#APART from this worm one which DOES NOT MISS

[shiorimakibawrites]

Indulgences (Alley Cat #18)

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem! Reader Summary: You and Matt haven't had sex in over a week. Tonight, you indulge yourself. Warnings: Explicit sexual content, mild dominance /submission elements, very mild pain kink, unprotected penis in vagina sex, riding, mild overstimulation, breast worship, oral sex (female receiving), swearing, crude language, vaginal fingering, multiple orgasms Alley Cat Masterlist Matt Murdock/Daredevil Masterlist General Masterlist Taglist: @loves0phelia, @nowheredreamer, @beezusvreeland, @yarrystyleeza, @justvalkyrie A03 Link Special thanks to @loveroftoomanyfandoms and @pastafossa for their help beta-reading this piece.

Part 18: Indulgences

Even though you were expecting it, the knock on your living room window still made you jump – earning you a few very loud protests from the cat beside you. The Kingpin of Kitty Krimes (pending trademark) had come waltzing in an hour after Matt’s call and ate his dinner before promptly curling up on your couch. 

Later, when you had sat yourself down, he had wormed his way to rest his head on your thigh, immediately earning himself forgiveness for his earlier cat-tastrophy.

“It’s unlocked,” you said, knowing full well that Matt could hear you.

“You shouldn’t leave your windows unlocked, sweetheart,” Matt said as he climbed into your apartment, a gym bag slung over his shoulder. “Anyone could be climbing that fire escape.”

“You know how many people I’ve seen doing that?” you retorted as he set the bag down by the wall. “One. You might be familiar with him. Wears a red Devil suit, fights crime?”

“That does sound a little familiar,” Matt said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “But I am visually impaired, sweetheart. Descriptions like ‘wears a red Devil suit’ aren’t very helpful.”

You rolled your eyes. “So says the guy wearing the Devil suit.”

Matt pretended to pat himself down and feigned surprise at feeling the armor and horned helmet under his gloved hands. “Good Lord, you’re right! I’m wearing a Devil suit!”

You couldn’t stop the giggles that set in. There was just something inherently funny about Matt being goofy while wearing the Daredevil suit that completely contradicted and undercut any intimidation factor it possessed.

Which, you thought as you watched Matt’s pleased smile grow, might have been the point.

Any attempt to chase down that thought was derailed by Houdini, irritated by either the shifting of your leg under his head, the sudden lack of scratches, the presence of Matt, or some combination of all three. He quickly hopped down off the couch with a string of complaints. 

“Don’t sass me, mister,” you said as you rose to your feet. “You’ve been very naughty today.” 

That, predictably enough, only got you more backtalk as the cat stomped off in the general direction of his cat tree.

“Tell it to the judge, furball!” you called after his retreating tail. 

“Has anyone told Houdini that he has the right to remain silent?” Matt asked, a little smirk that shouldn’t be as attractive as it was on his lips.

“He has the right,” you replied. “What he lacks is the capacity.”

Matt laughed and pulled off his helmet before setting it down on the coffee table. While he pulled off his gloves, something about the sight of his hazel eyes bright with amusement and his messy hair, a few stray strands stuck to his forehead with sweat, brought home just how much you had missed him the past several days – and not just for sex. You had missed his company, missed having more than just a quick conversation on the phone.

“Hey.” You stepped up to Matt and reached up to cup his face in your hands. “Missed you.”

Matt nuzzled into your hands, his eyes sliding closed with a pleased hum. “Missed you too, sweetheart.”

His hands raised almost of their own volition to settle on your hips, a surprised hum on his lips as his fingertips encountered the first of your planned surprises. “More silk, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” you replied. “The sheets alone didn’t qualify for free shipping. And this-” 

Your breath hitched as his fingers dipped under the edge of the lacy waistband of the panties. “-Red silk camisole and panty set looked nice.”

“Feels nice too,” Matt mused, his fingers still playing with your waistband. “Almost as nice as your bare skin.”

He put up no resistance to you tugging his head down for a kiss, a slow, languid exploration of each other’s mouths. Your thumb glided over Matt's  cheek, enjoying the contrast between his rough stubble and soft skin, while your other hand migrated up to the nape of his neck, unable to resist the siren’s call of his hair–a sentiment that appeared to be entirely mutual, as one of Matt's hands had left your hip in favor of cradling the back of your head.

Matt's mouth tasted faintly of coffee but stronger was his scent in your nose, the usual elements of paper and plain soap muted in favor of leather, sweat, and something that you couldn’t really describe other than as ‘good man smell’.

