#//Or we can go for a full human verse!

[asterxles]

@fircmblcm​

“This isn’t quite what I had in mind when I recommended you get a puppy, Lord  Fraldarius.” Kinthos’ cheeks were crimson red, his hands balling into fists by his side, as he looked at the hood. “But if this is what you want...” Despite his embarrassment, Kinthos allowed the hood to be pulled over his head with no consequence; he secretly loved Felix’s demanding nature. “How can I be a good pup for you?”

[gravid-transluna]

In the Name of Science

words: 7627

content: birth denial, clothing birth, mutual birth, fpreg

Co-written with the wonderful and endlessly imaginative @shhhsecretsideblog

First entry into the Spell-verse, a series of stories revolving around a town blanketed by a rapid pregnancy and birth spell.

The news already had coined a name for it. Go figure, Char thought, shaking her head at the display of pure pseudoscience on the screen before her.

“Yes, that’s right,” a reporter spoke. “Emergency services have taken a census and The Spell seems to have affected every person able to bear children in the town.”

“The Spell,” Char scoffed, shaking her head. “Call it a virus, a fluke of biology, whatever. Just don’t chalk it up to magic.”

Because if it was magic, that would mean her science would be ineffectual on the obvious life growing inside her belly, now looking full-term with a baby that she hadn’t been pregnant with this morning. It rippled, hanging low between the scientist’s thighs. She placed a palm on her stretched tummy. The evidence, she thought, speaks for itself.

“Shouting at the tele again Char?” Laura said as she waddled into their lab. Her long white coat hung open at her sides, her own newly formed bump making the coat too small to fit round her frame.

“Got you a coffee.” She passed the hot drink to her boss and went over to sit on the stool by her own workstation. It took a bit of navigating, still not used to this extra weight she now carried, but eventually she plumped herself on the high metal chair.

“I mean, they aren’t wrong calling it ‘The Spell.’ What’s happening here is unheard of. All these pregnancies are popping up very much like magic.” Laura rubbed the circumference of her large belly that now sat heavily atop her thighs. She could feel the baby moving inside, it was so strange. Pregnancy and birth was never something she thought she’d experience. She understood it, she knew all about the process, but it was something else entirely actually experiencing it. And going through it all within the space of a day was a bit of a rollercoaster.

They’d done scans and knew they were carrying human babies, it wasn’t anything supernatural or alien, but it was just the speed, it was unprecedented. The baby in her womb shifted and kicked her in the ribs “Oof!” She huffed. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this.” Laura commented to her boss.

Char nodded, smothering the instinct to cup her own belly as devoted her attention back to her work.

“Hopefully, you won’t have to. We’ll find a way to reverse the process without delivery and things will—“ she paused, startled by a twinge in her stomach muscles and the subsequent squirming of the baby inside her. She cleared her throat. “Things will return to normal and we can take the time to research this phenomenon thoroughly.”

Secretly, Char’s urgency stemmed from another reason—already she’d struggled to adapt to the feeling of her body so unrecognizably changed, the idea of a passenger inside her, her body growing and stretching to accommodate it without any of her say in it. Even the tiniest signs of motherhood she steadfastly resisted, trying not to waddle or hold her heavy mound, wearing her usual lab wear instead of anything more comfortable. Yet—

She knew this was nothing compared to birth. She also knew that they were on a strict time limit. Shaking her head, she dispelled these thoughts. ‘We don’t have to worry about that. All we have to worry about is finding a cure,’ she thought.

“You really think we can find a cure before these babies are born?” Laura asked hesitantly. She knew how her boss was handling this sudden change in their bodies, and it wasn’t very well. Not that she’d admit it. She disappeared quickly into the work when it first started happening to people and completely ignored the signs this morning that it was happening to them both as well.

“I’ve heard that some people are already starting to give birth… we might not have the time. Not before these ones are born anyway.” Laura patted her bump affectionately. She wasn’t fighting this as much as her boss. Yes it was a shock, but Laura was leaning into the experience, it was fascinating.

She noticed her belly start to twinge, felt similar to period pains. Laura shifted in her chair, trying to ease the uncomfortable feeling, her legs widening on the stool to fit her rounded stomach in between. “Have you had any twinges or cramps or anything?” Laura asked.

Char glanced at Laura, absorbing the gravity of her condition, the way her midsection protruded from her open lab coat and her discomfort that so mirrored Char’s own. “Nope,” she lied easily, convincing herself that it was the weight she was now carrying, that the pressure in her hips and the aching of her back was all because of the new load in her belly.

“Well, I’m not exactly hasty to get these babies out the old-fashioned way,” Char said.

A part of her shared sentiments with Laura, though. Call it a scientific curiosity, but the process of birth was quite a marvel. Another cramp seized her belly and she stiffened slightly, bearing it without note. Her own belly hung low, having dropped without her realizing, but Laura’s taut, overhanging swell was immediately apparent to her.

How about you?” She asked while peering into a microscope.

“I’m not sure… I’m feeling something… oof—” Laura took a sharp breath as the ache peaked before easing off again. “It’s probably just my body adjusting to the quick pregnancy. I’m not in a hurry to give birth myself.”

She didn’t want to say it but the rate at which their stomachs had swelled, Laura didn’t think they would have long before the pangs of labor hit. It was difficult to ascertain how “far along” they were, given the speed in the growth, but judging by the bumps alone Laura guessed her and Char were developing at the same rate.

“We better work fast then, before either of us goes into labor.” Or both of us, Laura thought to herself.

Char pressed her lips together at the reminder, and without knowing she palmed the underside of her swollen stomach, attempting to soothe the tightened muscles.

“Yes, right. Could you come over here and we can analyze these lab reports together. Bring the files from the corner bench, please.”

Her back ached, yet she was too restless to sit and besides, she always worked while standing. She’d be damned if she let this baby inside of her intrude on her routine.

“Sure thing.” Laura said to Char’s instruction. Holding her taut stomach, Laura slipped off the stool onto her feet and waddled over to the corner bench to pick up the files.

Standing seemed to have jolted her baby, feeling the weight sink lower into her hips as it kicked. A sudden sharp tightening slashed across her belly causing her to gasp and grab on to the table. “Mnngh!” She groaned as the muscles pulled and squeezed, its intensity surprising.

“Char… hooo… I think I might be having a con-contraction…” Laura panted through the pain, hips instinctively swaying beneath the white lab coat.

Char snapped her head up from the microscope to see Laura doubled over, clutching the table. With her back flat, her weighty belly seemed to strain toward the ground, dragged downward by gravity. Char watched as Laura swayed her hips in an almost hypnotic pattern, as though instinct had taken over. Her panting, even, seemed instinctual, the sounds of an imminent mother.

“Laura? Hey—“ Char struggled to walk without a waddle, across the room to Laura. She was stopped by a squeezing in her tummy that took her breath away, the entire surface hardening painfully. She dismissed it before it even ended. ‘Braxton Hicks,’ she thought. ‘No big deal. I have time…. Laura, I’m not so sure.’

She placed a palm on Laura’s lower back and she breathed and swayed. “You’re okay,” she said, her usual brisk tone softening. “Just breathe.”

“Hoooo-hoooo…..” Laura forced herself to take measured breaths, in and out, breathing through the sudden pain. Her head dipped and her eyes scrunched, the weight and pressure suddenly peaking before gradually fading away. Slowly the assistant straightened back up and faced her friend (?) and boss.

“Jeeze, that was… intense.” She breathed, rubbing the underside of her belly. “I wasn’t expecting that to come on so fast. Guess I’m in labor. I’ll start running a log of all my symptoms so we can add to our research.” She picked up the earlier requested files and handed them to her boss, noticing a slight glistening of sweat on Char’s forehead. “You still doing okay?”

Char nodded, appearing uncharacteristically distracted. She made an effort to straighten her back, feeling the clamping around her womb subside for now.

“Fine,” she said. Then, appreciative of Laura’s dedication to their studies, “Good work, Laura. If it gets to be too much for you, let me know. Until then, we’ll work around the clock and develop a cure before you progress too far.”

And, before I do as well, Char added to herself.

Noting Laura’s significantly widened stance and the way she stroked and circled her dropped belly, Char felt a twinge of apprehensiveness.

As they worked, fighting the clock, Char listened to Laura’s pained breaths become sharper. Eventually she began to vocalize, softly at first, closing her eyes and rocking her body back and forth, making slight grunts and moaning under her breath.

Char wasn’t in a much better state. Her contractions had grown into strong, regular surges and every time her belly seized up she could only focus on it and the baby inside it preparing to be born. Born, she thought. Not if I can help it. Her familiarity with the process and inevitability of birth did nothing to halt this line of thinking. Yet with each contraction she felt like nothing else existed but her swollen, contracting belly. She released a breath after a particularly brutal one. There was so much pressure. She felt it deep in her hips, wanting so badly to open herself up all the way.

Laura let out a pained groan herself, and Char glanced up.

“H-how are you, mm, holding up?” She asked the other laboring woman.

“As w-well as can be expected… hoooo…” Laura held her heavy belly with one hand, the other leant on her workstation as she swayed through the pain. “They are really picking up now Char, oof, the pressure is a lot.”

The lab assistant had abandoned her chair a while ago, finding the most comfortable position was to stand at her desk as it allowed her to follow her body’s rhythm and its instinct to move. Plus the baby was sinking way too low to be sitting down on that ridiculous high stool. She had spent entire days on that chair working before The Spell, but that idea seemed downright ludicrous to Laura now.

Their research seemed to be slow moving, and it wasn’t entirely down to the fact she was in labor, the science just wasn’t providing them with answers, still proving to be a mystery. She’d been keeping track of her contractions, which were getting dangerously closer together and time was running out.

Whilst the waves of pain coursing through her body every five minutes were consuming, Laura wasn’t oblivious to the fact her boss was also struggling. Perhaps it was because of her own labor she could recognise the signs; the way Char kept moving around the lab and never stayed still, her heavy breathing and occasional moan, and the way her hips would shift and bounce when she thought Laura wasn’t looking. Yup, her boss was almost certainly in labor too. But Laura knew better than to ask her outright.

“Are you feeling okay Char? You’ve been on your feet for quite a w-while now..”

Char tried to imagine sitting and found she couldn’t, with the baby dropped so low, the head pressing heavily on her cervix. She knew from the strain in Laura’s voice and her repeated movements around the room that she was feeling the same pressure and slowly increasing urgency. She wanted to moan, openly sway and rotate her hips against the excruciating pressure, to release instinctual grunts with her contractions like Laura. But, not yet. She couldn’t be in active labor.

“Just frustrated,” Char growled. “We’ve barely made progress and this current batch of tests has yielded no results whatsoever…. mmgh!” She winced, closing her mouth so as not to cry out as a contraction clamped her midsection.

“Also,” she added. “I might—urgh, be experiencing some Braxton Hicks.”

“Oh… braxton hicks… okay.” Laura acknowledged calmly, knowing full well there was nothing false about the pains plaguing Char. “Just try and b-breathe through them. They’ll soon pass. You can move around you know, follow your body’s instincts if you need to, I’m sure it would help with the, errr—false labor pains.”

They continued working in relative silence, except from the unusual noises Laura found herself making through the pains. She thought she heard her boss whimper, and asked “Is there anything I can do to h-help?”

Not that she was capable of doing much, the pains were so strong now she could barely do anything other than catch her breath between waves. Laura stayed close to her work bench, not daring to move too far for fear she’d crumble to the floor. Her bump hung heavy and low off her hips, her baby was pressing hard against her cervix clearly marking its exit. A particularly forceful contract had Laura folded over against the bench, forearms on the white surface, hips jutting back, and her head buried in the crook of her elbow. Her groans had turned more primal, the pressure building to the point she almost mooed like a cow. Something was slipping down, she could feel it. With a grunt Laura felt something give and the immediate dampness that followed trailing down her leg.

“Ummm… Char? Hoooo… I think my water broke.” Laura whimpered into her arm, not daring to move.

Char turned when she heard Laura’s animalistic groans and grunts, undeniably the noises of a woman deep in labor. She saw Laura standing wide-legged, a wet patch forming on her lab trousers and puddling the floor beneath her. Her cheeks were flushed with exertion, and Char knew she was feeling the same pressure against her widening cervix as herself, increasingly overcome with the sensation of the head moving into position, the instinctive need to open herself up for the baby getting ready to come out of her.

“Laura—! Hooo um, okay,” Char faltered, taking large waddling steps to Laura and cursing the weight in her pelvis and the unwieldiness of her belly. .Normally in control of the situation, she felt lost at the sight of Laura’s waters puddled on the floor. This was an uncontrollable variable. No matter how much they wanted to keep their babies in, once their bodies decided it was time there was little they could do. But Char wasn’t ready to give in yet.

“I’ll, mmgh, find you some towels,” she promised Laura.

In the hallway she suffered another contraction, and found herself vocalizing freely without Laura around, lowing insistently and arching her back. Without knowing, her knees bent slightly, beginning to sink into a squat. She realized what she was doing and tried to hold herself upright against the hallway wall, but by then the contraction was upon her and she felt a sudden burst of fluid from between her legs.

“Oh…. shit,” she murmured, panting hard.

When she returned with the towels, she met Laura’s gaze and knew that they were both feeling the urgency of birth. They were almost out of time.

The contraction had waned when Char left the room and Laura slowly righted herself and breathed quietly, taking stock of the situation, letting her body adjust and working with the new sensations. The baby was definitely on its way, there was no doubt about that. The breaking of her waters had helped ease the excruciating pressure which had been building, but Laura became more keenly aware of the shape of the baby in her womb without its cushioning.

Taking deep and steady breaths, Laura tried to calm her mind and body. It was during this almost meditative state that she heard the unmissable sound of a woman in deep labor from the corridor. She knew exactly who it was.

Char was a very methodical woman, set in her ways, but she was strong and determined which was a necessity in this field of work. Laura respected her immensely. But it was no surprise to the assistant that her boss was fighting this and seemingly was fighting it to the very end. At some point Char would admit she was in labor, she would have to if she was going to birth her baby. Laura just hoped she would be able to help Char through it when the time comes, and not be consumed by her own birth.

When Char came back she was flushed and sweaty, but gritted a smile as she passed Laura a towel. Laura noticed her boss kept one for herself… strange.

Laura threw the towel on the floor and used her foot to wipe the liquid that was now puddled at her feet. Her trousers were wet but she didn’t want to take them off, she might have known Char for years but wasn’t quite ready to be walking around half naked in front of her boss.

