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chrrific · 3 months ago

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綺麗 IT’S A BAD IDEA, RIGHT? 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗆 & 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗂𝗋 𝗍𝗋𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝗒𝗈𝗎

slytherin! 엔하이픈 x 𝑓. gryffindor! reader wc 2.005k ─── fluff forbidden relationship au est. relationships l’avis kissing pda pining nicknames like ‘doll’ & ‘pretty’

for : love 💌 mick’s coming back from the dead ?? this one’s for my love ai ( @jjennuine ) >< she’s mine y’all !!!! stay away 😾😾 and go support our collaboration series — lovestruck ! — @lovestruck-show-official

read more fleur

LEE HEESEUNG forbidden relationship

“y/n?”

a whisper echoed through the silent astronomy tower, the only source of light being the moon glimmering through the small window and the stars glimmering above, clearly visible through the enchanted ceiling; it wasn’t enough for heeseung’s eyes to adjust to the dark.

you tiptoed out from your hiding place, and gave him a silent wave and a smile. his lips instantly tugged up sat the sight of you, and he stepped forward, arms finding their home on the nape of your waist as he looked at you.

the look in his eyes was lovesick; wistful.

he hoped and dreamed so hard of the day when the two of you wouldn’t have to hide your relationship, and when you wouldnt have to meet in secret at night.

because this wasn’t right. slytherins and gryffindors just didn’t belong together.

the way you looked in the moonlight was breathtaking, so much so that he swears you’d put amortentia in his porridge that morning. but no, he knew you didn’t. that’s just how much he was in love with you.

PARK JONGSEONG hot boy x unnoticed

jay was the it guy of your year. girls would probably fall at his feet even if he didn’t ask them to. and for some, totally random, unknown reason, it made you almost jealous.

you could almost feel your gaze hardening whenever you saw him with another girl; a girl thats not you. I mean, it’s not like you like-liked him, right? he’s just hot. that’s all it should be, and that’s all it can.

but is that really true?

with the way he’s been shamelessly staring you down from the other end of mcgonnagal’s classroom, you’re sure he can hear your heart pounding from where he’s sat, arms crossed against his chest and gaze set on you in a way that made your breath hitch.

your gaze locked with his, the confidence in his eyes almost intoxicating.

you sighed in relief as the bell rang, snapping him out of your little staring competition before he shoved his stuff into his bag and got off his chair, almost lazily.

just as you were about to walk out of the classroom, a hand wrapping around your wrist stopped you from moving ahead.

“what class do you have next, pretty?”

needless to say, you could feel the ghosts of his fingers around your wrist the entire week.

SIM JAEYUN cocky rival

“good morning, class. today, we are going to be making the love potion known as ‘amortentia’. anyone who knows what it is?”

snape’s cold voice rang around the room, the sound monotonous. everyone knew — of course they did, they were just too scared to answer. there were only two people who were willing enough to answer his question; you and jake sim.

“ah, l/n, yes. so tell me, what is amortentia?” snape asked, shooting jake a glance from rhe corner of his eyes, as if to get him to shut up; like he wanted to see you fail, like he thought all gryffindors did.

you cleared your throat, making sure your voice was loud and clear, wanting your stone-minded, biased professor to see you shine. “amortentia is the most powerful love potion, that is characterised by its—”

you were cut off by another voice, that came from behind you.

“the scent. it is multifaceted, with the scent varying with different people”

a slight frown found its home on your lips, annoyed that jake just had to cut you off in between. “yes, professor. it’s scent.” you muttered, giving jake a glare.

“alright, since the two of you seem to know a lot about the topic, you two will be partners for the entirety of this class.”

you almost wanted to combust right then and there, from those words. why him? why not karina, or jungwon — your friends. at this point, you’d even go to the length of partnering with pansy parkinson, the slytherin girl who acts like she owns the world.

after a reluctant sigh, you shifted your things so jake could move next to you.

as you began to make the potion together, you found yourself struggling with one thing, just one; measuring the pearl dust.

it was so iridescent and was flying all over your workstation, creating a sheen layer that shone even in the dimly lit dungeon.

“need some help, doll?”

PARK SUNGHOON shy x tease

the smell of books overtook your senses as you stepped into the large library, overflowing with shelves upon shelves.

the library was surprisingly full today, and from what your eyes could catch, there was only one seat left; a seat next to a slytherin.

he was focused on whatever he was reading, and it was honestly kinda cute to you. you caught yourself staring for a moment before you got yourself out of it, reprimanding yourself inwardly for a second, before you gathered the courage to go talk to him.

“hey,” your voice rang through the somewhat silent library, even though it was relatively soft. “can i sit here?”

his eyes shifted from his book to you, before he gave a small nod.

you put your bag at the bottom of the chair, and sat down on the seat, not paying much heed to the discomfort the hard cushion underneath brought.

you pulled out a thick book on transfiguration out, starting to read it. it wasn’t like you really liked the subject like rei did, but you had to; you were very close to failing.

as you were starting to get into the book, you felt a pair of eyes on you. you glanced up, only to see said boy sitting next to you being the one looking.

he quickly looked away, pale skin undeniably flushed, staring at the table as if it was an art piece in a museum.

you smirked inwardly, before looking back at your book. maybe sitting next to a slytherin wasnt so bad after all.

KIM SUNOO sunshine x grumpy

sunoo; he just had a way with his persona. that is, he knew exactly how to trick anyone into doing absolutely anything for him, without them realising what trap they fell into.

as you tried to take a step into flitwick’s charms lesson, another person entering made you stop. you glanced behind your shoulder to see who it was, and it was sunoo — cheery smiles and all.

“go ahead,” you murmured, stepping back to let him go ahead. you were met with a too bright ‘thank you!’ before you stepped in yourself.

your eyes scanned the room, only to find that your usual seat at the back was taken already, and the last seat remaining was the one next to him. bracing yourself for the cheery sunshine-ball that sunoo was, you took a step to the desk, plopping down on the seat with your facical expression screaming uninterested.

the class began, with sunoo happily answering flitwick’s questions and taking his notes; meanwhile, you sat, barely able to keep yourself awake because of the all-nighter-study-session you did the previous night.

he shot you a glance from rhe corner of his eyes, his bangs getting in the way of his view ever so slightly. without thinking, he picked up a scrap piece of parchment, scrawling something on it in his overly near handwriting.

it was only because of the parchment being cautiously slid to you that you didn’t nod off, but the words were a bit blurry due to lack of sleep as you tried to read. yet, the second you read it, your brain immediately snapped to its senses.

“hey, you look tired. have you been sleeping well?”

YANG JUNGWON prefect x troublemaker

“another time?” his groan of frustration echoed off the walls, his fingers running through his hair. how many more pranks could you pull? well, considering your new attack, the number of times you could go again would be innumerable.

there you stood in front of his desk, slightly sheepish, but your signature smirk was still on — the one that irked him oh, so much.

“you see, your little warnings really won’t do much. in any case, they make me want to do it more.” the confidence in your tone got under his skin, causing him to look up at you with a glare, as firm as he could muster.

you couldn’t help the laugh that slipped your lips at his attempt to look intimidating, and for some odd reason, it made your heart stop slightly.

you paused, cockiness wavering for just a few seconds, before it came back stronger. “you do know that look it just making it easier to laugh at you, right?” you teased through a chortle, but the way your eyes softened a minuscule amount didn’t go unnoticed by jungwon.

and for a second, it all stopped.

the room went silent, the spirit of your laughter dying down until all that was left was a tension filled with unspoken emotion.

it only lasted a couple moments, though, before he locked back in and looked at you again, voice firm but with a hint of something else lingering at the back.

“just.. keep yourself out of trouble for a bit, yeah? you don’t wanna get yourself suspended before the school year ends.”

NISHIMURA RIKI quidditch rivals

the stakes were high, as the first slytherin vs. gryffindor quidditch match was about to begin.

niki — being the slytherin captain, and you, the gryffindor captain — had always had some sort of issue with you simply existing.

he always found ways to talk to you, always teasing and making fun of you until you’d snap and do something about it.

it just annoyed you so much; the ever-cocky smirk, the smugness layering onto his words, and the way his confident aura that made your heart stutter slightly in your chest each time you spared him a glance.

you couldn’t like him: it’s not right. you’re quidditch rivals from two different houses, and that’s all it would ever be.

but the way his gaze would trail towards you during matches, in the great hall, in the middle of classes, it all made you second guess everything you knew about him and how you felt.

the air was filled with a static kind of energy as the two teams hopped onto their broomsticks, shooting upwards into the sky as madam hooch blew her whistle.

the snitch was set free, and both your and niki’s eyes immediately locked for a moment, a hint of challenge and something else lurking beneath.

as the game went on, slytherin was winning by 130 points, and it felt like continuing to play was a lost cause. the only way you could win was if you were able to spot the sneaky little snitch.

it was all so sudden; you saw the snitch and so did he, and both of you dive bombed towards it. the next thing you knew, you were in the hospital wing with a broken arm and a pounding headache.

apparently, you and niki had hit each other in your speed, and you fell off your broom while he caught onto his somehow.

the second your eyes opened, you were met with the sight of two things; an overly bright light above your head and an apologetic niki sitting on the visitors chair next to your bed.

“hey, you feeling okay? i am so sorry about what happened.” the second he noticed you look up, trying to sit up with a disoriented and confused expression, the guilt crept back in even stronger, and he just word-vomited whatever came to mind: to hell with the so called ‘I hate you’ tag.

“o-oh, it’s fine. ill be alright.” you said, trying to ignore the fact that it felt like someone drove a drill through your skull.

yet, the guilt didn’t leave him at all.

in fact, it came back stronger, along with a weird thump in his heart.

it was probably today’s breakfast, right?

PERMANENT TAGLIST ✉️ 𐔌 ﹒ @liya07v @strvvy-anniee @flufflights @eunandonly @hannamoon143 @irasvr @ateez-atiny380 @amoressb @ikeulove @gudkc @mrsjohnnysuh @sol3chu @nerdywitchcrown @sol3chu @puma-riki @xeee334 @suhiiiies-blog @haerinheartss @layzfy @manaah02 @ijustwannareadstuff20 @enoclockz

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agreeewrites · 3 months ago

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CONGRATS ON HITTING 1K, you deserve all the love you're getting and more <3333 for your celebration could i get a thousand stitches with bill? Your writing of him has been completely brilliant, i love the way you characterise him <333

hi my darling!!! thank you much!! I'm so grateful you're here and I hope you enjoy 🫶

1000 stitches | B.W.

feat. Bill Weasley x reader

cw: MDNI 18+, injuries and blood, near-death experience, early stages of werewolf!Bill , love confessions

masterlist

The sun crested the horizon, shades of violet, clementine, and rose, and still, Bill and the others hadn't returned from Hogwarts.

The full moon lingered at the edge of the sky, obstinate in its refusal to dip below the trees. You'd begged Bill not to go out while the moon hung bloated in the sky, an unusual, ominous shade of red.

But he'd gone anyways. Which was fair, you supposed; he wasn't yours to order about. You weren't a couple, despite the simmering tension between you, heightened by the deep connection you’d forged through over a decade of friendship and work and suffering and joy.

You'd loved him all your life, and he wouldn't be Bill Weasley, the man that held your heart hostage, if he didn't plunge headlong into danger, especially where his family was concerned.

Always eager for the hunt.

It was Harry, Lupin, and Tonks that arrived back first, bloodied and beaten, singed by the glancing blow of curses.

Molly ran out to them, screaming for her children, but Remus was quick to assuage her.

“They're right behind us—Molly, you must—Molly listen to me,” Remus snapped, shaking her gently. “Ron and Ginny are fine, but Bill—Greyback got a hold of him.”

You clutched the rusted porch railing of the safe house, limbs going numb as the blood drained from your brain.

“He's alive, but barely,” Remus continued, keeping Molly upright by sheer force of will. “And we don't know if he was—”

“Bitten,” you finished, your voice little more than a whimper. Remus looked up at you, nodding solemnly.

He looked like he was going to say something further, when the others suddenly apparated into the clearing. Ginny ran straight into the house, shouting for the medic assigned to the safe house. Ron and Neville held a body between them, the figure limp as a freshly killed stag and twice as bloody.

Bill.

Your ears began to ring, a monotonous, consuming sound, drowning out all of the shouting. You couldn't breathe.

Was he breathing?

You took a sip of air, lungs burning. You'd breathe for him.

Remus grabbed hold of Molly, keeping her out of the way as they carried Bill into the house. Up the stairs and towards you, five steps away, three, one—Ron caught your eye as they passed, looking for too guilty for a boy of only 18, but he quickly looked away, struggling under the weight of his much larger brother.

More members of the Order ran out to help carry him, relieving the boys of the burden, and you could only stand there, staring down at the twin smears of blood where Bill's feet had dragged across the threshold. Staining the stone forever.

Tonks was speaking to you, her hands on your shoulders, but you couldn't hear her, could only stare at the red, red, so much red. Too much red. How could he have anything left?

“We need more hands!” You heard someone call, the words filtering in through the din in your mind.

Hands, hands. You had hands, you could help.

“Tonks—”

“I don't think that's a good idea—”

“We don't have a choice,” Remus said, gently nudging Tonks aside and cupping your face. You forced your eyes to focus on his forehead, his crooked nose, his scars, his eyes. “Can you do this?” Remus asked.

“I-I can,” you affirmed, your voice sounding far away. Like someone else had spoken through your mouth.

“Good, let's go.”

It took more than five hours to stitch all of Bill's wounds. He'd been savaged, butchered, by Greyback. Almost unrecognizable under the swelling and bruising and gore.

The fact that he survived was nothing short of a miracle.

No one was sure if he'd been bitten. There was one wound on his right thigh that looked suspicious to Remus, but Bill was in too fragile a state for them to test anything.

So you waited, and waited, and waited. Four days of burning fever. Four days of changing head-to-toe bandages. Four days of ladling broth between his chapped lips. Four days of praying to anyone that would listen to spare him. To bring him back to you.

You knew he'd be different, no one suffered an attack like that and remained the same, but you knew that you'd love him anyways. The scars on his skin would pale in comparison to the scars left on his psyche, and you would find whatever strength you needed to help him through it.

You'd stitch him together with your own muscle and bone if you needed to.

On the fifth day, many of his wounds had finally healed down to pearlescent, puffy scars thanks to the medics magic. Deep gauges littered his torso and arms, creating new dips and valleys along the lean muscles of his body, a topographical map you could study for eons. The slashes across his face was healing better than anyone dared hoped, and he finally was beginning to look like Bill again.

But the wound on his thigh remained stubborn, pulpy as rotten fruit and refusing to knit together, growing more putrid the more magic that was thrown at it.

An uneasyness settled over the house. No longer a question of will he wake up, but what will wake up.

On the seventh day, Bill woke up screaming.

You were in the kitchen, helping Neville prepare the evening meal, when a roar shook the cedar bones of the old house.

You dropped the dish in your hands with a crash, roast and root vegetables exploding all over the grubby tile floor, and leapt over it, flying up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Tonks caught you at the end of the hall, grabbing you by the arms. “He's asking for you, but you have to—y/n, listen to me,” she snapped, and you stilled, coiled and ready to flee. “You have to be careful—that kind of trauma…he might not be the Bill you love.”

“I don't care.” You yanked free from her hold and dashed down the hallway. You burst into the room Bill was being kept in, a white-washed guest room on the quieter, darker end of the house, and found Ron, Arthur, and Remus desperately trying to restrain a frantic Bill on the bed.

“Where is she?” He bellowed.

You shoved Ron aside and flung your arms around Bill's neck, throwing your weight on him in the hopes of keeping him down.

“I'm here, I'm right here,” you soothed, not bothering to hold back the tears of relief streaming down your face and into his ruddy hair.

He groaned low in his chest, nuzzling into the crook of your neck and heaving a deep breath. His knotted muscles immediately went lax, and he looped an arm around your waist, hauling you into the bed with him. You were shocked at how much strength he still had after a week of bed rest.

“There you are,” he whispered, a throaty purr against your pulse. He drew another deep inhale, nose pressed against your jugular, and you suppressed a shiver.

“Are you alright? You didn't tear anything open—”

“Don't care,” he said, his lips charting a scalding path up your neck, days of stubble scratching mercilessly against the tender skin.

“Bill,” you argued, a fire sparking in your lower belly. You tried to push back a bit from his hold so you could inspect his bandages, could escape the intoxicating effect of his newfound affection. His grip tightened, bordering on painful, and a rumble resounded from the barrel of his chest. Something carnal, possessive, and you immediately dissolved back into his arms. Helpless to resist him.

“A ripped stitch isn't going to kill me,” he mumbled into the downy space behind your ear, his voice so much softer than whatever beast had been roused moments ago.

“Bill, we really need to do a full examination,” Remus interrupted gently. “What you've gone through—”

“It can wait,” Bill snarled, glaring at Remus over your shoulder. “Now get the fuck out.”

You gasped, shocked by his crude language, the aggressive edge to his voice. Bill was hardly the delicate sort, but you'd never seen him be outright hostile. Especially not towards his friends and family.

“Bill,” Remus said, hardening his voice.

“Please, just let them check you,” you whispered, stroking his cheek. “It'll give me and your family peace of mind.”

His eyes fluttered closed as you soothed him, his breathing leveling out. From bestial to docile in the span of a few heartbeats. “Only if you stay,” he answered finally, opening his eyes to look at you.

“I'm not going anywhere,” you assured, and he finally let you untangle yourself.

The medic came in first, checking all of his stitches and his vitals. Besides the wound on his leg, he was mostly healed, just some soreness and a slightly elevated temperature and heart rate.

His hand only left your body when the doctor needed it for something, otherwise he maintained contact through the entire examination.

You weren't sure what it meant, this sudden clinginess. If it was the trauma of almost dying, a head injury making him forget you weren't actually together, or something…else.

His family came in next, a cacophonous, emotional ordeal that made your heart ache with relief. With them, he seemed more like himself; the good-natured, charismatic man you'd fallen in love with, and some of your uncertainty ebbed.