The fingers of his other hand, which until now had never stopped playing with the waistband of your panties, slipped further down. You broke away from his mouth, gasping at the brush of two fingers against your clit while your grip on his hair tightened. 

His hand didn’t stop there, sliding through your folds to your entrance. When one finger sank into you easily, he moaned.“Thought you smelled already soaked…and so sensitive,” he rumbled against your neck. “Were you touching yourself, sweetheart?”

“Y-ah!-Yes!” you panted out, arching up into him as he worked in a second finger. The sense of fullness as he stretched you felt so good–you had fingered yourself earlier but his fingers were bigger, longer. “Wanted… to be ready…ahhh… have plans…”

“Plans?” Matt repeated, kissing your neck. “And what are you planning to do, sweetheart?”

“Want to… hmmmm…” You trailed off, pleasure fogging your brain as Matt's thumb rubbing little circles on your clit and those wonderful fingers thrusting in and out of you threatened to derail all your plans. You had to fight your way through that haze just so you could pant out your desire. “Ride you.”

Matt moaned. “Fuck… gonna kill me, sweet girl.”

Then he kissed you, but there was nothing slow and languid about this kiss. This kiss was a hungry, fiery thing, and all the while his fingers continued to work you, curling to rub against that spot that sent white-hot sparks up your spine. 

Your nails did their best to dig into his shoulder but his armor got in the way. His nape wasn’t so lucky but he didn’t seem to mind the pain, groaning into your mouth.

“So… do you… want…” You managed to pant before getting cut off by a cry, your legs trembling as pleasure threatened to tumble you over that edge.

“Oh God, yes, yes,” he said, his eyes near black with hunger and anticipation.

This enthusiastic agreement had you feeling unusually bold so you ordered, “Strip.”

Matt was quick to obey. Your cunt wasn’t enthusiastic about the loss of his fingers inside you, clenching tightly around them as he withdrew them. But your reward was watching him strip off his Daredevil suit with an impressive speed. Almost faster than you could blink, the top half was dangling from his waist and he was bending down to loosen the straps on his legs. You weren’t at the right angle to really appreciate his ass but the rippling muscles of his back weren’t a bad consolation prize. Growling when a boot lace proved recalcitrant, then the muttered ‘Finally!’ when the lace broke and he could yank the boot off. Its counterpart was far more cooperative. Shortly after, he was stepping out of his suit clad only in black boxers which didn’t last any longer than the rest of his clothing.

Matt stood before you, naked save for the cross hanging from his neck. You didn’t know where he had been hiding it, or maybe you had just been so swept away that you had simply missed it last time… but one thing you did know was that there was something very hot about it, a kink that you didn’t know you had. Or rather, it was another kink you had just discovered. Because seeing Matt, erect and waiting for your next order, gave you a thrill that you couldn’t put into words. All that muscle, all that power, and yet he was yours to command… it had your cunt clenching desperately.

“Couch,” you ordered. He didn’t need to be told twice. You stared at his growing erection as you pulled the camisole over your head and dropped it to the floor. But when your fingers hooked into the waistband of your panties and started to slide them off, his steps faltered. Nostrils flaring, a whine escaped his throat.

“Matthew,” you reminded him as you stepped out of your soaked panties. Another whine but then he obediently resumed stepping back toward the couch. Fortunately for both of your sanities, your living room wasn’t very big. Soon, the back of his legs hit the couch and he sank down onto it. You walked toward him. Any nerves that tried to rise withered and died at the expression of his face, a mixture of hunger, excitement, and eager anticipation.

All of which grew as you placed your right knee on the couch alongside his left thigh, then bracing yourself with a hand on his shoulder, raised your left leg onto the couch until you were straddling him. His hands rose to grip your hips but otherwise he just waited to see what you would do.

The first thing you did was use one hand to tilt his head back and kiss him. A kiss that you meant to be gentle but found yourself too hungry, licking into his mouth and biting at that tempting lower lip of his. He moaned, hands tightening on your hips but still he waited for you to lower yourself down onto his lap. And that’s exactly what you did. You both moaned the moment your slick cunt touched his cock. But that moan was nothing compared to the ones that followed when you started slowly grinding against his cock.

