#I LIKE IT BUT LIKE something about its design is off
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Don't mind me, just thought too long about keeping Price on a leash while he fucks you from behind 🫠
John Price x gn SAS captain reader oneshot | explicit
cw: Light pain play. Unsafe gagging practices. Praise kink. John isn't so much a masochist in this one, as just very enthused with reader's anger.
It's never easy working so closely with another captain, but John Price was perhaps the worst. Cocky, arrogant, brimming with the kind of self-assurance only a man who looked like him in a field like this could have.
A league all his own, really; a fact which he never let you forget, of course.
"Should give a horse its head when it knows where it's going, love," he'd murmur after you'd send your lieutenant away with detailed instructions on a task he could surely handle without your input. Ironic, that, seeing as John never seemed to tire of micromanaging you.
You hate him; tell him as much every time weeks of frustration in the field and no options other than lower ranking officers who'll get you discharged combine to find the two of you tangled up against the nearest sturdy surface.
He only ever laughs at you. "Show me, then," he goads, and you'll scoff in disgust and slap him, or dig your nails into his flesh so hard you can feel the heat welling beneath your grip. "Just like that, love," he'll hiss, "harder, fuck," and you're never certain if he means riding or hurthing, so you do both.
Most times, he likes when you keep his hands pinned over his head as you sink onto him. He could probably break out of it easily enough (this is John Price, after all), but he never does; just lets you lean across his unreasonably long torso and plant too much of your weight on the delicate bones of his wrists. It makes for an awkward angle, but you don't mind so much when it gives you great access to his neck. This might be his favorite, and while part of you is loathe to give him anything he wants, the other part is deeply satisfied with the knowledge that you could embarrass him in front of his men just by ripping off his keffiyeh at the next strat meeting if he pisses you off too much.
Too bad you don't actually want anyone else seeing him like this, all marked up. It's not that you care about him, but there's an undeniable rush that comes with getting John Price all laid out under you, asking for your hands, your fists, anything. That's the part you're not eager to share any facet of.
He makes it hard to keep quiet, though, grunting and groaning like a pig as he does.
"Could you be any more obvious?" you hiss down at him, and his mustache twitches ominously.
"I can use my mouth some other way," he offers. You hum, considering, but when he opens his mouth again, it is not in pliant offering of his tongue.
"Saw your spar with Ghost earlier. He let you grapple him, that last time. Get him in the ribs first, next time, and -."
"I'm gonna fucking gag you." His laugh, loud and obvious, lets you know exactly what he thinks of that idea, and far be it from you to deny any opportunity to shut him up.
With your knickers in his mouth, your belt holding them in place, it should probably occur to you that this is a bit too much for casual sex. You should probably notice how eagerly John pulls you onto his lap. You definitely should have noticed the pattern of events which always lead you back here by now. You never do though, just as eager to get him hilted inside you as he is to be there.
He groans when you sink onto him, neck cording with the effort to be heard.
"Should keep you like this all the time," you suggest, digging a thumbnail into his nipple. He arches a bit, lays back flat when you swat his pec.
"Christ, Price," you mutter as you wiggle on his long cock. It's a shame something so intuitively designed was wasted on such a right shit, you think, notching him impossibly deeper. Price swallows thickly when you squeeze around him, work him within yourself for a moment. He's content to watch you until he's not, heavy hands climbing up your thighs to encourage you to move properly.
You swat them away. "Greedy," you admonish, but you're ready to move anyway so you do, fucking yourself onto him with long rolls of your hips. You forget most times, when gear's back on, and perfectly professional (unsettlingly self-assured) masks are back in place, what exactly keeps you stumbling back into his tent time after time. But like this, when he waits until the grip you have on his thighs gets dire and the pinch of your brow combines with your slack jaw to betray your pleasure to get his hands properly on you; like this, you remember.
John's hands are heavy and warm, coaxing and guiding. He's like this always, some squirmy little bug that's made a home of your ear likes to remind you, but it's only here - where the judgemental eyes of your officers can't follow - that you allow yourself to be guided; let him pet at you, reward you. Here, it's all justified. Honors owed. Tomorrow, surrounded by the best soldiers in the world and expected to stand on a pedestal as his equal, the doubt will set in and his praise will draw your teeth.
"Shit, John," you huff when his big palm stretches flat against your tummy and the way he pushes into you, you know he can feel himself there. He grunts, rocks up and tries to squeeze himself through the wall of your abs. You help, constricting around him, and the thick material of your belt folds under the pressure of how hard he grits his teeth, the needy thing.
"Want you to fuck me," you tell him, and smirk when his eyes drag up to your face from where they'd been trained on your chest. He grunts, a little dazed, and follows automatically when you climb off him. You don't let go of the tail of your belt, keeping it trained over your shoulder as you settle on hand and knees. He follows, of course, unable to do much else, and hums excitedly as he climbs in behind you.
"Hands to yourself," you warn, but he just hums again and slides his palms up your thighs like you knew he would. You yank on the belt, sending him sprawling over top of you. You only realize it was a mistake when he catches himself easily with a fist planted above your head and he chuckles darkly against your ear. You forget how big he is sometimes, how he's only here because he wants to be. He waits until you turn towards him and only pushes back into you when your eyes are locked on his.
You'd be ashamed of the way your mouth falls open if you had the capacity for it, but the way John fills you leaves room for little else.
He knows, damn him. Fucks you so good you forget you're supposed to be in charge. He leans heavily onto you, gets your elbows to fold under you and follows you down, keeps his forearm planted on the mattress above your head. He took the belt tail out of your hand at some point, set himself free so he could murmur praises in your ear with ticklish lips. You swat at him half-heartedly but he just chuckles, holds your hands in his free one once he gets his arm tucked up under your chest. When you cum, he's still right there, panting the same air as you, mumbling about 'Go on, show me how much you fuckin' hate me.'
You get yourself sorted enough to thread your fingers through his short hair and tug and that's all it takes. He groans deep and guttural, nips at your ear lobe so delicately it's as if he's afraid to hurt you, even after everything.
He sighs eventually, sits back on his haunches to look down at you. "So pretty, love," he murmurs and you sigh, doubt creeping in already.
"John -."
He swats your ass to shut you up and you glare back at him, any post-coital affection you might sometimes feel for him long gone. "Said you look fucking pretty like this." The words are honeyed, the tone is threatening. "Gotta fuckin' gag me cause you don't wanna hear it, huh? Well too bad, love. Not done with you yet."
You can't even complain when he buries his face in the seam of you.
#captain john price x you#captain john price x reader#john price x reader#john price x you#john price smut#captain john price smut#drabbles#price smut
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misunderstandings
bachelorette series - trailer ▸ part 1 ▸ part 2 ▸ part 3 ▸ part 4
synopsis: y/n watches the most recent episode of the bachelorette and is met with something she doesn’t like. sana also seems to be angry for whatever reason and it builds up into a big argument at the end of the night.
warnings: sex! overstimulation, fingering, scissoring, oral sex, degradation, choking, cursing
w/c: 7.1k
a/n: soooo sorry for the delay this will probs be my last update for a while bcs finals season is driving me up a wall (if u see me post another story or part its bcs im actually not studying and u should yell at me for it) i lwk hate the pacing of this chapter i feel like its everywhere but hey! we got some smut!
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the backlash wonsik gets online is more than satisfactory. apparently, with all the evidence piled up against him, he would most likely be sent away for the rest of his life. which is disgusting to think about, how much crime do you have to commit to get a life sentence? you try to shake those thoughts as you watch the most recent episode with the leftover contestants while sana’s on her individual date as usual. it was tradition now, even more so as the pool of contestants gets smaller and smaller.
after your day off, things had gotten right back to normal.
sana went on a solo date with jacky. good thing it was jacky too because they had the famous ‘conquer a fear’ date. who knew big, australian jacky was afraid of balloons. and in typical bachelorette fashion, producers came up with a romantic hot air balloon date for 5am in the morning.
costume designers had rushed into your room at 4am, turning on all the lights and pulling sana from your arms, not even casting you a second look now that they were used to seeing the both of you cuddled up and naked most of the time they had to come in and dress you.
you were barely conscious as they ran around frantically, pulling the covers over your head and groaning a little, trying to make yourself go back to sleep.
you’re sure sana didn’t feel the best either from the little grumbles and whines you can hear faintly as she struggles to keep her eyes open while makeup artists dab eyeshadow on her eyelids.
soon enough they're off and you drift back into sleep, only to be awoken a few hours later so you can get dressed and attend the group date for the day.
that was also pretty fun. everything was meant to be high-adrenaline, facing your fears, all that sort of stuff today. so the team had booked out a big amusement park and you all had free rein. it was also good because it meant you had a little bit more freedom, not everyone had to stick together so people ended up splitting up naturally when they wanted to do different rides and you had even managed to sneak sana away from the cameras for a quick make out session in the toilets.
it was a pretty great day and would make for a nice and light episode after the mayhem that happened with wonsik. there was a rose ceremony as always but this time, only 2 people were eliminated. unfortunately you had to say goodbye to dae and nayeon, sana did say it was getting harder and harder to eliminate people because as the more time goes on, the closer you get, and when there's less people in the house, it also facilitates closer relationships. she had to eliminate those two simply because she felt her romantic connection with them wasn't as strong as it was with some of the other contestants. it was rough but that's showbiz.
after 2 more eliminations tonight, it would officially be the quarter finals meaning it would be time for sana to meet all of her last 4 contestants' families and close ones.
currently, you're enjoying an afternoon tea at the contestants' house. as usual, sana was on a solo date with jiwon but there wouldn't be a group date today because there wasn't enough time to film it. instead, the both of you were allowed a little sleep in after yesterday's rude 4am awakening, and a little more time in the afternoon to dress up before the rose ceremony tonight.
the episode had just finished with jacky and sana's date. jacky still won't go near a balloon and he's probably developed a fear of heights on top of that too now but at least it looked pretty on television.
you had teased him when the episode showed him nervously walking around and inspecting the hot air balloon before sana had to basically yank him into the basket. he had his eyes shut tight the entire time, holding on to sana for dear life while they ascended. it was a little cute when sana finally managed to get him to peek his eyes open once they reached their highest altitude, just in time to catch the sunrise, and in exchange for getting over his fear and not backing out of this date with her, she gave him a rose and kissed him on the cheek.
you heard afterwards from eunji that as soon as they touched back down he had jumped out of the basket and laid face down in the grass for about half an hour, just getting used to the feeling of being on the ground again.
they had caught a bit of him on the floor doing exactly that which was pretty hilarious because sana was crouched next to him, poking him and trying to get him to sit up but he just groaned and mumbled something incomprehensibly in response, his rose still clutched tight in his hand, stretched out in front of him.
they cut it off there though, maybe a little for jacky's reputation but you all knew how long he was there for.
after a short break where they show a few scenes of silly occurrences inside the house with the other contestants, and then finding out everyone was invited on the group date that day, except for jacky who was invited but ended up taking the rest of the day off to recuperate and basically laid in bed in the medical office, even skipping the rose ceremony since he already got his rose.
they shot everyone in the car on the way to the amusement park, asking the contestants what they thought was going to happen, if anyone was scared, trying to pull a few comedic clips together, all the anticipation scenes the audience needed to be excited for the date.
eventually, everyone's in the middle of the amusement park with sana and yourself waiting for them in casual clothes. you shift a little as you recall the way you had her gasping into your mouth and your hand up the blue polo shirt she’s wearing on screen only 20 minutes after the introduction and everyone had split off.
in the meantime, while the cameras were running around frantically trying to find sana, they had filled in the gaps with clips of the other contestants, you laugh when momo is practically dragged onto a rollercoaster by jihyo and jun, she’s kicking and screaming but they manage to strap her in and gesture for the roller coaster attendant to go. its one of those really fast ones where it goes from 0 to 100 in seconds so the force pushes all of them back against the seats, poor momo barely has the time to blink and then its over. she’s gasping with her eyes clenched shut while the other two are laughing and pulling her off and along to the next ride.
it’s great being able to watch what happened when you weren’t on screen, and also what sana was up to when you weren’t with her.
you laugh when they show all the contestants clambering onto the carousel, you had all taken some group pictures and some of them were more than silly.
eventually, you get to the rose ceremony, and just as you were on the night, your breath is taken away again with sana in a stunning red dress. she really nailed being on camera, her face was one that was meant to be on screen.
the night starts merrily, everyone's more of a family now, you’re all happy to drink and talk together, and it wasn’t so competitive to get time with sana anymore because there were less contestants.
you frown a little though when the camera shifts to sana and jihyo, they’re sitting very close in one of the more private rooms inside the house.
jihyo’s playing a joke and sana’s laughing, a little flushed, probably from the alcohol as she slaps jihyo’s arm lightheartedly. jihyo preens at the attention, grabbing another drink and offering it to sana who accepts it gratefully and takes a sip.
she hums in satisfaction before speaking up, “so you never did tell me how you broke up with that gym rat…”
jihyo’s laughing a little nervously, twiddling her thumbs a little, “right yeah… i just realised that i made the wrong decision. i was caught up in the newness of everything with him but after that got old, i realised i still loved-“
sana’s eyebrows are shooting up, she’s setting down her drink and clearing her throat.
