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uniformbravo · 1 month

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since i've spent the past few days essentially staring at nothing but natsuyuu volume covers i thought it'd be so fun and silly to try and redraw them all from memory tee hee. all 30 (thirty) (三十) of them!!! wheee!!!!

i haven't actually looked at them next to the originals yet so guess what time it is!!!! LET'S COMPARE

starting with volume 1. iconic. show stopping. masterpiece. the mona lisa of natsuyuu SURELY i reproduced every single detail perfectly such that it kickstarts my career as a forgery artist RIGHT

well feast ur eyes

(im using the english volumes for comparison btw they have a good clear view of the art)

CAN U TELL WHICH IS WHICH OOO THEYRE SO ALIKE BET U CANT!!! SPOT THE DIFFERENCE LEVEL 1000 WHICH ONE DO U SHOOT

all i remembered for this one was GREEN and it's not even the right shade of green ajgosugdjfkdgj i even made the fuckin. what do u call it. i'll just say yukata??? I MADE IT GREEN AND ITS SUPPOSED TO BE RED i stg if u held a gun to my head & asked if there was any red on vol 1 i'd be DEAD

but i remembered the book of friends is like. weirdly purple? ok well in this pic it looks p gray BUT ON OTHER COPIES...... IF U UP THE SATURATION GKSJKDNFKDG

why is nyanko sensei smack dab in the middle HUH i couldve sworn he was bottom left this is so fucked up and scary. haunted manga volume??????? i bought it from a grarage sale idk you guys-

at least natsume's pose is like kind of right but also that's most definitely a complete accident i can ASSURE u (im rereading this the next day and the pose isnt even CLOSE what are u TALKING ABOUT)

anyway can i just fucking point out the kanji on the book of friends bc that is from MEMORY YEEHAW here's what it's Supposed to look like: 友人帳

LIKE even tho i got the last one wrong ITS LIKE STILL PRETTY CLOSE??? i think i deserve 100 points for this objectively

MOVING ON THO....

OK NOT AS BAD AS I THOUGHT SURPRISINGLY im actually like. i thought i bombed this one completely but liKE THE COMPOSITION??? KIND OF ON POINT. KIND OF GENIUS TBH

i remembered Blue and Madara and like what else do u need rly. butterflies are optional in all scenarios imo

also i NEVER have any idea what natsume's wearing in any of these so i always just like default throw him into his school uniform LMAO u will see a pattern

why is the book of friends burgundy in this one btw. it was GRAY i mean purple definitely purple aha

ok volume 3 im actually scared for i know i fucked up SOMETHING

HGLKFKGLKFKGFN OK!!!!! OK NOT SUPER AWFUL!!!! just noticed i forgor to color the book of friends fukg

main thing i remembered abt this one was the color of natsume's... attire.... and which characters were present. whats sensei doing all the way up in the top corner tho 0/10

return of the school uniform lmaooooo hm. irrelevant who cares plus didnt ask. all things considered this wasn't as bad as i thought. THE NEXT ONE HOWEVER,

hsngjfgnfjn okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

sensei's way cuter in this one than i realized wait wtf this cover's cute af how did i never notice. underrated cover -10 @ me. look at his lil BLEP >:O!!!!!!!

i knew there was some fuckshit going on w the yukata in this one ourhg i was just like hehe greeennnn also sensei's there. my work here is done

what is natsume's pose even hgnkg i was straight up making shit up at this point LIKE the first 6 or so covers are SO hard for me to distinguish in my head i should get a free pass for the poses in all of them like i can do whatever i want IM the artist now

oh god whats next vol 5

OK!!!! like a straight 5/10 TBH i literally forgot i was planning on rating these LMAO

i remembered the like white v-neck shirt thing and his pose kind of??? i had NO idea what to do for the yukata tho i just made it orange and u know what?? close enough. my rule of thumb is just like pick a color and then throw flowers all over it u cant go wrong

taki looks so much more mysterious on the original and also wearing a skirt. i gave her a big stick bc i thought i remembered her having one in general but i think i made that up tbh wouldn't put it past me. got her hat right tho hee haw

cant believe i didn't get natsume's beautiful artwork tho look at that little shit sensei up there god hes so ROUMD literally moma material

PROBABLY my best one yet uhhhh but i maybe cheated JUST a little for this one ITS LIKE BARELY CHEATING STOP BOOING ME

as i was toying w the idea of doing this redraw thing i was still working on collecting my Images and Pictures so i kinda started taking note of a few small things here & there and one of them was just. the general gist of this cover SO LIKE that's why it's so good LOL

forgor the flowers tho. i literally forget everything that isn't a character like immediately BUT OK CUT ME SOME SLACK like after a point the covers start being whole ass scenes which are SO much easier to remember shit abt than the fuckin Green Void (p sure this is the last green void cover tho)

8/10 composition is gr8 but details like the shirt & the yellow flowers are wrong, also the stick is backwards. i literally looked up what that thing is called and forgot already tee hee

OK WE'RE NOT DONE W THE GREEN VOID I REPEAT-

fuck dude. fuck. i rly thought vol 6 was the last one LOL not to spoil but as i was grabbing these images i saw a Preview of what's to come and the green void lasts until fuckign volume TEN LOL collapses onto the ground and dies

so erhermrm this is vol 7 lolllll i remembered the bg flowers this time can u believe hahaha distracts u from the fact that LITERALLY everything else is wrong auhghg

u know what the green void turned into bushes and i think that's beautiful.... like points for creativity on my part tbh. like to be completely honest. 3/10 i got the characters right

YO????? GATE CONFIRMED LET'S GO?????? it's definitely the school gate but i choose to believe natsume & tanuma r in jail for crimes and u should too

actually this is shockingly accurate for how much i goddamn struggled w this one gkjsldkg the CHARACTERS are right the OUTFITS are right SENSEI'S THERE urgh i knew one of these covers had tanuma holding sensei like that but i couldn't remember Which

i can't believe i actually got tanuma's pose that close i rly thought i was bullshitting w that one wtf. +5 points instantly

do u like how i just scribbled sensei wherever lmaoooo i drew natsume & tanuma & went like. i think sensei's in this one. PLOP

6/10 honestly closer than i thought

OK........ I SEE........ literally dies

this one i was getting MASSIVELY confused w vol 4 bc i could remember nothing distinct abt either of them except Green and natsume w Big Doggie

i remembered the BARE essentials of the composition but not much else... since i thought the green void was gone i put the green i remembered into natsume's yukata (and then put him in the school uniform again LOL) and went WELP. GUESS I'LL DIE NOW

2/10 honestly one of the worst fucking ones lskdjflsdkg

OK THIS ONE.... i almost died irl trying to remember this shit, even before i started and i was still viewing the covers i was like there is no way in HELL im remembering this shit for vol 10. and i was right

like. Purple. White Mask. Antlers. WILD layered clothing. at first i drew the mask as an actual deer skull but later had a straight up epiphany and redrew it like that which... still not correct but I MEAN.... IT'S PRETTY GOOD

i cant believe most of the purple is the bg oughgh his clothes are WHITE..... this is fucked up. i DID remember the stick tho, bells and everything!! actually bells and nothing else!!!

7/10 ok it might seem high but CONSIDERING this design..... i think i did shockingly well TBH

NOT...... the worst...... one....... i could've sworn he was sitting on a pile of books this is so sad that woulda been so cute 😭

for a second when i saw the real cover again i thought he was sitting ON the bookshelf and i was about to RIOT but its okay it's a step stool. still physically possible

my version of natsume here is so much more like Proper gksld he looks like a school boy... studying in the academy's library... hardworking student.... but no the real one is just sitting there like a wet puppy orz he's not even READING i rly thought he was reading. this is such a huge L

cannot fucking believe i was right abt the window tho. like wrong shape but the fact that it's even there.... giving myself a whole ass point for that one

5/10 i rly thought i nailed this one gksgndfkj

also RIP TO THE GREEN VOID U WILL NOT BE MISSED o7

ah shit ok. well one of them was in the school uniform at least fjgugjdkf

why is my natsume lying there like hes abt to start a therapy session, boy would NEVER-

also the plushie hmnmhnmhngnf i dont KNOW i knew there was some kind of prop there but like gun to my head i woulda died again. main colors that stood out to me for this were green and that bluish purple so i got those into mine but i mean. well u can see

once again a random window in the bg i got correct let's gooooo 5/10

LMAO SPITS OUT MY DRINK WHOOPSIE!!!!!!

this is so fucking bad im choking im gurgling LOLLLL i was SO sure natsume's paper had an eye on it i was POSITIVE this is so fucked up. i mean obvs i picked that up from sensei but like i didn't even KNOW sensei was there. or that there were bg characters at all uuuuuououohghh (matoba ignored +5)

i was like. black yukata red flowers CHECK piece of paper w eye CHECK horns CHECK i even went back and edited the horns to be more accurate i was so proud of myself sobs

ok but i knew it was shit trasjh when those were the ONLY details i could remember bc obviously there was gonna be more going on I JUST DIDN'T REALIZE HOW MUCH MORE.....

straight up dookie/10 no jk fr like 3/10 @ me u need to use ur EYES

OK..... I WAS VERY CONFIDENT ABT THIS ONE..... except for his outfit i knew i was bullshitting that BUT I THOUGHT I NAILED THIS ONE....... the one fucking time i didn't just default to his uniform LMFAO

even remembered the pink flower ball smh and for WHAT. i knew he was sitting in a pile of plushies & blankets or smth but no way in HELL was i even gonna attempt to draw them with a speck of detail. but HEY the plushie i drew for vol 12!!! i knew he existed Somewhere. he doesn't even have a horn tho thats so fucked up i thought he did

obviously the most striking thing abt this cover is the bg w that deep burgundy & the circular window so that was the main thing i nailed down right away (my palette was more muted tho). also natsume sitting there w paper in his mouth but i thought he was mid return when rly hes playing like keep-the-balloon-off-the-floor or whatever the fuck he's doing. i love u natsume

(if i thought he was in the middle of returning a name WHY didn't i include the actual book of friends flksglkd automatic fake fan/10)

8/10 this was like my ace in the hole i was like if i got nothing else i got U volume 14!!! and then

NOT THE FAMILY PHOTO......... FUCKING DIES

man idk shit just end me. whats even going on in this cover im gonna deck u natori. dont ask why this makes me want to commit violence hes just so. URHGHGHnH

i dont know whats happening to me rn looking at this im losing my fucking grip dude who let this happen im gonna hurl this volume into the sun??? i think???

why did i add the other two youkai i just thought they should be included but i played myself i had to draw them from memory and for WHAT. pls tell me i got them at least a little bit right i stg

it's the crossed legts dude if he was just sitting there like a board the way i drew him id be like ah shit it was just natori sitting not natsume too but he just HAS to cross his legs and the fucing elbow propped up holding the glasses im S MAD IM SO MADdestroy him

it's 1am i gotta go. i have to go. right now my mom is calling me i have to fukcng. 4/10 i got the couch colorr right. bye

---

tumglr...... only allows 30 pictures per post..... bc im not on desktop? or is that a site-wide thing now. in any case this is getting long so i think im gonna split it right down the middle into 2 posts so there u go, first 15 volumes. so far my score is ermmm

well i didn't rate the first few volumes.

vol 1: 6/10 decent

vol 2: 6/10 also decent

vol 3: 5/10 composition is Scramboled

vol 4: 2/10 it's SO BAD

so now my overall score is 74/150 fjggudjofjdkgjk doing gr8!!!!!!!!!

ok bye for real ✌️

#natsume yuujinchou #ny blogging #rieley doodles #retag later #this is me fighting my demons #why did i get so mad at natori at the end kgsndksjdfk #i say yukata a lot in this post but i think the piece of clothing im referring to might actually be haori in most of these cases #i think more ppl know what a yukata is than a haori tho so im just gonna leave it #(haori is the thing that u wear over the yukata. like a. cardigan)

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waitmyturtles · 1 year

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SPOILERS AND ANALYSIS FOR THE EIGHTH SENSE, EPISODES 9 and 10. TURN AWAY IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET! LONG POST!

MY HEART. IS. SO. FULL.

Episode 9 almost (ALMOST!) reached Bad-Buddy-episode-10-level for me. That was a hell of an episode.

And I am so thrilled, SO FREAKING THRILLED, to have been proven wrong about my theories as to whether or not episode 6 was “real” to the series. It was very real, and clearly so meaningful and contributive to Jae Won (as well, of course, to Ji Hyun), that... it sent Jae Won running, literally.

One more passing thought before I dig into the meal:

I haven’t dug into this at ALL yet, but I think there might purposefully be a lot of similarities between The Eighth Sense and Where Your Eyes Linger, which (I think this is accurate, but PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong) was one of the first non-Strongberry Big KBLs to come out. I went back to Viki to make sure to confirm this, but Jung Seo In -- the restaurant ahjumma and Ji Hyun’s boss in T8S -- also plays a restaurant proprietor in Where Your Eyes Linger, and actually asks Han Tae Joo and Kang Gook “who’s top and who’s bottom” when she first meets them in WYEL (a little squick but she made it cute for that time). The promo picture for WYEL on Viki is of the two leads lying on the floor with their heads touching.... a different orientation, but a lot of the same feeling, as the opening of episode 10 of T8S. And, finally: Han Tae Joo of WYEL and Jae Won of T8S are both “the chairman’s son.” They are both sons in need of care.

That’s enough for a comparison for now to WYEL, because I haven’t spent enough time digging into it, but I’ll return to Ji Hyun’s ahjumma in a second, because she’s a badassssssss. Anyway:

Episode 9: What can I say. As with Bad Buddy episode 10, I’m struggling to get words down. I love a ride to a gorgeous union.

And Jae Won, HONEY, Y’ALL TOOK ME ON A HELL OF A RIDE. DUUUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDDDDDDDEEEEEE. DUDE. I wanna be friends with you!

We learned some things. Ji Hyun brings light into Jae Won’s life. When we saw Jae Won with Eun Ji -- it was always in darkness (except for surf club earlier in the series, but Ji Hyun was there with Jae Won). jae Won eats with Eun Ji in a pojangmacha at night. He sits with Eun Ji in a dark library. He walks with Eun Ji on dark streets. She tries to kiss him in the nighttime.

Ji Hyun sees that -- and something twists inside of Jae Won.

Then we get Jae Won and Eun Ji in the dark library. And, JEEEEZUS. WHOA! UM! I. did. not. expect. the. long. game. to. be. played. LIKE. THAT.

Motherfucker played a LONG-ASS, I’M A NAVY VETERAN, I CHASED AFTER YOU, I SAW YOU WITH ANOTHER GUY, I WAITED FOR YOU, I WAITED UNTIL MORNING, I SAW YOU WERE STILL WITH HIM, I SAW YOU WALKING OUT OF THE MOTEL WITH HIM, I SAW THAT, I CAME BACK, YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF MY FEAR ABOUT JI HYUN AND THE ACCIDENT, AND I REVENGE-DATED YOU, KINDA GAME, HEADSHAKE, SHRUG, I’M LOOKING AT MY NAILS, PSH.

BRO. WHAT. THE. EFF.

I want a Cardi B song about this shit. Dude, you played that better than ANY female character in a K-drama that I have EVER seen, my man! You actually WENT AND DATED HER, LIKE KINDA LITERALLY-BUT-MAYBE-YOUR-HEART-WASN’T-ACTUALLY-INTO-IT-SO-MAYBE-IT-WAS-FOR-THE-ASSIGNMENT-DEALIE??? Good lord.

Like, can that become a K-drama/KBL trope? Hot DAMN. ANYWAY. (Actually, one more reference to this for episode 10, but enough of the all caps, ha.)

You know what that means, right? While all that was going on, Jae Won’s heart WASN’T with Eun Ji. He was processing his stuff with Ji Hyun on his own, and with his therapist (once more, lol, @emotionallychargedtowel, take me to your analysis! I gotta know what you thought about the therapist calling Jae Won selfish!).

Jae Won said it himself. He’s rooted in depression. He’s rooted in guilt about his brother’s death. He’s rooted in guilt over Ji Hyun’s accident. I will posit that episode 6 still felt like a “dream,” likely because of meds, likely because of Jae Won’s headstate. It was a “real” moment for the series but for where Jae Won’s head was at, he was likely battling a depressive episode with the continued, chronic guilt of his life. So things seemed fuzzy and jumpy -- because they were fuzzy and jumpy for Jae Won.

