#ANYWAYS I’m making something awesome w these maybe.

[tordoise-x3]

Ime so tired

[xoxochb]

Ok, could I PLEASE get a Leo x fem!reader fan fic where they're best friends but both want to be more (maybe they kiss...idk) ??? Pls, I'm desperate. There's not enough Leo fanfics and you're such a good writer.

— astronomy nerd

warnings: leo has W rizz 💯 (do people still say this?) pairing: leo valdez x fem! reader

“well anyways, there is no sound in space because there’s no atmosphere to carry the sound vibrations. It’s really cool if you think about it. are you thinking about it? whatever, did you know the sunsets on mars are blue? how cool is that?! and one million earths could fit in the sun, isn’t that awesome! just imagine that, the sun is huge, I mean seriously-”

your voice trails off forever, you had been talking non stop about miscellaneous outer space facts since leo had walked into your cabin and caught you reading a planet book. it’s not that he hated listening to you talk, gods no, he would listen to you talk for hours on end without a stop but in this particular moment he found himself distracted by the bright smile adorning your lips, he can’t seem to tear his eyes away. and with you being too busy caught up in your space talk you fail to realize leo hadn’t been listening

but you did, however, finally take notice when you ask him a question and he doesn’t respond, stuck in some kind of daze. you call out his name three times before snapping your fingers in front of his eyes, making them widen and his cheeks flush red

“you weren’t listening” you point out

“I’m sorry I- uhm, I’ll listen now. sorry”

you sigh. “what do you think about creating life on mars?”

creating…life? it doesn’t even take a second for leo’s brain to go from concentrating on your words to imagining creating life within you, forget fucking mars, when you’re older and leave camp preferably married with kids. with your good looks and his humor that’d be one hell of a child! he can’t suppress the widening grin, which you additionally notice

“you’re not listening again! what are you thinking about?”

“I think you should!”

your brows furrow at the late reply to your question. “okay… well I surely can’t. but the scientists at nasa know that mars has water so really if you think about it we need to bring seeds from earth to mars and we can build trees, y’know? then that will create oxygen— mars has a very thin atmosphere meaning you can’t breathe on it, but if you just put this huge tent around it the oxygen would start flowing and you’d be able to breathe. does that make sense?”

“what would the tent do if there’s no atmosphere on mars though?”

“I watched a movie about it once… but… you make a good point” you frown, realizing your information had gotten mixed. leo mirrors your expression when he realizes he had upset you. the aura of the room suddenly becomes very awkward

don’t say something stupid don’t say something stupid don’t say something stupid-

leo’s mouth fails him. “what does a star win in a competition?”

your lips twitching upwards was worth the idiotic joke he’s about to respond to

“a constellation prize”

“I have another! what type of music do planets sing?”

“what type?”

“nep-tunes!”

your laugh progresses. “where did you find these jokes?”

(the second he found out you liked astronomy and outer space he had researched like crazy so he could come up with the best jokes possible to impress you). he shrugs. “I made them myself”

“really?”

oh gods he hopes the blush on his face isn’t visible. “yeah…”

“you should be, like, a stand up comedian or something. you’re really good”

okay, yeah, he’s gonna put a ring on it the first chance he can get (your wedding has been elaborately planned already, he keeps the plans hidden underneath his mattress). with your smile as bright as the stars, eyes reflections of the moon, your hair cascading over your shoulders like the sunset over the evening sky, extremely captivating to the eyes of the silly son of hepheastus. he hoped he didn’t look like a lovesick puppy right now, staring at you like this, yet he’s surprised to find your gaze mirrors his. oh no

no no no. leo prays to ever god and goddess he’s aware of that you can’t visible see his cherry red cheeks or his smile of contentment

“do you think there’s more than one universe?” he blurts out

“of course. why?”

“because I think I’d love you all the same in every one regardless of our forms”

good gods of olympus your heart skips a beat or two. act casual

“even if I was a worm?”

“I’d build you a terrarium”

“If I was a star?”

“I’d place myself next to you”

you shouldn’t be tearing up at the thought of this but you can’t help the drops of salty water that fall from your eyes. “In every universe would you be staring at my lips instead of listening to what I’m saying?”

“if your lips always look this kissable, then yes”

oh gods oh gods oh gods oh gods so this is really happening? this is real life? surely, truly?

“leo, can I-”

“please”

you suck in a breath and whisper, “I’ve never done this before”

“I haven’t either”

very slowly, almost like neither of you had moved at all, you lean in until your lips finally meet in the middle at last. not just the first kiss, because this surely was not going to be the last

[babybatss-blog]

Heyyyy! How’s everything going?

If you’re up for it, I’d love to see a Sirius Black x fem reader where she’s sick or injured and he takes care of her.

Totally understandable if this doesn’t inspire you though!

Have an awesome day 🥰

DELUSIONS AND DAYDREAMS

Sirius x f!reader, 1000 words

a/n: hey anon, im doing good thank you! I hope everyone is also doing well :) this was such a cute lil fic, I hope it’s the right dosage of fluff mixed with angst for your day <3

c/w: friends with tension. Reader has a twisted ankle, smoking, sexual connotations and a confession of love.

He warned you not to do it, he really did. When you said you were going ice-skating on the black lake with your friends he told you that you’re “too clumsy for your own good”, but due to your unresolving stubbornness you went anyways. So he’s not surprised when Marlene messages him a few hours later, bluntly stating that you “twisted your ankle and need someone to come and get you.”

Without a second thought he walks down to you, throwing some weak and easily transparent excuse over his shoulders to his friends. Rest assured the moment he leaves James will make a comment on how head over heels for you he is. When he arrives, it doesn’t take him long to spot you. You’re sitting alone on the edge of the lake, snow cushioning your jeaned legs from the ground and a despondent look on your face as you watch your friends laugh and scream without you. His poor girl, you look so upset by yourself. He creeps up behind you, sitting down to meet your sniffily little figure.

“Hey darling.” He coos, the oddly romantic pet name rolling off his tongue like many times before. “Siri…” You mutter, flopping your forehead onto his shoulder weakly. Sirius chuckles, scratching your head comfortingly. “Come on, I’m taking you back to my dorm.” You groan, not even moving from your spot, but Sirius doesn’t give in easily. He never does. Instead he merely huffs, effortlessly picking you up regardless of your protests. You always tell him he’s “too much”, constantly flirting or playing with you. “I’m not going to ever get a boyfriend if you keep on doing this!” you always yell. Perhaps that’s his plan, because he’s been desperately in love with you from the day you first met.

As you walk, he ignores the judging stares of others and instead opts to focus on easing your pain.

“How bad does it hurt?”

“Like a seven out of ten.”

“Well that’s no good princess! You didn’t try any spells on it?”

“Lilly did, but I don’t think it helped much”

“I’ve got some tokes in my room, maybe that’ll help.”

“Yay!!”

When the two of you arrive, the boys are sitting in the common room, staring disappointedly at him as he carries you into his room. He knows later he’ll get some lecture by Remus about how he needs to start “putting himself first”, but he doesn’t care one bit when he sees you lying on his bed, silky hair spread out on his linen and eyes fluttering in a daze. What if he was on top of you right now, making you scream his name with that pretty little voice and scrunched up face and-

No. He can’t think about that. It’s wrong.

As promised earlier, Sirius whips out a pack of cigarettes and hands you one, smiling when you giggle in delight. The two of you sit in a blissful silence for a while, both separately enjoying the smoke and depth within both of your lungs. That is, until you break the silence with something Sirius wouldn’t even imagine in his own mind.

“Wouldn’t it be crazy if we dated?” Hah, that would be insane he thinks, respective of his own ideas. Instead Sirius just stays silent, too scared of what could blurt out of his mouth. “Cause Frank mentioned something to me the other day that got me thinking… Why did nothing ever happen between us?” Sirius darts his head up to meet you, puzzled by the question. Truthfully, he has pondered this very idea on many sleepless nights, wondering why you always went for the good, boring guys and never blushed whenever he makes some blatant flirt in your direction. He was hot, other girls tell him that all the time. And you know that you can trust him, you’ve been friends for years. But of course it never happened. Perhaps your just out of his league.

“I-I don’t know. I guess we were just never into each other like that.” He finally manages. You scoff, your half lidded eyes looking at him in jest. “That’s not true. I was crazy for you all of year one two and three.” “Wait, what?” You laugh at his shock, which quickly turns into a grimace as you moved your foot in some awkward way, forgetting it was injured. “Sirius, you could never tell? I used to pray to Merlin that you would like me back, but then you got with Daisy M and I moved on.”

Every moment, every time he cursed himself for feeling how he does and dreaming about you came crashing down on him. How could he be so stupid? In one big puff his cigarette is finished, snuffing it out onto his battered and broken bedside table and placing his head in his hands.

Although it appeared distant in his confused state, he heard your voice clearly rattling his brain as you continue to speak. “I think we could do it. Like, we could be a thing. Your hot, I’m… average and we know each other better than anyone. Plus, it would probably be easiest. Instead of wasting our time trying to find someone else.”  Sirius tries not to break down at your words, revealing it’s all he’s ever wanted. “Just a chance” he would say, “Just one chance to prove I’m worth your time.”

But before he can say any of the millions of thoughts swirling around in his head your fast asleep, the pain from earlier finally catching up with you and the cigarette ash coating his bed to the side of you.

He brushes it off, kisses your forehead and walks out.

“I love you darling.”

[palenutbasement]

(all scenes are depicted as platonic)

So every Inktober I try to do something more challenging, and this year I thought I would make a short comic/fanfic. I think I got the idea for this one a year ago but I was already wrapped up with another Inktober. Eventually I solidified the idea by making my own prompt list some time ago.

This comic is split into three parts with 10 days focusing on each of them, 30 in total, everything is compiled here. I wanted to post them after October in case I wanted to change anything.

This first part takes place in the summit.

The comic is basically all improvised, that means no planning for the composition, plot, or sketching any drawings. The most planning I did was write a few scripts ahead of time within the month to save me some time but most of them would be changed last minute anyways.

As for the plot, I won't go too deep into it because I don't want to talk too much, so you'll just find commentary on the making of the comic and stuff.