“sorry.” jihyo flashes an apologetic look over at sana, but sana shakes her head.
“no no it’s okay. be as honest as you can, please. we’re both here because we’re looking for a relationship right? can’t do that if we have any skeletons still in the closet.”
jihyo’s smiling gratefully and then continuing, “he wasn’t it for me. that’s why i broke up with him. i’m sorry for the way i treated you sana, you didn’t deserve that, you never did anything wrong in our relationship and i never really gave you a reason to why we broke up. i hoped by coming on here i may be able to win back a second chance.”
sana hums again, taking a moment to think while jihyo nervously looks at her with wide eyes.
“jihyo… you hurt me a lot when you left.”
“i know! and i’m so so sorry for that! i never want to do that to you again, all i’m asking for is another chance sana.”
she’s shuffling closer, grabbing sana’s hands tightly and imploring with her eyes.
sana looks down at their hands together, taking a breath before looking back up, "look... i'm not going to lie to you... i never really did get over you completely."
what?
"and i wouldn't have kept you in here for this long if i wasn't curious about what you had to say and if i wasn't ready to give you a second chance."
what the actual fuck?
"it wouldn't be fair though. to the other contestants, y'know? if they knew you had a head start. and i admit i was avoiding you a little because i wanted to even the playing field and get to know everyone else first before revisiting this." she makes a gesture with her hands, signaling between the two of them. "so its nice to finally be able to sit down and get a clear answer about what happened in the past."
jihyo looks more and more hopeful as sana goes on, your hands only get tighter around the fabric of your pants. sana didn't tell you about this conversation last night. sana hasn't mentioned anything jihyo related. whenever you ask, she's always managed to change the conversation or misdirect you with the promise of sex. was this why? is this how she really felt about jihyo? did she think you would disapprove? well you do disapprove but that was besides the point.
all of the other contestants don't seem too shocked with this news. it's not too surprising though because they've all lived with jihyo and the one thing they all have in common is sana so there's no doubt they've all discussed each other's feelings for sana, and jihyo probably told them their history as well.
you're fuming though. you can't believe sana didn't tell you something this important. that you're finding this out along with the rest of the country when you were meant to be her best friend here, the one person who was supposed to know everything before everyone.
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the rest of the afternoon goes by in a blur. you can vaguely tell when someone comes up to you and tries to initiate or bring you into the conversation but your mind is swirling with information about sana and jihyo, their past interactions, whether you could decipher any of sana's feelings from observing her.
eventually, it's time for the rose ceremony again and you're still in your head about everything you thought you knew happened yesterday.
you have half the mind to pull sana aside and ask her about it but when you meet sana's eyes, she squints a little and looks away quickly with signs of a pout in her lip.
the night continues like this, the two of you stealing glances at each other only when you think the other isn't looking. when sana starts pulling jihyo aside though, you don't care if she sees the look of disbelief on your face, she doesn't seem to notice anyway, all cozied up to jihyo.
you're averting your head again and downing the rest of your drink in one gulp.
when it's time to read out who gets a rose and who's going home, you're stiff standing next to sana, she's purposely avoiding your gaze as well. the tension between you two was so thick jiwon had come up and asked if something had happened between you two. and technically nothing did happen so you don't really know why sana seems to be angry with you when you were the one who was hurt by yesterday's episode.
the ceremony is brief, you have to say goodbye to jun, and eunji unfortunately but you can barely give them a proper hug as you stare at jihyo who's now made the final four.
after your goodbyes you quickly make your way towards the car, tapping your foot impatiently while waiting for sana to finish saying her goodbyes so you could both go home.
unfortunately, that takes another 20 minutes and you're just about to tell the driver to leave without her when she's sliding into the car, still avoiding your gaze and sitting on the opposite end of the car. normally she's all over you, needing affection after a big day but now you're pretty sure if she moved any further away she'd be falling out the window.
that was fine though. it’s not like you wanted to have an argument with her while the driver could hear you anyway.
the car’s pulling in and she’s opening her door and stalking inside the house without even a second glance towards you.
what the fuck? why was she mad at you now?
you feel almost childish copying her actions and making sure to slam the door on the way in, but if she was acting like this for no reason that only infuriated you more.
you find her in the kitchen, tapping her foot impatiently and waiting for you to come in.
once you’re standing on opposite sides of the counter, you cross your arms and still. she’s leaning on the counter with her hands, staring you down. there was no way you were going to be the first to break. she was the one who had some explaining to do right now, not you.
sana's stubborn as well though, lips pursed and not backing down.
it goes on like this for a few minutes before you finally break, raising an eyebrow and asking coldly, "so do you have anything you want to say to me sana?"
sana scoffs, the tips of her ears red, "do you have anything you want to say y/n?"
"what? no! i don't even know why you're being like this right now! i'm the one who's been left in the dark here."
"oh you're the one who's been left in the dark huh? unbelievable that you're still lying to my face about this. is that how you really feel about her?"
"excuse me?! it doesn't matter how i feel about her! the whole issue is how you've been dealing with this situation!"
sana sneers, your voices getting louder and louder trying to top each other, "this again? seriously y/n? i'm my own person and i'm allowed to have opinions on who i like and who i don't like! if she's being weird or sneaky or whatever i'm going to call her out on it!"
you scoff, "yeah right. like you called her out on it last night? and tonight as well i bet. why did you take so long saying your goodbyes huh?"
sana goes beet red and you think you've got her, "what?! what are you talking about?! and i stayed behind to say proper goodbyes to everyone! not like you apparently who couldn't care less, you barely talked to anyone tonight, when jun, and eunji, who was one of your closest friends here right?! when they had to leave you didn't even look them in the eye when they hugged you!"
"riiiiiiiiiight and you expect me to believe that? you weren't cuddling up and getting a quickie in before you had to go right?"
"what?! what are you talking about y/n?! quickie- what?"
"with jihyo! you stayed behind to talk to her didn't you!?"
"what?! well yeah i did but what does jihyo have to do with any of this?"
"what?! i've been talking about jihyo this whole time what do you mean?"
she's slipping something out of her suit pocket and sliding it across the counter to you. your phone.
"are you fucking serious y/n? you've been talking about jihyo this whole time? what the fuck? why the fuck are you suddenly bringing her up? you're the one who's been going behind my back getting all flirty and friendly with miyeon! after you told me you were just friends?! calling each other babe and sweetie and honey in your texts, how the fuck did you even get her number anyway? how long have you been talking to her huh? how long have you been fucking me while talking to someone else?"
you're scrambling for your phone, unlocking it and scrolling to your messages with miyeon. fuck. sana must have read everything. you don't even remember leaving your phone behind but it must have been with her since the morning. you scroll down the texts and see the most recent messages miyeon has texted you today and you find that sana has been replying to her.
"are you serious sana?! why the fuck did you go through my phone?"
sana turns her head at that, pouting a little, "i didn't mean to! she just kept on texting and i thought it must have been something important if your phone kept going off so i just went in to make sure everything was okay! how was i supposed to know you were basically sexting her behind my back!?"
"we were not sexting oh my god sana! miyeon is my friend we're just friends!"
"why have you been keeping this from me then?! you must like her or something then don't you?!"
"what?! no! and don't talk to me about keeping secrets right now sana!"
"what secrets have i kept from you?!"
"hello?!" you're waving your hands around frantically, "the whole jihyo situation?! why didn't you tell me you never got over her?"
"i never got over- what?!"
"you said so last night! on national fucking television! don't play dumb with me right now sana, and don't try and change the topic on me!"
"i never said that! are you being serious right now? jihyo and i split and it took me a while but you were there for it all! you saw me at my lowest and you helped build me back up! i am over her!"
"why is she in the final four then?"
"oh my god y/n you cannot seriously still be talking about jihyo! i'm over her! the producers wanted her to make it to the final four because they thought they could add some drama in during the home visits or whatever! jihyo and i talked about it last night and i told her why she was still here because i didn't want to keep leading her on! that's why i stayed for longer after the rose ceremony, i just wanted to check on her and make sure she was okay with all of this because i still care about her! i loved her at one point in my life!"
"that's not what i saw in last night's episode!"
"what?!"
"yeah! you and jihyo were all close and snuggly and she told you she still loved you and you said you were going to give her a second chance!"
"y/n i never said any of that." the rage has lifted slightly now, replaced with confusion.
you're breathing heavily, tired from arguing, you and sana had more fights these few weeks that you've been filming than you've had your entire lives together.
you tap out of your messaging app, going to tiktok and searching up last night's bachelorette episode, scrolling past all the funny jacky moments and amusement park shorts, trying to find the part where jihyo and sana were talking. someone had to have posted about it.
"are you serious right now? are you fucking texting miyeon while we're talking?"
"what?! no! sana i told you miyeon and i are just friends! i'm trying to find a clip of you and jihyo last night to show you what i'm talking about!" you find one then and quickly hold it out for sana to see.
she watches the clip replay a few times while you wait defiantly.
after the seventh replay you take your phone back, sighing when you think she has nothing to say for herself.
“y/n…”
“want to explain yourself now? anything else you wanna divulge while you’re at it?”
“what? no y/n i didn’t say any of that. they edited that together. i didn’t say any of that to jihyo i promise.”
you look at her in confusion, looking back to your phone, and then back to her.
“i did pull jihyo aside and we did talk but i never told her that i didn't get over her. y/n you have to believe me baby i- i can call the producers right now, they'll clear everything up." she's reaching for her phone, but the immense relief that she doesn't still have feelings for jihyo washes over you and brings you to action. moving around the counter and taking her phone from her and wrapping her in a hug.
she stills against you, and you're both surprised when you feel your own tears falling down your face, the tension of the night finally getting to you.
"y/n..."
"i'm sorry. i'm sorry i do believe you. this all seems so silly now i hate when we fight. i overreacted with the whole jihyo thing and it could've been solved so easily if i'd just talked to you instead of..."
sana softens against you, wrapping her arms around your waist and carding a hand through your hair. "it's okay baby. i'll talk to the producers tomorrow and make sure they don't pull anything like that again. and after the home visits i promise jihyo is the one who'll be going home."
you sniffle a little, "you don't have to do that for me sana. i swear i was just being..."
"hmm?"
"i don't know i'm tired sana. can we go to bed?"
she hums against you, pulling you both towards the bathroom for your nighttime routines. once you're done, you're climbing into sana's bed and picking up your phone again, scrolling back to your messages with miyeon while waiting for sana to finish her routine and join you.
y/n: heyy sorry i just got my phone back, sana's had it the last few hours because i left it behind so if i seemed weird over text it's because she was messaging you
miyeon: oh it's okay! i did think you sounded a bit off but i just chalked it up to u not feeling well or something. was sana mad when she found out we were texting?
y/n: 😂 how did you know?
miyeon: well i was on the receiving end of her jealousy when she texted me today so that was one clue 😂
y/n: jealousy?
suddenly your phone starts vibrating and miyeon's name flashes across the screen. you pick up hesitantly, "hello?"
"y/n! hey! it's good to actually hear your voice again!"
you chuckle a little, "you too princess. what's up?"
"nothing really, i just wanted to see where your head's at with sana now."
"what do you mean?"