(Whenever I try to describe these states to people, I try to think of relative moments... like being at work with four hours of sleep. Driving while your contact lens has something in it. You’re fuzzily in and out of reality. Jae Won’s depression is deeper than that. But I try to relate to it somehow with those metaphors.)

So the therapist does her own thing by calling Jae Won “selfish” for rooting in his pain. How we choose to judge her behavior is whatever -- it still gives me the jibbles, and I lean towards the utterly wonderful @emotionallychargedtowel for better analysis about therapy than me.

But, as we very clearly saw -- Jae Won’s breakthrough came through the restaurant ahjumma. Remember: she represents a break from tradition, as I said last week. She’s done with the bullshit of living by the rules of others.

She sees university students in and out, everyday, eating samgyupsal and drinking their sorrows away. She sees former students coming back to say hi.

She’s been around the block, and has seen people get around the block themselves. She knows the advice that she’s giving to Jae Won. Unlike the therapist, she’s not gonna make Jae Won feel bad about himself. She’s just going to feed him and HELP HIM.

LET GO OF IT ALL, HONEY. GO AND GET YOUR MAN.

And Jae Won finally let go. He went to the water. He took us with him to a flashback to the sea, to the light, where he’s the happiest. He took us to where he’s the freest that he can be.

And Ji Hyun called him back to Ji Hyun’s side. Called Jae Won back through music, and Jae Won heard him, and ran to Ji Hyun, and they embraced -- and it was perfect.

I’m gonna be that auntie when I grow up.

Episode 10: There are a couple of side discussions with friends that I want to refer to, but let me say first that I have zero issues with this light, lovely conclusion. I am a SLAVE for K-drama tropes, and I didn’t mind that this episode had a few. This series did so beautifully to NOT hew to tropes, and to create a new paradigm of filmmaking in KBLs, that I was TOTALLY FINE with seeing some sweet tropey behavior -- the drinking, the partying, the dancing, the dance music. The love games. The heads leaning on shoulders. Coffees in cans. Let me give you my jacket.

Friends @shortpplfedup and @lurkingshan and @wen-kexing-apologist: I’m okay with the forgiveness to Tae Hyung and Eun Ji. Because.

I think Jae Won’s being a little shady, come awn. I think he popped his umbrella open. Just a little. Ji Hyun ADMITTED to being sassy, but I think Jae Won knew he was being just a little bitty-bit shady, and I’m gonna let the man have his. He’s a game-player.

Eun Ji HAD TO ADMIT that she got her ass handed to her. And Ji Hyun and Jae Won both knew she’d have a hard time, internally. I’m fine with her being calm about it. She knew she fucked up the game, hard, when she got her ass caught cheating. We know she’s lame, she knows she’s lame, let’s live and move on.

I thought Jae Won’s read on Tae Hyung was great. Tae Hyung IS someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, however misguided it is. Humans are not perfect. Jae Won wants to be with honest people. (That’s why he dumped Eun Ji’s ass and handed her the receipts. He can forgive her, but he certainly AIN’T going out with her again.)

As Bed Friend ended with happy moment after happy moment -- I believe the filmmakers knew exactly what they were giving us with this finale. How we came to SUCH a happy ending just boggles me, but it was a loving and a sweet one. GO YOON WON AND JOON PYO. COME AWN. GO GO GO. (And go Bit Na! Reject that motherfucker. AND AE RI! GURL! I’m gonna miss you, nothing slides by you.)

And I want to refer back to something about the therapist conversation in episode 9 that got concluded in episode 10. I think it’s really important to note that BOTH Ji Hyun AND Jae Won took care OF EACH OTHER in these last two episodes.

Jae Won was rotting in guilt over not being able to TAKE CARE OF JI HYUN during the accident. Jae Won arguably got Ji Hyun in trouble.

Ji Hyun, upon his recovery, TAKES CARE OF Jae Won. Ji Hyun handled the disciplinary committee. He gives Jae Won a disposable camera and encourages Jae Won’s photography. He continues to send Jae Won text messages, songs. Sending messages of hope and light and love. I’m still here, Jae Won, I haven’t left. Jae Won’s brother might not be here. Ji Hyun never left.

What shocked Jae Won out of his stasis was the ahjumma’s words. I think Jae Won realized at that moment that -- AS AHJUMMA WAS SAYING ALL ALONG -- THAT JAE WON WAS OVERTHINKING THINGS. Once Jae Won could

SEE. THE. LIGHT.

he was able to take off, and finally go back to Ji Hyun, in whole.

(I think we know why the therapist’s office was dark. Jae Won couldn’t see the light in there.

His light comes from Ji Hyun and the water.)

It’s a rarity, but I’m putting this on my short MUST WATCH list. This BLEW away any filmmaking expectations I previously had about KBLs. This was SINGULAR, groundbreaking, the actors ATE their roles, ATE THEM -- and it was utterly fulfilling.

PHENOMENAL SHOW. I’m going to miss this one TREMENDOUSLY.

#the eighth sense #the eighth sense meta #jae won x ji hyun #ji hyun x jae won #i'll likely have more meta this weekend #stunning show

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oatmealcrisp-freak · 2 years

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I Noticed Something and Am Ignoring Other Things drawing consistently is hard and angles shhhh its okay just let it happen and so I PRESENT TO YOU ALL

Saiki’s Limiter Expressions!

I think I’ve made a ground breaking discovery here, folks. It’s not just a ‘what if because that’d be like so totes mcscrunkles cute’ - it’s canon. Saiki emotes via limiter position!!!

Now please bear with me because ‘expression’ may be a strong word, as it usually is for Saiki’s face so too can it be for his limiters. In this breaking report, ‘expression’ may denote both emotion and a level of focus.

As an example, please consider:

Neutral Position - Directly Above Ear.

This seems to Indicate a sense of worry but he’s forcing himself to appear as neutral as possible to avoid giving away his concern. This may also be a genuinely neutral expression, or even an indicator of fogginess such as pure bliss

but also stiffen up in stressful situations

so always be sure to keep context in mind to judge whether or not your Saiki is genuinely blase

or just putting on a show! But what does it look like when he emotes with his limiters without censor? WELL!

Forward Position - Approaching Temples.

Have you ever noticed in your feline friends that when they’re intent on an object - you, a toy, a noise, their favourite treats - their ears will face forward?

Well after combing through the manga I’ve deduced Saiki also seems to share this trait! If something catches his attention or if he’s feeling (tsunderily) affectionate, his limiters will shift closer to his temples in a forward facing position, rather than sitting primly above his ears!

But of course a forward position also implies a

Pressed Back Position - Behind Ears.

I have found these two images wherein Saiki’s head is in nearly the same position. Please note the far limiter’s position in regard to Saiki’s bangs! In the bottom only the ball is visible - Saiki is in a crowd in this scene, with Teruhashi even, and because of that he’s recieving more attention than he wants which is scaring him.

However in the top, please note that the attachment piece is visible through his bangs, implying a forward position! In this scene, Saiki is intently focused on a new member of his home, a toy even, that requires checking out especially because the art style is different.

Very reasonable to be quite intent on that.

I think this inference is strengthened by how in the bottom panel, Saiki’s head is facing camera ever so slightly more, but we still can’t see the head attachment through his hair, whereas it’s the opposite in the top!

Please see also,

Two more very scary situations which could 100% warrant a nervous expression! His limiters are pressed very far back here, quite firmly behind his ears. For a point of comparison please consider this next image where the head attachments aren’t visible.

And this one also

It’s especially apparent in the panel where Akechi is calling him out, his balls are almost completely turned back! Saiki is both intent on the threatening figure behind him and confronted by one of his worst fears - the possibility of his secret getting out!

Though it’s somewhat difficult to make out due to the distance, size, and perspective in the very important photo below, the above limiter position is almost exactly the same when Saiki returns home to do battle with a

cockroach!! See in this here image (h-ear if you will),

I’ve determined this by using top tier technology to cast precise measurements to show that there is a significant distance implying that his limiter is turned backwards in terror. Amazing that the poor lad didn’t pull an Akechi.

I believe this highly advanced model shows that there is not just correlation but causation between the position of Saiki’s limiter and his fear of the Dreaded G!

This has further lead me to the conclusion that, given the extreme range of motion these limiters display

and

the fact that THESE ARE LITERALLY TWO NEEDLES GOING INTO SAIKI’S BRAIN LIKE WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK LIKE NEEDLES

WHAT THE FU

The only answer that explains how Saiki is able to avoid horrifying levels of brain damage

The only possibility, indeed, a surefire fact, not bet,

is that Saiki’s brain

Is made of coffee jelly!!!

That concludes my highly scientific research essay thank you for your time there will be no citations.

#saiki k #shitpost #long post #freaks essays

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slimereader · 8 months

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Thoughts on the DQM3 demo

Overall, I had a lot of fun! This was my first experience with a Dragon Quest Monsters game, so if I write something everyone else already knows, forgive my ignorance.

Things I hope might actually be improved in the full game:

Synthesizing is fun, but the level 10 requirement makes it a bit tedious. I'm sure with higher-level wild monsters in later areas in the game, it'll be easier to scout level 10+ monsters to synthesize directly or at least grind for experience points.

I'm the type of person who wants to keep my first monster friend of every species, scouting duplicates for synthesis purposes. I used the favorites option to keep track of my first friend of each species, so I had marked lots of favorites pretty quickly. When sorting your monster roster, I found that you could sort by favorites first, but not the inverse. Actually, I wish you could hide favorites altogether on the synthesis selection interface. Also, more than one type of mark to put on monsters would help, so I could distinguish between "don't synthesize" and my actual party favorites.

In general, I found the synthesis interface a bit clunky (I'm sure it's an improvement over previous DQM installments though- in fact, I think I read that synthesis is more user-friendly than ever before). Sometimes I would plan out which monster pairs to synthesize together, so I would nickname the dracky "Slime" and the slime "Dracky". However, I found that you can only change a monster's nickname from the paddock interface, not synthesis. I know Monty and the paddock guy are standing right next to each other, but it still felt tedious switching between them when trying to organize my monsters! I suppose I would prefer if the synthesis interface included all the functionality of the paddock man.

I don't really want to give my scouted monsters a nickname most of the time. I wish there was an option to have it NOT ask you to type in a name every time you scout one.

Things I want that are unlikely to be changed at this point:

I really miss the monster fortes from Dragon Quest Treasures. At least Psaro can jump, but his maximum height is frustratingly low in comparison. God, at least let me jump over the little fence in Rosehill!

Also, the 3 party monsters following you around everywhere in Treasures was so cute and fun! I really felt attached to them. If not all 4, I wish at least your lead party member was present in the overworld (outside of encounters). Basically I really loved Treasures <3

Personally, I associate Toriyama Akira's character design style (for humans) to include eyes that are relatively close together, especially early on in the Dragon Quest and Dragon Ball series. I'm sorry, but Rose's wide-set eyes in this game are unsettling to me. Also, her mascara made her top and bottom eyelashes stand out jarringly, but then I realized: when she closes her eyes, they look like thorns!

One monster-recruitment feature I really love from other games (DQV, DQ Treasures) is that each monster already has its own name. It gives them so much personality! Do they really not have default nicknames in other titles in the DQM series either? I suppose it would be difficult with the sheer number of duplicates you're expected to catch to synthesize new ones, but I still miss it.

And now, screenshots.

My starter partner, Jack-o-lantern the mud mannequin!

Vegandragora snoozing atop a rock in spring. So cute!! Vegandragora is definitely one of my favorite monster designs now.Screenshot from the demo of Dragon Quest Monsters 3: The Dark Prince.

Observing my monsters in the paddock was a cute feature as well.

I decided to stop the demo here. I finished the quests, won the tournaments, and synthesized 16 monsters (wait, that many?!). I can't wait to play more, but I'm going to try to wait until December! See you then, my monsters!

#dqm3 #dragon quest the dark prince #dragon quest #dragon quest monsters #dqm3 spoilers/#slimereads

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sytokun · 2 years

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Nitpick N(Oct)ovember #1: 👄

Time to start off my first day of Nitpick November. Basically it's an event started by @odsalt for us to talk about our RWBY gripes that we don't want to spend time intellectualising, hence the name. So if you're a RWBY fan, you can already skip this.

Anyway, this is something that has bothered me for the better part of... 6 years now? It pains me knowing I've grappled with this in RWBY for a longer time than I spent not.

I have an irrational and near-constant dislike of RWBY's post-V4 lips. I hate them so much.

I just find them so... ugh. I've rarely liked anime where the bottom lip has a prominent shadow like this unless it's done well, and to know this was going to be in RWBY forever now when the models looked perfect before made me shrivel up inside. Not to mention the shadow covering the entire underside of the nose is also really unappealing to look at.

Chalk it up to my own art preference combined with it just being another hurdle that made the jump between the Poser and Maya models even more painful. I'm a very visuals-oriented person and how the characters look in a show is already enough to get me to watch or drop it, making a special exception for RWBY post-V4.

It's probably because of their engine or shader, but there's some shots (only one with Ruby that comes to mind) where the lip shadow isn't visible and the nose shadow is only on one side and I swear the model looks so much cuter:

(Put next to Volume 2 Ruby for comparison)

I decided to go ahead and remove the lip + nose shadow on different shots of the girls from Volumes 7-8 to prove my case, and personally I find them way nicer to look at. (not to mention that the skin shading in RWBY always tend to have this weird muddy tone to it which further contributes to making the overall face look worse)

The nose/lip shadow is such a small thing to gripe about but it's like a fly in the room - it's always there and always bothering me. Hence why I call it a nitpick.

In Penny's case, I actually had to raise the entire mouth and nose up a little because the facial features look too weirdly long without the shadows - the long faces are sort of a problem with all of RWBY's faces, which are only further exacerbated by the shadows.

I'll be honest, if the models in RWBY consistently looked like this at the very least, I'd be way more forgiving of it. But this has been a constant itch in my brain that's constantly kept me from fully getting into the show. It feels like it's trying to imitate Avatar's style of shading, only... it doesn't look good.

In Avatar, the rest of its more Western-anime hybrid artstyle matches its shading style, namely the more defined noses and mouths. For RWBY, it's like it's trying to shoehorn Avatar's shading style onto a conventional anime style, and the result is just this off-putting half-measure that's neither here nor there.

(but I guess I shouldn't be surprised given how much RWBY tries to copy Avatar's surface-level traits without considering how to actually do it well)

"So that's why you're hating on this? You just want the characters to have boring cute anime faces?"

Yes. I like cute anime faces on my hyperstylized anime-inspired show about cute anime girls.

"You just want the characters to have these samey cutesy faces on all of them?"

As if they don't all have the same generic face model for every character anyway - especially the female characters.

For god's sake, if you're gonna copy another media's style of 3D anime shading, why not copy ArcSystem Works? You know, the company you've collaborated with before?

Anyway, that's it. Click Read More if you want to see more RWBY screenshot edits without the lip/nose shadows - they were pretty fun to do.

#rwde #nitpick november #nitpick november 2022 #rwby

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minuy600 · 5 months

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The Arcade Games Of 1980 #8 - King & Balloon

I was so concentrated on getting through the trials of Crazy Climber that I completely forgot to discuss the game I finished like 3 weeks ago. So here's your compensation for that.

Thissss is not a good time. It's still got some sort of standard that Namco adheres to, but it does no more than the bare minimum to achieve that. Yeah, unless you count the new voice samples.

Those voice samples are pretty impressive, you can clearly hear what is being said (help, thank you, bye-bye), maybe a bit too clear since it's louder than the game audio itself. There's a catch however, it was not the only game with digitised speech around this time. Crazy Climber, Space Cyclone (okay that one's super rare but still) and Wizard of Wor all came out in the span of a couple months, and when you compare all of those to King & Balloon, they end up on top in one way or another.

Crazy Climber? Incorporated the voices into the gameplay well so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb. Space Cyclone? Similarly limited but has higher quality samples. Wizard of Wor? Harder to understand, though extremely plentiful and varied by comparison.

What do you get when you leave out this quickly obsoleted marketing blurb, then? Nothing I wanna play ever again. It's Galaxian if it had one additional factor (babysitting an easily kidnapped king) and paused every 10 seconds as you keep dying over and over without much consequence. Eugh.

