you watched the show with sound (!!)...and I've also just seen that you will be watching The Untamed, so I thought I'd just message because with your proclivity for watching shows on mute (although maybe Wandee Goodday has changed that...?) I thought I'd mention that there is a particular plot point that sort of requires having sound on for The Untamed...or at least you should know that there is a sound-related plot point. I'm rambling 🤦🏽‍♀️ but I think you probably understand. Anyway, I wish you the best for your June month. It is the best month after all...not least because it's also my birthday month 😏💛

Did you just greet me with a Swedish "hello"?

Well, life is treating me a lot better since you popped into my (in)box with that little treat!

But so I don't raise my heart rate up again by getting too excited, let me actually focus on what you're saying and not that's it's you saying it even though you noticed the tiny detail that I'm watching Wandee Goodday with the sound on. No big deal. I'm being totally chill about that. My heart isn't beating faster or anything.

But anywho *deep breath* um, yeah, I'm watching both My Stand-In and Wandee Goodday unmuted and at normal speed, which I think is contributing to my elevated heart rate. It's a lot of stimulation to absorb, but at least I completely understood where Yak was coming from hearing Dee moaning, um, working out.

Which random sidenote, but Idol Factory does the best job of captioning sound, so I never get too overwhelmed watching its shows by hearing moaning since I can just read that a person is moaning.

I'm rambling. *plays with my necklace*

Sooooo yeah, um, what was I supposed to be responding to? Um . . . The Untamed! Yeah. That show! An anon in my inbox told me this:

What I'm getting from you two is that I will be confused at least for the first two episodes, I need to have the sound on for all FIFTY episodes, and I'm going to have to connect a lot of dots?

Awesome. Fantastic. Sounds like a plan! Thank goodness Inn and Great sold me on this by being unnecessarily beautiful at GMMTV's work retreat because I'm a bit more nervous now than I was before.

But I made a promise so I'm watching Love in the Air (and if that goes well, Love Sea), my old nemesis SOTUS, and this beast of a show!

With the sound on.

The entire time.

Cool.

Cool cool cool.

Thanks for warning me, Daddy, so I don't miss vital information, and because of that, let me be the first to give you a very early "Happy Birthday"!

My heart rate is completely normal, and I'm not at all thinking about how amazing you are. 💙💛

#I'm not going to be weird in the tags #I'm going to be completely normal #I'm just going to tell you that I hope you enjoy the entire month for your birthday because you deserve it #see! completely normal daddy #*I wanna smush your face and watch you eat a cake I made you that looks like a disaster but tastes delicious while I play with your hair* #soooo normal

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rachel Leingang at The Guardian:

To hear Donald Trump tell it, America’s cities are in dire shape and in need of a federal intervention. “We’re going to rebuild our cities into beacons of hope, safety and beauty – better than they have ever been before,” he said during a recent speech to the National Rifle Association in what has become a common refrain on the campaign trail. “We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation, Washington DC.” Trump has for years railed against cities, particularly those run by Democratic officials, as hotbeds for crime and moral decay. He called Atlanta a “record setting Murder and Violent Crime War Zone” last year, a similar claim he makes frequently about various cities.

His allies have an idea of how to capitalize on that agenda and make cities in Trump’s image, detailed in the conservative Project 2025: unleash new police forces on cities like Washington DC, withhold federal disaster and emergency grants unless they follow immigration policies like detaining undocumented immigrants and share sensitive data with the federal government for immigration enforcement purposes.

Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, an extensive document breaking down each part of the federal government and recommending changes to be made to advance rightwing policy, was created by the Heritage Foundation, with dozens of conservative organizations and prominent names contributing chapters based on their backgrounds. This part of the project is another Republican attempt at a crackdown on so-called “sanctuary” cities, places around the country that don’t cooperate with the federal government on enforcing harsh immigration policies.

[...]