You hadn't hated the intensity from earlier though, quite the opposite, actually. You just wished you knew what caused it, and why you.

Eventually, Bill declared that he wanted to properly shower, and everyone filed out to give him some privacy. When you stood to leave though, his hand tightened around your wrist.

“Don't go,” he said, drawing you back towards him. He was standing, propped against the bedframe for support.

“But you said you wanted to shower?” You blinked up at him, completely perplexed by this dramatic shift in his demeanor. Bill had never been very physical with you, besides platonic hugs and shoulder bumps.

“Help me,” he murmured, tilting your chin up.

Your heart stopped. “W-what?”

“Are you going to make me beg?” His breath fanned across your lips, balmy and disorienting. Headier than any hit you'd taken from a roll or a pipe.

“Bill, we aren't…together,” you argued weakly, a rabbit negotiating the terms of its release from the jaws of a catamount.

“Something I'd like to remedy, if you'll have me.” His other hand ensnared your waist, pulling your body flush to his.

“I'm not sure you're thinking clearly—” you tried to take a step back, but his grip turned to iron.

“Oh, I am. For probably the first fucking time,” he growled, patience wearing thin. “I’ve loved you for ten fucking years, and I almost lost you. So forgive me, darling, I will not be letting you go again.”

You liquified, muscles and bone turning to simpering goo in his arms. You didn't care if it was the pain medicine, or a head injury, or lycanthropy. All you'd ever wanted was to hear those three little words.

“I love you too,” you breathed, and he smiled, bumping his nose against yours before dragging it down your cheek, his hair tickling your lips.

“I know,” he hummed, the hot muscle of his tongue laving over the pulse point beneath your ear. “I can smell it on you.”

You gasped, arousal hitting you like a clap of thunder, your thighs squeezing together against your blooming cunt.

He chuckled, the sound low and viscerally pleased. “Can smell that too, baby. Little heart’s racin’ like a rabbit.”

Oh, fuck. You swallowed thickly, throat closing as fear pumped through your blood, mixing into a strange ichor with the ever-present desire for him.

“You're trembling again,” he said, softening a bit as he pulled back to look you in the eyes. “Are you afraid of me?”

You shook your head. “Should I be?”

“No, love. Of course not. I'm still me.” He smoothed the hair from your forehead, palming the side of your skull with his long-fingered hand. “But Remus should be if he tries to get between us again.”

A laugh bubbled up before you could stop it, inundated with both dread and delight.

He leaned down, catching your laughter with a lissome press of his lips. The last of your reservation dissipated, dripping out between your thighs as the kiss deepened. His lips were pillowy, tongue tinged with iron and herbs, you leaned into his embrace, content to let him devour you whole.

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cappulcino · 3 months ago

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The Shape of Us

Read on AO3

Words: 6,440

Pairing: Larissa Weems x Wife!Reader

Summary: You and Larissa are on a “break”. When you agree to meet for coffee at the Weathervane, you finally get to start healing.

Tags: established relationship, angst with a happy ending, some fluff (flangst if you will), emotional hurt/comfort, eventual smut (skippable, but maybe minors dni), maternal Larissa, character development, no Y/N

Trigger warnings: non-graphic mention of G!P (tell me if I should add more)

A/N: Quite a change of style with this one. I had the idea and just wanted to use it to practice instinctive writing, kind of. It’s also the first time I try to write present tense. Very experimental overall, not as thought out as usual, Larissa might not even be characterised the way I like her to be. Also, no beta, we die like Phasma. I hope you still enjoy it.

Eight months. That's how long you haven't seen Larissa.

You're not divorced –not yet anyway. But after four years of marriage, six years total of a seemingly perfect romance, Larissa had asked for a 'break'. You had agreed to it, and perhaps it had been the right decision, too.

You and Larissa had been constantly fighting over trivialities. And since you had been barely having any, not even sex could have saved your relationship at that point. The main argument often revolved around Elias, your son from your previous spouse.

You had met Larissa when you were seven months pregnant after a particularly hard divorce, and it had never discouraged her. She had courted you all the same, made you feel loved and beautiful like your abusive ex never had –or any other partner, for that matter–, and she had sworn to stay by your side forever.

Elias' birth had propelled your relationship into something terribly concrete in very little time. It had not been easy. But Larissa had helped you raise your little boy as her own without complaining once.

That was until your somewhat divergent views on Elias' upbringing got in the way, amongst other things, leading to endless arguments late at night, trying to keep your voice hushed so as not to wake Elias, but gesticulating and pacing furiously until you were both too tired to say another word.

And then one night, Larissa had said, "I think we should take a break."

Out of anger, you had asked her to be the one to pack her stuff and leave. You had bought your house together –she could have claimed the right to stay, too. But you had Elias and nowhere else to go. She had her quarters at Nevermore. So she had packed and left that very same night without even putting up a fight.

Eight months ago, then.

The break had hurt, kept hurting month after month, and to this day it still hasn't stopped hurting. It might even be worse.

Today, however, you and Larissa have agreed to meet for coffee at the Weathervane –just to see each other and talk, nothing more–, and you are desperate for this pseudo-date to mark the end of that damned break.

But while Larissa had been the one to initiate it, you had been the one to be a bitch about it, so you know you can't expect Larissa to jump for joy when you bring yourself to step inside the Weathervane.

Yet, you're filled with hope, and when you finally push that door, you realise it's not the chilly wind making you shiver, it's the anticipation.

With faked determination in your stance, you head towards the counter. But then you catch the shy wave of a hand with perfectly manicured red nails from the corner of your eye and stop abruptly.

Larissa is already here –of course she is– and slides a cup of coffee across the table she is sitting at. She knows she is always ten minutes early to everything and you, ten minutes late, and has ordered accordingly so your cardamom and sea salt vanilla latte is waiting for you, still steaming.

You want to run to her –you almost do. But you have to take a second to compose yourself. There is a whole range of emotions on her face, from bitterness to sadness and hurt. But she flashes you a weak smile and you are pleased to find out that there is still love underneath it all.

Slowly, with less determination than before, you walk up to the booth she has chosen and sit across from her.

"Hey…"

There is a slight hesitation in Larissa's attitude and tone as you take off your coat and put your bag down, and you wonder if she's excited to see you or scared –or both, like you are.

"I took the liberty to order for you. I hope that's okay," she says tentatively, as if worried your tastes might have changed in the past eight months.

"More than okay. Thank you."

Your eyes start a game of roaming all over each other's bodies without ever meeting, and you notice how Larissa unclasps her hands and her fingers start reaching out before she changes her mind to pull away and fidget under the table instead. It makes your heart clench.

"You look good," she suddenly blurts out.

It's game over for you as your eyes snap back up, boring into hers. You tell her that you think she looks even better. You mean it. But you are pained to see the weary look on her face, the hint of exhaustion no amount of makeup can hide.

You also notice the dress she is wearing, the same one she was wearing the day Elias was born. She had complained time and time again that it didn't fit her anymore, and the thought of her losing so much weight it does again almost brings tears to your eyes. Guilt is consuming you.

Larissa clears her throat in that particular way you know she does when she is struggling to stay calm, and you know it's your cue to pretend you haven't seen anything and start an actual conversation.

"How have you been?" you ask before taking a sip of your latte.

Larissa shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant, even though she is anything but.

"Oh, you know… Busy. With Nevermore, mostly. The new term is approaching, so there's a lot to take care of. What about you? And… Elias?"

You purposely ignore the first question. You feel anything but good and don't have the strength to pretend like Larissa does. You don't want to admit you have been obsessively thinking about her every single day for the past eight months either. And when she mentions your son, you can't help but let your heart speak before your brain can reason it anyway, your tone clipped and cold.

"Let's not pretend you don't know how he's doing. I know you've been calling his school, and that you 'casually dropped by' Clarisse's house right when Elias was there for Timothy's birthday."

Feeling caught, Larissa pinches her lips and looks away. But she quickly recovers, her expression slightly hardening.

"You cannot expect a mother to stay away from her child for months on end without any news. Elias is my son, too."

"He's my son."

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you feel like dying inside, drowning in instant regret.

Larissa feels punched in the gut –so hard that it makes her gasp audibly. You notice the way her nostrils quiver and her eyes immediately water. But she clenches her jaw, forcing herself to remain cordial.

"Now you're just being cruel."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

"Then why did you say that?"

"I don't know!"

And it's true. The worst part in all this is that you never mean any of the poison you spit at your wife. It just comes out and you're not even sure why.

An awkward silence sets in for a moment, and you bring your cup to your lips with trembling hands before speaking again.

"He barely talks to me now. And when he does, it's only to ask, 'When is Mummy coming back?'"

"What do you tell him?" Seeing your lack of response, Larissa presses further. "He deserves answers."

"But I don't have them, do I? Just like I don't know what to tell him when he comes home from school and tells me that little Lisa's parents are getting divorced and her father is now with another woman, and asks me if his mummy is, too."

"What do you mean, you don't know what to tell him?" Larissa asks, briskly bringing her hands back on the table to better lean forward.

"Well, are you?"

"Am I what?"

"With another woman."

Larissa scoffs loudly, visibly shocked by your question.

"Heavens, no! I'm still wearing my ring."

"It doesn't mean anything."

"No?"

Once again, Larissa visibly aches at your reaction, and you hate yourself for it. Thing is, the fact that she is still wearing her wedding ring does mean a lot to you. It means everything. But you're too scared to get your hopes up, and before you can do anything about it, your heart decides it's best to kill that hope in the womb.

"So… You haven't seen anyone else? At all?" you ask nonetheless, still needing to make sure Larissa remains yours.

You have always felt like she was the most attractive of the two, and have always had this fear she would go look for someone better than you whenever she got the chance.

Larissa glares at you as she sips her own coffee, debating whether to indulge your jealousy or not. Eventually, she decides to be entirely honest.

"Someone did ask me out." Your eyes instantly darken while she continues. "Hannah, the florist. But–"

"But what?" you cut her off, feeling yourself turning green. You can't bear the thought of her with anyone else.

"But I said no, of course! Gosh, who do you think I am? I was never interested in her."

There is another pause and, seeing your eyes dart away, Larissa suddenly worries you might have been trying to tell her something. You notice her gaze quickly scanning your left hand to check your wedding ring is still there.

"Have you been seeing anybody else?"

"Absolutely not."

"Good."

The relief that washes over Larissa's face is undeniable. You find it almost cute, but mostly you feel a weight lifting from your own shoulder, reassured by the notion that you both remained fiercely faithful, no matter what.

Impulsively, Larissa stops fumbling with her napkin, cup, and whatever is in front of her, and gives in to her desire to touch you again, snatching your left hand. She squeezes it, presses it to her cheek. Her thumb traces loving circles on your skin, her lips pepper your knuckles with urgent kisses. Her breath is heavy as she relishes the familiar touch.

"I still love you, you know," she finally blurts out in a desperate whisper. "So much."

You can't help but gasp. Larissa wants to see you. She is wearing the same dress she wore for your son's birth. She hasn't taken her wedding ring off. She doesn't want Hannah the pretty florist. She still loves you.

It has been way too long since you last heard these words, and they make your eyes instantly well up, tears threatening to fall over your waterline like a dam bursting open.

Seeing that, Larissa brings a hand to cup your cheek without letting go of your left one, which she still kisses now and then. The movement is barely there, but you see her shake her head as well, and you can tell she hates seeing you like this and wonders if this break was truly a good idea after all. You're both more miserable than you care to admit.

Eventually, she dares express her doubt.

"Was this break beneficial to you at all?"

You can't say that a little distance wasn't needed. But God knows you can't live without Larissa either, and raising a six-year-old on your own is just too difficult.

"Was it to you?" you ask, once again eluding her question.

Larissa looks up, both forcing herself to swallow her own unshed tears and trying to come up with an answer. But for the first time since you sat at that table, she seems not to have any.

"All I know is that I miss you," she confesses instead. "And I miss our son."

"I miss you, too. We both do."

Your voice cracks at these last words.

"I want to see him. I need to see him," Larissa practically begs. "You can't keep me away from him forever."

You nod slowly and snuffle. You know that's fair –you had no right to forbid her to see Elias. Worse than that, you had no right to forbid your son to see his mother.

After a moment, you carefully pull away and grab your napkin to wipe your tears and blow your nose rather disgracefully. Larissa can't help the faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she hears that sound and sees how red the tip of your nose has turned.

"Do you, uh… Do you want to come home for dinner?" you ask then. "I think Elias would be delighted to see you."

Larissa's heart skips a beat at your invitation. The idea of going home, spending some time with you, with your son… It's everything she has secretly been yearning for. Yet, you sense a slight hesitation. Larissa is still wary of how the evening could go –rightfully so, considering all the arguments you've had in the past.

"Are you sure?"

You don't want to imagine anything negative right now, so you just nod.

"Be there at eight?"

"I'll be there."

That evening, at eight, when the bell rings, you send your son to open the door.

"Elias, honey, I think you might want to answer that."

Your son turns away from the cartoon he is watching to glare at you darkly, but you insist, jerking your head towards the door, and he finally complies, sliding off the couch to go answer it.

When he does, you can see Larissa standing rather awkwardly by the doorway from where you are. The realisation of how uncomfortable she must feel to have to be invited into her own home truly tugs at your heartstrings. But then you see her eyes land on Elias, and her demeanour changes immediately.

"Hello, sunshine!"

Elias gasps loudly.

"Mummy!" he shouts, bouncing excitedly on his legs.

But just when you expect him to jump into Larissa's arms and squeal like he has just seen Santa, he freezes on the spot and a noisy whine escapes his mouth, quickly turning into full, ugly cries –the only way for him to express all those big emotions he had apparently kept bottled up all these months.

"Oh, oh, oh… Baby, no…"

With practised ease, Larissa picks Elias up, even though one of her hands is already full with the bouquet of roses she has bought for you on her way here. Hearing your son cry so desperately is killing you. But your heart breaks even further when you notice his short hair turning platinum blonde.

Elias has inherited your shapeshifting abilities but is too young to control them, of course –and you've never been too keen on teaching him how to, either. When a young, inexperienced shapeshifter feels strong emotions, it is not uncommon for their powers to go haywire. Quite often, the youngest partially shapeshift into someone they feel close to, usually a parent. For Elias, it's Larissa. Always Larissa.

"Mummy…"

"Oh, I know, sweetheart. Mummy missed you, too. More than you can imagine."

As you lean against the wall of your entrance, your hand on your chest to prevent yourself from choking on your guilt, Larissa glances at you, silently communicating her own mixture of sadness, guilt and affection.

Seeing Elias won't let go of her anytime soon, your wife invites herself inside. You come closer, closing the door behind her, while your son struggles to calm down.

"I… brought you these," Larissa says, bending at a weird angle to hand you the flowers without letting go of the little boy in her arms.

You take them, a small smile on your lips until you realise whom she must have bought the roses from.

"Did you buy them–"

"From Hannah? Yes." Larissa notices your jealousy flaring, but she quickly tames it. "I asked her for the most beautiful roses she had so I could gift them to my wife."

The pride in her eyes and her slight possessiveness make your heart soar and the smile returns to your lips.

"They're beautiful. Let me find a vase for them."

As you go find a vase for the roses, you can hear Larissa struggle to get out of her coat and then walk into the living room without ever putting Elias down.

"It's okay, sunshine. Oh… What's that you were watching? Is that Pokémon?"

"Mmh."

"You like Squirtle, don't you?"

"No. My favourite is Lucario."

"I'm sorry," you hear Larissa reply with a melancholic tone. "Of course, it's Lucario."

That simple exchange makes you realise just how fast things can change in a child's life, and therefore how much Larissa has missed because of you. You wonder if she will ever find it in her heart to forgive you. You know you won't.

Throughout dinner, Elias simply cannot stay still. Every time Larissa so much as shifts on her chair, his little hands reach for her to make sure she won't leave without him. Despite your instructions to eat his food –especially his vegetables–, he also keeps wiggling free, running back and forth between the table and his bedroom upstairs to go fetch his new toys and latest drawings and show them to Larissa. He speaks fast and loud, as if scared to give even the tiniest opportunity to either of you to say something negative and ruin the night for him.

Larissa, for her part, seems overwhelmed but far from unhappy. She holds each drawing carefully, murmuring praises as she flips through them, her smile never leaving her lips. Still, she regularly sneaks glances at you, and you understand she is waiting to be finally alone with you for a moment. You're waiting for this, too. You also both can't stop your eyes from darting to each other's lips, and it definitely doesn't help with the tension that has been building up since your coffee date at the Weathervane.

Thankfully, with all those emotions and that energy spent, Elias is quick to collapse on Larissa's lap, his thumb stuck in his mouth. You reach for his tiny wrist –you have successfully started weaning him off that habit over the past months and don't want him to pick it up again. But Larissa gently pushes your hand away.

"Leave him," she says, her voice not unkind but firm. "He needs it."

You sigh but give in. Tonight is not a night to argue about anything.

"You should go tuck him in," you offer after observing your sleepy child for a moment. By now, even his nose has shapeshifted into Larissa's.

Your wife smiles at the proposal and excuses herself, cradling Elias close to her chest as she brings him upstairs. Your gaze follows them fondly until you can't see them anymore and you decide to get up to clean the table a little bit.

But you quickly stop to go upstairs instead and see how things are going. You can't help it. Not necessarily because you want to control your wife, no. It's more because you find the sight of her with Elias comforting and absolutely heartwarming, and you need that right now.

As you arrive in front of your son's bedroom and peek through the crack of the door, you hear Larissa trying to explain to Elias how "mommies can still love each other very much and not be together for a while". You find her courageous. You've never had the balls to attempt such a difficult explanation, despite Elias' incessant questioning.

"I want you to be with me and Mommy again," you hear him plead sleepily.

"Oh, sweetheart…" Larissa coos, her fingers delicately brushing his still-platinum hair away from his forehead. "I want that, too. I really do. But Mommy and I… we're working on some things, okay? We're trying to make things better, I promise."