The Verdict

Graphics (5): THIS was on the Galaxian engine? I thought it was one of those games that ran on the Warp & Warp board for a while untill I looked it up. The lack of color in anything but the balloons you pop is super jarring when you put it alongside Galaxian's ability to boost the industry forward by multiple years. Those balloons are not interesting characters either, the most they can do is transform into hot air balloons and for those to have a decent level of detail. The king reminds me of one of those bandits from Nintendo's Sheriff.

There's two things the game does get right visually that prevent it from being all bad- I like that the cannon is being controlled by two little dudes and that the framerate is super high thanks to the engine not being pushed to it's limits. It's things like that that still generally keep Namco on top of the food chain.

Sound (5): As i've explained, the voice clips are a cute addition that had no excuse to completely take over everything else and were obsoloted as soon as the cabinet made it to market. The king isn't even voiced by a man in the Japanese release, this is what furries imagine a femboy sounds like if anything. It got fixed in the American release to be sure, but that's not the version I played and from the footage i've seen, it seems to be even more overpowering there. Doesn't bode well.

Wanna know the reason I haven't mentioned the other sound effects? There's nothing interesting about them. It's like Namco took a look at Galaxian, copied it's homework and then changed it up just enough to not get found out. I couldn't be less intrigued.

Fun Factor (3): The closest this thing comes to fun is when you shoot one of the hot air balloons multiple times for big points. Someone had the smart idea of giving *you* endless lives, which sounds oddly generous untill you actually play the game. These balloons are ABSURDLY accurate with their shots starting on the second stage and beyond. I like myself a challenge (despite my frustrations around various more difficult games others consider classics oops). This is not a challenge, it's an exercise in frustration.

It gets worse when you pull in the the reason why they did this. Every time the balloons reach the bottom of the screen, something that happens all the goddamn time as they swoop erratically, they can take away the king! Oh no!!! So you scramble to save him again and again. It only gets faster later on. If there's something I hate, it's hitting fast moving targets in a shooter at crucial moments. Space Invaders was at the very least clever with the way they implemented it. Even the games I had given a 4/10 in the fun department had potential to be alright, this is one of those titles I absolutely never-ever-ever wanna touch upon again.

Longevity (4): Only for the hardcore high score maniacs. The game's difficulty appears to stagnate around the 4th stage and exactly 0 mechanics get introduced in the meantime. As with Galaxian (surprising, I know), there's 48 stages in total before the game tells you you're goofy for continuing to play and stops reporting increases. I myself gave up after I got a dopamine kick out of seeing the symbol for reaching the 5th.

In Conclusion

#retro gaming #minuy600 #review #sona #arcade #1980 #namco #king & balloon

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cutetinyartist · 2 years

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Stargazing Together (G/T Fluff)

Synopsis: A Giant and their Tiny go on a stargazing date together! It's just pure simple g/t fluff ^w^

Word-Count: 1,338

The tiny gazed longingly out of the window, waiting for her giant to arrive. Although she'd put some music on she was barely listening to it, instead anticipating the familiar sound of her giant's booming (yet careful) footsteps. Such a simple noise would bring her instant joy.

Suddenly, a silhouette in the far distance caught her eye! The tiny grew giddy with excitement as her love approached, and opted to perch on her windowsill in anticipation. Each of her giant's steps sent a light tremor through the ground, though he took extra care not to step on or damage anything in his path. Within a few moments he was in front of her house, his 50ft frame looming over it. Even when he crouched down before her window he still towered over everything!

"Hey, boo!" The giant exclaimed, beaming at the sight of his beloved tiny.

The tiny couldn't stop herself from grinning, replying with, "THERE'S the voice I've been wanting to hear all day!"

"And THERE'S the tiny I've been wanting to see all day!"

She huffed, "I'm not TINY, you're just fuckin' HUGE!"

The giant simply giggled, both at her response and at the flustered look on her face. His adorable laugh only made her blush even more, which lead him to say, "You're so cute, oh my god!"

"Nuh-uh, you're the cute one!" Her heart fluttered as she stared up at him. The pale moonlight perfectly illuminated his features, such as his loving eyes that she could get lost in for days or his plush lips that she could kiss all day...

"No, I think you'll find that YOU'RE the cute one here," The giant smirked as he scooped her up off the windowsill, adjusting his grasp so that she was now sat in the palm of his hand, "See?"

Her heart always skipped a beat when he picked her up so effortlessly, reminding her of how small she truly was in comparison to him. She mumbled bashfully and folded her arms, unable to come up with a better response to her giant's quip.

Still smirking, he lifted her so she was now level with his lips. Though the tiny tried to keep up her grumpy facade, it was impossible for her not to melt into his gentle kiss. It was the most loving embrace, the warm space between his pillowy lips and curled fingers. She placed her hand on his bottom lip, leaning into him even further and adoring him with every fibre of her being. The words, "I love you so much," were uttered by both as the giant pulled away. They looked at each other with infinite adoration, yet somehow still fell more and more in love with every passing moment.

The tiny instinctively grabbed his thumb for support as he stood to his full height (not that he would ever dream of letting her fall). The two had a simple plan for their night together; to go out to their spot in the woods and stargaze together. It was an ideal night to do so, for the sky was beautifully clear and the mild breeze added to the calm atmosphere. The giant began to walk, once again taking care with each vast stride. Although the view from so high up was impressive, the tiny could never take her eyes off of her beautiful giant. She found everything about him so amazing, and his existence alone astounded her.

Within minutes they'd moved from the unremarkable suburbs to the much prettier setting of the nearby forest. The couple always adored going there together, especially the particular spot where they would usually stargaze. Even the tallest trees only barely grazed the giant's broad shoulders, and the paths he so frequently traversed were forever indented with his great footprints. It was comfortably quiet in the woods that night too, the most notable sound being the gentle flow of the river they were approaching. Though it was quite a wide body of water, the giant could easily clear it with one broad step. This motion brought the couple to the exact spot they'd been making their way towards.

"I still remember that day so vividly," The tiny reminisced, gazing fondly at her giant as he sat down, "How amazing it was seeing you for the first time..."

"Seeing YOU for the first time was the most amazing thing! I couldn't believe- scratch that, I STILL can't believe how tiny you are," He replied, slowly running his index finger up and down her spine. His touch was so delicate, despite the digit being the size of a tree-trunk to her.

She rolled her eyes with a smirk, "Stop saying I'm tiny, dammit! Just cus you're literally a giant-" She paused for a moment before leaning across to hug his thumb, "You're my giant though."

This time the giant blushed, instinctively wrapping his fingers around her as a way of returning the hug. The warmth that radiated from his soft skin was always so relaxing to the tiny, and just being in his presence made any anxieties or doubts she had in life instantly evaporate. After a few blissful moments, he lifted her up to place her on his shoulder. She immediately nestled into the crook of his neck, a small gesture that made his heart skip a beat.

The two sat in a comfortable silence as they observed the beauty of the scene before them. Twinkling stars were scattered across the black sky, reflected in the river that meant so much to the couple. The same spot where they'd first locked eyes all those years ago... The tiny began absentmindedly playing with a lock of her giant's long fuffy hair. It draped around her like a blanket, and she absolutely adored that. A content smile crossed the giant's lips as he noted his tiny's subtle little movements. The way she snuggled as close to him as possible never failed to give him butterflies; the feeling of someone so miniscule holding infinite love and trust for him was something he never thought he'd be lucky enough to experience.

"I love you so much..." The tiny said, almost as though she could sense exactly what her giant was thinking. The two were truly soulmates, connected by a bond that nobody but them could fully understand.

The giant reciprocated his tiny's words, and the two soon began rambling about anything and everything together again. Their initial plan had been to stargaze together, but they were far too enamoured with oneanother to pay much attention to the midnight sky. Eventually however, the giant started to notice his tiny's sleepy mannerisms and the little yawns she kept letting out.

"Are you starting to get a lil sleepy, boo?" He asked, to which she firmly shook her head. Then she yawned again.

He chuckled, "Come here..." And gently scooped her into the palm of his hand again.

"I'm NOT sleepy!" She stated, but the way she leant into her giant's curled fingers told a completely different story. Seconds later, she yawned and admitted defeat, "... okay fine, maaaybe I am a tiny bit sleepy..." Her gaze subconsciously drifted to the pocket of her giant's signature jacket. Despite the slight coarseness of the denim, she always adored lounging on his shoulder or in his pocket when he wore it.

"You're so adorable. I love you," The giant smiled, leaning in to kiss his love. They shared the blissful embrace for only a brief moment before he lowered her towards the pocket. The tiny couldn't resist wrapping her arms around her giant's finger before clambering into the cozy chamber below. From her new position she was nestled right beside her giant's heart, a steadily beating muscle that in itself easily dwarfed her. The soothing rhythm (combined with the warmth, his soft breathing and calming voice that surrounded her) almost instantly made her drift off.

Being so close to her giant was all she ever needed, and her endless love was all that he ever needed... <3

#ik I'm not the best at writing but I thought this would be cute!!#g/t #giant/tiny #this whole thing was loosely based on a dream I had about me and my bf stargazing togther!#I thought it'd be cute to turn that into a gt story #cutetinyartist

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wastelesscrafts · 2 years

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do you have advice for turning tank tops into something more feminine? my only real solution is to make them into crop tops so I can have a nice sorta, loose sports bra almost

Feminine tank top alterations

I have a post on making clothes look more feminine that might be useful. The post's focused on t-shirts, but some of its suggestions can also be applied to tank tops.

Make sure to check the comments to see other people's suggestions, too.

Gender and styling:

As said in the other post, our society associates certain fabric shapes with certain genders, but those associations are kind of random and prone to change. There’s a lot of variation in ideas about gender, both on an individual level and a cultural level. In the end, how you decide to dress is no one’s business but yours. As long as you feel like you when you wear your clothes, it’s all good!

You don't necessarily need to alter a tank top to make it look more feminine, as the shape is pretty universal.

Styling helps a lot: tanks look pretty cute when tucked into a skirt or worn underneath a dress with thin straps, for example. Play around with your tops, see what works for you.

(Image source) [ID: black and white drawing of a front and back view of a tank top with a rounded collar.]

Reshaping tank tops:

If you want to make some changes, there's a few things you could do.

One common difference between typical masculine and feminine tops is the shape of your tank top. Masculine tops tend to be more rectangular while feminine tops often (not always) have some shaping at the sides to accentuate the wearer's waist and hips.

If your tank top lacks shaping, a subtle alteration you could try is to add custom shaping to the sides of your tank tops, as explained in my other post.

(Image source) [ID: four drawings of t-shirts. The upper two show the front and back view of a common masculine shirt: the cut is boxy and the shoulders are wider. The lower two show the front and back view of a common feminine shirt: the cut is curved at the sides and the shoulders are smaller.]

Another issue you might encounter with tank tops is gaping armholes. If a sleeveless shirt designed for people with a flat chest is worn by someone whose chest isn't flat, this might cause the fabric to gape at the armscye. You can also encounter this issue if your chest differs from the fit model the top's proportions are based on, if the original pattern was scaled up poorly for larger sizes, or if it was made by a brand that just doesn't care about fit quality.

An easy alteration to remedy this is to add a bust dart: the idea is to pinch the excess fabric that's causing the gaping into a fold and sewing it into place. This fold shapes the fabric, and helps it to follow the body's contours.

These tutorials by Sewing Rabbit and The Sewing Garden will show you how it's done.

Alterations like these are best fitted on your body while you're wearing whatever undergarments you plan on wearing with the top you're altering. A binder versus a push-up bra will make a big difference in the shape you need for a good fit, for example.

(Image source) [ID: a before and after comparison of a muslin mock-up of a sleeveless bodice. The top's fabric gapes at the armhole in the before picture, while it fits the dress form's contours better after having been fitted with bust darts in the second picture. Text: "Fix a gaping armhole. Fitting yourself with Justine."]

(Image source) [ID: a muslin mock-up of a sleeveless bodice on a dress form. A dart has been pinned at the side of the arm opening. Text: "Mark apex on muslin. Pin out excess fabric at armhole and measure width of dart."]

Turning your tank tops into crop tops like you suggested is a good option, too! Pinterest has a ton of ideas you could try if you want to go this route.

(Image source) [ID: six photo’s showing how to cut up a sleeveless top to achieve a wrap-around crop top. The bottom half of the shirt’s back is removed, after which the front, which is still its original length, is cut open.]

Decorating tank tops:

Aside from shaping, you could also decorate your tank top to fit your personal style better. Embroidery, appliqué, lace, ruffles, trims, beads, dye, fabric markers, cut-outs, fabric flowers, studs, braids, sleeves, collars, altered necklines,... are all possible ways to make a tank top feel more like you.

Pinterest has a ton of ideas if you're looking for inspiration, and so does this Dollar Store Crafts article.

(Image source) [ID: a gray tank top worn by a mannequin. Short sleeves and a matching bow made out of red and blue floral fabric have been added to the armholes and chest of the top.]

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obaewankenope · 3 years

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Which shark is the most chill?

Most chill as in "I'm Not Going To Eat You Human If You Swim Near Me In The Ocean" or most chill as in "I'm Just Really Fuckin' Laid Back Lad" because I personally think there's a different answer for each of those:

First one, most chill if you're near em, is gonna be the Nurse Shark. They are listed as Fourth on the list of "Most Bitey on Humans" but that's more because they're slow and docile and divers be like "oh cute, lemme pet it" when it may not wanna be petted. So like, I would chomp on someone if they touched me unexpectedly too my bro.

[image source: wikipedia]

They can grow up to 14 feet, though they average more at 9 feet, and have small teeth that basically do the Needles Effect on you if you accidentally scare or step on them. They tend to prefer being near the bottom of reefs and such rather than open ocean.

They're also one of the few species of shark that can actually remain stationary, breathing by opening and closing their mouths to push water through their gills for oxygen. Most shark species have to move constantly in order to breathe; like the Great White.

Second Chill Shark category of just Being Chill It's No Biggie, is definitely between the Basking Shark and Whale Shark. These two behemoth sharks are filter feeders, like whales, and basically swim the ocean with their mouths open most of the time gently nomming on the plankton in the water. Honestly, they're just Really Laid Back.

Basking Sharks can grow to around 26 feet (that's almost as long as a double-decker bus) and aren't aggressive or dangerous to humans. The most harm you can expect from them is swimming into the side of one if you're not paying attention, I guess.

[image source: wikipedia]

For size comparison of a newborn, average and then large adult Basking Shark, Wiki has your back. Even offering an average scuba diver for reference lol.

[image source: wikipedia]

Although the Basking Shark is pretty chill and doesn't really care to Swim Fast like other sharks, it has been known to breach the water surface. Some theories suggest this is just to dislodge parasites, others to Show Off and Be Aggressive.

The OTHER chill af shark is the Whale Shark. At 29 feet, they're bigger than Basking Sharks and larger specimens have been found/caught over time that are even larger than that, as this diagram below shows:

[image source: wikipedia]

For size comparison, this buWhales is 18 metres long. That's how big a Whale Shark can grow to. Let that sink in for a moment lol.

[image source: danatm4]

Just like Basking Sharks, Whale Sharks are plankton feeders. Their mouths are at the front of their head rather than under it, like with literally every other shark species. Females grow larger than males (woo) and lives in tropical and warm-temperate seas, unlike the Basking Shark which is found in temperate waters. There's two sub-populations of Whale Sharks, aka the Atlantic sub-population and the Indo-Pacific sub-population. When they feed, they literally open their mouths big, suck in water and filter it out through their gills (like whales) and keep the plankton for nomming.

[image source: wikipedia]

So, basically:

Nurse Shark is laid back but might bite you if you scare it.

Basking Sharks are just Chill Because They Too Lazy To Be Stressed.

Whale Sharks are just Big Spotty Boys With Big Mouths and Bigger Chill Levels.

I respect them all.

#Shark #Sharks #Shark Facts #Shark Asks #Nurse Shark #Basking Shark #Whale Shark #Kat Answers #Kat Replies #Kat Talks

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heyiwrotesomethings · 3 years

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Lepidoterophobia Prt. Three (Finale)

Shinobu Kochou x She/Her Reader

A/N: A couple of y’all asked real nice for kisses and you know what, that’s valid. Shinobu is such a tease though so she’s gonna make you work for it! Just not in the way you’d expect. It’s all fluff but get ready for some loving caresses and a massage at one point! It gets a little frisky, but nothing too explicit and sorry for the sub bottom energy but, come on, its Shinobu. I think this will be it for this little series. Thanks for liking it so much! <3 (Part One) (Part Two) Word Count: 4,977

(Y/n) had been recuperating within the Butterfly Estate for only two weeks before she felt as if she was about to lose her mind.