"remember the conversation we had the night i got kicked out? while you were drunk?"
you squint a little, shuffling around in the sheets, "kinda... why?"
"i noticed the way you looked at her, the way you talked about her, even on the first night i think the reason why no one suspected that you weren't just a regular contestant was because i thought, we all thought you also felt the same way we did for sana."
"w-what?"
"you might not have realised it... but i think you were beginning to see it when filming started. do you get jealous when you see sana with the other contestants?"
"i- well- i mean i kinda just thought i was friend jealous though. or like that i just wanted the best for her which was why i was so harsh on contestants in the beginning."
"the way you talk about her over text sounds like its more than that y/n."
"i don't- what- i'm not jealous-"
you barely register that sana's finished with her routine now, sliding into bed next to you and cuddling up immediately. "what are you jealous about?"
you freeze, looking at her like you've been caught with your hand in the cookie jar in the middle of the night.
"is that sana?" you're broken out of it quickly when you hear miyeon's voice over the phone.
sana bristles though, moving away from you and frowning, "are you on the phone with miyeon?"
"i- yeah-"
sana's snatching the phone out of your hand instantly, bringing it up to her ear and speaking into the microphone with a cold sneer, "yes this is sana. can i help you?"
you can't hear miyeon respond but the way sana's speaking sends a lightning rod of arousal down your spine. your mind is still hazy with what miyeon's suggested, and you're thinking about how you hated seeing sana kiss wonsik, how blinded you felt when you thought sana still liked jihyo, what could this mean? how long have you liked sana for? has it always been this way?
you don't realise that sana's features have become less defensive as she talks to miyeon, almost apologetic even when she settles back down next to you, humming in response to something miyeon's said over the phone. she's within proximity again that you can make out miyeon's voice.
"-but i hope you've been doing well and taking care of yourself with all the craziness that comes along with filming."
"yeah thank you miyeon. really. and again i'm so sorry for all the misunderstandings nd i hope you know that eliminating you was definitely a mistake and it was very short-sighted of me but i'm glad that we've finally had a chance to talk where i'm not completely hostile to you."
you can hear the airy giggle of miyeon over the phone, "of course! all the best with the rest of the season sana. maybe we'll see each other on the other side."
sana smiles, "definitely. goodnight miyeon!"
she hangs up and hands your phone back to you, going right back to cuddling as if nothing had happened.
you're trying to pick out what part of that conversation that you overheard bothered you when it hits. "eliminating miyeon was a mistake?" was this the jealousy again?
"weren't you the one saying that?" sana raises an eyebrow at you, brushing her fingers over your side.
"well- i-"
she's giggling now, "i'm just kidding. miyeon just put to rest everything that was on my mind so i have nothing to worry about. i'm sorry for overreacting when i found out you were texting her. you're allowed to have friends, sorry i was trying to micromanage that."
"what was on your mind?"
"hmm y'know... you mostly."
you whine, hitting her lightly while she laughs at you.
"she told me you were just friends and she never meant to make it seem like it was anything else. she also helped me... come to terms with a few things so i'm actually very grateful for that."
"what things?"
"so many questions y/n. are you worried i'm about to steal her away from you?" sana teases.
"what? no! stop teasing-"
she grins, poking your cheek, "i'm keeping that to myself for now okay? i'll probably tell you one day. just not today."
"why not?"
"just because." she smiles, "now let's sleep."
you grumble a little, confused at what miyeon could have told sana, confused with what miyeon told you. there was one thing you did want to test out though...
you lean in quickly and capture sana's lips, taking her a little by surprise but she's quick to reciprocate, closing her eyes and kissing you back.
you're aggressive, climbing on top of her quickly and licking into her. you're trying to figure out if kissing her made you feel anything more. anything that could clue you in on your true feelings for her.
she's breaking away from you panting though, pushing you back slightly when you try to chase after her again, "woah y/n baby baby slow down- what's got you all in a rush?"
your eyes are dark as you look down at her, friends don't normally feel like the world would end if they stopped kissing right? you needed to be back on her, in her, needed to feel her around you, needed to taste her, needed to memorise every single sound she made, you needed her. that was more than just lust right?
"just- just need you please-" you're leaning back in, almost begging.
"no- no y/n stop. tell me what's going on, you're not normally like this."
you groan, head falling to her shoulder, slumping against her. "something stupid miyeon said..." you mumble into her shoulder.
"what did she say?"
you huff against her, "that i had feelings for you."
you hear the gasp sana lets out, her hands at your waist tightening their hold and you groan into her, grinding down a little at the feeling.
she stills you though, hands sliding down to grip your hips, "stop that." her voice is harsh, and you're reminded of the way she talked to miyeon over the phone, all cold and annoyed. it only makes you drip more at the tone of her voice and you whimper a little.
"do you?"
"do i what?" you're distracted, wanting only to kiss her again.
"do you have feelings for me?"
you sigh, "don't know- that's what i'm trying to figure out."
"how are you trying to figure it out?"
"kissing you. touching you. seeing if all of it made me feel something more."
"something more?"
"i don't know. something other than horny."
sana hums before finally loosening her grip. "okay. try it. just promise me you'll tell me what you think afterwards?"
you're quick to latch onto her lips again, mumbling yes and thank you into her.
she bucks her hips up against you and you moan. she was finally giving into her feelings and letting you do what you wanted, expressing herself freely.
“can you- mmf- can you-“
“what what is it baby? what do you need?”
“can you- be mad at me?”
she’s kissing down your neck, nipping slightly as you grind down into her, “i’m not mad at you. we talked about this just then baby.”
“no- i need- can you pretend to be mad?”
she’s licking up to your ear, “i don’t understand baby. can you elaborate?”
“f-fuck sana- can you- just imagine i did like miyeon and i wanted to fuck her-“
you’re scared you said the wrong thing and ruined the mood when she stills under you. then all of a sudden she’s rolling you over and straddling your hips, lips and teeth back at the sensitive parts on your neck. “you like it when i’m mad?”
“g-god yes sana please-“
“whore. you want me to mark you up? make sure everyone knows your mine? mine to ruin?”
“yes yes sana please-“
you moan when you feel her sucking at your collarbone, intending on doing exactly that.
"off." her hands are at the bottom of your shirt tugging, and you scramble up, almost knocking your forehead against hers in haste, you'd laugh but you were so pent up you couldn't think about anything other than her fucking you all night long.
her hands are cold when she slides them up your stomach, cupping your tits and you shiver at the feeling.
"trying to piss me off on purpose bringing up her name into this hm? after we just made up too." she squeezes and you gasp into her, nipples hard against her palms as she runs a thumb over the tip.
"think my pretty baby's going to come for anyone else?" she circles a nipple leaving you twitching, "i'm going to ruin you so that everytime you even come close to coming in the future, you'll only be able to think about me."
she's licking a trail down the middle of your chest, before sucking marks into the sides of your breasts, avoiding your nipples, only tracing them lightly with the tip of her thumb.
you're squirming around under her, begging and crying, eyes clenched shut, hand drifting down towards your folds, trying to alleviate some of the pressure that's built up.
she snatches your hand quickly and pins it above your head, "don't even fucking think about it."
you whine under her, trying to pull away from her grip but she has you completely under her control.
"don't do that baby. you asked for this didn't you? you're going to be a good girl and take it now." her lips come back down on your other tit, sucking and licking again, you're grinding up into nothing, stuck with the feeling of your own sticky arousal.
"p-please sana need- please- more-"
"what do you need baby? this?" she takes a nipple into her mouth then, sucking gently and flicking over it with her tongue, then popping it out of her mouth, "or this?" a hand trails lower, thumbing the waistband of your pyjama bottoms. "maybe this?" a knee comes up then, pressing right where you need her most and you’re moaning against her.
"g-god sana- fuck- all- all of it- god i need all of it-"
"be more specific sweetie. you can do it. c'mon now."
"f-fuck need you to fuck me like you said you would. need to feel your fingers inside me, your mouth wrapped around my clit, your hands gripping my ass so hard it'll leave behind handprints. just need you sana please- please-"
"mmm that's a good girl. begging for me like the slut you are. because you were so pretty i'll give you that. but you gotta talk me through it okay? if you stop i'll stop and i'm going to go fuck myself in your bed and leave you here for the rest of the night."
you whimper, nodding your head.
"words baby."
"yes, yes yes god please just-"
she smirks and then she's back at your nipples, fully sucking on them now and pulling your bottoms off along with your panties, immediately swiping a finger through your wetness. the sudden change from feeling nothing to feeling everything be stimulated was almost too much but also exactly what you needed.
"god sana please- inside- need you inside."
she's pushing one finger in and you feel yourself clench around her, already so close, desperate for her. suddenly you're remembering your actual task, but before you can formulate another thought she's pulling out and thrusting back in with another finger.
"god you're so wet for me baby. how long have you been thinking about this hm?"
"i- fuck- i'm never not thinking about you sana."
sana hums, keeping a slow, languid pace, "is that helping with your little mission tonight?"
"i- w- fuck sana faster please-"
"answer the question first."
"f-fuck i- i don't know- i c-can't think- please-"
she's pulling out and removing herself from you so that none of your skin is touching anymore.
"now? now can you think?"
"sana please fuck- yes! yes it's helping everything is helping please just need you back-" you're making grabby hands at her, trying to pull her back so you can feel her against you again.
she obliges, pushing back into you and humming, "that's a good girl."
"thank you- god sana- thank you- mm fuck thank you-" you're babbling, barely making sense when she speeds up, curling her fingers inside you just the way she knows you like, and rubbing her thumb along your clit each thrust inside.
soon enough, you're coming around her, her name and curses spilling out of your mouth but she's not done. she's crawling down your body, marking almost every inch of skin she can get her mouth on, and then latching onto your clit and sucking, fingers still pounding into you.
"f-fuck! sana! 's too much! f-fuck-"
she only hums against you, the vibrations against your clit only tightening the coil in your belly once more and the overstimulation is too much and you feel yourself coming again.
she's pulling out and you think she's finished but she flips you onto your stomach, slipping a pillow under you to lift your ass up, hands gripping the cheeks and spreading them apart, just like how you had begged her to. but then her fingers are prodding at your entrance again and she slides in, and this angle is so much deeper and you cry out, muffled against the sheets, trying to squirm away from her but she's got your ass right where she wants you.
she's leaning down, pushing in and out of you again, you can feel her chest against your back, the fact that she's still wearing her top fleetingly crosses your mind but you can still feel her hardened nipples against your skin, you arch back into her.
"my baby's not done yet. you're going to give me another one. and another one. until you've finished your little experiment right?"
you're sobbing into the sheets, the delightful mixture of pleasure and pain running through your body, your hyperaware of every single movement, every single place your skin touches, every breath she takes as she ruts her fingers into you.
you feel your third orgasm coming up when a hand is snaking a way back up your body, pinching roughly at your nipples before closing around your throat. you gulp and clench even harder around her fingers when she squeezes her hand lightly, moaning your approval.
"yeah? you like that slut?"
"y-yes o-oh god fuck- sana- fuck-"
she's squeezing tighter now and the pressure is perfect, the lightheadedness from the cutoff of oxygen combined with the overstimulation and you're coming again, thrashing into her as she releases you slowly, heaving in air as specks of black dot your vision.
you feel almost numb when she slides the pillow out from under you, turning you slightly so she can kiss you gently, and you moan at the taste of yourself on her tongue.
she's slipping a leg between yours when you realise that she's taken off her bottoms, and you gasp when the feeling of her wetness glides against your clit.
you whimper against her lips, "sana..."
"shhhh baby one more."
you're helpless against her, whining and pushing yourself into her, relishing the way her breath catches and she moans when your clits drag along each other. she's got one hand at your tit again, pinching a nipple and you need to feel more of her so you slide a hand up her top, grasping at her breast and moaning when she rocks against you just a little harder at the feeling.
your lips never leave each other, even when you're so blissed out you're just panting into her mouth, rutting against her. you're not even thinking straight when you mumble the words, slurred together and mixed with curses, but sana still catches it. "i love you."
she stops immediately, leaving you humping her like a dog, panting into her wondering why she's stopped.
she's gripping your hips, stilling you, eyes wide, "what did you just say?"