“This baby is definitely coming, I can feel its head right down in my pelvis.” Laura announced, cupping the underside of her large swell almost trying to hold it up. “How are you holding up Char through your… practice contractions?”

Even without her announcing it, Char could tell how close Laura was to birthing her baby, her stance and dropped belly unmistakable as signs of her imminent birth. Laura, she knew, was dependable, and though Char would rarely admit it, she relied on Laura and her stability and her easier personality tended to balance Char’s own stubbornness. Her patience was beginning to wear Char down, and she almost admitted then. The head was huge against her dilated cervix, and she could feel it oriented, ready to descend. Everything was moving painfully downwards. She could no longer even pinch her knees together, so wide was her gait. It felt as if the baby would drop out of her if she spread too wide.

“I-I think I’m, I’m in—“ Char was cut off by another contraction, doubling over with an urgent grunt, so unlike her normally composed and cool attitude. “Ohhhh,” she moaned, closing her eyes. She gritted her teeth, eyes squeezed shut as the contraction began to peak and she clutched blindly at her rigid, taut belly.

“Oh Char…” Laura said, waddling over to her boss, keeping one hand on a bench for support. “I think you’re in labor, hun.”

Char was completely doubled over, clutching her large and heavy belly, and grunting wildly. There was no way she could keep denying her situation now surely. Laura put a hand on Char’s back and rubbed up and down her spine in support. “It’s okay, just breathe through the contraction. Slowly, don’t panic, in and o-outttt…”

Laura was cut off by a contraction of her own, and without her waters it was aggressive and forceful. She immediately spun around, grabbing the nearest bench, and groaned deeply as she fell into a slight squat. The baby was slamming against her cervix, squeezing its way into her birth canal, and Laura had no choice but to push with the force of the contraction.

She tried not to panic, to stay calm, but the head filling her canal was almost making her nauseous. She wanted to tell Char but couldn’t speak, not that her boss could do anything as she was dealing with a contraction of her own right now. The only option left was to ride the wave, and follow her instincts.

Over the din of her own uncontrollable noises Char could hear Laura’s straining groans as she bore down fiercely, primal with the urgency of a birthing mother. Char tried to change her posture but the feeling of the baby descending, pressing down forcefully against her cervix was too much for her to bear standing, and she clasped her hands on her thighs as she squatted, desperate for relief. The contraction peaked, and though she tried to control her breathing, sucking in air at first, by the ends of her breaths she found herself grunting slightly. She gave a gasp, realizing that she was pushing. No! No, no! She thought desperately. You’re a scientist. This is your lab, and you have control. Try as she might, it was impossible to assert control over her laboring body. Her baby was coming, and she was pushing. Still, she tried to resist the urge to push, panting and blowing as the pressure grew and her back flared with pain.

Laura’s contraction seemed to subside a little before Char’s, and Char saw her belly visibly heave as her uterine muscles relaxed. She let out a grunt as the contraction released her. They made eye contact as Char’s contraction began to fade as well. Char shifted her gaze.

“We…. w-we,” she panted, trying to regain her breath. “We have to find this cure. Right now.”

“Char…. Even if we do find a c-cure… what do you t-think is going to happen?” Laura said sternly as she heaved herself back to standing. “These babies,” she patted her bump and also Char’s for effect, “are coming and no cure is going to make them disappear.”

Laura had seen the way Char literally squatted to the ground and pushed, and her clothes were also damp on her bottom half. “I’m saying this as both your friend and colleague, you are in labor just as much as I, and we should prepare for their arrival.”

Laura waddled awkwardly, bowlegged, back to her desk and grabbed a drink of water. Still panting after the latest contraction, she picked up a pen and carried on making notes. “I’ll help you as much as I can, noting everything down about this rapid pregnancy, tracking my symptoms and experience, but we’re going to be giving birth soon. Both of us.”

Char glared weakly as Laura patted her belly. She’d known Laura to be one of her only lab partners to actually stand up to her or challenge her, but even then she was firmly gentle. This was no different except of course so steeped in labor herself Laura had a bit more edge to her, biting just a little. She knew how Laura was feeling. Their babies were so low, pushing heavily into their canals and forcing their bodies to deliver, and she wanted nothing more to stop what she was doing right now, squat down, and let it come. Magic or science, Char and Laura were experiencing their most natural, primal instincts.

But��she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. No, this was HER body. An intruding passenger wouldn’t change that, even as it inched its way through her birth canal and demanded she work hard and concentrate on nothing but pushing it out. Char made a laborious effort to straighten somewhat, though her stance wasn’t much narrower than Laura’s own bowlegged waddle.

“Not, urgh, yet,” Char said. “I’m not having this baby. Mmm…. hoo, I’m grateful to you, Laura, for holding it together for this long. But you n-need to deliver. Please, don’t burden yourself. I’ll finish this cure on my—hmnh, hm. My own.”

She painstakingly toddled to her research table, lifting the hefty weight of her belly as though it would keep the baby from dropping any further.

“Okay, do whatever you wanna do Char.” Laura resigned herself to losing this argument. Her boss was determined but this was next level, bordering on complete denial. Well if Char was feeling even half the sensations Laura was, she’d succumb to this birth soon enough.

Laura needed to prepare for the imminent birth, her recent pushing was a sure sign the baby was close. Slowly, and whilst always holding on to something, the assistant rummaged through the drawers and cupboards in the lab. “Do we have anything we could use for clamps to cut the cord?” She asked aloud, not really expecting an answer from her disgruntled colleague. “Ah, this could work.”

She collected the equipment she’d need to clamp and cut the chord on her desk, and moved the towel on the floor with her feet again mopping up the new liquid that she’d trailed across the floor, not realizing she was still leaking. “I’m gonna go get some more towels.” Laura again spoke aloud but knew her boss had disappeared into her own world.

Laura barely made it to the doorway when another contraction struck, and damn they were close together. Her fingers gripped the wooden frame as her body sank downwards again, the pressure building and building between her legs. “Mnnnghhhhhhhh!!!” Laura grunted, muscles contracting and squeezing the large head further through the birth canal, to the point she could feel herself start to open slightly. “Nghhhhhhh the head…. I can feel it…” Laura mewled as she squatted.

Char listened to Laura’s preparations in the background, doing her best to tune out both Laura’s words and the feeling of a massive head lodged in her birth canal, stretching her from within. Her legs trembled, nearly buckled even without a contraction. She resented herself for pushing but knew from her last contraction that she wouldn’t be able to help from bearing down again. The urge to push, the pressure, it was blurring her vision, and her head pounded dizzyingly. A mantra repeated in her head: ‘Hold it in. Just hold it in a little longer.’ Her stomach felt like a hard stone weighing on her middle even without a contraction. She tried to focus, pulling herself into a chemical analysis of her own birthing fluids she’d swabbed from the towel.

Suddenly, she heard Laura’s loud grunting and her attention was drawn to the doorway to see her assistant bent and squatted, pushing hard into her trousers. She felt a tug of concern.

“Laura? Hun, you okay—?”

The head, she thought. Oh god, she’s still wearing her work trousers.

Before she could even take a single step towards Laura, she felt another contraction grip her. “Oooof,” she grunted deeply. Her knees began to give out and she was forced into a squat even as she tried to remain standing. Gripping the table for dear life, she groaned and growled. Don’t push, she thought. Don’t—

“Ohhhh.” The head shifted down. Her powerful internal muscles shoved it through. “OH—I’m—I-I’m pushinggggg, mmmmgh!”

Laura was consumed by the sensations thrumming through her entire body, it was as if something primal was happening to her - new and unfamiliar, completely out of her control, and yet her body seemed to know what to do. Her knees widened and she sunk deeper into the squat, opening her hips as much as she could. Leaning into the contraction, using it, Laura pushed the heavy weight down. It felt… productive. She knew it was what she should be doing.

The location wasn’t ideal, and she hoped she still had time to collect more towels and set up a more comfortable birthing area. But whilst the contraction raged, Laura submitted to it, letting it work her baby down, slipping further and further towards its exit.

Somewhere in the distance she heard her name being called. After a long push Laura gulped a breath and turned her head to see Char squatting at her desk and crying out that she was pushing. She would laugh if her body hadn’t forced her into another push.

They needed to get set up and quick, Char looked like she was suffering just as much as Laura was. When the contraction waned just a bit, Laura stopped pushing and somehow managed to haul her body back to standing. Char looked okay, well as she could given the situation, riding out a contraction and holding on to the sturdy frame of her workbench.

“I’m getting more towels, hang on Char!” Laura shouted, hoping her boss would hear over the groans Char was making.

Waddling ever so slowly, the head sitting right behind her lips, Laura went off to the cupboard to find more towels. They’d soon need them.

Another contraction struck mere minutes after the last while Laura was in the cupboard but she was not as successful this time in staying on her feet. The force of the contracting muscles and slashing pain splitting her open brought her to her knees. She clung on to the shelf in front of her, her heavy belly squished between widened thighs, and she pushed hard wailing with the effort. The head was peaking through, pushing apart her folds in her underwear. But her body was driving this journey, Laura was just the passenger. After a solid minute the contraction let up and when she released the push with a gasp, the baby slipped back into the birth canal. With a trembling hand she felt the fabric between her legs, she was definitely bulging, but the head wasn’t crowning just yet. She breathed deeply, gathering her strength before getting back on her feet. She needed to get back with the extra towels, not just so she could birth her baby there but so she could help Char. She’d need a friend and the support right now, and so could Laura.

As Laura submitted, pushing freely and loudly as though nothing else mattered in the world except getting her baby out and getting it out now, Char resisted her baby’s inevitable birth. Panicked, she gulped in a breath, trying to ease up on her furious pushing as she felt the head filling her opening thoroughly. It was beginning to bulge her, though her lips remained shut. The pressure and incredible sensation of the head sitting low at her opening, almost ready to exit, was almost too much to bear. She mooed deeply, from the back of her throat. Her belly tightened even harder than before, squeezing her like a vice and she couldn’t help but push again. The baby strained against her opening, and she could feel her most delicate area distending obscenely.

“Oh god!” She cried, throwing her head back as her thighs spread and she pushed again and again uncontrollably. The urge was undeniable. She was subject to her body and right now, it was telling her to birth her baby. Here, now, into her trousers. She felt helpless. Out of control.

“It’s coming,” she moaned. “Ohhh, it’s coming!” She knew this deeply, intuitively, with an age-old maternal instinct. She was ready to birth her baby. But she felt alone and vulnerable.

“Laura,” she gasped, couldn’t say much more than that. “Laura, oh god, it’s coming and I’m pushing! I need to hold it in! Just a little longer!”

She could hear Char’s wailing from the corridor, becoming fast apparent the lead technician was losing her fight against the inevitable. With one arm carrying a load of towels, the other hand pressed against the wall as she waddled heavily back to the office. On walking into the room she saw her friend and colleague in a deep squat, white-knuckling the work bench, chin to chest and pushing. Loudly.

“Oh Char, it’s okay hun.” Laura shut the door behind her and dropped the towels beside her friend. “You have to breathe as well as push darling.” She said as she staggered to her own workbench and grabbed the medical supplies she’d collected. With the baby playing peek-a-boo into her underwear, Laura knew their time was almost up.

Cumbersomely, Laura got down to her knees beside her boss, putting the clamps and scissors on the pile of towels. “Shhhhh it’s okay Char, don’t fight it. Use that contraction and push with the pain.” Laura rubbed a hand up and down Char’s back, trying her best to support and encourage through this.

Unfortunately with their labors progressing in tandem, Laura’s role as carer was snatched away when the next contraction tore its way across her midsection. Instinctively, without intending to, her body was pushing with the pain and she could feel the baby start to leak through again and stretch apart her lips. She went to all fours and rocked, sinking backwards towards her heels whenever she had to bear down.

“Mnnnnghhhhhhh! Come on baby….” She groaned before gasping another breath and pushing hard again. She didn’t care that she was still in her work clothes, or that she was on the floor of a laboratory that was covered with two lots of amniotic fluid, she was simply following her instincts and soon the baby stopped slipping back in and stayed, keeping her lips in a perfect oval shape.

“Ohhhh god… I think it’s starting to c-crownnnn….” The assistant managed to huff when the contraction eventually dulled.

Char’s belly refused to fully relax at this point, now constantly flexing with forceful surging contractions, but there were brief moments of respite where she could pause in her pushing and some awareness returned to her. Laura, she realized, was beginning to tent her pants with pushing, on all fours with her back arched and her hips shoved forward, trying to make as much room for the large crowning head as possible. She was pushing the head into her clothes, Char realized, bulging them ridiculously, and between her spread thighs more fluids dripped and leaked. At the same time she processed this she realized that her own clothes had never been discarded, but she made no effort to remove them in her precious few moments before her body would force her baby further out of her. Instead she clung onto the naive hope that she’d miraculously stumble upon a cure while crowning into her pants, feeling the head beginning to press up against her underwear and part her lips slightly. Laura, she could tell, had offered less resistance to her body and had made more progress in her pushing, the head sitting permanently, she calculated from the bulge in Laura’s pants, at around a half-crown or more.

“Hey,” she croaked hoarsely, barely able to manage anything but grunts with her clenching belly. “You—you need to get your pants down, hun. Head’s coming out.”

Painstakingly, she began to squat down, moaning as the head was pressed back slightly into her sensitive lips by the tension of her underwear. It felt so low, so full, she needed to open up, she needed to push, relieve the immense pressure, yet her friend, yes friend, not just assistant, needed her. As she squatted low, she hooked her fingers around Laura’s waistline.

“I need, urgh, I need you to get your legs together. Mmmm, we gotta get your pants off, ‘kay?”

She was surprised to see Char moving in her peripheral vision, but Laura could pay no mind, for this baby wanted out and it wanted out now.

“Grhhhhh!!! It’s coming out… mnghh!” Laura cried into the next push, bearing down and feeling the head stretch her wider and wider. Her hips were so full, her pelvis felt like it could snap, the pressure of this baby’s head - this large and heavy mass - *needed* to come out.

Char’s attempt to remove her trousers was fruitless, though the black fabric was stretchy and comfortable with the expanding of her stomach, it was not elasticated enough to be pulled over the wide angle of her legs. The baby sat so low, right at her entrance, stretching her entrance wide with the emerging crown. There was no way in hell she would be able to put her legs closer together.

Instead, she widened them further. “Hmngh! Can’t… baby… coming…I have to pushhhh-mnghhhh!” Laura’s face sunk towards the floor, dropping to her elbows and opening up her hips to the skies. It was coming out, she could feel it sliding slowly out of her into her stretchy clothing. All she could do was push…. Pant and push again.