You trailed your fingers down his neck, listening for when those moans broke off into hitched breaths and the skin under your fingertips quivered. And when you found one, you lowered your mouth to it, kissing, licking, and nipping at that spot until his hands dug into your hips hard enough to bruise. He also couldn’t seem to stop himself from arching his hips into the grinding movement of your hips. Head thrown back against the backrest of the couch, eyes closed as moans and curses spilled out of his mouth like water… God, he was beautiful.

Then your exploring fingers brushed a nipple and he cried out, jack-knifing up against you.

“Sweetheart, please,” he begged, his voice strained. “Gonna cum. Want to feel… fuck, ah… you first… please!”

You raised yourself off his lap, gripped his throbbing cock into your right hand, and lined him up with your entrance. You started to lower and had to stop. Even with fingering yourself and Matt fingering you afterward… he was so thick, you could barely fit even the tip of him inside you. The stretch didn’t hurt, exactly, but there was a warning sting to it.

You took a deep breath and gripped his shoulders. Then you carefully lowered yourself, slowly taking in more and more of his cock. Matt was tense under you, eyes screwed shut as he fought not to thrust upward. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he was fully sheathed inside you. And you felt so damn good. You’d never get tired of his cock stretching you out, your cunt fluttering around him as it adjusted to this delicious fullness.

All the while Matt’s hands roamed your body and he murmured, “Fuck, fuck… feel so good, sweet girl… perfect… made for me…”

Murmuring that ended in a groan when you raised yourself up his cock, then back down. Again and again, gradually building speed until you were fucking him relentlessly. You revealed in the way he lost himself in your body, that deep groan that he made each time he bottomed out. You savored every whimper whenever he couldn’t stop his hips from thrusting up, from burying himself deeper inside you along with every whine when your cunt clenched tightly around his cock.

He was getting close, you could tell from the way he trembled, his thrusts coming more frequently and with less coordination. You weren’t far from that edge yourself, felt your cunt clenching tightly around his cock as the coil wound tighter and tighter. Almost there… almost there…

“Gonna cum…” Matt panted out, one hand sliding between your bodies. “Please… can I…”

“Yes, yes,” you said. The touches to your clit were clumsy but it was enough. You could feel yourself falling over that edge and issued one final command, “Cum for me!”

And with a cry of your name, he did.

It took several moments for either of your bodies to stop moving. And even longer for your cunt to stop fluttering and his cock to stop twitching. You slumped against him, your head resting on his shoulder. You were breathing hard, covered in sweat, and certain that you couldn’t move your legs… but you also felt right.

Like, maybe, Matt had been right and that you were made for him…

Matt seemed to be having similar positive thoughts about being entwined with you, wrapping his arm around you and idly stroking one hand down your back. If your sweat bothered him, he gave no sign of it. Quite the opposite in fact as he nuzzled his nose against your neck and pressed kisses to that sensitive spot by your ear. An action that had your cunt clenching around his spent cock. He made a soft whimper but notably didn’t stop kissing your neck.

Or at least he didn’t immediately. After a few minutes it apparently tripped from pleasure to too much discomfort as he lifted your hips and let his dick slip out of you before settling you back on his lap. Your cunt wasn’t entirely pleased about this change.

He chuckled. “God, I love how your pussy never wants to let go of my dick.”

Your cheeks grew warm and you buried your face in his neck, feeling suddenly shy and uncertain. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Matt said. “Hey, look at me, sweetheart…”

With some reluctance, you lifted your head enough to see his face. He looked earnest, his voice soft but sincere. “Just said that I loved it, didn’t I? Trust me, sweetheart, if I could, I’d always be inside you.”

Feeling that flush spreading down your neck, you murmured, “Sounds nice.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” he said, flashing you a saucy grin. “But taking you to dinner would be trickier and I’d miss that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said, his hand sliding down your back to grab your ass. “Among other things that unfortunately require clothes… or perhaps fortunately. I’m not big on sharing you.”

“Don’t have to worry about that,” you said, then ducked your head and lowered your voice. “Not because of me anyway.”

Not low enough because Matt snorted. “Why not? You’re beautiful. And sexy. Any man turning his nose up at you is a fool.”

“Not sexy.”

“I promise that you are,” Matt said. “Because taking command like that? Riding me? Very sexy.”

“Really?” You said, peeking up at him through your eyelashes.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Took everything not to cum when you were grinding on me, touching me, using me…”

He shuddered and you felt his spent cock twitch, attempting to stir back to life. “Feel free to do that anytime you want.”

You buried your face again, then said softly, “Okay.”

You both rested in comfortable silence for a while before Matt sighed. “Probably should get up and clean ourselves up.”

