#(with a large amount of certainty they will)

[careforpears]

Illario was certain that Neve Gallus knew something.

By the time she, Rook, and Lucanis—whole and freshly back from the dead and with a beard—arrived at the Crow's nest of the Cantori Diamond, Illario was exhausted. He had spent the last several hours dealing with the aftermath of Caterina's immaculately staged murder, including making a show of standing frozen before breaking down to weep over the body with its face cut up and burned well enough that no one would be able to identify it, until Teia and Viago dispatched Crows to take her remains to Villa Dellamorte. He allowed Teia to comfort him, allowed her to fetch him water and then something stronger, allowed her to rub her hands up and down his arms as if trying to warm him. He grew silent and somber, gathering himself as she and Viago discussed next steps in low voices.

"Maker—" Teia gasped, and he heard Rook's footsteps, the detective's, and then the voice of his cousin.

"What happened here?"

He pounded a fist against the table once and recited a carefully rehearsed line with just the right amount of frustration and grief turning his voice ragged. Then he turned around.

The raw confusion on Lucanis' face was almost too much. A well of emotion took him by surprise, startling in its intensity and variety. Guilt, anger, relief, contempt, and the deadly certainty that he was going to make Zara pay.

Rook was beside Lucanis, and Illario could see the way they glanced at each other, already in sync. And behind them was Neve Gallus, the detective that had gone with Rook to the Ossuary, looking straight at Illario with dark eyes shadowed by her ridiculous hat. It felt like she could see into his soul.

Like she knew that two days ago he had been in bed with Zara Renata, unaware that Lucanis was rotting in a Venatori prison. Like she could smell the blood on him. Like she could look into his memory and see the way Zara ran her pointed, painted fingernails down his back with vicious intent, like she could see through his clothes to the raised welts left on his skin.

Illario fought down a strange surge of panic. That was ridiculous. She knew none of those things. He positioned himself so that she couldn't see his face.

Neve was quiet as they talked, as Illario learned that Lucanis planned to leave Treviso immediately. Planned to leave him to clean up the mess while he buried himself in his new contract. From Caterina's lapdog to Rook's, how predictable, how boring.

That thought was uncharitable, but it gave him a dull satisfaction that cut through the sting of abandonment.

Neve's stare was like a brand he could feel on his skin even as he avoided looking at her. When Lucanis and Teia left to gather supplies for him and Rook followed like a little terrier at their heels, Illario finally turned to her.

The detective had a hand resting on her hip, which was cocked to one side so that her weight was off of her metal leg. Her one boot was damp and crusted with sand, and her robes were a fashionable Tevinter style that wouldn't look out of place in Minrathous' upper city. She was curved and sharp all at once, beautiful in a striking way rather than the vacuous prettiness that he was usually drawn to in women. Under the weight of her hawklike gaze, his palms felt suddenly clammy.

"I'm sorry about your grandmother," she offered, and it sounded genuine and more gentle than he expected.

"Thank you," he returned, injecting it with what warmth he could. He sounded tired, and it wasn't an act.

"Did they leave anything behind?"

"What?"

"The Venatori." She looked him up and down carefully, eyes cataloging.

"Blood. And my grandmother's body," he snapped, then reined himself in. "My apologies, it's been... a long evening."

"I'll just take a look around before we leave if you don't mind?" Though it was inflected with a question, she was already doing it, metal leg tapping against the wood floor as she circled the large table to the seat at one end, where Caterina had been sitting. How did she know?

"Of course," he bit out, watching her with wary eyes.

Neve examined a tiny scrap of red fabric on the floorboards. She followed the trajectory of bloody footprints, gears working behind her gaze. Her hand traced a long scorch mark on the table.

"You think they were working for Zara?" The detective's tone was neutral.

"Who else?" In truth, they answered to him. A handful of agents whose loyalty he had secured as Zara had become more unhinged, more prone to sacrificing on a whim the cultists who worked for her.

Neve made a noncommittal noise, peering at broken window panes leading onto the roof.

Illario's heart rate ratcheted up, and he gritted his teeth. There was nothing for her to find, he reassured himself. But he still stepped forward, compelled to distract her from her careful inspection of the scene. He moved close enough that he could faintly smell her warm perfume oil and the hint of sulfur clinging to her clothes. Close enough that she had to tilt her head back to look up at him curiously.

"Before you go... thank you for bringing Lucanis home to me," Illario said fervently, holding a deferential hand in front of his chest. He knew his expression was warm and intent because it was one he had practiced.

"Sorry to be taking him away again so soon," she said, rueful. "He's not one to take any downtime, is he?"

"No. He never has been," he rolled his eyes affectionately.

Neve's gaze was already drifting back to the windows like she was thinking about venturing onto the rooftop.

Illario gently clasped her hand where it was resting on the tabletop. Friendly, not too much pressure or contact, but with a lingering swipe of his thumb against her skin that should raise goosebumps on her arms. Her eyes snapped to his, and he found that he liked the intensity of her attention in that moment.

"Truly, I am in your debt," he murmured, voice husky and catching with feeling.

He could see her discomfort the instant it bled into her eyes and stiffened her posture. Not at his closeness, he was certain, but at the emotion in his voice and the weight of his gratitude. He felt a little thrill of satisfaction.

She cleared her throat and drew her hand away from his to straighten the front of her robes. Neve didn't, to his pleasure, step away or become shy despite her sudden awkwardness. She held his gaze coolly and deflected. "Rook's the one you should thank."

"And I will," he assured her. Unable to resist, a heady urge infecting him, he leaned closer to her, eyes half-lidded and his voice low and deep. "But if there's some way I can repay you, personally..."

Neve tensed, and her face went from neutral to stony, baleful. She looked at him like one might look at a large, very repellant insect.

That sent a surprising, giddy thrill through Illario, along with the way her pupils dilated just slightly.

"Let us know if you find any intel on Zara's whereabouts. I'll let Teia know how to contact us," she told him stiffly and ducked around him to leave.

Illario smiled to himself as he listened to her footsteps fade steadily, and drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. That one was going to be trouble.

[mudstoneabyss]

neurodivergent but in the opposite way from what I see a lot. "neurotypicals are always using unspoken social rules and cues instead of just stating things clearly and actually saying what they mean like neurodivergent-" brother I am playing 5 dimensional chess with multiverse time travel

[neamamhmd9]

Save My Family From the war nightmare in Gaza

Hello My name is Neama, I'm 24 years old and I'm trying to save my family from the war. I used to work for the medical staff and help treat patients and children through my profession as a medical analysis specialist. We are the ones who separate doubt and certainty, but the occupation came and we were displaced. Because of this harsh war, I couldn't continue my profession of helping and saving children, and this saddens me.

My father, Mohammed, is 69 years old, and my mother, Amal, is 60 years old. We are a family of 7 (Ahmed, 32 years old, Alaa, 36 years old, Mariam, 27 years old, Ne’ma, 24 years old, Mahmoud, 22 years old) and the family of my widowed sister, 38 years old, who has four orphaned children (Tulin, 10 years old, Obaida, 9 years old, Laith, 6 years old, Ghaith, 5 years old). We lived a life full of happiness. We had dreams that were shattered by the barbaric Israeli attack that does not differentiate between young and old. After our house was completely destroyed, we were displaced to the southern Gaza Strip in search of a safe life, but this enemy does not differentiate at all and targets us in the shelter tents and their harsh conditions of extreme heat, lack of privacy, abundance of insects, and scarcity of water and food. We are now suffering from famine because of this war.

My father, Mohammed, suffers from a chronic disease (chronic pulmonary obstruction and difficulty breathing), and his condition has deteriorated, making him depend on oxygen tubes. One of my sisters has special needs (quadriplegia), while my other sister is a widow with four orphaned children and suffers from a chronic illness (ulcerative colitis)

You can contribute in any way you see fit to move my family out of Gaza to get the necessary medical treatment and live in a safe environment, every effort creates a useful impact and contributes to making a real difference. Through financial donations, you can contribute any amount you see fit, whether small or large, via the link or share it with your friends and anyone who can help us

Thank you very much for your humanity and standing with us. We hope that the war will end and peace will prevail in the world. Thank you all in advance for your support. May God protect and bless us all

https://gofund.me/5c9c46ba

[kyojurokoibito]

"LET ME PAY YOU!"

Pairing(s): kyojuro rengoku x reader

Synopsis: how kyojuro met his civilian wife

Genre: fluff

Warning(s): n/a

Kao's Notes: just something to put out there while i work on requests in the meantime :) enjoy! <3

"EXCUSE ME, MISS!"

"OH MY G—!" *BANG* "OW!"

you hit the top of your head on the bottom shelf of your stall as a loud voice rang through the night. you ran a popular food stall in the small, lovely town you call home. people loved coming by your food stall for the service, the food, and for a chance to talk with a beautiful lady. each day, you decided to try a new recipe, and everyone was eager to see what you'd be serving every day.

"forgive me," the loud voice called again. "it was not my intention to startle you!"

"i-it's alright." rubbing the crown of your head with a slight pout, you rose to look at the owner of said voice. "i–um–wasn't expecting many people to come by this late, so you caught me by surprise."

taking in the man's appearance, you quickly gathered he was a demon slayer. the distinct design of his haori, the nichirin blade at his hip, and the obvious uniform was a dead giveaway.

you smiled, "would you like something to eat while you're here? i'm making gyu kushi(beef skewers) on top of rice, along with some mochi tonight. you'd be the final person i'm serving!"

the man's smile nearly blinded you, "yes! i would appreciate that very much!"

"great!" his smile was so contagious. you couldn't help but to deliver one as well. "how many orders would you like?"

"that depends," he stated loudly, excitedly slamming his hands on the counter and smiling at you. "how many are you willing to make?!" that's...the first time you've received that response.

"o-oh...uh..." you looked beneath your stall again. "well, i could make the rest of my inventory for you..." you lifted your head to look at him with a nervous laugh. "although, it's a considerably large amount of food, sir."

he laughed, "if you are willing to make it, i am willing to eat it! and no need to call me, sir! i am rengoku kyojuro!" you couldn't stop yourself from laughing along.

"then i'll be happy to make it for you, rengoku-san!"

kyojuro watched you gather the ingredients and quickly get to work on prepping his food. it was clear this was like second nature to you. you worked so diligently and moved with unwavering certainty.