The threat of withholding federal funds

Republicans, cheered on by Trump, have worked to make immigration a key issue in cities across the country by busing migrants from the US-Mexico border inland, to places run by Democrats like New York, DC and Chicago, overwhelming the social safety net in these cities. The idea of using federal funds granted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to force immigration changes are included in a chapter about the Department of Homeland Security, written by Ken Cuccinelli, Trump’s former deputy secretary of homeland security.

The chapter’s initial recommendation is to dismantle DHS entirely, create a border-focused agency comprised of other immigration-related organizations and farm out the rest of its components to existing agencies (or privatize them, in the case of the Transportation Security Administration). It’s not directly clear whether the aim is to use all Fema funds – including those that help cities and states in the immediate aftermath of an emergency like a tornado or flood – or large grant programs for things like emergency preparedness. One line in the chapter says “post-disaster or nonhumanitarian funding” could be exempt from the immigration policy requirements. The chapter also suggests that cities and states should take on more of the burden of financially responding to disasters.

[...]

One of the conditions Project 2025 suggests is requiring states or localities to share information with the federal government for law and immigration enforcement, and specifies that this would include both department of motor vehicle and voter registration databases. This is of particular interest in many cities because 19 states and Washington DC allow undocumented people to get drivers licenses, the Niskanen Center, a thinktank that delved into the project’s immigration aims, points out. These licenses help with public safety by decreasing the potential for hit-and-runs and increasing work hours, among other benefits, the center writes. If a city or state is forced to choose between issuing licenses and then sharing this information for use by immigration authorities, or accessing emergency funds for their whole population in a crisis, it’ll be tough for them to deny Fema money, said Cecilia Esterline, an immigration research analyst at the Niskanen Center.

Donald Trump’s war on urban cities is part of the wretched far-right Project 2025 plan, including crackdowns on sanctuary cities.

See Also:

The Guardian: What is Project 2025 and what does it have to do with a second Trump term?

#Project 2025 #Donald Trump #Immigration #Sanctuary Cities #Mandate For Leadership: The Conservative Promise #FEMA #TSA #Disaster Relief Funding #Undocumented Immigrants

[gallifreyinstituteforlearning]

in gallifreyan, whichever scripts, how do they write coordinates, be it time or displacement? Or planet relative calendar dates.

How Do Time Lords Write Coordinates?

There's a bit of contradictory information and things that don’t make much sense when it comes to space-time coordinates and Gallifreyans, but here’s an answer I hope will sate your curiosity, with plenty of background:

🔑Key Parts of the Coordinate System:

Spatial Coordinates: These specify locations in three-dimensional space relative to Galactic Zero Centre (Gallifrey’s Eye of Harmony, basically, or at least somewhere near it). They usually consist of Vector and Quadrant particles.

Temporal Coordinate: This indicates time, relative to Gallifrey’s present (whatever that’s supposed to mean! I would probably assume that while Gallifrey went walkies, the Doctor's TARDIS either used temporal coordinates relative to Event One (the creation of the universe), or otherwise fixed it at a certain Gallifreyan date. There are also specialised TARDIS instruments which can be calibrated help skip the temporal coordinate stuff and make the input relative to the planet).

Universal Coordinate: This designates the specific universe required.

Epsilon Coordinates: Calculated paths through the Space-Time Vortex, usually handled by a TARDIS automatically.

Flight Data: Details about departure and destination points.

🚀Space-Time Coordinates Format

Space-time coordinates consist of fifteen digits. Using these two combined below will get you to the right star system:

Vector (2 digits): Indicates the broad direction.

Quadrant (2 digits): Specifies the quadrant within the galaxy.

Using these two below in addition will get you a more precise location, and a time:

Exact Spatial Location (7 digits): Detailed coordinates within the quadrant.

Temporal Location (4 digits): Relative to Gallifrey’s present (you'll obviously need to be longer to be more precise).