“Don’t think I can,” you admitted. “My legs feel like noodles.”

Matt laughed.

“Hey! It’s not my fault that I didn’t go to ninja school!”

This only made him laugh harder as he transferred you from his lap to the couch. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll take care of you. How does a shower before bed sound?”

You considered. It was late. But you could also feel sweat drying on your skin which combined with other bodily fluids made the idea of crawling onto your brand new sheets  distasteful.

“Sounds great,” you said, staring at his naked body. Seeing his cock, still mostly soft against his thigh, gave you ideas…

“No.”

“No, what?” you said, looking up to his face.

“No to whatever you’re thinking right now,” Matt said, scooping you off the couch and carrying you to the bathroom.

“But I want to suck your dick,” you said, pouting a little. He ate you out all the time. You just wanted to return the favor.

“Another time,” Matt said, lowering you on the bathroom counter. His eyes are dark with growing hunger, hints of the Devil seeping into his voice. The combination only stirred renewed heat between your legs. “Because, right now, sweetheart-”

He cupped your breasts in his hands. “It’s my turn.”

Matt dragged his tongue across the areola of your left breast, sending a jolt of pleasure down your spine. That single jolt became a river as he licked and lapped at the spot, seeming determined to map every bump and curve as your nipple tightened back up into a stiff peak. Then he wrapped his lips around it and sucked. You cried out, arching your back to push more of your breast against his mouth. He indulged this unspoken request, opening his mouth wider and taking in more of your breast. His tongue continued to tease the nipple.

He didn’t neglect your other breast. His hand squeezed and kneaded the soft flesh before rolling your right nipple between those clever fingers, rubbing his thumb over the stiffening peak in a manner reminiscent of how he touched your clit. The pinching that followed gradually increased in intensity until it hurt a little. But it was good pain, one that sharpened the pleasure coursing through your veins.

Matt made a soft curious hum, then his teeth scraped across your nipple. It was barely a bite but it still made you writhe under him. He lifted his head just enough to release your nipple. “You like a little pain, don’t you?”

“Mhmmmm… yes,” you panted out. “Feels good. Do it again.”

“As you wish.”

It felt just as good the second time. Perhaps even better as Matt allowed his teeth to press in deeper, his fingers to pinch harder. Just a little more but it felt so damn good. So good that you thought you might orgasm purely from this attention to your breasts. Especially when he switched breasts and repeated everything he had done to their twin.

Close, you were so close but your release was still too far away. It didn’t take long for your to start begging, an endless litany of “Please, please, please-’

“What do you need, sweet girl?” Matt asked, mouth still so close that his breath puffing against your sensitive nipples made you whimper.

“Need to cum, please make me cum,” you begged, too desperate to be embarrassed by what you were saying.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Matt said, his voice all but purring. “How do you want to get off, sweetheart? On my fingers or my tongue?”

Both were tempting, very tempting. But then you remembered your dream from this morning or was it yesterday morning… It was unimportant. What mattered was the memory of his mouth. What happened was the desperate ache in your cunt. “Your tongue. I want your mouth.”

“As you wish.”

Matt wasted no time. The words were still leaving his mouth when his hand gripped your hips and pulled you over to the edge of the counter. He slid his hand down your thigh to pick up your leg and throw it over his shoulder as he sank down to his knees. Then his mouth was on you. He alternated freely between lapping at your entrance, long licks along your entire slit, teasing little licks to your swollen clit, and fucking you with his tongue. He moaned the entire time, the vibration of it only driving you further mad. You didn’t remember grabbing his hair but it was your hands and you were pulling on it. Your body shook as that coil inside wound tighter and tighter until, finally, it snapped. And you were screaming his name.

You both did eventually got cleaned up but only after he fucked you against your shower wall. You avoided confirming what time it was beyond stupid late. You were going to be so tired at work tomorrow.  Worth it, you thought, burrowing your face against Matt’s bare chest. Absolutely worth it.

[lotrmusical]

never let anyone tell you that trawling through mediocre victorian poetry isn't worth it. we just happened upon an absolute BANGER of a worm poem. go read it or else 🪱🪱🪱

[lemonlover1110]

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬

Satoru Gojo

[Chapter 5] Evening Off

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Pairing: Satoru Gojo x f!Reader

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“Mommy…” Ren taps your face. Lately he’s picked up the bad habit of waking you up earlier than you’re supposed to, and it’s getting on your nerves. The first morning was because he was hungry, but lately it’s because he’s bored and wants to spend time with you– You understand where he’s coming from, you two barely spend time together and the early morning is the only time you can actually do something, but you barely sleep and you appreciate every minute of rest.