She still hadn’t been allowed to leave her bed. Only limited movement and changes in position to partake in very simple exercises and to avoid bed sores were permitted. What made it even more depressing was how the small movements would take the little energy she had right out of her. Then there was that disgusting medicine as well. (Y/n), quite literally, almost threw up the first time Aoi had given it to her. Aoi had scolded her good after that, going on about a special brewing process and rare ingredients; how Shinobu had worked tirelessly to make it for her.

Shinobu... Now, if (Y/n) had to assemble a list of reasons for the impending mental breakdown she felt coming on, Kochou Shinobu would be at the tippy top of that list.

She was an absolute tease! Lingering touches, no regard for personal space whatsoever. Then there was her downright devious way with words that could make (Y/n)’s skin heat intensely and her brain short circuit, leaving her completely out of commission for the rest of the day in some cases.

That was to be expected though, especially since this was Shinobu they were thinking about, and (Y/n) was fine with that. She wouldn’t want her any other way. However, despite all of the teasing, or because of all of the teasing rather, Shinobu and (Y/n) had yet to kiss, unless one counted nose and cheek kisses of course. There was no shortage of those sweet affections. And it wasn’t like (Y/n) hadn’t attempted on quite a few occasion to initiate a kiss herself, but her attempts had always been thwarted. If not by the sweet little girls of the estate interrupting the moment, then by Shinobu herself turning her head so (Y/n)’s lips would meet the soft skin of her cheek instead.

There were a few close instances, such as last night when Shinobu had come by to bid (Y/n) goodnight. She hovered over (Y/n)’s face, close enough that (Y/n) could feel the air leave Shinobu’s lips and wash over her own as she spoke. Unfortunately, (Y/n) had forgotten to actually pay attention to what Shinobu was saying, which led to more teasing.

After Shinobu had thoroughly roasted (Y/n), she delicately cupped the side of (Y/n)’s cheek, her cool and calloused thumb had skimmed over her lower lip, pulling it to the side slightly as Shinobu came closer still. Their noses brushed and (Y/n) almost forgot to breathe, her head muddled with the dizzying wisteria scent that clung to the other woman. (Y/n)’s eyes slid shut and her heart beat pounded in her ears. The feeling of Shinobu’s thumb as she made another pass over her lip was electric, fire, leaving a tingling feeling in its wake over the trembling flesh.

And then, a sweet yet chaste kiss to (Y/n)’s hairline and Shinobu rose back to her full height, an undisguised smirk and gleaming, mischievous eyes filled (Y/n)’s vision as her own eyes snapped open to look over the Hashira with a barely contained sense of betrayal. Shinobu’s pigeoned laughter rang in (Y/n)‘s ears for hours after the Hashira had retired to her own bedroom and (Y/n) awkwardly maneuvered herself in her own bed to yell into her pillow.

“(Y/n)? (Y/n), are you sleeping with your eyes open? What an unsettling habit.”

“Hm?” (Y/n) blinked, turning her head to see the devil herself smiling down at her. She looked unfairly angelic in the soft sunlight that was streaming through the window. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“Thinking about what?” Shinobu asked, taking a familiar perch on the edge of (Y/n)’s bed.

“Meh,” (Y/n) shrugged, willing the beating of her heart to not betray her, “Nothing. What were you saying earlier?”

Shinobu leveled a look at (Y/n) that could be clearly interpreted as saying something along the lines of, ‘I could easily grill you for the answers I want, but I’m feeling merciful at the moment so I’ll let it be’. “I had said good morning and asked you if you were ready for your light exercises. It was strange to see you look so focused. I’ll admit, I didn’t know your brain could work so hard. Don’t strain it too much though, okay?”

“Shinobu!” (Y/n) huffed, pursing her lips while Shinobu laughed at her cute expression.

“Oh don’t take it too hard, (Y/n). You know I’m just teasing. I think you’re quite intelligent,” Shinobu praised, leaning over to land a quick peck to (Y/n)’s forehead before pulling back up. “Now how about we sit you up, okay?”

“Okay,” (Y/n) couldn’t stop the small smile tugging at her lips in response to Shinobu’s affections, “I’m ready.”

(Y/n) strained her core, and with a little help from Shinobu pushing at her back, she managed to sit upright in bed without much fuss. Still, (Y/n) felt a little light headed from the excursion.

“Take a moment to focus on your breathing.” Shinobu said. She had noticed (Y/n) swallow thickly and rubbed her back in soothing circles. “Let me know when your ready to move to the edge of the bed.”

After a minute passed, (Y/n) nodded at Shinobu and slowly but surely they worked together so that (Y/n)’s legs dangled off of the side of the bed and her arms hung loosely at her sides. It had really surprised (Y/n) how quickly her health had deteriorated in the wake of the butterfly demon’s attack. Even her legs which had been her best asset to her survival that night, felt like lead now. Heavy and weakened like the rest of her body as her energy was sapped away to heal the most damaged areas.

“Let’s begin with your arms, shall we?” Shinobu spoke almost in a whisper, her mind undoubtedly returning to that hard night as well. “Can you lift them for me?”

(Y/n) fought against the heavy feeling in her arms. Thanking the gods for the absence of the snug slings she no longer had to wear constantly. Though she had to fight hard, the burn she felt as she raised her arms felt kind of good, like stretching a sore muscle. She only managed to raise her straightened arms so that her hands were about level with her navel before they started to tense and shake.

“Good, Just hold.” Shinobu coached. (Y/n) held the position for almost fifteen seconds before she let her arms fall back to her sides in a sharp exhale of air. “Well done. Take a couple breaths and try another rep, okay?”

(Y/n) made it through three more repetitions. Blood thrummed in her ears and a light sheen of sweat covered her forehead but she had done better than yesterday and that was all she could ask for. Next were the wrist rotations which were a welcome relief despite the slight discomfort (Y/n) felt reverberate in her elbows. Then the finger flexes and shoulder rolls solidified the poor slayer’s exhaustion, but at least that signified the end of her light stretches. Or so she thought.

“We should really stretch your legs a bit. They feel stiff, don’t they?” Shinobu inquired, inspecting (Y/n) from where she stood in front of her, a finger tapping against her chin as she spoke.

“They have been feeling rather stiff,” (Y/n) agreed, “but I’m sure if I tried to stand up right now I’d buckle over like a sack of rice.”

“No need to stand. Usually I’d get the younger girls to help with such things but it won’t take long, lean back,” Even as Shinobu spoke, she didn’t give (Y/n) enough time to move on her own, pushing her flat on her back with a gentle hand pressed firmly against (Y/n)’s chest near her collarbone.

“Wah- wait. Aren’t you going to talk me through it or— eep!” (Y/n) choked on her words as Shinobu worked her hips between (Y/n)’s legs which still dangled off the bed. (Y/n) felt her blood pressure skyrocket as the space between them completely disappeared.

One of Shinobu’s hands moved slowly, excruciating so, over (Y/n)’s thigh in a way that was entirely unnecessary.

“Are you alright, (Y/n)? I’m not hurting you am I?” Shinobu cooed while her hand disappeared under the backside of (Y/n)’s thigh.

“No!” (Y/n) squeaked, cursing the way her voice rose another octave above her normal cadence.

“Good, I hope we can keep it that way. Let me know if it gets to be too much, okay dear?”

It should be a crime to have a voice that can hold such power over a person like that. Shinobu could have told (Y/n) to climb to the top of Natagumo Mountain and jump off and she’d have done it, no questions asked. (Y/n) released a shuddering breath and nodded her response, unable to trust her own voice to reply without risk of further embarrassment.

Shinobu hummed and pushed up on the back of (Y/n)’s thigh, her hand naturally sliding up to the crook of the slayer’s knee as the leg rose up. Slowly, she began to push the knee inward towards (Y/n)’s chest. (Y/n) winced slightly at the stretch, but it hardly registered in comparison to Shinobu’s extremely close proximity.

Shinobu placed her once idle hand over (Y/n)’s knee cap, her other hand sliding further up to cup (Y/n)’s calf, gently squeezing while she raised the rest of the leg and began to slowly stretch it over (Y/n)’s torso as far as she could get it to go.

(y/n) sucked in a breath, “Okay, that burns a bit!”

Shinobu paused her movements and held the leg in position, “Not bad flexibility, (Y/n). With a little bit of work I bet you could go even further. I think I’d like to see.”

What was (Y/n) supposed to say to that? She made some uncommitted sound and tried not to think too intently about how Shinobu was pressing into her. After a few more moments of holding the position, Shinobu moved the leg outward to stretch it from another angle. The limb cracked near the base of her hip and (Y/n) sighed with relief. This was a lot more gentle than what the younger girls put her through during recovery training all those months ago.

“Oh? Does that feel better, (Y/n)?” Shinobu asked, her voice like honey and silk. Her hands slowly massaging the muscles of (Y/n)’s calf and thigh. (Y/n) nodded, her eyes nearly closing as she focused on Shinobu’s ministrations. “I’d like to hear you say so, just to make sure.”

“Yeah, it feels awesome.” (Y/n) sighed again, unabashed. Shinobu giggled.

“Wonderful, let’s move on to the other one then, shall we?”

“Gods, yes please!” (Y/n) responded eagerly, rubbing her free leg against Shinobu’s side until Shinobu took hold of it and gave it the same treatment as the other leg which was now hanging loosely over the edge of the bed.

By the time Shinobu had brought (Y/n)’s other leg back down, (Y/n) was trying to fight off sleep. However, the loosened and relaxed state of her muscles after the stretches clearly were beating out her efforts.

“Wow, (Y/n). Tired already? You haven’t even eaten breakfast yet.” Shinobu commented while she absently ran her hands over (Y/n)’s thighs, the motion felt comforting.

“I know,” (Y/n) groaned, “It's your fault for being so good at your job. I feel like a limp noodle, a very sleepy limp noodle.”

“Oh?” Shinobu chuckled. Sliding her hands purposefully upward until they rested at either side of (Y/n)’s ribs. The shift in her weight had her resting on her elbows, her chest resting just below (Y/n)’s. “Perhaps I could find a way to liven you up.”

“What do you have in mind?” (Y/n) asked slyly, hoping Shinobu couldn’t hear how fast her heart was racing. She wrapped her legs over Shinobu’s hips, locking her in, in hope to distract her, but also to egg her on.

Shinobu grinned at (Y/n) and shimmied closer. One of her hands came up to cradle (Y/n)’s jaw. She leaned even closer and landed a quick kiss to (Y/n)’s chin, then she pressed another one in the crook of (Y/n)’s neck, making the injured slayer laugh as she nuzzled closer.

“Oh!” (Y/n)‘s eyes shot wide open as the feeling of teeth grazing the sensitive skin of her neck.

“Hm? What is it, (Y/n)?” Shinobu asked, smiling against (Y/n)’s neck. “You seem to be perking up already.” she added, punctuating her words with a quick swipe of her tongue over (Y/n)’s neck, making the girl beneath her shiver.

(Y/n) whimpered quietly, much to her embarrassment, while Shinobu lavished her neck with attentions. Shinobu slowly worked her way upward, kissing her jaw and cheek before connecting her line of vision with (Y/n)’s.

The lovestruck look in (Y/n)’s eyes quickly morphed into an indignant glare as she perceived the familiar, mischievous glimmer in Shinobu’s plum colored irises.

“No.” (Y/n) said, her tone disbelieving. “No.” She said again, this time with a little more force behind it, shaking her head while Shinobu grinned down at her. “Shinobu!”

“I’m sorry (Y/n), but my meeting is starting soon so I must be off. Aoi will be by with breakfast soon. Make sure you eat it all so you can get stronger, okay?”

“But—!” (Y/n) tried to hold Shinobu to her body by tightening her legs around her but they did nothing to help her in her weakened state. Shinobu easily slipped free and (Y/n)‘s legs dropped back down over the edge of the bed in defeat.

“No buts! Let’s get you turned around quick, alright?” Shinobu grunted as she hoisted (Y/n)’s lower half and twisted (Y/n)’s body to lay fully on the bed with very little help from the dumbfounded, disgruntled girl. Then with a quick, teasing squeeze of (Y/n)’s knee, she was gone.

(Y/n)’s arm shook as she painstakingly pulled one of the pillows behind her free and pressed it as hard as she could over her face. “What the fuck?! AHH!” (Y/n) screamed, her voice muffled by the dense material.

***

The next time Shinobu walked into her room, (Y/n) had decided that was going to kiss her. She was going to kiss her full on the mouth or die trying because if she knew one thing, it was that she couldn’t play Shinobu’s games any longer.

For the rest of the day (Y/n)’s head was filled with thoughts of Shinobu getting a taste of her own medicine. (Y/n) had it all planned out. First, she was going to tease and flirt. How hard could that be? Shinobu made it look as easy as breathing. Then, once Shinobu had been thoroughly charmed, she would be practically begging for (Y/n) to sweep her off her feet, metaphorically of course, at least until (Y/n) wasn’t on bed arrest anymore. Then she’d kiss her and it would be Shinobu who would short circuit, Shinobu who would be at (Y/n)’s complete mercy! A foolproof plan!

(Y/n)’s chance came around midday four days later. Shinobu had been sent away on a mission soon after her meeting, giving (Y/n) plenty of time to think of how to execute her plan of action. The slayer sat upright in her bed now that she could do so herself without too much strain. She stared the door down with a determined gaze, gently scratching behind Mochi’s head while the bird stood in her lap. Any minute now she would come through that door. Prepare to be seduced, Kochou Shinobu!

A knock resonated off the door before it slid open a moment later and Shinobu glided in. Mochi cawed happily, flapping off of (Y/n)’s lap to fly around the Hashira in greeting. Shinobu simpered at the overly enthusiastic raven and told the bird about a fresh meal worm cake with his name on it. Mochi screeched and Shinobu laughed, ducking her head as Mochi flew out the door and towards the garden at mach speed. Then Shinobu closed the door behind her. Then, when she turned back and smiled a most dazzling smile that was all for (Y/n), every suave thing (Y/n) had thought to say flew right out the window. Four days of planning, completely down the drain. And all that remained was one lovestruck idiot.

“H-hey... you.” (Y/n) greeted, returning Shinobu’s smile although she was definitely screaming at herself on the inside.

“Hey yourself. You already look so much better than the last time I saw you! You’ve been keeping up with your medications and stretches, right?” Shinobu sat herself down on the edge of the bed. Her back was tilted away from (Y/n) and one leg was tucked and bent over the bed sheets while the other swung off the bed. (Y/n) also noticed that curiously, Shinobu had one hand hidden behind her back.

“Of course I have. I want to get better as soon as possible.” (Y/n) nodded resolutely. “Now,” (Y/n) tilted her head and eyed Shinobu warily, “what have you got behind your back?”

“I have something I want to test with you, a game of sorts, (Y/n).” Shinobu grinned devilishly.

“I have a feeling I don’t want to play this game if that look on your face is anything to go by.”

“Oh don’t be like that, (Y/n). I think it will be good for you. Won’t you please do this? The reward should you succeed will be very sweet.”

“Hrrrmmmm,” (Y/n) winced as she adjusted herself on the bed to sit a bit straighter and looked at Shinobu suspiciously. The Hashira’s eyes gave nothing away and (Y/n) sighed. “I suppose I could humor you. I’ve missed you after all.”

Shinobu simpered, and bounced a bit closer to (Y/n) on the bed, jostling her somewhat. Her hand was still behind her back as the other one lovingly brushed at (Y/n)’s hair. “(Y/n), you’re too sweet,” she cooed, “I missed you too.” She came even closer and nuzzled (Y/n)’s nose with hers, giving it a quick peck before withdrawing. Her face appeared to have morphed into a more serious disposition that had (Y/n) feeling both confused and filled with a sense of apprehension.

“Uh, I don’t usually associate such serious expressions with games.” (Y/n) laughed nervously.