"so," you began as you continued cooking but kept your gaze on kyojuro. this caused the hashira to look at you. "what brings you by this late?"

"a mission," he stated proudly, his smile never leaving. "it is completed, but i always stop by to check on towns nearby!"

"well, that's nice of you," you stated before finishing his first plate of food and handing it to him. "here, have a taste before i make the rest."

he loudly thanked you before placing the beef skewer between his teeth, pulling one of the chunks of meat off with his teeth.

"TASTY!" another bite. "TASTY!" a bite of rice. "TASTY!" a bite of mochi. "TASTY!"

you clapped your hands in delight, overjoyed that the hashira found your food so tasteful.

"so, everything tastes okay? would you still like to have the rest, rengoku-san?" you asked, although you're sure you already knew the answer.

"yes! i would love the rest!" he began fishing around in his pocket. "how much would it be?!"

"oh no," you quickly shook your head and quickly began preparing the rest of the food with a content smile. "i never charge the slayers that pass through. it's the least i can do for you all."

"please!" he slammed a pouch of coins onto the counter, causing you to shriek at the loud noise. he leaned forward, eyes boring into you with conviction. "ALLOW ME TO PAY YOU!"

"i-it's no trouble, really!" you jumped back from the close proximity. he only leaned in closer.

"THIS AMOUNT OF FOOD WOULD SURELY MAKE A GREAT PROFIT FOR YOU!! LET ME PAY!!!"

"b-but, the sales i've made today are more than enough already!!!"

"TAKE MY MONEY!"

"i don't need to!!!"

you two continued back and forth like this as you finished cooking the remainder of his food, packaging them nicely in cute boxes, which only fueled his desire to pay you. as you had given him the last box, he beckoned you to him.

"if you will not let me pay," he placed his free hand on his hip. "then allow me to escort you home!"

placing a hand on your chin, you paused to mull it over. it was pretty late, and you did live on the other side of the town. even if it was small, it would grant enough time for a demon to stake its claim on you.

"alright," you finalized with a greatful nod. "sounds fair!"

on the way, you both engaged in a quiet, lovely conversation. topics ranging from your cooking, his work as a slayer(at least the parts he could tell you), or your childhood, the atmosphere around you was peaceful. now, the current subject of the conversation was family.

"yes, you're right," you respond with a smile as rengoku concluded a story about his little brother. "it can be difficult to care for little siblings. especially if the parent is...more or less present." you cringed at your lack of better term, but kyojuro didn't mind at all. "my parents, unfortunately, fell victim to a demon, so i understand."

"very much so, and i am sorry to hear that! my condolences to you!" he responded with a solemn nod before asking his next question. "i take it you have a sibling then?"

"mhm," you nodded with delight as you drew nearer to your house. "i am the eldest of seven."

"SEVEN?!" he immediately fished the pouch of coins back out before shoving it in your direction. "SUCH A LARGE FAMILY! NOW YOU REALLY MUST TAKE MY PAYMENT!!!"

"i told you already," you pushed it back toward him in defiance. "i don't need it!" he tossed the pouch towards you, leaving you no choice but to catch it. "hey! take it back!" you tried to hand the coin pouch back to him.

"my apologies," he exclaimed after using his other hand to hold the food as well, even though he didn't need to. his smile never faltered as he blatantly ignored your attempts to return his money. "but my hands are full! i can not hold anything else!"

"but you were carrying it one-handed this whole time! you can just–"

"my hands are full!"

"but–"

"i can not carRY ANYMORE!"

"ren–"

"IT IS A PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE REASON AS TO WHY YOU MUST KEEP IT!"

you gave up.

kyojuro–1

y/n–0

upon reaching your house, you turned face kyojuro and gave him a polite bow.

"thank you for walking me back, rengoku-san," you stood straight. "you really didn't have to...nor did you have to pay me."

"it was no trouble at all," he smiled down at you. "and please, call me kyojuro."

you opened the door, and entered the doorway to your home chorus of "NII-SAN" called out to you. fondly shaking your head at your siblings(who were supposed to be in bed by now), you turned back to the hashira and returned his smile.

"alright, well," you placed a gentle hand on one of your little brother's heads, who'd been tugging on your shirt to get your attention, and replied in a hushed voice. "goodnight, kyojuro. have a lovely evening, and please travel safely."

he visibly brightened once he heard his name fall from your lips, and a gentle smile was bestowed upon you.

"goodnight to you as well, and thank you."

as you closed the door, kyojuro happily went on his way but stopped. he couldn't believe he forgot such an important piece of information.

oh well, he'll simply have to find his way back to you because he never got your name.

[woso-dreamzzz]

Foxes

Jenni Hermoso x Child!Reader

Summary: You like foxes

Jenni watches as you unpack your bag.

It is with great certainty that you line up your toys. She'd tried to get you to cut down on the amount that you brought with you but it'd triggered a meltdown so big that the neighbours complained about the noise.

It was easier to let you bring them all, even if they were all exactly the same as each other.

It wasn't an exaggeration either.

They were the same exact fox toy. The same one over and over again.

You had a few different ones at home but there were about seven or eight of this one, staring at Jenni with blank black eyes.

You pet each of them on the head before getting off the bed. You've been fascinated with the carpet ever since you both got in, randomly stopping what you were doing to aimlessly stroke it with a little crinkle between your brows that shows you don't know why you like it either.

It's another one of those things that Jenni has come to love about you.

It's strange, she knows, to outsiders but it's you down to your very core and she loves that.

You occupy yourself so well, so independent in your playing. Or...independent in the way that you only played by yourself because people tended to not play the way you liked and that usually sent you into a meltdown.

Either way, with you investigating the carpet and your foxes lined up against your pillows, Jenni takes the time to unpack her own things.

It had been a bit of a risk bringing you to the World Cup but with her parents and Rafa both busy, there was nowhere else she could put you but here.

"There foxes here, Mami?" You ask, finally sitting up.

"In Australia?" Jenni asks," I think so, osita."

You hum and get to your feet.

Your obsession with foxes is a little over the top, Jenni can admit but it's not causing anyone any harm so she indulges it. Besides, it just means that she knows exactly what to get you.

You hum again, meandering over to rub your hands over her soft tracksuit bottoms.

Your hand does a big swipe down before going straight up to her hip to do it again.

"Do they feel nice?" Jenni asked with a little laugh and your head bobs up and down in agreement.

You jolt when there's a knock at the door though. You immediately clamp your hands over your ears and Jenni sympathetically smooths down your hair.

"Don't like it, Mami," You say.

"I know."

There's another round of knocks, more impatient than before.

"One second!" Jenni calls as she sets you up at the desk with your pencils and drawing pad.

Jenni pokes her head out of the door. "Hola?"

Irene, Laia, Mariona and Alexia wait there, each of them sporting large smiles.

"Can we come in?"

Jenni spares a look behind her. You seem content again, scrawling over the paper.

"Yeah, alright." She lets the others in. "Osita, we've got company."

"Hi," You say but don't tear your eyes away from the page.

Laia and Mario instantly make themselves comfortable on Jenni's bed while Irene goes to check out the view. Alexia wanders closer to you, crouching by the chair you're sitting in.

"Hola, osita," She says to you," It's nice to see you again. I missed you."

"Okay." You keep drawing.

"Osita," Jenni says," Tell Alexia you missed her too."

Your brows draw together but you do what you're told. "Alexia," You say," Missed you too."

Alexia smiles at you fondly, more than aware of your little quirks as she takes a peak at your drawing. "That's a nice fox," She says.

"Yes," You say," It's a red fox." You flip to the front of the book to show the exact same drawing. You keep flipping the pages to show Alexia the exact same drawing on all of them.

The same red fox on all the pages.

"Red fox," You say, suddenly regurgitating words Jenni's heard countless times before," Vulpes vulpes. Found in Europe, Asia, Africa and America. Most widely distributed animal naturally apart from people." You keep drawing, dragging your pencil across the page. "Give birth in dens. Babies stay with adults until autumn and then leave."

"You know a lot about foxes," Alexia says.

"Yes," You reply, switching your orange pencil for black.

"Do you have a favourite?"

"Swift fox," You say immediately," Vulpes velox. Small like housecat. Found in America." Somehow, you've opened up a little to Alexia, fully facing her now though your eyes are nowhere near her face. "I like foxes."

"I know," Alexia says. She dips her hand into her pocket. "I couldn't find a big one but here."

It's a keyring with a knitted fox attached to it.

You swipe your hand over the fabric and immediately pull it away, grabbing it by the silver ring instead. You want to pull a face but you know that's not okay.

Mami tells you that all the time so you keep your face blank.

You shuffle off the chair to give the keychain to Mami to look after, wiping the icky feeling off your hand while you're still there.

"Is this from Ale?" She asks and you nod," Did you say thank you?"

You turn back to face Alexia again. "Thank you."

You don't go back to your drawing, you just sit at Mami's feet and trace the pattern of the carpet with your finger.

"Hey, osita," Laia says to you," Are you enjoying Mexico?"

You don't look up from what you're doing. "No," You say," Roja is not in Mexico."

"Roja?"

"Fox that me and Mami fed in our garden," You continue, perking up a little bit," She is not in Mexico. We do not have a fox in Mexico."

"Roja wasn't ours," Mami reminds you," She only came back because we kept feeding her."

"Roja had babies," You say like Mami hasn't even said anything," That's why she was fat. Roja had babies and then we left her."

Mami sighs. "We didn't leave Roja. We-"

"Red foxes have between four to five babies," You plough on, sitting upright again and talking at Laia," Born blind and deaf. Mating happens in winter so babies are born in spring, raised in summer and leave in autumn. Babies-"

You cut yourself off as Alexia goes to move and you stand up.

"Why you going?"

"Osita," Mami says," What have I said about being polite?"

You blink at Mami a few times, trying to recall what she told you before. Mami has to give your reminders a lot. She says that you're not good socially but you don't think it's your fault that people are weird and don't make sense.

She understands you and Alexia understood you when you used to live in Spain and that's all that matters.

"Where you going?" You correct and Mami laughs a little in disbelief, though you don't really get why.

Alexia laughs. "Just the toilet, osita. I'll be back soon."

You nod at her, just once. "Okay."