“Let’s sleep some more, buddy.” You tell him, wrapping your arm around him and cuddling him. You need to save up all your energy for tonight, after all, you’re going out with people you don’t want to go out with. You talked to your mother to take care of Ren since she’s feeling better, you also wanted to give the nanny the night off since she has her own family to take care of. 

“I’m not sleepy, mommy.” He answers while your hand begins to pet his hair. You hope that it’ll help him sleep, but once Ren wakes up, it’s hard to get him to go back to sleep. He gives you around five minutes– Five minutes in his mind, but it’s actually a minute of extra sleep before he says, “Can we play, mommy?”

“Baby, I’m so tired.” You whine, and he worms out of your embrace. You hear him walk away, and just as you’re succumbing to slumber, you hear a squeaky toy in your ear. You finally open your eyes, and you look at the little boy who looks at you with doe eyes. He just really misses you and wants to spend time with you. You get up and you begin to walk to the bathroom, “Brush your teeth before anything, Ren.”

“Okay!” He yells before he runs behind you to brush his teeth. And like that, your day gets started.

You eat breakfast, play a little with Ren, then you make lunch for the two of you, and after you play a little more, and by a little more, you mean for the rest of the day. You’re tired of playing, but he’s just so happy while he plays with you. When you finally get him to watch a show and relax, there’s a knock on the door and then someone rings the doorbell; you know it’s your mother, meaning that it’s time for you to start getting ready and actually start your day. 

You open the door, and your mother engulfs you with a hug. You hug her back, a smile coming to your face as you feel her arms around you. The smile fades as you remember that you have to go out. And your stupid self agreed to go out clubbing with them afterwards. Maybe you can cancel last minute, but you’re not sure that Mrs. Gojo would be too happy with you.

She walks inside, pulling away from the hug. She calls out Ren’s name, and the little boy goes running to his grandmother. He hugs her, and you smile as you watch the exchange. You close the door and you tell them, “I’ll start getting ready.”

They ignore you as you walk to your room and to the bathroom to take a shower and begin getting ready. You try not to spend too much time getting ready because you tell yourself that you’re not trying to impress anyone… But you are, and even though you try not to spend too much time on your makeup, you do. You take too long picking out an outfit and matching shoes. You’re not even going to comment on accessories– You don’t have a lot to pick from, yet you struggle with which ones to put on.

While you decide on the earrings, your mother walks into the room. You don’t notice her, focused on your reflection on the mirror. You’re startled when she says, “This is a nice apartment.”

“I know. I like this better than staying at her house.” You share, and she chuckles in response.

“I can only imagine the nightmare she is. Worse with age.” She responds, and you hum in response. You finally decide on the earrings and you put them on.

“She’s not so bad with Ren. Absolutely adores that boy, that I can say.” You tell her. You finally turn to look at her, a sigh leaving your lips before you roll your eyes just thinking of Mrs. Gojo. “She wants to make my life miserable though. I have no idea why she wants me to go out with her son and friends. She probably just wants me to be miserable.”

“‘Her son’ like he isn’t Ren’s father.” She quotes, and you two are so focused on your conversation that you miss the little boy that stands behind your mother, one that walked out of his room and wondered where his grandmother went. He makes his presence known when he hears the word father.

“Daddy? Are you going to see my daddy, mommy?” Ren speaks up, and you both freeze as if you had been caught red-handed. As Ren grows older, he asks more questions about his family. Thanks to what he sees on television, he knows that he’s supposed to have a father. It also doesn’t help that he sees his friends’ fathers, and he slowly realizes that he’s supposed to have one as well. Your mother turns around and smiles down at the young boy.

“How about we get some ice cream.” She offers, completely dismissing the question. He completely forgets about what he was talking about at the offer for ice cream, and you watch as he nods excitedly, a big smile coming to his face. You watch them walk away and go to the kitchen, and you end up sighing. Each day you wonder how you’ll answer the inevitable question of who his father is and where he’s at; he doesn’t know about you doesn’t seem like a good enough answer. 

You arranged a ride to take you to the restaurant that you were supposed to go to. You weren’t expecting anything fancy, just a small restaurant to eat something before getting the night started, but you’re proved wrong. Of course you are. They’re not going somewhere cheap to eat, even if they have other plans after. You’re not sure if you’re dressed right until you see Shoko who dresses in the same style. She holds a cigarette between her lips, and she throws it on the floor when she sees you walking over.