This first part is a little gimmick-y compared to the next two, with new elements appearing almost every day. It’s because I relied a lot on the prompts (dog, milk, etc.) to keep things happening, eventually I move further away from them.

What is surprising to me is how much the art changes as the days go by especially within the span of one month. I did refine a few things to keep it more consistent but this is nearly indistinguishable from the original drawings.

I should also mention that my favourite aspect of this project was adding references to the game and subtle details (if you can find it all, awesome!!) This may have been done quickly but I like to have those things and put at least a bit of effort into the dialogue.

Part 2

Eventually I figured that drawing the same setting for 30 days straight would drive me insane, hence why this comic is split like it is. I’m glad I did because it makes the story a little more interesting, seeing the characters have different attitudes in different places and whatnot.

This one takes place in the cave directly after pt 1. Admittedly I do better drawing outdoor settings, it's what I'm used to, but the cave wasn't so bad to figure out.

I remember these two days I was streaming drawing the comic to my friends, so I kinda zoned out while we were talking lol

One of the prompts was about napping, so I made Dwarf sleep. I believe I was tired that day too and it was therapeutic to draw and include that. Also they look cute, I think.

18 & 19 have some of my favourite drawings in the comic. The campfire lighting is what we'd get if I had a bit more energy each day, and I like the perspective in the first panel of 19.

I find this last section interesting, because of all the 30 days, it’s the only one in Dwarf’s POV. I felt like it was fitting to do something like that at the time.

Part 3

Since we were approaching Halloween, I wanted to have a special part for it. It’s related to the other two parts but it takes place some time after. I’m really sorry it’s out of season, if it were up to me I would have had this post out earlier (thank my midterms for the delay)

Out of all the other parts this one is my favourite. Maybe because it’s more recent I’m inclined to think that way but it has some of my fave moments that I've written here.

Other than that I don't have much commentary for this part. More thoughts at the end!

I was caught up everyday atp, but I didn’t have much spare time to prepare for the ending (I wrote it the morning of that day). I think this is a decent conclusion though.

I intend on coming back to this story, maybe next year to make a continuation but we'll see what happens. There are definitely things that I want to come back to someday.

Thank you for making it this far btw. It's been an eventful month for me beyond this (Untitled) comic, but there wasn't a single aspect of this that I didn't enjoy doing. It's a silly project and I care about it.

Also, I'm not going to neglect the 31st of October! That day will get an illustration, where I will pick my favourite panel and redraw it. I want to take my time with this one so it's not out yet, but hopefully I can finish by Christmas.

[6okuto]

vulnerable vere is!! such a concept!! I love the idea of him eventually shedding that front he puts up w the mc but I’m curious as to how…basically, could we get some more vere hcs? 🥺 I absolutely love how you characterize him (and all the touchstarved charas!)

VULNERABLE VERE HCS

gn!reader | (hypnotic/alluring voice) red spring studio drop more lore so i don't look like a loser when all of this is absurdly inaccurate

VULNERABLE VERE!! aahh... with so little information to work with. i will try my best to think of possible scenarios!

starting out with going on a 'mission' with him—'mission' because it might not necessarily be an actual hunt. he could totally just lie to see what you'll do. you're intriguing!

a scene where you have the option to leave him behind, use him, hurt him in some way, and simply not doing so. and he's distrustful and shocked—maybe he had just done something to piss you off earlier—but you tell him you'd never have let that happen. and he might not thank you, but he eases his remarks for the day

^ actually you might get a Little thanks. just a little one. dependent on how far along you've gotten with him

you finding vere after he's gotten injured on a hunt. and he tells you he'll be Fine but it's cute how much you care but sits and lets you examine him anyway. maybe if you weren't looking for any scars or blood you'd notice the way his tail twitched when your fingers almost touched his skin

i don't think finding out vere's history is going to be as easy as a deep conversation.. like i don't think it'll be something he reveals voluntarily in some safe place. unfortunately. though i could still be wrong! which would be soo awesome

but to me. it seems like something that'll be commented on/exposed by other characters, something you'll be witness to when he has to transform, etc etc. and then there's an awkward tension because well, you're not really sure what to do now. you know vere and that's why you're hesitant, but also he kinda fucking hates the hesitancy

because ! great ! you've seen him ! and of course you're fucking scared (even if you aren't), of course you're staring at him silently, trying to start a conversation that no, he does not want to have right now.

but i Am expecting a deep late night talk. come onnn come on!!! there has to be one where he opens up a little bit, maybe he's a little tipsy, or he was and actually, he's quite sober right now, but you don't point that out because you don't want him to stop talking.

and then you open up. and he's silent while you tell him your story, when you tell him you wish you could touch somebody without the fear of turning them into something else. and maybe he thinks about every single innuendo he's thrown around and wonders what you were really thinking. wonders about you're different but also the same

and of course. the highly awaited scene of him finally letting you touch his collar/chains. you don't realize you're holding your breath, and he's sitting oddly still while your hands hesitate. then your hands touch the metal for the first time, and really you're not even sure what you plan to do. you have to be careful not to touch him, after all

and i think he might try to be dismissive of it . what the collar means, what letting you touch it means. your fingers follow the chain down his chest and he says something about how it's "nothing special," about how you're so nervous—does he make you nervous?

one indicator that he's learned to trust you i think could be falling asleep around you... like, not even just going to sleep at the same time with you, but simply letting himself rest while you're nearby. not having to worry about being woken for a job, or you trying to do something terrible, etc. i think that could be very sweet!

vere's tail...not just brushing it, but he flicks it at you knowing you won't retaliate in any harmful way. it's playful and teasing as always, but something he wouldn't do with someone he didn't want his tail near

a time where you can Touch him. perhaps the first time you think it's safe to try and he can tell you're freaking out so he moves into your touch before you can retract your hand

vere who is just like...a little calmer? he teases, but unlike the first meeting where he's dropping innuendos with every sentence, he doesn't really feel the need to do that? like vere's first meeting was definitely building up a character not just for us but for MC themself like...scratches head. anyway. vere in the morning where you've been in a relationship for a while and he's just. he comes up from behind while you're making a drink, and he might run his fingers along your back to send a chill down your spine, but then he's sitting down and holding a regular conversation about your plans for the day. yeah

i really want to know about vulnerable vere because right now . that one blushing sprite when you ask about ais at the end of the demo ... ??? like i Cannot imagine a scenario when else we could elicit that response. it is such a loving flustered gaze it's baffling because not a single story plot point i can think of right now for a character like vere would. ... well! it'll happen! it's a sprite for a reason! waauww...

[reashot]

What do you mean you won't LEWD me?

Thank you all for helping with the reblog of my last fic and I love what some of you made that I'm making this as a sequel to it.

Ruby's House.

Ruby: Jaune, thank you for your help in making breakfast 🍳☕🥓

Jaune: It's the least I can do Ruby for letting me stay the night. And thank you too Ruby for helping me with the cooking.

Ruby: Flatterer. But I don't think that heating up bacon and eggs can be considered cooking.

While Jaune is busy preparing the table for everyone. Ruby silently walks up behind him and lovingly embrace him.

Jaune: Ruby?...

Ruby: I-I want to say that I'm sorry and I admit that I may.... Have gone a little bit overboard last night.

Jaune: I don't think attempted rape can be considered little.

Ruby: That's because you keep rejecting me. What do you have against me Jaune. Do you hate me or something? Because if you do then just say it. Don't string me along. Don't get my hopes up...

Ruby said to him as she cries into Jaune's back and Jaune then respond by slowly turning around and returns her embrace.

Jaune: How could I hate you? You're the greatest girl I know.

Ruby: T-then why?

Jaune: I don't even know myself Ruby. I want to do it with you too, but it just doesn't feel right.

Ruby: What do you mean it's doesn't feel right?

Jaune: I mean we should wait until we're married at least.

Ruby: What?

Jaune: I haven't told you this before but I'm a firm believer of abstinence.

Ruby: Abstinence. What the fuck is that?

Jaune: It means I will not engage in lewding before marriage.

Ruby: Huh!!! What kind of messed up crap is that are you in a cult. Is that it Jaune, you won't bone me because you're in a cult?

Jaune: No! I'm not in a cult. I-I just don't want to ruin what we have by sullying you before marriage.

Ruby: You can sully me if you want! I don't mind and you know I want your baby so you know that I will marry you no matter what.

Jaune: Still Ruby, no means no. But thank you for thinking about marrying me. I know that you can do better.

But before Jaune can finish saying his piece. Ruby's mind starts to wander into a dark place. And in that place she finds her mother...

Ruby's subconscious.

Ruby: Mom! Mom! I need your help!

Summer: Say no more my dear. Please tell me what's wrong?

Ruby: Mom! The boy I like doesn't want to lewd me.

Summer: Oh I'm sorry to say Ruby but I think he's gay. Cause there's no way any straight boy would say no to LEWDing you. Maybe you should find another guy to be your new boyfriend...

Ruby: No. Hell No! I will not pick any other boy but him.

Summer: He must be such a great guy if you think so. But it still doesn't change the fact that he's pitching for the wrong team.

Ruby: B-but here's the thing he wants to do it with me but he wants to wait until marriage.

Summer: Is that boy is in a cult? Please tell me he's in a cult.

Ruby: That's what I said, but no. He said he believes in Abstinence.

Summer: Damn organized religion... Ruby this is why I raised both of you to be godless heathen. Anyway, let me check who this boy you want to pounce on.

Ruby: Isn't he the cutest? 🥰

Summer: Oooh mama likey... Wait a minute; blonde hair, blue eyes and dressed like he's going to a Renaissance fair... He's the Arc Boy!!!

Ruby: Mom, you knew him?

Summer: Knew him. I actually promised his mom to marry him off to you.

Ruby: *gasp* I'm enganged to Jaune?! That's awesome!!! We're meant to be. I gotta tell Jaune about this!

Summer: Wait a moment Ruby. I know how you can make Jaune LEWD you.

Ruby: You do. How?

Summer:

Back to reality

Jaune: ... And another thing Ruby it's not okay for a girl of your age to say "lewd" all the time.

Ruby: *shakes head* oh yes of course keep talking hot stuff me likey when you do it...