🌍Example

Let's have a crack with Earth’s galactic coordinates. We know the Earth’s Galactic Coordinates are 5804 4684884:

Vector: 58, Quadrant: 04 (solely on these you’ll reach Mutter’s Spiral)

Exact Spatial Location: 4684884 (add this and you’ll reach Earth)

Temporal Location: 9182 (+9182 time units from Gallifrey’s present)

The Flight Data Monitor will simplify this. Assuming a journey from Earth to fictional Zargon 3, your TARDIS monitor will display something like this:

Departure Planet: Sol 3 (Earth) [Dimension 01] Location: London, England Local Dateline: 2024 Earth Year, 10th Era of Gallifrey Destination Planet: Zargon 3 [Dimension 04] Location: Zargon City, Zargonville Local Dateline: 156 Zargon Year, 11th Era of Gallifrey

Complete Coordinates:

01 5804 4684884 9182 -> 04 0316 0316500 3050

🏛️Integration with Landmark Worlds

Additionally, a TARDIS’s Galactic Positioning System can be fine-tuned using the relative locations of several Landmark Worlds. These landmark worlds include Gallifrey, Dagusa, Caresh, Erekan, Gau-Usu, and Cern. This way, the TARDIS can get more precise navigation by periodically materialising in space to recalibrate bearings as it's flying.

🔢Epsilon Coordinates

Then there are Epsilon Coordinates. These serve as a roadmap through the Space-Time Vortex, and need to be calculated before a flight. A Time Lord could do it mentally if they wanted, but the TARDIS usually automatically calculates these – it’s hugely complex maths, even for a Time Lord.

🖊️Writing the Coordinates

This really depends on the script you'd prefer to use, you can use modern Gallifreyan, which is probably the most lore-friendly, or Sherman's, or circular, or just bog standard Latin script numbers.

For GIL's Sollifreyan conlang shorthand script, you can use the 0-9 base with hyphens in-between, where the spaces would go.

Phew, hope that helped! 😃

-------------------------------------------------------

》📫Got a question / submission? 》😆Jokes |🫀Biology |🗨️Language |🕰️Throwbacks |🤓Facts 》📚Complete list of Q+A 》📜Masterpost If you like what GIL does, please consider buying a coffee to help keep our exhausted human conscious for future projects, including complete biology and language guides.

#doctor who #gil #gallifrey institute for learning #dr who #dw eu #gallifrey #gallifreyans #whoniverse #ask answered #tardis #gallifreyan culture #conlang #gallifreyan language

[thriftingfreak]

Nothing Lasts Forever

Pairing: Luke Castellan x female ares!reader

Summary: Some moments in time where Luke and you can’t seem to figure out how you feel about one another. Part 1??? Maybe more if y’all like it!

Warnings: Yearning. Pretty much a yearning page at this point. Also a lot of background building. My bad yall. This is so long i’m sorry _____________________________________

the very first night

The day you rolled into camp is a day that will go down in infamy.

At least, for Luke it would.

There was no day he would ever remember more clearly.

The sun rose among the clouds beating down upon the plethora of kids and teenagers. He could remember helping some of the younger Demeter and Dionysus kids in the fields with their different crops ranging from strawberries to the beloved camp grapes. Luke wasn’t the biggest fan of grapes himself but he never turned down one from a Dionysus kid.

“Yes, those look perfect Courtney” A grin spread wide across his face as he watched the girl pluck a perfectly ripe strawberry from the plant. If anyone knew how to grow good fruit, it was a Demeter kid.

As he stood up, he brushed his khaki shorts clear of dirt. A flash of a shadow appeared from the corner of his eye. As he turned around, he came eye to eye with a very bewildered face.

“Where am I?” You muttered out. You bent over, placing your hands on your knees. He could tell that you had been running from something terrifying enough to prompt the expression.

“Camp Half-Blood” was all Luke could muster up.

“What?” Oh, this poor girl had no idea how her life was about to change.

“Are you okay?” Luke asked, looking you up and down. Your jean shorts were slashed and your right elbow looked like it had been burned.