“Are we underdressed or…?” You begin and she chuckles before she pulls out the phone to look at the time. “I was expecting some cheap place… I mean they do have plans to go out afterwards right?”

“It’s funny you think that they’d step near a cheap restaurant.” Shoko responds, and you two begin to walk into the place. Shoko tells the hostess Gojo’s name for the reservation, and she walks you to your table. You find that you’re not the first ones there since Suguru is sitting at the table, scrolling through his phone. Shoko rolls her eyes before saying, “It’s a surprise that you’re here early.”

“Why do you sound irritated by that?” Suguru says, raising his brow as he look at Shoko. The man stands up from his chair to walk over to you and give you a side-hug. When he does so, he walks back to his seat, and you take a seat as well. “Did you two come here together or…?”

“We just met outside.” Shoko answers. Your leg begins to bounce as you think about what’s coming up next. Shoko notices and she’s about to ask why the hell you even decided to show up, but she puts two and two together and it all goes back to Mrs. Gojo. “How long do you think it’ll take for Sayo to realize that they were together for a bit.”

“Who?” Suguru asks, genuinely confused but then he looks at you. Suguru then chuckles before shrugging. “I mean… They are so awkward around each other, she’s bound to know something is up.”

“I’m right here. Change the topic.” You tell them. “I don’t want to talk about the Gojos. I already have enough dealing with the mother daily, I don’t want to talk about the son nor the wife.”

“How did you even end up working for her?” Suguru questions, and that’s something that Shoko also wonders; she knows that you had a son, but that’s about it. What prompted you to seek out help from Mrs. Gojo.

“A lot of bills, little money, barely any help.” You keep it vague. “What can I say? She might be a total bitch but the woman pays well.”

And just as you say so, the couple makes their presence known. Your face gets hot immediately, thinking that they heard you call Satoru’s mother a bitch. Sayo and Satoru greet everyone at the table before taking a seat. Your eyes look over Sayo, and you feel… Inferior. You know another person’s beauty doesn’t take from your own, but as you look at her, you feel as if she’s sucked the beauty out of you. She wears a white silk dress that accentuates her body, a ruby necklace around her neck with matching earrings, and red lipstick on her lips– She’s not dressed  to go out clubbing.

She looks at you and smiles. “It’s so nice to see you here.”

“How’s your cat doing? I hope he’s not too bummed out that you’re here.” Suguru mentions and you end up chuckling. Dinner would’ve been fine without Satoru and Sayo, but that’s not the reality. They’re there so it’s all too awkward, even if you try to converse. Sayo is pretty much the only one that speaks, occasionally, Suguru helps her out.

You do find out that she’s your age, of course from a wealthy family, and she’s currently a stay-at-home wife, and she’s planning on keeping it that way. She’s into painting, yoga, horseback riding, and whatever rich pastime one could think. What you find the most interesting is that apparently Sayo and Satoru met once before in their childhood: a winter that the Gojos went to Switzerland. They have a picture together from years ago. It made you comment,

“Wow, it’s like you two are soulmates.”

Sayo chuckles while Satoru’s eyes wander around. He can’t look at you straight, you don’t think he ever will again. Sayo tucks a strand of her long black hair behind her ear before she comments, “I don’t believe in soulmates, and Satoru doesn’t either.”

“Really?” You furrow your eyebrows then you look at Satoru. He would always call you his soulmate but apparently he’s changed. Or maybe he doesn’t want to admit something so foolish to his wife.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” She asks and you end up nodding. She then proceeds to ask, “Do you think you’ve met your soulmate?”

“I don’t think I have.” You answer, and you glance at Satoru who finally looks at you. You look away and your eyes land on Suguru. “How’s your residency going?”

“God, let’s not talk about that because I’ll rip my hair out.” Suguru responds, which makes Shoko say,

“Oh my God, let’s talk about it then.” She smirks while looking at Suguru, and Suguru rolls his eyes. The pair used to get along but now Shoko seems like she can’t stand Suguru.

“You’re just mad because your parents didn’t let you study medicine.” Suguru comments, and she end up scoffing. Sayo takes over the conversation before they continue bickering.

Shoko drives you and Suguru to the club that you’re going meeting Satoru and Sayo at. You’re more excited about this than dinner because you actually have the chance to get away. You’re able to let loose for the first time in five years. Of course, you’re in a private booth of the club because apparently Sayo and Satoru don’t like to be close to other people, but it’s fine. You and Shoko still get away.