"i love you sana fuck- please- please let me come again please-"
her eyes study you, half-dazed, and then suddenly she's rutting against you again, your hands tighten around her tits just to be able to hold onto something because she's pushing against you and you're so close and her hands are basically moving your hips against hers without you even doing anything, she's moaning into your mouth, caught in her own pleasure and it's all too much when you feel her tighten her legs around you, coming with a whine and shaking, you come again, eyes closing and feeling the wave of pleasure wash over your body, twitching lightly against her in the aftershock.
when you pull apart your legs are sticky and filthy and hers aren't much better, stained with your essence, you can't even open your eyes, just letting her plant light kisses across your face and neck, holding her against you and learning to breathe again.
when she kisses your eyelids you manage to peek open, staring at her in wonder.
"did you mean it?" her eyebrows are slightly furrowed, hair sticking to her forehead, bottom lip protruding a little in a pout.
you were overcome with pleasure and overstimulation, but you remember everything you said. "i did. i love you. i'm sorry it took this long to realise it."
she sighs, eyes tearing up, "i love you too idiot."
"what about the season?"
"we'll figure that out later. let me clean you up and we can cuddle and sleep?"
you hum, whining when she leaves you to grab a damp towel, missing her warmth already. it felt painful to be without her. every second you spent apart, you were thinking about her, you can't help but laugh at how stupid you've been. you've been in love with sana for the better half of your life, you were determined to make it up to her. to show her just how much you loved her. just how much you needed her in your life.
you smile happily when she comes back, bringing her into a sweet kiss and letting her wipe at your legs. you were so, utterly, in love with her, and you finally realised it.
#sana#twice sana#minatozaki sana#sana x reader#twice x reader#sana imagines#twice imagines#sana smut#twice smut#sana x f!reader#sana x fem!reader#twice x f!reader#twice x fem!reader#royaltozaki
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HI TUMBLR!!
ive come to create a incredibly lengthy post about the new mascot horror game called Indigo Park
I need to ramble ( haha rambley ) about it as i have just quit twitter for an indefinite time for my own mental health as an autistic cannot last on there at all
anyway, im going to talk about all the reason why indigo park is so good and what i hope from it!! and any criticisms i have for it, i honestly dont have many even though its so early to talk about.
how i found out about indigo park:
UNIQUEGEESE!! naturally, i was watching one of masons past streams on his youtube playing FNF after having rejoined the FNF community after its update and finding out about the mod HIT SINGLE; the mod masons was playing( people know it mostly for the silly billy song ) and he had mentioned about him making a mascot horror game which i shrugged off naturally because i am not a fan of modern mascot horror as most of it seems to be low effort and genuinely unappealing, i knew he had made something that was definitely made with love but i didnt have the will to check it out until a announcement trailer dropped which i then saw snippets of the game and the characters and environment, which i was definitely intrigued so I played the game myself.
My thoughts playing the game:
and found it surpisingly good compared to any other mascot horror game, it was unique, genuinely had awesome character designs and very high quality’s graphics and beautiful models and lighting were stunning, again really surprised having endured the hideousness of other low quality mascot horror games, to then find a game with fucking great models ( unlike banban, 2 billion polygon remote or whatever lmfao ).
I started the game and to be real as a extremely gay furry who loves little silly furry boys i felt like i was gonna explode during every single rambley voice line and animation played and fell so in love with him, now a massive comfort character and ive draw. him like 12 times prior to the games first chapter being released like 2 days ago lol, ive never gotten so attached so quicky in my life which definitely makes rambley and indigo park a really special game.
I really love this game, the pacing is really well done, the horror isnt low quality, the like actual character models for lloyd and molly are really gorgeous, i just think the hair and some of the texturing is over done slightly, but definitely made me shit myself multiple times despite this, all while i was laughing with my new silly raccoon boyfriend 💜💜💜💜
hugeeeeww shoutout to team neutron for the the absolute gorgeous expressive rambley screen animations and the credits theme that left me almost tbe same way portal 2’s credits effected me the first time i ever played and definitely huge huge props to otterboyva for the super adorable voice of rambley.
what do I hope for the future of Indigo Park
I hope for the future of this game that content farms and bootleggers disregard it, but this doesnt give me hope seeing that one rambley plush that a company made before the first chapter even released that was completely unlicensed. I will be avoiding social media in efforts to not see people start shitting on this game if it becomes on the same level and milked by content farms like what happened to the amazing digital circus ( i watched this on the day the pilot released, and was equally devastated as many others to see it being used as low effort bait in shitty kids cartoons on youtube shorts )
in case you didnt see i did a little animation at the top of this!! very rough but yeah
I love tgis game PLEASEEEE i cannot wait to see more high quality content from this really passionate creative team uniquegeese/mason has formed
in case you wanted to play it for yourself, heres a link to the steam page!! the first chapter is free and a kickstarter started a couple days ago has been completed funded so…. CHAPTER 2 IS CONFIRMED!!
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Arise review
After buying the game at launch, I finally, finally finished my playthrough of Tales of Arise. Normally I would just write a few thoughts on Twitter and leave it at that, but I found I had a lot of things I wanted to touch upon with this game. With the prior two entries in the series, I kind of just rushed to finish them and then let them collect dust in my brain afterwards. However, back then I had other Tales games I wanted to try for the first time, so part of it was I was itching to get to ones I knew I would enjoy more. I got all caught up with the series before Arise was even announced, so there's no excuse this time!
With Arise, I took my time (well, maybe too much time), and let myself really process the game before I let myself finish it, in order to give myself a more solid basis for how I will feel about this game going forward. To that end, I wanted to really write down my feelings on the game in depth, touching upon all the various aspects of it and how everything made me feel.
Quick warning: if you don't accept criticism of Arise well, this isn't the review for you. I am approaching the game from the perspective of somebody who has played every other entry in the series and ruminated on all of them for years on end. I will be critical of the game in this piece. I'm not trying to tell people how to feel on the game, this is all purely my own thoughts and feelings, from the perspective of a long time Tales fan who deeply cares about the direction the series is going, and more importantly, its rich history.
I am also not looking for people to change my mind on the game, so please do not try to tell me my feelings are "wrong" or that I'm not appreciating certain things properly. I'm not looking for discourse.
That said, if you are someone who is interested in my perspective, then by all means enjoy the essay that is to come.
―――
In this post I want to dive into all the different aspects of the game and talk about each in depth, namely the story, characters and gameplay. I think it's more interesting to judge a game by balancing all these traits rather than just pinpointing one specific thing and basing my entire view of the game on that one thing (for instance, I tend to value interesting characters first and foremost when I indulge in media).
That said, for a quick TL;DR of my feelings on various things, when compared to other entries in the series:
Story: 2/10
Characters: 1/10
Character designs: 3/10
Other UI designs (such as monsters/menus/etc): 0/10
Battle gameplay: 4/10
Other gameplay: 4/10
Music: Undecided, which in its own right may not be a good indicator of how I feel about it
Graphics: As a video game it's a 10, for Tales specifically it's a 9/10 for the graphics themselves and a 1/10 for the lack of anime portraits and the portraits we got just look awful (how does Ufotable only get worse with its Tales designs?)
Visual presentation
I want to start by acknowledging the graphics, as it's something that has zero relevance to how I feel on video games. Arise is a very pretty game! There is no denying this. I found myself stopping and just moving the camera around to admire all the pretty landscapes and views in the game. The character models are also very nice.
That said, like all modern Tales games, the battles are a bit overly stimulating on my eyes, because there's so much going on and lots of flashing lights. The actual effects were very pretty though.
The skits are absolutely horrible to watch. Even setting aside how I feel about the lack of skit portraits, the thin white text on top of the off-white backdrop was a horrible design choice. I think this is probably my least favorite aspect of the game. I get headaches very quickly from playing video games even just normally, and watching a ton of skits with intense eye strain did not help! There's also way too much movement with the skit... boxes? as well. Were they thinking about accessibility at all when coming up with them?
On the same topic, the subtitles for general cutscenes were also awful. The outline around the text needed to be much thicker. I could probably read 30% of the dialogue in the game. Thankfully I know a decent amount of Japanese, but still, I was interested in reading the actual translation of the text and I was having a really hard time. I feel bad for people who wanted to play with Japanese voices and don't know as much as me.
The menu UI was also very disappointing. It felt really barebones and had next to no personality to it. The big portraits drawn by Iwamoto were a nice touch (though if you're going to make such massive paintings, at least make the art itself more interesting to look at?), but it wasn't enough. They just felt like something to fill in the empty space which there was a lot of; the menu layout really did not utilize the space on the screen well, and it's double annoying when you consider how microscopic the font in the game is and how they could've used that space to make things more readable. Everything was hard to read, and again the lack of portraits was just utterly disappointing. Every time I opened the menu I just felt sad at how lifeless it felt.
Gameplay
My feelings on the gameplay are mixed. I'll start with the elephant in the room: the gald system in this game is not good. Only getting gald from chests and sub events is just a massively poor game design. Fishing helps but it's more time consuming than doing battles would be and there's really no other incentive to even doing it (at least battles would work towards EXP and getting battle proficiency things!).
The owl system was fun and was definitely a highlight of the game for me. It took me back to looking for attachments in Xillia, which is something I really enjoyed in that game as well and made the long traversing in the game more bearable. I just went from point A to point B in both Zestiria and Berseria, so this was the first game since Xillia 2 that I actually touched every corner of the map.
The battles are also a mixed bag for me. I will be completely transparent and state here that I mostly only played Shionne and Rinwell, so my feelings on the melee gameplay is very limited. My committed team was Shionne, Rinwell, Dohalim and Kisara. Between them you could hit every element weakness, on top of Kisara's high defense (and the fact that I just liked her more than Law and Alphen).
From the perspective of a caster main, the battle gameplay was fine. Like other entries, you could do fun manipulation strategies to speed casting time. By the end game I was just spam casting Rinwell's highest tier spells instantly which was fun.
The healing is definitely... not great. There were a few times where I would run out of Orange Gels and then have to do a story progressing map action and it would eat the rest of my already gone CG bar. It was really infuriating. I only used First Aid the entire game, never anything else, because why would I use a better healing arte when it would just drain my gauge faster? It was a mess.
The monsters I did not enjoy. It felt really hard to stun them so it never felt satisfying fighting anything. Their movements felt WAY too grand. If every single boss is huge and epic and has moves that hit the whole map, the whole game starts to lose its impact. I also feel like they did way too much damage in a single hit, which made the healing issue even worse, and it felt more like I was trying to perfectly dodge every attack than it did managing my health in a natural way.
The skill system was just fine, no real commentary to make there. I wish there were more titles in the game however, and that they would display on the status screen (even Graces did this despite them both having the titles and skill systems merged).
Some quick other things
The campsite system was fine
I liked that the sub event indicators were really obvious, as someone who's really bad about doing sub events especially on my first playthrough (the actual sub events themselves are a different issue)
Like with fishing, I never really understood the point of the ranch
Did this game even have minigames?
I actually really liked the weapon skins system, that was super fun
Story
This is where I will start to nitpick things because I play Tales games for the story and characters first and foremost. And, having played every other game in full, my feelings on the story and writing in this game are... not very high.
To start, I do at the very least think Arise had some interesting starting concepts going on. Namely, a protagonist trying to figure out his amnesia and a girl who zaps everything she touches are pretty cool concepts! However, even from the first promotion trailer I was concerned about Shionne's story hinging too much on Alphen. The "he can't feel anything, she hurts everything she touches" plotpoints felt really, really convenient to me from the first trailer, and was a setup for having all the impact on the game being reliant on Alphen being a decent character (as well as, well, almost forcing him to be Shionne's hero, rather than him gaining that honor through actual hard work and emotion), but I was more than willing to give the game the chance to prove me wrong on that aspect.
I have too many feelings on the character writing so I will be giving them their own section below.