"I hate her."

The brutal honesty of your own child as he thinks you're not looking makes you want to scream, throw up, and bang your head against the wall. The pain burning in your chest is indescribable, and you have to cover your mouth so your inevitable sobs don't ruin the moment for Elias and his other mother.

Still, through it all, you are glad to find out Larissa has your back.

"Don't say that, Elias. I know you're sad, but Mommy loves you very much."

"But she doesn't want me to see you."

"I know, beautiful. I know. But Mommy is just… She's hurting, too. And sometimes, when people hurt, they say and do things they don't mean."

There is a moment of silence only broken by the constant stroking of Larissa's hand on your son's face. Then Elias speaks up again, his voice still weakened by the fatigue.

"Mummy?"

"What is it?"

"Is it my fault you and Mommy don't talk anymore?"

You can hear Larissa's heart break from the hallway.

"Oh, no, no, no, angel… No. Never. You have done nothing wrong, you hear me? Nothing wrong. Adults disagree and need some alone time sometimes, but sweethearts like you are never the reason why, alright? Now, close those pretty eyes. You need to rest."

"But you won't be here when I wake up," Elias whines.

"I know. I'm so sorry, baby. But we'll see each other soon, I promise. Mommy will let me see you now."

You haven't even really talked about this with Larissa yet, but there is no point in denying it –Elias needs both his mothers with him and you can't prevent Larissa from loving him and wanting to take care of him.

There is a pause, and you can hear in Elias' lack of response that he is contemplating accusing his mother of lying. But thankfully, he is too tired to put up a fight and settles for a "Goodnight" instead.

You watch as Larissa tucks the covers around his tiny body and leans in to kiss his forehead, then step aside to rest your back on the wall next to the door so Larissa doesn't feel too overwhelmed by your presence when she comes out.

Still, she stops in her tracks when she spots you waiting outside. She looks at you, you look at her, and you both notice the tears in each other's eyes as you both ache deeply for your little boy.

"Do you want to say goodnight?"

You shake your head slowly. Deep down, you want to. But you figure Elias is halfway in the arms of Morpheus –if not already there– and might not want to see you anyway. With a small nod of understanding, Larissa closes the door.

"I haven't seen him so happy in a long time," you tell her as she moves to lean against the wall opposite you. "I shouldn't have kept you away from him. He misses you too much."

"You shouldn't have. But I think I understand why you did."

"He doesn't," you reply with a jerk of your head towards Elias' bedroom.

"He's just a child caught in the middle of our problems. It's not fair to him, we have to make things better one way or another."

You nod, your heart heavy with profound sadness, but say nothing because what is there to add? Larissa is right through and through –she always is. You're the one who keeps making the wrong decisions.

"You didn't answer my question earlier," Larissa eventually says, her voice soft and quiet like it always is after she has spent some time with Elias.

"Which one?"

"How are you?"

Your eyes meet hers, but only for a fleeting moment. You miss her, you long for her, you crave her, her touch, her lips, her scent… You feel like if you look at her for too long you're either going to pass out or do yet another regrettable thing.

Larissa calls your name, asks you to look at her. You don't answer. You can't. And then, in one swift motion, she is only inches away from you, tugging at your shoulders to pull you into a hug.

You don't resist, of course, and lean against her with your whole weight. But you don't have the strength to lift your arms to hug her back and instead just start crying, your face buried in her chest.

If there was any word stronger than miserable, that's what you would be.

"I know, I know," she says tenderly as if reading your thoughts. "Me too."

Her voice cracks and she finally lets her emotions fully show, too. Her silent cries pierce your heart, and only then do you feel strong enough to wrap your arms around her and clutch.

Now both crying, you hold each other like you're trying to mend the pieces of each other's broken mind. It feels so painful and so terribly good at the same time. Her body feels nice and comforting, you had almost forgotten just how much.

When you both finally start calming down, you realise you're scared of pulling away. But Larissa keeps you close, only shifting slightly to rest her forehead against yours. Her skin is warm, but as always, the tip of her nose is cold on your cheek. You don't mind it, it's one of Larissa's little things you often find yourself missing the most at night.

Your eyelids flutter open, and, inevitably, you make the mistake of staring not at her eyes but at her lips. The faint aroma of wine coming out of her mouth in hot puffs makes your skin tingle, and you know that you have to look away or you won't be able to refrain from kissing her. And if you kiss her, you won't be able to stop.

But Larissa cups your face with both hands before you have a chance to move and before your brain can formulate a single thought, her lips capture yours in a slow, loving kiss. You can feel the yearning and despair that have pent up in the past eight months in the way she moves her mouth against yours, and it makes you weak at the knees.

You reply to her kiss with a whimper and she deepens it, her tongue seeking entry into your mouth with a mix of hunger and fear. You welcome it without hesitation and move your arms up to wrap them around her neck, carding your fingers through her perfect hair bun. Meanwhile, her hands slide down to your waist, pulling you impossibly closer. You had missed this and obviously can't prevent your hips from bucking against hers, begging for more.

Larissa responds to your silent plea with a low groan and a hand moving further down to grip your butt. The air catches violently in your throat at the intimate contact and you throw your head back with a moan.

"We shouldn't be doing this," Larissa says. "Not like that."

But there is no conviction in her words, and she still has a hand on your rear and her mouth on your neck, gently sucking and nipping at your sensitive spots before soothing them with her tongue.

The noises you make are so needy that it becomes fairly evident you haven't taken much care of your own needs over the past months. The realisation makes your wife growl possessively, and her resolve crumbles. She needs to have you. Now.

"Bed?"

"God, yes."

Larissa doesn't pull away even once as she pushes you towards your bedroom. Her hands move urgently, her kisses become hungrier, her breathing accelerates.

"I love you."

You both repeat those words so much that it is unclear whose mouth they're coming from.

Larissa is quick to take off your clothes, revealing the skin she has longed to touch again for so long. You, on the other hand, try to take your time. Larissa had changed before coming home for dinner, and you've been wondering all evening if there is any fine lingerie under that burgundy dress. But it's Larissa –of course there is. You just like to torture yourself by unwrapping her like a priceless present. Besides, you don't want to look too desperate, nor do you want to make her feel like she isn't in charge. You want her to be now.

Unlike you, Larissa is not afraid to show how much she desires you. As soon as you're both naked, she pushes you onto your marriage bed, covers your body with hers and starts making up for lost time in every way possible. Fingers, vibrator, tongue… Nothing is off-limits tonight.

Then something different, something you haven't done in a very long time. Larissa shapeshifts, and you feel it –the size, the weight of it against you. Your wife looks down at you expectantly, hoping for your consent. It's something you've never downright refused, but have always felt conflicted about. It often reminds you of a past you'd rather forget and tends to make you question your sexuality in ways you don't want to think about while having sex –even though Larissa has reassured you countless times already that it didn't make you any less of a lesbian.

Not tonight, though. Tonight you nod eagerly and spread your thighs a little further to welcome her shapeshifted appendage, needing that special connection. In the faint orange glow coming from that one lamp post at the end end of your street, you see Larissa smiling brightly.

"Thank you," she whispers against your skin as she pushes into you.

She loves this, you know it, and the obscene moan she lets out as she stretches you only confirms it. It feels good, too good, and you meet her sensual thrusts with deliberate rolls of your hips, the way she moves, gasps your name, and loses herself completely to the moment only spurring you on.

She takes you twice like this. In a row. The first time, deep and slow, then rough and frenzied, until you're shaking and can't even call her name coherently. And by the time your final climax hits, you're so sensitive you feel like you're going to faint.

Larissa keeps moving, chasing her own release, her thrusts messy, uneven. And then with one last push, she spills over the edge, burying her face in the crook of your neck with a broken, "You’re mine. Mine."

You've always loved that possessive side she works so hard to mask under heavy decorum. The way she calls you hers reminds you of your wedding night and makes your chest burn with love. So when she collapses on top of you, panting in your ear, you just have to squeeze her tight in your arms and kiss every inch of skin you can reach.

You keep her close even long after she has pulled out of you, simply enjoying the warmth of her body and the scent that floats in the room in the aftermath of your passionate lovemaking.

It's about two in the morning now, but neither of you is sleeping. You're both just basking in the intimacy of the moment, exchanging gentle kisses and caresses until you break the silence.

"Come home."

Larissa shifts then, and you're suddenly scared you've ruined it all and she is going to leave. But she just props herself on her elbow to look into your eyes with a blend of vulnerability and longing.

"I want to. More than anything. I need you to know that. But…" She sighs. "There are things we need to talk about and settle, compromises to make."

"Like what?"

The way Larissa takes a deep breath before answering lets you know whatever she says won't be up for debate if you want this to work.

"We need to find common ground about our parenting styles. And I want you to try therapy."

"Are you saying I don't know how to raise my own son?"

Larissa sighs in frustration at the defensiveness in your tone.

"No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we have different ways of doing it, and we need to find a way to reconcile them for Elias' sake."

"You want him to explore his shapeshifting abilities," you mumble as you roll onto your back, an arm on your forehead.

"Yes, I do," Larissa replies with a kind but firm voice. "He is a shapeshifter. It's part of who he is, and it's a part we need to let him embrace, not suppress."

"The world is a terrible place for Outcasts."

"That's why there are places like–"

"If you're going to say Nevermore, I swear–"

"Yes, I am going to say Nevermore. It would be the safest place on earth for him, and he would still get to evolve around Normies. You know I've even hired a Normie teacher this year."

"And I don't trust her."

"You don't trust many people."

Touché. You sigh heavily, letting your arm fall to cover your eyes as if trying to shield yourself from Larissa's truths –or rather, from how much you hate being wrong when it comes to making choices for Elias. But Larissa pushes your arm away and tilts your chin with a finger so you look at her again.

"I know you're scared. I am, too. But what scares me the most is the thought of Elias thinking he has to hide a part of himself, even around us, or that he can only move through life safely if he denies every fundamental aspect of who he is."

If you were to be completely honest –even if only to yourself–, you would admit Larissa has already convinced you. It's hypocritical to expect Elias to repress his abilities when both his mothers are exactly like him and free to use them, or to deny him an education at Nevermore when you have spent your own childhood hoping there was a place for people like you. What would be next? He'll come out as gay, and you'll tell him it's wrong? No, this is preposterous.

But you know this is not where the problem truly lies, and it's high time you communicated with your wife to treat it at the root.

"You're his model," you finally say, your voice too hoarse for your liking. So you clear your throat and start again. "You're his model, the one he instinctively shapeshifts into when he's not doing it on purpose. Look at how quickly his hair turned like yours when you arrived. It's you, always you. Never me. I'm his mother, his birth mother. I made him. But it's always you."

Larissa doesn't like it too much when you're this possessive over Elias because it throws her lack of biological connection to him back in her face, and it is something she has always struggled with. Still, her voice remains calm and understanding.

"Yes, you brought him into this world. But I've been a part of his life since he was in your womb, I was there when he was born, I fed him, changed him, taught him how to read, and let myself be vomited on more times than I can count. I have as much an impact on the person he is as you do."

"But shapeshifters are supposed to take on the traits of their closest parent the first time, and he took yours," you protest, your voice cracking. "Why not me? What have I done wrong?"

"Oh, darling…"

Larissa sits up, pulling you up with her so she can hug you properly and draw slow, soothing circles on your naked back.

"You have done nothing wrong. Sometimes, it doesn't work like it usually does and it's nobody's fault."

"My baby hates me…"

Larissa gasps and brings her hands to your face, clasping your jaw tightly while you start weeping again.

"No. Absolutely not. Elias does not hate you. Why would you ever think that?"

"That's what he told you earlier."

Larissa presses her lips into a thin line, feeling pained that you've heard these words.

"He's only six… He's in pain and doesn't have any better way to express himself," she says, pulling you back against her chest. She stays quiet for a moment, and then continues, "It's… It's the reason why you kept him away from me all these months, isn't it? You wanted to feel him closer to you."

You realise how ridiculous this sounds and can't even begin to explain just how hard you blame yourself.

"I'm so sorry…"

"It's okay," Larissa coos, rocking you back and forth, even though you know it's all but 'okay'. "We just… We need to communicate. I understand your fears, I do. I have my own. But we need to do better for Elias. I don't want him to suffer because of our problems anymore."

"I know, I know," you say with a weak nod. Then after a moment, you add, "Therapy, then."

"Yes, therapy. Please. But we're in this together, I'm not letting you go. We're a team, aren't we?"

"'Til death do us part'."

Larissa chuckles softly at your choice of words.

"Mmh, that's right. You, my love, are absolutely stuck with me. So we're going to work as a team for our son. No more isolating each other."

"But you're not coming home yet, are you?"

"No, not yet. But if we do this right, I might come back sooner than we both expected."

You untangle yourself from Larissa's embrace and let yourself fall back on your bed with a sigh. You're getting tired, and aren't sure what to feel anymore. And then you feel your wife's hand coming to rest lovingly on your belly, and it definitely doesn't help your weariness, both physical and mental.

"If you want me to leave now, I can," Larissa ends up offering, sensing your fatigue and disappointment and not wanting to cause you more pain by leaving in the morning after a whole night together.

Your eyes snap to her, wide with confusion.

"Are you serious? I'm asking you to come home, we've just had the best sex we've had in over a year… No, I don't want you to go. Stay. Elias will be so happy to see you at breakfast."

Your decision and the mention of your son's name make Larissa smile brightly, and she lies back next to you with a tiny, excited squeal before leaning in to press her swollen lips against yours one last time.

"I want to be better, Larissa," you whisper when she pulls back and makes herself comfortable on her pillow. "For both of you."

"I know, darling. I know. I believe in you."

"I love you."

Before Larissa can even reply, you're already drifting, your breath evening out and your body melting into hers.

Eight months. That's how long you hadn't seen Larissa. But you figure once you've spent your whole life with her –because you will–, it won't matter anymore.

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acynicalsweetheart · 3 months ago

Note

daisuke nonconing reader omg >.<

HERIKUTSU BOY !

pairing: daisuke x fem!reader

word count: 2.5k

dead dove do not eat: 18+, smut, non-con/rape, drug use, weed, virginity loss accompanied by blood, teeny mention of non-sexual vomit at the end

author's note: hai sorry it took so long. first time ever writing for daisuke.. don’t quite think i nailed his characterisation but whatever. hope it’s not too ass. title from jun togawa hopefully got it right this time LOL. any interaction/feedback appreciated as always!!

“What about…” Daisuke scratches his chin thoughtfully, trying to come up with something that’ll impress you enough to let him get into your pants. “Is your dad a terrorist?”

You blink. Once. Twice. High as a kite.

“‘Cause that ass is the bomb!”

“That’s cringe.” You say totally unimpressed, rolling your bloodshot and half-lidded eyes at him, reaching over to take another hit of the bong.

His dick is literally hard from how much effort he put into that pick-up line. And your boobs. And your really short shorts. And your pink panties that are peeking out of your really short shorts.

Daisuke is just tryna get some, man. You’re so stubborn. Not even a crumb of pity sex. Not even a blowjob! The only thing he’s gonna walk away with is a tummy ache and a mouth drier than the Sahara desert, isn’t it?

“Hey, you’re cringe! That was actually good. You… thought it was good, right?” Jeez, he hates how fucking high his voice goes when he raises it. Sounds so boyish. No wonder you don’t want him.

You keep lighting the bong to take hit after hit, it’s like you think he’s annoying or something. You totally think he’s annoying.

Daisuke would take more hits of the bong himself if he had the balls to. But he fears he’d cum in his pants placing his lips where you just had yours. Like, that would basically be equal to kissing.

“Okay, fine.” Daisuke wipes his clammy palms on his jeans, heart falling out of his ass at the thought of you noticing the dark hand-shaped marks so he hides them with his hibiscus shirt. “How about this, it’s a new one this time.” Something less controversial, more… straightforward. Girls like that.

Blowing the smoke right in his face—when you should be blowing him—you speak slowly and flatly. “I really don’t care.”

“Shut up, shut up—just listen…” he waves it off, clearing his throat and taking a sip of the piss-flavored Monster Energy as liquid courage. “Are you a light switch?”

Speaking before you can say no, Daisuke drops the bombshell. “Because you really turn me on.”

Oh my God. You definitely think he’s fruity. Should he take off his shirt? Okay, no, might make you think he’s trying to seduce you. Which he is. But subtlety is the best way to go, according to that one podcast.

“Haha! Ha… Get it?” Daisuke scratches his neck nervously, petting the spiky ends of his hair in a failed attempt to comfort himself.

…

“You turn me on?” He shrugs, palms upward like he’s trying to lift off the awkwardness weighing his shoulders down.

“Daisuke, I’m not gonna sleep with you.” You tell him honestly, lighting the bong for the millionth time.

At least give him credit for trying.

“Why? You’re not a virgin.” He thinks? You’re like really freaking hot, no way you’ve never let anyone hit. “Or are you?” Daisuke wiggles his brows at you. Jokingly. He might have to die if you think he’d do that seriously.

(He was doing it seriously.)

“No—“ you sputter, failing to exhale the smoke ‘cause you’re nearly choking on it.

“I see what this is,” he grins, thinks he feels his balls grow ‘cause of the testosterone boost he just got. Actually might’ve been adrenaline. Uh, the sex hormone? Confidence? Whatever. “You’re scared because you’re a virgin.” Says Daisuke, who has gotten exactly zero bitches in his entire life.

“I’m not! You are!” You’re so high you can’t even snap at him properly. Replying with a half-assed, “fuck you.”

“Yeah?”

“No.” You groan, face palming.

“Aw.” Daisuke pouts, about to take another swig of his energy drink that he’s pretending is beer when you absolutely keel over. Like a vase off a counter. “Woah!”

Can’t tell what, but you’re mumbling something. He hopes it’s related to banging him. A guy can dream.

“Are you… okay?” Hands gripping your shoulders to hold you up, Daisuke tries to get a look at your face to tell what’s going on. You kind of look dead, like really fucking high and dead.