Jaune: Ruby I'm being serious here.

Ruby: (I like it when he's trying to be all serious and shit. It just makes him look even cuter.) Oh look Jaune, you have a smudge there on your pants from cooking earlier. Here let me help you out. 😋

Jaune: It's okay Ruby you don't have to... W-wait what are you doing?!

Ruby: Well you have to take off your pants to clean it first right?

Jaune: N-no it's fine Ruby please stop it! I did not consent to this...

Ruby's subconscious

Ruby: Mom! What the F are you doing with my body!!!

I know it's my body but if I'm not the one doing the deed then there's no point.

No! I don't consent to this! What kind of monster would force themselves on others.

I gotta find a way to get out of here. Please someone help. I'm about to get NTR'd by my mom!

Back to reality

Ruby: Shhh.... Just let it happen. *lower pants*

Jaune: No please. I don't want to lose my virginity. There's still an Elder Scroll video I haven't watched yet... *struggling to keep his pants up*

Kitchen's entrance

Tai: What the hell is making all this racket... *gasp*

Mama Arc: Oh my... This early in the morning too. Looks like I'll be getting my grandchildren after all. Right honey?

Papa Arc: Uh yes. I guess... *sips coffee* (I'm way too hungover to be dealing with this.)

Yang: Oh, sis not in the kitchen. At least do it in your room.

Tai: Yang... Get me my shotgun.

Yang: Which one the 20 gauge or the 12 gauge?

Tai: The 12...

Yang: There's not gonna be much left of him if you use this you know? *hands over shotgun*

Tai: That's the idea. *load shotgun*

Mama Arc: Dear please do something. I think Tai is about to kill our Son!

Papa Arc: *sips coffee* (What do you want me to do I just woke up.)

Oh no! Tai is about to blow Jaune's head off. Will Jaune get to keep his head and will Ruby gets back into hers. Find out next time on Drag... I mean in the next post.

Dear viewer you get to choose what happens next.

[blue-slxt]

FWB

*Request: maybe some idea for u : feisty humain!reader having mood swings w her best friend (Loak or Neteyam) because she is in her ovulating week and he teases her until making her tell him why she is acting weird like that today. then he asks her to explain the "symptoms" and she says that she want to fuck more and that she’s more attracted to people during this time and he asks if it’s applied to him too & u already know the end of it🤭🤭 hope u can take something from it, xo 😘*

Okay, so this is my first human!reader fic so go easy on me 😅 I might redo this one in the future with Neteyam because I’m curious about how much different it would turn out if I wrote for him instead. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this one 🤗 All characters are aged up.

🔞Minors Do Not Interact🔞

Smut under the cut.

Pandora was beautiful. Even though you had to admire its beauty through the shield of your mask, it still left you breathless every day. Looking out at the bioluminescent flora and fauna every night through your bedroom window was unlike anything you had ever seen on Earth. You wanted to be out in it every day. But today you were hit with a painful reminder that you were human.

You jumped out of your sleep drenched in sweat. What were you dreaming about? You couldn’t fully remember. The memory came in flashes and blurs. Moans, smacks, and heat is all you’re able to really make out before you lose the visual. You suck in a sharp breath feeling a dull ache in your breasts. You cautiously press on one trying to figure out what was causing the pain. You find nothing and brush it off as a consequence of sleeping on your stomach. When you make your way to your bathroom to get ready for the day, you strip off your sleep clothes and notice a giant wet spot on your panties. That’s weird. And then it hits you. You check your app on your phone and realize what week it is. You’re ovulating. You roll your eyes and make a mental note to plug in your toys before you leave your room.

After a shower and brushing your teeth, you go join everyone for breakfast. While you’re fixing your coffee, a familiar voice enters the lab. Everybody greets Lo’ak as he walks through the cafeteria over to you. “Hey, I found this awesome lake with a cliff that’s perfect for diving. We’ve gotta check it out!” he’s oozing enthusiasm and excitement and it’s adorable. All of a sudden, it feels like there’s a throbbing between your legs.

“Sounds cool, Lo’ak. Maybe another day though.” You say about to walk away, but he blocks your path.

“Are you kidding me? I’ve already been waiting for like 2 days because of training. We’ve gotta go now.” “I’m not in the mood Lo’ak.” Your irritation is growing. You loved Lo’ak. He was your absolute best friend, but he was persistent. And while that could be endearing in certain circumstances, it could also be kind of a nuisance. Right now, you really just needed to get back to your room and take care of your little problem.

“What’s up with you today? I thought you’d be dying to go.” He’s starting to get a little concerned looking at your face. “Your face is getting red.”

You can’t handle the way he’s looking at you right now, “Nothing is ‘up’ with me Lo’ak so will you drop it please?” you push past him and continue down the hall to your room.

Lo’ak follows right behind you though. “I’m not leaving you alone until you tell me what’s wrong.” You roll your eyes as he follows you into your room. “What? Somebody eat the last of your snacks or something?”

You huff out a big sigh and set your coffee on your desk. “If you really must know, I’m ovulating.”

His face screws in confusion. “Okay…What does that mean? Is that a human thing?”

Right. You and Lo’ak are so close that sometimes you forget he is actually an alien. “How do I explain it….it’s like when a na’vi woman goes into heat, but for humans we also can get bloated and moody and crampy and a whole bunch of other stuff. You follow?” you do your best to try and explain to him and his eyes jump around while he’s trying to make the connections in his mind. ”So you’re in a bad mood because you’re in heat?” he does his best to try and make sense of your situation.

“Basically, yeah.”

“So how do you make it better?” he crosses his legs making himself comfortable on your bed like he often did.

“There’s not really a way to make it better. I kind of have to just ride it out. Unless, I got pregnant, but it’s not like that’s gonna be happening anytime soon. But I’m irritated because I’m insanely horny and I can’t really get any relief.”  You brush your hair to the side with your fingers trying to soothe yourself and Lo’ak watches your hair brush over your neck and expose your shoulders.

“Well, what if I helped you out?” he asks casually.

Your body freezes in place. “Lo’ak I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“That’s why you’re not asking, I’m offering. I mean what kind of friend would I be if I knew I could help you out and I did nothing?” Lo’ak had always kind of had a thing for you. You were his closest friend and he found a comforting familiarity in you that he didn’t feel with other na’vi thanks to his slightly more human traits.

You think about his offer for a split second before snapping back to your senses. “How would that even work? I think you forget that you’re like 8 feet tall. You would quite literally split me in half.”

He chuckles knowing that you’re not wrong. “Just lay down and let me handle it.”

You’re skeptical. “What are you going to do?”

“Just lay down. You trust me, right?” You slowly make your way over to your bed next to him. “Yeah…”

“Okay then. So don’t be so uptight.” You lay back and let your eyes scan the ceiling of your room. Your breathing gets faster when you feel Lo’ak hook his fingers in the waist band of your shorts and panties and slide them down your legs. You close your eyes trying not to focus on the fact that your best friend was now staring down your exposed cunt.

This is crossing so many lines, but your mood would only get worse if you were to stop now. Work yourself up just to rip away your chance at real relief? You weren’t in the mood for edging today. There was no turning back now.

Meanwhile Lo’ak is wide-eyed as he stares at your body. He’d never tell you this, but he had imagined you exactly like this countless times. When he’d come to see you and you’d be dressed in barely-there comfy clothes, when you’d bend over to pick something up, when the front of your shirt would fall a little lower than it should and he would catch a peek at your cleavage. The restraint he had to hold on to was legendary. And now here he was licking his lips greedily as he almost gets stuck just staring at your form that squirmed with anticipation and nerves.

He lowers his head between your thighs and carefully swipes his tongue against your throbbing clit. Your whole body jolts from the feeling and a small moan escapes. Lo’ak’s ears flick in your direction and he’s now painfully aware of how hard he is right now. He continues lapping at your soaked entrance closing his eyes to savor the sweet taste on his tongue. He groans against your heat and the vibrations make your hips grind against his face. “Mmf…Fuck…Lo’ak!” your voice comes out in a breathy whine.

One of his fingers teases at your entrance before he slowly slides it inside of you. His finger is huge stretching you deliciously. You look down at his face and he’s already watching you. The eye contact makes you lose it. “Yes! Yes Lo’ak! Right there! Oh, fuck you’re gonna make me cum right there!”

“Shit, so fucking tight. Cum for me.” He says between sucking on your clit. It’s too much. The way his finger curls up to press against the spongey part inside your walls and the sound of him French kissing your cunt sends you over the edge. Your body shakes violently and your walls squeeze around his finger. Your head falls back while you reach your peak and subsequently come down.

Lo’ak reluctantly pulls his mouth off of you and pulls his finger out of you and watches your chest rise and fall rapidly while you regain your composure. He tries to position himself so that he can hide his bulge not wanting to let on just how badly he wanted to fuck you dumb right now.

“Feel better?”

You lazily nod your head at him.

“Good. So can we go diving now?” he tries to lighten the mood before any kind of conversation can follow what just happens. You’re not really ready to talk about it yet either.

“Alright, let’s go.”

He jumps up in excitement and you get dressed and find your mask.

“Thanks, Lo’ak.” Even if you weren’t really ready to talk about it yet, you still felt like you should at least thank him.

“Trust me, it was my pleasure.” He shoots you a playful wink before walking off.

[havocskies]

same anon who sent the thigh-riding ask LMAO. i meant to say this earlier but i love the way you write hobie omg, i also haate when people think he’s super into hookups and porn and blah blah blah. one thing specifically i’ve seen people write about is him hooking up with a FAN of his music which is… a little strange imo? the power imbalance?? hello???? ew bruh

he’s definitely on the asexual spectrum to me. my senses are tingling. at the very least, i feel like he’d be annoyed with the sexualization he gets as a hero/musician and would much prefer a Genuine romantic/platonic relationship, then maybe move on to sex as he grows Very Very close with someone ! i have lots of thoughts abt this guy i hope you dont mind me goin crazy in your askbox 😭 ur awesome

HIIII ILYSM ur ask had me feeling some things ANYWAY i wholeheartedly agree like i don’t think he’d see sex as something to jst throw around ?? he’d definitely see it as meaningful and i can’t see him jst hooking up often. maybe on occasion but i don’t think he’d care for it as much as w a partner ykwim

plus ur so right w the other things i don’t think he’d enjoy being overly sexualized especially since in his intro he makes it clear most of his shows are protests ?? like it’d take away the meaning of what he’s doing and it’d piss him off LMAO

i’m sure he wouldn’t be against dating a fan but i can’t see him making it a huge power imbalance like a lot of fics do, his entire thing is being equal to everyone like he wouldn’t have a power imbalance w anyone ever 😭😭 i dont even think it’d cross his mind he probably jst doesn’t compare himself to people THAT much (everyone does to some extent though no matter what)

i dont like people making hobie out to be an asshole jst bc they think it’s hot like he is not some sex icon he’s one of the only morally correct and accurate punk character we have on popular media like guys PUHLEASE.