You sit back down by Mami's feet and go back to tracing the carpet.

"Someone missed her tia Ale," Irene teases and that causes you to frown.

Actually, you don't think you did miss Alexia, not in the way Irene clearly thinks you do. Actually, you don't really think about Alexia when you're in Mexico. You don't really think about anyone that much unless you see a picture of them.

Maybe you do miss Alexia though. In the beginning you think you did but that's because she was a big part of your life and then she suddenly wasn't anymore and that's a big adjustment.

You miss Alexia now though, as she goes off to the toilet but you've never been all that consumed by missing people except for Mami and that's never really happened because you're always with her.

Feelings are weird and people are even weirder, you decide and you migrate a bit closer to Mami. You tug on her leg, looking at her with big wide eyes.

She seems to understand you though, throwing your favourite fox patterned blanket to you.

You make a little tent so you don't have to see anyone else.

You can't always interact with people well so you prefer being in your fox tent.

You take a big, deap breath that runs through your whole body before releasing it.

You smile.

You can feel Mami behind you.

You think this World Cup won't be as bad as you thought it would be.

[tears0fsatan]

☆ 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐒

✦ ⊹ ˚˖ warnings... gn!reader, slightly suggestive? kisses and making out??? not that nsfw but u can be the judge of that

 :¨·.·¨ ♥︎  a.n... been plagued with thoughts of making out premaritally that im having dreams about it so i thought i'd share the delusion with the dateables <3 might make a brothers version if i feel like it ૮ ˊ͈ . ˋ͈ ა  posting this little drabble while i work on things ^_^

DIAVOLO !

the first kiss with him is surprisingly soft and tentative, a large contrast to the lord's usual loud and unabashed demeanour. its nothing more than a peck to test the waters, one to see if the two of you are comfortable.

its not long after that that diavolo takes the reigns, his arm curls around your neck and rests his hand on the back of your head to pull you impossibly closer. the kiss morphs from something sweet and demure to one thats hurried and pervasive.

he naturally takes the lead, mouth slotting against yours like they were moulded to be together while his tongue danced with your own, like a dog eager to show its master its affection.

BARBATOS !

the first kiss with the royal butler is one thats calm and collected, like theres no amount of doubt in his movements. theres an air of certainty almost as though he knows this is what the both of you have been waiting for.

barbatos lets you take a breath and uses that to coil his arm around your waist to pull you closer to him. his eyes take in the sight of your tightly shut eyes and the faint blush that dusts your cheeks with satisfaction, a hidden greed and desire for more creeping up from the bottom of his spine and spreads throughout his entire body.

he craves more, more, and more, until you have nothing left to give.

SOLOMON !

the first kiss with the sorcerer is playful and chaste, he pulls his head back ever so slightly so you chase after his lips. a low whine sounds from the back of your throat and solomon lets out a chuckle but doesn't relent, firm in his stance.

you huff, and for a moment, you think about pulling away entirely, but the temptation of his lips overruns that thought and you give in to his teasing. like himself, his kiss is pervasive, determined to unravel you with the kiss and uncover your every secret.

SIMEON !

the first kiss with the archangel is pure and fleeting; a soft peck that was so light you would've mistaken it for a dream if it weren't for the feeling of his breath ghosting over your lips. a shared look between the two of you show that this was something that was long overdue, feelings that were bursting at the seams finally rising up to the surface in a wordless confession.

an airy chuckle escapes the both of you, the uncertainty of unreciprocated feelings now disappaiting into the air, fluttering away as though there was never any need for the anxiety or the wavering doubt in the first place.

a quiet, barely audible, "may i kiss you once more?" uttered so softly you wondered if the wind was the one playing tricks on you escapes into the evening sky. you give a shaky nod before the feeling of his warm hand gently hold your face, the feeling akin to the way the morning sun would graze your face as you awoke. its a tender touch and yet, it has you melting in his clasp.

© 2024 TEARS0FSATAN. please don’t translate, modify, repost or plagiarise my works anywhere.

[insatiable-hungey]

You know what I want to see more of?

Ankh Morpork Souveniers

SPECIFICALLY

Lace bobbins

So, info dump time, round world historical lace bobbins are made from wood or bone, specifically horse or cow shin bones, and they can be plain or decorated. English midland style bobbins have beads called spangles to weigh them down and keep them flat.

Historically you had a large portion of poor and working class women making lace (because it's tedious, repetitive, and was worth a fair amount compared to other home crafts of the time) and they would often sit in their front gardens/on the street/in their doorways making lace because they needed good light.

Now, people would wander by and see what people were working on/what could be purchased, so one way people would promote things, say an election candidate, a moral bible message or an event (like a hanging) would be with engraved bobbins.

Bobbins, the free pens of the semi- literate world

They would also be given as gifts to the lacemaker from family members or sweethearts, sometimes with names or messages etched into them (theres a saucely one with 'kis me quick my mome is comin' etched into it in the Cowper & Newton Museum)

Now back to the Disc.

Thanks to Guards Guards we know that there is lacemaking on the Disc because Vetinari is reading a book on it in prison.

Ergo, there are lace makers*

Lacemakers who would go head over heels to be brought a tiny dwarf battle bread shaped bobbin by their friend who visited Koom Valley, or be gifted an antique troll bone bobbin that sparkles with tiny diamond flecks (new troll bone products since been outlawed everywhere but Uberwald much like the round world's ivory laws)

But most of all

I want to see hanging bobbins.

You know with absolute certainty that CMOT dibbler is hawking badly made bobbins, made from the finest (rat) bones yessir, to watchers of the seasons hangings.

Which means after the events of going postal...

There are ALBERT SPANGLER commemorative SPANGLED BOBBINS

VETINARI PROBABLY COMMISSIONED THEM

I AM LOSING MY MIND over moist von lipwig having to deal with the shipping hassle of every lacemaker and their aunt sending a bobbin to their far distant friends COMMEMORATING HIS OWN DEATH

I'M TOTALLY NORMAL ABOUT THIS I SWEAR

*Vetinari would 100% enjoy lacemaking**, as it is all about following the strings and making sure they are heading where they need to go to complete the pattern.

**He would attend the Thursday morning club because lace ladies are incorrigible gossips and know everything about everyone

EDIT:

Ohmygod I forgot about the potential of souvenier PINS

[howtofightwrite]

Hi! Love your blog, it's such a brilliant resource, thanks so much for writing it.

So, I'm looking for more information on ways that someone would go about breaking someone else's neck. Long story short, it's for a murder mystery situation where I need the investigators to be able to look at the injury on the victims (in an autopsy context, not necessarily on casual examination) and go 'oh, that's a specific technique and it suggests our killer has military or similar how-to-kill-people combat training'. Any suggestions?

A shovel through the spine at the base of the skull?

So, the headlock neck break is basically a fantasy. The amount of force you'd need to actually shatter someone's neck in the way presented would be superhuman. (Which does mean there's probably examples as industrial accidents, but industrial accidents are a somewhat uncommon murder method. Mostly because they're not especially portable.)

Hilariously, there are multiple attempted murder cases, where the would-be killers tried to replicate that neck break, only succeeding in annoy their victims, and telegraphing their intention. So, someone were to try to snap someone's neck that way, it would be an excellent indicator that they had no training what so ever.

There are ways that someone can kill with a headlock, such as a blood choke, but nothing that's going to concretely point the finger at someone with a military background.

Similarly, stab wounds can be very informative about the killer. But all you'll really gather is how familiar they are with human anatomy, and how comfortable they are with cutting people-shaped meat. This won't help you distinguish between someone who's done this before, and someone who's done this before for their country. (Incidentally, ���people-shaped meat,” isn't strictly a joke. There are lot of potential careers and backgrounds where you could become pretty comfortable cutting into animals, either live or recently deceased. So, in this specific case, that's more about the mindset. Someone uncomfortable with that level of physicality, is like to leave behind hesitation wounds. These are smaller cuts, sometimes in the main wound channel, indicating that they're not really comfortable with what they're doing.)

So far as it goes, I'm more a fan of just ramming a blade into an artery, rather than slitting their throat. The latter is a lot more work, but the former requires you actually know where to find someone's arteries quickly and efficiently. Which isn't necessarily a sure thing.

Even tool selection won't necessarily tell you much. Someone who's using a military knife might be ex-military, or they could be someone who uses surplussed equipment because it's cheap and relatively reliable. And that's assuming you can concretely identify the knife from the wounds it leaves. Which is also not especially reliable. You can tell how far the blade penetrated, and roughly how large it is, but that won't tell you if it was a bayonet or some cheap gas station hunting knife of a similar size.

Firearms present a similar problem. Once you can track down the gun (if there were any intact bullets to compare, which isn't a certainty), you might be able to match the gun to the wounds. But, examining the wounds on their own (especially if the bullets are gone, or buried deep in the corpse) will only give you an estimate of the bullet's size. Here's a problem with this, did you know that .38, .380, and .357 magnum are all 9mm rounds? They're different cartridges, but the bullets they spit out are very similarly sized. You might be able to make some educated guesses based on the wound channel and burns, but these all fire a round that's roughly the same size. So, when someone looks at a wound and definitively says it was a .38, they don't know that. (Unless they found the shell casing. But even then, you're not likely to find a .38 or .357mag shell casing unless the attacker specifically dropped their spent brass and reloaded, as those are revolver cartridges. .380 is a semi-auto round, so those will get kicked out after each shot. And, yes, before someone complains, there is .357 SIG, that's a semi-auto cartridge. It's 9x22mm.)

Also worth remembering, you can't, specifically match a shotgun's ballistics, assuming the shell was loaded with shot, and not slugs. You may be able to match the mechanical wear on the casing itself to a model (or multiple models in some cases), but not a specific gun.

So, how do you know it was someone with military training? You don't. Learning that someone's been trained to kill is a bit easier to pin down, but the information isn't that useful. That doesn't tell you if they're ex-military, ex-police, or even just the product of an extremely messed up homelife with a prepper parent. Or, even just they got extremely lucky (or unlucky) with a single stab.

Now, it isn't pointless to try to determine that, as it can be helpful later to demonstrate that the eventual suspect had the training to kill in the method that the victim experienced. But it doesn't do much to narrow the suspect pool on its own.