Char watched in utter fascination as Laura pushed with total abandonment, entirely consumed with the baby coming out of her, every last thought focused on the overwhelming, intense, undeniable urge to push. The bulge in Laura’s pants grew, stretched her thinly and Char could scarcely believe that such a huge head could come from her, pass through such a narrow opening with so much force. She removed her fingers from Laura’s waistline, realizing the impossibility of such a task at this stage in Laura’s labor. She was pushing it out into her pants, and there was nothing Char could do about that except cup the growing bulge as it emerged from Laura’s opening into the straining fabric.

It was terrifying, watching Laura push without regard for anything else. As she felt a powerful contraction wrack her own reddened, exhausted belly, she knew there was no stopping this. She was giving birth and was about to push a baby out into her pants exactly as Laura was doing now. She growled fiercely, deep in her squat—the perfect position. Her knees jackknifed and she opened her hips as wide as they could go. Against her opening the fabric of her underwear arched with the coming head as she bore down immensely. Her face turned bright red with her hardest push yet.

“Oh GODDDD!” She bellowed. “It’s COMING, I’m pushing it OOUUUTTTT!”

Her lips parted, wider and wider, trembling and convulsing around the head as it burned and stretched her. She jerked, trying to escape the ring of fire and yet she couldn’t stop pushing for a minute. She was in the final stages now, and the only way the burn would stop was when she had pushed her baby into the world. Instinct took over completely. This was what her body needed her to do. This was what SHE needed to do.

Even though they were consumed with their own births, Laura found comfort that at least they were together through this. Each laboring woman was not alone.

But the strength required to birth these babies, who didn’t even exist 24 hours ago, would be down to the mother. Gasping for air Laura pushed again with everything she had, through the pressure and pain and the burning ring of fire that had her mouth open in a silent scream. The baby’s head had to be almost out by now, surely!?

Despite being beside each other Char’s bellowing voice seemed so far away to Laura. Nothing else registered beside the baby being born into her pants. She growled with another push and suddenly yelped when the head slipped fully out.

“Oh my god oh my god…” Laura muttered over and over and pushed herself back up on her knees. She scrambled at the waistband of her elasticated trousers and pulled them down to her knees along with her underwear. Her baby, she had to get to her baby, the maternal instinct cried in her head. With a trembling hand she felt the newly born baby’s head that was now wedged between her thighs. “Hi…. baby… oh my gosh you’ve got hair!” Laura was in shock, but also in awe of what her body had just done.

It was only after the head was born that Laura properly heard the cries of her friend. “Char…” she muttered and saw the other woman squatting and huffing, red-faced, chin to chest, with an obscene bulge protruding from her clothes between her wide legs.

“Oh my god Char! Your baby is coming out!”

Had Char any piece of mind she might have answered with her customary sarcasm: oh really? I wouldn’t have guessed. Instead, the only sound that emerged from her mouth was a long lowing wail that only deepened and became more guttural as the head filled her bottom so thoroughly, and it felt as though her pelvis was creaking open to allow the massive head through. She opened slowly, barely pausing to take a breath as she bore down without repose. Dimly, she was aware of Laura’s own baby dangling between her thighs, having pushed the huge head out, and with renewed efforts Char grunted the head further and further out. Her lips tautened and thinned, red with the stretch. The head reached a full crown and for a moment Char pushed and it didn’t move, solid mass wedged tightly in her opening. She gasped, scared for a moment that it was too big, that there was no way she could push something of this size out of her body.

Then she heard Laura cooing to the head between her legs, and something stirred within her. She realized that the dread she’d been facing was being replaced with something like motherhood, her body responding naturally, automatically, to Laura’s awe and wonder. Char realized that she wanted to meet this thing she had carried inside her for a mere twenty-four hours.

“C’mon BABYYYYY!” She shouted, bearing down furiously. Her lips slipped around the head, and then—with a splash of fluids and a grunt of relief, Char freed the head into her pants.

Laura watched in fascination as Char grunted the head further and further into her clothing, it was huge. Char had been fighting this throughout the entire pregnancy and in that moment Laura understood why some women balked so much away from birth. It was hard work. But then she saw a change in her friend, the way her eyebrows furrowed with determination, the slight readjustment of her hips as she took a breath; she was no longer fighting against her body and was readying herself to meet her child.

“You can do it Char, push!” Laura called as Char bore down. She wished she could move to support her friend physically but she was still mid-way through her own rapid birth to risk moving.

Tears begun to well in her eyes at the thought of their babies, the exhaustion of labor and the stress of the last 24 hours hammering her emotions.

By the time Char had birthed the head of her baby into her pants Laura was already feeling the pangs of the next contraction and the baby’s head turned slightly in the palm of her hand. “Oohhhhh… mhhh okay okay… you ready little one?” She panted, pulling in air through her nose, widening her legs apart to steady her balance and preparing herself to push again. Both hands were between her legs when the contraction really got going and all too soon she was pushing once more and felt the shoulders stretch apart her already sore lips.

With trembling fingers, Char reached down between her legs, feeling the hard slick roundness of the head she’d just pushed out between her legs. She gasped. The aftershocks of her contraction clutched at her belly.

“Oh… oh, my—that’s a baby. I just gave birth.”

The evidence was conclusive. But she could scarcely believe that she’d pushed an entire baby through her birth canal and out into her pants. The experience she’d just been through, the effort, the haze of contractions and the hard pushes as she focused on nothing but expelling her baby, and the intense sensations throughout her body. It was all unbelievable. Inching down the waistband of her trousers, Char struggled them to her shins and sank to her knees. She panted in disbelief, feeling instinctually that this was *right,* that this was what she was meant to be doing. Her identity had irreconcilably changed to that of a mother and as she caressed the head between her legs, she felt a rush of contentment. Char was a scientist, an expert in her field, but now it all paled in comparison.

She glanced up at Laura, seeing her shock and awe mirrored in her eyes as she lifted her baby from between her legs and rested it against her chest. Laura smiled exhaustedly at her.

Char began to pant as another contraction took hold.

“Ooh—“ she exclaimed. “You’re ready…. c’mon, you’re ready to be—UGH! BORN!”

Her baby slipped between her lips with a spray of fluids and immediately she sank to the floor, sighing in immense relief.

Laura fell silent with her final pushes, holding her breath as she bore down, the head filling her palm as the shoulders squeezed their way through. She gasped another breath and pushed with everything she had, this was it, she could feel it. Come on baby…

Once the shoulders were freed Laura wasn’t expecting the speed of which the baby slipped out and the hush of fluid that came with it. Catching the slippery newborn Laura gasped, relieved and shocked, and immediately brought the babe to her chest.

“Hey…. Oh my- hey baby.” She cooed, eyes welling with tears as she looked upon this little miracle that had grown in the last 24 hours. When the baby started to cry she instinctively rocked and hushed the infant “it’s okay… you’re okay.” She said, wiping the blood and fluid off the newborn's face.

Laura had barely caught her breath back when Char started pulling down her trousers and panted heavily, a baby’s head hanging between her open legs. A second later Char was mirroring Laura’s actions and pulling her own baby to her chest and sobbing with relief.

“You did it.” Laura said softly to her friend. “We did it. I can’t believe they’re real, we just had babies.”

The Spell might currently be a scientific mystery, but as the two women sat exhausted on the floor cradling their newborns, the research could wait. For now, the scientists were in awe of the new lives they’d just birthed.

[bumblequinn]

hi @sourpatchsquids! thank you for your question.

as an artist with ADHD, i know this struggle very well. unfortunately offering advice on this kind of thing can be tricky, because what works for me may not work for you (and vice versa!). nonetheless, i can try; take whatever works for you, forget the rest, or reshape any part of it as you see fit. :)

but before i offer any actual tools, i have one caveat. i want you to take a moment to reflect and consider if you should be:

changing expectations

the timing of this question seems fated, because just the other day i had a therapy session wherein i expressed my grief and frustration over struggling to work lately due to my seasonal depression. it's not fair that i'm struggling just because it got a little darker outside! i just want the spark i had in the summer! i was so much more consistent!

my therapist's response: nothing about human beings is consistent. we get sick, we get tired, we get hungry and thirsty (and thirsty) and sad and lonely and restless and stressed and overwhelmed. this all gets amplified for folks who are atypical in some way or another.

when my therapist compared our seasonal cycles to those of plants and other animals, who wilt and slow down and hibernate, i protested aloud that i wanted to be a perennial instead. at this she said: even perennials change with the seasons. rose bushes have to be pruned, sometimes down to half their height! it was a dose of perspective i didn't particularly want, but really needed.

so when you're struggling to work through executive dysfunction, burnout, or brain fog, it can help to first check in with yourself about a few things. what do you have the capacity for right now? do you need any accommodation? and if so, what changes you might make to accommodate yourself?

with practice and self reflection, i've learned a handful of specific routines that help me when i'm struggling with creative work, which i'll detail next. note that while your question is specifically about music and i am specifically a musician, i believe that all of these suggestions can apply to most any form of digital creative work.

with that in mind:

#1: work slower

when i'm at the top of my game, i can get a LOT done in a day. but when i'm depressed, fatigued, or distracted, i just can't go full steam. sometimes i'll try to convince myself that i can if i just push harder, but what actually ends up happening is that i'm just fiddling with settings and going in circles rather than moving forward.

instead of that, when i want to work a lot but can't, i try to work slow. how slow? however slow i need to. take four hours to figure out the melody for a single verse. take all day to figure out that drum groove. yeah, i take a lot of breaks in between. who says i have to be my Absolute Most Productive Every Day Or Else? that's the puritan work ethic talking. kill it. be kind to yourself.

i'm reminded of advice i once read about some super successful and prolific author (gaiman? king? pratchett?) who said they wrote only four hundred words every weekday. that's already less than the word count of this post, and i'm only—[travels into the future to check my final word count]... 22.8% of the way through writing it!

now, i don't think i could function that way, because ADHD means some days i'm hyperfocused like crazy, and other days i just have no steam at all (more on that in #4-6). but it seems to me that if even someone highly respected in their profession can achieve what they have with only a little bit of work on a regular basis, maybe i don't have to punish myself for not pumping out a finished work every single week.

doing less work per day means you're much less likely to burn out, which does a lot for working more consistently. if that consistency still doesn't look like a five-day work week, that's okay! as long as it helps you work even a little more often when you want to, it's something worth doing.

however, if you're still feeling truly stuck, all hope isn't lost. you can still try:

#2: switch projects

sometimes the reason i'm moving slow is because of a bad brain day, but sometimes the reason is that i just cannot muster the motivation to do the specific task i'm trying to do right now. ADHD is fueled by novelty and interest, and if i'm not interested in what i'm doing, or it's feeling stale, that's a sign that i need to switch gears.

this is why first it's helpful for me to have more than one project going at a time. this might mean completely unrelated works, or it might just mean related tracks as with the music for a game like SLARPG or susan taxpayer.

the idea here is not to start a dozen different projects and bounce around them like i'm playing whac-a-mole—though i have done that. (i don't recommend it.) the idea here is to have a manageable number of different projects i can be working on so that if i get bored or stuck on something, i have fallback options.

what that number of projects is depends entirely on the week. maybe right now it's two, maybe another time it's three. i would probably be getting carried away if i tried more than that, but that's just my own limit. maybe yours is different. that's something for you to think about.

but it doesn't have to stop there.

#3: switch focus

maybe there is this one project that i just HAVE to work on, but the task i'm trying to do at this stage just isn't coming to me. okay, well, why don't i try working on a different task?

let's say i can't figure out what i want to do with the melody in one part of the song:

what if i try jumping ahead to a different part of the melody? ...no, i'm stumped on melodies today. okay, how about working on the drums instead? ...hmm no, i think i'm just completely tapped out on writing parts right now. alright, what if i organized my tracks, making sure they're all grouped and named in a way that i can work with easily? what if i did a rough volume balance for the mix?

and so on. if that's not enough to shake the off stuckness, i might consider: what can i do to make this project more interesting to me?

what happens if i try using an instrument or effect that i almost never reach for? what if i try sampling something obscure? what if i bang out the drums using my midi keyboard instead of drawing it in on the piano roll?

any approach that breaks me out of my usual habits is bound to get that feeling of novelty and fun back when i need it.

or maybe i can't do any of that right now, and so i take the time to answer a question from a fellow musician instead. i consider that part of my work, too, in a broader sense. check in with yourself and figure out what you can do right now. the rest will still be there later.

but okay, let's say you try switching gears, and switching again, and again, and nothing is moving. you try new approaches, but that wall of awful is insurmountable in this moment. it happens! the next thing you might try is:

#4: learn something new

when you aren't able to make progress on your projects, you can still make progress on your knowledge and craft. i often find this stokes a flame of inspiration in me where there wasn't one before. and even when it doesn't, it still gets my brain out of that feeling of stuckness and dread and into one of thought and action. learning also benefits in the long term because it adds to the well of knowledge from which you draw for all your future works.

for all the awfulness that exists on the internet, it remains an absolute treasure trove of teaching. there's an endless ocean of videos, blog posts, and articles from which you might learn something about your craft. (and if you sail the seven seas, plenty of book PDFs as well. 🦜🏴‍☠️)

it's true that the quality and depth of information out there can vary wildly, but in my experience most resources get at least some things right. and the more you research, practice, and figure out what works for you, the better you will learn to differentiate between the advice worth keeping, and the advice to forget. (that goes for all of what i'm saying here, too!)

that said, since our shared focus is music, a few resources i would highly recommend are:

music theory and composition music matters, 12tone, charles cornell, music with myles, 8-bit music theory, and this introduction by andrew huang

mixing and production dan worrall (especially this series for fabfilter), kush after hours, red means recording, andrew huang, alice yalcin efe, in the mix

general inspiration nahre sol, ben levin, david hilowitz, game score fanfare, posy, jerobeam fenderson, open reel ensemble, and ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!