[l0stfoster]

butterfly anon yet again, bc why have I just finally processed something…to speak in memes once more, imagine the megamind ‘no bitches’ meme but instead its ‘more death designs?!’

the potential…..symbolism…..

(I’m such a nerd this is ridiculous how excited I am for metaphor potential)

aNyway, in the death design post I noticed Johnny refers to Death as she, so (as you’ve said death is they / them) was this just retconning/change of mind, or did Johnny not know/perceived death more feminine? (Coughmotherissuescough)

also, even though that post said Johnny’s perception changes, would his be the most accurate? (As Death can mess w/ his death tingle (take that Peter tingle) does that potentially mean Johnny sees Death how they desire to be perceived?

WOAH WAIT HOLD THE DING DANG PHONE

DOTS HAVE BEEN CONNECTED

wait I can’t find the post I might have made this up, dots unconnected thrown in incinerator

Moving on to similar dots, Paul’s ancestor, curse creator, would they not have met death? Wait wait would there have been a discussion? Cause like Death big powerful and this witch just made big curse? Is this in relation to why Death is featureless for Paul?????

(Paul anon if you have thoughts pls join in theorizing, Paul is your blorbo you probably know more)

I love watching you realize things it's so awesome I noticed that Johnny refers to Death as she, so (as you’ve said, death is they/them) was this just retconning/change of mind, or did Johnny not know/perceive death as more feminine? (Coughmotherissuescough)

- Although I personally use they/them when referring to Death, I do feel that they can be referred to with, quite literally anything! It's a matter of a person's own perception, and I also felt like it was better to use a proper set of pronouns for Death rather than calling them it, which takes some of the human nature out of them. I also didn't want to use she/her or he/him at the time because that might make people automatically gender Death as male or female. They're beyond gender, that's a whole-ass borderline god. - Death uses any/all pronouns, call them whatever you'd like! I do they/them for writing's sake; since switching up actively might confuse people. - Johnny usually uses she/her for Death, it's mostly the mother issues. In this AU his mother's the one who 'killed' him, hence his meeting Death.

Also, even though that post said Johnny’s perception changes, would his be the most accurate? Does that potentially mean Johnny sees Death how they desire to be perceived?

- You could argue that Johnny holds the most accurate perception of Death, yes, as the first time they appeared to him was the form they specifically chose to appear to him in. (Novva made a comic for it, but Death appeared very motherly to him) - His perception of Death usually abides by that, but sometimes they're more masculine, or sometimes they don't have identifiable features. Sometimes they're just a void of darkness; something that can surround him and provide a sense of security when he really needs it. He sees Death in his dreams on occasion, so there are multiple instances where she'll change.

Moving on to similar dots, Paul’s ancestor, the curse creator, would they not have met death? Wait wait would there have been a discussion? Cause like Death, big powerful, and this witch just made big curse? Is this in relation to why Death is featureless for Paul?????

- You're pretty close!! The Witch did meet Death once, yes; likely at the end of their life. Usually, you only meet Death when you're in limbo, but I think they can choose to change that. There wasn't much discussion; Death absolutely thought the curse was overkill (we discussed the idea that maybe the witches' partner was killed and the curse was set as a kind of revenge, but it's not canon right now) and unnecessarily made things so much more difficult,, but then Death claimed Johnny, and suddenly they knew the lengths a person would go for those they love. - Death is featureless for Paul because he's never truly thought of them as anything; save for the obvious association of butterflies with her. Once he starts to associate Death with Johnny, Death would likey to change to hold some of his features as well; similar to the way that Dally views Death.

[lovelynim]

YES YES YESSSSS hi my love i’m so proud of you congrats on 400 hehe

may i please request dan heng and caelus and discovery tickles (i want you to pick the lee bc i love your brain) ?? you’re awesome i can’t wait to see how this event turns out it’s so fun

THANK YOU SO MUCH

Both for the message and for this request huehuehue

I got a little carried away and I haven't played a f*cking second of HSR but im in love with them so i hope they don't sound too ooc

Dan Heng looked over his shoulder when the sound of the door opening reached his ears. Narrowing his eyes, the archivist tried to recognize the figure by its silhouette before saying something.

“Dan Heng, are you here?” Caelus said, walking inside the room and letting the door close behind him. With the sound of steps coming from behind a shelf, Dan Heng showed up, wearing a rather calm look on his voice.

“Yes, I’m here,” he said, looking at the trailblazer. “Do you need anything?”

Caelus shook his head, scratching the back of his head as he tried to come up with a proper answer. “I… just wanted to check on you. I haven’t seen you all day, so I got a little worried,” he admitted, hoping his ‘futile’ reason wouldn't annoy the archivist. “I hope I’m not bothering you or anyth-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dan Heng interrupted and, despite his usual cold facade, Caelus could tell he was being kind of friendly. “I wasn’t working on anything important.”

The answer gave Caelus a mixed feeling, making the man raise an eyebrow in curiosity. As much as it soothed his previous worries, it opened room for a new question. “Wait, what were you doing back there, then?”

As the silence started covering up all the noises in the room, Caelus’s curiosity only grew larger. “I mean, I could barely see you from the entrance, it was almost as if you were hiding,” he joked, letting out a nervous chuckle as he hoped to at least ease the tension between them.

Dan Heng sighed, his intuition telling him that running from the topic would only lead to further questioning and, even worse, ruin his whole “plan”. 

“Truth to be told, that was what I was doing,” the archivist replied, trying to make it sound as normal as possible.

“Ah, I see- huh?! You were?!” It took him a few seconds to realize, not expecting his suspicions to be confirmed like that. “Why? Hiding from what?”

Dan Heng pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out an audible groan. It was such an absurd situation, such an embarrassing position to be in. But, looking on the bright side, maybe talking it out with Caelus would help.

“From March,” the archivist sighed, crossing his arms as he looked away, avoiding eye contact out of shyness, “she is probably… hunting me down right now.”

“W-what? From March? What happened?”

Was he really doing it? He guessed so, “we were hanging together earlier today and, for some reason, she started complaining about ‘how cold I am sometimes’ or something along these lines…”

“Uh-huh…” Caelus nodded, trying to follow Dan Heng’s line of thought.

“So, at first I didn’t care because it should be just another one of her ramblings, but she felt like I was ignoring her and started poking me.”

Caelus widened his eyes. From that sentence, he could guess where this was going and why Dan Heng seemed so annoyed. Taking some slow and quiet steps towards the archivist, the trailblazer nodded, humming in agreement.

“And- ahm, well, it felt… a little- ugh, a little ticklish,” he continued the story, not noticing how Caelus was slowly approaching him, to disturbed by the idea of voicing something like that, “a-anyway, I think this flipped some switch inside her; She started saying things, I guess to try tease me, and making a fuss over the idea of me being ticklish.”

“So… that’s why you decided to hide here? To avoid March tickling you?”

“Yes- Well, no, I mean, it’s not like that. It’s just that I’m not in the mood to fool around with her and I have work to do-”

“But are you?”

Dan Heng quickly turned his face towards Caelus as those words landed on his ears. The boy was merely inches away from him at that point, making the same face as March did when she made her little discovery.

[proxythe]

can i get your top glee headcanons??

or any glee stuff you just CANNOT stop thinking about

infodump pls king

i yapped so bad omg i’m serious … anyways here you go!!

i don’t have many specific hcs just kind of general stuff but let me get into this…

- bpd quinn fabray and bpd blaine anderson will always be famous to me

- bisexual finn & sam just real as hell… dare i even add bi4bi hudevans…?

- finntana bffs is literally my favorite thing of all time i fear </3 technically not completely hc since they’re actually friends but in my head they r Best Friends… its a need

- fuinn endgame 🙌 yall gotta stay w me on this ship fr hold on wait-!!!

- also technically canon friends but needed more quinncedes bffism ?? i still picture theyre very close. theyre occasionally lovers in my head as well

- i imagine college finn when i draw him but i love teacher finn bc i would die without the unique & finn dynamic in my head. hes her number 2 fan (kurt and mercedes are number 1). she is his favorite student TO ME!!!

- finn actually being protective and a good brother and friend is technically somewhat of an hc to me. they love acting like he’s an awesome friend but i always feel like it was never properly shown (aside from a few times, to my memory). needed him to whoop some ass protecting kurt at least once i fear!

- artana bffs… artie my beloved lowkey! i know him and santanas convos & texts are Crazy as hell… they love to talk shit it’s true it’s true…

- tina staying emo style wise is huge for me… i loved it so much on her… let her queen out idk.