Ironically, the killer not having combat training. So, with things like defensive and hesitation wounds, can be far more useful for narrowing the suspect pool. As an investigator, when you're talking to someone that you're sure has been certified in knife combat, isn't likely to be especially messy with their stabbings. (Though, to be fair, even a trained knife fighter might stab their victim many times, to ensure a faster bleedout, and not all of those hits are going to be especially artful.)

So, that's a long way from, “you can't really break someone's neck like you see in the movies.” You can kill people, and as an investigator, you can make a lot of educated guesses based on what you find at the crime scene. But, “this method means they were militarily trained,” doesn't really mean they were trained by the military.

-Starke

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[aweina]

ᥫ᭡. stay quiet , tomas vrbada ( 17 + )

tags gn reader. slight exhibitionism. quickie in public. heavy petting. submission. blowjob. + 742 words.

“here?”

“here.”

tomas wearily looked down the long hall, echoed grunts and heavy punches became white noise with each soft kiss and dirty whisper that came out of your mouth. he’s completely red in the face, panting rather pathetically — it was embarrassing.

for you to put him in this state was impressive, not even his grueling training with kuai liang or bi-han could make him this vulnerable.

he’s a hunter, lin kuei. this should not make him weak.

but one thing for sure, tomas gives in too easily — for you, only you.

your nimble fingertips brushed against his bicep, dragging toward his racing pulse point. tomas squirmed at your teasing touches, making you grin in victory. with balmy lips, you feverishly kissed along his jawline, mouthing down on his neck that was marked with faint bruises from your past hideaways. flattening your tongue on his skin, the taste of sweat and smoke makes you hazy with lust.

your lewd display and the feeling of your tongue left tomas steadying himself as he clawed at the wooden walls, his quivering lips paralyzed by his teeth. everything around him became blurry, only your touch and delicate voice filled his senses. it felt good, he’ll admit. it’s only until your saliva-coated lips and wandering hands depart from his body that he becomes alert of his surroundings.

bi-han’s rumbling voice repeating demands and in unison, young voices followed by the sound of fading footsteps left tomas even more frightened.

training was over.

as his attention was elsewhere, you completely sunken on your knees — dusting off the grime and smoke particles off his pants. with a swift hand, you tugged down the pleated garment, tracing your lips at the display of his strong thighs — his skin littered with healed cuts and the occasional freckle. immediately, tomas looks down at you and begins to panic even more.

“please– w-wait a minute.” he pushes you away with a firm grip on your shoulders, furrowing his brows at your offended expression.

he never meant to be that rough with you, but he was desperate to not get caught, especially by the grumpy grandmaster.

“if bi-han catches us, we could be–“ his poor attempt to convince you gets caught in his throat when your hand brushes against the painfully obvious tent along his briefs.

you mentally laughed at the feeling of his nails digging deeper along your shoulder as you rubbed agonizingly slow over the imprint for a few seconds, listening intently to his muffled whimper. you then finally released the hot, tight confinements that his cock was subjected to.

springing to life, his hardened cock nudged your cheek as it pulsates — tip flushed with a bright red as it oozes sticky precum. with each involuntary bob, beads of precum drop on the matted floors, staining your clothing in the process.

it was so pretty, you thought.

tomas tries to swallow a groan, but it spills out his lips and echoes through the quiet hall. he presses his sweaty hands between his back and the wall, shutting his eyes out of embarrassment and the fact is he opens them, all the lecherous thoughts he held back could pour out of his mouth from the sight before him.

you gave his cock an experimental pump as you gently pressed your mouth against his leaky, hot tip to test the waters — licking off the arousal that glazed your swollen lips. tomas leans his head back, exhaling a large amount of air through his nose.

“i promise he won’t find out.” you firmly whispered, loud enough for him to hear you from his position — confidence written all over your gleaming eyes.

tomas knew you were telling the truth, he always trusted your judgment.

although he was still shaken by bi-han’s lingering presence across the long hall, tomas nodded with certainty. this isn’t the last time the both of you successfully sneaked off either, why would this be the last?

releasing his hands from the makeshift restraint, he threaded his fingers sweetly through your hair until he tugged at your scalp with gentle force.

“i’ll be quiet then, promise.” tomas whispered back, a hint of teasing in his declaration.

you smirked up at his sudden act of assertiveness and let his firm grip guide your mouth down onto his cock.

© aweina : please do not copy, repost, or modify any of my content.

[pokemonshelterstories]

is it true that clefairy come from the moon? is that even possible? i always thought that legend came from how clefairy are found in a place literally called mt moon.

we don't have a definitive answer for whether or not clefairy originated outside of earth's atmosphere. they're hard pokemon to come across for the sake of study!

it's not too extreme of an idea given that there are pokemon we know either for certain or almost certainly did not come into being here- deoxys being the most notable- and yet still manage to survive without issue on earth. we just don't have any proof of it in the case of the clefairy line. their association with the moon has to do more with the powers and behaviors they display when exposed to large amounts of moonlight, as well as their attraction to objects and pokemon that come from or live close to space. however, other pokemon that we know have a terrestrial origin also gain strength from moonlight, such as ledian!

so i can't really answer your question with any certainty, but i wouldn't be surprised if someday it's proven that clefairy came from or at least can live on the moon.

[katmaibearfan]

Tw Bear Death, Bear Violence

more info under the read more (no pictures or videos, per my policy).

above the header warning: this is the a topic of discussion during the play by play today. The bracket announcement has been moved to tomorrow.

also, i will edit this post as updates come in. if a particularly large update occurs i will reblog the edited post.

Before i begin: This is very recent and there are still many questions. Mike Fitz (who i believe is a former ranger that currently works for explore) is reviewing the footage currently.

i did not see this incident live -- i tuned in as the camera was panning away. everything i know i have gathered from comments.

what we know:

- 469 Patches attacked and killed another bear, then dragged its body off camera -- likely, he is storing and guarding it as a food cache.

- The bear that was killed is 402.

- 469 Patches' behaviour appeared predatory in nature, not defensive or dominance related

- This occurred on the KRV camera around 1pm eastern/10am pacific on september 30th.

I will post official statements here as they are given.

- rangers have been informed and are finding out what they can about the situation. they have been told where 469 Patches left the camera's view and are setting up a perimeter around the area to ensure that no humans accidentally stumble upon the situation.

- According to rangers, 32 Chunk has now usurped the corpse from 469 Patches. This is expected -- Chunk is currently the most dominant bear in the area, and the body of an adult bear contains a tremendous amount of calories.

official statement from Mike Fitz, link here

Hi everyone. As many of you know, a bear attacked and killed another in the river mouth today. There is much we don’t know. For example, I’m not sure who the deceased bear is. I need to review the footage further and talk more with park staff. We know that it was not bear 94, who was in the vicinity with her cubs when the bears engaged in the water.

I can say with certainty that the dead bear was an adult. The bear that killed the other bear is 469. He is an older adult male that was first identified in 2001. In 2012, he was also seen on the bear cams guarding a dead bear as a bear does with a food cache. We don’t know if he killed that bear, only that he was there.

This is a difficult situation to witness. We love to celebrate the success of bears with full stomachs and ample body fat, but the ferocity of bears is real. The risks they face are real. Their lives can be hard and their deaths can be painful.

When we know more information from park rangers, then we’ll share that with you. For now, though, we don’t know who the dead bear is. Naomi, Sarah, and I will discuss the situation in detail during the play-by-play tomorrow. For the next hour at least, Naomi and I will be here to answer your questions as best we can.

and in a reply, which you can find here

I should add too, that 469's behavior in this situation looked predatory. That is, he wasn't acting in defense or simply to affirm his dominance. The prolonged attack, the fact that he dragged the other bear out of the water, and the fact that he made an effort to eat part of it all indicate this was a predatory situation.

[boccher]

random space bulletin 3

sunspot region AR13697 has shrunken a fair amount more and hasnt produced any X class flares in a couple days and is starting to face away from us again

other sunspot regions around it growing though, so solar max is still doing solar max things

comet C/2023 A3 tsuchinshan-atlas crossed the water line (where ice melts), brightened and quickly grew in size, but since then plateaued in brightness. it may have expelled a large portion of its ice all at once and gotten smaller, or it could be something else. this atypical behaviour has thrown off predictive models so we don't have much certainty of what it's going to do as it approaches. notice how the grey graph doesn't fit the trend at all while the red graph doesn't model the slope of recent observations very well. overall the fact that it's not brightening when it should be means we're probably less likely to get a brilliant comet when it's most visible to us

however there's still the green graph to account for, that's the forward scattering parameter, which describes how diffuse objects become brighter when shone at from behind (like clouds). the predicted forward scattering is high purely because it'll pass almost precisely between the earth and the sun. meaning it'll appear a few degrees from the sun from our perspective. however this also means it'll only appear above the horizon during daytime making it hard to observe. the comet's outburst as it crossed the water line indicates that it had plenty of evaporatable ice at least prior to now, which may be an indicator for high forward scattering parameter, but also its not very predictable at all. if it's high enough the may become photographable or naked-eye visible in pure daylight similar to venus (venus is quite easy to see in daylight for about half its orbit around the sun if you know where to look). but ultimately everything about this comet seems to be that we have to wait and see when it comes around in september

[themulitipurposechannel]

Fic: This is victory (hollow and cold).

Part: One

What if.. Mikey’s portal drags home a cold dead corpse.

I would like to preface this by saying I completely blame @goodlucktai for their amazing Incredible story, raised on little light for putting this idea into my head. Guys go check it out the fic, it’s amazing it makes me so so sad but there is also so many good things in it 😭. Personally speaking I don’t think there’s anything I can write that will ever come close to what Tai can do, but as a famous internet post once said, write your shitty pots. So here we goes ppl

Tw: major character death, grief, suicide idealisation, getting disowned, disassociation, starvation, slight description of injuries and inaccurate medical advice

But I promise, there is still hope even in this.

_

“Casey! When I get to the other side you close that portal!”

Everything stills. The world falls static.

“What..?” A foreign voice enters the fray. Ah. Cj thinks distantly. It’s mine.

A series of thoughts shoots through his mind. Faster than the battle drones Uncle Tello used to make, faster than the joy rides Uncle Mi used to give.

He sees empty eyes, forced smiles. Screaming voices stained with the weight only grief, hunger, thirst and stress can give.