(if any readers have their own helpful resources for creating music or any other media, feel free to share in the replies & reblogs! 💓)

of course, on an especially bad day, it might be a challenge to seek out information, let alone retain it. that can feel pretty bad, but remember: be kind to yourself. the next thing you might consider trying is:

#5: consume art you love

not just music. books. shows. movies. games. illustration. animation. whatever moves and inspires you.

but do it intentionally. don't just pull up some random thing the algorithm suggested! check in with yourself about what you want (or are able) to engage with right now. choose accordingly. if you get a little way into it and realize it's not scratching that itch, hit the bricks. check in with yourself again. wash, rinse, repeat, until you find whatever it is that speaks to you right now.

and do it actively, if you can. don't just let it go in one eye and out the other! really pay attention to the work. what do you like about it? what are its themes and motifs? what makes it work so well? what are its flaws, and how much do they matter? what might you do differently? you can write notes as you do this if it helps, but even simply noticing and thinking goes a long way.

what you don't want to do is come at this with a lens of shame or envy. you're not here just to say to yourself, "ugh, if only i could do THAT." it's okay if it happens. use that thought as a springboard for curiosity: "well okay, how DID they do that? do i have the resources for it? if so, how could i apply that to my own work? if not, how can i adapt it, or what do i need to learn?" keep your mind open and approach the work with a sense of wonder.

as a creative person, it's very easy to think, "i should be making something right now, not watching a movie!" but that thought forgets something vital: your art is a response in a conversation. of course the "language" you use is your own, and maybe if you're lucky you'll invent a new word. but most of the words you use have been around long before you were born. you're just one voice in a dialogue that spans continents and generations, and that's okay. it's even the whole point.

none of us is an island. we are profoundly social animals. just as we can't live without eating, we can't make without learning. so half of making art is consuming it. consider this part of the process as well.

and finally,

#6: rest, and live your life

let's say you're in really dire straits. you've tried working slower. you tried changing focus, you tried changing projects. you want to take in new information or actively engage with your favorite art, but you're not in the headspace for it. what now?

take a nap. take a walk. take a shower. eat a nice meal, or an okay one. talk to a friend. maybe even do that chore you've been putting off (you know the one).

it's human to always crave making, but you're not a machine—and even if you were, machines need regular maintenance, too! you wouldn't drive a car that's completely out of gas, and you won't do yourself any favors treating your body that way either.

i know that when you take a break it feels as though you're not accomplishing anything, but you are: you're taking care of your animal self. and while you do that, your creative brain doesn't stop working! much like windows, it has countless background processes running at any given moment, with inscrutable names like "cbdhsvc_692da" or "Microsoft Edge Update Service." it's true, i checked.

when you're stuck on a project and you step away to rest, your brain is still chipping away at your ideas unconsciously. i like to tell people, "it's percolating." much like waiting for a pot of water to boil, that idea is still heating up, even when you take a step away. just be sure to check in on it once in a while. the time will pass, and it'll be boiling again before long. :)

before i go, i'll leave you with one last thing to keep in mind as you try all of these strategies:

be kind to yourself.

being human is just about one of the hardest things you can do. let alone being a human trying to survive capitalism while living with disabilities! the last thing you need on top of that is to overwork yourself, talk to yourself negatively, or treat yourself harshly. there are plenty of other people in the world who do that to you—don't be one of them.

i'm not saying that you shouldn't try to challenge yourself, to test your limits and go above and beyond your ambitions, if that's what you want to do. just remember that hard work and self compassion are not mutually exclusive. so be careful not to bully yourself. take pride in the progress you make, even when it seems small. encourage yourself like you would a friend who's going through a hard time. and when you challenge yourself, be your own cheerleader.

i hope you find this advice helpful! remember, this is just what helps me, so don't feel like you have to follow any of it exactly. maybe taking time to learn new information helps break you out of your rut more than working slowly, so you reach for that tool first. maybe having multiple projects going at once is too distracting for you, so you prefer to stick to one at a time. whatever your needs are, feel free to alter and adapt these ideas to fit you.

thank you for reading, and i wish you the best of luck in your creating.

with care, bee 🐦

[kiame-sama]

Humans Are Extinct (Yandere!TWST x fem!Reader) Monster AU pt 13

(Malleus has a full dragon form that is much larger than his Humanoid form, though he rarely uses it. The few times Malleus uses his draconic form is in combat and to hold his Hoard. As a Dragon, he receives comfort from having his Hoard with him and being able to shield his entire Hoard with his own body. In combat Malleus has less control over himself as he only really fights when there is no other choice or he is enraged enough to turn his fangs and flames on the offending party. The only time Malleus would ever deign to be in his Draconic form outside of combat or comfort would be if the members of his Hoard request it of him.)