You looked up after catching your breath, you shook your head. It was a dumb question, because anyone could see you clearly weren’t doing too great. To this day Luke still felt embarrassment from it.

But even with your confusion and aloofness, you followed him to the infirmary and get the cuts and gashes cleaned up.

Your feet dragged along the path, a couple feet behind him. When Luke turned around, your eyes were pointed toward the ground to the mud stained tennis shoes.

He wanted to explain Camp Half-Blood and every single thing that came with it, the good and the bad. Although now definitely wasn’t the best time. He was afraid you would burst into tears or worse, start hitting him. Luke learned that some of the campers react in that manor, the hard way. Thoughts rattled his brain trying to figure out the best decision.

“Why are you staring at me? Never seen a girl been chased by a big ass bear before?” you snipped at him. At least she wasn’t crying, he thought.

“Uh, actually I have” Luke smiled at you, hoping you would appreciate the sentiment.

You did not. A scowl festered on your face. Maybe from all this anger you’d end up being an Ares kid.

This thought process would prove him to be correct.

Entering the infirmary, he guided you over to a room with several beds. Collapsing on one of them, you shoved your shoes off. You brought your knees to your chest, staring at the ceiling. It was difficult to comprehend the sudden and profound change in your life. Luke knew the feeling all too well.

Luke sat down in the chair across from you. He watched you, almost with care. You seemed to notice though because you immediately sat up.

“Is someone going to explain what’s going on here?” He noticed the sudden quietness in your voice.

Taking a deep breath Luke started the same speech he gave every new camper, with some exceptions. He left out minor details usually directed toward young campers. You clearly weren’t young, at least 16 or 17. Pretty old for a new camper but hey, Luke didn’t discriminate. A part of him didn’t want to scare you away with all of the knew information, leading to little white lies.

“I’ll give you a tour tomorrow morning of camp but I think you should just rest up for now” Luke stood up, walking toward the door. As much as he wanted to stay, he knew the Apollo kids had to do their job.

“Oh by the way” He turned around to face you, “I’m Luke.”

You gave him a curt nod before shutting the door in his face. __________________________________________

a place in this world

It took a couple of months but it finally seemed like you were settling in. Even though your mom had told you about the Gods and Goddesses and how your father was a God, you didn’t have the heart to believe her. That was, until a hairy brown creature was chasing after you.

For the first time in weeks you noticed you didn’t wake up with a heavy heart, missing home.

Someone else noticed it too.

Luke, very slowly, had built up your trust. He really was a good guy, even though he annoyed the piss out of you at first. Countless lonely nights in the Hermes cabin had been made better by him. He would listen to you complain about everything and cry over missing your mom.

That was until an intense game of flag football concluded in being claimed.

After Chris had thrown the ball to some poor Athena kid, you chased after him. Yanking the strap around his waist so hard it sent him flying into the ground. When the ball launched up in the air, you had caught it, sprinting so hard you thought you were going to throw up. In the end, it didn’t end up counting as a point for your team, to your disappointment. Although when a red holographic boar appeared over your head, peace finally seemed to settle in your heart.

The Athena kid did end up in the infirmary after the game but in your defense no one had explained the rules of flag football to you.

On the other hand being claimed meant moving out of the Hermes cabin. In some ways, this was an upside. No more blue dye in your shampoo or whip cream on your face. You wouldn’t feel like you wanted to drown the Stoll brother.

The one who was affected by your claiming the most though was no other than Luke. So many warm nights of your body heat radiating off of his own were no longer. He couldn’t reach out to you in the dark anymore. Now it’s for the better, he thought.

Even with these bubbling feelings, he couldn’t force himself to come to terms with them. They would sit in the back of his throat, burning and itching. But maybe the pain was worth it.

That night he helped you pack your things up to move in with your newfound siblings.

“I wonder why it took so long to get claimed” You wondered out loud, shoving your childhood teddy bear into your backpack.