“Mmm…”

And sleepy. And… sexy. The straps of your tank top are falling down. Thank God for gravity. And boobs. Daisuke lays you down on the floor carefully. Props up a pillow behind your head for comfort. From where he’s sitting he can see everything.

He’s totally staring at your crotch.

“Sorry, I…” it’s like your pussy is made out of steel and Daisuke is a magnet. Like a fucking pervert, a trickle of drool forms at the corner of his mouth. Goodbye weed mouth, at least? “You’re… hot. I think you’re hot.”

Did he just say that out loud? What the fuck, man? Is he on drugs? Shut up, Daisuke.

“You don’t say.” He thinks you’re being sarcastic.

“Well, uh,” he swallows the horny lump in his throat, “you’re gonna be alright, aren’t you? I mean, you’re not gonna… die or anything?” Please don’t die before he gets to tap that ass.

“Nooo,” you glare at the ceiling.

“Cool! So, then… you wouldn’t mind if I… you know.” Daisuke rolls his fingers, gesturing like a fucking clown and you can’t even see him. “Yeah, that’s, um…”

Your eyes flutter shut, cuddling the side of your face into his pillow.

The very same pillow he sleeps on every night. Daisuke is so turned on he thinks he might spontaneously combust into pieces. Well, not entirely spontaneously, more so out of plain arousal. “Just… go to sleep. I’ll take care of you, don’t worry.”

…

“Okay, alright, sure,” he says to no one in particular, pumping his fists like it’ll give him the confidence to see this through. “Let’s… let’s do this.”

Shrugging off his button-up, he takes a few deep breaths. With shaky hands, he pulls off his shirt and unbuttons his baggy jeans that are only growing tighter ‘cause Daisuke is only growing harder by the minute.

“I wanted to do this on my bed but… ya know.” He pulls the zipper down, sneaking glances at you and your nipples and your lips peeking out of your panties under your shorts. “I don’t really lift, heh.”

He thinks he hears you groan again. Like, a please-shut-the-fuck-up groan, not a sexy one.

“Not—not that you’re heavy or anything! God, no, I just… forget it.” See, this is why you should’ve just said yes. Could’ve spared Daisuke the embarrassment if you were kissing him right now. “It’s me, okay? I’m the one who doesn’t lift, totally my bad, uh—but you know, I play baseball so—“

“Sorry.” Daisuke looks down at the bulge and the huge dark spot on his red boxers. “I’ll shut up.”

Running his hand through his hair like it’ll alleviate his humiliation, Daisuke very carefully pulls down your tank top. Till your breasts show anyway. Man… he needs to suck those things like a fucking baby. What?

Your face is still relatively peaceful, he concludes from the frantic glances he shoots it every couple seconds.

Next up are your shorts, takes a good struggle to get them off from how tight they’re clinging to your body. If Daisuke didn’t know any better he would have said you got them a size too small on purpose just to tease him. But he is pretty sure you hate his guts.

Pink. Pink panties. So soft. He thinks he’s going to cum just from feeling the fucking fabric.

Nevermind that, ‘cause Christ Almighty is your pussy perfect.

“Wow!” He exclaims much too loud for somebody who just promised to stay quiet. Clearing his throat, Daisuke settles for a calmer, manlier: “I mean, wow.”

“Can I…” that puss has to be frickin’ magical. It’s got him under a spell for sure, “you don’t think I could have a taste, do you?”

…

“Right. Sorry.” Forgot you’re fucking asleep. Or passed out. Unconscious? Whatever’s going on.

You’re not very wet. Damn. You really aren’t into Daisuke after all. He was hoping they were just those like, anxiety ridden thoughts that everybody gets sometimes. Wait. Everybody gets those, right?

Right?

He wets his fucking chopstick fingers with his spit, very carefully rubbing at your pussy ‘cause he’s scared to hurt her. You whimper when he circles the bud peeking out, some of your own slickness starting to drool out of your slit.

Daisuke’s dick twitches like it’s having a seizure, like it will physically power off forever unless he sticks it inside of you right now.

“Oh my God.” Collecting your… pussy drool and staring at it in awe of its shininess—the fact that Daisuke is the one that induced this—he’s gotta hurry. “Sorry, I have to—I don’t wanna…”

He has to fuck you because he doesn’t wanna cum in his underwear. It’s a miracle and a mystery how it hasn’t happened yet.

“Okay,” Daisuke tastes your slick on his fingertips, unable to not moan at the flavor. Thankfully you’re still… you know. Not really there. So he pulls down his boxers, letting his harder-than-a-diamond dick spring free.

It’s like, fucking leaking at the tip.

Spreading your legs and wrapping them around his hips (which doesn’t exactly work ‘cause of how slack they are), half-failing to wrap your limp arms around his neck, Daisuke positions himself above you—bracing himself with his arm next to your head.

You’re breathing out slow puffs of air onto his cheek as he jerks himself a handful of times before lining up with your hole. Daisuke can’t tell if it’s him or you that’s dripping fucking wet. Probably him. His cherry is so long overdue to be popped that it’s actually embarrassing. Virginity does in fact, not rock.

After a few thrusts, Daisuke sinks inside and your walls grip his dick tighter than his fist at night, sucking him in eagerly like a vacuum cleaner. So… were you just playing hard to get all along? Your pussy is so warm he might be getting second degree burns. “Oh, yeah.”

He’s going to fucking bust.

Kind of hard to feel bad for you when you’re this pretty, when your cunt is this wet, and when Daisuke is this horny. He humps you like a dog, gasps and pants spilling out of his mouth before he can stop them. Burying his face in your neck, Daisuke gets a whiff of your perfume.

You let out these mumbles that are kind of sounding like moans. Daisuke chuckles a little, biting and sucking on your neck till it bruises. ‘Cause it’s… hot. Also ‘cause he doesn’t want you to hear how loud he’s moaning himself. “This—this shit is fucking awesome. You’re awesome.”

And he’s close.

Daisuke’s forearms are stinging with pins and needles ‘cause he’s essentially holding a plank above you, moving his hips and fuck all. Shit’s like a work-out. But his body moves like it’s on autopilot. Gives him this sort of understanding for dad now, for how Daisuke himself was made. A sexy damn mistake.

Oh, boy, he’s fucking cumming.

“Fuck,“ he hugs you closer, plowing into you harder—hitting some spongy spot inside of you. Turning him dizzy from the sound of skin slapping echoing throughout the room. So loud Daisuke can’t even hear himself moaning like a fucking female pornstar taking the biggest dick of her life, “oh, babe.”

(He wishes you were his babe.)

Balls tightening, Daisuke tenses up and cums with a groan, shooting thick spurts deep inside you. Painting your walls white for days. Your pussy’s gripping onto him for dear life. You may not want him back but your pussy sure does. Fuck, man.

Bestest fucking release he’s ever had. Cleansed his soul by jizzing that hard. Like, opened his chakras and all that jazz. Jizz and jazz? Daisuke should totally be a comedian.

You have to let him do this more often. Daisuke and you could go at it like, every day! Several times, too. Man, imagine the sheer abs he would get. Baseball don’t do that. He just gets these small lumps on his arms that are supposed to resemble muscles, but don’t show enough ‘cause he’s got a big-ass nasty sweet tooth. Not you this time, but actual sweets. So they’re sort of… soft. In a very not-manly way.

Daisuke pulls out, freezing up like time’s paused.

“Holy shit!” He looks down at the blood caked on his dick. Coating it like the condom he probably should’ve worn. Reddish-pink thick cream dripping out of your slit. “Are you on your period?” Idiot. “Or did I… did I hurt you? I mean, I don’t think I’m that big.”

…

“Sorry,” Daisuke grabs at his head, runs his hand through his hair, runs his hand over his face damp with sweat, “sorry, I just… holy shit.” He covers his mouth. Can’t take his eyes off his softening, bloody dick.

“You really…” he feels fucking sick, forcing the bile building up in his throat back down with a dry swallow. “You really were a virgin, huh?” Thought Daisuke was the only one a virgin at his age. It’s somehow not comforting at all.

Unless…

“Or waitwaitwait—uh, cough once for yes and twice for no.” A beat. A sniffle? Was that him or you? “To the virgin question.”

Fucking idiot. Why would you cough? You can’t even speak! Like, can you even breathe? Oh, man, what if he killed you!? Okay, you’re still breathing. Still got a pulse. Thank God. Shit. Thought he was boutta land his ass in jail for a second.

“I’m sorry.” Daisuke regrets not taking more hits of the bong when he had the opportunity to, ‘cause his mouth is overflowing with spit. He knows what’s coming. And it’s not a hangover one. “I didn’t—I didn’t—mean to—I didn’t know.” Heaving like he’s being strangled. Hiccups cutting off his every word.

You whine like an old, creaky door. Tossing and turning with the subtlety of a professional assassin. What if you were awake all along? What if you were just… pretending to be asleep? ‘Cause you didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that he—that Daisuke… he can’t do this.

“Did it hurt?” Daisuke’s blood is so cold he could very well get diagnosed with hypothermia if he went to the doctor. Stomach clenching and churning but he’s not hungry. He’s fucking sick. “Sorry… I’m really sorry.”

Tucking his dick back into his boxers ‘cause he can’t stand the sight of it anymore, he throws himself off of you. Stumbling as he stands up on his feet, knocking over the bong in the process. You’re just laying there like a fucking ragdoll. A used and abused ragdoll. With Daisuke’s cum and your own blood pouring out of you.

“Listen, I’ll get some painkillers and—“ shit’s fucking forcing itself up his esophagus as he speaks. It burns like lava straight from the devil’s ass. He has to fucking bail. “And… I’ll stay here till you wake up, okay?” Now.

He doesn’t even make it to the bathroom, doesn’t reach the toilet before he fucking pukes. Bucketloads of acidy, watery yet somehow chunky shit just… falling out. All over himself. On the floor. On the toilet seat. On the carpet.

It’s probably whatever blend of colors of his recent meal, but all Daisuke can see is your blood. Your blood and his cum coming out of his mouth. Laying there. Shit fucking moves, painting itself into your sleeping face.

Daisuke is going to hell.

329 notes · View notes

gudfornuthin · 7 months ago

Text

All I’ve Ever Wanted pt2

Season 4!Five Hargreeves x fem!reader

Summary: after saving the world (again), the Hargreeves decide to have a proper celebration. Five should be happy, but there’s only one person on his mind, and he’s unsure if he’ll ever see her again. After being questioned by his loud mouth brother, there’s a chance he won’t have to wonder much longer.

Word count: 4k

A/N: the amount of support I received for part one of this was insane, and truly overwhelming. Thank you all for sharing the love and as requested I now have the idea for part two. Just like the last part, I’ve changed the story so no one ceases to exist and they all live happily ever after. This is also heavy on the Klaus and Lila content but I absolutely loved writing them and characterising them as I wish we had had more interaction between the pair. Hope you all enjoy, feedback is greatly appreciated :)

Read part one here!

“To saving the world. Again and again.”

“Hear! Hear!”

Glasses clink together as the Hargreeves family stand in a circle, celebrating their hero status. What had once felt like a long, gruelling journey, now at last was finished. The siblings weren’t sure if the world would need saving again someday, but at least for the time being, they could relax.

Diego and Luther were already wasted, Klaus and Alison were fussing over Claire, Victor and Ben were surprisingly having a heart to heart, Lila was hugging her children for what seemed like the 30th time that evening, and Five was sat in the corner moping. He wanted nothing more than to celebrate, to be in the moment with the people he loved the most. The only issue being, something was missing. Someone was missing.

When Five returned to his timeline, nobody held back their questioning. The only thing he could tell them was that it had been a long six years, and he was glad to see their faces. He couldn’t bring himself to mention her name. It would’ve just been too complicated. And he hated the thought of appearing soft and sweet. But that’s what she had done to him. And he knows he’ll never get that back.

“There’s my favourite sibling!” Klaus’ voice grates against Five’s ears, not in the mood to hold a conversation.

Five looks at him with a raised eyebrow. “Favourite?”

“Yeah,” Klaus nods. “Right after Alison, Viktor and Ben.”

Five rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his lukewarm drink and sinking deeper into his seat. Unfortunately, his brother like always doesn’t read the room, and decides to sit down, slinging an arm around his shoulder. Five quickly shrugs it off.

“What’s got you so glum, chum?”

“Nothing, I’m fine.”

If Five was going to open up to anyone, Klaus would have to be the last person on earth before he even considered telling him anything. He’d turn it into one big innuendo and completely ruin his already shitty mood. No, he’s planning on keeping his mouth shut.

Klaus props his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand and looking at Five with big puppy eyes. Five glares back.

“I’ve been told I’m great at giving advice. I help Claire bear all the time!”

“I don’t think I need the same advice as a teenage girl,” Five says, crossing his arms. “And hasn’t she been suspended from school?”

Klaus raises his hands in defence. “The advice doesn’t always go according to plan.”

Five shakes his head, any ounce of energy left in him draining away. He stands up, much to his brothers dismay.

“Great chatting to you as always Klaus, but I um, I think I’m gonna take a walk and clear my head.” He starts to slowly walk away. “Hopefully get hit by a car,” He mumbles under his breath.

Klaus watches him leave the room, pouting slightly. He knows his not the first person any of his siblings come to for help, and usually the last one to know anything that’s going on. Most of the time he can be gone for days and no one seems to notice. Even so, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Seeing his brother this down pains him, and if he’s able to help in any way, he will. He also knows he can’t do this alone.

He glances around, the party still going strong and most of his siblings smashed out of their minds. One person who still appears spritely and aware of her surroundings, is Lila. She’s always down for a challenge, Klaus thinks to himself, stumbling out of his chair and making his way over to her. She spots him coming closer, shooing her kids away in case he’s too drunk to control his inappropriate thoughts.

“There’s my favourite sister in law!”

Lila looks at Klaus, squinting her eyes and choosing not to bite back a snide remark. “Having fun?”

He nods a little too enthusiastically. “Oh the best, just swell. Us Hargreeves sure know how to throw a shindig.”

Lila finally decides she’s had enough of the pleasantries. “Alright, what’s going on?”

Klaus takes her by the arm, pulling her further away from the rest of the family out of earshot. He also chooses to take it slow, giving himself more time to figure out what he’s going to say to Lila and how he’ll convince her to agree to whatever he comes up with.

“Has Five seemed,” Klaus pauses for a breath, “moody to you?”

Lila raises an eyebrow. “As apposed to his regular sunny disposition and positive attitude?”

“Okay, I know he’s not the most happy, go lucky guy.”

“He’s a twat.”

This isn’t how Klaus wanted the conversation to go, but he pushes on through, ignoring Lila’s harsh words.

“The only thing he’s opened up about is that he traveled through a weird subway system and was gone for what, to him, felt like a long time.”

Lila shrugs her shoulders, having already lost most of her interest in the conversation. “Why are you telling me all this?”

Klaus leans somehow closer to her, lowing his voice. “With your brains and my,” he falters slightly, “can do attitude, we could find out what happened to him when he disappeared!”

“And how is this going to benefit me?” Lila asks, her interest yet to be piqued.

“You get to possibly find something embarrassing to use against Five,” Klaus responds, “and you can take a break away from babysitting those two.”

As Klaus says this, he points over to Diego and Luther, the former smashing champagne bottles against the latter’s bare chest.

“See,” Luther exclaims with a smile on his face. “Can’t feel a thing.”

Lila groans, turning away from the man children. “Fine, I guess I have no issue snooping into Five’s private life.”

“There she is!” Klaus jumps up and down. “Now step one: infiltrate the boys personal quarters.”

Lila grimaces. “Please, don’t say that ever again.”

- - -

The pair move away from the party and head towards Five’s room. After the apocalypse fiasco, the family all agreed to spend the next week or so staying at the Umbrella Academy mansion while they figure out more permanent arrangements. The siblings stuck to their childhood rooms, with Lila’s family bunking in Reginald’s quarters. Not like the old man needed it anymore.

“What are we looking for exactly?” Lila asks, walking into Five’s room and looking around.

Klaus walks in after her, immediately heading for one of the drawers and haphazardly pulling it open. “I don’t know! Clues, notes, maybe he bought something back from wherever he disappeared to.”

Lila huffs, scuffing her shoes against the ratty carpet. She chooses to go along with the scavenger hunt, moving to the bed and poking her head underneath. A box catches her eye as she reaches for it, dragging it into the light. She sits cross legged on the ground and begins rummaging through it.

“So,” Klaus starts. “You watched any good shows recently?”

“I’m not doing small talk with you.”

The continue searching, finding nothing of significance other than some random calculations for something Lila can’t figure out, and Klaus doesn’t even try to understand what any of it means.

Just before the two decide to give their searching a rest, Klaus finds a sealed envelope under a pile of paper. He scatters the parchment across the desk and holds the envelope close to his face. A name is written on the front.

“Jackpot.”

Lila notices Klaus holding something of interest and walks over to him. “Who’s Y/N?”

“Hell if I know,” he replies, beginning to tear open the top of the envelope.

Lila quickly stops him, wide eyes piercing into the side of Klaus’s face. “Is your name Y/N? You can’t just open something not addressed to you.”

Klaus scoffs. “Come on! This could help us figure out what’s wrong with Five.”

He rips it open and pulls out the contents, much to Lila’s dismay. Two pieces of paper. One with random scribbles etched across it in messy writing. The other a blueprint of sorts, almost like a mapped out plan of a subway system.

“So,” Klaus starts after a beat of silence. “Any of this making sense to you?”

Lila doesn’t respond immediately, her eyes glancing back and forth over the blueprint and the words she can decipher on the paper. It looks familiar. She’s certain she’s seen something similar before, not just any ordinary subway plan. Suddenly it hits her.

“I’ve been here.”

Klaus gives her a blank look, forcing her to continue. “When we went on our little ‘road trip’ and got ambushed in that town. I blinked, hoping to get away from the gunfire for a moment and all of a sudden I was in what looked like an abandoned subway station.”