Warnings: yandere, yandere behavior, protective behavior, aggressive behavior, cursing, poachers, case made for both sides, threats, shinigami vs dragon conflict, platonic yanderes vs platonic yandere vs romantic yanderes, Cervitaur, Crow, Shinigami, Dragon, Raiju, Vampire Bat, mention of Water Nymph, more history of my AU,

~~~~~~~~

You woke up in an increasingly familiar way with your face snuggled up in the fur between Silver's shoulder blades. The warmth was tempting to give into as the rest had been deep and peaceful, but you wondered where the others had gone. Slowly lifting your head you hummed and snuggled the warm Cervitaur. Grim was laying in the space of your neck with his tail curled over his nose.

"Ah, you're awake."

"Mhh, Silver? Where did everyone go?"

"... Lord Hades has arrived and wished to speak with you, but Lord Malleus insisted he have the chance to speak his case first. Father and Sebek have gone with him. The Headmage insists we do not interrupt the conversation and tells me they will reach out when they have finished speaking."

You sighed and lay back where you had been sprawled across the Reindeer's back, cuddling your cat friend close. Concern colored your outlook on things and you wondered if you were going to be taken away from the home you had made at the school. If push came to shove, you preferred the hell you knew over the hell you didn't.

There was a part of you that wanted to say 'screw it' and invite yourself into the conversation being had over your future, as you should have greater say than anyone else on the matter. Another part of you wondered if it was best to let Malleus deal with the situation as the Dragon was likely better versed in political talks. You weren't entirely sure what Hades was like other than what you had been told, but you hoped he would be as understanding as you needed him to be.

It was during this thinking that you realized it had been a few days since you were last able to bathe in the comfort of your home. Where you had been cleaned up after the attack and magically cleaned to go to classes, it still didn't sit well with you that you hadn't been able to take care of your own cleanliness and grooming. If anything, a nice shower to scrub off the day seemed quite tempting and may help you clear your mind to have some time alone.

Still, you couldn't get there by yourself due to your still aching leg and tender arm. To think, you had been hacked with a Headsman's Axe and stabbed with a serrated blade within days of each other. Even so, the idea of having time to yourself to just relax in some hot water was a tempting one.

"Silver, I want a shower. Can we go back to Ramshackle?"

"Of course."

Silver carefully got up, keeping you and Grim in place on his back. Luckily the blanket you had been using was small enough that Silver could just take it with you. You didn't even have to adjust as he got down from the large nest, both you and Grim still cozy beneath the blanket. Part of you was tempted to just slip off into sleep again as the rhythmic click of his hooves on the ground served as a fine melody.

Students who lived in Diasomnia only spared a quick glance in your direction before getting out of Silver's way. All of them acutely aware of how seriously their dorm leader took your safety and how seriously Silver would take your safety as a result. Some were curious, but none dared to approach or bother the Cervitaur for their curiosity.

All you wanted was that bit of time alone and felt almost happy to know Silver was a natural deterrent for the curious students. Grim had yet to wake, even with being jostled and continued to nap in your arms as you lay across the Reindeer's back.

~•§•~

"So as you see, Lord Hades, though it is not an ideal arrangement, it would be improper to remove her from where she is comfortable and a crime to threaten the removal of a Hoard member of a Dragon."

The large Shinigami contemplated these words in silence, his tired eyes far too alert and sharp for comfort. Though this was an ancient being, even the weathering of time could not take away the razor sharp intelligence and strong morals from the Shinigami. Time could rob him of everything else, but it would never rob him of his wits and strength.

Despite being in his smaller form, the Shinigami towered over the others and was just as intimidating as he would be in his original large form. When the Shinigami moves others get out of his way.

"And this talk of poachers?"

"She would be threatened by poachers everywhere regardless of who it is protecting her. Better she be somewhere she is comfortable than take her somewhere new and still have to face the dangers of poaching."

"She would not be under such threat on the Isle of Woe."

There was truth in the Shinigami's words as the ancient being was solely in control of who entered his lands or not. The Isle was the only place that poachers would not be able to infiltrate regardless of effort or time dedicated. It was the ideal safe-space for a species that had already gone extinct such as Humans.

"Yes, she would be."

Malleus' interruption was odd as the Dragon was usually well spoken towards those of equal or greater standing than himself. Naturally, Hades was of the mind that everything the Dragon says should be taken with his own personal attachment to the Human in mind.

"How do you figure, child?"

"You cherished Humans and protected them before they died out, many of your kin did not. Who's to say that your own kin won't turn on her themselves? Young Ortho's disabilities are the direct result of Shinigami turning against family. Who's to say others won't do the same?"

"You make a vaild point, but the truth still stands; this is not a safe enough place to keep the last member of a contested species. All attempts at maintaining any semblance of safety have been thwarted by poachers looking to line their pockets."

"Then make it one."

"Speak again, child, I don't believe I understood you properly the first time."

"You say it isn't safe enough for her to stay here? Then make it safe for her. She is happy enough here and finds comfort in the presence of those she has befriended. If you can't do that much and insist on taking her from here, my Hoard and I will follow where she goes."

Hades actually cracked a smile at this, pleased with the Dragon's determination to keep and protect the Human in question. He had previously figured the young Dragon was only acting on instinct to keep that which was selfishly Hoarded away by a beast whose wings were too small for his ego. Now he could see that the Dragon was willing to uproot his own comfort to follow where his beloved Human goes regardless of how the choice panned out.

"You are determined to keep her, this is clear. How can I trust your Hoard won't turn on her either?"

"We have slept in the same nest since my child of man arrived at Night Raven. Lilia, my own teacher and first Hoard member, has guarded myself long enough for me to know his feelings on the matter. Silver and Sebek are my retainers and have acted as such for (Y/n) since her arrival. Sebek is newer to the Hoard, I conceed that, but he is no less protective of her."

Hades hummed at this, turning to look at two of the mentioned Hoard members. The Vampire Bat was a familiar face and Hades himself had heard of the Bat before. The Raiju was not a familiar face, but it was clear by the way he stood that he was currently standing on guard for the Dragon he protected. As humorous as it was to think a Dragon needed protection from anything, the Raiju clearly took the task seriously and even tried to stare down the elder Shinigami.

"Tell me, child, do you know why Humans need to be protected?"

"They are fragile and magicless."

"Yes, but do you know the way other species interact with Humans and why it can be so dangerous?"

"I don't believe I follow."

Hades stood now, his hands clasped behind his back as he walked to one of the windows nearby and looked out at the campus. He knew much of Humans, having been the primary benefactor and protector of the species he loved so deeply. There were many truths lost to time about the soft species, but Hades still remembered it as clear as the day he first encountered the odd simian-species.

"Humans are addictive. I don't mean in a poetic way either, Humans are truly addictive to many species. To the species that befriended them, Humans became an emotional addiction due to their own ability to cover their emotions and even model their emotions around those among them. To the species that ate their flesh, they were physically addictive and drove many- such as the early Gnolls- into a hunger driven state of madness that could only be curbed by partaking in consumption. For those that loved them and embraced them as mates, the very feel of their bodies and the emotional support they provided became addictive. Why do you think so many Fae were in such a state of mourning after the extinction of Humans? Why do you think so many Unicorns are desperate to have a Human in their life? Why do you think I took so much of my own time and resources to shelter them in my home?"

He now turned back to the group that watched him curiously, his old eyes noticing the way the Bat Fae averted his gaze. The Bat knew the addictive qualities of Humans and still sought to be around this new Human because it harkened back to his memories of Humans long since departed. Lilia had first-hand experience of how addictive it was to stay in the presence of a Human and be shown the coveted affection of those Humans. Despite the threat of addiction to this new Human, Lilia casually sauntered into forming a friendship and potentially more with the Human and knowingly allowed himself to be pulled in.

"Your teacher knows of what I speak. I know this addiction well and I know others are susceptible to it. Even you, in all your magic and power, are subject to the Human caused addiction. I would see Humans brought back to this world and treated properly by all in Twisted Wonderland, but many would see the destruction of this last Human to be the end of an age of obsession. Even now, we cherish and cling to the remnants of a species that was too weak to survive among us on their own, yet too treasured to be forgotten."

He moved back around the long conference table and towards the Dragon who tried so hard to convince him to keep the Human. There were many variables and this Human was certainly a treasure among treasures, but would the Dragon be able to stop himself from becoming addicted as well, or would he saunter into it the same way his teacher and advisor had?

"Can you say with confidence that you can protect her from the many addicts looking for their next fix? Can you assert that you can keep her safe from those that crave her very presence and flesh because of their driven need for her? Can you swear to me that your own addiction will not cloud your judgement to make decisions in her best interest and not your own? If you can, I will aid you in her protection. If you can't, I will remove her from the situation she has unknowingly entered and you will not see her again. Even if I must declare war on Briar Valley to do so, I am still able to say with certainty what would be best for her as a Human in a world of addicts. So, what say you, little Dragon prince? Can you swear to me that all you say is true?"

"..."

~•§•~

Your shower was much needed and felt like it washed off more than just the weight of the day. Silver insisted on getting you a stool to sit on so you wouldn't strain your leg by standing on it and insisted on keeping guard outside the door. The time alone was a relief as at least the Cervitaur respected your request for privacy.

Ortho had been thrilled to see you again and wanted to show you all he and Idia had done to improve your home, only backing off when you promised to take a look once you were done bathing. Luckily for you, the Shinigami was quick to agree and even tried apologizing to you for involving his ancestor the way he did. Grim assured you he would take a look at all the new things added to your home while you bathed and tell you if it was satisfactory or not.

Idia was thrilled to have the little cat-beast volunteer as it was clear the Shinigami was fond of felines. You felt comfortable enough to let the Shinigami brothers keep an eye on Grim while you bathed.

Now, as you dried off, rewrapped your wounds, and pulled on the clothes Silver left out for you, you felt more at peace with the situation you found yourself in. The clothes you were given were actually unfamiliar, as you didn't remember having the loose fit pants or the flowy shirt in your wardrobe, but you didn't have much in your wardrobe anyway. You vaguely wondered if you could convince Malleus and another Housewarden to accompany you to find clothing more your style. Of course, this also meant that you had to aquire enough funds to purchace the clothing you wanted.

"(Y/n)," Silver knocked on the bathroom door, "you've gone quiet. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm okay. Just thinking."

"Do you need assistance wrapping your bandages?"

"Nope. I'm fine."

"Let me know if that changes."

You sighed softly, knowing it would be rare to have time to yourself but also knowing there was reason behind the almost intrusive protective behavior of those around you. If those Wolves had managed to learn about your collar enough to remove them during the attack, then others would no doubt have the same advantage. In some ways you cursed the Water Nymph for his stupid act of telling the world about you, but in some ways you recognized that if he hadn't done it someone else likely would have. He just had the misfortune of doing it first.

When you emerged from the washroom, you were not too surprised to see Silver laying outside the door. He had taken to laying down in order to help you climb onto his back as you still technically weren't supposed to walk around without aid just yet. Even as you climbed onto the back of the Reindeer, he was careful when he stood as he didn't want to jostle you too much.

"Hooman!"

Grim called out, jumping from the banister railing across from you and up into your arms. The little beast didn't seem overly upset or bothered, so you figured he just missed you. If anything, your view of Grim had become rather motherly as it was clear the young cat-beast had taken a shining to you and sought you out for comfort.

"Flames has something he wants to talk with us about. I think you should hear him out because he's actually kinda smart and the things he says don't really make sense but are good enough to believe!"

The softest of chuckles escaped you as Silver began carefully making his way down the staircase to the main common area of the dorm. You assumed that was where Ortho and Idia were waiting for you, as that was the main hub where they set up most of various device feeds to display. New curtains added over the large windows of the room had been drawn to block out a good portion of natural light. Screens were shoved wherever they would fit and all seemed to be displaying something different.

Both brothers were sitting on your couch and holding controllers, playing what seemed to be a cooperative two person game. When Silver walked in, Idia was quick to pause the game much to Ortho's dismay before he noticed you as well.

"Nee-san!"

Ortho cheered and hopped up, only the slightest stiffness in his mechanical limbs giving away his more limited range of motion. Idia stood, holding one arm and biting the sleeve of the other as you approached. It was clear the Shinigami was still nervous around you, but he seemed less stressed than he had been when you first met him.

"Hey, (Y/n), you- uh... You alright?"

"Been better."

"I figured after everything that happened... I do want to say sorry for not protecting you enough. We got assigned as your guards and you were injured that very first day. Absolute fumble on our part."

Idia sighed, letting go of his sleeve and somewhat swaying as he tried to avoid locking eyes with you. He was clearly anxious, but still trying to talk to you directly despite that feeling of stress inside of him.

"Well, I don't wanna drop this bomb on you too quickly, but we need to talk about those poachers."

"What's there to talk about? They're dead."

"But the one who hired them isn't."

"What?"

Idia gestured awkwardly to the couch as if he wanted you to sit first. Silver was quick to help you off of his back and onto the soft cushions, standing guard nearby despite not needing to in the comfort of your own dorm.

"I have reason to believe someone high up is trying to game the system an put a hit out on you. Real scumbag no-GG full of themselves type person."

"Wait, why do you think someone hired the Wolves?"

Idia turned to the large screen- a new addition among many others likely made by the brothers- and tapped what seemed to be a blue hologram keyboard in front of him. You were somewhat entranced by the movement of his flame hair and magic now that you could see both on clear display in front of you. The gemstones on his cheeks caught the light of his hair and almost made the Shinigami glitter in the low light of the room. He was surprisingly beautiful.

"I was reviewing the information about your attack and noticed some things. I hope it doesn't freak you out, but I have cameras all over Night Raven College and even a few in the forests. I don't- I can't really- I have issues with others and interacting with them. That's why I don't go to my classes, I just record them and show up for tests..."

He glanced at you then back at the screens again, his grey toned skin almost seeming to have a bit more color to it while he spoke to you.

"Those poachers went after Grim first. The one you value most and the one out of the two of you who can use magic. Then they went after your collar which tells me they knew the purpose it serves. Only those told about the collars should have known what purpose they served."

"So did one of the Housewardens hire them?"

"I thought so at first, but then I realized Headmage Crowley had to tell the various scientists and representatives what steps he was taking to ensure your safety. Looking at the lists of those who have come to Sage Island, I found more than a few whose theories on Humans would be called into question by your existence. To them, it would be better if you were gone. There were even a few who may have political motivations and that's why they hired the more beastly appearing Wolves to hunt you down instead of any other species. On top of all of this, they knew to drive Leona away from the school and deeper into the woods. You would have died of your injuries before you reached the villages and towns in the valley below the school."

"Okay, so why didn't they know about Malleus then?"

"It's kind of an unspoken rule among the Fae variants that one should not tell anyone another Fae's business. Headmage Crowley is a Crow Harpy Fae, he wouldn't dare say anything about another Fae. The Housewardens know Malleus has taken you as a Hoard member. The representatives and scientists? They would have no clue. The Wolves didn't know about Malleus and they were killed for it, but they knew about your collars."

You were surprised and shocked by the logical conclusions of the Shinigami and it did make sense. It had bothered you that the poachers knew about your collar, but you had avoided thinking about them and only now realized how odd it was they knew about them.

"None of the students here have a reason to hire the poachers. I did suspect that Water Nymph Cater for it at first, but that guy is a wreck right now and hasn't posted on Magicam since the day he took those pictures of you. He's way too deep in his feels to have hired the Wolves and he had a mental breakdown when he heard you were attacked. Talk about trying to tank when you main dps."

"Crowley said the representatives are going to come to Night Raven soon and talk about my safety at the school..."

"So they probably planned the attack to make Crowley look incompetent and get rid of you in one swoop. I've already told Papa Hades about it and he agrees that someone is controling the poachers behind the scenes. That's why he's here now. If we can find the one who hired the poachers, we can prove this whole thing is a sham to get to you or Crowley."

"So he doesn't want to take me away?"

"He does think you'll be safer on the Isle of Woe, but Papa Hades isn't an idiot or cruel. He wouldn't go against your wishes even for his own peace of mind unless he thought it would save your life. Try to cut the old man some slack, he did love Humans, you know? He has been asking about you since the moment Ortho told him you were here."

"Papa Hades?"

"It's- he prefers to be called that as our ancestor and his Humans used to call him that. Honestly, it would mean the world to him if you called him 'Papa Hades' as well. Just so you know."

You stood in silence for a moment before there was a heavy knock at the door. Silver was quick to trot over and answer it himself instead of letting you walk to the door to answer it. He seemed to have a quick word with whoever it was before someone very similar to Idia entered with Crowley, Malleus, Lilia, and Sebek.

"Hello, little one."

[transformers-spike]

Hello ummm can I order a uhh wholesome Starscream x human!SO with the SO being into praising him and caring for him? And he of course is drinking it all up because he needs love and reassurance more than he could ever admit

Yet again my brain decided to go for a full length novel, so I had to pull back and came up with this. Think of this as them before they got together:

“Are you alright?” “Of course I am! Why would you think otherwise?” he snarks, puffing up like a disgruntled cockatiel. You squint and look him up and down with the most “dude, just admit it” expression you can muster. He glares at you for what feels like ages, ridiculous brow plates knitted into a “fucking try me” V. You sigh, take off the welding mask and put down the torch. “I’m worried about you.” Those very same brow plates shoot up to the sky. “Pah! I don’t need your worry!” he scoffs like he isn’t bleeding out in the middle of the woods. “Sure you don’t, but I’ll have you know there’s only so much I can do! We should call Ratchet.” His fist slams to the ground, you stumble but manage to catch yourself before falling face first into the deadly spikes adorning his stiletto. Death by high heel isn’t on your “appropriately ironic deaths” list, but you should add it. If your brain didn’t slosh inside your skull like a snowglobe in the hands of a petulant two year old, you could have sworn the mighty ex-commander of the Decepticons looked apologetic for a split second. “I would rather not deal with the likes of the Autobot medic,” he declares in a slightly softer voice, although not without his usual amount of scorn. “After all, you’re doing just fine,” he croons in a sly, buttering tone. Maybe you could have believed him if he hadn’t been constantly berating you for fucking up the impromptu surgery. You are not a medic, goddammit! Much less well-versed in the art of welding shut a metal alien from a planet light years away! You’re just some car junky with pyromaniac inclinations! But seeing him this way… covered in grime and energon, wings hanging low and servos shaking. You’re glad you didn’t send him to voicemail.

You pat his leg. “Thanks, but if this happens again I’m calling Bulkhead to haul your ass back to base whether you like it or not.” Putting on your welding mask, you keep working. Starscream stays oddly quiet, not even bothering to beep at you indignantly when your torch falls out of line. It’s no Picasso, but the bleeding has stopped. After you step back to give him some space, he tests out his leg, standing up and shifting his weight from side to side. The injured leg strains but does not collapse. “Good?” you ask. “Manageable,” he mumbles in his typical “it kinda sucks but I have to be grateful” way.

Pride fills you up like a single mom downing martinis during happy hour. Although not the best compliment, it’s a Ritz-Carlton coming from him.

“Do you want to go back to base? Or just… hang out here? In the middle of the woods?” He wrinkles his optical ridge at you but doesn’t answer.

“Okay,” you drawl out, taking a seat on possibly the most comfortable rock in Nevada. Years pass by – or so it feels like – waiting for the usually extremely bitchy (thus chatty) bot to break the silence. He does not. “I think I should go,” you sit up and thumb at your car, parked all the way across the woods on the main road, a good hike from where you’re currently at. “Don’t,” he hisses. His expression is almost… forlorn if not for his angry brows. Oh fuck off, the emotionally constipated airplane war criminal can’t ask you to hang out without hurting his pride. Which makes you the responsible adult of the situation compared to the billion year old metal chicken. And by God, you are the least responsible person you know (excluding Starscream).

So you sit your ass back down and lock eyes with said chicken. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about what happened?” you ask, fully expecting him to shut you down by calling you fleshling and waving your humanity over your head like a shitty “begone” charm.

Instead, he thinks about it, averting his gaze from you and turning it to the vast wilderness beyond the trees. “Vehicons,” he states bitterly. “Either it was a purely coincidental dogfight or… Megatron is after me.” His whole frame shudders, wings sinking as low as they can go.

“I see.” You pause to take a deep breath. “Do you want to tell the Autobots?”