- same w rachel lowk. her early season looks and outfits were soo cute, i always picture a similar style on her even when she’s older 😭 (honestly a lot of the characters s4-on i thought had kinda basic outfits ?? maybe it’s just me but idk. felt like they had more individual&unique styles in s1-3)

- honestly i mostly have so many friendship thoughts with no further elaboration. blaine/finn, britt/rachel, more mike/finn, more kurt/quinn, artie/mercedes, quinn/blaine ?!?!? def more but my mind is blanking…

- anything furt related i inject directly into my head and heart … siblings hit me in my chest like a bullet every time

- a more unserious one but kurt and quinn are literally sues gay son and thot daughter. her favorites i know this to be true

as for stuff i just can’t stop thinking about… oh you already know the first thing i’ll be bringing up…

- “can i show you something?… it’s my girlfriend. i used to have another photo but i like this one better” “why? she looks terrible” “cuz i think it’s the first one where you can really see her” TURN IT UP!!!😭😭😭

- “you’re the most beautiful girl i’ve ever seen in my life” …yall could never make me hate fuinn im sorry like look at the material

- finntana hugs, fuinn s4 hug specifically, furt hugs … its simple… finn hug = cinema

- quinn wanting mercedes there when she delivered her baby. this was serious for me

- “you’re gonna dance it with me dude” + him singing to kurt will forever live in my heart. mhm mhm lemme not forget my furt

- marley jake & unique. just pure bffism. theyre unique defenders 4L & i think thats beautiful as fuck

- “sam just tweeted that i smell good” “i wont stop til its trending” SAMCEDES!!! 😭😭😭

- sam’s “bring it” & finn’s “brung”

- samcedes, fuinn, brittana, klaine … my ultimate beloveds really. + jarley :-)

- and, lastly: “there’s only one person in this world who can tell you what you are” “me” “no, me. sue sylvester.”

[agirlwithbigdreamsforher]

LATE NIGHT CONVERSATIONS

THE NANNY: ONE SHOT

LATE NIGHT CONVERSATIONS

Pairing: Andy Barber x Annie Johnson (OFC)

Summary: Andy enjoys talking to their baby.

Warnings: None, this is something I just wanted to write.

A/N: none.

Word count: 706

Disclaimer: I do not give permission for any of my works to be copied, used, translated nor reposted anywhere else but here on this blog. Do not steal what you didn’t work for. Minors and ageless blank blogs don’t interact with me or my works. Reblogs and likes are always welcome. Thank you for reading this work of fiction.

GIFS not mine, you can find the credits in each gif :)

                                  ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Andy has been coming home late for the past two weeks, and even when he came home early he kept working in his office. This, was one of those days. It was nearly 1 a.m. when he closed his laptop and headed to the bedroom. He stretched his arms as he walked to the closet and changed his working clothes for something more comfortable. When he came out, he saw Annie peacefully sleeping on her side, her small hand on top of her now 7-month pregnancy belly. She began to “protect” her belly ever since she found out she was pregnant, something he found endearing.

He kneeled by the foot of the bed and climbed on it until his face was at the same level of her belly, he took her hand out of the way and put his own on it.

“Hi, there?” He whispered to the belly, “It’s me, I’m daddy.” Andy felt a small kick, “There you are.” He giggled, “How you been? Good?” Another kick, “I bet is very cozy in there.”

He began to draw circles on Annie’s belly. “So, I’m sorry I’m late. I was working. I’m a lawyer you know, when you are older I’ll explain what that is.” He saw a bit of movement in the belly, “I woke you up, didn’t I? I’m sorry, I just wanted to talk to you for a bit, hope that’s ok?” He felt another kick, this time it was harder. “Awesome, I don’t know if your mommy talks ‘bout me, I hope she does and I hope is all good things.” He thought for a moment it was silly for him to be talking with his unborn child, but that thought flew out of the window when the baby moved again.

“You are listening, well, I like this. So, you have a brother, Jacob, we call him Jake. He is so excited to meet you. I am too, and I’m positive your mom is too. She’s been waiting for you for quite some time now. She loves you very much, you know. Like you made her have all this cravings of things she doesn’t even like and she eats them from you! She caresses her belly before she goes to bed, she plays music for you. I know you are all comfy in there, but don’t get used to it, we will have a better place for you here. We are ready for you.” Andy paused for a minute, “Hey, I was wondering what you are. You haven’t let us see if you are a boy or girl.” The baby kicked once more, “Oh, I know, kick me once if you are a boy and twice if you are a girl.” He kept staring at Annie’s belly to see any movement, but nothing happened, “Come on,” Andy poked the belly, “Just gimme a hint.” Nothing, “Fine, I love you no matter what you are, just so you know. I’ll let you sleep now; I’m tired anyways. We can talk tomorrow, ok?”

Andy placed a kiss on Annie’s belly and moved up on the bed and to his side, he let his head fell on the pillow when he heard a sniff on her side.

“Honey?”

“You always said pretty things.” She sniffed once more.

“Ow, honey, I thought you were sleeping. Didn’t mean to make you cry.” Andy hugged her close.

“Have you done that before? Talking to our baby.”

“Ammm maybe a couple of times. I just felt like doing it. I can always stop.”

“No, I think you should keep doing it.”

“Really? Why?”

“The baby likes your voice, I know it. Every time you come back home and said “Honey, I’m home.” They move and kick.”

“Well, I didn’t know that. How about if tomorrow I read the baby a story, do you think that’ll be ok?”

“That’ll be perfect.” Annie gave her a kiss on the lips and snuggled against his chest. “We’ll see if we get them to tell us if it is a girl or a boy.”

Andy laughed and kissed her head, “We’ll see. Good night, honey.” Andy placed his hand on her belly, he felt a couple of soft kicks, “Good night, baby.”

[pakunodasgun]

❤️ Small things that matter part 2

“Hey Sanji, uhm I wanna sketch a little but it’s kind of too noisy outside, is it ok if a sit here?” Asked the curly haired to the Straw Hats cook “Yeah, I don’t see a problem with it as long as you don’t interrupt me” Usopp smiled “Ok then! Thanks a lot! Promise I won’t distract you!”

And so the sniper took his stuff and sat on the dinning table to start his sketches, he passed through some pages and noticed his last drawing a sketch of Nami taking care of her tangerines, doing something she cared a lot about ‘Maybe… since Sanji is here, I could do a little sketch of him while he is cooking’ Usopp thought ‘Though I’m not sure how comfortable he is with that…’Usopp hesitated to start his drawing of the cook ‘Well… it’s not like he’ll see it…’ he ended up doing it anyway, he couldn’t resist it, it was the perfect opportunity, and now that he had the idea he couldn’t get it out of his head, so he started sketching.

Sanji was moving around, but Usopp was good at capturing live moments like he did with Nami, he started drawing the kitchen, he took a peek to make sure the cook didn’t notice him drawing him, he was apparently making some drinks, then he took another look and another and then another, but making sure the blonde wouldn’t notice him, but he wasn’t as slick as he thought he was.

The cook came close to him “What are you drawing?” He asked with a cigarette on his mouth “U-U-Uh nothing!!!!” He said as he hide his sketchbook “Nothing? Hmm, but I did hear your pen, I also noticed you looking my way” ‘Shit!’ Was all the sniper could think “Several times” ‘Shit!’ He thought again.

“Hmm, well, maybe you don’t want me to see what you are drawing, is that it?” The tall man asked “I-“ The cook looked at him as he tried to come up with a lie, at the end he couldn’t so he just said the truth “Y-yeah… you are right, I don’t want you t-to uhm see what I’m drawing…” He said shyly “And why may that be?” The cook asked calmly “Well… Im a little ashamed of it… I really didn’t want you to find out…”

The blonde one took a smoke out of his cigarette as he thought about what Usopp said “Could it be… that you where drawing me?” Usopp’s heart skipped a beat, he was able to read him so easily, the sniper took a big breath before answering in shame “Y-yes” was all that he could reply, he looked down, he couldn’t look at him in the eyes, but to Usopp’s surprise the cook smirked “May I see it?” He asked and Usopp’s heart skipped a beat again “Y-you mean you aren’t mad at me?!” The dark eyed asked “Why would I be?” Answered the blonde “W-well I was drawing you without… without your permission…” He answered shyly “Well I don’t mind” Usopp looked up “For real?” The curly haired asked, the blonde hummed in affirmations “I’m actually honored” He said, and Usopp still couldn’t believe it “Really?!” He said with sparks on his eyes “Yeah, I’m dying to see it, so… are you ok with showing it to me?” Sanji asked calmly “Well… If you want to see it so badly, I can’t deny it from you, specially since I didn’t ask for your permission to do it” Sanji laughed “Well show it to me then!” Usopp nodded.

His sketch wasn’t finished but the basics where there, it just needed a little more detail that he wasn’t able to add because Sanji came to him, he flipped the pages until he got to it “Sooo… here it is! It’s not a big deal! It’s not even finished! It’s just a little sketch” Sanji smiled “Well… I think it’s amazing” Usopp’s heart start beating so fast “R-really?” “Sure thing! I really like it, it feels…” He paused, he seemed to be looking for the right words “Delicate, like a lot of care was put into it, I feel like it captures my essence while I cook, even if to you is just a “simple sketch”, I think you did great, I- I like it a lot” Usopp couldn’t help but blush, he isn’t used to compliments AT ALL, and them coming from Sanji…

“OH! Well pst it was nothing! To the great captain Usopp this things are easy! Besides being an awesome captain and sniper, I am a incredible artist!” He said with pride “Well, the “Great Captain Usopp” was just sweating buckets about this drawing just seconds ago” Usopp raised his finger as if he was going to say something, but he took it down and admitted defeat as he sighed “Heh you got me there” He replied, Sanji smirked.

“Well great captain Usopp, I would love it for you to finish it and maybe let me keep it? After all you did draw me without my permission, is only fair I keep it” Usopp couldn’t argue with that “Oh well, yeah, you can keep it- Wait! Oh I ended up distracting you from cooking! Shooo shooo go back to cooking! And that way I can keep drawing you too!” Sanji laughed “Hey don’t think you can boss me around! Though you are right I should get back to making this drinks” He said as he headed back to the kitchen “As you said they are being pretty loud out there, they might get tired and I’ll have some drinks ready for them” Usopp smiled “Is there one for me?” Sanji’s back was turned on Usopp “Of course there is” He replied and Usopp smiled again, not knowing that Sanji was smiling too as he said it.

The Straw Hats cook went back to work and Usopp to sketching now drawing freely without any fears, this drawing wasn’t for him anymore, it was for Sanji, he was going to work hard on it, at the end the drinks where finished and so was the drawing, Sanji handed Usopp one, before going outside and handing them out for the rest of the crew, Usopp thanked him, when Sanji came back Usopp handed him the drawing and the man praised it with joy, Usopp blushed at the compliments “Next time draw a portrait of me, you can keep that one, but only if you capture my charm” Sanji said and Usopp laughed “I sure will” He answered.

Now only Sanji knows where that sketch Usopp did of him is, but I’m sure it’s somewhere special.