She pokes urgently at the blueprint. “This is that subway. Or a certain part of it.”

Klaus finally catches on, nodding slowly. “Okay, this doesn’t explain why it was sealed in an envelope addressed to some person we’ve never heard of before.”

Lila looks down at the paper again, moving her finger along the drawn on lines. They go so far, then stop, then start again on a different part of the blueprint. She slowly starts to make sense of it all.

“These parts here,” she shows Klaus where the lines stop and start. “It looks like he blinks across multiple stations.” She sees a big dot and a circle furiously drawn around it. “And maybe this is where he stops permanently.”

“You think that permanent stop might have something there of interest to us?”

Lila shrugs. “It definitely seems like it had some interest to Five. We may as well try.”

- - -

It’s a cold, autumn’s day, and Y/N stands in her greenhouse, clearing out some of the plants that had wilted away due to the change of climate. She’s wrapped in a warm cardigan, sniffling slightly as a chill runs up her spine. She didn’t mind the weather, but always preferred the warmer temperatures. It was the best time to grow her favourite fruits and vegetables. Either way, she’s hoping to grow pumpkins soon.

Since the events of the mysterious stranger landing in her back garden, and the whirlwind of emotions he put her through, she hadn’t left the comfort of her home other than to buy groceries. She busied herself with a lot of baking, crocheting, and practicing more of her combat skills. She hadn’t had to use them yet, but still she likes to remind herself of the moves she’d been taught. She filled her time well, but there was always something missing.

Y/N shakes her head, rubbing her nose against the back of her hand. She grabs a plastic bag and heads outside into the cool air, scooping up handfuls of leaves and shoving them into it. Maybe she’ll make some artwork out of them, the reds, greens and oranges complimenting each other well.

A tickle runs up her nose and she sneezes into her palm.

“Bless you.”

“Thank you,” Y/N replies, then freezes, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.

She turns to look in the direction the voice came from, coming face to face with a man with shaggy hair and a wide smile. Y/N yelps and, without much thought, punches him in the face. As he lets out a cry and stumbles back, she swipes his legs from under him, forcing him on the ground. She kneels on top of him, pulling his arms behind his back. ‘Guess the moves Five taught me came in handy’ she thought.

“I’m all for a bit of foreplay,” the stranger groans from under her. “But the punch felt unwarranted.”

“Who are you?” She interrogates.

“I must say,” a new voice sounds from behind the two on the wet grass. “If I knew you were this good at subduing Klaus, I would’ve come for you sooner.”

She whips around, spotting a woman standing not far away with her arms crossed and an amused expression donning her face.

Y/N looks back and forth between the two, confusion and adrenaline running through her body and mind. Was a quiet life too much to ask for these days?

Still on top of who she now assumes is “Klaus”, she glares at the woman. “Is it a trend now for people to show up in my back garden out of thin air?”

The woman smiles. “You must be Y/N.”

Hearing her name come from the stranger shocks her at first, but as the thought of Five runs through her mind, she has a strong feeling this has something to do with him.

“Sorry for scaring you,” the woman continues. “But I promise we’re only here with good intentions. Just here to help our brother.”

“I would also love to be apart of this conversation,” Klaus pipes up, still lying on the floor under Y/N’s weight.

She pauses for a second, then decides to trust the pair, standing up and holding a hand out to Klaus, the man happily accepting it.

“Alright,” she nods at them. “I’m listening.”

The three of them make their way into the home and sit in the kitchen. Lila takes the wheel, properly introducing herself and explaining the reasoning behind their unexpected visit. While the mention of Five doesn’t shock Y/N, her heart breaks hearing how miserable he’s been since leaving her and the life they’d built. She brews them all some coffee, listening intently to Lila’s explanation of their family and what’s gone on since Five returned. He’d obviously told Y/N about saving the world, but it was still hard to fully comprehend. She was used to a boring life, doing mundane tasks and basking in the quiet. His life sounded stressful and never ending. She begins to understand why he wanted to stay with her.

“And then we found an envelope in his room with your name on the front,” Lila finishes, taking a sip of her drink. “We thought finding you might be exactly what Five needs.”

Y/N eventually breaks her silence, trying to comprehend all the information thrown at her. “If he knew how to get back to me, why didn’t he?”

Klaus shrugs, grabbing for one of the home baked cookies on display in the centre of the table. “I don’t know, Five’s pride overshadows his emotions sometimes. Maybe he didn’t wanna seem desperate, or a burden. Maybe he was scared you’d moved on?”

She huffs at that. “No chance. The past few weeks my mind has been consumed by Five. I’ve tried my best to distract myself, but all I think about is him.”

Lila and Klaus look at each other, neither of them realising how much this woman must mean to Five. While this had initially been a way of teasing their brother and finding out something personal to use against him, it had now become much more serious. This woman was in love with him. And they don’t need to imagine that he’s in love with her too.

“Look,” Lila talks directly to Y/N. “We don’t expect you to give up your life here. I certainly wouldn’t with a home like this.”

Y/N smiles shyly, taking pride in her house and hearing the acknowledgment from someone else.

Lila continues. “But for the sake of helping two love sick puppies reunite with each other, we’d love to take you with us to see Five.”

At first, Y/N isn’t sure how to respond. The shock of meeting some of Five’s family, finding out how down he’s been since leaving her, and now getting the chance to see him again. She’s nervous as her stomach does flips. Even if it’s just one last time, she doesn’t want to spend a moment longer thinking it over.

“Okay,” she replies. “I’ll come with you.”

- - -

Five sits in the kitchen, a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter on the table in front of him. He’s looking straight ahead, grabbing a slice and slathering it with the nutty spread. He doesn’t care if he’s making a mess. He won’t be living here much longer anyways.

Footsteps sound from the hall, as an out of breath Klaus enters the room. He spots his brother and, straightening himself out, he casually walks over to the table. He nods at him even though Five has yet to acknowledge his presence.

Klaus sees the sprawled out food. “Hungry?”

“Not really,” Five responds, as he grabs a peanut butter covered slice of bread and throws it at the opposite wall. It sticks for a second then slides down.

Klaus watches as it slowly lands on the floor, then looks at his brother. “Well enough moping around, why don’t you come back up to the party?”

“I’m not in the mood to mingle.”

Klaus bounces slightly on the back of his heels. “You sure? I think there’s someone here who’d love to see you.”

“If the Handler’s somehow come back from the dead, tell her I’m not interested,” Five grabs a towel, wiping off the stickiness on his fingers. “She always gave me the creeps.”

“Oh I think it’s someone much better than the Handler,” Klaus replies before skipping away and out of the room.

Five waits for a few moments, letting out a giant huff and moving away from the table. He’s in no mood to socialise, but his brother’s weird behaviour has him curious. He leaves the kitchen, slowly making his way towards the sound of the ongoing celebrations.

“Come on just one more drink, I can beat you this time!” Luther’s voice is heard slurring from around the corner where Five walking.

“No way,” he can hear Diego pipe up. “She’s too good for someone who’s never played before.”

Five quickly catches on that they must be playing some dumb drinking game. Whoever they’ve challenged must be kicking their asses.

“I dunno, I’m just not as drunk as you guys.”

Five freezes, his heart picking up speed. That voice. The soft tone followed by a melodic laugh. It can’t be her. What the hell is she doing here? How the hell did she get here?

He absentmindedly runs a hand through his hair, hoping he doesn’t look as much of a mess as he feels. He turns the corner, the sight before him filling his insides with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Y/N is standing in between Luther and Diego, cups in front of them most likely full of alcohol. The three of them pick one up and chug as quickly as possible. They slam them down, Y/N much faster than both of them, and start flipping them. After only a few seconds, she flips her cup and lands it, earning a cheer from her and a groan from the two brothers.

Luther shakes his head incessantly. “Alright, again. Let’s go again.”

“Luther, you sound like you’re about to pass out,” Diego argues, his words slurring no less than his brothers.

Y/N laughs at the pair, admiring their competitive spirit. Her eyes glance away from them for a brief moment, and she spots Five. They both look at each other for what seems like an eternity, waiting for the other to make the first move.

“Hey Five!” Luther’s loud voice echoes throughout the room. “Your girlfriend’s awesome! Way cooler than you.”

Five shuts his eyes, groaning inwardly at his brother’s inability to sensor some of his thoughts. Y/N continues looking at him, a shy smile gracing her lips. She excuses herself from the drunk duo, trying not to appear too eager as she walks over to the love she thought she’d lost. Finally, she stands before him, trying to ignore the not so subtle looks from the partygoers.

“Hi.”

“What’re you-,” Five is breathless, spluttering over his words. “I mean, how? How’re you here, how’d you get here?”

“Uh,” from not too far away, Klaus pipes up. “I think you’ll find I am the one you can thank for that.”

Lila, standing next to him, smacks the back of his head, eliciting a small yelp from the man. “I was the one who figured the blueprint out you prick. She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my ability to blink.”

They carry on bickering back and forth. All the while Five watches them, unsure if he should thank them or curse them out. Maybe both.

A soft touch takes hold of Five’s hand, pulling his attention away from his family and back to the woman in front of him. For the first time in a while, he smiles wide, matching her own.

“Do you wanna maybe go for a walk?” Y/N asks. “Your family seems lovely, but I’d really like some time just the two of us.”

Five breathes a sigh of relief. “Nothing would make me happier.”

- - -

The pair walk around the grounds of the mansion, holding hands and talking, as if nothing had changed. While Five knew he’d missed her company, he didn’t realise how her presence changed his mindset completely. He felt content, at peace. His thoughts weren’t consumed by the apocalypse and the world possibly ending again. How he’d spent the past several years moving from one place to the next, making sure his family was safe, and never having a second to stop. It was draining.

But with her? He can finally relax. He doesn’t feel the need to put on a facade and lie that he’s okay. She makes him feel seen, feel vulnerable in the best way possible. She’s not here to judge. She’s not here to ask for his help. She’s just here. And in that moment, that was the only thing Five cared about. It was the only thing he wanted.

They find a bench and decide to sit down for a bit, basking in the soft glow from the moon. Y/N rests her head on his shoulder and leans in close. Five can’t help but lay a small kiss on her hairline.

Y/N sighs. “I could stay like this forever.”

Five hums in agreement. “So could I.”

After saying those words, it dawns on Five what they truly mean. He could do this forever. Not just sitting on a wet bench in the moonlight, but spending the rest of his life with her. Living that quiet life they’d built together before he had to leave. He can’t bear to say goodbye again. So maybe this time, he doesn’t have to.

Five moves slightly, forcing Y/N to take her head off his shoulder and sit up properly. She looks at him confused.

“Why don’t we?” He asks.

“Why don’t we what?”

Five stands up. “Do this forever. You and I. Me and you. Live the life we both want. We both deserve.”

She stands up too, looking deeply into his eyes. “We talked about this last time. I can’t give up what I’ve made for myself. I can’t stay here.”

Five falters for a second, scared of what he’s about to propose. But there’s no point in living without taking a few risks.

“What if I come with you?”

Y/N is shaking her head before Five finishes the sentence. “I don’t want to be the reason you leave your family. I know now why they mean so much to you. I can’t live with that guilt.”

Five raises his hands to rest gently on the sides of her face. “And I can’t live without you.”

Tears threaten to spill from Y/N’s eyes, as he carries on talking. “I wouldn’t be saying goodbye to them forever. I know how to get back. Lila clearly knows how to get there too.”

Five rolls his eyes at that as Y/N laughs, her mind wandering to the shocking but wonderful introduction of his brother and sister-in-law.

“But if you still want me,” Five now speaks in a whispered tone. “I’m ready to finish building that life with you. However long it may take.”

Y/N nods, her heart beating fast. “I wouldn’t want anyone else.”

Y/N moves her arms up to wrap around his neck, pulling him close and kissing him deeply. They both sigh, Five tasting the alcohol she had been drinking earlier, as well as a hint of strawberries. Some things never change.

(Additional A/N: I’m not planning on doing any more parts following after this, HOWEVER, because I’ve loved writing Five and reader so much, I might do some one shots diving deeper into their time together before Five left. eg. Five teaching her fighting skills and reader teaching him how to bake. If you wanna see that please let me know and also if you have any suggestions for those kind of ideas I’d love to hear them.)

Taglist:

@indestructeible @reijixia13 @busy-buzzing @jshxng @krazyk99 @lxkeeeeee @inkspiredwriting @redbunny03 @philoslostfiles

(I tagged anyone who said they wanted pt2 but some tags didn’t work so apologies to anyone I couldn’t tag)

#the umbrella academy #five hargreeves x reader #five x reader #the umbrella academy spoilers #tua #tua s4 #tua s4 spoilers

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holybibly · 1 year ago

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Hello my favorite bunnies. I won't let you relax for a minute.

These are my unholy thoughts

The Park twins were definitely something very special.

When you first met Seonghwa, it was hard to believe that he could be the twin brother of someone like Hwaseong, and vice versa.

They were the hottest topic in the office, and as the children of the CEO of the company you were working at, they were frequently spotted around the office.

Seonghwa was the cutest person on the planet. God, you could have sworn there was an angelic halo around his pretty head, and those big innocent eyes… Damn it, all you wanted to do was ruin him. There was something so sweet about him that it made your teeth ache with the desire to sink into that delicious caramel skin of his.

At the same time, Hwaseong was his complete opposite - brash, belligerent and vulgar to the point of disgusting, you couldn't be around him for more than a minute without your panties getting uncomfortably wet. And unlike Seonghwa, you were desperate for Hwaseong to destroy you.

You never thought that you would be in the middle of it when the boys started their internship at the company. Mr. Pak was personal request that you take care of them and help them in any way possible.

And as it turned out, "all their affairs" also included the satisfaction of their insatiable libido.

It was a bit of a push-pull for you three. The desire to push Seonghwa into a dark closet and show him what heavenly blowjob meant became stronger and stronger. Especially when he looked at you with those sparkling eyes and batted his long eyelashes.

At the same time, you wanted to smother that arrogant bitch face of Hwaseong with your own pussy. The whole situation made you feel as if you were between heaven and hell at the same time.

Neither of you dared to make the first move, despite the intense tension and the almost painful sexual desire between you.

Everything changed at a company dinner. Seonghwa was lightweight and quickly got drunk, getting clingy and overly tactile with you, while Hwaseong seemed to get even cockier, starting to touch you unprofessionally and not innocently.

You had to drive them home before Hwasung performed a striptease on the table. God, he was literally five minutes away from taking his clothes off. And Seonghwa started to whimper about how much he wanted to go home to his soft bed. The boy was literally the sweetest creature that could have ever existed in the world.

But you were a damn fool to fall for their blandishments and take them home. And you were an even bigger fool to think that they believed that their typical behaviour characterised them in the bedroom.

Things did not turn out as you had hoped when Seonghwa literally fucked the life out of you in the middle of the hallway of their luxurious penthouse and Hwaseong obediently sucked your fingers while waiting for his turn. The huge innocent eyes were black as night and full of lust, while the bold lips that had curved into a devilish grin had become soft and gentel.

The night was going to be long, exhausting and hot, judging by the eagerness with which they tried to get enough of you. Biting, licking, kissing, scratching and fucking you as if their lives depended on it. For you, the morning came just as suddenly as the change in their behaviour last night, but what drove you even crazier was how gentle Seonghwa was with you again, and the way that annoying arrogance once again coloured Hwaseong's beautiful features.

Anyway, you were right about one thing - the Park twins really were something special.

#ateez smut #kpop smut #atz smut #ateez hard hours #ateez unholy hours #smut #seonghwa x reader #seonghwa smut #park seonghwa smut #ateez scenarios #ateez au #ateez x reader

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gossippool · 8 months ago

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what do you recommend for people who are very new to deadpool comics and looking to get into them?

hiii thank u for asking!! this is kind of a complicated question because there's no right answer really. especially with deadpool, there's no actual best starting point because besides the basic origin story that he was experimented on, everything else about him is fair game (he just lies all the time and has false memories about his past) and so all the comics are different, although some are connected. but here's a list of a few comics depending on what you want to explore (i have not read every deadpool comic ever so this is not the best list but i will get there):

for shorter and more lighthearted reads:

deadpool (2022)—SO so cute wade has a crush on this non-binary assassin and it's actually adorable how much he likes them lol. in terms of shorter deadpool comics i think this one is quite a standout [update: the ongoing deadpool (2024) is brilliant as well and is a direct more in-depth continuation of this]

deadpool infinity comic (2021)—a short partnership with sue storm. funny and the art style is so cute too

deadpool (2018) #6—the issues in this run are all kinda standalone stories (although they all connect at the end). they're all a fun time but this issue in particular is hilarious. comics usually don't make me actually laugh but this one did

for a more meta read that explores exactly what makes wade unique from other superheroes:

deadpool kills the marvel universe (2011)—in my opinion THE most iconic deadpool run, i'm sure everyone's heard of it lmao. a little darker but hey cameos from every marvel character ever. this was the first deadpool comic i ever read and it was a good time

for a familiar face from deadpool and wolverine (for other specific familiar faces you could just search "deadpool vs [character]" and that comic would probably exist):

honestly just search "deadpool and wolverine" and you'll probably get the whole list but here are some i've read that are lovely:

deadpool & wolverine: wwiii (2024)

deadpool vs. wolverine: slash 'em up infinity comic (2024)

weapon x-traction (2024)

for long in-depth characterisation that explores a lot of deadpool lore:

deadpool (2012)—if you've been following me you might know this is my favourite deadpool comic ever. it's pretty depressing and much grittier than the movie deadpool you might be used to, also REALLY long so it can be daunting but it's very worth it imo. it starts to get really good by the good, the bad, and the ugly issue and there's just SO much in it. for me wade in this run is inseparable from wade as a character to me (this comic is also followed up with deadpool (2015) and despicable deadpool (2017). these aren't necessary to read because 2012 kind of wraps up on its own, but it's definitely bittersweet to get to the end)

deadpool (1997)—another hulk of a comic run. i have not read this yet but i've heard very good things about it, and many people say that joe kelly is the defining deadpool writer so you could give it a go! older comics may be a little harder to read though, from experience

for comics featuring ellie (wade's daughter) that you may want to read in order if you want to fully appreciate her and wade's relationship:

deadpool (2012, 2014, 2015)

deadpool (2018, issues #8, #12, #15)

deadpool (2024)

a lot of comics will sometimes redirect you to other comics that explore a sideplot, and the main comic will just pick up where those left off so you could miss some storyline. despite this it's not necessary to read those other comics, but if you want to avoid multiple instances of this when you first go in, then i would suggest starting with the shorter runs!!

i hope this was helpful lmao sorry this got really long but i think the starting point really is different for everyone depending on what they like

#user: gossippool 😝#gossippool asks #i'll probably keep updating this as i go along #deadpool and wolverine #deadpool #wade wilson

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v88sy · 1 month ago

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ahem [*aims bazooka at the hornet nest*] the way anti tommy fics characterise Tommy is the way that canon Eddie has been treating Buck this season [*pulls the trigger*]

(more nuanced: obviously not referring to the DV or SA, but the whiplashing hot/cold, the casual cruelty, the "Buck's only useful when he's usable" attitude, that's all canon Eddie in s8. and to add to the irony, the way they characterise fanon eddie in these fics? that's canon tommy.)