He thinks of Michelangelo in the brief moments he has met the turtle, so bright and so energetic. And then he remembers his Uncle Mi twisted into something quiet, slow and outwardly peaceful.

He remembers Monty, so stoic and so very angry. Yet so very indulgent when it counts. Out in a blaze of guns and glory. Standard-issue shoulder pauldron shoved into shaking hands. You will do great things Princey. He remembers Monty’s mother. Whose name he never got, forever in a daze, staring at walls of nothing. A hallowed husk like so many of the living ghosts that wandered their dusty halls. He remembers Miwa. So tiny, so fragile. So young. Too young. No amount of their anything can ever replace or beat modern medicine.

His Uncle Tello, bitter, grumpy; burnt out and constantly overstimulated from the dirt covered and squishy pink hell they’ve found themselves in. But sometimes on better days he cocks his head to the side, with a face that almost smiles at Cj and says, “Come Jones Junior; I appear to have some scraps we need to dispose off.” Which is code for we’re going to give your Pa an aneurysm and make things go boom.

He remembers his family. Tired, thirsty, hungry, eyes on them constantly. Countless sleepless nights in hushed voices arguing, strategising, weeping. They thought he didn’t hear. But children always have the biggest ears and the longest standing shelter on earth is only so large.

First and foremost. Cj knows. He knows with heart wrenching certainty. If there was any way to make peace with the present Hamatos it would all be over now. They’ll hate him. They will. They will never forgive him for this.

Maybe if this was his Mom, his Auntie April, his Da-Uncle Mi, his Uncle Tello, his Grandpa Drax. Whatever else Master Raphael and Master splinter might have been to him. They might just forgive him but these people are not them. They have not been softened with a lifetime of knowing Cj. He doesn’t have that baby of the family privilege. He doesn’t have any privilege at all. It’s only been a day. Less than that technically.

Even just the thought of being hated by his family. Any version of them, curdles something in his core. Every fiber in his being lashes out and screams at the younger version of his sensei. (Oh but it was Leonardo wasn’t it? Oh, what has he done?) In ways he hasn’t done since he was 8 years old, because poor 8 year old Casey hadn’t quite figured out how to breathe through the hunger pains. I’m a healer. I’m supposed to stop these things. Please, I already let go before you can’t make me do this again-

“Leo no! There has to be another way!”

But this Leonardo says;

“We’ve tried everything Casey, he’s too strong”

And deep down Cj knows that too. Much like the lies his family told him. “We can win” He knows otherwise too. Just like if he does this, he knows he’ll be left with nothing too.

But his family will still be here, surrounded by food, clean water, light, and endless amount of comics or magazines they could possibly want. They will be free.

They will never know gnawing hunger or sapping thirst, nor will they know the ever present hum of runhidenotsafe. They will never know the unique kind of suffering that comes from grasping for strength to just open your eyes and breathe in a world that has already long given up on itself.

Cj has seen the future. He has lived and breathed and sometimes, even thrived in an era where the krang came. Where the sky was a bloody brown instead of this clear dark blue and people were driven to insanity and killed from the common cold. Where the sour smell of rot piled everywhere. No matter how much or how hard you scrubbed.

He remembers his Sensei, his Pa, wise, comforting, always ready with a witty comeback or a brilliant plan. He remembers his Commander O’Neil, his Auntie April, rousing, quick and endlessly enduring, the steady voice of reason where even Sensei’s wit dulled. But they were tired, so very tired. The burden of leadership and grief and all the aches and pains of hunger and thirst that can never be quenched, already a fully dressed tomb just waiting for them to hang up their coats and admit futility to the unsurmountable cold.

He remembers how much his family loved him. How hard they tried to scrape together any piece of warmth for him. Tired Golden-Orange heaves himself into the air, to scoop Cj into his arms. Busy Blue who takes any meagre time he has to himself and spends it with Cj. Prickly Purple finds away to colour all his armour a shade of teal, even his siblings are still decked in occasional shades of grey. Overstretched Green always ready to pull her brothers back and scold; too guilty, too smothering, too harsh. Stop. You’re hurting the kid.

If Cj doesn’t close this portal, if he keeps this open, if he disobeys-the Krang will just come back through. And they will plunge the earth into a bloody, poisoned hell.

And he knows that if not Leonardo, then someone else in their stupid, selfless, self-sacrificial family will take up the mantle of resistance, unable to stand idly by at people’s suffering. Because these people are good, so very good. The Hamatos will fight, they will try. And they will lose.

The force of their ire will break him. The thought alone makes him sob, hiccuping in a way he hasn’t done, not since he was found shrieking over a cold Uncle Tello and had to be wrenched away, kicking and screaming. But still holding on. Even to the very last second and beyond. Because he is Cassandra Jones Junjor and a Hamato in every way that matters and he could never leave family behind. At least back then he couldn’t feel mom die

But the apocalypse.. that long, slow, painful march to inevitable death, will break him too. It wasn’t always bad, they had fun, karaoke nights, hilarious attempts to make birthday cakes for kids like him. But fuck.. that doesn’t change the fact that they still lost. That they will all still loose. Cj doesn’t know if he can willingly doom them all again because that’s what he’s going to do isn’t it? They were all so tired, so hungry, so thirsty. How can he let them go through that again?

He remembers how much happier, and how much lighter they always looked in those old scarce photos.

Selfishly, Cj doesn’t know if he can survive through another 20 something years or however long they make it this time, through that hell again. Forced to slowly watch again, as the Krang chip away at his family. Chip away at the people he called his friends till everything, bright, lively and kind was carved out;Uncle Hiro I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry-

They will never love you again. A voice thunders, like the death roll of their final march just this morning where Cj was still breathing in corrupted air under rusty skies. If only he died there with them. Anything is better than having to do this.

I know. Cj shakes, trembling fingers wrap around the key. Casey can see the division between young and new, old and worn and knows he cannot let it blur and become one.

“Casey! Urgh-please!”

Anything. I will give anything, Casey weeps. Anything as long as they live. Casey squeezes his eyes shut.

And just like with Uncle Tello,

Casey finally lets go.

The portal to the prison dimension slams shut with a glorious boom.

Leo, I love you. I’m sorry.

I wish I got more time to know you.

.

.

.

They scream at him. It’s Muffled, like the sensation of sound in the aftermath of a live grenade. They hurl all manner of abuse and venom at his face. He thinks he might be crying. Or maybe he’s not. His head feels tangled like the heaps of crusty old wires, Uncle Tello will never get the chance to unravel.

The shattered body of their Leonardo lies between them, like territory lines drawn between begrudging survivor groups. Cradled by a shaking soft shell. The blurry shapes of familiar voices once desperately calm and patient now roar,cutting and rightfully angry. It falls on his ears. He tries to grasp it, he does. He’s ruined everything, the least Cj can do now is listen.

But exhaustion gnaws at his very bones. Head pounding.

Nothing can explain this.

Nothing will justify this.

Severe head trauma, and shattered, collapsed carapace. Possible bruised and punctured lungs via pieces of loose carapace as the overall structure caved in, resulting in internal bleeding in the lungs and eventual asphyxiation. Patient chocked on his own blood. The field medic immediately drones internally, years of experience and training unable to be shut off (or rather, trained to never shut off) as listless eyes drift down to meet the unmoving slider.

It seems the one-sided eye contact is what finally breaks the softshell’s stupor. “Don’t you fucking dare.” The teen snarls, teeth flashing in all the ways he used to bare it at unwelcome visitors. But never at Casey. Never for long.

Wake up Jones. This is not your Uncle.

The rest of the group falls silent, shocked to see their previously silent family member speaking.

“You don’t get to look at him.” Achingly gentle, the purple branded softshell sets Leonardo onto the tiled floor.

Donatello stands. “You.” He hisses, pointing at Cj.

“You did this.”

Somewhere, somehow Cj manages to gather enough of himself to incline his head slightly in agreement. It’s the least he can do for them.

“Leave.” Donatello orders.

And like the good soldier he is, Cj does. Disappearing into the tunnels.

No one stops him.

<Part 1 | Next>

[demonproofboi]

ok, putting my thoughts in order

I get the why. youtube sucks and each year that passes, it sucks more. they have a company and employees, and they've said before that watcher wasn't actually making a profit. it is way too harsh to say they're too greedy or "just like buzzfeed" or other stuff I've seen thrown around. they deserve to get money for their work, we are not entitled to free content, etc! I agree with all that.

the thing is though... I don't see how this could feasibly work? like, putting aside how most people are fed up with the sheer amount of streaming platforms popping up lately, the way I see it, their content does not have enough variety to warrant a paid subscription. and if it were to become varied enough, it would probably need a bigger cast and shows run by different people. and the problem with that is that we can't deny that the main appeal of watcher is how much people care about shane and ryan and (it pains me to say this, you all know he's my favorite but, to a lesser extent) steven. a ton of us are here because we wanted to keep watching them. for the people, not the shows, essentially. that is very clear when you look at the views of their shows.

idk, what I mean to say is, I don't see how they could have a catalog of content that justifies paying a monthly subscription if you're not a very avid fan willing to support them just because they're them, and even then those avid fans might end up dissatisfied because either a) a lot of the content will not include the people they want to see or b) the content will not be frequent enough. maybe I'm wrong and there is a third option here but, let's be real, there's gotta be a limit to how many different shows they can put shane and ryan in to have a varied catalogue and frequent upload schedule. and if it's not them in those shows, we bump into problem a.

I know the topic of whether or not $5.99 is a lot of money also became a reason for fights around here. this is what I have to say, as an international fan: depending on what country you're from, it's the sort of expense you just can't justify. like, the sort of money you shouldn't even spend on netflix with its very extensive selection of content. the sort of money you could use to pay a whole bill, buy groceries for a week, a month even! as it stands, here in brazil, for now, it's not really feasible. R$312 a year is a ton of money for me and I can't even say I'm struggling financially.

still on this topic, it is really hard not to take this "affordable to anyone and everyone" thing to heart being someone outside of the US, because it is the sort of thing that happens again and again, this sort of americentrism the internet at large seems to be stuck in. when they outright say they view this price as affordable to everyone it's very clear they have not taken international fans into consideration or they just don't really care. if they hadn't said that with so much certainty, maybe I'd feel a little less hurt. and you know, whatever, it's my feelings vs the needs of a company, and companies are not your friends but! ever since the beginning, the relationship between us and them has been very parasocial. lol it's like a good friend of mine said something that hurt my feelings. although maybe that's my own fault for placing them in that role in my head in the first place.

anyway, idk if this makes sense, the goal here isn't even to pick a side or tell anyone they're wrong... as with most things this is just too complicated for that. what I can say is that the way they went about this could have been a lot better. and for now what I am feeling is that this is eventually going to crash and burn but well, I just really hope I'm wrong. they deserve good things.