He shakes his helm and loosens a self-deprecating chuckle from his vocalizer. “Like they would listen to me.” You scrunch up your nose. “How about I tell them? Would that be easier for you?” His optics widen for a brief moment before returning to their perpetually conniving state. “I’m not delighted with the option, but it’s preferable considering their propensity for gathering unsolicited information.” The silence returns. “Hey, I know it’s not the best time to bring this up. But you don’t even have to answer, just please hear me out.” He peers at you wordlessly. “You’ve been through-” you gesture at dry neon blue energon adorning his frame “-a lot lately. I’m not asking you to talk about your feelings or anything like that, but if you ever need someone to just… be around, I’m here.” His expression hasn’t shifted one bit. It’s completely unreadable. You continue on with gritted teeth. “Personally, I’ve never defected from an extremely violent faction and been hunted down through the sky, but I find it’s easier to suffer around friends and family. They help shoulder the pain.”

He arches a metal brow. “Are you implying we’re friends?” “I mean-” you stammer, “I definitely consider you a friend. If you don’t, that’s fine, I’m not forcing you or anything. To each their own. But that’s beside the point-” A lengthy chuckle cuts you off. “Does a friend answer their comm in the middle of the night cycle and perform surgery with sub-optimal tools?” You’re not sure if he’s insulting you or trying to make a meaningful point. Maybe both. “If so,” he continues, lips quirking into an intimidating but somehow genuine smile, “we are friends.” Your brain flatlines. “Oh,” you whisper. “OH,” it hits you like an F-15 Fighting Falcon at full speed. “I… okay. So, um, if you want to hang out and stuff, I can stick around until five o’clock. Then I’ll have to leave and get ready for work.”

“Good enough,” he scoffs good-naturedly, having returned to his bitchy old self with slightly less bitchiness. But the smile he doesn’t bother hiding betrays something deeper. Starscream is your friend. Starscream called himself your friend. Holy shit, you think you’re going to have an aneurysm.

[tsspromptmonth]

Cafe Menu Drop!

Hey Babes, we'll be hiring baristas next week starting on the 21st, so watch out for my truly insufferable number of posts about that. On that day we'll post a link so you can send in your application or like whatever.

Now since this is a cafe we figured y'all would want a menu, but like fanfic has so many options so this is just the basics, more will probably come.

Important Deet: Our baristas can't work for free and you pay in comments! Writers are needy bitches who need encouragement. Our hand-crafted stories will run you 1 comment per 100 words, so for a 500 word request, you'll 'pay' in 5 comments on any Sanders Sides story.

The Sleepy Bean Café serves up a range of story sizes: you get to request the size you're craving! The biggest size the machine can handle is a quintuple shot: 5000 words. (That's 50 comments for you big spenders out there!) Sometimes, our baristas are having such a blast mixing up your request that they add a little extra and go over the size of your original request. Consider that a bonus and the managers will look the other way.

Full text under 'read more'

Our baristas think they're creative and might add a little somethin extra from the menu, so if there's anything you just can't stand, better tell us up front.

And for all you barista hopefuls, six days til the hiring process begins. I'm gonna need a lot of bitches to make all these drinks.

~Remy XX

Sleepy Bean Fanfic Cafe Menu

More options available by request.

Drinks (Setting or AU)

Brewed Coffee = Canon Verse Steamed Milk = Soulmates Latte = Human AU Hot Chocolate = Parental AU Herbal Tea = Magic AU (Modern day or fantasy) Machiatto = Time Travel Cappuccino = Gods AU Green Tea = Merpeople

Milk (Tone)

Skim = Hurt/No comfort 2% Milk = Hurt/Comfort Heavy Cream = Fluff Oat Milk = Ambiguous ending Coconut = Crack taken seriously Olive Oil = Crack

Syrup (Characters)

Starfruit = Janus Loganberry = Logan Peach = Patton Kiwi = Remus Cherry = Roman Cranberry = Virgil

Toppings (Tropes)

Whipped cream = Only one Bed Caramel drizzle = Childhood Best Friends Chocolate sauce = Fake Dating/Marriage Chopped nuts = Arranged Marriage Burnt sugar = Time Loop Chocolate Shavings = Mutual Pining Honey = Sick Fic Cinnamon = Enemies to Lovers Nutmeg = Love after Loss Blended = Found Family

All drinks are 1 comment per 100 words with a 500 word minimum.

Specials

The Serpent God

A cappuccino with 2% milk, starfruit, and crushed raspberries. (Gods AU, hurt/comfort, featuring Janus, and hiding a fatal injury.)

Space Jam

A boba with starfruit, kiwi & Loganberry jellies, blended with honey. (Space AU with Janus, Remus, & Logan, found family sick fic.)

Peach Berry Sweet Treat

Peach/Loganberry Cobbler Latte, with ginger cookie crumbles. (Human AU, only one of them knows they are dating with romantic Logicality.)

Melting Clocks Crumble

A macchiato with burnt sugar topped with whipped cream. (A time travel AU with only one bed, time loops and a choice of characters.)

Lost in Space

Boba tea with steamed skim milk, kiwi/peach boba. (Soulmate Space AU, romantic Intruality, hurt no comfort.)

Winter's Comfort

A mocha with 2% milk, topped with caramel drizzle, nutmeg, and chocolate shavings, syrup to taste. (Parental human AU, hurt/comfort, childhood best friends, mutual pining, and love after loss, any characters.)

A Classic

Herbal tea, with 2% steamed milk. (Human magic AU, hurt/comfort, any characters.)

Cinnamon Sunrise

Steamed milk with cinnamon. (Human AU, with enemies to lovers. Your choice of characters, tone, and tropes.)

[giantmushyfriend]

Welcome back to the Ineffable lyric discussion (can I hear a wahoo)

In honor of the announcement of season 3 of our beloved Good Omens, I find it completely necessary for us to discuss one of the many songs on Aziraphale and Crowley's angelic playlist that made me scream my bloody head off. One of those songs is the one and only The Book of Love by Peter Gabriel. While I UNDERSTAND this song may have just been chosen to spell out SEASON THREE, I think it goes much deeper than that because of all of the parallels it draws to Aziraphale and Crowley. And ultimately, what I think is going to happen in terms of their relationship when they finally sort their shit out. So beware if you haven't watched season 2 of Good Omens because we're about to do a fucking DEEP DIVE into this.

First, the title of the Book of Love feels almost like a call to this looming threat to the Book of Life that was consistently used in series 2. The entire season, Crowley and Aziraphale have to work oh so carefully because with the Book of Life being confirmed, they know that either of them could get the other erased, and whether they want to admit it or not, losing the other is their biggest fear. We've seen this when Crowley believed Aziraphale to be dead in Series 1 when he couldn't feel Aziraphale's presence anymore since he got incorporated. When Aziraphale isn't there, Crowley is a mess. Likewise, we saw how both reacted during the ineffable divorce scene in series 2. Crowley is full-on begging Aziraphale to stay, and Aziraphale has finally admitted that he needs Crowley and full-on mouths for Crowley not to leave him. The Book of Life inherently, from how Neil set it up, feels threatening. The Book of Love, on the other hand, raises an entirely other reaction. Throughout the series, as corny as it sounds, love has been what grounds our protagonists. It is the love of Tadfeild and his friends that keeps Adam from kickstarting the end of the world; it's what keeps him from rejecting his father, the literal devil. It is the love of the earth, of humanity and all its strange creations, and for each other that keeps Aziraphale and Crowley attempting to prevent the end of the world when it could be so much easier to just accept the fate of it all. Love is the key theme that grounds our protagonists, that makes them tick. Love is safe; love is, at times, painful but overall kind. So when we see this title on their playlist, listed amongst heartwrenching tales of grieving a relationship, you could have had, and of loss, it brings a sense of salvation and safety. The Book of Love, unlike the Book of Life, is not a threat- it's a sanctuary for Aziraphale and Crowley.

Now, diving into the lyrics.

"The book of love is long and boring

No one can lift the damn thing

It's full of charts and facts, and figures, and instructions for dancing

But I

I love it when you read to me.

And you

You can read me anything"

The first couple of verses inherently feel like Aziraphale and Crowley's original view on this notion of love. As two supernatural entities who aren't bound by human emotion or logic, love may seem superficial and downright silly at times. The courting procedures that different societies have taken on throughout the centuries and the songs and dances that come along with it may all seem like a big waste. The book of love is a manifestation of love itself, and originally, it seems unappetizing to our protagonists. That is until they refind each other, and love goes from this thing that humans feel and jump through hoops for to this tidal wave of emotions. Love felt silly and unrealistic before, but with each other, they are willing and excited to explore it, even if it comes with things that feel inherently silly.

Also, these verses draw some cute parallels to headcanons and features of cannons. If you've been involved in the Good Omens fandom long enough, you've probably stumbled across the idea that Crowley asks Aziraphale to read to him for a multitude of different reasons. Some people say it's because his eyes aren't meant to read, one of the many punishments that came with him being cast down from grace, or maybe it's just because he finds Aziraphale's voice comforting. Additionally, the line about instructions for dancing is just so heartwarming when we look at the ball scene from this past season and Aziraphale's daydreams of a romance worthy of a Jane Austin novel.

"The book of love is long and boring

And written very long ago

It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes

Adn things we're all too young to know

but I

I love it when you give me things

and you

You ought to give me wedding rings"

I'm sure we've all heard this idea that you'll understand love when you get older, but even when you get older, it never seems to make sense. This idea that love is too old for any of us to truly understand, and that humbles us but in the best way possible. There is no point in trying to figure out what exactly love is because you could spend thousands of years feeling it and watching it happen all around you and still not know exactly what it is besides this all-encompassing feeling. And that is exactly the perspective of Aziraphale and Crowley. They have seen countless examples of love, true, unwavering love, and they have felt it for each other. And yet they themselves cannot begin to fathom what love, true unconditional love, is exactly. These two supernatural, ethereal/occult beings are humbled by the very concept of love like humans are- and that love is drawn from each other.

And then there is this notion of giving, which pairs so well with Crowley's primary love language, acts of service and gift giving. If the first chorus was Crowley talking about how he loves it when Aziraphale reads to him and takes care of him, then this is Aziraphale talking about how Crowley displays his love. And this final notion of asking for that final commitment, one of the key ways humans express their love for each other, is just amazing. Because in a way, Aziraphale moving to make this commitment, to fully be on their side in this way, is the resolution we have been wanting since the beginning. For Aziraphale to finally feel safe enough to let go and finally let himself settle to where he finally belongs, on his side with Crowley.

[nushkiespeaks]

I never knew romanticizing DEPRESSION and being SUICIDAL can be considered cool, because-

LOWKEY PEOPLE PORTRAY ARJUN AS DEPRESSED AND SUICIDAL AND TAG IT AS HUMOR!

I don't know how did everyone arrive to this conclusion that Arjun suffers from depression, questioning self-worth and lowkey suicidal. 

Tell me honestly, did you ever think this man, who bows down in front of Krishna during Geeta gyaan with a charismatic presence, ever to be suicidal?!

No right?

Basically that was our childhood, and as we grew up, we stopped reading and BELIEVING the texts :)

Either we go with the flow of what others say, or just skim through the texts without understanding anything, or just cherry pick verses that suite their narratives. 

Well, that has resulted into a characterization of Arjun who is like, suffering from mental health problems and so on-

If someone has read the entire Mahabharat, he knows that Arjun is not the way he is thought to be; specially HE IS NOT DEPRESSED OR SUICIDAL anywhere! 

Arjun was anything but pretentious of his FEELINGS and it is clearly visible once you read the texts carefully! 

I don't know why you guys tend to confuse moral retainment with depression, O God!

Just because Arjun analyzed before reacting, or took time to analyze what would've happened, you tend to call him depressed, like really?

In fact, he was the one who was the most stable Pandav after the Dyut incident! He is the one who consoles Bheem and Yudhishthir mostly! Tell me, if a person is suicidal, can he do that? NEVER!

Now some intellectuals will come and bark how Arjun used to hide his depression and pretend he was okay....

*laughs like a hyena* Guys, if Arjun had 'pretended' to be okay, then you wouldn't have that huge Geeta gyaan popping up in Mahabharat where Arjun literally pours himself out like a tsunami in front of Krishna. And this man 'pretended' to be okay....*smh*.

And if Arjun was genuinely depressed, he wouldn't have been able to shoot such intellectual questions to Krishna during Geeta, nor absorb it with his full potential! Removing doubts from mind is not same as DEPRESSION guys! 

This guy does penance for years, handles Bheem during Dyut rightfully, is the one who instilled faith among his brothers after Dyut, does penance again for five years, stays in HEAVEN and kills Nivatakavachas, stays one year as Brihannala and fights Kauravas single-handedly, mind it and also steals clothes for Uttaraa---and the audacity to label such a lively guy as DEPRESSED.

This guy has a friend circle dude, friend circle! He relaxes, sipping a bit of wine and gossips with Krishna casually and laughing! 

You call this guy depressed?

He ventures out in picnics the most! Takes his wives, also accompanies Krishna for his marriages, and you call this guy depressed? 

DO you guys even know what DEPRESSION is?

 Ki kahi bhi aise hi use kiye jaarhe ho bas 'cool' banne keliye?

Show me one stance where Arjun suffers from acute depression like you guys portray him?

Ab banda apne family members ke marne ke baad roye bhi nahi? Wo bhi isliye ro rha kyuki wo DEPRESSION me hai?

Thora dimaag lagaya karo yaar! Har cheez depression nahi hota!

If someone gets hurt and starts crying, imagine a five year old child crying after falling down, he is depressed?

Peeps literally pick up a few stances from the war part of Mahabharat where Arjun is crying over Bheeshm, Abhimanyu etc, and show him to be DEPRESSED, SUICIDAL and what not!

So what is he supposed to do, laugh? Celebrate, o wow my family members are getting killed? Behen ke pakoro, wo AISA karta na, tab hota wo actual me DEPRESSED!

HE REACTS LIKE HOW A HUMAN IS SUPPOSED TO REACT GUYS!

You think one can perform years of penance after being depressed? Really? Do you guys know how much mental power is required to do penances, get such powerful astras, our boi even fought with Mahadev guys! HE LITERALLY SPENDS TIME IN HEAVEN! Do you think Indra is going to allow someone who is mentally depressed and suicidal in his abode? Is he then qualified enough to go to the heavens and simultaneously learn weapons, dancing and singing?

THE MENTAL POWER REQUIRED TO DO SO, CAN YOU GUYS IMAGINE?!

And you tend to call this guy SUICIDAL.....*rubs my temple* 

Sach sach batao, aur koi mila nahi tha kya? 🤣🤣🤣🤣Seriously guys, Arjun ko depressed? 

Ek minute ke liye mai Yudhishthir ka maan lu ki self guilt and all, lekin tumlog Arjun ko hi.... 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Behen, Bhagwan Nar jis din depression me ajaega na, usdin tumhari aur humari existence bhi khatam hojani hai usidin.😂😂😂😂

To ye TV serial aur Fictions se Arjun ka character analysis karna bandh karo, aur thora BORI padhlo 😂.

Aur please, Google se Depression aur Suicidal hone ka meaning bhi check karlena....ya ye bhi mujhe hi batana padega?

Don't try to be cool, for you guys appear to be like a fool.

[dreamdripdistance]

the duo!!! i wanted to put them side by side so i could yap about them, which i will! under the cut! bc this is MY BLOG!!! GRAH!!!!

in siffrins side theyre on the stage, bowing for the roses at all the endless curtain calls. because its his turn in the spotlight, theyre the one bound by the script to keep smiling and to keep the show running because they dont know the alternative!!! the curtains arent closing for the ending either, theyre already opening right back up to start it all over againnnn! back to the stage, siffrin!

but also theres an outwards and upwards movement because in the end sif DOES get out, theyre not trapped (the star theyre reaching to as well, thats meant to rep loop!)

contrasting this with loops side, while theyre technically free from Their time loop when we meet them, but theyre still dragged down by the universe, a perpetual falling star and an unfinished play. theyre always going to be trapped by the consequences of their own choices!!!

loops card isnt Technically an inverted star tarot card (the text is still upright) but theyre still meant to have that downward, reversed pull compared to siffrins card because theyre PARALLELS!!! its also darker since this time, loops not the one in the spotlight (... the timeloop) anymore

also the song lyrics i put with both are so important, trust. the full verse from stray/burnt sugar by gouge away "never feel richer than to find / that the most consistent part of this life / is that the sun will always rise / and there's stars in the night / time will beg for you (x4)" kind of just encapsulates the whole feeling of the game to me, the constancy of everything for better or for worse, and the distant company and comfort siffrin finds in the stars (plus the song itself is really on brand for sif, it feels both cautious and warm at the same time)

while for loops one, marrow by st vincent "muscle connects to the bone / and bone to the ire and the marrow / so i pretend there arent ten strings tied to all ten of my fingers / H-E-L-P help me" always reminds me of like. loop doesnt have a body anymore? theyve lost their human physicality and now gotta follow the universe's whims no matter what as a result of that. also 'how can you help me, stardust?" lol (also the song has a really fun groove to it that just feels Very loop to me)

ok thats it

[itsbubbleteataro]

Hehe inspiration is fun

I'm kinda in the mood for some angst so let's get to it! I ended up getting inspired by one of my favorite songs by my favorite band.

Please enjoy!

Pairing; human!Alastor x human!fem!reader

Warning; Alastor being Alastor, death, gore, murder, cannibalism 

Six feet under the stars

Summer of 1932 in New Orleans

You and Alastor had been living together for quite some time now. You moved in with him around two years ago and have been engaged for a little over two months now.

Tonight was a rare night where Alastor had gone out again for both a hunt and a surprise for you. Yes, you knew about his hunts and to be honest you didn't mind them. I mean you yourself had been doing something similar.

You were the daughter of a tea salesman and were well versed in the art of tea. Sometimes when dealing with a rather rude customer as you worked at your father's shop, you snuck a little something extra into the teabag, just a pinch of arsenic. Okay well maybe not just a pinch but enough to kill a man.

Anyways you looked at yourself in the mirror checking your appearance once more in the mirror. You wore a simple sundress as it's the summer and summer in the bayou can get quite hot and swampy.

You looked at the paper on the dining room table double checking where it said to meet Alastor. You laced up your boots with the heels before you stepped outside, walking down to Thames street where your lover wait for you.

*******

When you approached your fiancé you saw that he had changed out of his hunting clothes, he must have stopped at home while you were busy getting yourself ready.

With a hum the two of you linked arms and walked towards the outskirts of a different part of the bayou. Don't get me wrong, Alastor still knew this part very well and you trusted him in every way shape and form and in turn he trusted you. Trusted you enough to see him covered in blood, eating human hearts, even his hair in its naturally curly state.

Alastor lead you over to a waiting blanket and picnic basket, taking your hand he brought you to sit down.

"I was hoping we could have a lovely picnic this fair evening baby" 

His eyes shown in the low lighting. You swooned. He was always doing sweet things like this for you. You helped him set up the food, your matching engagement rings sparkling in the starlight. He had picked out matching rings himself, the main stone in yours being a ruby with small diamonds around it. A blood red stone, fitting choice for two serial killers.

About halfway through your evening you both had finished the food. It was one of the rare occasions that you too indulged in the taste of human flesh. Your head was against his shoulder as you watched the fireflies dance in the distance, taking in each others peace when you felt Alastor stiffen.

You were pulling your head back to ask what was the matter when you felt it, a scorching, red hot, searing pain in your shoulder. Your hand flies to your shoulder as a scream is ripping from your throat. Alastor's eyes widen and for the first time in a long time he feels terror make its way into his heart.

You, his love, had been shot by a clumsy hunter who had mistaken the two of you for a pair of bobcats out of all things.

You hunched over, eyes full of tears as you even try to process of what happened when a second shot rings out, this one hitting your torso.

Alastor was furious, quickly confronting the hunter who had yet to realize that he had infant shot a person. All you could hear was the hunters scream as Alastor quite literally ripped him apart with his blade.

He first cut the tendons in the hunters legs so he couldn't run, then sliced the ones in his hands so he can't fight back. Then he stabbed and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, stopping only after he had plunged his blade between the fools eyes and twisted it.

By the time he had finished with the hunter he turned to you. Quickly going down to you he held you in his arms. His hands were shaking and he was covered in both your blood and the hunters blood.

You were losing blood fast and you both knew it.

"I should have known better than to call you out tonight-"

"Oh hush up love"

You cut him off. You didn't want him blaming himself for your death. You knew you were going to die when you felt your fingers starting to tingle from blood loss.

Alastor gripped your face with one of his hands,

"My dear, I fear that if you're gone I won't be able to hold back. I may just tear this place apart."

Alastor choked out, feeling tears well in his eyes. You took a shaking breath, leaning into his touch.

"Then tear the world apart if you so desire. Just as long as you promise to meet me again someday"

Alastor nodded his head, his heart breaking in two as your voice became weaker and weaker.

"I love you Alastor"

You reached a hand up to his cheek, rubbing it gently.

"I love you too (y/n)"

Upon hearing such words you know that your body won't be long for this world. You let a gentle smile rest upon your lips, pulling his cheek weakly in an attempt for him to do the same.

He gets the message and forces himself to smile as tears rundown his cheeks. With one last breath your eyes flutter shut, your hand slipping from his face and your soul plummeting straight down to hell.

He holds your body close and sobs. The smile never leaving his face as he does. He sits back up, packing up the picnic and stuffing it all in the basket, blanket it and all. He pushes his arm through the loop of the basket so he can pick up your lifeless body.

He makes his way back to your shared cabin walking through the bayou as he didn't want anyone thinking he had killed you, his precious lover.

He knew he would have to give you the best burial money could buy, so he did just that. Your tombstone was made of marble, your name engraved as "(y/n) Hartfelt".

The day he buried you was one of the worst days of his life, right up when he had buried his mother. He visited your grave daily, telling you about his day. His never stopped grieving.

Fall of 1933

Alastor had been shot burying a body. He had gotten sloppy after your death, his hunts becoming more erratic as he worked through his loss. A hunter had mistaken him for a deer.

First his love had been mistaken for a bobcat and now him a deer, how fate has a way of working.

He welcomed his death, being found with a smile etched on his face for he knew that he could finally reunite with his lover as his soul plummeted down to hell.

He had a matching tombstone to yours, it being placed in the grave yard next to yours. As his coffin was lowered down into the ground and the dirt piled on, he rest easy.

As the two of you could finally be reunited,

Six feet under the stars



[thescarletnargacuga]

DEFYING GRAVITY

A harlequin AU showtime songfic!

Harlequin AU credit: @tadc-harlequin-au @iamespecter

A quasi-sequel to chandelier

WARNING: alcohol