(obviously given the state of this fandom right now I'm 100% not expecting this to get posted, I just felt the Urge to say it after seeing your post about the bucktommy tag on ao3 because yeah, it's fucking atrocious but it's only going to give bucktommy better ratings in the yearly wrap so who's really winning here)

Ooooooo, ok, I'm gonna gently grab your hand (with consent) and we're gonna walk together through this one because I'm bravely posting it.🤣

So, I've said before that I think their fanon Eddie is basically canon Tommy. Gay. Repressed by comphet. Failed relationships with women because he was too scared to admit who he really is. And, how they think Eddie would treat Buck in a romantic relationship are all ways in which Tommy has actually been shown to.

I think the only buddie fics I've ever read were from my partner in crime, and I purposefully don't click on any 'Tommy Kinard Bashing' fics (which, as an aside, relies on the author to have the common decency to at least tag correctly. More on that later) but in the particular case that spurred my original post, I just clicked on the comments because I wanted to see if there were any fellow buddies calling them out, which, yes, I have seen before on other fics. Things along the lines of "I'm a buddie fan too, but not like this."

Now, on to the fics themselves and not just how they're tagged. Fics like that, and like the 'anonymous hidden csa' fics that were being thrown in our tag...someone had to sit down and write that.

Like, I'm not trying to tell people what to write, and so this rant is more so just a me thing, but I honestly never did understand how someone could...even stomach that.

To write a (completely OOC) Tommy bashing fic where he's the most vile of the vile, or a csa fic with the intention of disguising what it really is in the hopes that we'll read it and be triggered...first someone has to sit there and bring the words into their brain. They had to make those words appear on a screen. And then, they had to post it to ao3, knowing full well what they are doing and that they are forcing it onto a collection of people that do not even want to know that it exists in the first place. Like. It just boggles my mind how someone could do that. I'd never be able to write the first sentence, let alone do all the rest of it.

I know I got sidetracked some from your original ask, but I do also agree that the way Eddie has been treating Buck this season is just...not it.

During season 7 hiatus, I wanna say shortly after we got bi Buck, I went back and rewatched the entire series again. I've watched live since day one, but was never really in the habit of watching an episode again once it had aired or sitting there and dissecting it once I pushed the 'off' button on the remote.

And let's just say, this time around, I really saw just how one sided that "friendship" is, and just how little "evidence" or "chemistry" there is pointing to buddie. All that just got turned up to 11 this season, and I truly do not comprehend how anyone could think "buddie canon" has "never been closer."

Mandatory PSA time: this isn't about chill multishippers or chill buddie shippers even. I know and talk to some and they're great. If you've never done any of the things above, then this ain't about you.

#wooooo boy you can always count on me to answer my asks with a dissertation #asked and answered #ummm i don't know how to tag this because i don't wanna kick the hornets nest too #but I think #bucktommy #is probably pretty safe #just be warned #here tharr be #911 discourse #so much #discourse #anti buddie

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thistlerock · 2 months ago

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Okay Fantasy High webtoon. I fuck w/ you. (I've read the three free eps so far so this is only about those.)

It made me laugh a few times and I generally found it pleasant, and even if there's some design choices I don't super agree with the art IS very charming. I also enjoyed the composition a lot it's just nice to look at. I can't super tell if I'd be as into this if I was a new fan coming in or of I'm just excited because I love Fantasy High (gonna have my girlfriend tell me /hj) but I personally really liked it :)

Minor lore differences I noticed is that Penny went missing quite recently? When originally she'd been missing for the longest iirc? Also Torek was already AT Agueford with the skater dwarves rather than being a middle schooler at this point. Ultimately neither of these should affect the plot much just noticed that.

Speaking of plot, I like that we follow Riz!! He's really fun and being focused on the character focused on the mystery is probably the most useful for a comic (though I'm assuming we'll eventually also follow the other Bad Kids more like with the Fabian and Adaine cutaways and I'm also looking forward to that). I was initially a little put off by the fact we skip everyone but Riz's introductions, but it would have been awkward in comic form to give everyone a turn like in actual play, and I think they handled it nicely and the characterisation in their respective first scenes is still clear and good. So far we haven't seen much of Adaine but I assume we're gonna get more about her (and Fig, and Kristen — though Kristen's whole deal is already pretty clear with just one scene, lmao) in later chapters.

My one gripe that I think is worth mentioning here so far is that I kind of hoped Penny and Sam would look closer to their The Seven designs! But I also understand that those are more complex than their original ones, and they shouldn't look like main characters or whatever. Just personally kinda awe-ed at it.

Other super minor changes include Kristen and Gorgug instant bestism?? Hello? Give me more. Also Gorgug and Fabian's fight was slightly more elaborate I think? Which was cool! (Reminds me that I'm curios to see how combat is portrayed, seems fun.) Though I will mourn the loss of "hey you seem pretty non-violent-" "I got into a rage."

A less minor change is that Gorgug made the tin flower himself? I think his mum just gave it to him originally. I'm gonna assume he doesn't start out multiclassing that'd be kinda insane (though I also find it interesting that in this format you don't technically have to tell us what level they are. And I'm curious to see how faithful to dnd mechanics this is gonna be. Personally I think it'd be fun to be very meta or not meta at all, but weird in-betweens tend to be awkward.), but it's cool he already tinkers. Maybe he becomes an artificer sooner in this? Or this is just setting up his eventual genius in building that cell tower or something similar? Idk. It's just nice to see him do the thing his parents also do. I also enjoy how Riz got detention in this version because it's delightfully cringe and gave me second hand embarrassment however I do find it interesting that this doesn't set up Ostentatia? Are we gonna meet her later or are we not gonna know her when she gets plot relevant? I could also see her and Fig having an interaction instead but idk, we'll see.

In general I'm curious as to how the plot is going to progress, because I think comic form makes it both easier to set up and follow and harder to make entertaining. Also there's a lot of dice motifs in the promotional art, do rolls ever get portrayed or is that for the aesthetic? If you read ahead already don't tell me I wanna find out myself lol.

So yeah my overall opinion is that I like it so far. Pleasantly surprised! It was really awesome to see all my favourite little guys repeatedly drawn, especially Ragh. If you know me you know I got so excited over Ragh aha. He's going through it right now but soon,,,soon he'll be perfect.

Anyway. Here's my favourite panels that I just HAD to screenshot and send to my friends on discord (or well some. Tumblr mobile has a ten image limit. I sent them about half the damn webtoon.)

Special shoutout to this one. How dare you do this to me. So sick and twisted.

ALSO WAS ZAYN ALWAYS SO. LIKE THIS??? WHO IS THIS TWINK. WHY IS HE STRUTTING. WHAT IS THAT BACK BEND INSTEAD OF TURNING AROUND LIKE A NORMAL PERSON. WHY IS HE WEARING LOW JEANS AND A BODYSUIT IN SCHOOL. CAN YOU HAVE SLUTTY HIP CUT OUTS IN SCHOOL I CANT?? (Obsessed w/ him)

I wrote this between four and five am after starting the webtoon at like. Three thirty. Any spelling mistakes are because I'm tired and not because I can't read Ragh style, I prommy. (Ragh is just dyslexic. Randomly placed headcanon, or whatever.)

#fantasy high #fantasy high webtoon #Fantasy high webtoon spoilers #maybe? should I use that tag? it's not like the plot is new #yelling into megaphone #the bad kids #riz gukgak #zayn darkshadow #fabian aramais seacaster #gorgug thistlespring #kristen applebees #ragh barkrock

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leonawriter · 3 months ago

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Ayin, Carmen, and the Circles of Hell Project Moon's Works

First off, what I wanted to go over here is the assumption that at least someone must have started playing through these games without a full picture of who these important people are and what, exactly, is going on.

Part of what makes the games so special to me is the way that they're all narrated, in that... each and every single one so far (three games, but also the webcomics and webnovels so far) has been told by an unreliable narrator - either of the events they're telling, or of their own inner world.

In this post, I'm hoping to tie the games together in as objective way as possible, using as much game/official-backed fact as I can, but I can't promise to be an "unbiased narrator" myself, since there are certain stances I take and theories I back.

That said: expect spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation, Library of Ruina, Leviathan (Vergilius' backstory), and all currently released Cantos and Intervallos (so far, up to 7.5).

Okay.

To start off, I'm going to have to go right back to the beginning.

No, not the backstory of Lobotomy Corporation.

More like "What even is the City" - because unless we can understand that, we can't really say we can understand who these characters are, and why they're doing these things. The setting informs characterisation and cultural norms, after all.

The City is, basically, as those who've played or otherwise experienced Library of Ruina and Limbus Company will know, comprised of the Wings (districts) and then further divided into the Nests (where everyone wants to live, where it's safer), and the Backstreets (where no one really wants to live, but many have to). The main driving motivation for most peoples' lives is that they have to become employable to either a good organisation (legal or not) that will provide for them, as the moment they are not of use they will be fired and/or disposed of.

In other words, your life does not belong to "you." Your life belongs to "the City."

All of that stuff we hear all the time about "find work that you enjoy!"? Yeah, no, the most important thing is to a) stay alive at all, and b) find work that will enable you to stay alive. Being able to keep morals? That's a luxury.

The world (which as far as anyone is concerned here, IS the City) is run by people who do not care about the well-being of others, and "good" people get ground up by it, eventually learning to harden their hearts.

Now that we've got that out of the way...

I can actually go into who the characters are.

First off, and most importantly (and obviously, going by the title) we have Ayin, Benjamin, and Carmen. Later on in Lobotomy Corporation known as "A, B, and C."

We don't know much about them before a certain point. We can, however, easily see that all three of them were from a Nest, rather than the Backstreets; of the original Outskirts lab, only Kali (Gebura) was Backstreets, and both Enoch and Lisa were from the Outskirts. This means that all three must have scored highly in certain exams in order to stay inside their Nest (which ones, though, we don't know yet) as was brought up in an early chapter of Distortion Detective.

For all of Lobotomy Corporation, we see things through Ayin's eyes, and we really only see the events that lead up to the founding of the Facility that "X" (AKA, Ayin's future looped self) is running. Since we only see the worst moments, we aren't really allowed to see the good times. We're allowed to see some very relevant quiet moments, but other than that it's few and far between.

What we DO know, and that we can in fact take on board that is highly important, is that Carmen had a big dream of wanting to improve things for people, on an individual basis, and she was very good at pulling people around to her way of thinking. This is not an exaggeration, or a matter of bias; this woman would go on to recruit people from all sorts of backgrounds, from both the Nests and the Backstreets. She would walk more or less alone in the Backstreets, and as far as we know did not have a bodyguard (or adjacent) until she recruited Kali, a Grade 2 Fixer. Carmen's ability to recruit all sorts of people would later be compared to that of a cult leader in Library of Ruina, and by someone who knew a lot about the City.

(This isn't the only time Roland says something like that; he also brings it up with Netzach.)

Ayin, who would be Carmen's junior, followed after her, listened to her, paid her a lot of attention, did as he was asked, and as we see Angela later state, he would look at Carmen "warmly."

Ayin would also be the one who would end up being blamed for, or the cause of, the worst of what happened, for one reason or another. Much of this was, I would say, either 50/50 fault of the future Sephirot making bad decisions, and Ayin himself having no idea how to communicate with them in a way that would prevent such incidents, or outright being unable to.

Simply looking at him and the way that A describes things, as well as the way that Manager X would later respond to things, tells the story of someone who quite literally had trouble communicating and connecting with other people. After Malkuth's meltdown, when A is talking about and recalling Elijah, we see the line "It was only after a very long time that I realised giving praise every once in a while may have been a good idea." When introduced to Kali, it's pointed out that he seems to be "glaring" at her, and Carmen says that he "always has a serious look on his face."

There are other lines and aspects from other scenes, but going into how and why I see Ayin as autistic is for another post, really. The important part is that the game shows us that he is perceived as cold and distant by others, yet most often only figures out how to interact in a way that grants the social benefits he and others require once it is already too late.

There is also the fact that a lot of his reactions (both in the past, and in the present) are... very human. No one can give the perfect response of a hero while in a traumatic moment. Chesed actually outright states this during one of the flashbacks about himself.

So we have Carmen, whose dream was to have a "beautiful voice" that "everyone would listen to," and we have Ayin, whose dream we aren't privy to - he tells her, and she laughs it off.

I'm not making that up, by the way:

[Source: TeeQueue's LP.]

What we do know, however, is that... for most of his life really, he - as said - follows after Carmen. To the point that, in one particular flashback (during Day 48), she asks him, in advance, that "No matter what I may become, please finish what I started."

However, we can see from both Adam (the third of Ayin's fractured selves) stating point blank that the consequences of Carmen's Light would cause people to become abnormalities, and then in Library of Ruina seeing the direct result in reality... that the Distortion phenomena would begin because of her. Starting with one as big and destructive as the Pianist which destroyed most of an entire district, then the Reverberation Ensemble through the course of the game, and finally firsthand appearances in both Leviathan and Limbus Company.

Carmen truly does become the "beautiful voice" that everyone listens to; Leviathan goes as far as to have an entire conversation between her and a distorting Vergilius, in which we get to see what her perspective is, and... strap in, because this is why I explained what kind of place the City is in the first place.

Carmen, at her heart, wants the Children of the City to live for themselves. To be selfish, rather than living only for the sake of a City that does not care for them. To have their outside appearance resembles the self they keep inside. You can see, in the few times the reader/player is allowed to see what she's saying during a distortion, that she doesn't push people into distorting so much as she plays into their own pre-existing feelings and desires. Enabling them to feel that they are justified in everything that they feel.

The important thing to remember is that the root (ha) of Carmen's argument is not wrong. Remember: those born to the City are subject to the City, and exist only for the City. The City doesn't exist for the sake of the people, but only for itself. Therefore, the idea of someone suggesting "I want to make it so that you can be selfish, and live for yourselves" IS going to be incredibly tempting, and to many people. It's a subversive, inherently rebellious idea!

Even in the real world, we have countries that put a lot of stock into how well a country can function as a uniform system; Japan and China I know for certain put far more emphasis on the group than the individual, even now. Anyone coming from somewhere that doesn't may see this as a strange idea, but it IS a cultural mindset that exists in the present day, and it took certain movements ("egoism" for one, and Ango Sakaguchi's essay that is referenced in Bungo Stray Dogs is "Discourse on Decadence" for another) to get to the point we're at now.

The problem lies in the fact that the moment you start to only think of yourself, when you ignore everyone else you become a force of destruction, harming others, either on a small scale (only hurting those immediately around you) or a large scale (hurting many people as a result of your actions) without regret. You no longer care about the people you used to care about. The "self" is all that remains.

Carmen was/is a well-intentioned (by the City's standards) person, but who took her one good idea too far.

Judging by his reaction to Adam's revelations about the as-yet-unnamed Distortion Phenomena - and he DOES have a negative reaction to it, considering he answers Adam's religious fervour with Hokma's ability to "Face the past, build the future" and Binah's "Facing the fear, breaking the cycle," meaning that he saw Adam as wrong. I'd say it's a foregone conclusion that Ayin did not know that Carmen's idea meant what it did. Nor that it's likely that Carmen's idea was to distort people from the start.

This, then, leads to the fact that although we don't know Ayin's own wishes from way back at the start when they first met so clearly... we can at least say that he wanted at least some of the same as what she did; for people to lead happier, more fulfilling lives, which were not controlled fully by the City. He must have agreed with her on the fact that the City, in her terms, suffered from a "disease of the mind."

Their differences are where things get interesting, because in Leviathan it is stated that simply due to Ayin "joining [her] in the light" at all, the concept of also being able to form EGO instead of Distortion became a possibility. In fact, in that same chapter, Vergilius is shown to be suspicious of her brushing her "junior's" involvement off, in spite of Ayin being "involved in every cause and effect" (Vergilius' words, from the translation).

There is a certain irony, even, to Carmen causing rifts between the future Sephirot and Ayin when they first meet - saying things that could otherwise be playful teasing, yet in later context is, as stated above, rather dismissive-

Her telling Ayin "He's a bit pompous, so don't believe everything he says" about Daniel, and to Kali who, as stated above, asked why Ayin was glaring and was told "He just always has a serious look on his face." In another flashback, she wore him down until he could see no other option than what she gave him (about progressing the Cogito experiment); "What made me, us, so upset... was how much it hurt to listen to her put it so calmly, as if it were none of our business." As I pointed out earlier, she laughs at his dream, before carrying on.

And yet, because she entrusted the project to him, it's Ayin's fingerprints that are over all of Lobotomy Corporation, as well as how to activate EGO at all. "Face the Fear, Build the Future"? That's all Ayin. And yeah, he's hardly a saint; he still did everything that all of the flashbacks show us (and his present day self who is remembering/being shown). But the important thing is that people can be multifaceted, and half the point of Lobotomy Corporation, as I see it, is that people are capable of some truly horrendous things... but you are still capable of building from them and moving into the future if you want to try and be a better person.