Link to part 1

[violet-yimlat]

A bit about me! I meant to do this for a while but Procrastination!

Hi I’m Violent I mean Violent I mean Violent I mean Violet I mean Violent I mean Violet Morningstar (but more on that later). I’m 16 and my birthday is in October. I have ADHD and Autism. I’m Asexual. My Myers-Briggs type is INTP and my Eneagram is four. I’m a Libra, but that means literally nothing.

I’m female, I use She and It pronouns, and I identify as a demon. I use the demonkin and fallen angelkin labels.

And now it’s later. I have quite an odd family life because, like several others here on Tumblr I have been adopted by @morningbloodystar because that just seems to be what he does.

So that’s my dad. Which makes @chloe-decker-lapd my sort of mom.

My irl mom is also on Tumblr. I won’t @ her, but in the event of an actual emergency, she’s cakeomatic.

My siblings, the best and only internet siblings (and exclusively online friends) I’ve ever had in order of age are;

@ask-eric-the-disposable-demon Eric Morningstar. I’m pretty sure that he’s closest in age to our dad (like, how big are the age gaps between angels anyway?) but whatever, he’s our brother. He can turn into a rabbit and multiply like them too (when did you guys get the “multiplying like rabbits” joke in Zootropolis?)

@e-w-w-morningstar Eddie W.W Morningstar, who is sometimes a termite and crawled out of the ground in the 18 something-somethings. He has several children including @jessica-woodson-morningstar , my favourite niece.

@janeway-lover Abby Morningstar. She’s “the sensible one”, and apparently she’s cool with that. Big sister energy. One of these days, she’s going to end up saving all of our asses. @urielwiththegoodhair’s partner. SIMPS.

@helphowdoiusethis Jay Morningstar. God of glitter, Quing of ducklings (almost wrote dicklings lol) and somehow an ancient entity of stardust with a traumatic backstory while also being about a year older than me.

Me. I accidentally turned into a demon. And now a cursed book called “Evil Wizardry for Beginners” won’t leave me alone. My familiar is @barrythebabyturnip.

@echosghoast Echo Morningstar. Chaos sibling supreme. The younger sibling I never had, and much less annoying than the one I actually do. Can’t wait to commit a crime with you lol.

@hivemindofevilbats Hive. Literally vampire bats.

@adam-n-dog Adam Young. Nearly caused the apocalypse that one time. Great at naming dogs. He has a dog named Dog. Good boy! Good hellhound!

Last but certainly not least, @three-surnames Trixie Espinosa Decker Morningstar. Awesome little sister? Yes. In complete denial about the nature of reality? Also yes.

Also more siblings?

@angel-and-the-serpent @fallen-starmaker @vans-ghost

Then there are my other relatives.

@the-almighty-lucifer Dad from another reality who’s decided that he’s our uncle.

@one-coming-is-enough The aforementioned Uncle J.

@god-in-the-basement said she’d be our weird aunt but I guess she’s our great aunt?

@g00brielandbeez my uncle and how do we feel about Titi? In Spanish tia and tio are aunt and uncle so that’s the combination and it works.

I’m going to list some fandoms I’m in now;

Good Omens

Discworld

Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel

Lucifer

Heaven’s Design Team

Certain literature like Paradise Lost, Dante’s Inferno and Lucifer (as in the 17th century Dutch play)

Obey Me!

Yes, I’m into theology. And mythology. I’m an atheistic Satanist btw.

I like reading, listening to music and drawing, but I haven’t felt very inspired lately. I also like identity theft cosplay.

Well, those are the facts about me, and if none of them make you hate me, then maybe we should hang out sometime!

Always up for shenanigans.

[apparitionism]

Tabled

Hi @barbarawar , and happy Gift Exchange to you! Here’s what you said to anonymous-me: “Okay, so we know up until Instinct HG wasn’t in contact with Myka, but after it seems maybe they were from Myka’s reference to HG’s girlfriend in the finale for example. Did they ever get that coffee? Do they talk regularly? If you could do something with that that’d be awesome!”

First, I should say that from Instinct onward, the show seemed committed to forcing its characters into shapes that fit (or “fit”) an apparently predetermined, clichéd outcome, and I share the resentment that many feel about how awful that was. However! For the purposes of your gift, it’s that sense of “fit,” in quotes, that I’ve set out to push at in this piece. When people (well, characters) are forced—or feel themselves forced—to “fit” into particular narratives, what damage is done? How much of that damage is irreparable? And what does it mean for damage to be irreparable, anyway? This story offers some maybe-answers.

(P.S. This is going to be two parts, both because I’m incapable of being succinct and because I would like to get it right. Right-ish. Second part will appear in due time, with apologies for making you wait.) (P.P.S. The book referenced herein is real, which I hope comes as no surprise.) (P.P.P.S. Much gratitude, as always, to @kla1991 for the @b-and-w-holiday-gift-exchange management!)

Tabled

Myka sits at tables and tells lies.

She wouldn’t have imagined she’d take up these conjoined activities—an irrational hobby if ever there was one—but: here she is.

At times, this joint doing is an obstacle course, but today it’s simple. Artie, stationed across from her, asks, “Are you making unauthorized use of an artifact?”

He’s asking everybody, one on one; Claudia had been the first interrogatee, and she’d told Myka to brace herself, with a groan of “Why does he have to turn into Torquemartie like this? ‘Oh, the ping’s coming from inside the Warehouse!’ Dude. Artifacts get weird. They make pingy noises. Doesn’t mean we’re running around punching our downside cards.”

In the past, Myka wouldn’t have needed the heads-up, for she would have been innocent and indignant. And in fact she doesn’t need it now, for now she’s a practiced liar, so: “No,” she says (innocent), and “of course not,” she adds (indignant).

“If you run across anything that... strikes you,” Artie says.

“I’ll tell you.” Also a lie. Things that strike her, she keeps to herself.

Unlike her table-set lying, that’s not new.

“I think I might be a writer,” she’d said to her father, before she was old enough to have learned better. Eight. She’d been eight, and in school she’d written a story about a girl who tamed a lion. Her teacher had asked her to read it aloud to the class.

“You know nothing about that,” he’d snapped back, and the sting of it taught her: if you love something, if it sets you on fire, that’s wrong. Kill it.

And if you can’t? Then hide it.

Myka, having discovered after much effort that she had no talent for killing her love for anything, had become adept at hiding it, particularly from her family: she’d hidden her love of writing, after that first young cut; later, she’d hidden her affinity for law enforcement, every scrap of satisfaction she took in the accolades she received for valor, dedication, marksmanship, all of it; she’d even hidden the perverse pride she took in her adept ability to hide.

She hid everything, from her family and then from everyone, and she was adept at the hiding. That didn’t keep her clandestine investments from going south—witness Sam—but she was adept.

Until Helena.

Helena short-circuited Myka’s hiding mechanism. So much fire, so uncontainable, and it all spilled out, so loud, so open. So... unhidden.

So Myka has reasserted her old ability, augmented as it has had to be, here where she dwells in so many layered aftermaths. She’s hiding—which, fine, maybe that’s passive lying, but at least it’s a sin of omission. And she’s uttering (but not only uttering) untruths: this new, committed sin.

If she were paid by the lie, she could retire. Oh, and if she retired now, how about this: evil, crazy, dead; she’s got the trifecta too. Evil because she tells lies, which is no good in any cosmos; crazy because that’s what those lies render her in her head; and dead... well.

She could lie to herself and chalk that, too, up to those table-lies, but what would be the point? She wouldn’t believe herself. She remembers too much about what being alive felt like. She can’t fail to understand the contrast now.

****

“Just coffee next time,” Helena had said, and while Myka had counterproposed “save the world,” she hadn’t explicitly turned down the coffee proffer, and that had resulted, via a weird press of obligation in her head that hurt like hope, in her having to accept it when it was in fact proposed.

When Helena had contacted her—by text, and the Helena of before (before, oh, before) would never have begun “R u available,” so the texter seemed from the start a stranger—Myka had thought, Sure, I can do this, only to think, T–minus five minutes, I can’t do this.

Because she’d compartmentalized, until that zero-nigh moment, the implications of what had brought Helena near: a forensics conference in Nebraska, which had to mean Helena was still working that... Myka tried to say “job” in her head. Instead it came out “con.”

Thinking that word, doing the work of thinking it further into a sneer, helped paper over at least enough of her panic to allow her to walk into the designated coffee shop, a walk she tried to take with no expectations or intentions. I will see Helena. That was all. I will see Helena.

And see her Myka did, her face in profile against a window that offered, in stark contrast, a plain gray Nebraska sky. Its neutrality set Helena’s beauty in high relief. She was striking enough, as always, to instantly take a heart and break it, and yet to Myka’s gaze, this first sight after a length of time, she struck uncanny, like a painting of herself. Or not even that: instead some inartistic facsimile, an AI-generated irreality unworthy of her name.

Even so... even so, Myka could have regarded Helena forever—show me her, any version, and I will hungrily look—but looking, now, seemed an endpoint, not at enticement. Before (before, oh, before), Helena had been a magnet, aligning Myka’s entire compass of being to her true-north pull.

Now, with Helena dead metal, Myka had no way to orient herself.

She stood in the coffee shop’s entryway, trying to decide, and I can’t do this echoed in her head. Doing this, making it real, would put this fake-Helena in place of the ideal-Helena to whom Myka still, even after the Boone-crash, clung. I shouldn’t do this.

Her body gathered itself to leave, so as to not do this, but Helena—as if she sensed both Myka’s presence and her ambivalence—moved her even-now-so-beautiful head, turned to catch Myka’s gaze, and there was no escape.

So Myka sat at a table across from Helena. Having coffee. What wouldn’t she have given for this chance, this quiet chance, at so many hinge points of their history?

“Are you well?” Helena asked. Her voice was as uncanny as her face, emanating from an elsewhere that admitted none of that history.

There Myka sat, at a table across from Helena, hating the chance, hating that she now hated the chance. And from the depth of that hate, she told a lie: “Yes,” she said. She did not know—could not have known—that it was the first of many.