“Perhaps I misspoke earlier,” Shinobu amended, a bit sheepishly, “It’s not a game, I should not have phrased it as such. I’m sorry. I was belittling you without you even knowing, without me realizing. I didn’t mean to, I-“

“Shinobu,” (Y/n) covered the Pillar’s free hand with her own, “it’s okay. What is it?”

“Remember what I said about exposure therapy a while back?”

“Shinobu, no.” (Y/n) backed as far as she could against the headboard, her heart beat picking up pace.

“(Y/n), I think it would be good for you. I’m not saying you have to love butterflies, I just want to help lower the distress and anxiety you feel when they are near.”

“Maybe you should focus on your own fear of furry animals before you start trying to fix my problems.” (Y/n) shook her head, her eyes flickering between Shinobu’s own and the Hashira’s hidden arm.

“I told you, it’s not a fear. I just can’t stand the mess all that shedded fur makes. Need I remind you that I’m allergic to the dander left by most of those furry beasts?” Shinobu easily countered.

(Y/n) thought back to earlier last week when Naho had smuggled in a stray dog to feed it. Kiyo and Sumi had gotten an idea in their heads that if they could hide the dog from Shinobu, they could keep it. Unfortunately, they were not very good at keeping their excitement to themselves. They had already led the dog through most of the estate, including the infirmary just before Shinobu made her morning rounds. By the time they reached (Y/n)’s room to show her the sweet pup, Shinobu was already there, trying to find some solace from the irritants that ransacked her senses. Her eyes were irritated, puffy and watery. Loud, unrefined sniffles and sneezes practically had the poor Hashira gasping for air. (Y/n)‘ s heart went out to her, but the way Shinobu’s voice sounded while she was so congested was insanely adorable.

Shinobu had admonished the girls as gently as she could between ferocious sneezes that seemed impossibly loud coming from such a small woman. (Y/n) felt bad for the girls, for the dog, but at least the dog hadn’t been a stray after all.

Fortunately, it had belonged to the Wind Pillar of all people. Giyuu had apparently been charged with watching the dog while he was away on a mission. He had lost sight of it and had been looking for the fluffy white dog all morning. (Y/n) couldn’t help but chuckle as she recalled how Shinobu shit talked Shinazugawa and Tomioka while sitting at the desk in (Y/n)’s room while she mixed herself some medication between wiping her nose and dabbing tears from her eyes.

“You were so cute!” (Y/n) thought gleefully.

“There was nothing cute about it. I felt disgusting.” Shinobu disagreed, the vein in her forehead pulsed faintly. “Now, back to the subject at hand. (Y/n), behind my back I have a specimen jar. In this jar is a butterfly that is so small, it’s wingspan is only about half the size of my pinky finger,” Shinobu slid her free hand out from under (Y/n)’s and stuck out her pinky finger, “See how small that is?”

(Y/n) had wanted to say something snarky, something along the lines of every part of Shinobu being small, but she smartly kept that comment to herself and simply nodded instead. Shinobu put her hand back down over (Y/n)’s.

“The butterfly can’t get out unless you untwist the lid. All I want you to do is hold the jar for a minute. This is a completely controlled, safe environment for you to explore your responses to butterflies. If you really don’t want to try, I won’t force you. I’m only suggesting because I really wish for you to be more comfortable here, to feel more at home.”

(Y/n)’s heart warmed at Shinobu’s admission. Yes, Shinobu had an air about her that (Y/n) felt powerless to deny, but Shinobu would never want to take advantage of her nor anyone else. Though she provoked and teased like a demon, Shinobu was endlessly kind and compassionate where it mattered.

(Y/n) gave the Hashira a nervous smile and shakily presented her hands over her lap, “Don’t mess this up Kochou. I’m only doing this because I like you so much.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Shinobu said, sincerely. Finally, she produced the specimen jar from behind her back, cupping the bottom with her opposite hand while the other held firmly from the side. She gauged (Y/n)’s expression and observed for any intense discomfort in her body language as her hands made their approach.

(Y/n) immediately locked on to the small butterfly fluttering against the glass and swallowed hard. Her throat suddenly felt unbearably dry. Despite this, she kept her palms, now slightly sweaty, upturned in front of her, waiting.

(Y/n) jolted, feeling Shinobu’s knuckles slide against her palm. The only barrier left between the glass and her skin was slipping away.

“Oh gods!” All too quickly Shinobu’s hands were gone, hovering at either side of the glass, and (Y/n) was left holding the jar. “WhoooeeeEEAH! nooo nonono fuck-!“ (Y/n) scrambled to adjust her hold, only allowing the very tips of her fingers to hold on. Of course she realized that there was a layer of glass between herself and the insect, but she couldn’t help but hastily adjust her fingers every time the small insect fluttered too close. “Shinobu!”

“It’s okay, you’re doing great!” Shinobu encouraged. “Try focusing on telling me what you notice about the butterfly.”

“It looks like it’s out for blood!” (Y/n) exclaimed sharply, not taking her eyes off the specimen jar. Her fingers still dancing clumsily around the glass.

“How about you tell me about what you can physically see that is scientifically sound.” Shinobu tried again.

“It’s blue with black edges that have little white dots and it’s fast as hell! I think it’s tongue thing is flexing at me! Why is it doing that?!”

“That’s the proboscis, (Y/n). Butterflies use it to drink the nectar from flowers.” Shinobu provided helpfully.

“I bet it would drink my blood like a mosquito if it had the chance!” (y/n) thought bitterly.

“It physically can’t, (Y/n). The proboscis is too weak too pierce skin.”

“Is that true?” (Y/n) asked skeptically, “There’s not a single butterfly that would suck me dry if it could?”

“There is not a single butterfly in all of Japan that could do that to you, (Y/n).” Shinobu assured. Of course, she had read about some species of butterflies and moths overseas that did have the capability to drink blood and even presented the salty nutrients to their mates. She wasn’t going to tell (Y/n) that bit of information anytime soon though.

“Okay, that’s actually kind of reassuring, but it still freaks me out!” (Y/n)‘s fingers had finally found purchase on the rim of the metal lid. The butterfly inside had finally calmed down and settled at the bottom of the jar, it’s wings flapping intermittently.

“That’s okay, do you think you can tell me anything else about it? Our time is just about up.”

“Its legs bend weird. Its eyes are soulless. It looks like it’s resting now but it’s just biding its time.”

“Biding it’s time before I let it back out into the garden perhaps, but it has neither the desire nor the means to harm you.” Shinobu assured.

(Y/n) pursed her lips. She was staring so intently at the insect that she hardly registered Shinobu’s movements until she was fully straddling her thighs.

“What are you doing?” (Y/n) mumbled, not taking her eyes away from the jar despite Shinobu’s change in position. The Insect Pillar did not speak, instead lifting (Y/n)’s chin up. “Hey!” (Y/n) exclaimed. She tried to keep her head down, unwilling to let the butterfly out of her sight lest it suddenly disappear. Yet, Shinobu persisted, taking either side of (Y/n)’s head in her hands, drawing closer until all (Y/n) could see was purple. “Shi-“

(Y/n)’s mind went delightfully numb, filled with a fuzzy warmth that radiated all the way down to her toes. She leaned further into the kiss, reveling in the softness of Shinobu’s lips nipping against her own. After a few more moments, (Y/n) could feel Shinobu’s lips part into a smile against her own and (Y/n) couldn’t help but do the same, resting her forehead on Shinobu’s.

“What was that for?” (Y/n) giggled breathlessly, her hands had somehow made their way to Shinobu’s neck, her fingers laced behind her head threatening to pull the Hashira back in at a moment’s notice.

“Hm? Can’t I kiss my girlfriend?” Shinobu teased, landing a quick, a more chaste, kiss to (Y/n)’s lips.

“You can, and you have, but never on the lips. What changed? I thought you were going to tease me about it forever.”

“As entertaining as that sounds, I was actually trying to do you a favor.” Shinobu grinned.

“How do you figure that?” (Y/n) asked, looking at Shinobu incredulously.

“Because now that I’ve got a taste of you, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”

“Mm!”

Another kiss more fiery and involved than the last. (Y/n) actually had to slip her hands down Shinobu’s chest and push her away so she could catch her breath.

“Not that I mind, and I really don’t mind,” (Y/n) spoke between breaths, “but what changed, why right this minute?”

“It was your reward.” Shinobu stated plainly.

“For...?”

“Oh my, you really did forget already, haven’t you? I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized I had cut off the oxygen supply to your brain so effectively.”

Suddenly (Y/n)’s eyes snapped down to her lap and yelled loud enough for Shinobu to wince and lean back a smidge. How had (Y/n) forgotten? She picked up the discarded specimen jar by the lid using her index finger and thumb and scanned the inside, shivering once she found the butterfly still inside. Then she reached to place it on the bedside table, it made a little clattering sound as she quickly removed her hand as if the glass had burned her. Pulling Shinobu closer, (Y/n) buried her face in her chest and groaned while Shinobu laughed and patted (Y/n)’s head.

“You distracted me.” (Y/n)’s muffled voice accused.

“Perhaps, but didn’t it feel nice? And look, you are no worse for wear. In fact, I might even say you looked even more relaxed than before we began.”

“So what, are you going to kiss me every time I see a butterfly? Hardly seems practical.”

“Mmm but what a lovely idea. There are certainly enough around that I could get several kisses every day. If we make a habit out of it, sooner or later when you see a butterfly, your first reaction will be to pucker up rather than screaming.” Shinobu mused.

“Can’t you just be satisfied knowing that you’re the only butterfly I have ever, and will ever like?” (Y/n) paused, “Well, you and Kanao, Aoi, Naho, Kiyo, and Sumi.”

“I’m so honored.” Shinobu smiled and rolled her eyes, still stroking (Y/n)’s hair.

“You should be. It’s a very exclusive list. But there is an even more exclusive list that only you have access to.” (Y/n) said, returning to an upright position to face Shinobu once more.

“And what list would that be?”

(Y/n) tilted her head and stole another kiss from Shinobu who eagerly reciprocated, chasing (Y/n)’s lips even as she pulled away, giggling.

“The list of butterflies that I could not be happier to kiss.”

#kny x reader #kny oneshots #demon slayer x reader #demon slayer oneshots #shinobu kocho #shinobu kochou #shinobu x reader #shinobu kocho x reader #shinobu kochou x reader

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utakoi · 3 years

Text

So I’m just testing out theories to see if this’ll show up in the tags, sooo... yeah sorta a repost? But not really?

The Hierophant - Could this darling’s yandere fool them easily? Or be manipulated by them?

Y’all this boy is a simp, so yeah you can manipulate him pretty easily.

You can act all nice and lovey dovey towards him and he’ll give in to your demands pretty easily, even if the gestures are obviously forced or have an undertone of manipulation. You can do any little thing that just barely counts as affection and he’ll melt. Clothes? Jewelry? Games? Books? Yes, of course he’ll get you what you asked for, just please please please keep giving him your affection.

And if you call him your hero? He’d pull down the moon right out of the night sky if you asked him to.

Now let’s get this straight: he’d give you whatever materialistic thing you ask for, but if you ask for time outside alone or a simple phone call to your friends or family, he won’t hesitate to say no.

He’s delusional, but he’s not that delusional to the point that he thinks he can trust you to not slip away from him when given the chance.

But hey, least you’ll get that game you’ve been aching to play.

The Fool - How deluded is this yandere when it comes to their darling? Are they self aware on any level?

Very deluded.

If you’re the type of darling who’s ready to scratch at his skin and curse at him until your voice goes hoarse, he’ll just chalk it up to you throwing a tantrum and that it’ll pass once you get used to your new home. He’d even find it quite endearing. You’re so feisty! He loves your fighting spirit. If you need to let out steam, he’s happy to be your punching bag!

If you’re more of the teary-eyed type darling, he’ll convince himself that you’re just crying tears of happiness now that you’re under his care, even if you keep begging him to set you free. God, you’re so pretty when you cry. He can’t help but adore the tears that just roll down your cute cheeks and the way your bottom lip quivers as you try to hold in your whimpers.

Basically, whatever type of reaction his darling has towards him, he’ll twist it into some sort of affection or reason with himself that time will pass and you’ll eventually see just how happy you’ll be by his side.

The Hierophant - Could this darling’s yandere fool them easily? Or be manipulated by them?

No, there’s a 0% chance of this. His darling can pull out all the stops: good morning kisses, voluntary cuddles, ego-stroking compliments, etc etc… This man will see right through it. He’ll act like he doesn’t, though, just to keep the affection going for a little while longer.

He’ll happily receive your kisses and caresses until the day you decide to cash in.

If it’s for materialistic things, then Katsuki may consider it. Sure, he knows lots of your romantic gestures were fake, but at least you put in some effort into making him happy. It’s really just a 50/50 on whether or not you get the item you ask for.

If it was to lower his guard enough to escape or build up enough trust to ask for some time outside, he’ll squash down your hopes and berate you. Before that though, he’ll just smirk and narrow his eyes, staring you down like a hunter does his prey. You’d likely be able to piece together that he knew about your little scheme the entire time, and somehow, the crushing feelings of humiliation and foolishness from being played right from the very beginning is almost as bad as the punishment he has in store for you.

Almost.

The Fool - How deluded is this yandere when it comes to their darling? Are they self aware on any level?

Katsuki’s very aware that what he’s doing to you is messed up. What kind of hero stalks and abducts the love of their life?

But he just can’t help it and honestly, he blames you for his actions.

Why couldn’t you just return his feelings? Why couldn’t you just give him a chance? Why couldn’t you just stop being such a tease? Why couldn’t you just accept your defeat and let him win?

You pushed him to this point, so you’ve just gotta deal with it, darling.

If it makes you feel any better, he does feel some guilt over this whole situation, but it’s overpowered by his absolute need for you.

The Hierophant - Could this darling’s yandere fool them easily? Or be manipulated by them?

We all know Shoto’s not exactly familiar with physical affection, so he’s pretty touch starved. We also know that he’d be loaded once he debuts as a pro, so he has the money to spoil you.

In summary, you can just barely graze him with your finger tips and he’d hand you his credit card.

The affection you give him also builds trust in you. You’re showing him you love him! Hooray! Happy ending! He’s finally got the love of his life! Woo-hoo!

Now let’s say you manipulate him in order to escape.

He’s shattered.

His trust in you would be broken forever. He’ll definitely catch you, there’s no doubt about that. He has the hero resources to help him out, the public’s good view of him, and the lack of fear to pay some villains to track you down. You have nothing in comparison to him. At most, you’d be able to have a single day of freedom.

Once he finally has you again, he’s just a mix of emotions.

He’s relieved that you’re back in his arms.

He’s angry that you tried to escape.

He’s heartbroken that the affection you gave him was all a ploy.

He’s still hopeful that the “I love you”s, at least just one, were genuine.

You’ll be punished, but just know that Shoto believes that the fraction of pain you feel is just a fraction of what he feels.

The Fool - How deluded is this yandere when it comes to their darling? Are they self aware on any level?

Not deluded, but not completely sane either.

Shoto’s never felt romantic feelings before, so all the intense jealousy and longing for you is making his head spin. He thinks his territorial feelings towards you are justified, as hinted by this ask; you’ve shown that your care for him is genuine, so that means you’re his and he’s yours, simple as that.

However, he also knows that his actions are slightly reminiscent of his father’s, especially when he finally abducts you. Isn’t he kind of forcing you into a marriage, much like Endeavor did to his mom? But you truly love him, right? It’s not the same.

He has to convince remind himself of that.

It’s an inner battle he has from time to time.

But when he has those moments, all he really has to do is wrap you in his arms and suddenly, all he can feel is happiness.

#yandere bnha #yandere mha #bnha imagines #mha imagines #izuku midoriya x reader #midoriya izuku x reader #shoto todoroki x reader #todoroki shoto x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugo katuski x reader #asks <3 #tarot ask game

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insomniziam · 2 years

Note

teenager has been posting about liam non stop she's being so annoying

Anon 2: it's so sad to start the year with that laya pic hopefully this will end this year for good

I could not agree with the both of you more! The level of desperation this girl has is incredibly sad. I mean, three photos of them ‘kissing;’ in two days is incredibly excessive.

And I know that these kind of photos tend to freak people out, because why would someone in a long term relationship willingly kiss someone who isn’t their SO? Well, other than the obvious contractual obligation argument, I would make the argument that in each photo, he’s not actually kissing her.