[phillippadgettwrites]

So. Any chance of a Dropped Call 3??

Dropped Call, Chapter 3

Rated X / 4743 words / posted on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

She thinks of it like a little toggle in her brain, like a switch. Or maybe more like a curtain that she can open and close at will. It’s something she developed as a teen, when her desire to remain pure of mind and body was in direct conflict with her desire to imagine what it might be like if Tommy Warner felt her up under her school uniform. Saturday night she’d stay up late discreetly discovering the hidden pleasure points between her legs, and then on Sunday morning she would simply flip the switch and go to Mass, her indiscretion so completely obscured behind her mental curtain that she felt no connection to Father Malone’s sermon on sins of the flesh. 

Over the years, she’s found many uses for this mental trick. In school, in jobs, in relationships, she avoids being overwhelmed by her own emotions by simply setting them aside, behind the curtain, and pretending as though they don’t exist. It doesn’t always work, but she’s found that the more intense the emotion is or the higher the stakes are, the more effectively she can ignore it, at least until she’s alone. In a psychology course at UMD she learned that the term for this strategy is compartmentalization, and that when done to excess it can become maladaptive. Rather than examine whether her own compartmentalization was doing her more harm than good, she stuck that behind the curtain, too. 

This whole bizarre situation with Mulder is taking up an increasingly large amount of space behind the curtain. So much space that she worries it could become uncontainable, that it could all burst through some Tuesday afternoon and ruin everything. She’s had to pull back on their friendship out of fear that the dam won’t hold, and the dichotomy of it all makes her feel like a stranger in her own life. She powers through each workday, counting down the hours until she can go home and stop using all her mental energy to hold the curtain closed. When she walks through her apartment door it hits her like a sneaker wave, and she spends the rest of the evening reading trashy romance novels, masturbating, or deep cleaning something just to keep herself distracted. 

The worst part of it is that it’s just so stupid. She knows that they both want the same thing, knows it with absolute certainty, and yet she’s too cowardly to let it happen. She can cross all kinds of boundaries with a phone line between them, but the second his physical form is proximal to hers, the curtain swings shut and her walls go up, and she truly doesn’t know how to stop it from happening. As it turns out, defense mechanisms aren’t entirely voluntary. 

It’s Friday, a week or so since their last sordid phone call, and Mulder is wearing his charcoal suit. He’s being excessively charming and she can’t stop smiling at him, despite her very best efforts not to. Not that she doesn’t want to smile and laugh with him, she very much does, but when he meets her eye and smiles at her like that, and she feels herself smiling back, the curtain strains against the weight of everything behind it and she begins to panic. 

“What are you up to this weekend?” he asks when she starts to pack up her things a few minutes before five. 

“Not much,” she says, not looking at him. “Grocery shopping. Maybe Mass with my mother.”

“Would it be okay if I gave you a call?”

She freezes. Mulder calls her all the time, near daily, and he’s never asked for permission to do so. The curtain bulges, threatening to split open, and she clears her throat. 

“Sure, that’s fine,” she says, her eyes still downcast. 

“Tonight?” His voice is so hopeful, and it makes her feel like shit. 

“Okay.”

She puts on her coat and slings her bag over her shoulder. Before leaving, she forces herself to look at him. 

“Have a good weekend,” she says with a polite little smile. 

Mulder’s eyes narrow in that way that means he’s psychoanalyzing her, his head tilted increments to the side. 

“Likewise,” he says, his tone unreadable. 

She escapes into the hallway, holding the curtain closed with both hands. 

Once inside her apartment, the weight of anticipation sits heavy in her pelvis and her ears tingle with the effort of listening for the phone. She changes into comfortable clothes and conveniently forgoes panties, barely registering the fact that she’s doing so to give herself easy access. 

He could call at any time. It could be in five minutes, or five hours. When 8:00 pm comes and goes she entertains the idea of just calling him instead, but she doesn’t have any room for that behind the curtain so she decides to wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. 

He finally calls at 8:57. 

“Hello?”

“Hey,” he says brightly. “Long time no talk.”

Is he being facetious since they just saw each other a few hours ago, or is he referring to the last time she played the role of Electra?

“It’s good to hear your voice,” she says, then makes a face at herself. Electra is supposed to be sexy, not sweet. 

“Ditto. What are you up to?”

She’s standing in the middle of her living room, piqued and nervous, but that’s probably not what he’s hoping to hear. 

“I’m…talking to you,” she says. “What are you doing?”

“Well,” he says with a sigh, “I have a bit of a conundrum.”

“Oh?” Scully paces slowly around her couch and coffee table. Where is he going to take this?

“I was hoping you could help me out,” he says. 

“Okay. What’s the conundrum?”

“Well, it’s about my partner,” he says. 

Scully sinks slowly down onto the couch. 

“Okay.”

She hears Mulder swallow thickly. 

“So I think,” he begins, “that she might be interested. That she might…share my feelings.”

Scully’s heart leaps and begins to pound against her ears. 

“That’s…that’s good news, right?” she says, reminding herself that she is Electra right now. 

“It is, absolutely. Phenomenal news,” he says emphatically. 

“So what’s the conundrum?”

“I think she’s too afraid to take the next step. I know she is, actually,” he says. She can hear the way the sunflower seeds in his mouth change the shape of his words, and she imagines him spending the hours leading up to this phone call munching on them and thinking about how to have this conversation. “And I think maybe she needs me to be the one to do that. But if I’m wrong, I run the risk of fucking things up between us.”

“That sounds difficult,” she says, her head spinning. 

“So what should I do?” he asks. 

Electra wants to answer the question, but Scully is frantically shoving things back behind the curtain, tugging at the edges in an attempt to keep it all hidden. 

“I think you’re right,” she blurts out, closing her eyes. “I think she does need you to be the one.”

There’s a beat of silence. 

“But should I wait?” he asks. “Maybe she’s not ready.”

“I imagine she’s as ready now as she’ll ever be,” she says, eyes still closed. The curtain is tearing right down the middle, the contents spilling out, and her stomach lurches. 

“Okay,” he says. “Thank you. I appreciate your help.”

Scully sits up, opening her eyes. Was that it?

“No problem.”

“Hey, can I call you right back?” Mulder says, his tone much lighter. 

“Sure, okay.”

Her heart pounds painfully hard in the roughly thirty seconds that she waits for him to call back. Maybe he’s going to call Scully this time. Maybe he’s going to put it all out in the open and force her hand. Even though it’s what she just told him he should do, she’s so terrified that she considers not answering. 

“Hello?”

“Hey, me again, sorry about that,” he says. 

So…she’s still Electra?

“It’s fine,” she says, then waits for him to speak. 

“I was hoping we could try something different,” he says. “Bit of a role reversal.”

“Um, okay,” she says, curious but worried. “What did you have in mind?

“I’ve told you about my fantasies.” A pause. “I’d like to hear about yours.” Her entire nervous system short circuits, and she briefly loses touch with reality. “Electra?”

“Yeah,” she sputters, shifting around on the couch uncomfortably. “I’m here. Is that…allowed?”

Mulder laughs nervously.  

“The arrangement is that I pay you to talk to me. There aren’t really rules beyond that.”

“Oh.” Her mind is going a million miles an hour trying to figure out how to sidestep this. “That’s, um…that’s quite private, though.”

“True. But I’d argue that you’ve been given unfettered access to my private thoughts, so it’s an equal exchange,” he reasons. 

She can tell that he won’t push much further. He knows her too well to do that. But he does have a point, and she still harbors some guilt for not stopping him when he shared his fantasy with her in that first phone call. 

“Yeah, that’s true,” she says. “What do you want to know?”

She senses his excitement, and she’s so conflicted between feeling excited herself and feeling terrified. There will be no coming back from this. The curtain is practically in tatters. 

“I would be ecstatic to hear literally anything you’re willing to share,” he says carefully, tempering his eagerness. 

Scully leafs through her mental file of fantasies, the ones she’s prone to revisit. Her cheeks get hot as she considers the idea of sharing any of them with Mulder, in no small part because he stars in every single one of them. But right now he’s talking to Electra, and Electra would be fantasizing about someone else. She finds an intact corner of the curtain and draws it up, separating herself from the situation. 

“We’re in my kitchen,” she says, jumping right into it. “We’ve just had dinner or something and we’re cleaning up. He’s helping me with the dishes.”

“Who is he?” Mulder interrupts. 

“He’s…a friend.”

“A close friend?”

“Yes. A best friend.” She can’t leave him to wonder if she’s talking about him. That feels too cruel. “A coworker,” she adds. 

“What does he look like?”

Scully lays back on the couch, propping her head on the armrest. She pictures Mulder earlier that day at work in his charcoal suit, smiling at her over his desk. 

“Tall. Dark features. Handsome.”

“You think so?”

She smiles and allows this brief break in their role play. 

“I do. Very much.”

“So you’re in the kitchen,” he prompts her.

“We’re in the kitchen and we’re kind of joking around, laughing. He’s teasing me, but not in an unkind way. And there’s a moment where he’s looking at me and smiling, and something passes between us. Moments like that happen all the time, but I always look away.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m afraid,” she admits. 

“Of what?”

She takes a moment to consider the question. As conflicted as she is when it comes to her relationship with Mulder, she’s never allowed herself to think too deeply about what exactly she’s conflicted about. 

“Of being hurt, I guess. Of being vulnerable.”

“You think he’d hurt you?” he asks, maybe a bit wounded. 

“Not intentionally,” she says. “But I think it could easily happen.”

She senses that he’d like to explore this line of thought, but that would completely derail the fantasy. She hears a beeping sound and then a soft thud. Maybe the microwave. Leave it to Mulder to get hungry at a time like this. 

“I’m sure he’d do everything possible to avoid that,” he says somberly. “So do you look away?”