~~~

Pomni and Caine were in the dining room having the time of their life. They were an uncountable amount of bottles into their drunken shenanigans and were treating the former formal room to the greatest show on earth. Caine stood on the table, holding his cane like a microphone. Every unsteady step he took knocked something to the floor; plates, cutlery, candelabras. "Ladies and gentlemen! Puppets of all ages! Prepare to be amazed by the marvelous, high-flying acro-botic harlequin!"

He pointed to Pomni, sitting on a large mounted animal head, high above the floor. She stood and bowed, almost falling forward, but caught herself. She leapt from her perch, grabbed a chandelier like a trapeze and swung to a second chandelier over the table. She let go to grab the next but missed.

Caine almost fell over his own feet scrambling to catch her. He got her and gave her a cheeky smile. "Nice of you drop in."

Pomni was too drunk to care about his stupid joke. She laughed. "I missed."

"I know. Let's not do that again. How about a song? The stage is still ours!"

"Fuck yeah! Where's the music?"

"Bubble!" Caine called and the blimp butler puttered in.

"Yes?"

"We need music! Make it a catchy one!" Caine hiccuped.

"You got it, boss." Bubble played a random music track over his speaker.

"Wait! I know this song!" Pomni jumped out of Caine's arms and climbed a china cabinet, the fragile plateware inside clanked together. She stood proud and started belting the song. "Something has changed within me. Something is not the same. I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game! Too late for second guessing! Too late to go back to sleep! It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes and leeeeeeap!"

She jumped from the cabinet, grabbed a banner hanging from the ceiling and swung around on it like an aerial silk. "It's time to try defying gravity! Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity! And you won't bring me dooown!"

Caine's eyes sparkled as he watched Pomni fly overhead. To see her so full of life made him feel like he was on top of the world. He posed and sang the next verse before Pomni could. "I'm through accepting limits cause someone says they're so. Some things I cannot change, but till I try I'll never know! Too long I've been afraid of losing love I guess I've lost. Well, if that's love, it comes at much too high a coooost!"

He leapt from the table, kicked off the wall and grabbed a banner. He swung freely across from Pomni. "I'd sooner buy defying gravity! I'd wake up high defying gravity! Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity! And you won't bring me dooown!"

They made eye contact, smiling as the song continued. The song felt so freeing to sing. Even if they didn't really know why. Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was the feeling of swinging around on the ceiling. But this just felt right.

"Unlimited. My future is unlimited." Pomni sang. "And I just had a vision, almost like a prophecy." She looked longingly at Caine. He looked different... almost human. She blinked, and the vision cleared. "I know, it sounds truly crazy."

"And true, the vision's hazy." Caine swung closer, grabbed her banner and pushed her around the room.

"But I can see it!" Pomni sung at Caine.

"I can feel it!" Caine sang back.

"And so I'll be so hiiiigh!" Pomni held on with just her legs and held her arms up as she swung.

Caine joined her in singing the held word as their banners twisted together.

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Pomni was bursting with real joy. She was practically in Caine's face as she sang. "So if you care to find me, look to the Western sky!"

Caine leaned in to her a little. "Has someone told you lately, everyone deserves the chance to flyyyy!" He swung around and untangled their banners, sending Pomni swinging on her own again.

"And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free!"

Caine swung to kick off the wall. "To those who'd ground me, take a message back from meeeee! Yeah, yeah!" He swung out to Pomni and jumped to her banner, putting them both on the same one. He steadied himself putting an arm around her. She grabbed on to him, not protesting the closeness.

They sang together as the song crescendoed. "It's time to try defying gravity! I'm way up high, I'm defying gravity!" They locked eyes. "Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity! And you won't bring me, and you won't bring me dooooooown!"

They sang together so perfectly, they surprised themselves. All smiles and out of breath, Caine leaned close. "Pomni, you're incredible."

"I know." She giggled drunkenly. Her heart felt warm. The soul fragment within her hummed in response to Caine. It felt like her soul was literally trying to touch his. By the look on his face, he was experiencing the same thing. "Caine..?" She leaned in even closer.

"Pomni..." He moved in with the intent of kissing her, but millimeters before contact, a sudden jolt downward startled them. They looked up to see that their shared banner was tearing from the ceiling.

They looked back at each other and the banner ripped. They fell in a heap to the table below. Pomni sat up and pushed the heavy banner off of them. "Fuck...that could not have been worse timing." She pouted.

Caine sat up and gave her a look. "We could still-"

"Nope. Moment ruined." She pushed Caine away and he fell off the table.

"What is going on in here!?" Ragatha stormed in, holding a broom. "YOU TWO!" She pointed at Caine and Pomni. "Stop wrecking this manor room by room! SOMEONE HAS TO CLEAN IT!"

Pomni and Caine scattered like a couple of cockroaches, fleeing from Ragatha's wrath.

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

Sometimes I feel the shows world is… empty but at the same time has too much

In season 2 they put sentient robots able to feel actual emotions like they are something common enough for a teenager go make them

In the specials they introduce other magic systems like the cousins of the kwamis and then introduce things like Batwoman and super/Wonder Woman

Then in season 3 they introduce FREAKING ALIENS!!! (Bunnix said they exist) I wouldn’t be mad if they elaborated in those subjects

But they don’t, we don’t have meta humans in the rest of the show but season 5 finale, we don’t have magicians and we haven’t seen a flesh and bones alien (I think since I don’t know what Majestia’s whole deal is)

The origins episode and the backstory of the guardians and miraculous imply the existence of other monsters

We see a kraken, a fusion of a Sphinx with Medusa fighting Heracles, a dragon fighting a ladybug holder on medieval glass stain similar to the ones in churches, and then we see some unknown hero fighting a Evangelion like monster on the sea with a Japanese style

But we only have Akumas, Akumas and Akumas, and in special occasions we have Akumas but BIGGER or Akumas but R E D ,Where are those monsters in modern age? Some of the crossovers they had planned with other ZAK shows implied the existence of witches, fairy’s, ghosts and a giant snake monster

The world introduces the supernatural and science fiction but instead of using it we are stuck with miraculous

Why is no character using magic? Why isn’t there sandman or rhino like villains rooming the streets? I Can see post season 4 Gabriel doing what tombstone did in spectacular Spider-Man and turning criminals into super villains to get the miraculous or at least to make negativity higher through all of Paris by introducing super villains who are willingly evil AND have permanent powers

Or why isn’t there a evil wizard searching for the miraculous for power or a ancient evil the kwamis sealed searching to take revenge on Plagg and Tikki? Or just Gabriel using evil magic to summon a hunting hound monster to track the miraculous and the heroes have to find a way to defeat a enemy they can’t defeat by their usual way (their usual way is breaking the evilified object so the enemy just disappears)

They keep introducing weird things and concepts and do nothing with them, is like they tried to be Spider-Man in the “exists on a larger world full with heroes” and then proceeds to ignore all other Spider-Man things like having a rogues gallery and constantly facing magic and sci-fi threats

Heck I might even say he only did this to ride the Shared universe train marvel started but just like DC and the Dark verse, they failed (except for the Monsterverse, the Monsterverse is ETERNAL)

That's the weird thing about this show. It wants to be a simple good vs evil story, but it also wants to flesh out the universe for future spin-offs.

This is why I just can't stand the Miraculous World specials, because they don't do anything with the concepts introduced. The Miraculous scattered across the world, other magical artifacts like the Miraculous, and the goddamn multiverse are only used for what is glorified filler. A lot of these ideas could easily be fleshed out for their own seasons, but the show only wants the conflict to revolve around the heroes and whoever gets the Butterfly Miraculous.

If you want to expand your universe, you need to think about how this development will affect your story as well as your world.

[valentine-cafe]

hi hi hi, could i request herrera husbands (verse 209) dealing with a secret admirer?

(gn reader)

at first, it starts really innocently. short letters left on their desks, decorated with small hearts and wishes of their days going as pleasantly as they can. after awhile, along the written notes, small gifts appear. at first it was mostly some candy, then small packs of cigarettes, and recently some red lipstick for rishen (with a hopeful note, that he will like it), human teeth for jingyi (with a note, that the one particular employee he recently got irritated at won't bother him anymore!!). . .

it's all fun and games, but no one is perfect. even phantom thief had to get caught someday, and this apparently has to happen to their not so innocent admirer. . .

˖⁺. ﹙ the mad doctor & scientist husbands  x gn!reader. ﹚ .���� ݁

. . . caught a hint, dearest !! 🍒 :  yandere ˖ mad doctor ˖ snake monster ˖ hybrid monster ˖ mad scientist characters﹙ 209 jìngyí & rishen. ﹚

ah the herrera husbands, ever as clever. they know just where to look.

“i truly am still bummed i did not get to do the job myself,” jìngyí sighs as he finishes reminicing together with his husband, as they look down at the most recent letters and gifts received.

“well it is nice to have someone do the job at times, especially with how busy we are!” rishen exclaims as he chuckles. lifting up the small glass jar with two eyeballs rolling and floating around inside of them.

one might wonder who wanders eyeless now. if they even have the legs to walk with.

the note that had been on the gift read: “to rishen, let the eyes that looked at you with such haughtiness never do so again.’ and truly, the scientist was flattered.

yet, he also could not help but feel a bit like his husband. they adored your actions. whomever you were, you certainly were devoted to them. good, they like that.

but! they enjoyed the thrill of the chase as well. some of their recent hitlist victims had been discarded of before they as much could get a chance. and the clock was only ticking by every minute, as they were on a closer path to figuring out who kept leaving these notes around and gave them such amazing gifts.

“an assistant perhaps?” jìngyí suggests.

“i do not think so, we would suss them out quickly.” rishen responds with a soft coo in his voice. he lifts up a picture of one of the several suspects that they have gathered.

“perhaps they do not even work here, dear.” another chuckle escapes his mouth. as his arm swipes across the desk and the pictures all fall and scatter across the ground. flaming up with a glare from jìngyí. he may lack his scythe. but he never forgets his spellcasting lessons.

rishen makes his way over to the window of their office and leans to peek over the edge.

“i think that this is someone who is a regular.” with a sharp pointed index, that traces across the window and makes its way to your figure. he smiles, and tilts his head. blinking slowly.

a tut breaks the silence, jìngyí joins his husband. regal and refined as he always is as he watches the passerbyers down below in the streets. quick to catch sight of where he needs to.

“that would make sense indeed. that would be a patient of mine.” he hums and smiles, narrowing his eyes slightly. catching onto the fact you stand frozen on the concrete ground because you have noticed. they see you.

with a bag in your hand, full of gifts no doubt.