Let’s take a quick look, shall we? I apologise into advance, but I wouldn’t be doing this unless I thought it was absolutely hilarious, and boy is it hilarious 😂

(I’m putting it under the cut for those who don’t want to see the photos, but you might want to, because you will be laughing by the end of it)

First photo:

Angling is incredibly important, for this photo in particular. From afar, it looks like a cute couple kissing on NY, but when you look at it closer, it’s incredibly obvious how staged it is.

Just looking at her lips at all (again, I cannot apologise enough), her lips aren’t even angled towards his, but rather his cupid’s bow:

As you can see where the line is, her lips are angled upwards and actually land on his cupid’s bow. To make matter’s even funnier, is the fact that Liam clearly isn’t kissing her at all.

His lips aren’t even puckered, like they would be if it were a normal couple kissing. They’re completely flat, and aren’t even making contact with her at all. His mouth is sort of just hanging open.

If he were actually kissing her back, his bottom lip would be pulled down. See comparison:

So, as you can see, Liam is clearly not kissing her in this photo, and - at the most - she’s kissing the side of his cupids bow 😂

Now, onto photo no. 2:

I don’t think I need to say much about this one, because it’s pretty much just a repeat of the previous photo - she’s kissing the side of his cupid’s bow, and his lips aren’t even touching her’s.

But I think it should be noted that this was the last photo of three, the first two are promotions:

She’s not one for subtlety, is she? 😂

Last photo, which was posted a day later, and also notably, only to her story:

This one, to me is the absolute funniest. He has one hand stuck in his pocket, while the other one rests limply on her back. Not all that passionate for a supposed engaged couple 😂

But the absolute best thing about this photo, is when you zoom in and pay attention to Liam’s lips:

His lips are pressed to her chin 🤣

I don’t know how laya fans can explain this one away, but they do say ignorance is bliss.

And then she made another post promoting a friend who was also at that same NYE party 🤦‍♀️

I think it’s also important to note, and probably incredibly obvious, that having a quick look at her social blade will tell you that the only time she is actually gaining followers on Instagram is when she has Liam explicitly in the photo.

I have yet to hear a legitimate response as to how obvious it is that she uses him for promo and attention, when it’s right there in the numbers.

Nobody gives a damn about her unless Liam is somehow involved. It was like that before they started dating, and it’ll continue long after they finally end this façade of a relationship.

She’s trying incredibly hard to be the next Gigi, but it’s not working for her because she doesn’t have the Jenners or Swift like the Hadids had to mooch off of as well as Zayn, nor the likeability, either (I don’t personally see the Hadids as all that likeable, but there are plenty that do for reasons completely unknown to me), and her numbers reflect that.

I think that she knows this pretty well, and this is why she’s trying milk it as much as possible before Liam is finally allowed to be free of her and her desperation for good. And based on just how much she has been pushing it lately - that it might (key word here) mean that we are nearing the end.

I know that her making these kinds of posts tends to upset people, but I honestly find it so much easier to laugh at them. Because not only does each post just provide more evidence of just how fake their relationship is, but it shows just how desperate she is for that attention, and a makes me a little satisfied that she knows that once Liam leaves, she won’t have that anymore.

And that’s what I chose to focus on. Because as much as this sucks for Liam at the moment to be stuck stunting with someone so desperate for attention and someone he clearly doesn’t like at all, it’s going to be infinitely worse for her when she doesn’t have that attention she’s prone to isn’t there once Liam is out of the picture.

#answered asks #anonymous #laya is fake #photo analysis #stage kissing #pr relationships #fake relationship #free liam #stunting #1d #Liam Payne #Maya Henry

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mermaidxatxheart · 3 years

Text

Better Together Chapter 3

Here's chapter three. I'll keep this short. Let me know what you think. If you like this chapter and want to be added to my tag list, please let me know. Reblogs are most welcome, it lets others view my work. Comments are even better, it lets me know I'm doing a good job-we all need validation once in a while.

Word Count: 3155

Warnings: Violence, language, Poe being cute.

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

The cliffs are further than you originally thought. Your legs are cramping, throbbing. Poe lets you rest as long as he can but it’s still crucial to reach the elusive cliffs before dark.

He helps you over massive logs, crooked roots, down sharp hills. His hands are firm on your waist as he lifts you over fallen branches, they’re steady in yours as he helps you clamber over the gnarled roots.

He never once complains, never once tells you to get over it, never once makes you feel weak or useless. Every once in a while, he’ll glance over his shoulder at you, his pretty eyes lingering on your face for a second before smiling. You can feel his eyes on you as you stoop to gather the vegetation samples. He’s never intrusive, only giving his help when you request it.

“I’ve thought of another reason the bugs are so big.” You huff, hauling yourself over another massive branch.

“Tell me.” He wipes his forehead.

“The trees are so big, they’re pumping so much O2 into the air that the bugs can get big enough to take as much as they need in.”

“Come again?”

“Bugs have big tubes that intake oxygen through their skin to their organs, bypassing the need for lungs. In the places we’ve populated, the oxygen level is way down compared to this place. They’d die before the air ever gets to their organs.”

“How do you fit so much in that brain of yours?” He chuckles and you roll your eyes, clinging to his shoulders as he lifts you over another root.

Finally-finally, the base of the cliffs come into view and you let out a sigh of relief. The light is already getting dimmer, so you’re just barely in time. Then you take a second to look up at the sheer wall of rocks in front of you. It shoots straight up, higher than you can even see at this range. The edge disappears into the clouds and you know there’s no way you can climb to the top. You’ll have to find a way around.

But maybe, if there’s a natural cave system, the mechs can make a decent base inside.

You follow Poe along the wall, resisting the urge to drop your arms. Now that the end of your day is in sight, your shoulders feel tighter than ever after holding your holopad in front of you all day.

Up ahead. You can see the shadow darker than the rest surrounding it. Poe seems to already have spotted it, turning towards it. His head swivels around to glance at the forest behind you.

“How’s that gut, kid?” He tosses over his shoulder at you and you want to make a snide remark about being the same age. But you don’t.

“Hard to tell. Relieved at finding the cave. But.” You leave it hanging.

“But.” He agrees, turning towards the entrance of the cave. He digs into his bag, pulling out a torch. You take it from him, falling into step next to him.

“Poe,” you start, shining the light towards the back of the cave.

“We’ll just go back about two hundred feet, just to make sure it’s empty. Then we’ll camp at the entrance.” He promises, looking over at you. You nod and follow him back. The sharp pebbles littering the cave floor jab into the bottom of your feet, but complaining about it won’t do much good now.

Two hundred feet back and it’s clear, no bones, no signs of a nest. Good to camp in. Poe shoulders his long gun and turns towards you, taking your hand and leading you back to the mouth of the cave.

“I’ll go get some firewood, start setting up camp.” He says, squeezing your hand once before leaving the cave once more.

You glance nervously towards the darkness behind you, before starting to pull materials out of your bag. You manage to scrape out an even space for two sleeping bags and a campfire in the middle. You get the meal rations out just as he starts to come back with his muscular arms full of wood.

“Looks good.” He comments, dumping the hardwood off to the side. While he sets up the fire, your eyes are searching the trees across from the cave, the splintered shards of rock creating a beach almost, a boundary from the thick grass.

You can still hear the creaking and groaning from the trees. At some points, with the right echo, it’s almost as if they’re alive. The trees sound as though they’re moving, waking up as the last of the light disappears. The constant groans during the day were just them shifting in their sleep, now they’re ready to move.

Did they sense the presence of two tiny beings crawling around them? Are they coming for you now? Or are you too minuscule in comparison and therefore not worth the hassle?

“What’s going on in that big brain of yours?” Poe asks, looking up from the crackling fire.

“What if the trees are alive?” You ask worriedly and he laughs, pushing himself to come over and stand behind you.

“Okay, you’re way too tense. The trees aren’t alive. The wind is picking up out there, I think the temperature is about to drop. It’s natural for wood to expand and contract as it shifts. And if they are alive? Well, they’re too fucking tall to get us in here. I didn’t cut any trees to get this wood, just picked up what was scattered around.” He promises, those big, warm hands settling on your shoulders. You tense at the sudden touch, but it’s Poe-he's not going to hurt you. He would never hurt you.

“I might be a little uptight.” You admit sheepishly.

“It’s all the lack of orgasming.” He teases.

You open your mouth to fire back, but then his thumbs press deliciously into the flesh of your back and shoulders, and you’re cut off with a strangled moan. He squeezes, and then drags his thumbs up towards your hairline, your head dropping forward onto your chest and electric arcs race along your spine. He alternates his thumbs, pushing in and stroking upward on either side of your spinal column. Heat spirals through you as he slowly, methodically works all the tight muscles out of your back and shoulders. All the stress from worrying, all the aches from carrying the heavy pack and your holopad all day.

“Poe-“ you groan and he chuckles, guiding you forward to lay face down on your sleeping bag.

“Relax. We’ll eat in a minute.” He says softly, his breath ghosting across the back of your neck. His hands are strong, manipulating your flesh to get all the knots out along your back. He uses his knuckles to work out the taut muscles between your shoulder blades, easing the tension out of the bands of overworked, under appreciated tissue. He drags his fingertips up into your scalp and the stretch of it is heavenly. He squeezes the tightly wound muscles at the base of your neck and it sends tingles all the way down your spine as your breath comes out in a woosh.

Your eyes drift closed, drowning in the feel of it. He slowly works his way down the outside on your arms, getting all the sore muscles and you have to roll your face into your blanket to stifle the noise. To his immense credit, he doesn’t say anything to make you feel bad or embarrassed. He just keeps working until you’re a boneless mess in front of him. His hands grip your open ones down by your hips as he pauses.

“I’d offer to massage your legs, but even I know that’s too far.” He says teasingly and it’s probably a good call. But then he mumbles something under his breath, a little too quiet for you to hear properly, but it almost sounds like “I know my own limits.”

You start to push yourself up, but he stops you. “I never said I was done. Your feet must be killing you if mine are any indication.”

“You’re not wrong.” You mumble, laying back down. You shift and roll over onto your back, feeling your spine release the last bit of tension and it cracks as you exhale fully.

He eases your boots off and you flex your toes, trying to prepare for the inevitable tickling as soon as he touches you. He grips your ankle, all firm touches as he sits and pulls your foot onto his knee.

He glances at your face, which holds some kind of look of distress. “Don’t worry, I remember. I’m not looking to get kicked in the mouth again.” He grins, easing your apprehension once more.

“Why are you so good at this?” You sigh, resting your head back.

“At massages? I’ve had lots of practice.” He says casually.

You snort, having no doubt. “I meant all of it, dummy. Being isolated like this, you’re not afraid, you’re not losing your mi-iiind.” You gasp as he digs his first knuckle into the heel of your foot.

“You’re not losing your mind.” He laughs, dragging it up through your arch, adding more pressure so it won’t tickle. “And I’m okay with it because of you.” He adds. “You said that the bugs are big because they don’t have to be fast for survival. So, honestly, we’re probably the most dangerous things here.”

“So, why am I all jittery?” You ask, toes flexing as he presses his thumbs into your arch. Maker, it feels good.

“I don’t know. Maybe you don’t trust me to have your back?” He says, and you know it’s a joke. He would never believe that, so you roll your eyes.

“You are such a jerk. I take it back. You’re the absolute worst.” You huff and he grins.

“You tell me, Y/N. What’s making you so on edge? Why are you so nervous? Don’t sugar coat or rationalize.” He prompts.

You think for a long minute. “The trees creaking? It’s always behind us. Never once has it come from in front of you. It’s always behind me. Sometimes, I felt like something was coming up behind us, not a butterfly or anything. But I’d turn around and there was nothing there, nothing I could see, anyway. And when we would stop for water, or because of my weak ass legs, I would feel eyes on me. Something was watching us, it felt wrong and dangerous. Predatory. Even though we might be the only sentient beings on this planet, I don’t think we’re the most dangerous. It doesn’t feel that way.” You shake your head.

He’s quiet for a long time, working out the arches of your foot. “Alright. We’ll stick together. No going off on your own to take a leak, or get some pretty flowers. If you go, I go. Understand? If you’re that freaked out, or sensing something that strongly, we stay together.” He says, meeting your eyes.

“Deal.” You agree. He finishes with your feet and you push yourself up, gesturing for him to lay down.

“What?” He asks.

“Your turn. Fair is fair, and you know I’m good at it.” You remind him and he chuckles, laying down for you. You straddle the back of his thighs as he lays face down on your sleeping bag and you start with the thickly corded muscles in his back. You work slowly, being just as methodical as he was. By the time you get to the base of his scalp with his thick, luscious dark hair, his breathing has evened out and it’s shallow. If he’s not already asleep, he will be soon. You work out the tension in his hands, spreading the tight muscles with the pads of your thumbs. He makes a soft noise and you smile down at him, brushing his soft hair out of his eyes.

You shift down to his feet, easing his shoes off, working the heels and arches until his soft snores reach you. You chuckle to yourself and lean over him, pressing a kiss to his big shoulder as you take his rifle and go to sit by the door of the cave for the first watch.

He sleeps for a while, the massage clearly helps. You eat your food while you watch the night bugs float by. They’re huge, but thankfully don’t seem interested in you. About halfway through the night, Poe jerks awake with a start, looking around.

“Over here.” You call, pushing yourself up.

“I can’t believe you let me sleep.” He mumbles, wiping his eyes before pulling you into a hug. You rest your head on his chest for a moment, listening to his heart, strong and steady, as he’s always been.

“Well, it would hardly be fair for me to lull you to sleep and then wake you up to take the first watch.” You grin. “Besides, you needed sleep.”

He pulls back and cups your face gently. “You okay?” He asks. That’s what you love about Poe, he’s never been shy. If he wants to touch you, he will. Holding hands, hugs, pushing your arm, guiding you through a crowd. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t particularly care for your boyfriend, or maybe that’s just who he is as a person. But you like the honesty of it. He’s never changed a part of himself to suit anyone else.

“Yeah. I didn’t shoot any bugs by accident.” You shrug and he grins.

“That’s my girl, keeping it together one thread at a time.” He teases and you laugh, dropping your head forward.

“Go get something to eat. I’m gonna go use the little girl’s tree and then get some sleep myself.” You yawn, handing him the gun back.

“Did you forget what I said already?” He rolls his eyes. “If you go, I go.” He nudges you towards the entrance. “Go pee. And then I can get food.”

“It's right there.” You complain.

“What if I’m over there, stuffing my face, and you’re over here with your pants down, and some bat the size of a bantha carries you off into the night? How am I supposed to make it back to the ship?”

“So, you’re admitting you’re useless without me?” You tease and he searches your eyes for a minute before straightening and walking past you, shoulders brushing softly.

“Yes.” He adds and you pump your fists in triumph, turning to follow him. He leads you to the nearest tree, and waits on the side facing the cave while you walk into the dark shadows. Admittedly, you’re much less brave now. It’s so dark, neither of the planet’s two moons are visible behind the cloud cover. The only light is from Poe’s flashlight.

You quickly unbuckle your pants and lean back against the tree, nerves rattled. Your bladder freezes, refusing to relax.

“What’s the hold up?” He asks.

“You’re listening.” You mutter, trying to coax it out by repeatedly tensing and relaxing your muscles.

“Seriously? Now you have stage fright? It’s not like I haven’t heard you go before.” He reminds you and you cover your face with a groan. Shit, he’s right. Just fucking do it.

“Can you just… like… five steps, that’s all I’m asking.” You please and he grumbles but stomps loud enough for you to hear him walk away. It takes another second, but finally, you go. Peeing against a tree is hard work when you have a vagina.

You take care of your business and buckle up, walking back around the tree to find Poe exactly where you left him, having not walked away at all. “Dirty, rotten trickster.” You mutter and he slings his arm around your shoulders.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“I’m not answering you. Good night.” You huff and turn to leave him at the entrance, before you pause and turn back. You quickly kiss his cheek and mumble a quick “eat something,” before walking away completely. The kiss was unprompted, and probably not very professional, but he very easily could have made you feel crazy earlier and didn’t.

You settle down on your sleeping bag in front of the fire, a chill sweeping through you. It’s not cold outside, but it could just be from being still for so long.

After a minute, you can hear him rustling through his bag and then the fire gets warmer in front of you. You smile and drift into unconsciousness.