“No,” she says, jumping back to the kitchen in her mind. “I don’t look away this time, and it becomes…intense. He steps closer and I realize he’s going to kiss me.”

“And you want him to?”

“Yes, very much. He kisses me and it’s sweet at first, but quickly becomes more…intense. Sorry, I can’t think of a different word to use.”

“Intense is a good word,” he says, encouraging her. 

His connection is a bit muffled, like the phone isn’t quite lined up correctly to his mouth. She wonders if he’s in bed, and what he’s doing.

“He picks me up and puts me on the counter, which makes things much easier because he’s quite a bit taller than me. And we just kiss for a while. I guess…I guess more accurately it would be making out.”

“Do you think he’s a good kisser?”

“Yes,” she answers immediately. 

“You’ve given this thought?”

“Yes,” she says again. 

“And then what?”

Scully swallows. This is where things go from PG-13 to explicit. 

“And then he pulls me down off the counter so I’m standing on the floor, and he turns me around.” Mulder is silent on the other end of the line. All she hears is a mechanical hum. “And he, um, he pulls my pants and underwear down. And then he sort of pushes me forward so I’m leaning over the counter.”

Her heart simply cannot take this. It’s been in overdrive so long she’s starting to sweat, and she’s lying completely still on the couch. 

“What does he do?” Mulder finally asks. 

“I think he’s going to…to take me from behind, but he doesn’t,” she says, her voice shaking. “He kneels on the floor behind me.”

“Tell me.” His voice is commanding, not pleading, and it’s effective. 

“He, um, he eats me out from behind. He makes me orgasm that way,” she says. 

She hears the rush of Mulder’s sharp inhale through the phone. 

“Is that where it ends?” he asks. 

She barely registers another set of beeps and another soft thud.

“No,” she continues. “After that he does take me from behind.”

“He fucks you?”

The sharpness of the word, from Mulder’s mouth, in reference to herself, makes her clit jump. Scully slides her free hand under the waist of her pants and swirls her middle finger around it languidly. 

“Yes,” she breathes. “He fucks me.”

“Do you come again?”

“Yes.”

“What about him?”

“He comes inside me.”

“You want him to?”

“I do.”

“Are you touching yourself?” he asks, his voice a near whisper.

“Yes,” she whispers back. 

“Open the door,” he says. 

“What?”

“Open the door.”

Her confusion gives way to horror as she recognizes the soft murmur of his voice in the hallway. She’s frozen in place, her hand down her pants and her widened eyes on her front door. 

“Mulder, what are you doing?” she hisses, pulling her hand out of her pants as she slips down to the floor and attempts to hide behind the couch. 

“Please let me in,” he implores, and she hears his voice in stereo. 

“I can’t,” she whimpers. 

It feels true. She feels physically incapable of walking to the door and allowing him to look at her after what she just told him. 

“Then I’m going to let myself in,” he says. 

He waits a beat to see if she’ll object, but she says nothing. She hears the scrape of his key in the lock and then the pop of the deadbolt. The door opens and she slowly stands up from behind the couch, the phone still pressed to her ear. 

He’s standing in her entryway, his cell phone in one hand and his keys in the other, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt. He catches her eye and holds it for a beat, and she pulls the phone away from her ear, breaking eye contact to end the call. And then she just stands there, shell-shocked, staring at the phone in her hands. 

She hears him slip off his shoes and pad across the room towards her. There’s nowhere for her to hide, physically or emotionally. The curtain is toast, and her fingers are coated in her own arousal, and Mulder is in her living room with full knowledge of what she wishes he would do to her. This is either the best or the worst moment of her adult life. She’s afraid to find out which. 

He takes the phone from her and sets it on the coffee table. Next she feels his hands on her jaw, forcing her to look up at him. She complies reluctantly, and a few seconds tick by as the familiar intensity builds. She sees in his face how much he wants this, wants her, and it reaches that point she can’t bear where she always looks away. Just when she can’t take it any longer, when she’s about to avert her eyes to the fireplace, he kisses her. 

At first it’s sweet. He presses his soft lips against hers again and again, a series of firm but chaste kisses that begin to devolve when she opens her mouth and he runs his tongue across the inside of her upper lip. He’s bent down and she’s on the tips of her toes, and it feels like she just can’t get close enough. 

She squeals with surprise when her feet fly out from beneath her and Mulder tosses her down on the couch, quickly covering her body with his own. Their height difference compensated for, he kisses her deeply and intensely, and he is every bit as skilled at kissing as she imagined him to be. His hips are tucked between her open legs, and the more they kiss the smaller the gap between their bodies grows until she feels the hard ridge of his erection press against her clit. She whimpers into his open mouth, and he pulls back a little to look at her. 

“Do you want this?” he asks breathlessly, and she nods. “You’ll tell me if you want me to stop?” She nods again. 

He shifts his body to the side to free up one of his hands, then resumes kissing her. His hand drifts up under her shirt, and she feels like she could come just from the knowledge that he’s going to touch her, that this is happening. He kneads her breast, gently pinches her nipple, all the while grinding against her hip. It feels so deliciously forbidden, like they’re two teenagers necking in a basement, until his hand slides down her belly and under the waist of her pants. 

He pauses, giving her time to adjust or object. She just keeps kissing him as his fingers comb through her pubic hair and then trace the seam of one leg, and then the other. She remembers his fantasy, and she shifts one of her legs to the side to let him know she’s ready. That she wants it. 

“Jesus christ,” he mumbles against her mouth when his fingers slide down her slick lips. 

His touch, his words, his presence, have her on the edge already. 

“Mulder,” she breathes out. “I—”

He pushes a finger inside her and she gasps as her cunt squeezes it tightly. 

“Oh, Scully,” he says, grinding against her with his face tucked into the crook of her neck. “You need this.”

She can’t stop it. She’s coming with hardly any warning, with hardly any effort on his part, and with such intensity that she stops breathing. Mulder whispers things to her that she will recall later and blush, gently fucking her with his fingers all the while. It is absolute euphoria, and she’s so high on dopamine that she can’t bother feeling embarrassed for being so easy. 

Mulder slips his hand out of her pants and she turns her body so that they are face to face, somehow both wedged onto her tiny couch. She runs her fingers through his hair and then cradles his jaw, and he watches her face with awe. 

“That was unexpected,” she says quietly, and a grin breaks out over his face. “Thanks for coming over,” she adds, averting her eyes to his mouth. 

His smile suddenly falls. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, and she lifts her eyes back to his. 

“I know,” she says, and then she kisses him. 

The kissing goes on for a delightfully long while, and she finds that she very much enjoys the way that Mulder kisses. At the realization that she has the long awaited opportunity to get her hands on the everpresent bulge in his pants, she runs her palm firmly over the front of his jeans, and he groans. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he says, extremely unconvincingly. 

“What if I want to?” she asks. 

She feels him lurch under her palm. 

“Then I’d say we probably need to take this party to the bedroom,” he says tightly. 

They scramble off the couch, and he walks her backwards into her bedroom as he works her shirt off over her head. He removes his shirt as well, and they stand at the foot of her bed, his fingers tucked under the waist of her pants. A lamp in the living room is still on, but the bedroom is dark, giving them enough light to see without feeling exposed. 

“I can’t help but notice that you’re not wearing panties,” he says, and she feels herself blushing. 

“They just get in the way,” she admits shyly, and he makes a little sound that’s somewhere between a whine and a moan. 

“Can I take these off?” he asks, and she nods. 

She feels his eyes on her, but he’s very respectful. He doesn’t stand back to gawk at her or say anything lewd, he just kisses her face, the tops of her shoulders, anything he can reach without sitting down. Before he does so for the sake of getting his mouth on her breasts, she pops the button on his fly and he sucks in a breath. 

“Easy, loaded weapon,” he quips. 

“I’d be a hypocrite to judge you,” she points out. 

“That’s, uh, not quite the same,” he says as she lowers his fly and slips her fingers under his boxers at his hips. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

She pushes his jeans and boxers halfway down his thighs and then wraps her hand around his cock. Her eyebrows shoot up, and that’s before she runs her palm over the length of him. 

“You know that I hate to inflate your ego,” she says, sliding her hand down to cup his balls, “but color me impressed.”

He chuckles and it dissolves into a groan. He sits heavily on the end of the bed, tugging her down with him, and she climbs into his lap. His cock brushes against her clit and she sucks in a shuddering breath. 

“What do you want?” he asks, steadying her with his hands on her naked hips while he works his feet the rest of the way out of his jeans. 

“...I don’t know,” she says, which is a lie. 

“You don’t know, or you don’t want to say?” he asks, reading her mind as always. 

She reaches between them and takes hold of his cock. 

“I want this,” she whispers, feeling like she might burst into flames. 

They start kissing again and she’s still stroking him, brushing him over her clit. She pushes up onto her knees a little and drags the head down over her lips and across her opening. She’s obscenely wet and Mulder is making all kinds of greedy, hungry noises: groaning and humming, grabbing at her ass and sucking on her breasts. He’s right there, and they both want this, and when she presses the head of him against her cunt and he starts to sink in, the energy in the room shifts. 

“Oh, shhhhhhhhhhit,” he groans, his breathing suddenly ragged. 

She feels proud, and sexy, and powerful as he stretches her open inch by inch. It hurts a little, but not near enough for her to even consider stopping. They’re both panting like they’ve exerted themselves and they’re only just getting started. 

She lifts her hips again and sinks back down before she’s even managed to take him in all the way; she just can’t wait any longer. He has one hand on her hip, the other braced against the mattress behind him to keep them from toppling over, and his hips are eagerly flexing up to meet her. Each time she lowers herself back down she takes in a bit more of his length, until they are pressed tightly together and she feels the poke of his pubic hair against her swollen lips. 

She stills and immediately he’s kissing her, sucking at her lips and humming noisily. She loves the sounds he’s making and how eager he is, how openly enthusiastic. God, she wants to make him come. Wants to feel him throbbing inside her, running out of her. 

She starts to shift her hips forward and back, slipping him tightly in and out and running his shaft across her clit on each downstroke. 

“Fuck,” he says under his breath. “You feel…incredible.”

His compliment goes straight to her cunt and she flutters around him, making him moan. 

“I’m gonna come,” she whispers shyly against his mouth. 

“Shit, you’re gonna make me come,” he says harshly, like this is bad news. 