“The Gods do everything on their own time” Luke’s face fell into a solemn stare. You knew it was a touchy subject for him, specifically his own father. Ares may not have been the best shoulder to lean on but in his own ways he still managed to beat out Hermes by a mile.

Doing your best to shake his mind from it you said, “Did you see Bryce though? I really didn’t mean to yank him so hard” You smiled at Luke and in return you were granted the smallest laugh.

The next morning, you were itching to hang out with your friends (and distance yourself a tad from your brand new siblings). It was a group Luke got along with, but didn’t care much for. Gods knows why. Of course, however, your new found sister Clarisse remained a part of the friend group and Luke never really liked her. She was soft with you and some of your other siblings but rarely anyone else.

The rocky path crumbled under your shoes as you made your way to dinner. You swung your water bottle around your hands before spotting a warm and familiar face.

“Hey Poppy” a smile broached your face. You linked arms with the daughter of Athena. Even though you loved your friendship with Luke, Poppy was your number one. She had only been here for a month before your arrival, causing a very tight knitted bond between the two of you.

“How was the first night in the Ares cabin?” Sharing a look, you both knew the answer. You shrugged. There wasn’t much to share. Your brothers and sisters didn’t seem to hold their rage as well as you thought they might. Arguments ended in screaming matches. Or a dagger being thrown.

“Listen, I’m hot-headed but they really take it to the next level” You both giggled.

Right before you stepped up to the pavilion, Poppy unhooked your arms, turning to face you. “Are you sitting with us today or,” she paused and in air quotes she said “Lukie Pookie?”

Ah yes, the nickname everyone around camp designated upon him. You knew Poppy meant no harm by it but even just by the mention of him, it felt like a pillow smashed your stomach.

Brushing it off you quickly looked around for him, “I was planning on sitting with you guys and I don’t even think he’s here yet.”

Poppy raised an eyebrow and pointed to the curly haired boy across the pavilion. Shrugging once more, you grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the opposite side of the benches.

Your friends, a cluster of kids from different cabin, were gathered in their usual spot. Before you could even sit down, someone called out your name. Whipping around, it seemed as if the curly haired boy teleported.

“Speak of the devil” Poppy muttered. You lightly smacked her shoulder.

“Hey” A soft smile graced Luke’s lips, “Mind if I sit?”

Interesting.

His eyes lingered in yours for a moment before you shook yourself out of it.

“Of course!” You patted the spot next to you. You mouthed a quick ‘sorry’ to the group, just incase.

A flash of hesitation crossed his eyes but he plopped down anyway.

“Mhm! I’ve been meaning to ask you Luke” your friend Ben started “I was wondering if you could help me with my swordsmanship?”

Luke nodded quickly before turning to face you. It was the signal that he wasn’t interested in the conversation. Although you knew Ben would pry about it later as Ben was also a child of Hermes.

But he didn’t see things in the way you did. Instead Luke focused on how your hair fell in front of your eyes. It took everything he had in him to not move it. Others around him could talk and talk and talk but he was only ever focused on you. Over and over again he chose you. But what were best friends for, right? __________________________________________

snow on the beach

The sound of footsteps against a shallow pier never particularly bothered Luke. That was if they weren’t disturbing his peace.

The humming of the trees blowing in the wind, soothed his mind over. His eyes followed the way the fish swam with air bubbles peeking over the surface.

Watching the water helped slow everything down. His particularly dense relationship with his father was starting to wear down on him. Luke knew how even the scar on his face didn’t do his hatred justice.

Too clouded by his thoughts, he didn’t notice a familiar giggle breezing behind him.

You placed your fingers over Luke’s eyes and he immediately reached up to touch your hands.

He turned around and peered up, meeting your gaze. Luke’s breathe slowed when he met your eyes. There was a mutual sense of warmth between the two of you. Shared between little moments of laughter and light. And just by looking up at you, he knew he was in a little too deep.