In your dream, Poe is talking to you. You can’t quite hear what he’s saying, his words are muffled, and every once in a while, the crackling from the fire drowns him out. But his words are soft and gentle. His eyes are looking at your sleeping form, warm and melted chocolate in the light of the flames.

You move, ghost like, towards the opening, drawn to something outside. But the outside isn’t the same. There aren’t any trees as tall as the buildings on Coruscant. There’s white walls, smooth black floors; cold-sterile. A door hisses open to your right and you’re sucked through like a vacuum. This room is all black, red lights dot the walls sporadically and there are two uncomfortable looking contraptions in the middle, tables with metal straps, but upright and facing each other.

The floor drops out from under you and there are two men fighting with lightsabers, one a wicked looking double edged red blade, the other an elegant, cool blue. The one with the red saber, his face is horrifying, red and black streaks down his face and dangerous horns protruding from his bald head. The other man is young, short reddish hair, cream colored robes. They’re fighting for their lives around a massive return tunnel in the center of the floor.

A big gust of wind blows you down the tunnel and you cry out, rolling to a stop in the middle of the trees. You don’t know where you are, all the giant landscape looks the same. Your heart is pounding wildly as you turn around. Something is definitely alive, definitely evil.

As you turn, you spot your best friend, your partner, your commander. He’s fighting someone. You can’t see who, they’re just a dark shape-an outline. “Poe!” You cry out, trying to move through the dense foliage to get to him, to help him!

The shadowy figure pulls a knife out of thin air and plunges it into Poe’s chest, dead center. His warm brown eyes flick over to you as you scream, the earth trembling with your anger. The shadowy figure pulls the knife slowly from his chest and then stabs it up through his jaw, into his soft palate, piercing his brain. You scream, feeling your entire being shake apart at the molecular level, dispersing into the wind as Poe slumps to the ground, unmoving.

Chapter Four

Everything Tag List

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sukiglycerin · 3 years

Text

the scrapbook documenting denki kaminari and his experiences with love, subtlety, and volumes of manga || denki kaminari.

* pairing: denki kaminari x oblivious!reader (gender neutral!)

* genre: fluff, normal conflict(??) but not much, uni!au, friends to lovers, mutual pining, idiots to lovers

* words: 4.5k

* warnings: brief scenario of intoxication, mentions of maidgirls (one of them has a gun because mey-rin from kuroshitsuji), reader has past bad experiences with relationships, bakusquad is supportive af, reader is oblivious (duh), i love sero, side kiribaku

* original request: Can you do a fluff Denki crushing on the reader but the reader is really oblivious to him just badly flirting and bakusquad gets annoyed and helps them get together 😳

* a/n: this turned out much longer than expected, but i’m satisfied with the turn-out! i call this a “scrapbook” because it’s like a collection of short moments. i’m experimenting with this writing style, so i hope you enjoy it! i started writing reader by basing them off of this one pretty girl i know (and very much like), but then reader started morphing into me projecting myself and oh boy. yeah. fun fact: i actually own the kuroshitsuji manga volume with the maidgirl on the cover (volume 22).

“please don’t like me,” is the first thing you say to denki kaminari. you don’t know who he is, though, when you say these words. all you know is that he’s presumably a college student like you and that he’s quite extroverted. behind him stand three of his friends giggling to themselves. it’s apparent they’re playing a practical joke.

the first thing the blond boy said to you was, “hey, you’re cute, i like you.” that was thirty seconds ago, after you’d put your manga down when you noticed his friends pushing him towards you.

he cracks a grin upon your response. “alright.” he puts his hands up in mock surrender. “the point still stands - you’re cute.” his eyes fall to the manga you set down. “hey- is that detective conan?”

it’s an old, worn copy of detective conan’s first volume.

“oh, yeah,” you reply.

“can i see it?” he asks. you nod.

he picks up the book, surprisingly gentle with its fading corners and creased spine.

"i used to read the series all the time," he says quietly, reliving a memory in his eyes. "i always tried to solve the crime before conan."

you're not sure what to answer, but he introduces himself before you can.

"i'm kaminari, by the way." he slips a piece of paper in your manga, setting the book down on your table. "text me."

“please don’t fall in love with me,” is the first thing you whisper to denki kaminari, hushed under the sheets in mina’s room. you're surprised he can hear you over the quiet murmurings of a ghibli movie playing on the tv; you're surprised he's awake.

“okay,” and it’s the first promise he’s ever broken, voice all low and hoarse from the after-effects of prolonged silence.

(maybe he should've feigned sleep, he later thinks, as his heart stupidly falls and crashes clumsily into love. maybe he shouldn't have said anything at all.)

he turns onto his back, staring at the ceiling. it's dotted with glow-in-the-dark stars mina and sero had impulsively hung up one friday evening instead of studying. there's a couple moons, too, which bakugou had frowned upon, stating, "where are we, jupiter? there's only one moon orbiting earth." kirishima laughed.

from the sound of shuffling sheets and a quick glance next to him, denki can tell you're now laying on your back, too. he almost makes a comment about you copying him. he stares at the faux stars overhead, not tired enough to close his eyes and allow sleep it's victory for the night. there's not much to do while awake at the moment other than strain his ear to decipher to the tv's audio. his throat feels dry, but he's not motivated enough to sit up to grab a water bottle. anyway, he supposes you and he are staring at the same sky, in a cheesy way. he remembers reading something like that in a book.

he kills the time and his aching mind by finding stupid constellations in the stick-on stars. there's a slightly distorted dipper of some sort, and a heart. there's a lot of squares. there's a shape he passes off as orion, but he knows anyone a tad more into astronomy than him would gasp at the abstract shape and completely dismiss its resemblance to orion.

eventually, your breathing slows to a rhythmic pace beside him. the logical part of his mind tells him to sleep now that you, too, are sleeping. he doesn't know why he waited for you to be asleep first. one pentagon constellation later, kaminari allows sleep's gaze to wash over and envelope him. the ghibli movie is still playing.

it seems that his friends have beat him, somehow, to the conclusion that denki kaminari has a bit of a crush on you. it's childish, really. he shouldn't like you, recalling your first words to him. they struck you apart from other people he'd met. back then, though, he never seriously thought about you like that. sure, you were conventionally attractive (enough for him to approach you to give you his number), but it was all in good fun. that's what you were, too, for the longest time: good fun and a friend.

until one day, glances lingered for too long while you weren't looking. one day, kaminari's jokes became more and more aimed for you, to hear your laughter in his ears. one day, kaminari realizes he has your usual coffee and bubble tea order memorized, when he can barely remember his own.

he pretends all of it is completely normal, but mina assures him differently. as does bakugou, which is strange, because he's usually not wrapped up in other people's affairs (when voicing this to the blond, he responded, "it's hard not to notice because you're too damn obvious"). it's kind of hard to ignore when bakugou calls it obvious (he's literally had kirishima pining over him since day one with no notice).

kaminari really does try to ignore the bubbling feeling rising at the bottom of his heart. he really does, but you keep on shaking and shaking his poor heart until it's all fizzy like a bottle of soda. he's weak, okay? one day, he’ll explode.

his friends are all urging him to confess to you already, but he cannot work up the nerve to do so. instead, kaminari drops you obvious hints that he likes you. he doesn't know whether you're completely oblivious to them or if you're deliberately ignoring them.

he's been so painfully obvious, he swears.

he's practically able to write a list of hints he's dropped. he's fairly confident he could publish it as an advice book with the title "how to tell your crush you like them without saying 'i like you.'" by this point, he's the king of obvious subtlety.

the list would go something like this, in no particular order:

pick-up lines

"did it hurt, when you fell-" you were silent, "-from the vending machine? because you're a snack."

silence. absolute radio silence. he was extremely tempted to run away from the sheer awkwardness between the two of you. as he turned to leave and freak out in private, he heard you mumble a belated "thanks," which made everything worth it.

he still left to freak out, though (and plan his next pick-up line to tell you).

manga references

"hey, y/n," kaminari had said one day, after a particular burst of confidence. you hadn't looked up from your book.

"if i were shinichi from detective conan, you'd be ran," he'd said, referencing the main love interests from the manga. "or maybe vice versa. you are the smart one in this relationship..."

you didn't bat an eye. "they never get together, though? shinichi and ran."

"they- they don't?!" he'd sputtered indignantly. he definitely needed to read up his detective conan lore. "but they both like each other?"

"true," you'd replied in typical you fashion, neither letting on whether you did like him or not. well, hey, kaminari had thought. you didn't deny it. progress.

hand size comparison (which was, in reality, just an excuse to kind of hold your hand)

kaminari had smoothly been planning this for weeks (which, according to sero, was a little sad). he'd bring up the topic of hands one day in your daily conversations, then nonchalantly slip a "oh, y/n, let's do a hand size comparison!" he high-fived himself mentally upon the formulation of this genius plan - you'd definitely fall for him (or at least, realize his feelings for you - this state of teetering between do they like me or do they not like me frustrated him for months on end). the perfect opportunity presented itself one day as the two of you lounged in mina’s room (which, at this point, had become you and your friends’ hangout spot) studying.

“wow, you type fast,” kaminari remarked as he pretended to innocently look up from the “work” (changing his laptop wallpaper for the tenth time that day) he was doing. you were focused on your work, sitting on mina’s bed with your laptop propped up by a pillow on your lap. you’d barely registered his words, judging by the way your eyebrows scrunched and how you looked up at him after a slow beat.

“oh, uh, thanks,” you replied. “i’m just copying some text down. i don’t usually type this fas…” you trailed off, eyes widening as you watched kaminari scooching next to you on the bed. he put his hand next to yours, whose fingers still ghosted the keys of your keyboard.

“look,” he said softly, bringing your hands up to eye level. “hand size comparison.” it was breathed out belatedly, but your crystalline eyes didn’t leave his. he started to curve his fingers in between yours, holding your hand so tenderly. he really, really didn’t want to let go. “we fit.” it was a whisper he wasn’t sure you could hear - did he want you to hear it? “like… a puzzle,” he added awkwardly.

you nodded, dazed, slowly bending your fingers over his. he rocked your clasped hands side to side, a fond feeling creeping through his limbs. it was warm and tingly - and maybe it was contagious. could you feel it too, buzzing past his fingertips to you?

precisely three minutes passed before kaminari’s arm started to ache. he didn’t catch your disappointed expression when he let go of your hand, but he did catch the smile that emerged when he held your hand as the sides of your fingers nudged the bed. you didn’t get much work done after that, sitting in silence with him.

brushing your hand in a popcorn bucket

movie nights on fridays were commonplace at mina’s. the plan, this time, was created by kirishima, who said that it was manly with just the right amount of romantic. kaminari hoped so. the movie settled on was some romance flick, as decided by mina, kirishima, and sero’s pleading with a very begrudging bakugou.

he can’t remember much of the movie. what he can remember, however, is the very close presence of you next to him as the two of you shared a popcorn bucket (courtesy of sero’s very romantic ideas). your hands brushed a (purposeful, on kaminari’s end) dozen times throughout the film. the last couple were accidents. on the first time, though, kaminari watched with satisfaction from his peripheral view as you looked from him to the popcorn that obscured the place where your hands made contact. he was very satisfied by the time the movie ended.

truth or drink (which just ended up with you and he both getting very, very drunk)

you didn’t particularly enjoy the taste of sake, but that night was an exception. according to your drunken explanation, you had a very rough day. your exam, first and foremost, did not go particularly well (“who cares about freud!?” you blurted. “i dooooon’t!”). kaminari didn’t have the heart to ask who this freud was. then, one of your close friends confessed to you (which almost made kaminari’s heart stop, when you first recounted it to him), and you had to turn them down. you adamantly refused any sort of relationship, you told kaminari. (“nuh uh,” you shook your head. “they’re not good.”) it was surprising to him that you opened up that night. your first couple drinks left you quieter than usual - which was scary, because kaminari was practically having a conversation with himself then. a couple more drinks loosened your tongue, though.

“there’s someone i like.” you jabbed a finger at him. “but i’m not supposed to saaaay… and it’s scaaary,” you slurred.

“ohh?” kaminari asked, more focused on the burn in the back of his throat. “whooo is it?”

you looked at your arm outstretched to him, and the pieces fell into place slower than they should’ve. he first looked around, just in case he was covering the person you were really pointing to (of course, you and him were the only ones there).

“this guy?" he asked, flabbergasted and pointing to himself. "him?!"

you nodded solemnly. "but i don't like dating," you said stubbornly. "love is dead!" you announced, flopping on the carpet.

kaminari watched the heaving of your breaths as you lay on the ground, and strained his ears to hear your soft, soberish murmuring.

"i really like you, denki kaminari."

a dopish grin formed itself on his face. "i really like you too, y/n."

kaminari then promptly blacked out, but not before hearing you running to the bathroom to throw up.

as of now, he can’t recall anything he or you said that night. on the contrary, he can vividly remember the ringing in his head and the sickly feeling that overtook him the next morning.

"you two are so frustrating!" mina declares over her sweetened iced tea. she points at kaminari, then to you standing with sero in the distance. you’re animatedly talking about some painting (“it’s renoir!” you mooned when you first saw it) while he and the rest of the group sit on a nearby bench.

kaminari puts his hands up. “don’t look at me - i tried my best!”

“yeah, sure,” mina dismisses. “and i’m the queen of england.”

“i mean, they already told me not to like them!” kaminari counters. “what am i supposed to do about that?”

“shoot your shot!” mina urges. “c’mon, what’s the worst that could happen? …wait, don’t answer that.”

“yeah, kaminari, bro,” kirishima puts his elbow on kaminari’s shoulder. “flirt a little bit more.”

“that’s all you two seem to do,” bakugou grumbles from the other side of kirishima.

“you just need a little push,” mina says. kaminari isn’t sure he likes mina’s definition of push.

“i think i’m g-”

“hey, sero, come here!” mina calls to sero in the distance, earning her a couple dirty glances from others in the gallery. “kaminari wants to look at the painting with y/n.”

oh, god, kaminari groans internally. sero, already walking toward the bench, flashes a knowing grin toward him.

“go get ‘em, champ.” sero pats kaminari on the back as the blond stands up, emitting a low, audible groan.

the four on the bench watch as your eyes light up at the approaching kaminari, who’s sheepishly scratching his neck. he says something - then you start again, rambling something about “impressionism” then “salon.” mina watches with clasped, anticipating hands; kirishima’s hand accidentally brushes bakugou’s, who’s holding a juice box and watching the two of you; sero simply smiles with knowledge that the others are unaware of.

“well, what do you think?” you finally ask kaminari, gesturing to the painting.

“uhh,” kaminari says. he was too busy staring at your face - the twinkle in your eyes, the curve of your lips - to pay attention to any of what you’d said. something about impressing and fleeting moments. he looks at the person depicted in the composition, then back to you. he remembers kirishima’s words - flirt a little bit more. it couldn’t hurt, could it?

“i think it’s pretty,” he leans into you, murmuring so he can be sure no one but you and he hears his words, “but it’s definitely not as pretty as you.”

you look down at yourself; then, for whatever reason, to sero. kaminari looks at sero, too, who’s wearing this stupid smile that sets unease in kaminari’s chest. he gives you two big thumbs-up. he’s so confused by sero’s behavior that he barely registers the light sensation of something on his cheek - a kiss. he looks at you, who’s looking away, then to the bench, where his friends are cheering despite the disapproving looks from those around them. he touches his cheek out of disbelief. light swells in his chest - it’s warm, so warm - but your aloof voice brings him back to reality (which really, isn’t much different from a dream).

“kaminari, you’re very red right now.”

“the two of you,” mina exclaims with the two of her hands clasped together in excitement over skype, “should go to a manga cafe!”

kaminari blinks. “as a date?”

“i wasn’t thinking about it like that.” mina nudges him, a sly smile creeping across her lips. “but hey, that works too. i mean, they did kiss y-”

kaminari cuts the pink-haired girl off before she can finish. “is that something… they’d want to do?”