Anyway, sadly, I think those are the only two interesting and unique things in Arise's narrative. Everything else the game has done has been done in a prior Tales game but better. Let me go down the list (non-comprehensive as I can't remember every single theme from every single game, but I will name games that at least have these as the major theme that I can recall):
Two worlds vying for power (I could name games that don't have two worlds faster than I could name ones that do), and one world is trying to suck power out of the other one (Symphonia, Hearts)
The plotpoint about "when humans lose all their power they turn to dust" is literally exactly what happens in Hearts, while the "making people feel strong bad emotion to provoke them into our gains" is what Zestiria and Berseria's entire lore was about as well as Rebirth
Racism, oppression, slavery and colonialism (Phantasia, Destiny, Symphonia, Rebirth, Legendia, Tempest, Hearts (R removed this but there's literally an NPC who flaunts about enslaving the "lesser beings"), Berseria)
First half of the game is fighting a series of specific enemies, second half is focused on lore, especially figuring out stuff with the second planet (Destiny, Eternia, Symphonia, Vesperia, Hearts)
Do I think Tales rehashing tropes is a bad thing? No, not at all. It's something they have been doing for a long, long time. But what made it work in other games is that each game had at least something completely unique to it to balance that feeling of repetitiveness out.
For instance, Hearts shows up a lot on this bullet list, but it is the only Tales game to have lore based around entering people's hearts, and the whole story is based around a fairy tale. Even the fact that it has a robot as a playable character was a first for Tales. Legendia rehashed a lot of plotpoints from Rebirth, but it had its own unique spin on things and the worldbuilding in it is completely unique with the focus on marine themes and the story structure being unique from any other game. Symphonia even keeps the same worldbuilding from Phantasia but the feels of the games are completely unique from one another due to how different the themes the stories tackle are. The issue with Arise is that I cannot think of anything unique in the game, aside from Shionne's thorns, that wasn't done in another game. And even then, all of the writing regarding her thorns is a big rehash of heroine tropes and situations in the series' past. I will go over that when I discuss her though.
Another glaring issue with the game is the skits. Normally, Tales skits have roughly 4 purposes. In order of prevalence: fun skits to show off the character's personality that the story can't showcase, the characters discussing story events to showcase the full depth of their feelings on the events as they happen, skits going over worldbuilding to explain in better detail if you didn't catch it from the story scenes (or just giving more information!), and navigational skits. Skits were always meant to be lively and engaging, even if things felt dull in the story, skits existed as a pick-me-up, and as a way to show how the characters were having fun. Skits are one of the most famous parts of Tales storytelling, specifically for this reason.
What's wrong with Arise's skits? In a franchise where the fun:dull skit ratio was 6:4 give or take, Arise changed those numbers to 2:8. Most skits were dedicated to rehashing events. Even in those rehashes, the characters were near constantly bringing up plotpoints that happened 30+ hours ago in the story. Over and over! Alphen was still talking about the first 5 hours of the game when you're on Lenegis!
Watching the skits, it genuinely felt like I was having constant deja-vu. I think I actually was worried I was going crazy at some point, because of the sheer extent of times they would have the same conversations over and over and over again. It got to a point where I would joke about Alphen and Law being on the screen together and I would say "countdown to them bringing up Zephyr" and every single time I would say that, the convo would turn to him. This was 55 hours into the game!
It's not bad for characters to reflect on the past events, but when that makes up the vast majority of their conversations, and one singular event makes up the entire personality of the character, the game feels dull very, very quickly. Skits transformed from a thing that I would usually open to find fun shenanigans between the characters and silly banter into me sighing about having to hear about Zephyr's death for the 200th time in the past 5 hours. It was very exhausting. Can we talk about something else now? My rant about this could be endless, but I genuinely want somebody to do a study on just how many times Alphen and Law bring up Zephyr throughout the game, and how many lines in the skits were dedicated to things that weren't just recapping events.
(Even then, there were cooking skits! However, I can only hear so many conversations about preparing food before I start getting bored. I know that eating and food is a BIG cultural point in Japan, but did every single "fun" skit need to be about eating? No.)
Speaking of, let me go over my feelings on the actual story and its events.
While the game did have a slow start, it wasn't that bad. The game eases you into what's going on, with the slavery and meeting Shionne. Nothing really of note to mention here. Rinwell and Law's character introductions were nothing special, but that was fine, it was still early in the game. My first major issue with the game is Zephyr's death. As it may be obvious from my above rant, the game places way too much importance on him as a character. A game mourning a character is nothing new. For instance, fractured Milla's death was a big turning point in Xillia 2. However, the entire game, as well as two entire characters, did not revolve around her death. Arise's issue is that Zephyr is barely a character, and yet the game constantly reminds you of how great and wonderful he was. We barely saw the guy, and no number of skits dedicated to Alphen and Law talking about him changes the fact that he is no more memorable than any other random NPC in the game. His death is unceremonious and was one of the most predictable deaths in the series to date.
(As an unrelated note, I am someone who loves a lot of NPCs in Tales. I love a lot of characters who have very little screentime. Two of my favorite Tales characters are Stella and Marian, who actually have a lot of similarities with Zephyr in narrative importance! The difference, however, is that you are not constantly having it drilled in that they are the epitome of nuance and the stories are not dictated by either character's morals, of which we never got to even see. Arise has Alphen claim Zephyr has the best moral views in the world and his entire life is dictated by those morals he was taught, and he pushes them on everyone else. Including the player.)
Zephyr's death aside, the other non-party characters are barely characters. I don't even remember any of their names. Especially the lords. To sum up my feelings on this instead of subjecting you to a long tangent on the lords, let me just drop these posts I made while playing:
One of Arise's lowest points however is how it handles its themes of racism and colonialism. I have a distinct memory of Alphen telling Rinwell to shut up when she brings up Renan oppression to him, Law tells Rinwell she's not allowed to want revenge due to her oppression, and there's this not-so-great scene on Lenegis where the party reflects on how... one of the lords was "only human" for wanting to enslave the Dahnans and how they can "see" his point of view? NOT GOOD! One of the comments I made while playing the game was "Alphen would stop Cless on his quest of revenge and he would also tell Velvet she's over-exaggerating is kind of my feelings on him at this point" and I still stand by it.
In general, the story is just very predictable. At no point in the game was I surprised by what was going on. Well, no matter, there's other predictable things in Tales games! ...But the difference is that other games, I at least was compelled by the characters and their reactions to those predictable events. Or, their personalities alone would carry me through plotpoints I otherwise found boring. Arise never endeared me to its cast, yet it expected me to find shock value and importance in its very predictable storytelling. I remember when the party takes on the lord who kills Rinwell's family, they said "we'll spare her life" (which is its own long rant but I digress) and I went "oh well someone DEFINITELY won't kill her one second later" and then Vholran showed up as I was saying it! Then, Alphen JUST so happens to get his feeling back in his body after Shionne walks right into Vholran's arms! This was truly the point in the game where I completely gave up on enjoying it and I started to only push myself to beat it just so I could get it over with.
The story sadly saw no improvements after that point either to remedy my soured feelings. The only two things I enjoyed after that point were the little bit with Dohalim's past and him making the speech on Lenegis, and Rinwell touching Shionne's hand in the final scene in the game.
I could go on forever about the story, but I will leave it at that.
As for the sub events, you couldn't really call them "events" when they were just one or two lines about defeating monsters. I did every sub event in the game up until before the final dungeon. I was very unimpressed by them.
Characters
This is absolutely my least favorite part about the game. As I stressed at the beginning, what I go through media for is for the characters. Good characters can salvage just about anything for me. When I watch story scenes, I'm always thinking about how it makes the characters feel. I went into Arise thinking "even if the story doesn't cater to me, at least I can fall back on enjoying the characters and their banter".
As you can already tell, I was utterly disappointed with the cast in Arise.
Alphen
He is easily the contender for my least favorite Tales protagonist, hands down. The issue with Alphen is he never has any original ideas at any point in the game. He always attributes any of his morals to Zephyr. He would go on tangents, explaining how other characters should feel about things, but when asked he got all of his ideas from Zephyr. It seriously felt as if he never thought for himself.
Making this worse is the fact that he would explain how everyone should feel. He would tell Rinwell to stop being mad about her oppression, he would tell Law to listen to his feelings on Zephyr and change his view on him based on his view of who Zephyr was, he would tell Kisara how to feel regarding her place as a woman.
Worst of all, however, was how he would talk to Shionne. Any time she would have an issue, he would make it about himself. In her most important scene in the game, where she's talking about how her thorns make her want to die, he made it about himself. She said what she wanted for herself and he said "whether you like it or not, I'm taking matters into my own hands". Yes, Tales has done this before, with the heroine wishing to die and the hero telling her he won't allow that, but it's infuriating in this case when he never lets her think or act or move or do anything without his input. There's countless scenes in the game where she would be upset and want time alone and he would force her to talk to him about her feelings. Shionne was not permitted to ever exist without Alphen forcing her to talk to him about it and expecting her to go along with what he wanted, and his feelings about her situation. Again, past Tales game have had this, but when it's so constant and so prevalent, and is the only thing the character has to them, it becomes exhausting and annoying.
Also, his only "unique, fun" trait was that he likes armor, but this dialogue only ever showed up... when you made armor?
I was really disappointed with Alphen. Which is really not good when he is the protagonist, and Shionne's entire character also hinges on him. Especially given the grand finale to the game was their wedding, when I saw no romantic tension between them, because all he ever did was explain how she should feel. He was such a mess. I have more I could rant about with him but I need to leave it at that.
Shionne
Shionne is a big bundle of wasted potential to me. That said, she is probably one of the only characters in this game who felt like a character.
Like I said above, her thorns are an interesting concept. However, the handling of it really was standard Tales heroine tied to a cursed fate. The damsel scene, the way she wants to die but the protag talks her out of it, etc. That said, I did think her trauma with never being touched in her life was interesting, and it did make me emotional at points, even if the execution was poor.
I just really, really wish she could've been a character separate from Alphen. Her writing truly was doomed from the start with him being the only person who could touch her. Again, it felt like she bonded with Alphen because he's the only person who can touch her, rather than them actually making a proper bond as people.
Rinwell
Rinwell is... fine? I honestly don't have a lot to say here. I think it was nice that she got importance as the spiritual person in the party, and her banter with Dohalim was nice. I really disliked her relationship with Law however, and again, I hated that Law and Alphen tried to talk her out of her revenge. She was in the position as a "spiteful" person who "needed to grow out of it" but... her family was massacred? Why is Law allowed to be furious about his dad dying, but she's not allowed to be mad about her family being killed? The hypocrisy in regards to Rinwell seriously infuriated me and I felt really bad for her.
Law
Hoo boy. I really do not like Law either, for many of the reasons I don't like Alphen. He does with Rinwell what Alphen does to Shionne. What is with Arise men and mansplaining everything to the girls and refusing to let them have any agency or thoughts without their input?
He was also supposed to be the "mood maker," except his only mood making scenes were Hootle pecking him in the face or him saying something dumb and Rinwell calling him an idiot. It really wasn't that funny and felt like borderline bullying.
Law falls under a Tales archtype I normally really really like (Tytree, Spada, Hisui, etc), so I was expecting to like him quite a bit, but sadly I just... do not. See my Zephyr rants above as well.
Kisara
Kisara is probably the most unfortunate character in the cast. In theory, I really like Kisara. I'm a big fan of knight ladies, and I always enjoy the older woman character in the party (even if only in her 20s). In practice however she just... completely misses the mark. All of her scenes are dedicated to one of three things: working (or not working) under Dohalim, her brother, or how she can be a proper woman. Yikes! It's not good when a female character's entire character revolves around what she can do for men! There's many skits where she asks "what can I even do if everyone cooks for themselves" and her conclusion is... to follow her brother's dream? Kisara, can't you find your OWN dream? And no, bringing up how she can help Dohalim also doesn't count here.
I don't hate Kisara for being who she is, but I really just want to have a stern talking to with whoever wrote her. A female character should not revolve around men and being in the kitchen. Seriously. This game came out in 2021, you should've known better.
Dohalim
While I didn't like his introduction scenes much, he grew on me a lot throughout the game, and he definitely felt the most like a Tales character to me. There was a lot of humanity and nuance to him, and he had the honor of actually having his backstory shown on screen. He had a lot of facets to him: the part of him that was a Renan leader, the part of him that supports the party, his own goals, his own motivations, interesting relationships with other characters, as well as (and maybe most importantly) fun things about his personality via his breaks from seriousness as well as his fondness for music and artifacts.