You do a round of shots with Shoko, which didn’t take too much convincing from her part, and then you dance with her. You’re having fun with her, until you feel a pair of hands on your hips, and you tense up. You turn to look at who it is, brushing their hands away. You bite down your lip, holding back a smile as you put Suguru’s hands back on your hips. You begin to dance together, and when Shoko notices, she walks away not wanting to witness whatever the hell is happening.

“Why aren’t you two dancing?” Shoko asks, raising her voice so it can be heard over the music, walking back to Satoru and Sayo. She’ll sit down for a minute, have a drink, and then go back to dance. Satoru has his arm wrapped around Sayo, just looking around while she sips on her cocktail.

“Sayo doesn’t like to dance. What about you? Are you tired already?” Satoru replies, raising his voice as well, and Shoko chuckles.

“Suguru started dancing with her and I needed to get out of their way before they started making out in front of me.” Shoko says, which makes Sayo laugh while Satoru shifts in his seat. His eyes look around for you amongst the crowd of people and he finally finds you, grinding on Suguru. 

“Does she like him?” Sayo asks, and Shoko shrugs.

“I know that he likes her! Ever since we were teens!” Shoko responds, and maybe it’s the dim purple lighting that makes her eyes see things, but she swears she sees Satoru clench his jaw. She acts as if she didn’t see anything, playing it off as her own faulty eyesight before she stands up to get herself another drink. She doesn’t want to stay with Satoru and Sayo for too long; she feels too awkward when she’s alone with them.

“I’m gonna get something to drink! Will you come with me?!” You tell Suguru and he follows behind you when you grab his hand instead of letting go. And even though you came here with the Gojos, you’ve completely forgotten since you’re having fun. You finally let go of Suguru when you spot Shoko, and you hug her from behind before resting your chin on her shoulder.

“Are you drunk already? You’ve only had one shot.” Shoko comments. “Did you become a lightweight after having a baby or what—”

“Huh?!” Suguru’s eyes widen. Did he hear that right or is the music so loud that he’s mishearing things?

“What?!” Shoko turns around, and you let go of her. She acts as if she didn’t say what she just said, and she’s able to convince him that he heard wrong. And instead of getting the drink that you originally had in mind, you do another round of shots with Shoko but this time, Suguru takes one with you.

You go back to dancing with Suguru, and you try to drag Shoko with you, but she doesn’t want to join you. The next time you do see her, she’s with Sayo which you weren’t expecting. But you don’t pay much attention to them.

You’re focused on having your own fun with Suguru.

“Uhh…” Suguru’s neck hurts. He slowly opens his eyes, feeling something poking his cheek. He doesn’t remember much from last night– Just dancing with you, and maybe having a little too much to drink… Did he drive himself home? No, he’s not reckless nor irresponsible. He didn’t even take his car– Maybe it was Shoko. His head is killing him, and he wants to go back to sleep, but something keeps poking him.

He opens his eyes and the place is too bright. This has to be Shoko’s apartment because it certainly isn’t his. He sits up, and begins to look around. The poking on his cheek stops, instead it transfers to his ribcage. And he finally looks down.

His eyes widen at the sight. Is he still sleeping? He has to be because he’s seeing a four-year-old version of Satoru; he doesn’t remember taking any drugs last night. Suguru just stares at the little boy.

He fully wakes up when he hears,

“Are you my daddy?”

🏷 @yeagerfushiguro @luckimoon @uhremmi @conniesbbymama @mykyoon @prettyiolanthe @mc-reborn @the-loneliest-girl @cloudsinthecosmos @coffee-on-a-rainyautumn @blinkingsuns @oi-loverboy @neireav @lilith412426 @misshale21 @rivaiken @q-the-rockaholic @merlinssassybeard @ikilledsparky2 @mimizsworld @lily3847 @Teslumieres @floralsightings @Mocha-plxnet @idreamitski @creolequeen11210@jooaannnnaaa @enthusiastiics @lovinkiri @abdce12345 @bkgnotsuma @kariito-art @beelzmunchkin @satosuguswife @kurome-ga-kill @hoonberrie @mittypops @suhaaaefre @AZE107 @ackerstein @sweetshawty @saiewithakatana @psychopotatomeme @innocxntdexth @4-morant @shan-nein @marymosaa @Ditzyberry @purpleguk @basically-an-anime-stan-acct @bomjug @idkbutokaylol @rosieee491 @ieathairs @simpfully-heartbroken @witchbybirth @ddalgisworld @pinksilk @torutoji @notarshia @filmreelononescreen @Anemicjaguar @kurookinnie