Luke could, of course, fess up. But even the thought of that made him want to hurl his cookies. It’s not like he wanted these feelings and trust, he’s tried to get rid of them. They were more painful than awkward. The flutter in his stomach when you stood just a little to close to him. The way he caught his breath anytime you looked up at him and smiled. Or the shakiness in his throat and on his tongue whenever you quipped a snarky comment.

He quickly stood up reveling how he towered over you so easily.

His eyes glanced down to your hands which had been pulling something out of your jean pocket. A small string bracelet was cupped between your hands.

He snatched it from you, looking it over. It was covered in red and blue zig zags. His favorite colors.

“Hey” you whined, “I worked hard on that.”

A grin broke out on his face, “Is it for me?”

You frowned, “Well it was supposed to be but since you don’t seem to have much patience, I’ll be taking it right back!”

Before you could seize the gift back, Luke’s arm shot up in the air, holding the bracelet overhead. It was a trick he pulled on you plenty of times. Of course it did nothing but annoy you yet that was the fun of it.

Many could not dupe a child of Hermes. Even so, if there is one thing you inherited from your father it was the fight response in oppose to flight.

Your hands wrapped around the front of Luke’s orange t shirt, bunching it into a fist. Swiftly you yanked him back just enough before you efficiently shoved him backwards.

In the blink of an eye, he performed a large flop into the lake. Although the water that had skyrocketed upwards, dunked you clean with water. Worth it.

Now soaking wet, his mane of dark curly hair, bobbed up and down in the water.

“Not cool” He sputtered out. He pulled his upper body on the dock, holding his hand out for you to grab.

You sighed, knowing what was about to happen. In order to escape future prank endeavors, you had to let him do it.

Before you knew it, you were handing over your right to dry clothes.

Head hitting the water first, you tumbled off the deck. Your entire body, including the dry clothes, plunged into the inhospitable water. How on earth could fish swim in water this cold?

As soon as you breached the water, Luke shoved your head down. Well played.

“Was that necessary?” you groaned, water stuck in your ears and nose. Luckily it was pretty shallow otherwise you would have been way more upset.

“I have bad news” Luke paused, running a hand through his hair, “I think I lost your bracelet” He hesitantly waited for the backlash he was about to receive.

As soon as your mouth started to curl into a frown he knew it was over.

You dove headfirst into Luke. He tumbled back and you pushed him so far under he hit the sand. Although it wasn’t that deep, he managed to grab onto you, pulling you underwater with him.

Your laugh threw bubbles all around. His brown eyes shot open. For a minute he seemed like he was searching yours for something.

In just a couple of moments, it felt like the world stopped moving. You could feel the air in your lungs start to sting. Maybe it was time to resurface.

You mentally clocked all of the seconds you could spend underwater without passing out.

But when Luke smiled, all of your thoughts went muddy. He grabbed your hand, pulling you up.

You gasped for air, feeling the sharpness. It quickened when you realized Luke’s shirt cling to his body.

Look away look away look away look away.

A hint of rose rushed to your cheeks. You cursed yourself for thinking anything different.

After you two had burned every ounce of energy you had, you found yourself laying on the deck, eyes closed.

You could hear Luke breathe as his chest fell up and down.

The sun started to set in the distance, and the buzz of grasshoppers with Luke laying next to you is all you needed.

It’s all you ever wanted.

Almost as if he read your mind, Luke mumbled “I could lay here for hours.”

You hummed in response, simply glad he appreciated the sentiment as much as you did.

Something tickled your cheek with its moisture. You opened your eyes to find small snowflakes falling from the clouds. Snow, specifically snow at Camp Half Blood was rare.

It was weird, but it was fucking beautiful.

It crossed your mind that maybe it was Zeus’s doing, a little reward. You were reminded that even though the Gods had failed you time after time, there were small moments where none of it seemed to matter.

Like laying next to the boy who pulled at your heart strings when snow fell.