Overall he felt very fleshed out, and I really wish he had been put in another game. I came out of Arise quite content with the character that was Dohalim, which I cannot say for anyone else.
Closing thoughts
Overall, this is probably the most disappointed I have been with a Tales title. Of course, I don't think every game is perfect, and there are games that I will admit just don't click with me personally that others adore, and likewise there are games that I think fall flat in some regards but resonate with me for the characters.
For instance, I think Tempest is a perfectly fine and even charming game, despite it being more on the barebones side of things. I do not hold Tales games to unrealistic expectations when it's not necessary, and I always think of a lot of things when I base how I feel about the game: crunch time, what the creators had in mind when making it, what heart was put into the story, what fun I am able to find even in the game's flaws. Things to that effect.
Where Arise differs for me is that many of the decisions I dislike about the game were intentional. The lackluster, yet overbearing monsters were intentional, the lack of skit and status portraits were intentional, the story not being that compelling, but taking itself way too seriously and acting as if it's the pinnacle of Tales writing, is also what the producer of the game flaunts when he discusses it. All of these things negative attribute to the quality of the game. Arise scratches away the charm that Tales games have, yet it is flaunted as being something groundbreaking when the story never attempts a single new trope.
It's not one deviation from series staples, it's a whole cluster of them. Why was there any reason to remove post battle dialogue, when that is something everyone absolutely LOVED about the series? Why are skits, which are part of what brought Tales to fame, boiled down to recaps of story scenes and not fun moments, which is what everyone is excited for when they go to open a skit? Why are the cute and iconic monsters completely gone, when every single game used the same designs? Why does the producer for the series actively hate the things that the fans love about Tales?
Arise is essentially a long laundry list of bizarre decisions made by the producer with awful execution, and then sadly the writing does the game absolutely zero favors. I came out of playing it feeling hollow. I've been revisiting some older games after playing it, and I've been getting legitimately emotional at how the characters in these other games actually talk to each other like people, and don't just bounce recaps of events back and forth to each other. Other games know how to have fun, and they have compelling characters, which is really what has always been the thing bringing people back to this franchise.
Would I like Arise more if it wasn't labeled a Tales game? Honestly, no, given I only ever played it because it's under the Tales branding. And I shouldn't have to even ask myself that, given I play Tales to enjoy Tales, and its tropes, and all the fun little things these games provide that no other series can give me.
If and when the next Tales game comes out, I will still probably play it. But so long as it is under our current producer, I will go in incredibly cautious, given he seems adamant about hating all of the things I love most about Tales. At the very least, I hope the next game is more innovative with its writing and characters, and brings back some of the charm that even Zestiria and Berseria had.
#arise babbling#this is so long#and so negative#sorry in advance#i probably had more to add but this is too long as is
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true detective s1 rewatch: thoughts on the finale
— our theme for this final masterpiece of an episode is: fiction. the series has skated near this before, of course, with its context themes of seeing and image, but this is the episode that really dives into an awareness of genre and storytelling. we begin with an in-depth look at errol childress and his home, the way he lives. he truly inhabits the southern gothic archetype — the grand, decaying house, the incestuous dynamic with reference to the 'cane fields' (something i haven't really discussed yet is the role of louisiana's history of slavery, which hangs over the narrative most conspicuous by its absence; angola, for example, that fabled threat used most often to imply sexual violence, is named after the slave plantation that once occupied the same plot; the place they filmed carcosa was an old civil war fort), the faceless dolls and the mummified father kept in a shack with horrors literally inscribed on the walls (including 'cassilda', another reference to the chambers work).
— childress also watches the television and apes the aristocratic british accents on display. he absorbs fiction and inhabits it, in the same way that he puts on an irish accent to flirt with betty, in the same way that he has her tell him the story of her assault while they are 'making flowers' (a metaphor that once again suggests we are beyond the realm of reality). he and betty are deliberately, exaggeratedly gothic, full of rot — they are designed not as fleshed-out characters, as most of TD's cast is, but as avatars for a gnawing belief in the void that consumes all in its path.
— this is the crux of rust's own beliefs about the futility of selfhood — that identities are illusory defence mechanisms against the void, that all we are is 'sentient meat'. (will be talking more about this line in my reply to an excellent ask by @queixumes, so look out for that.) that life is just a story we tell ourselves. and so with the childresses the veil grows thin: as rust follows childress into carcosa, childress's impossible taunts ("come die with me, little priest") echo around him less as character moments and more as authorial interjections, a manifestation of rust's own nihilistic belief and suicidal ideation. thus when rust does not complete the narrative ("take off your mask"; rust doesn't say the corresponding, "i wear no mask") he is breaking type, paradoxically defying the vacant literary formula in which he's trapped by expressing a self.
— the final scenes of the series entail rust's struggle with this newfound self. he has turned away the offering of the cosmic void; more than that, he has been to the void and found it not as empty and personality-less as he thought, but rather a void 'like a substance', a darkness that held the love of his daughter and his father in one. their selves persevered after death — and now finally he begins to recognise his own selfhood as well.
— this is reified by marty as a sounding board. for the first time, rust experiences recognition through the other with marty as that other — marty who listens to him cry ("talk to me, rust"), marty who encourages him to tell his stories of the stars. this is the other side of storytelling — the side that is not corrupt or empty, the side that has meaning because it is sincere, because it is earnest and with feeling. childress's storytelling is directly opposed to rust's, with childress an empty caricature of the rotten southern gothic and rust as a person looking to the stars: storytelling that does not suck inward to the void but looks outward to the world.
— i think it's significant that our final image of marty and rust is marty helping rust escape the hospital several days early. marty reifies rust's selfhood by something so simple as recognising what he likes — buying him his brand of cigarettes. but this is also in opposition to the medical institution. should someone with a hole in their guts be smoking? doubtful. but that's not the point — the point is that they have to "get out from under this [hospital] roof" in order to see the stars, that rust's lasting glimpse of hope ("the light's winning") is as he flees the institution, propped up not by its mechanics, in the form of the wheelchair, but by marty himself.
— as i've discussed in the past, TD's implications of the medical institution as a further corrupt branch of the state are very veiled, but they are present. there's a further signal of this in one of the hazy, slowly cross-fading shots towards the end: we see a doctor in the hospital hallway, carrying the image of a human body, fading into a shot of the childress shack with a human body drawn on it.
placed directly one after another, this is a juxtaposition that only associates the two. the shack is where childress keeps his desiccated father, talks about bringing him water, hosing him down — in some perverse way, treating him as a patient. this isn't designed to say explicitly that the hospital is involved in the conspiracy to the same degree as the tuttles, but it implies a broader institutional sweep of wrongness. within the medical institution is where most of us will experience ourselves at our most powerless; out of necessity, medical treatment strips identity and agency away, regimenting schedules and meals and visiting hours, labelling patients with identifying bracelets. in the same way that childress's narratives of southern gothic were a seductive call to the void of nothing, the absence of selfhood, the hospital, too, denies personality and self.
— this is why we finish with marty bringing rust his cigarettes against medical advice; this is why rust leaves the hospital, if not exactly on his own terms then at least on his and marty's. it is a final reclamation of the selfhood he has been denying himself all along — and an escape into a world that contains only one story, "light versus dark", as our final shot is of the stars winking into light. he is beyond our (potentially corrupting, as sight and image has been throughout the series) interpretation; he is in the void, yes, but it is a void with substance, a void with love.
#true detective meta#rust cohle#marty hart#also i never noticed this before but. when rust is trying to wheel himself out from under the roof#marty literally bats his hand away so he can push the wheelchair#no eloquent thoughts on that just. putting it there
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Your First Kiss
Jiang Kai | Kai Kalama (She/They)
Reader was sat on the floor of her apartment, leaning back against Kai's legs as he flipped through channels on the tv. They had a new sketch due in two days, so they were hoping for inspiration.
The parameters for the project were pretty simple; primary color (red, yellow, blue), one accent color (gold or silver), and female model.
Above her, Kai suddenly leaned over them to look in their eyes, "What if you did something based of Azula? You know, from Avatar. She's got red and gold in her design doesn't she?"
Blinking, Reader turned it over in her mind before nodding. Focusing back on him, she was unsurprised to find his gaze on their lips. Doing their best to not let him know that they saw his gaze, they spoke, "That's good. She does have red, though its more maroon but I can tweak the colors a bit to fit the parameters. Thank you, Kai."
He flushed, leaning back as Reader fought to hide a wider smile. For nearly three months, since they'd begun hanging out, she'd noticed how his eyes constantly strayed to their lips or how focused he'd get whenever they spoke. It was sweet, and was defintely not helping their crush. So today, they decided to do something about it.
Later, after dinner, Kai was at the door preparing to leave. "Well, I guess I should leave a pretty person all alone in their apartment to work on their project." He winked making Reader laugh.
"Kai . . ." Reader trailed off, summoning all of their confidence. "Tell me if you don't want this."
"What–"
Cupping his face, Reader pulled him down a little as they reached up a bit to press a kiss against his lips. Their lips slotted together perfectly, fitting like puzzle pieces. The kiss only lasted for a few seconds, as Kai had frozen in shock.
"Sorry. I thought–"
Kai interrupted her this time, slamming their lips back together as he pushed her against the wall beside the door, hands falling to their hips as Reader wrapped their arms around his neck to keep him close.
Reader couldn't help but notice that he tasted like cinnamon, likely from the gum he loved to chew on all the time. Kai noticed how Reader tasted like the fruity wine they'd had with dinner and nearly moaned at the taste.
Pulling away, but not pulling apart completely, he pressed their heads together. "So, can I take you on a date?"
"Time, date, and place?"
"Next Saturaday, 7, and you'll see."
"I'll see you then, Kalama," Reader teased, seperating. Kai obediantly stepped outside, reverantly touching his lips when the doors closed.
Zane Julien (She/Her)
Zane mediatated peacefully to the quiet sounds of Reader painting, her playlist, and the soft humming. He felt at peace in the whirlwind that was her studio, eventually opening his eyes to see what she was painting.
It was the Aurora Borealis, with a wolf pack tilting their heads back to howl in unison. He was amazed by the motion you'd managed to capture in the painting.
"It looks incredible," Zane complimented, startling Reader into nearly dropping her palette.
"Oh shit!" He was quick to catch it, much to her relief. "Oh thank the dragons. Thank you for the compliment, and the catch."
"Do not thank me, it was my fault for startling you."
"You still caught it for me. So I'm going to thank you. Thank you Zane," Reader stated, smiling as she took the palette back.
Zane smiled softly, starstruck as she turned back to the painting. Standing just behind her, he remembered something Nya had said he should do, based on his feelings and how Reader acted around him.
'Ask permission to kiss her, then take her on a date. But don't push her.'
"Reader," Zane said, quickly catching her attention. She turned to him, setting her pallette down to give him her full attention. "I have a question, but I do not wish for you to feel pressured."
"I wouldn't let myself he forced into anything," Reader agreed, tilting her head.
"Of course." Zane hesitated, stepping closer, flustering her. "May I . . . May I kiss you, Reader?"
Reader seemed to freeze, soft lips parting in surprise. After waiting for nearly thirty seconds, Zane was disappointed by the lack of answer but took it in stride. "I apologize, I did not—"
"No, no!" Reader interrupted, waving their hands around. "You don't need to apologize! I was just surprised! Promise! You're not normally so outspoken, so . . ."
"Was my asking an issue?"
"Just a surprise."
"You still have not answered the question," Zane noted, tilting his head slightly. Blushing, Reader ducked her head down in emberresment.
"I-yes. Yes, you can . . . you can kiss me," Reader whispered, standing a little taller as Zane stepped into their space.
Slowly he pressed their lips together, not wanting to rush and accidentally hurt her. The kiss was soft, chaste and made Reader pleasantly cold as Zane felt his core warm in pleasure. Pulling away, he found his own smile widening when he saw Reader looking at him with a wide smile of their own.
"May I take you out? On a date?"
"Y-yes! Yes!"
"Then tomorrow? At 7?"
"Perfect."
"I shall pick you up then," Zane decided, still smiling. Giggling Reader stepped into his space to sink into a hug.
"I can't wait."