“mmm…. probably,” mina says. “they were reading manga when you first met them right?”

he can vividly remember the somewhat tattered volume of conan, the detective turned little boy who must solve crime while hiding his own identity. really, the wear was only on the soft cover, nudged and peeling on the corners with faded text splayed on the spine. the pages were in crisp condition, he’d noted one day as he (totally, completely discreetly) watched you read the copy again. the bookshelf in your dorm and the stack of books on your desk is littered with different mangas, ranging from the old classics (astroboy) to some newer works (your lie in april). he only remembers this fact because he really, really wants to borrow a copy of black butler (yes, it’s the one with the maid on it. she looks really hot with a gun, okay?). all your manga are well-taken care of, cared for diligently as if each book has a piece of your heart in it. besides, you rarely lend out any (sero once asked to borrow jujutsu kaisen and you very, very reluctantly handed it to him), so he doubts you’d trust him with it.

“hang on, lemme ask sero if they’d be interested in a manga cafe,” mina says, pulling out her phone. “they’ve been close lately,” she mumbles as she types out a quick text to him, a quiet ping letting kaminari know that she’s sent it.

after a pause, mina excitedly reads sero’s reply: “yeah, probably.”

well, that was a definitive answer.

“there’s one nearby here,” mina offers. “hagakure told me good things about it, and she has a knack for finding the best spots in town. i’ll send you the address.”

“you think they’d like it?” kaminari says in an atypical bout of self-consciousness.

“of course,” mina replies instantly. “don’t you see how they look at you?”

usagi manga kissa makes kaminari cringe. it’s not the bunny-themed logo on the top of the building, nor is it the wide assortment of manga lining the walls, nor is it the cozy, soft seats nuzzled in the nooks and crannies of the café. it’s not even the life-sized cardboard cut-outs of various anime maid girls (he actually particularly really likes that detail). it’s the name itself. usagi is fine - kaminari likes bunnies as much as the next guy. manga is fine, too - he wouldn’t be here if not for the manga. the kissa makes him cringe for the most immature of reasons, like a five year old just learning basic english vocabulary. kissa innocently shortens the word kissaten, for cafeteria, but suspiciously sounds like the english word kiss. he does not want to think about kissing as he walks into the café with you, and especially not when the lady at the counter asks if you want a couples’ discount (you say yes, solely because it’s cheaper).

he does not want to think about kissing as he walks next to you, browsing the manga selection and passing the shoujo section that boasts illustrations of happy couples and romantic imagery. he doesn’t want to think about kissing as the two of you walk to a “couple’s” room, you rambling about the plot of the manga you chose and him with some shounen volleyball manga in his hand. kissing is the worst thing to think about as your knee touches his in the cramped apparent two-person room. he is not thinking about kissing at all when you offer him your water bottle, half full, and he’s definitely not thinking about indirect kissing or anything when he takes a sip. that would be crazy.

fortunate for him, his manga is full of not-kissing, so he’s able to somewhat enjoy it without his mind bombarding him with the fact that your face is less than a metre away. as he finishes up the volume, he realizes how much of a middle school student he feels like.

“y/n,” he looks up to you and says. you’re watching an old episode of neon genesis evangelion on the computer provided in the room, the manga you were reading sitting on the table beside the keyboard.

“yeah?” you respond and pause the anime. out of his peripherals, he can see you turn to look at him. he stares at the wall ahead of him, lacking the confidence to face you head-on.

“remember when we first met?” he reminisces.

“the cafe?” you say. “yeah.”

“if… i can ask,” he musters, “why did you say what you did then?”

you pause, taken aback. “i… i don’t know.”

“because,” kaminari starts, and you flinch, “i like you. a-and i know you said not to-”

a ghost has crossed your face. your mouth is agape, as if you suspected his feelings but never thought he’d verbalize them. he wonders what the kiss was about.

“i’m,” you gulp, breath stuttering, “i’m sorry.”

kaminari lied. five days later of zero contact with you, he realizes he’s in deep. he doesn’t like you - he’s in love with you. they say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and here he is, sifting through memories he had with you like they’re books. he should probably be studying instead of lying spread eagle on his bed, thinking of you. he can recall a promise made one night and the moment it was broken; he can remember the plastic stars he studied that night, falsely shining and lighting hope within him. he can remember dozens of constellations, half of which were geometric shapes, that he fell asleep to with you at his side. his heart aches, alighting a dull burn within him like a protostar barely able to burn hydrogen.

there’s a polite knock at his door, so he assumes it to be either kirishima or sero. mina always enters unannounced and bakugou is far too brash to knock softly. slowly - almost reluctantly - he sits up in bed, standing up and making his way to the door. he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, telling him that his hair is an absolute mess and in no way presentable. he figures that either kirishima or sero will comment about it, but he never needed to impress them in the first place. turning the knob and opening the door, he’s expecting either of his friends, maybe here to nag him or ask him to come and study or say “hey, why haven’t you spammed the group chat with memes in a while? i missed them.”

he definitely isn’t expecting you, face pulled into a worried expression and lips held in a thin, anticipating line before you meet his eyes. you’re pouring out a waterfall of apologies at a thousand words per second as soon as he opens the door, letting yourself in and hardly taking notice of his bird’s nest hair. he guides you to the couch, attempting to interject and ask you to slow down, but he finds that it sounds rude at any given moment. you’re sitting on the couch, lamentations and explanations spilling from your lips as you grip the plush material of the cushion you sit on, when you finally pause to take a breath. kaminari uses this opportunity to interrupt you.

“woah, woah, woah.” he hesitantly puts a hand on your shoulder. “can you back up?”

“oh, yeah,” you start to move back in your seat and kaminari stifles a laugh.

“no, can you start your story from the beginning?” he asks. “take your time, i’m not going anywhere.”

“i’m really, really sorry about what happened the other day,” you apologize, then look at him finally and ogle his hair. “i got… scared,” you admit earnestly. before he can make any question of it, you continue, “i like you too, see. and i never really, seriously acted on it - i didn’t want to. so when you did the inevitable and confessed… it scared me. the truth is… i’m not the best at romance or relationships. i don’t want to put anyone through that, again.” your voice wavers but finishes strong as you look kaminari in the eyes.

“that?” he asks. he’s afraid he’s crossed a line, but you reply all the same.

“i was in a relationship, once. i wasn’t… i wasn’t good enough. i didn’t do the things that people in a relationship are supposed to do, i guess.” you fiddle with the fabric of the couch, looking down at your fingers. your voice gives away the vulnerability of the topic, wrapped in a stiff disconnection; you’ve distanced yourself from it, probably once too familiar with the feelings you speak of.

“it’s okay,” kaminari says, almost too quickly. he slows himself down. “that’s… completely fine,” he admits truthfully. “we can go slow. i… i can wait.”

“can you?” you look up at him, hope shining your eyes. it dims quickly before you say, “you don’t have to. i don’t want to limit you…”

“the only person i want is you,” he reassures you, hesitantly taking your hand in his. “you’re not…” he struggles for words, “...limiting me if i don’t have eyes for anyone else.”

“are you sure?” it’s an almost inaudible whisper, clutching your hopes in three words that are held together by thin threads.

“i’ve never been more sure,” kaminari replies confidently, giving your hand an encouraging squeeze.

“okay,” you breathe out, relief tingeing your speech. “i… want to be with you.”

it takes everything in kaminari not to kiss you right there.

“oh, by the way-” you say, standing up from the couch and leaving kaminari to sit alone, “did you still want to borrow that copy of black butler?”

“the one with the maid who has a gun?” kaminari asks, eyes wide. how did you know about that?

“yeah. you kept staring at it before, so i assumed…”

“yeah. yeah, no, yeah, that’d be really great. amazing, actually. wonderful. stupendous-” kaminari shuts himself up before he can ramble on longer.

“okay, give me a second,” you respond, smiling, and exit to the hallway to retrieve the manga.

you return with the volume in hand, placing it in kaminari’s hands.

“thanks,” he says as he glides his thumb over the glossy cover and mint condition. it’s heavier than kaminari thought, and it feels like the weight of a heart. he’ll be sure to take extra care of it, holding it with ginger fingers and a sweet, sweet feeling in his chest.

#kaminari x reader #kaminari fluff #kaminari angst #bnha x reader #bnha fluff #bnha angst #denki kaminari #kaminari denki #bnha #luna's writing #kaminari headcanons #bnha headcanons

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DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE, BLOOD OFFICIAL VISUAL FANBOOK ー Interview Vol. 1 feat. Saki Ito

Source: DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE, BLOOD Official Visual Fanbook

Release date: 2013

Huge thank you to @keithvalentinex for providing the raw scans!

SECTION 1: Q&A

Q1. How did you feel when a sequel game got green light?

A: Not only were we fortunate to receive many passionate messages and feedback from the players, but we also received the news of an anime adaption alongside a game sequel, so amidst the joy, I also remember a distinct feeling of responsiblity and pressure.

Q2. Does the feedback you received from the players reflect in any parts of the game?

A: The series features characters who all have very strong and distinct character traits, so they tend to stand out based solely on these specific elements, which is what made us reflect upon the scenario parts of the previous game. Therefore, in the sequel, we decided to flesh them out so we let Idea Factory know that we would like to create sceranio’s on events of their pasts, so we can give a better understanding of how they think as individuals. We received a positive response but this ultimately required quite a bit of scenarios so later both me and Nakamura suffered because of it. (lol) However, even though there is still room for improvement, I would like to think that we succeeded in creating scenario’s in which the players will get to know them on a deeper level.

Q3. Who did you struggle most with when creating the setting for the new characters?

A: Ruki. Both in terms of design and personality. At first we thought of having him be on an almost equal footing with Karlheinz in terms of power and status, so basically the character who stands at the very top of the Mukami family, with everyone following his lead as they have no other choice but to acknowledge his superiority . But he’s a Do-S...We played with various ideas like that.

Q4. What did the process of creating these characters look like?

A: After settling on their visuals and personalities, we moved on to building a set image of them. I was impressed that at the time of initial recording where we would add the voices to these characters, there was already an agreement amongst the production staff about how they viewed these brothers inside their minds.

Q5. Were there any moments during the recording which left a strong impression on you?

A: I am sure everyone feels the same in this regard, but I was very much impressed by Midorikawa Hikaru (Ayato’s VA) and his ability to voice a single line in so many different ways and apply minor adjustment time after time. I was baffled how the same phrase could be voiced in so many different ways, and while this may be embarrassing to admit as part of the production staff, I felt as if I could learn a lot from him.

Q6. How did you approach the blood-sucking scenes?

A: We start by creating a fixed image inside our heads of how each character would suck someone’s blood. However, we initially opted to leave things up to the casted voice actors. We figured that if their voicing was somewhat off from how we envisioned it, we would guide them into the desired direction afterwards, but so far that has yet to happen! The voice actors seem to understand that the blood-sucking scenes are a huge selling point of the Diabolik Lovers franchise, so they anticipated on this and had already thought about which personal quirks they want to include in these scenes before the recording. Afterwards they would tell us things such as ‘I wanted to make it sound a little dirty’ or ‘I imagined ____ would suck blood like this’, showing us their effort to voice these characters while thinking about their personalities, which is why we - the production staff - were able to feel the unique traits of these boys through their performance as well, I believe. I cannot express with words just how greatful I am for everyone’s excellent voice work.

Q7. When writing the scenario’s and the character dialogue, were there any conscious changes you made from the first game?

A: In the first game, there were very little interactions between the different characters, but with the introduction of the Mukami brothers, we focused on these kind of interactions where one of the Sakamaki brothers would fight with one of the Mukami brothers. Additionally, this would allow for us to express the changes in their feelings towards the main character.

Q8. What did you struggle the most with while writing the script?

A: There were just so many different scenarios to write, I recall feeling as if there was no end to it. Every time you think you’re done adjusting one part, you have to move on to the next and by the time you’re done with that, something just doesn’t feel right about the first scenario again...This game includes many scenarios about the characters’ pasts so there would be times where we suddenly went ‘...Hold on!? I feel like the previous scene doesn’t quite make sense anymore...,’ So we’d have to go back and make sure everything remained consistent.

Q9. Which character caused you the most problems while writing the script?

A: Every single one. In case of the Sakamaki brothers, all because of the same reason. For starters, despite this being a sequel game, the intial setting remains the same as before with the main character having arrived at the Sakamaki manor, , so we were worried whether or not the audience would accept this without it feeling weird or off. The Mukami brothers are then added on top of that, so we struggled a lot expressing the wavering feelings of the main character. Each of the Mukami brothers has their own dark past and setting which we came up with beforehand, so it was very difficult to then later add the element of romance to this.

Q10. Is there a character who underwent drastic changes compared to the last game?

A: No. Although the ‘MORE, BLOOD’ games feature the Sakamaki brothers struggling with an immense ‘thirst for blood’ which is different from our previous approach, so we hope this allows the players to enjoy a different side of them.

Q11. The endings are now named ‘Vampire Ending’, ‘Manservant Ending’ and ‘Brute’ Ending. Could you tell us what kind of thought you put into these names?

A: They do each have their own fixed image attached to them. We divided them into the ‘Vampire Ending’ which is supposed to be the most natural ending. The ‘Manservant Ending’ which emphasizes the element of sadism the strongest and lastly the ‘Brute Ending’ which is the most violent. Depending on the character, there might be minor changes such as the main character developing sadistic tendencies herself or it being another character who grows violent. We hope the audience will enjoy this wide array of endings.

Q12. What are parts which have greatly improved or parts you want us to focus on in comparison to the first game?

A: My apologies for repeating myself, but it would have to be the scenarios. Also please pay attention to the upgraded sprite artwork for everyone, as well as the addition of the sprites for the brothers as children!

Q13. Why do you think the series has received such a great amount of support?

A: During the development of the first set of CDs, we made them with a specific niche audience in mind, so never did we expect the franchise would grow this large. We truly are grateful. We would like to believe that Satoi-sama’s illustration are the biggest contributor in this case. I was already acquaintanced with Satoi-sama at that point but due to certain circumstances, we weren’t able to work on a project together. However, when the development for Diabolik Lovers started, I immediately reached out to her. I believe that the way she draws these Do-S Vampires as handsome guys is what the fans enjoy the most!

Q14. Please leave a message for the fans.

A: First of all, thank you all from the bottom of my heart. If it wasn’t for you guys’ reactions, we wouldn’t have been able to deliver this much content. I won’t go as far as to tell you to continue to loving ‘DIABOLIK LOVERS’ and its characters forever...! Even if it’s somewhere in the very back of your mind, I’d be happy if you could at least hold onto the fond memories of these characters. Honestly, thank you so so much.

SECTION 2: THEIR FAVORITE EPISODES

Sakamaki brothers: Laito’s Vampire Ending. It conveys that feeling of loving someone, yet still keeping you on the edge of your seat as he doesn’t quite fully want to admit to his own feelings, even though you can tell that he does properly love the main character, which made me feel joyful inside.

Mukami brothers: Rather than one specific scene, I loved the interactions between the Mukami brothers. When they are all enjoying a meal together, they would fight over the food, or Kou would make a fuss because he wants to eat Vongole Bianco. I found it cute how they would talk in a way you’d expect from normal high school boys.

SECTION 3: SAKI ITO CHOOSES ー SITUATION-DEPENDENT CHARACTER SELECT

Who would you choose in these situations? What’s the developer’s opinion?

S1. To sleep together with?

Best: Shuu, he probably wouldn’t bother me.

Worst: Reiji, he seems like the type to get upset if you don’t keep perfectly still while sleeping.

S2. To go on a trip together with?

Best: Ruki, I feel like he would come fully prepped.

Worst: Azusa, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my trip if I get hurt because of him.

S3. To eat together with?

Best: Shuu, I feel like our eating styles would match.

Worst: Reiji, I’d constantly feel nervous.

S4. To study with?

Best: Ruki, I feel like he’d be able to explain things in a comprehensive manner.

Worst: Laito because he might just blow air into my ear all of a sudden.

S5. To go on a date with?

Best: Kou, he probably knows all the good places so it could be fun.

Worst: Kanato, I can’t stand the thought of him suddenly lashing out at me.

S6. To play a video game with?

Best: Yuma, I feel like he wouldn’t be the best at it, but it’d still be enjoyable regardless.

Worst: Subaru, he would destroy the console!

S7. To play sports with?

Best: Kou, I can imagine his sweat sparkling in the light as it bounces off him.

Worst: Reiji, he seems stiff.

S8. To go on a drive with?

Best: Ayato, it just seems fun.

Worst: Yuma, he strikes me as a speed devil.

#diabolik lovers #dialovers #diabolik lovers translation #diabolik lovers more blood official visual fanbook #diabolik lovers interview #saki ito

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