But the idea of him coming inside her is enough to send her over the edge. She digs her fingernails into the back of his neck and presses her forehead against his as she clamps down on him, her mouth open and her eyes squeezed shut. 

“Oh my god,” she wails as a tsunami of pleasure crashes over her, sweeping her out to sea. 

Mulder lets loose a stream of obscenities and she feels a hot rush deep in her belly. She rides him roughly as it just keeps coming and coming, and he falls backwards onto the bed, taking her down with him. He keeps thrusting up into her from below, and the wet slosh of both of them is almost embarrassing, had she the faculties for embarrassment. He finally becomes too soft to continue thrusting and there is a second hot rush when he slips out of her. 

She collapses against him, her cheek pressed to his sweat-damp chest, and waits for the inevitable surge of shame and regret, even though she knows it’s not shameful and she certainly doesn’t regret it. Without warning, Mulder wraps his arms around her and rolls her to the side, which does nothing to contain the mess between her legs. He hovers over her, searching her face, knowing her well enough to predict that she’ll struggle in the immediate aftermath. 

“You okay?” he asks, trailing the back of his knuckle across her cheek. 

She gives him a weak smile and nods, though tears are pooling in her eyes. She’s not even sure why. 

“Please don’t take my demeanor as an indication of anything,” she says, touching his waist. “It’s not about you, I just…this is difficult for me.”

“I know,” he says. “Take as much time as you need.”

She nods, waiting for the tightness in her throat to subside before she tries to speak again. 

“I’m sure Electa doesn’t require this much emotional maintenance,” she jokes, swiping a finger under her eye to clear a way a tear before it has a chance to fall. 

Mulder smiles at her and sighs. 

“I haven’t called her in weeks, just so you know,” he says. “And I don’t plan to.”

“You can call whoever you want, Mulder, I have no right to an opinion on it,” she says quickly, panicking at the idea that he feels beholden to her. 

He rests his head on her chest just above her breast and curls up around her, which feels a bit backwards but also feels very nice. She strokes his hair and he splays his hand out over the scar on her belly, and they are quiet for a beat. 

“I’d like you to have a right to an opinion on it,” he says suddenly, quietly, and it takes her a moment to follow. 

“...You would?”

“Doesn’t have to be right away, but yes.”

“Okay,” she says. 

He doesn’t ask what that okay means, which she’s grateful for because she doesn’t really know. And even though she’s not brave enough to ask him to stay over, he seems to know that she wants him to, and he stays. She has absolutely no idea what she’s doing, but she trusts that they’ll figure it out together, like they always do. 

[bg-brainrot]

Hugs for a Vampire (Astarion x GN!Reader) - Chapter 8: After Defeating Ketheric

Chapter 8: After Defeating Ketheric

Each chapter can be read as a standalone hug.

Pairing: Astarion x GN!Reader (Rogue!Tav)

Genre: Fluffy, Filling in Canon

Rating: Teen

Tags: Gender-Neutral Pronouns, POV Second Person, Act 2, Canon-typical violence, blood, injuries

WC: 1.5k words, 8/18 chapters

Summary: After defeating Ketheric and learning the truth of the Absolute, Tav feels a lot of feelings.

Ao3 | [Hug7][Hug9] | Hugs for a Vampire Masterlist

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all. 

Ketheric was supposed to be the last hurdle to stop the Absolute– but no, he's just one of a tri-headed hydra. And the Absolute isn't anything as mundane as a false god– no, it is an altogether new type of unstoppable impossibility.

Despite all of your posturing when you met Elminster, you feel a small tinge of regret at not bringing Gale to just end it all here and now. Because now, here you are, facing down what's left of the broken man, Ketheric Thorm. The Apostle of Myrkul looms above, its undying visage chilling you to your core.

For the first time since beginning your journey, you feel a sense of hopelessness you've never felt before, and no amount of stabbing is helping. Of course, you haven’t fixed anything. Of course, there’s still a brain worm wriggling in your skull as you fight for your life. But you’ve come this far, and this won’t stop you and your companions from trudging on. 

After nearly being leveled by one large swing from the reaper’s scythe, your team is strategically spread out around the monster, with the exception of Shadowheart who is providing ranged support from below. A few well placed hits from Karlach reel the boney creature back, you hear Astarion’s cheery laughter to your right, literally laughing in the face of death. Dame Aylin, is somewhere behind the Apostle– you can’t see her, but her righteous cries ring out in the darkness. It bolsters your confidence, your heart swells with certainty that you will win, but the chill of undeath never leaves the air. 

You’re honestly not sure how long you fight, your body drags, your bones ache. The monster catches you a few times and the pain it inflicts permeates to your core. But you keep stabbing, your body mechanical in its repetition, trusting your trained movements to hit.

Perhaps it’s going too well, so well that you’re lulled into complacency– not registering the reaper’s scythe strike on your vampire companion. "Astarion!" You hear Shadowheart cry from below you. In a heartbeat, you turn to where Astarion last was, only see him slumped over, white curls highlighted crimson with blood. Your heart lurches in your chest, and your body reacts in kind.

You run toward him on instinct, narrowly dodging a heavy swing from the Apostle above you. After a running slide next to him, you find that he’s up, but barely. Breathing hard, blood starting to drip into his eyes, he looks up at you with a pained smirk, “Miss me, darling?” He’s leaning heavily on his knee to try to get back on his feet.

“Not now, you–you–” No words come to mind for how foolish he is, trying to stand back up and into the fight. “You need healing!” You dodge out of another swing from the skeletal creature. 

“I… tried that,” he says, struggling to rise before falling back on his knees. He winces in pain before continuing, “The health potion didn’t work.” His red eyes fall on an empty bottle at his feet.

Something about this creature’s aura is clearly affecting him, and you now understand why you feel so utterly destitute, why the chill reaches down to your bones. Turning back to the monster, you find it’s occupied with the Aasimar so you take your chance to inspect it, assess the situation.

It’s hard to see if you’ve made much of a dent on the Apostle, and stubbornly pressing on is not worth Astarion risking his life. The rest of your companions are still standing, swings and stances steady. You have to trust in Karlach, in Dame Aylin to hold down the monster. You know what you have to do.

“Love,” you say, your tone a warning. “We need to get off this platform or we won’t get you the healing you need.”

Astarion is clutching his chest in pain, kneeling on the ground, all as the last tendrils of his life bleed out of him. Through gritted teeth, he looks at you and hisses out, “What does that even–” Realization dawns on him. “No, don’t you–”

You act on your warning before he can finish his sentence. You’re not the strongest person in the party, not by a longshot. But you muster every ounce of strength left in your beaten body to tackle your elven lover.

In a jumbled mess of limbs, attempting to avoid unsheathed daggers, your form is ungraceful to say the least. But you manage to wrap your arms around him and push off with your legs, launching your intertwined bodies into the air. As you tumble off the platform to the ground below, you wonder if either of you will remain conscious after impact.

There’s a hard 'THUD' of leather meeting ground, of your bodies crushing together, heard even in the din of battle. A moment later you take a deep breath and open your eyes, determining that you’re still very much alive. Next to you lies Astarion, his motionless body pinning your arm down in place.

You carefully prop yourself up a bit to examine him more closely. Dropping the blade from your free hand, you bring a few trembling fingers to his pale face. His eyes are closed, but at the very least his breaths are obvious, ragged and desperate as they are. He doesn’t have much longer and your hand moves, clumsy in its panic, to your pouch for a healing potion. Luckily, you don’t land far from where Shadowheart is positioned.

Without as much of a break in her combat flow, she shouts “Vos Cura!”, casting a healing light over you both.

Instantaneously, Astarion’s breathing slows, steadies, his wounds begin knitting over. He’s not fully healed by any means, but his condition has stabilized. Your hand comes to rest on his cheek as you stir him, “Astarion, love, are you awake?” 

He blinks blearily, as if awakening from a bout of meditation. “Is it over?” he asks, voice a croak.

As if in response, Shadowheart yells “Ignis!” and a burst of flame shoots into your vision. Karlach’s next blows punctuate the air, each swing colliding into the enemy’s skeletal structure with a loud clatter.

They need you… but so does Astarion. You shake your head. “No, but you’re not well yet, stay still.” You uncork a healing bottle and bring it up to his mouth, which he gladly gulps in response.

“Mmm,” he moans in relief. “Thank you, love. We need to get back to–”

His words are swallowed by an ear-piercing shriek, a cry from the Apostle of Myrkul as it reaches to the heavens, burning in the radiant light of Dame Aylin’s Divine Smite. You’re all blinded momentarily while the creature flashes in a bright blaze. As it dissipates before your very eyes, your body releases all of the tension that has been accumulating since entering the domain of the “Absolute.” 

Releasing your hold on your lover, your body flops outward, eyes staring sightlessly into the massive, fleshy room. Astarion, despite his own exhaustion, wraps an arm around you, barely able to pull you toward him as his muscles shake from fatigue. Placing your free hand on his arm, you squeeze him to you. You lay there, silently clinging to each other in a tired desperation, as your team deals with the final, painful moments of Ketheric Thorm.

Somehow, you can’t bring yourself to care. Because it’s over, you’ve won. Right? 

You blink back tears. It’s over, but you don’t feel any relief. All of your sweetest imaginings, of finally getting rid of your parasite, of arriving back home to Baldur’s Gate, to save Astarion and pick your life back up– all of them have been dashed brutally by the reality that’s come to light. “What’s next?” you speak into the musty air. “We take on an army, the remaining Dead Three’s chosen, and an unspeakable horror.” You hardly recognize your voice, as despondent as it is.

Astarion’s arm around you shifts, an attempt to pull you closer. You turn to face him and lean in to help his efforts. He gives you a sad little grateful smile, and tucks you into his chest, your head resting just below his chin. When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper, a low rasp to it, “I’m here, dear. We’re in this together.” 

Nodding into his chest, you take a few steadying breaths. “I know,” you say. “But is it too much to ask for a break every once and a while?”

“Darling,” a cold kiss graces your temple before he continues, “I’ve been asking myself that question for two-hundred years.” His words aren’t meant to elicit sympathy, just reality, and you both soak in it for a while. Laying in each others’ arms, bodies too exhausted to move, spirits too broken to speak, you allow yourself to weep.