Cole Brookstone (They/Them)
The stars were bright as Reader and Cole laid in a grassy meadow Cole had taken them too. Head resting on Cole's stomach, Reader had a surprisingly good view of Cole's reaction every time he spoke lowly, in order to keep the peace of course.
Tonight was Ninjagos Festival of Stars, recently adopted from the Serpentine but neither of them were fans of large crowds and wanted to see the stars and fireworks alone. So Reader had packed a nighttime picnic, with Cole hovering over their shoulder in anticipation.
Mooncakes, Star shaped iced cookies, and multiple blackberry flavored treats. They'd also brought along their starry night themed drink, with blueberries, bananas, and kiwi syrups to make it a stunning array of colors.
Cole had, of course, nearly devoured his portion in a half hour as Reader talked about their day, and some issues they'd noticed recently, eating far slower.
"So, what made you invite me out to watch the stars? Is it just 'cause ya knew I'd bring ya food?" Reader asked, without opening their eyes.
"What, no! All of the others wanted to go to the festival and celebrate, but I wasn't in the mood to celebrate. I'd rather hang out with you," Cole admitted.
"Really? Me? Mr. Ninja wants to hang out with an uninteresting civilian?"
"Your not unintrusting, which I'm not sure is a word by the way. Your just . . . You're normal, and I need that in my life. And you're fun in a different way."
"Well, thank you for the compliment. Any specific reason you don't like festivals? Or is it private?"
Cole knew that all he had to say was that it was private and he would drop it, but he wanted to share. "My mom used to take me out to festivals all the time when I was younger. She had a piggy bank specifically for those days that I could add change too. It was my money to use to do whatever I wanted with during the festival. When she died, I stopped going. It doesn't feel the same anymore."
Reader was silent, thinking. "When I lost my parents, I no longer thought it was worth it. To live. It took me three years to truly start enjoying the world and some days its still hard." Glancing up, they met eyes. "If you ever decided you want to try, I'd be happy to take you. We could make it a date."
"A date?" Cole sat up, worrying Reader who sat up as well.
"It doesn't . . . have to be a date. Not if you don't want it to be."
"Well, what if I want it to be a date?"
Reader smiled, leaning closer as their eyes flicked towards Cole's lips. "I'd like that."
Smiling softly, Cole and Reader leaned closer together until their lips were barely a centimeter apart. "Would you be upset if I kissed you?" Cole asked, trying to hide his nerves.
"Not at all."
Grinning, Cole eagerly pressed their lips together, twisting until he was hovering over Reader. Fingers wove into his black hair, tugging him closer to them as they made out beneath the stars.
Cole eventually forced himself to pull out of their hold, lips glistening and red as he panted. Reader was not much better, shirt having ridden up at some point. "Well . . . that was not what how I thought tonight would turn out," Cole admitted with a goofy grin.
Reader laughed, eyes bright. "So, we still on for that date?"
"Absolutely."
Jay Walker (She/her)
Lightning flashed across the sky, followed closely by the crack of thunder, making Reader groan. She and Jay were both caught in the rain, having been taking a short break from working on one of his older Mechs.
"Well, this sucks," Reader grumbled, huddling beneath the glass cover of a bus station as Jay watched the lightning sparking in the sky with a strange sort of awe and reverance. Nudging him, she broke the spell cast by the bright flashes. "Everything ok, sparky?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Just, ehehe, get a little excited during thunderstorms," Jay explained, allowing a spark to flit through his fingers in demonstration.
"That's . . ." Reader trailed off as lightning struck again, highlighting the sharp angular, boyish features Jay had, bringing out his freckles and auburn hair. "That's pretty cool. Don't think I'll ever get used to people fighting with elements though."
"Seriously? You've hung out with Nya for years, how is it still so weird!"
"I don't know! It just is!"
"Maybe you're the weirdo."
"Huh," Reader gasped, as if truly offended. Grabbing their imaginary pearls, she draped herself across the bench. "To slay me with such cruel words, oh how I die. Must this be the way death comes for me."
Jay laughed, plopping down behind her so she could rest her head on his thighs. He smiled down at her, trying hard to keep his blush down, and failing miserably.
"You're turning pink," Reader mused, poking his cheek as her eyes sparkled with mischief. "Is it because you've fallen for my beauty?"
Jay felt his lips twitch downwards when he heard the sarcasm. He was far less oblivious than people thought and he'd realized a while back that Reader did not think themselves pretty. Just . . . Average.
"Would that . . . be bad?"
Readers smile fell as she stared up at him in shock, "Jay . . ."
"I really want to kiss you."
"Then do it."
Leaning down, she reached up, meeting him in the middle. Neither noticed how the lightning seemed to cover the sky, with barely a secons between the flashes. They were too focused on the press of their lips, on memorizing how the others face felt beneath their fingertips.
Pulling away, Reader giggled, quickly joined by Jay. Their was no real reason to laugh but she was happy and so was he.
"So when can I take you on a date, Mr. Blue Ninja?" Reader asked, laughing at the look he gave her.
"Hey! I'm supposed to ask you out!"
"Too late." He tried to sulk but another kiss had him relaxing into a giddy smile. "Fine. I'll go out on a date with you."
"I'll plan a good date, scouts honor."
"You've never been a scout!"
"Oops."
Lloyd Garmadon (She/her)
Reader was happily pressed against Lloyd's side as they walked, liking the comfort of his arm draped over her shoulder. They'd gone windowshopping in the nearby mall for her hour break and were finishing up to walk back, not that Rufus would mind all that much if she was a few minutes late.
"Ooh, look at that," Reader said, pointing to a shoe store. In the display window were Ninja-themed shoes, with Lloyd's being the most prominent.
Lloyd saw what she was looking at and groaned, cheeks flushing, "Please tell me you're not going to buy those. They're like 100$."
Reader pouted, looking up at him with puppy dog eyes, "But I thought you liked seeing me in your merch?" She'd noticed it a few weeks ago when she'd worn a green ninja shirt, seen how wide his eyes had gotten and how stuttery and blushy he'd gotten.
Just like right now.
"Wh‐well, of course, but still . . ." Lloyd trailed off, looking away to hide his face.
Giggling, Reader patted his bicep, pleased at the feel of muscle beneath the long sleeved shirt he wore. "I'm kidding, sweets. They're cute, but too expensive for my taste. Besides, I'd look better in one of the Green Ninja sweaters that one store was selling."
Somehow, Lloyd's blush darkened as he whined, "Reader."
"Lloyd," Reader cooed, delighting even further in his blush.
Suddenly, looking past him she spotted Ryker, very obviously looking around for someone. In a heartbeat their eyes met and he started towards her, making her freak out slightly.
"Lloyd."
He immediatley caught the change in her voice and followed her eyes to see where she was looking. Seeing Ryker, he cussed and pulled her towards a hallway between stores to try and hide.
"He already saw me," Reader admitted nervously. Lloyd watched the entrance, tense, as Reader tried to think up a plan.
Grabbing his shirt, she tugged him close until he was pressing her against the wall. Gaping down at her, he seemed frozen in place.
"Trust me?" Reader asked softly, eyes wide. Lloyd nodded, softening marginally.
"Of course."
Leaning up, she pressed their lips together making Lloyd freeze for only a second before he leaned into it. He gently cupped her cheek, keeping the kiss soft and slow as her own hands found their way into soft golden-blond hair.
Neither noticed when Ryker found them, nor when he realized just who was kissing Reader. Furious the man turned away and fled, stomping away as they stayed pressed together.
"So, sweets, when do you plan on taking me out?" Reader asked, breathless. Lloyd stared down at her, emerald eyes alight with awe.
"Friday, at 6. We're going somewhere fancy," Lloyd decided, smiling widely.
Reader giggled, using her grip on his head to tug him back down into a kiss, "Sounds good to me."
Morro (She/Her)
Morro was passed out on Readers couch, sleeping off the inherent exhaustion that came from his longer missions. She was curled against the side pressed against the couch, watching a movie on low so she wouldn't wake him.
Head resting on his shoulder, with his arm loosely wrapped around her side she couldn't help but blush, thinking about what people would say if they saw their position. It was intimate, even for friends. Her face had been warm the entire time they'd been cuddling, though she hoped he hadn't noticed.
Sudden movement from the hand on her hip startled her, making her glance down. Morro was rubbing at the exposed skin of her hip bone with his thumb.
"This alright?" He asked, voice a low rasp from just waking.
"Yeah," Reader mumbled, pressing her face into his chest. "Just fine. Perfect."
He chuckled, embarresing her further. They fell back into silence, though Reader's mind was running a thousand miles an hour.
"Hey, Morro?"
"Hmmm."
"Do you–" She cut herself off to sit up a bit to look him in the face. Morro's eyes were half-lidded but attentive. "Can I take you out? On-on a date?"
Morro's eyes sprang open as he gaped in shock. Fearfully, Reader began stuttering, "B-but not, not if you don't want too! Of course you don't have to agree! Just asking!" She tried to push the tears in her eyes back as Morro sat up, without saying anything.
With a gentleness few thought he was capable of, Morro rested a large hand on her cheek, forcing her to meet his dark grey-green eyes. "Can I kiss you?"
At her shocked expression, he laughed.
"Y-yeah."
Still grinning smugly, he pressed their lips together, wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her close. He barely let her come up for air before diving back in, like she was his air.
Finally he let them seperate, panting slightly, "I'm taking you out. Friday night, wear something you can walk in."
"O-okay." Eagerly she leaned back in for another kiss making his grin as he met her in the middle.
#ninjago#ninjago headcanons#ninjago fanfiction#kai smith x reader#kai smith#zane julien x reader#zane julien#cole brookstone x reader#cole brookstone#jay walker x reader#jay walker#lloyd garmadon x reader#lloyd garmadon#ninjago morro#morro x reader
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The knight knelt in the Temple of Ideas.
The altars around them were decorated with various symbols, rough primary coloured designs on the shiny white temple surfaces. This hastily scrawled iconography would be wiped clean at the end of the day, so that the next day's ideas could begin to be worshipped in the morning.
The knight had chosen one of the tomb-like alters that stetched along the floor on either side of the temple's walkways and she had drawn upon it all the things that had been taken from her on her adventures.
After hours spent scribbling, she began to address the drawings:
"Dear Loss,
In my time following your path, I have lost much. Friends. Lovers. Enemies and innocents. Faith and fear and hope and rage.
I have painstakingly put aside every part of myself - sacrificed all that I had to give and more for something greater.
And, as I am all that's left, I can only assume that the greater thing was me.
After all, have all that I have lost not made me strong?
Have my scars not become armour?
Do my arms not bear the strength of all my grief?
Is this, Oh Loss, what you were trying to teach me? That it is my place to rule, since I have lost so much and thus proved myself to be great?"
Of course, ideas can be many things at once and they are not always what we first think them to be. Still, it was some surprise to the knight when the colours on the altar began to swirl and spell out an answer.
"Nothing is gone forever.
All that you have lost, has simply been given to someone else.
Or become something else
Or gone somewhere else, to spread the lessons they learned from you in other places.
You cannot cling to everything forever, good Knight.
That which you call Loss, others simply call Experience.
Or, perhaps, Adventure.
And Adventure loves you. And will love you still more, if you can find her again."
And the Knight's interest was piqued by this, so she asked:
"And where might I find the Lady Adventure?"
And the ink began to shift again and if you looked closely, you would have been able to see a smile in its swirls.
When it was done, the ink was in the shape of a map.
The knight smiled slightly. Then she stood, and set off on the path that had been shown to her.
She would lose still more on this journey. It would be hard. For, despite what she thought, there is always more to lose, just as there is always more to learn.
And she was about to learn so much.
And she would never meet Lady Adventure, but would keep searching for her all her life. And thus, even without meeting, the two of them found a way to spend their lives together.
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If you've read tsats what did you think about it :))
I am so sorry it took me this long to reply!!
I personally loved it! I know there’s been a lot of discourse over it, but I personally thought it was very well written.
I also went into reading it knowing that I was not the age group it was targeted for. (Like all of Ricks books, it was targeted for preteens and young teens). I think that’s a key difference between me and some of the other readers.
:readmore:
I had a few favourites moments, so here they are!