She had tried to logic herself out of culpability, there in that first lying moment, away from what exams and scans seemed to be revealing. What does “well” really mean, anyway? She’d driven a car to get here, and she hadn’t committed any moving violations while doing so; she was drinking coffee (terrible coffee that tasted of slag) without spilling it on herself; words emerged from her mouth in a language she spoke with reasonable fluency. She was functioning, and any reasonable person might consider the ability to function a measure of wellness, so, “Yes, I’m well,” she reiterated. Re-lied.

As their conversation, if that was the word for it, continued, Myka’s first impressions were borne out: Helena’s aspect was wrong, as in the lab in Boone, when she and Pete had witnessed her strange matter-of-fact performance of something that didn’t quite rise to the level of amnesia: rather than lacking her memory, as in the first Emily Lake disaster, in that lab she’d had no depth. H.G. Wells with no depth! The first of so many Boone sacrileges...

And there in Nebraska, the sacrileges had continued. “Home” was a word Helena used, over and over, and Myka experienced each utterance as an accusatory taunt, as if Helena were saying, with emphasis: You told me to do this, so I did.

Had Helena made the accusation aloud, it would of course have been no lie. Myka had said the words; the responsibility was hers. She deserved this punishment. Because that, some snake agreed in a whisper, was when your lies truly began.

Once their conversation (that was not the word for it) had petered out—leaving Myka mourning their ability to talk for hours before (before, oh, before)—the goodbye was awkward: in its too-formal words, for they clanged against the intimacies of the past, but also in its estranging absence of physicality. The latter was Myka’s doing, as she made sure to keep the table between their bodies. She’d made the mistake of touching Helena in Boone, there at that bitter end. She was certainly not going to do that again. Those burns on her body had not healed.

Driving back to the Warehouse, she tried initially to keep her composure, but it was no use; she gave up and yelled at the Helena in her head: Why couldn’t you be yourself! Make sense! Break through! (She aggressively refused to understand that she was yelling just as loudly at whatever lying version of “Myka Bering” she’d been performing, there during “coffee.”) She told herself the car-yelling was perfectly normal, or at least—in keeping with her justificatory theme—perfectly functional: she was getting Helena out of her system, so she could fit herself back into her nothing-is-the-matter Warehouse suit.

As if she were ever going to get Helena out of her system.

“How was your... coffee?” Steve had asked her, back at the B&B.

Myka hadn’t confided in him, not fully, but he had a tendency to ask discerning questions, and she had a corresponding tendency to answer. Sometimes, it was a relief.

This time it was not. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she had said.

He whistled, a muted but sharp little inhale. “Ain’t that the truth,” was his verdict.

Myka laughed. It hurt.

****

Artie’s concern about unauthorized artifact use is surprising to Myka only in that he took as long as he did to realize it was occurring: for personal enlightenment (if not gain, but really, what was “gain”?) Myka has twice consulted a book. Its title is The Fortune-Teller; or, Peeps into Futurity, and its publication date is 1861, but neither that title nor that date is its salient feature. No, its salience lies in the artifactual ability of one part of it—known as “The Ladies’ Oracle”—to predict the future.

These consultations had begun as a result of that initial “coffee,” which had rendered Myka bereft, even more so than Boone had (as if her bereavements were rankable). In its wake she’d needed something, anything, to grasp and hold. She knew she couldn’t find comfort in the past, that treacherous country, and the present was merely something through which she was struggling to swim. That left the future.

So she had researched, furtive but diligent, until she found her little candidate.

You’re doing this because turning back time didn’t do what you wanted it to, did it, some truth-insistent fold of her cerebral cortex had jeered when she’d first considered using the book. You’re praying this direction will be different.

The accusation was fair. Reasonable. Thus, standing before the book, considering its perils, its unknown downside, she’d tried to resist: Don’t, she told herself. She’s alive and in the world. That has to be enough.

But it isn’t, said the lizard at the bottom of her brain.

It sounded like Steve.

The book’s divination process was elaborate and, in its way, entertaining, entertainment being what the book was initially intended to provide: Myka read that she was first to choose a numbered question from the list of sixty in the book, then close her eyes and touch a pencil to a chart on the following page. From that chart, her blindly directed point of lead would select a symbol, one of twelve, each comprising small circles in a distinct mantic-pebble pattern. Her next series of tasks: look up the page associated with her question’s number that corresponded to that symbol, turn to that page, and discover her pebble-pattern-designated answer.

At first she thought to be clever, to game the outcome, working backward from desired answer to symbol to question, so as to contrive a prediction that would yield some light. The book resented this idea enormously. In the wake of her considered (not even attempted!) subversion, it refused to open to “The Ladies’ Oracle,” instead offering her pages related first to the reading of cards, then to the interpretation of dreams. She knew from her research that these pages had no artifactual significance. These seem more suited for a charlatan such as yourself, the book was conveying, with what Myka took to be great disdain. You don’t deserve the access I afford.

“I’m sorry,” she told it, and that was entirely true. “I really want to know.” That was true too—or true-ish. She wanted to know... but only if the knowledge would help.

Beggars can’t be choosers, said another lizard. This one sounded like her father.

The book took its time deciding whether to believe her... no doubt sensing some residue of her dishonesty, adding that to her offense against its power. But rule in her favor it did, riffling to its oracular pages with a sigh of surrender. Or was it triumph?

She chose her question, that first question, based on her overall disquiet.

The question was numbered twenty-five. It read, “Shall I long remain as I now am?”

Pencil in hand, Myka closed her eyes. She moved the lead until it encountered bookish resistance... the symbol on which it rested, when she opened her eyes, resembled a little pebble cairn, upright, proud. She consulted the page-map and learned her destination: page thirty-seven.

The book, unmoved by her anxiety about what she would discover, allowed her to turn only a single leaf at a time.

Show-off.

On page thirty-seven, the pebble cairn nestled at its very bottom.

Its prediction—Myka’s future—her fate.

“That is impossible; so much the worse.”

****

For some time, Myka had thought the book must have been wrong—maybe it had decided in the end to withhold true knowledge of her future out of spite?—for her status remained quo. Artifacts. Retrievals. Warehouse business, world-shaking in the strangely run-of-the-mill ways it tended to be.

The looming presence of cancer as a possibility had kept her tensed for “the worse” to emerge from that quarter... and she did on some level find it hilarious that the likelihood of having some you’ll-probably-die-soon disease hadn’t been enough to push her to seek an oracle, but an emptied-out Helena had.

But then, abruptly, cancer had been removed from the table.

Myka had tried not to dwell on how wrong that removal could have gone, given what Pete had done. She had tried to be content that the most significant upshot of that entire series of episodes seemed to be the adding of a benign category to her catalog of untruths: she sat not at but rather on a table and told a lie. “I guess I’m just lucky,” she had said when her oncologist’s PA expressed the team’s surprise at having found no malignancy.

But then Helena had texted again. “I’ll be in South Dakota soon, relatively near Univille. Can you believe it?”

As if belief had any right to be any part of anything anymore... but Myka should have believed the book. The second coffee (“coffee”) had not allowed her to remain as she was. It was, truly, so much the worse.

This one happened to happen on Valentine’s Day, a fact on which neither Myka nor Helena remarked, despite what Myka couldn’t help but read as its bracing irony.

And speaking of bracing. Myka had braced herself for more extollings of “home,” its charms, its warm certainties...

...but: “Oh, that ended,” Helena said. Dismissive. Breezy.

Myka had put so much anguish into making Helena’s “home” in Boone make whatever tortured sense it could... justifying it as Helena needing to make her own choices about what she could face and what she couldn’t, what she could wake up to every day and what she couldn’t, what she could bring herself to need every day and what she couldn’t... and Myka had further worked very hard to keep all of that torturesome rationalization from spiraling into “why not face me, why not wake up to me, why not need me.” Her hard work there had failed to hold, so: Because you are not Nate, she told herself, again and again, in cut after cut. And because you don’t have a daughter. Cut. Cut. You. Don’t. Have.

Yet here, now, Helena had simply waved her hand at the entire chapter. It unmoored Myka—was this a weight lifted? or was it yet another burdening betrayal?—such that she for a moment couldn’t speak, and for that moment, she didn’t understand that Helena was waiting for her to speak. Eventually: “Ended,” she managed to echo, and she did not recognize the sharp breath she then took.

“Yes. Because there’s someone else.” As Helena said that, she was not performing the uncanny copy of herself—instead, she sparked.

The spark smashed Myka with the realization that her breath had signaled hope. Stupid, naïve hope. And she was defeated, bitterly, both by that hope’s instant dashing and by the knowledge that it still could spring. Would spring. Would, apparently, always spring.

“Is there,” Myka said, as blankly as she could.

“A woman,” Helena said.

She might as well have pulled out an actual knife, but Myka was ferally not going to let that show. “That’s great,” she said, reaching for something beyond blank, something even more resistantly telling, trying to channel Steve at his most calm, like water unsubject to weather.

To that, Helena’s reaction was to sit back and say, as if she resented the idea, “Yes, it is.” Then she said, “Shall I tell you about her?” Still sparking. A challenge.

I don’t need any more challenges. But: “Sure. Why not,” she said. At this point, Myka was certain she could sit through anything. “What’s her name.”

“Her name...” and Helena tightened her jaw, making Myka think she was trying not to unleash an incongruously outsize grin, “is Giselle.”

And Myka said Sure; why not again, but under her breath.

Helena had then begun to relate seemingly endless anecdotes conveying the attributes of this apparent wonder of the world named—sure, why not—Giselle.

You should be enjoying this, Myka told herself as the accolades unfurled. The one and only H.G. Wells is deigning to tell you stories, but here you sit, getting picky about content, all surly and—

“You know what? I’m happy for you,” she interrupted, because she could not, in fact, sit through anything. She could not suffer more, from herself or from Helena. Steve would have clutched his head and screamed at what she’d said, but at this point, what did lies matter?

Driving home this time, she did not yell. Instead, she practiced. “Helena is with a woman named Giselle.” Over and over she said it, to make sure she understood it, and to make sure her mouth knew how to repeat it, because someone, Steve or Claudia or even Pete, would ask, and she would need to say. Out loud, she would need to say these words that told the harshest of truths (though she wished she could sit, at or on a table, and lie that truth away): Helena wants a woman, and that woman is not Myka Bering.