That's literally the message that Ayin leaves people through the Light.

Which in turn, pushes us forward in to the later games, because the thing is, everything really does come back to those two.

In Ruina, the Sephirot - now the Patron Librarians - have to tiptoe around Angela, who only has negative feelings about Ayin due to him being the world's worst father by creating her and then refusing to look at her, and then sending her into an unending torture device. I can't fault her for being furious here. She has been given absolutely no reason to see him in a better light up to here, when she was created with the memories of someone who had fond memories of him.

However, that does mean that the Patron Librarians can't truly be said to be speaking their minds amongst themselves, and especially not with Roland. These are the people who came out of Lobotomy Corporation's loops changed for the better, and although you can still see their (metaphorical, psychological) scars, we can see through the things they say that "X" must have been talking back to them at various points, and specifically during and after their meltdowns.

I brought this up in another post, but here's Gebura in Ruina, stating "It's hard to take a step forward if there's no one around to give you honest advice," and that goes for both the Sephirot and also Angela. As they do point out, Angela never had that. Angela herself is very upset about it (which is an understatement).

I've theorised as well that the Patron Librarians would have talked more about Ayin at length, but they held off after Angela interrupted Malkuth.

After she says this, she's cut off, and Angela berates her. Given Angela is basically hearing what to her is her abuser being praised to high heavens by someone who was also harmed by him... it's no wonder she reacts like this, and given the way the Librarians are I wouldn't be surprised if they understood that - but it does mean that we don't see their true thoughts.

They'll talk around him, but rarely directly about him - and when they do, like Gebura above, she snaps at them. So we, the viewer, also do not get to see their full thoughts and feelings.

This isn't the end, however, since the endgame of Ruina throws a lot into perspective that is made rather blatantly clear in later materials such as Leviathan and Limbus Company: that is, the stances of Ayin versus Carmen, and expanding on how they're in opposition in a far clearer way than we had during Lobotomy Corporation.

Because Lobotomy Corporation's final days are full of unreliable narration and Ayin's other selves telling him how he felt (which... yeah, wasn't him saying how he felt), that wasn't as clear as it could have been.

Not anymore!

First of all, in order to get the full, true ending in Ruina, you have to have both Roland and Angela forgive each other and not keep that need for revenge. In other words, they have to face the past, and break the cycle. They've both gone through Realisations, with them venting out their feelings to the Librarians each time... much like how the Librarians themselves had to vent out their feelings to Ayin in order to cool off.

Once you've got that, Angela decides to sort out the Light, and gets one more Realisation/fight - this time something that Hokma had been warning her about. Interestingly, he's the only one who made her question where the ability to create Invitations and use the Library at all came from. He, while having faith in Ayin, makes her question her blind faith in Carmen. Because as it turns out, she has been leaning on the part of her that was built from Carmen quite a bit up to now.

This... doesn't last, now that she herself has The Knowing I.

Angela: As long as I'm part of this light, I'll do everything in my power to stop you.

Given how we know that Ayin's very presence in the light caused awakening EGO to be possible, it's not a stretch to assume that this is the same stance that Ayin has taken now that he knows what Carmen was actually after.

I'd like to add something that is implied by that statement that some might see as treading into headcanon territory here: that Ayin, after having dedicated his entire life, literally ten thousand years of loops, to following Carmen's goal, which entailed committing atrocity after atrocity both personal (putting his deceased friends into metal bodies and bringing them back time after time) and impersonal (the many, many canon deaths of the employees, and no matter how "S rank no death" run you try and make yours, a few Clerks will get themselves killed by something) - would feel horrendously betrayed by Carmen.

I do not see Ayin, when he sees her again after realising what she had been aiming for the entire time, greeting her as a friend.

There's an art I've seen someone do, of them meeting in the light, Carmen reaching out her hand, and Ayin refusing her for perhaps the first time, because he finally has the Will to Stand Up Straight, and the understanding that they're actually on opposing sides now. I strongly feel like that - or the vibe of it - is at least somewhat the intent with their characters.

This is backed up by how, when Angela has accomplished this, fought Carmen, finished what Ayin had been working toward herself (and most importantly, her own personal growth to get there), Ayin tells her "I'm sorry. And... good job."

So. That's Library of Ruina.

On to Limbus Company, and the Circles of Hell.

Because if anyone thinks that Ayin's influence stopped with Angela and the Library, they are dead wrong.

To start with, we have some purely meta things. The titles have the same initials, which makes them easy to confuse if you're used to just going "oh play LC-" because which one? Lobotomy, or Limbus? In the Project Moon interviews before the game was released, they would often refer to future games as "the sequel." First Ruina, and then Limbus. Limbus especially, given its initials, got called "LC2" at least once or twice.

So, Limbus Company is a direct sequel to Lobotomy Corporation, which deals with the aftermath of all the branches having shut down. Simple enough, right?

The next thing is the characters we meet.

So far, both Dante and each of the Sinners has something in common with Ayin. And almost every one of their respective enemies so far has something in common with Carmen.

Dante themself is the Manager. Instead of managing Abnormalities, they manage the Sinners, a group of twelve people who are brought down to the strength of the weakest among them because of Dante's ability to chain them all together- wait, that sounds... familiar?

"The person who learns to think about himself as Ayin will ascend to a spiritual world, where everything is the same and everything is equal."

[Source: Ayin and Yesh, in Hasidism, from Wikipedia.]

Oh, look who it is. Hello, Ayin. Or rather, the spiritual concept of Ayin.

Honestly, a LOT of things about Dante scream out to me as references to Ayin. As a person. If you wanna go look at all of them, my friend Kitty/ @strangefellows has a whole gdoc on it.

My own thoughts on it go from "If you change Dante's red uniform coat to a white lab coat and ignore their head, that is literally the same person and body language" to "Dante's inability to know what they're doing at first echoes how Ayin had no idea at the start of the loops, both of them suffering from memory loss," to "Dante, during the SEA event, sinks into the same sort of uncertainty that anything they say will make any difference that is so characteristic of Ayin's own silences," to "when exposed to a monolith, which induces distortion, Dante is said to remember more than they are capable of at the time and knows exactly what Peccatula are, which is something that Ayin would know intimately given his involvement," to "during the the time when Heathcliff is distorting, the screen flashes with a very specific image of Carmen lying in a field" - which should be familiar to anyone who's gone through Lobotomy Corporation since it's something that only Ayin remembers.

In short: there is a very high probability that we're going to see it confirmed at some point that Dante's past self (with memories) is actually Ayin himself. I personally do not see this contradicting any of the canon Limbus has given us, and it does in fact only build on it. You'll notice that when I talk about Ayin I use he/him, and Dante gets they/them - I personally love the idea that Dante's just gonna go "ooh, I get to play with more pronouns? Cool!" Collect 'em all, you funky tick-tock genderless dude.

(If you don't believe that, it's fine. I've only been listing off canon moments, however!)

Going back to "more than just Dante echoes Ayin, just as Ayin was similar to more than just the Keter," however, and... let's build on that.

Starting with Yi Sang.

Yi Sang is someone who was a researcher working alongside a small group of people, who created a technology that was meant to be a bright spot for pure enjoyment. However, a chain of events happened that had T-Corp's law enforcement coming down on them, forcing them to work for the Wings or scatter. He regains his ability to see that he still has a future, and that he can still attain "flight" (that is, his own ideal self) by working through his past and being proactive rather than simply letting it happen. A large part of his trauma lies in the League of Nine breaking up and him recognising his own loneliness, too, and as a result he can be later seen trying more than anyone else in the bus to stop the others from fighting and causing the irreparable rifts that torn his original friend group apart.

Yi Sang mirrors Ayin in that they are both researchers who were set apart from their friend groups, yet they both had a desire for friendship and to be closer to those people that they could not fulfil due to their own temperament.

Yi Sang also has the EGO "4th Match Flame" which...

If it weren't for the colour of his eyes, I'd outright call that Ayin.

Note that the Matchgirl's story is that of someone who burns themself out in order to gain a little more warmth, which fits both Yi Sang and Ayin.

Next we have Faust, who hasn't had her Canto yet, but we do know some things about her. She is very similar to Angela, in that she fills the role of "walking assistant and encyclopaedia" however as we see in MOTWE, she's also part of a collective, the Gesselschaft, and we do know that when she is disconnected from it she becomes a person who is keen on learning and investigating for herself, and Dante's attitude to her is very encouraging, even while they're having their own private panic/anxiety attacks over potentially being stuck in a 20k+ year dimension with (based on what we know from Canto 4) no certainty that they'll be able to forget. That isn't so much a direct Faust-Ayin comparison as it is a Faust-Angela and Dante-Ayin comparison, but it's still worth bringing up. I look forward to her Canto.

Next we have Don Quixote, whose entire Canto was about breaking free of her dreams and delusions to see how things truly were, but also - more importantly - it's about how one person with good intentions can try to push them onto other people, regardless of how much it hurts those around them. Of how, even if those dreams of a better world were good ones, because Sancho was never fully able to say "hey, maybe this is gonna not work?" they weren't held in check, so they do untold damage. How Dad Quixote sees what the other bloodfiends do to him as a form of "penance," with the sheer amount of time he is kept pinned to the wheel causing him to lose faith in his original hopes and dreams, not fighting back because he recognises that he is the one who caused them to lash out at him in the first place. Sancho-Don being the one to regain her dreams that had previously just been delusions, this time with her eyes open.

This one... barely even needs me to point out, really, but both Sancho and Dad Quixote are echoes of how Ayin and Carmen's best intentions could and did hurt many people, trapping them in Lobotomy Corporation headquarters/La Manchaland, and torturing themselves for their own inability to see the problems they'd cause. Sancho also ends up having locked her now amnesiac self in a very small room for roughly two hundred years, much like Ayin locking his amnesiac self in a small office for ten thousand years, with neither of them fully aware of the length of time that's actually passed. Both of them also are traumatised by witnessing a horrendous massacre of their home; Ayin by the Outskirts Lab, and Sancho/DQ by the sight of what La Manchaland became, and then by having to kill her remaining family.

Next on the list is Ryoshu, and... we honestly don't know much about her past or motivations since her Canto hasn't released yet and we haven't had as much focus on her yet. She so far (given my recent re-watch and read through of an LP) reminds me of Binah, since they both enjoy bloodshed and violence - and Binah herself tells A that she sees them as similar kinds of people, able to perform atrocities by looking the other way.

If we look at Ryoshu's source material, going into headcanon territory, we can see that the character she's base don had a child, who died horribly. One has to wonder how that's going to play out in Limbus. The idea of a parent and child storyline does make me think of Ayin's relationships with both Enoch and Lisa (both of whom died), and also with Angela, however.

Meursault currently doesn't have his Canto yet, but the similarities are plain and easy to see; they are both taciturn people who may seem blunt and/or harsh, and don't really... know how to people. Meursault is pointed at by many as being autistic, just as I've stated way up back in my description of Ayin that he seems to me. At the start of the story, Meursault doesn't seem attached to anyone, and merely does as he is told and not a thing more, yet by Canto 6, he is willing to activate his own EGO without having been told to, for the sake of the people he has grown to care about. Meursault is a lesson in "just because someone seems cold and aloof, does not mean they do not or are not capable of care."

Hong Lu's Canto is coming up in just a short while (it's in sight!) but he's honestly currently closer to having comparisons to Daniel, or rather, Chesed. Both of them are rich Nest boys. Chesed states that as Daniel he could have made it into even A Corp - that is, the Head - and he chose not to. They both have the same breezy yet confident way of talking (which, funnily enough, Dante and Ayin's ways of talking about Chesed and Hong Lu are very similar), too, and a similar trauma-based "I am past the point of caring" mindset, which others have talked about on Hong Lu's side at length on better than I could.

Heathcliff is someone who follows one woman, believes in her, and is the one who inherits her will after she dies. He also finds out that the one who he's been following and placing his faith in has turned her home into a laboratory, her body (dead or alive) is the power source, and she has looked into a mirror showing her countless alternate worlds full of might-have-beens that drove her mad from the revelation. He distorts from the grief and despair, is called back, and fights his evil alternate self at least three times before finally ending it all, with her deleting herself. He then re-engraves his weapon to state "REMEMBER" and in a later Intervallo is seen having taken on the role of assistant researcher.

....More than half of that could have been talking about Ayin. It is also within Heathcliff's "area" (T-Corp, more than just his canto) that we have the monolith introduced (which induces Dante to half-distort), as well as Heathcliff's own distortion (which causes distorted Lobotomy Corporation logos and Carmen's face to flash on the screen). This feels... relevant!

[Image: flickering, slightly distorted image of Carmen lying on the grassy field from after having played through 6-34. Her eyes are open and bright red. It is - other than the flickering - exactly the same as we see on LC1 Day 48.]

Also relevant is that so much of Heathcliff's entire Canto is about the consequences of miscommunication (much like many parts of the original Wuthering Heights). Because in Lobotomy Corporation, a lot of the Sephirot's problems were caused by the same thing. Either Ayin or them refusing or being unable to communicate effectively.

Ishmael's references are beautiful, in that hers is the second Canto where Dante is really getting into their stride as the Manager. I find hers to be so freaking important, because during SEA Dante is faced with Ishmael's mood regarding them heading into the Great Lake tearing the group apart, and when she snaps and tells them that she'll obey their orders but no more and no less from here on, Dante is... well.

The entire situation surrounding Ishmael's Canto goes deep into, first: how easy it must have been for someone like Ayin to fall into the rut of not wanting to say anything for fear of saying the wrong thing, because Dante almost falls into that, starting from SEA and even leading right up into Canto 5.

[Thanks to Kitty for the doc letting me just find stuff rather than go through the cutscenes through theatre!]

This is something that Dante is having to struggle with and overcome through the duration of the Canto - what does it mean when you want to fit in, but you feel that no one around you feels the same way? What to do when your best efforts to try and help only make things worse? Do you give up and stay silent, out of fear, or do you keep pushing forward while following your heart, hoping that this next time, you can help even at least somewhat?

And then there's how Ishmael during the entire Canto, but especially during the dungeon, has to overcome how she has been following in her Captain's footsteps to the point that she can't even see her own path anymore. It's only by listening to Dante (who refuses to sacrifice themself, and who also refuses to ever give up on her) that she's able to change her target at the last moment.

Canto 5 ends with Ishmael having recognised that she had become the mermaid to Ahab's Pallid Whale, following forever in her footsteps... until Dante reminded her of how she could choose her own path. Much like how Ayin and the crew of the Outskirts Lab followed Carmen's wishes and dreams no matter how awful her ideas to follow through on it were, with Ayin only able to break out at the very last moments, the last few days, where he recognised where she was going wrong.

Rodya is one of the two who didn't really get a full deep dive, and yet (especially with TKT) we do get a lot to read into of her. She wanted to be the cause of change, and yet in spite of joining a group that advocated for people having better lives, they... mostly sat in their chairs and talked about stuff rather than doing it, and seeing Sonya's people seeming to be doing things when she left a long time ago is part of why she's not doing so hot right now.

From my notes: Just like Rodion, Ayin tried to do something to change the world around him, only to (effectively) make things worse in the short term. Rodion killed the landlady, who had ties to the Middle; Ayin took over a wing, but that led to the collapse of both L Corps, the stigma of all L Corp citizens, and many people suffering.

Sinclair was originally just a normal Nest kid with well-to-do parents, who was led astray by a female classmate. He would be led further into the palm of her hand until she causes tragedy to strike, with the people Kromer had led into his home with his key having slaughtered his family. When he goes back to his home with the Sinners, he is finally able to face his past and his trauma, and become a more courageous person. Sinclair also has a male friend who tries to get him to follow the correct path back in school.

Personally, I find this easy to see as being the Carmen-Ayin-Benjamin effect, and we'll get back to that later.

Outis.... has not yet got her Canto, and given her military history it is almost certain that she was a participant in the Smoke War. In which case she would have known Ayin and/or Benjamin, no matter whether it's over the battlefield or in person. Given that she looks very similar to a character who should have known them, the latter seems more likely. She's also said some sus things on that.

I'm sure we'll get to know more about her as we go, but there was a moment during Canto 7 recently, where she's having a knee-jerk reaction to finding out that Don Quixote (read: Sancho) is actually a bloodfiend, and a lot of her objections are due to how many people Don Quixote must have killed. Partway through, it becomes clear that We Aren't Talking About Don Quixote Anymore, and Dante makes it clear that their support isn't just for one of them:

Outis "You don't know how many people she's killed by existing. will you embrace her still?" Dante <I will.>

Like, we don't know much about her for fact other than this so far (and she's started changing because of it since) but I feel like that assurance is going to come up for more than just Don Quixote and Outis. If nothing else, it's an extension of how in both Lobotomy Corporation and Library of Ruina, countless people are sacrificed in the name of the "greater good" - or one person's quest for revenge, or their own desire - and each one of the people who spearheaded those projects (Ayin, Hokma, Roland, Angela) could have this same question turned on them only too easily.

Gregor is an outcast, created by G-Corp, who has Sephirot symbols on the fabric covering his arm, and who participated in the Smoke War (on the side of the old L-Corp, against Ayin and Hokma). While serving in the war, he was the figurehead of his group; however, he was just as much a pawn of the military as any of them... much like how Ayin sure seems to be the one in charge and someone for those he's in charge of to look up to... only for it to turn out that he's just as trapped as the other Sephirot, and he had just as many issues as those in the Outskirts lab.

So. The Sinners as a group are cohesively tied to extrapolating on plot points and the characterisation of either Ayin or someone Ayin knew on a very personal level. The other point being "they may even have known him during the Smoke War, give or take."

The Ayin Narrative continues. It isn't about "his story is over," it's about "how do we further explain who he was, and why he did the things that he did." Even if you don't believe that Dante themself is simply amnesiac clock-headed Ayin, these are immutable facts.