Persephone and Will in her garden. That was a HUGE turning moment in Will and Nicos relationship, even though Nico wasn’t involved in the conversation. It was so meaningful! This was the start of Will actually getting character development!! I could honestly make a separate post about this interaction.
I also LOVED hiss-majesty looking up to Will. Like that was so sweet! Imagine you’re Will. You’ve met the trogs before and you weren’t treated with any respect. But you’re used to that. You’re used to being pushed aside and only being pulled back when you’re needed for something. It’s happening again. And not just to you. It’s happening to someone else, and they turn to you of all people to help. To look up too. Like I would just melt into a little puddle and never recover! And the ending where Will sees Hiss-majesty wearing the same Cheese Hat that he was wearing?? Literally SOBBED. (Can you tell I love their dynamic and I want more of it??)
Nico and Will escaping on the boat and kissing while Bob cried?? Please I was dying😂✋🏻 they’re having a moment, and then there’s Bob just wailing in the background!
Will and Nico calling Percy and Annabeth and telling them their plan to head to Tartarus and Percy and Annabeth looking at each other like 😳🙊 ‘maybe they mean Tartar sauce? For fish? Yup that’s what they mean!’ They were in so much denial and it was so funny for no reason? Anyways.
I (obviously) love the Cocopuffs! Their introduction was definitely weird and off putting, but- and listen closely folks- THAT WAS THE POINT!! IT WASNT MEANT TO BE PRETTY! OR NICE!! BECAUSE TRAMA IS NONE OF THOSE THINGS!! The whole point was that it made you feel icky and uncomfortable! I could make a whole separate post about this (please ask me too) but the design of the scene was to be uncomfortable, and it hit its mark.
anyways the Cocopuffs are lovely 🫶🏻
I also adored the ending where Nico talks to Bianca and his mother Maria and gets closure. Was it canon compliant? No. But it was still a sweet sentiment and I enjoyed it.
I think Rick and Mark Oshiro did a fantastic job with this book.
also thank you for this ask, because now I need to go reread TSATS! If I find anything else, I’ll be sure to reblog this post with the additions!
Thanks for the ask!! (Please send me more! I swear I won’t forget them in my drafts like I did with this one!)
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honestly...... it's like fine idc for it
#I LIKE IT BUT LIKE something about its design is off#itll probably grow on me#💌#pokemon#i think its the bumps that look like eyes itd be a lot better without them BUT MAYBE NOT IDK ITS NOT BAD
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the colors are fucked a bit bc i did this on my laptop but whatever . take it
#not suuuuper sure about sunnys colors#i like the design just not sure about the colors#in terms of design i actually want her to bodywise be like. a stocky ferret#ferret bc tubbo stocky bc of juanaflippa#i think that each egg would have some inspo from their parents#but also some inspo from any dead eggs if their parent(s) have them#so pepito and empanada would both have some traits inspired by bobby and pepito would also have something inspired by tilin#while sunny gets some inspo from juana#traits that couldnt necessarily be traced back to the parents#tubbo#sunny side up qsmp#sunny qsmp#qsmp#dyke doodlez#theres other things abt sunnys design like how her face has some brown speckles like a potato for lenay#but since its not a final design idc to get super into it#tubbo is just based off my ferrety design but with horns since i also like the dragon hc#him and sunny have matching star/burst shaped tufts on their tails
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yay! I drew these quite literally three years ago. dragonheart!milo and raihan! a knight on a doomed dragon hunt being lifted out of his station by a small village medicine man. together they become magic lawyers and overthrow the government
the main details in these do survive into the iterations I’ve drawn (instead of these actual designs I spent time to make el oh el): the “leaf” diamond quilt/gambeson and the plaited coattail for milo, the “atypical” weapons, long coat, and large number of scattered fake gold trims and accessories for raihan. I think I lost raihan the hat and added a cape for milo further down the line because like this their general silhouettes are too similar for my liking lol
#pokemon#swsh#applinshipping#dragonheart AU#gym leader raihan#gym leader milo#leon is the puppet king in this one (I never made a design for him lol. lmao) (its not about him!!!!) (it is just a tiny bit#sonia actually disappeared out to sea like just the year before raihan got sent off too. and the shows up where raihan and milo are later on#as usual the everything between those three are messy in a way that makes every one of them embarrassed to bring it up lmao#if u remember one of the october pieces I did last year. the applinshipping one. yeap thats from this AU too#lmao. also remembering the swordsman AU. in every AU where I bring up a king you can TELL I cant WAIT to get rid of that guy#(its usually leon)#anyways it's not about him this is about raihan and milo!!! iirc everyone in the village knows milo is Something. bc he has literally not#aged at all for four generations#he's like doing his therapy away from the dragon hierarchy out here and raihan crash lands nearby#laughs this is so hallmark movie romance I just realized. except the city girl is trying to#extract her family from the palace before stealing the declaration of independence#oh yeah the AU is named that Specifically because the 'artifact' the whole plot runs around is supposedly a 'calcified' heart of a dragon#and the magic lawyer part is so raihan will seize the right to the throne by haha. winning a living dragon's heart instead#I'm actually surprised I remember this much abt this AU lmao it's literally been three years! I don't even remember what Im#supposed to do tomorrow#it's gettign a USB stick isnt it. Im doin a canadian horror triple feature with the senpai#I gotta remember that. well I remember This so. maybe there's a chance#man there are actually a number of applinshipping things I wanna draw... theyre my Fuckin BoyS#well! there's this at least. have a good night lads! I'll have cake soon#it's time to put cinnamon in things.
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no man but if byler isnt endgame its just gonna be so disappointing especially if mileven stays the main couple. like okay guess mike was genuinely just an asshole. guess he barely had an arc. guess el never truly developed and just regressed instead. guess another gay character gets an unhappy ending. fucking hell
#itll change my perspective on the whole show and the duffers ability to write relationships#like it wont ruin everything about it for me but its gonna be hard to recover from#especially mike so much doesnt work with him if byler isnt endgame#hes just genuinely kind of a dick#and not to mention just how much shit would not make any sense at all#theres some shit thats really hard to deny or write off as not being byler proof#i just hope they go through with this man#byler#anti mileven#its so important that they do something like this for so many reasons#to preserve the writing and to show people that hey gay people can like. be a major thing in franchises not actively targetted at them#not everything that includes a major gay couple or queer people in general has to be something thats dedicated solely to queerness#we can exist in sci fi shows and have major roles#we can exist in dramas and have major roles#we can exist in any franchise with major roles#we dont have to be exclusive to things designed solely for us#and we can be characters without our queerness being the only aspect of our character#we really need to take that step and one of the most popular shows in the world doing that would literally change the course of film histor#please duffers dont fuck this up
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i don't think her design is awful (though not really worth $75) but i wish they did something different with her hair, like put it up in a bun or something. it doesn't fit the formal victorion vibes, but historical accuracy aside, the black hair with the dark blue dress just engulfs her silhouette, y'know?
#i KNOW fashion dolls typically have long hair that's down for convenience#and 'because they're easier to manufacture'#(at least that was the reason given why the star sailors from sailor moon were given rat tails;#and its likely a reason g3 toralei's doll has long hair)#but still. there's a lot of ways they could do it. like a big bun with sidelocks or something#like as it is#if you squint you don't see a character you just see a vague shape#ik Character Design Rules are subjective and change depending on the context of the project#just there's SOMETHING off about her and i think its the lack of clear silhouette#monster high#lenore loomington
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i got so angry about the AB remaster i drew this
#maplestory#satsuhart#angelic buster#tear#sorry i have to go off about it bc i dont wnna make a separate post about it#im so angry about every single aspect of the new design and art holy shit#simplified all her patterns but added more colours to her main outfit resulting in a rly shitty colour palette#even got rid of her cute peach pink hair with yellow gradient for some bullshit pink/blue hair dye#the bows are drawn SO badly they look so cheap and the added colour looks terrible . her og outfit never even had pink#and dont even get me started on the weapon and the addition of hearts to her design HOLY SHIT im so mad#like before it very clearly had a fantasy 'idol... who Fights' vibe but now she just looks like any low budget jp idol#fkin ruined the look of her soul shooter i used to like the design so much now it looks like a knockoff kids toy that would shoot bubbles#WITH A HEART >!>?!??!?! im gonna kill something#im also so mad theyve fully rounded out her eyes and ADDED HEARTS?!?!?! like i really liked how she had sharp kinda dragony pupils#but thats all gone now SNZZ i can only hope they at least make adjustments to her outfit before release bc wow its terrible!#drawing her again after all these years made me re appreciate how nice her outfit is altho its not like i ever stopped thinking that.#it was always nice#shes cute without being overbearing about it but now its dialed up to 11 i hate it i hate it#everytime maple remasters an illust i lose a few years of my life like seriously they havent put out any nice remaster visuals since 2013#(RED explorers and they werent even visual remasters in the general sense)#like WAH at this rate im gonna be so pissed off when they get to heroes remaster. theyre gonna butcher my boy and my girl and my#ok im stopping for now but rly. hope ppl are loud enough about their contempt for this bc it didnt work enough for explorers remaster#NOTMYANGELICBUSTER
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To be honest, stardew valley has me in such a chokehold. It always has, even before the 1.6.
In such a way that my brain wants to smash my hyperfixation into it. So late at night I'll be awake thinking of this stardew/south park mashup.
Call that bad boy Star Park AU.
But no brain! Bad! We already have too much going on! You have a Secret Soulmate AU. Fantasy AU, A Cowboy AU story staring Kenny that's still in the outline phase, and these one shots!
(Look at the tags to watch me descent into madness)
#like C'mon#it would be so cute and wholesome#ya know#everything south park isn't#its not my fault I think about me and my friends ocs starting a little farm together#i got one friend I rp with#we smash everything into our stardew rp#it ain't even really stardew besides like the layout of the town#I could write something like that up#like Stan and his family are already “farmers”#the heart event where he tells you he fucking hates it#but next heart event he confesses he's starting to associate farming with you#and now...maybe its not so bad?#COME ON#Kenny taking Karen to see your animals and falling in love with the way you're so gentle with her#Kyle finding you passed out in the mines and scolding you for being careless#but he's patching you up while he does it!!!?#Cartman demanding you bring him crops from your farm because#“everyone elses crops taste like dirt and ball sweat! at least I can stomach yours.”#(its the sweetest thing hes ever said tbh)#tweek having his little coffee shop set up there#he gets away from his parents and moves out to the valley because its quiet!#Craig moves out there to study the stars because they're so clear he can almost see all of them without a telescope#Clyde is JUST Alex and you cant change my mind#after the death of his mother he goes to live with his grandparents#Bebe is like a mix of Haley and Emily!#her events would be you helping her get her outfit designs off the ground and using her photography skills to have you model them#Wendy's whole thing would her being the mayors assistant but over heart events you make her believe in herself#and she becomes mayor; fuck you lewis you old fuck#shhh its a secret
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okay im actually a little emotionally attached to mochis shop being a little cat bookstore now
#so warm......#it invokes the feeling that its been there for 20 years#also seems like the kind of place a witch would run#theres a bunch of plants and cats and warm lighting#im trying to think if the cat witch was a cool side character how would i design her#since a lot of my side characters are cool as hell like murda and lady magg-lynn#it gives off the cozy vibes of broosters cafe#one(1) seating/reading area that consists of a little table and some chairs around it#that usually is taken up by coco/lime/oscar/taffy playing board games or something#some random girl with a crush on lime: heyy is it okay if i sit here and read for a bit?#lime: actually we dont allow reading the books in the store until after youve purchased them. im sure you understand#hes so indifferent and it works against him cuz a lot of girls are like (wow so cool....i want him more now...)#a tiny bookstore on the outter reaches of the downtown area. like before there is a house essentially attatched to the back where they live#oscar somehow affording a house with a storefront in the downtown area#( how did you afford this...)#(i work.)#mochi compensates him appropriately for letting her hijack his store#he doesnt mind though. he wasnt sure what kind of shop to run anyway#plus with magic mochi around he doesnt need to worry about utility bills or furniture or anything ever again so its a fair trade off#(rumor has it that shop has books on anything you could imagine)#someone walks in asking about 8th century pottery techniques from the eastern regions of the kingdom#(let me check the back!) she says and is back with the exact book 5 minutes later
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