So much the worse.

****

“Well, book,” Myka had said late that night, facing it, facing up to it, “you were right.”

Did the acknowledgement prompt it to offer a self-satisfied ruffle?

She had then asked, “Where do we go from here?” She wished she could have asked it of Helena...

This occasioned something legible as a sort of shoulder-shrug: the book opened to the first of its question-pages.

“You think I want to know more?”

Provocatively, the page turned, as if catching the waft of some future-breeze.

Scanning that next of the list, Myka’s eyes—and her mind—were drawn to, were powerless but to settle on, question 37: “Is a certain person thinking of me?”

That was about the present, not the future. The book wouldn’t really know. Would it?

But Myka was powerless to resist divining the answer. This one corresponded to a pebble nabla (Myka could not help but think of slopes and slipping): “Some one is thinking, dreaming, and talking unceasingly about you.”

Upon receiving that statement, she had suffered another of those stupid hope-leaps... “some one”! Never mind the future; if it could be true in the now: “some one!”

She had soon been forced to realize, however, which “some one” the book must have meant. That was made painfully clear by the events of the most improbable, yet to date consequential, table: that voracious, hateful Round Table. It had brought Myka’s lies home. Literally.

Sitting at that table, Myka had prepped for more lies, these to sell a supposedly “defining” story, for she of course could not allow her definitional truth to be seen. Worse, extracted. She had tried to maintain confidence about being able to exert her will: My brain might not be as big as some brains but it’s big enough to beat you, table, she sneered. But then she admonished, Don’t sneer. No attitude. Because who does attitude make you think of?

She felt herself almost almost almost picture, almost almost almost name, her attitude-ideal...

And so Myka had redoubled her thought-efforts, thrusting every shred of attitude, every shard of emotion, every bit of real definition, from her mind, forcing it to produce for consumption the most anodyne memory possible: something she’d come as close to forgetting as she ever could, some ridiculous ninja-something that wasn’t worth the neurons firing to deliver it to the table’s dumb demands.

But then... everything had gone wrong. Not in the way she’d feared, but in a way that, given the book’s answer, she should have thought to fear. Her imagination had failed her, for the taking of cancer off the table had been the salient change after all: not what Pete had done, but instead, why he’d done it.

Sitting at that selfish table, Myka had at last come to understand the expectations surrounding her response to that why. With Mrs. Frederic and Steve both looking like examiners at the worst imaginable viva voce, she knew what she—she who had never failed a test in her life—had to say in order to pass.

So she’d said it.

The roiling in her gut had come as a surprise, for shouldn’t her soul have been resigned by now to endless perjury? She resented this unwelcome vagus-nerve stimulation of her earlier, righteous self.

In the immediate aftermath she’d stumbled away, trying to find a space to breathe, to assess, to plan how she would act a convincing version of the play she had stupidly—or, no, functionally; she needed to know it that way—let begin. The aisle in which she stopped was dim, its shelves full of metal, pieces of things, things she wished she could herself wright into a bunker of such artifactual strength that no one would dare approach her. Ever. No one.

She hadn’t realized Steve had followed her until she heard his voice. “Are you okay?” he asked, quiet behind her.

So much for her wish: his question, and his solicitude, were absurd. He’d seen her state; he’d encouraged her state. “Obviously not,” she snapped. He had the grace to wince. But because it had all gone so wrong, because she was still so angry that he had helped all that wrong along, she said, harsh, “What was with that ‘hello’? Why did you start that business about my face?”

His face spoke of pain. “I had to. I had to. Because today, honestly: today Mrs. Frederic had to hear what she wanted to hear. From all of us.” His desperate sincerity rang very true.

Myka breathed. Metal coated her throat; further hard words would snag and twist on it, wounding her more than Steve ever could. “I’m pretty sure she’s been wanting me to say that for a while,” she conceded.

Steve winced again. “You looked like you might throw up, and I felt like I would, hearing you... saying what you said. I wish I could’ve given you an out.”

Myka didn’t, now, doubt him. “Me too. And I wish I could’ve taken it.” She meant it, but that was all it was: a wish. For a different world. A different timeline? She said, with a wince of her own, “But I think I have to play along.”

“I see that, from the Mrs. Frederic angle. But you sound like... like there might be something in it for you. Not what I said there was—and I’m sorry I had to say it, or felt like I had to, or couldn’t figure out how not to—but something.”

“Backup,” Myka said immediately. It was the only answer.

“Backup,” Steve echoed, and “backup?” he said again, as if it were a word from a language in which he was not fully fluent.

“I need something—I need something—reliable.” Another hurt: that that was what she needed. So short a time ago, she would have claimed a different need. Such a crashingly different need.

“Need,” Steve said. “Not ‘want’?”

“No.” And Myka admitted: “That’s too dangerous.”

“I have to ask you about it though. Want.”

Myka braced herself. She braced herself, even as she thought on how tired she was of having to brace herself.

“Do you want me to keep protecting you? Primarily from Mrs. Frederic, but...”

It was a less dangerous ask, about a less dangerous want, than she’d feared. Or maybe it was the same want, the same danger, but more gently expressed. “Yes?” she said.

“Mrs. Frederic aside, the problem is that if you do play along, I don’t know what ‘protect’ means. Should I keep covering your lie or tell Pete the truth?”

“I don’t know either.” Another admission. She wasn’t proud of it. “For now, just let it... lie. Sorry.”

At that, he didn’t wince. “Tell me when things change. In whatever way they do.”

“If they do.”

“They always do,” he said.

“So I guess I’ll be telling you.” But she believed neither him nor herself.

Steve said, “If you could be happy.” Helpless.

Sweet Steve. Helpful, helpless. Myka gestured into the air. Conjuring speech took her a minute, and even then, all she managed was, “If I could.” Steve just kept looking like he looked, with his base of sympathy (and she had never so appreciated, or so responded to, sympathy), so she asked, because she didn’t know, “Why don’t you want to protect him?”

He offered her an exhausted smile. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but: you said ‘need.’ Who needs protecting? I like Pete, but if it comes down to it, it’s you.”

Leave me alone! she wanted to yell. But she also wanted to curl up in Steve’s protection. Backup. Backup.

****

Even as Myka found Artie’s interrogation easy to lie through, she knows that her lying footing as a whole is becoming unsteady, even vertiginous. If she could have restricted her lies to those sitting utterances... but the expansions are depleting her, and she is trying to resign herself to what she sees as her only realistic option for narrowing her scope. As for any objections her heart might be raising? She is shutting those lights out, one by one.

****

“I think I have to play along,” Myka had told Steve, and she had continued to convince herself of that necessity. So she had taken the initiative and done it, in at least the first of the ways she knew she would have to, in order to act her role.

To act your role? Really? No. To sell your con. Was that a lizard or a snake?

No matter. She sold it. She was not sitting at a table, but a kiss was a lie that was worse.

So much the worse.

After that—that demonstration, that acted untruth—she could not reach her lifeline fast enough. After that, she ran.

“Book,” she said, facing it. “Book.”

Her third try was not the charm; rather, it was the compulsion: Tell me something, anything, that I can’t already see about what’s next. Because an oracle must know more than I do, must know different. If not... Myka had not been ready, not then, not yet, to think on any consequences.

Some days—certainly that day, but not only that day—what she wanted more than life (literally, more than life) was to go back to protecting the president. If a bullet, then I take it. Simple. Clean.

She hated how resentfully, brokenly beholden she had become to people for saving her life. They set her up with the saving, but they didn’t bother with the consequences: with the fact that she had to keep on living. And nobody seemed to be interested in saving her from that.

So: “Book,” she said again, and if that word had never before meant “save me clean,” it did that day.

But struggle as she might, with increasingly desperate fingers into which she tried to wish and pray prying strength, the book refused to open.

Was this the downside? No response in one’s hour of true need?

“What am I doing wrong?” she begged.

But if that was her question, then of course the book was right: it could reveal nothing to her. She knew the answer.

Everything.

TBC

[evablueblanket]

if you get this, answer w/ three random facts about yourself and send it to the last seven blogs in your notifs. anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog ! (you don’t need to answer if you don’t want to!)

*points* ANOTHER ONE

luckily for you I loveeee to talk about myself :> (not really but also kinda lmao)

1. I have many stuffed animals stuff. I used to sleep with one every single night but the wear and tear of using her as basically a pillow forced her into retirement :( [‘She’ as in a stuffed Build-A-Bear bunny named flower, her fabric has flowers on it (i’m so original I know)]

2. I am ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS take song recs. I can’t and won’t promise i’ll listen to it like immediately (I have some decency to not lie compulsively) (rip into the lantern waste album that @/silvercaptain24 recommended awhile ago I never finished listening :’) ) but i’m a strong believer in how music is a super strong indicator of how you are as a person vibes-wise so I think that sharing music is like sharing your soul but in a way that society deems cool and not weird

I’m trying to think of something that’s like not quasi-deep lmao. These are supposed to be general-public fun not things I consider fun!

Okay okay I think i’ve got something

3. English/Grammar is something I deeply despise on a spiritual level. Perhaps i’m good at it, and perhaps i’ve gotten a few 100% on a few essays cuts to extreme celebration bc i’ve never gotten 100% on an english essay before this year but I LITERALLY hate english/grammar/reading comprehension/like most thinks in this vein. Should I consider creative writing apart of this medium? Maybe. But also creative writing doesn’t make me THINK ABOUT WHY JOHN ATE A RED DELICIOUS APPLE AND NOT A GOLDEN DELICIOUS APPLE he’s an idiot that’s why. I took german for two years, and the thing I struggled with most was how it all grammatically fit together. I did great on vocab, I have awesome memory retention for that kind of stuff. But grammar/english/whatever the fuck you wanna call this STUPID SUBJECT is the one academic subject that continues to elude and frustrate me to no end. Like, I’m in Calc 1 rn and while it’s hard it’s not *hard* hard? Math is something that clicks, science is something that clicks, art is something that clicks (on an intellectual level, not really a performance level if you get what I mean) BUT ENGLISH JUST SUCKS. Guh

ahem anyways I shall take my leave now