[theyungihven]

The Demon's Infatuation • Sex Demon Yunho

CHAPTER 2

↬ pairing: dom demon yunho x sub female reader

↬ genre: smut, romance

↬ warnings: breeding kink, cream pie, pain kink, unprotected sex, hip bruises, biting kink, slut-shaming, choking kink, hard core dom yunho, yunho is OBSSESSED,

↬ word count: 1.2K+

↬ author’s note: this full novel length fic is a dedication to my boyfriend alex and the demon that visited me at night two years ago every full moon night

Summary : She's just an innocent heartbroken girl who just wants to be loved for once despite her flaws and imperfections and he's a wicked demon who wants nothing but to corrupt her soul to till all she can think of him. What can go wrong if he takes a little interest in her? Heaven along with Hell are not going to collide with the Earth, or will they?

MASTERLIST

TAGLIST : @yunhogrippers @haram-monbebe @atinism @yvnhoos @st4rhwa @lomons

“So I teleported near the old city. And then, I got this strong whiff of blood.” I tell San.

We sit under the neon lights on the barstools as we rest our hands on the bar counter. The brown wood creaks under my weight, a reminder of its ancientness

I feel the bartender’s eyes widen with every word I say, as if he’s a columnist and writes the infamous gossip column catered to making the most scandalous secrets known to hell’s residents.

However, I don’t care enough and continue about my latest endeavour to a very uninterested San. The fellow demon looks like he will jump into the holy water any moment, if given the chance to cease his existence.

“I saw a girl on her knees begging someone to love her.” I say and a small smile greets his lips. “She looked delicious and I’m telling you, she smelled sweeter than an elixr.” I continue and the bartender bends down to access the lower cabinets of the counter, all while his eyes stay hooked in my direction.

“And what’s better than trapping a human in distress? So I thought, why not make my presence known? And then, mate,” I chuckle as I remember the moment she ran inside and the look that crowned her face when she noticed my shadow form, “she has the audacity to recite verses, but she couldn’t even do that right.”

“Humans are pathetic, I'm telling you." Dante agrees with me as he smiles a little, his lips thinning but not even curling a degree up whatsoever for some reason unknown to me. My heart skips a beat as my smile drops.

The clitter clatter of the glass and the chatter of the demons inside the infamous club Hell’s Inferno is constant, with fights erupting every now and then, like an active volcano.

However, today, it is eerily quiet in the dead of a full moon night.

It is unusual, but I enjoy the bourbon in my hands.

I swirl it around while taking a little peek at my dear friend, San who is playing with the end of his tail. He looks very odd today, as if he has fucked up real bad and is now going to be banished from hell. His skin looks pale as if he’s losing his colour from malnutrition.

However, as from the latest gossip and news about the duo’s latest adventures also according to the not so quiet whispers, celibacy isn’t the case.

“Mate, you look like you prevented a sin.” I say, as I place my bourbon glass on the counter and stare at him. Nothing but worry fills my heart.

“Nothing.” he replies lifelessly as if he has given up on reality and accepted defeat.

“Then, the fuck is wrong with you?” I scream.

Everyone in the club looks at me as if I tempted a human to commit a good deed.

I take a deep breath in order to calm myself down and then say,

“How’s your girl, San?”

“urm…she’s doing…umm…well!” Dante shutters. He then gulps his drink all the way and stares at the glass.

My suspicions and the word of mouth which had travelled to me earlier this week were indeed true.

Dante did associate with an angel, committed treason and is next on line to getting banished from hell.

“You fucked up big time, mate.” I chuckle as I say, swallowing the bitterness on my tongue which attempts to slip but I don't want to hurt Dante anymore.

“I know, I know…” Dante sighs. He then takes a deep breath as he corrects his posture.

“I FUCKING KNOW OKAY!” He slams the glass on the table as he stares at me dead in the eye.

“What are you going to do with this girl though?” Wow, now I am the main focus of the conversation. I look up at Dante as I lick my lips, refreshing my memory at all things I’ve been thinking to do with her.

“Tempt her, seduce her, get so deep into her mind” I say as I swirl the drink which the bartender refilled in order to infiltrate our privacy.

I gulp down the whole thing in one go and slam it on the table.

“That she’d desperately crave me like a drug.” I finished, and Dante’s reaction to my words is magnificent. He looks like a human when they see me in my demon form for a split second in the corner of their room as I give them my charismatic smile.

“But how?” Dante asks as he looks at me all confused.

I get up from the barstool and walk closer towards Dante.

“Good things take time, my dear.” I pat Dante's shoulder as I continue, “but wonderful things…” I lean in as I whisper into his ear, “takes a good strategy and patience.” I say, then lean back, flashing him my trademark smile as I turn around and make a dramatic exit which leaves everyone gasping.

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

We have a full hcs about a smoll MC, now how about a full hcs about a toll MC who's even more toller than Muriel? :0

The Arcana HCs: When MC is taller than Muriel

~ @zedibleandedible how do you always come up with the cutest ideas??? thank you for sending this in, friend! - brainrot ~

Julian

Very, very attracted to this and doing his best to hide it (he's failing)

So used to being one of the tallest people around that most of his flirtatious moves depend on the focus of his attraction being shorter than he is

Which means he's completely lost on how to approach you

He can't make a path for you through the crowd, he can't hide you behind him, he can't catch you against his chest - hang on a sec

This can go both ways

Now he's employing the reverse of all his tactics

Holding onto your elbow while you make your way through the crowd, tripping and falling constantly so you can catch him against your chest, asking you to grab something or spot someone for him

He could get used to this

He has a whole new perspective shift when your relationship progresses to things like cuddling and kissing, because he has to rethink all the mechanics of it (he's used to bending down for a kiss, not standing on his tiptoes) but he finds he quite likes it

Asra

Has loved you for years and is well-versed in interacting with someone your height (they knew Muriel long before they knew you, and they've known you for nine years now)

Though your height proved to be a challenge when he needed to teach you how to be human again

You had to lean on their shoulders, instead of their elbow, and they accidentally led you into so many door frames, signposts, and shop front awnings

There were also issues inside the shop. As it had been yours for quite some time, you had stored quite a few things on some very tall shelves that Asra couldn't reach without magic. (Or a ladder)

And magic lessons could quickly get out of hand when whatever you were doing ended up out of his reach

"Master, I can't control the fire spell!"

"Bring it down towards me! - wait, not near that shelf! Faust is sleeping in those papers!"

Faust doesn't mind your height at all. She loves hitching joyrides on your shoulders and looking down at all the teeny tiny humans below her

Nadia

When she first visited your shop, and mentioned that you were not the same as you were in her dream, this is what she meant

The truth is that you did appear at your regular height in her dream, but at that point everything seemed so out of wack for her that she assumed you just appeared larger than life

But here you are in real life, and you are in fact very large

Finds your frame impressive and, depending on your preferred aesthetic, is determined to find all the best ways to dress it (you have great potential in capes)

Secretly not that fond of having to look up to talk to you. She's used to being the tall one, or at least the same height

Starts wearing heels

Knows the whole time that it won't make a huge difference, but loves the shift in perspective

Never accepts your offers to grab something she can't reach, but she will ask you to spot someone in a crowd for her. Sometimes. Maybe

You are Chandra's new favorite perch

Muriel

A little surprised when he first met you

Hates to admit it, but he's rarely had to look up to talk to someone and he generally keeps his head down anyways. His neck was so sore the first few weeks he spent interacting with you

Genuinely delighted that he doesn't have to be the tallest person in the room anymore

Somebody needs something they can't reach? They go to you instead. Need to spot someone in a crowd? They ask you instead. People want to stare at somebody tall? They look at you instead

You love being in Muriel's hut as well, because it's one of the few buildings in Vesuvia besides the Palace and your shop that have door frames and ceilings that you don't have to stoop under

Once, Muriel had to ask you to put a baby bird back in its nest (the branch was just out of reach for him) and he nearly died on the spot from how surreal and attractive the whole thing was

Learns to like leaning his head on your shoulder when you sit side by side

Inanna has few thoughts about it. Unless you can teach Muriel to stop slouching

Portia

WOAH

She has so many uses for you, you are now required to follow her everywhere she goes (she's only half-joking)

Loves to rub it in her brother's face that she's with someone taller than he is. Not because Julian is insecure about his height, just because it's funny to watch him have to look up for once

Regularly requests to sit on your shoulders while you walk around. If you indulge her, she will only ask more often

Had to make a lot of adjustments to her cottage. Everything from the pots and pans hanging precariously close to your shoulders, to the mirrors hung at your chest height - the whole thing was a maze

She does have a personal goal to pick you up as effortlessly as possible. And, if you allow it, to demonstrate that skill at every party she attends with you

Regularly has you pay "tall tax" by grabbing things she can't reach, but really it's an excuse to grab your arm when you hand it to her and haul you down for a kiss

Pepi tries every day to climb your clothing like it's a cat tree

Lucio

He became so generally disoriented while he was a ghost and then while you were in the realms that he didn't realize how tall you truly were until he got his body back

There was a flash of insecurity there, he's not going to lie

However, he quickly realizes that having you as his lover and best friend means that he gets to brag about you instead of comparing himself to you

And brag he does. Constantly

(If he upped the height of his own heeled boots, no he didn't)

Secretly loves to watch people go slack-jawed when they meet you and they have to get used to looking up that much to make eye contact with you. Yeah, that's his beloved they're looking at

Shamelessly asks you to do height-related favors for him, even when it actually is in his reach or he can see perfectly fine himself

Regularly gets you involved in teasing playing with Mercedes and Melchior

Because you can hold the treats up so high! And they look so funny when they have to jump!

[plzignr]

We Do Not use our fleets for warfare- part III

Nineteen solar rotations had passed this that moment. You had heeded the admirals final command as they died in front of you, "get as many of the crew to the escape pods and flee. They won't know to fire on the escape pods, they won't see them until you're out of range. The ships are lost, the fleet is lost, you'll be flying blind hoping to get out of range between the pulses, but you have a chance in that".

Your fleet was 4000 strong when it entered that solar system. It was 14 escape pods when it exited.

You had fled back to your home planet. It was hotly debated if it was worth sending fleets to invade, the planet was only a few light years away, a short hop for a species capable of interstellar travel, but it was deemed to risky to send a full armada. Victory could be assured, but the cost would be too high.

Eventually it was decided that rather than an invasion, a strike team would be sent to capture one of the species that had wounded and embarrassed your fleet so grievously.

The capture was smooth. The specimen you abducted was wholly unprepared, the star system was 3 lightyears away, but for an interstellar species, this was no obstacle, the full trip was completed in a matter of a few planetary cycles. When it was determined the specimen would be put on trial for its species you were elated.

The specimen regarded your species with what you assumed to be disdain in its eyes.

It took much doing, but finally you were able to get the specimen to use the universal translator that had been provided. The trial was brief, and you did not feel that justice was provided. The specimen had been placed in confinement, for research purposes rather than executed as you felt was right.

A few solar rotations had passed, retirement from the planetary invasion forces had come  and as you recalled your days in the fleet you remembered the trial.

You pulled out an old transcript one of your war buddies had saved. As you read it, that feeling of dread from so long ago returned. You booked a new residence off world immediately, leaving the transcript and all your possessions behind. You knew what this creature was capable of, and you didn't doubt it's words for a moment.

Transcript of investigation of fleet incident 0997J-01, interview of 0997J-01-a.

Inquisitor: Is the translator operational in this instance, can you comprehend? 0997J-01-a: I, yeah, I uh- I- understand you now.

Inquisitor: we comprehend you in this instance, but we do not understand you. Understanding to us includes knowing of rationale of decisions. Do you comprehend that?

0997J-01-a: Yes?

Inquisitor: is this a query? Do you not comprehend? Are adjustments required to the translator?

0997J-01-a: no- no- I under-... I comprehend.

Inquisitor: Most excellent. What species do you call yourself?

0997J-01-a: Human.

Inquisitor: Are you aware of your species contact with ours?

0997J-01-a: yes.

Inquisitor: Are you aware of the method by which our vessels were destroyed?

0997J-01-a: yes. We hit your fleet with the Dyson array after we gave you time to flee right? Hopefully not to many of you got hit.

Inquisitor: Elaborate on two points. What is Dyson Array. Why wish for less success?

0997J-01-a: well, I'm not super well versed in it, but basically it's a bunch of big mirrors around our home star, we call it the sun, and we use it for energy and propelling our ships and stuff. Basically a long long time ago we realized that the sun was pretty much the best source of energy in our solar system, and if we wanted to go places and do things we needed to harness it. So we built a Dyson swarm, that's the bunch of mirrors around the sun, and now we have pretty much all the energy we need. Unfortunate fact of physics though, the more energy you can harness, the more deadly weapons you make theres an old addage from my home planet "the best drives, are also the best bombs". So when we take that array and focus it down to a laser to move ships and stuff, it can also be used as a destructive laser on everything else. I'm not sure I understand, uh, I mean comprehend the second question. What are you referring to as success?

Inquisitor: success in that instance wad refferring to the eliminating of enemy combatants. You expressed wishing for less successful target acquisition. Our query is to why.

0997J-01-a: I want you to understand this. Not- not comprehend it. Understand it. You must have noticed with that one fleet you blew up when you arrived, did you not find it odd that it was not armed? It had no defense systems, no protections other than what it needed to against space itself. Did you notice that?

Inquisitor: we acknowledge these statements are factual.

0997J-01-a: I'm going to take that as a yes. The reason for that, is the Dyson swarm. We don't need weapons on board.

Inquisitor: elaborate on this. We had assumed your species as inherently peaceful.

0997J-01-a: [error in translation, specimen identifies this noise as "laughter" a sound of amused disbelief in this instance] <additional error species later identified as "swear" a kind of expletive> no we're not inherently peaceful! My God that's the funniest <additional expletive> <additional expletive> I've ever heard. No we just don't use our fleets for warfare. Or at least not anymore. Apparently we used to, but that was millenia ago. Oh, and uh, you should get everyone off planet in the 10... well my years I don't know what you all use for time...

Inquisitor: elaborate, you specify you do not use fleets for warfare? Implies you use other method for warfare? And why evacuate planet?

0997J-01-a: yeah. We don't use our fleets for warfare anymore. We don't need to. We perfected it with the stars. And as for the evacuation, we've already fired the array at this planet. I was elected to be captured in case your species came back. When we finally got to see what happened, we knew we needed a faster warning system, we haven't managed to figure out exactly how your FTL systems work. So that's me, and I have the message.

Inquisitor: message?

0997J-01-a: "If you can understand this message, evacuate the planet & flee. You will not survive. You have 10 years to comply."