You glanced at Luke and caught a glimpse of his smile. The way his lips tugged at each other, you knew he felt the exact same way. It was provoking the way you both knew the ins and outs of one another.

In the back of your mind, you knew the snow wouldn’t last long as it was the start of summer. But oh how you enjoyed it so.

As some would say, nothing lasts forever.

———————————————————————

Authors note: I definitely meant to put this out sooner however I have been booked and busy! Now that it’s summer, I should definitely have more time to write because I love writing this stuff. Lemme know if you guys want more pieces in time of Luke and reader! Also if you have any requests or recommendations send them in!!!!

-Bee

#luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #percy jackson #pjo #luke castellan x ares reader #percy jackon and the olympians #luke castellan x you #luke castellan x y/n

[fl0atingbubbles]

Want to be a part of an Indi animated show??

yep, that's right! I'm working with some friends on an indi animated show inspired by all those who came before! The concept has been building for around a year now and we've decided to start looking for some more artists and writers!

The show is called ZOMBIECORE!

ZOMBIECORE is a horror mystery show about a zombie bunny in a city of cannibal demons! Follow her as she searches for her killer through the 5 districts of Ghastown!

(click on the images to see them better)

Now before I go on any further;

‼️THESE ARE UNPAID ROLES‼️

This is just a passion project that we are working on in our spare time, if things progress further there might be payment down the line, but that is extremely far away and not at all guarantied. If this does not work for you, don't apply!!

info:

anyway, onto the details! We're looking for concept artists/animators as well as writers for the script!

artists/animators will be (you don't have to be doing all of them if you're an artist, just what you're comfortable with!):

- making visual concepts for the show's overall look - character designs - background/location concepts - animation/movement concepts - and anything else that comes up!

this role could also evolve into you helping out with backgrounds, storyboards, or animations when we get further along!

Writers will be:

- planning the episodes - writing the scripts

yep that's about that! some important things for you to note before applying tho!

- this is UNPAID (like i said before) - you only have to do work you're %100 happy to do and take breaks whenever you need - you can drop out whenever - you don't need a specific skill level. We are accepting every and all applications from expert to beginner! so don't feel like your art isn't good enough <3

I'm working as the animation director and a Co-writer, so I'll be there to help with whatever role you have, and if you've been following me for a while you know i don't bite.

How to apply

- Have discord (no way around this) - Send me a DM on discord (user Fl0atingBubbles) - if you want to be an artist, please add examples of your art! Anything animation or concept based would be loved, but any art will work!

Once you have sent me a message I will look over your application and send it to the director (their name is Bloom)! We will then decide if you're allowed on the team! you might have to talk to Bloom before you can join just to check if you'll work, but they're super nice lol

after all that you'll be welcomed to the team and can start helping out!!

If you have any questions about this please ask and I'll give you the best answer i can!!

✨Also, if you guys could share this post around or tag anyone you think would be interested, that would be great! we'd love as many eyes on this as possible!!✨

#art #artists on tumblr #animation #animated #zombiecore

[wigglebox]

I haven’t been posting much as I am working on the second Destiel Doodles coloring book! Bc I feel bad not posting as much, here are some progress shots I’ve been posting to my instragram stories!

I don’t have an exact date when it’ll be done but I have a date in mind in the next month 👀 but it just depends if I’m able to hunker down and get them all done lol

They are going to be redraws of my Destiel Month drawings I did 2.5 years ago when I first started drawing again so I’m having a lot of fun with it!

#wiggleart #wip #destiel #I’m so excited! #the backgrounds are going to be more detailed #as in there will be more to color #and you’ll be able to print them out to color on their own without the dweebs as well #including some florals!

[cinnamontoads]

watching one of hal’s bad animes probably

#otasune #metal gear solid #mgs #hal emmerich #solid snake #otacon #my art #whatever I’ve had this for a week and I keep tweaking it but not rly doing anything else with it so here u go #I couldn’t decide if I wanted to color it or go into more background detail and then I did neither LOL