Which then takes us on to the other side of the Cantos: the Bad Guys. The Villains. Sometimes even just The Opposition, as there isn't always a clear Good vs. Evil here, and this time I'll be going more in chronological order.

Hermann is Gregor's mother, and she was the one who was the head scientist of the old G Corp, and the head of the current antagonist group in Limbus to the Sinners. She's the one who "trained" Gregor -and when he encounters her in his Fathoms of Ego, it's by way of the manicured hands coming down to crush them, which they cannot escape, to the point that Gregor realises that the only way out is to let her catch them. It's more metaphorical than we'd usually get, but - he truly does exist in the palm of her hand, wouldn't you say?

Rodya's enemy is, really, the Syndicates of the Backstreets, and the system itself - she tries to fight against it, only for it to come back and crush everything around her, leaving her alive. Which is much like the way the Head came down on the Outskirts lab, isn't it? That said,

Sonya, who she had fallen in with, also wanted to change the world... although unlike Carmen, he never (at least, while she knew him) was able to move forward with any of his plans, meaning that people continued to get crushed under the system while he waited for the right time. What is like Carmen, is that he wanted all of the good effects of activism without dirtying his hands himself (Sonya can't argue that he simply let Rodya do her thing, and Carmen outright left the hard work to Ayin when she knew she wouldn't have the heart to go through with it).

Kromer is a religious fanatic who sees humanity as at its purest form when there is only flesh, no prosthetics whatsoever, and will use absolute violence against "heretics." She also isolated Sinclair from the one who would have been a good influence on him, and she used whistling to call to him. She was very attached to Sinclair, and wanted to make him into her own image - as seen in the mirror Identity "The One Who Shall Grip - Sinclair."

Kromer is basically an entire reference to how in Library of Ruina, Roland calls Carmen a "cult leader." Both Kromer and Carmen wanted something that is an unrealistic standard (humans into monsters/humans without any accommodations for disabilities etc) and both have a younger male character under their proverbial wing, in the palm of her hand.

The "bad guys" in Canto IV are not so much a single person or "evil organisation" as they are the Wing and the System of T-Corp, the breaking down of the League of Nine Litterateurs, and then the former members of his friend group coming back, yet this time in opposition to him... just as the Outskirts lab would fold in on itself, before being sold out to the Head, and the Sephirot holding everything against Ayin while he was managing the abnormalities from his office in a time loop.

Ahab of Canto VI is, like with many others, the woman who is so charismatic that she pulls an entire group of people along with her, and although she tells herself that she's doing this for them, and that they're dying in "glory" they... really aren't, and she's driving them off the edge, pulling them along in fanaticism. Ishmael refers to Ahab as her own personal Pallid Whale, recreating Ishmael in her image of endless hatred and violence.

Although Carmen isn't as outright violent as Ahab, she's more... indirectly violent. She knows that the experiments are going to cause deaths, and she sets them up regardless. She draws people in, and stops Ayin from being able to discourage them if they aren't ready. She is the pallid whale to Ayin's mermaid, following after her and becoming just like her. It's only due to the Seed of Light project having his fingerprints at the end that saves him from basically becoming "Adam."

Cathy... is someone who has Carmen's "weak heart," who "dies" because she gains the notion that something has gone wrong (Enoch's death/Heathcliff's absence and misery), who orchestrates events behind the scenes by being the emotion-powered generator of the lab and entire building that she'd altered. Sound familiar? We even have similar imagery there, given we have "Cathy in the coffin" and "Carmen [as] the Bucket."

Canto VII has Don Quixote (no, not that one) and Bari, who aren't even villains, and the bloodfiends, who... okay, kinda are, but the bloodfiends are acting on instinct, having been starved for far too long. Bari is someone who encourages a person who suffers from ennui to have something to look forward to, day after day. She tells him that he suffers from a "sickness of loneliness." He then takes what she's said, and creates an unrealistic dream from it, without thinking of the consequences and without thinking of how to make it a realistic reality.

In other words, Don Quixote (no, still not that one) has a grand dream that causes far more pain than he ever intended, to the point that in both the main world we play in and the mirror universes, the bloodfiends of La Manchaland rise up against him, having been suffering because of good intentions. Just like how Carmen had a grand dream, and because of it caused both her immediate team and then after them untold numbers of people to suffer, and to die for it.

Don Quixote sent Sancho (yes, that one) out on a journey to prove to him that his hypothesis (that bloodfiends and humans can coexist, that Sancho can have a grand adventure and come back better for it) only for Sancho to utterly break as a result, since she couldn't hold all of that on her shoulders on her own... much like after Carmen told Ayin to carry on her work after she was gone, Ayin also utterly broke.

So - not only do we get to see all of these different refractions of Ayin, but we also get to see each one of them faced with a refraction of Carmen. A possibility, a different circumstance,

The end result is that Ayin and Carmen are the threads that keep the Project Moon stories tied together. It is outright impossible to remove either of them from the narrative in any way that matters.

And going back to the title of the entire post:

This from Walpurgisnacht. The dev team and scenario/scriptwriters are well aware of what they're doing. Telling the stories of people who are fucked up human beings who are capable of falling face-flat on the mud and then getting up no matter how long it takes, and breaking their cycles no matter if it's even at the very last moment they could.

And the story of a Manager who keeps on refusing to let their people walk the wrong path.

In the really short:

"So, it's all Ayin and Carmen?" "Always has been."

#project moon #lobotomy corporation #library of ruina #limbus company #prjmn stuff #ayin lobcorp #carmen lobcorp #this took me... way too long

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dragon-ascent · 2 months ago

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I love how you characterise Zhongli! I didn't realise earlier that ppl treat him to be like a western dragon when hes more of an eastern one. When you explained the differences in one post, it clicked for me on how Zhongli acts, which is fantastic cus Ive always been meh abt his character for quite some time.

Though a question: the game has depicted zhongli to be somewhat broke? I mean, cus he generously spends mora but its usually other ppls since he forgets he is no longer an archon. Heck i cant rmb which event but at one point when Zhongli actually treats the traveller and Paimon, Paimon comments abt "wow Zhongli is the one paying for once?". Im wondering abt your opinion on this.

Aaaaa I'm so glad my little essay on that matter got you to understand his character better! <3333 I hope you appreciate him even more now~

Going off canon material, it's not that he's broke, per se, but rather that he just forgets to bring his wallet with him on outings. Plus, he's part of the bourgeois tier of society (middle class, wealthy, but not royalty-level filthy rich; but still elite and way above the working class). This was mentioned in a line in the Liyue AQ.

Canon text has never actually stated (or even implied) that he's broke or doesn't have money, that's just a popular fanon meme.

If one wants to argue that his 2022 birthday art implies he's broke, I'd still disagree. His dialogue there just says that having a wallet makes him more mindful of when to spend and how much, not that he doesn't have Mora in the first place.

And yeah, when Paimon comments on him finally paying, that's just because he remembered to bring his wallet :) every other occasion, as I stated before, is just that he didn't bring his wallet, relying freely on others to do the paying.

Besides, he made the Mora. I think he has every right to consider even other people's money as his own, lol- but I digress.

If I may slot in a personal headcanon here: I reckon that, as the God of Wealth, he just naturally attracts money to use for himself in any circumstance, be it through his own money, Hu Tao, Childe, the Traveler, etc. He will never be left wanting for Mora as he will always be able to pay for the things he likes, or straight up finesse his way into getting stuff without needing to pay (like the part with the painted Rex Lapis fans).

#sini answers #THANK YOU #both for reading my previous essay thingy #and also for bringing this up!#i hope i was able to clarify! <3 #i'd pull citations from the text but i cant be bothered to comb through the files #but i promise the things i say are based off canon material #might append some screenshots/citations later #thanks again!#mwah #zhongli

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pneumaticshift · 3 months ago

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Hello! I’m loving your best laid plans on ao3! The way you write the two is such a fun dynamic and they both com across as such meshed out people in your writing with very different dispositions. I was wondering if you had anymore stories of them in mind now that you’re wrapping that one up? I’d love to read more fics where Hal gets to be competent or shown as a badass. I love all the fics I read of them but sometimes Bruce should get swept off his feet and experience butterflies too! (Obviously only if you want to)

I’d also love anything where Bruce is the one suffering from mortification or being caught at a bad time 😏. Take him down a notch or two hehe <3

Oh god, thank you so much!! I'm really pleased people are liking my silly little stories as much as I love writing them. I really put a lot of effort into characterisation, so comments like this mean the world to me 💚🦇

After I've finished with Best Laid Plans, I'm probably gonna churn out some oneshots I've got planned until I've got some time off work to bash out another multichaptered fic. There's a Hal-centric idea I'm working on that's less humour and more plot, but I haven't completely committed to it yet.

In the meantime, I live to serve. Have some Bruce having a terrible time:

———

This wasn’t happening.

It simply wasn’t.

If Bruce refused to acknowledge it, that meant it didn’t exist.

The problem with having gear built to withstand bullets, fire, acid, and the occasional metahuman temper tantrum was that it was durable by design. Which was great when he was throwing himself into the thick of Gotham’s nights. Less great when that same marvel of engineering decided to betray him.

Because right now, on this cold, dank, miserable Gotham night, Bruce hung. Perfectly still. Suspended several feet above the alley floor with his cape stretched taut, snapped on what was, after a begrudging, sideways glance, some kind of industrial vent. Heavy-duty. The kind meant to withstand decades of corrosion, poor maintenance, and, apparently, vigilantes with no contingency for his own ability to be a dumbass, rare as it was.

His legs dangled. His arms were crossed over his chest. He was, for all intents and purposes, a goddamn ornament.

Fine. This was fine. Not at all embarrassing. It was fine.

Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed. A dog barked. Gotham carried on, utterly indifferent to the fact that her Dark Knight was currently caught like a very large, very stupid bat in a very unexpected trap.

It was a temporary state, after all. A statistical anomaly in his otherwise flawless execution of being Batman, if you will. In moments, he knew he’d rectify this situation with the quiet efficiency he was known for. He would put it in the back of his mind, no harm, no foul, and most importantly, no witnesses.

Unless, of course, he counted Hal Jordan, who was standing right there. But that was another element of the situation that was being ignored.

There was a silence at first, which Bruce appreciated. It gave him a small, dwindling hope that maybe Hal would be mature about this. Maybe Hal would see it, process it, and then solemnly file it away under Things We Do Not Speak Of. Bruce himself had an extensive pile of things he did ot speak of in polite company. He could only hope it was the same for Hal.

It wasn’t. Of course. Because Hal, for all of his heroics, was ultimately the worst person Bruce knew.

It started with a sound. It was a sharp, strangled noise, choked off at the last second. It could have even been mistaken for a cough had Bruce not been intimately familiar with Hal’s very specific brand of barely contained, unrepentant amusement. It was the sound of a man witnessing the single greatest moment of his life and actively working not to combust from the sheer joy of it.

Bruce valiantly remained neutral. He kept his eyes fixed forward. He was a statue. A grim, shadowy gargoyle hanging over the city. A silent warden of justice. Slightly swaying in the wind like an unmoored scarecrow, but otherwise unmoving.

Then Hal sucked in another breath, shoulders shaking. His entire body trembled in that telltale, barely restrained convulsion of someone attempting to hold in laughter for the most optimal moment.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Don’t,” Bruce said. HIs voice was flat, emotionless. He was a void of authority that could terrify criminals, gods, and the majority of the Justice League. He was in control of the situation.

Hal lost the battle. A full-bodied, ugly, gasping wheeze of a laugh exploded from him as he doubled over mid-air. His hands were on his knees, his shoulders were shaking. Bruce would have been more interested in seeing him laugh like this if he hadn’t been the reason for it.

“Oh my god— oh my god—” he spluttered, stumbling back as if the sheer force of the situation had weakened him. “Spooky. Spooky— Are you…? Are you seriously—” He had to stop speaking to brace himself on a fire escape lest the weight of his laughter sent him plummeting to the cobblestone below. Bruce could only dream. “Are you seriously pretending this isn’t happening?”

It wasn’t happening. That was the official position. End of story.

Bruce continued to stare straight ahead.

Hal took in a grounding breath. “Okay. Okay,” he said, nodding and composing himself. He straightened his back. “I’m good. I’m done.”

He wasn’t done.

The moment he looked at Bruce again — well, the moment he looked at Batman again, trapped and dangling, reduced to scenery, he lost his tenuous grip on his self-control. Hal was the type to wheeze-laugh. Full on clutching his stomach, cackling with his whole body kind of laugh. A probably-crying-behind-the-domino kind of laugh. The kind that was beginning to sound almost medically concerning.

“So, Batman—” Hal tried, biting his lower lip to stop himself from laughing again. “How’s it hanging?”

Bruce wasn’t a godly man, but he found himself praying. Not for salvation, nor for a miracle. He just wanted something quick and swift to smite him down. Or, failing that, for Hal to be struck down where he floated. Maybe the both of them, just to make sure this…incident never saw the light of day.

But, as was often the case, divine intervention refused to answer Gotham’s calls. Typical. He continued to say nothing. Because engaging with Hal would acknowledge his presence as a witness to an event that wasn’t happening, and he was certainly not doing that.

Briefly, he began to calculate if he could somehow swing free without garrotting himself on the cape and land on Hal hard enough to expunge the whole thing from memory. It would require precise torque of his core muscles, a bit of tactical folding, and he might have to sacrifice his windpipe. Worth it. All for the cause.

Finally, Hal managed to compose himself enough not to laugh every time he so much as glanced at Bruce’s suspended body. “Okay, I’m really done this time,” he said, even though the grin stretched on his face suggested otherwise. “How did this even happen?”

It didn’t happen. Bruce was just surveying the city at an unexpected altitude. Hal didn’t know what he was talking about.

What Bruce said was, “Jumped.”

“This is the best day of my life.”

“You can leave now.”

Hal snorted. “Like hell,” he said. He floated closer, hands on his hips, scrutinising the problem with a smirk that could only be described as punchable. “Damn, you’re really stuck in there. That’s what you get for not making the cape detachable.”

Alfred had told him the cape would need to be detachable. Bruce had agreed, but then proceeded to sacrifice practicality for The Aesthetic because at heart he was a theatre kid that had been too traumatised to join the arts programme at school. The cape looked cooler when it was a fixed feature.

As he dangled in the alley way with a goddamn witness to his suffering, Bruce was seriously beginning to recalibrate that decision.

Bruce inhaled slowly. Exhaled even slower.

Someday, he would look back on this moment and—

No.

No, he would never look back on this moment. Because it would be buried so deeply beneath layers of repression and strategic denial that he, with all his training and unparalleled mental fortitude, would convince himself it never happened.

“Do you even know what you look like right now?” Hal continued, because apparently he wanted to be a permanent fixture on Batman’s shitlist. “Take a look.”

A construct diorama of the scene unfolded in a burst of green light as Hal reconstructed something that definitely wasn’t happening right now. It was a caricature, of course. The tiny construct Batman’s arms were crossed over his chest in what Bruce could only assume was Hal’s attempt at capturing his quiet dignity — except it was entirely undermined by the dangling legs, the exaggerated sway, and the way the goddamn cape stretched taut, hoisting him up like a piñata.

Bruce stared at it.

He was going to set the cape on fire. He was going to salt the earth where the cape had once been. He wasn’t Batman anymore. He was Man-Man now.

“It’s kinda sexy,” Hal continued, nodding to himself. “You know, I’ve always wanted to sweep you off your feet. Figures you’d do the job for me.”

Bruce exhaled slowly and focussed on something, anything, other than the unholy combination of wicked glee and smug arrogance radiating off Hal. The sudden swooping sensation in his stomach was purely situational. Disorientation. A natural response to being held hostage by his own goddamn cape. Definitely not related to the way Hal was looking at him.

“You are not flirting with me right now.”

“Oh, I definitely am.”

There it was again. More of that disorientating, entirely unwelcome swoop beneath his skin. He had begun associating that feeling with Hal a lot recently. It was irritating. It was inconvenient. It was ongoing. He still was not going to acknowledge it. Just like he wasn’t acknowledging this situation.

“You know, now that you can’t run away,” Hal said, voice edging into dangerous territory “I figure it’s a good time to shoot my shot.”

“It’s a terrible time for you to shoot your shot.”

“I’m not known for my excellent time management skills.” He poked Bruce in the ribs, just to see him sway. If he came any closer, Bruce was going to bite him. “And it’s not like you’ve never thought about it. I’ll tell you what. If you agree to grab a drink with me some time, I’ll get you down.”

“Hal.”

“Think about it. I cut you down, super heroic, super sexy. You fall into my big strong arms. I’ll even carry you all romantic-like over Gotham, if you want. We can get real Bodyguard about it.”

“Hal.”

“Or I could totally leave you dangling and just grab you something fruity with a straw. We can get cosy right here, ‘cause I’m not gonna complain about the view. Your choice.”

“Hal.”

Hal snickered to himself. “Relax, I’m kidding. Mosly. I still kind of want to go out with you, but I can leave that until after you’ve had some time to nurse your disintegrated pride.” He flew a little closer, enough so that he was face to face with Bruce. “Just one more thing before I help you, though.”

Bruce glared at him.

“Say please.”

And goddamn, Bruce did not need that in his life right now. Not those words coming out of Hal’s mouth with Hal’s voice and Hal’s face. He stomped down the butterflies that dared to step foot in his stomach. He set fire to their wings, torched the little bastards where they fluttered and sprinkled their ashes on what was left of his wounded pride.

“You have three seconds to—”

“Yeah, yeah. God, you’re no fun,” Hal relented. He raised his ring hand, but not before adding, "You know, if you ever wanna reenact this, but, y'know, in a more private setting, I’m totally open to suggestions.”

Bruce closed his eyes in exasperation. He was going to make it look like a goddamn accident.

#i have to go to bed #but when i saw this prompt i couldn't NOT write something #bruce wayne #hal jordan #batlantern #request #answered #sam writes

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