[laswells-ashtray]

Hello Miss Ashtray, may I humbly request that you write something incredibly self indulgent? Write something that YOU want to write! I love your work, and I wanna see what gets YOUR brain worms wiggling :3

Watching Nikolai tinker about with an old radio is a gift. The man may as well have a satin red bow holding his black locks out of his eyes as he unscrews the back panel of the radio, tongue poking out between his lips in a sign of concentration.

If John could stop breathing, he would. Unwilling to let something so inconsequential as his breathing interrupt his partner when the other man is so relaxed. His posture is loose, breathing calm and melodic with his attention focused on the task in front of him, barely aware of John's presence. If it weren't a dreary day in England and the sun was shining through the blinds, he would say he could see the liveliness in the Russian's eyes reflecting in the light.

But the grey painting the sky outside offers the streets a dull, abiotic look and it warms something in John's chest to know that he's hoarding the warmth of Nikolai's presence to himself in a selfish act that he can't bring himself to apologise for.

Watching a man whose knuckles he has wiped clean of blood, his own and that of nameless battered bodies, take apart an Eltra RM-407 is a blessing in its own right. Millions of years of evolution have led him to this very moment in which the man he loves takes apart a Polish radio and scatters the pieces over their coffee table.

John wants to run his hands over Nikolai's shoulders, savouring the warmth of the other man's skin under his fingertips. He wants to nuzzle against the other man's shoulders, desperate to cover the pilot in his scent in an announcement to the world that he's mine. He'd spend hours of his time nipping and sucking Nikolai's skin, bruising it in colours of his own making just to see his claim on the pilot.

In another world he'd crawl into Nikolai's ribcage, shielding his heart with every vulnerable bit of his own boy just to ensure that his partner remained whole throughout the bloodshed of their jobs. John would let the pilot devour him whole, feast upon his very flesh and bone just to ensure that Nikolai wouldn't starve.

Watching Nikolai in the process of repairing a vintage Polish radio is like watching him smoke, John can't take his eyes off it. Watching him tap the ashes off of his cigarette as the embers rapidly race towards his fingertips while he inhales smoke.

Watching the tendrils escaping his mouth as though he were breathing flames, a mythical serpent whose very presence could encompass a room but his predator gaze would fall upon one man only.

John would offer himself up as a pincushion, letting the other man sink his claws into the fragile flesh protecting his bones. He'd let his blade-like teeth ravage skin until he tore a bloodied mass of tissue from John's carcass. Nikolai would walk away from his rotten husk of a corpse and yet John might never have felt so full.

Watching Nikolai in his attempts to rewire a worn, fragile piece of machinery feels like looking into a mirror. Feeling the Russian's calloused hands run over his body in an attempt to find a loose screw that he could utilise in his mission to crack John open and find his endostructure. Burning his hands on the very core that powers a captain-shaped wall of mechanics in an attempt to reconfigure him into a man capable of humanity at its very simplest.

Nikolai's ability to craft those around him into better people, shaping them into souls capable of devotion and tenderness as he had once succeeded with John was an art few have mastered in the way few achieved.

He creates life out of walking cadavers, he drags souls back from sequestered lands and gives people a sense of being again. And he does so with scarred, aching hands.

Watching Nikolai repair a radio on their coffee table is worth the knowledge that their coffee table is going to be covered in loose screws, dusty plastic and at least three screwdrivers. It makes John want to kiss him silly.

[profoundbondfanfic]

Hey I have been looking for Dark Dean and Castiel fics where Dean is OBSESSED with Castiel do you have any recommendations?

Hey hey! Sorry for the delay, but I hope these recs are welcomed now just in time for Halloween.

A bit of a warning though -- some of these fics get really dark and involve very intense subjects so pls mind the tags before reading these.

all that’s sacred comes from youth by fullvoid (Mature, 8k words)

Teenage Dean has a dark, possessive streak he hides well. But when he and Cas agree to get married at age 35 if neither of them has by then, he finds he can't quite just leave it at that and spends years stalking Cas from the shadows and sabotaging every relationship he starts. Or Dean, in love with his best friend Cas and obsessed with a pact they made when they were 17 years old, gets rid of his boyfriends one by one through escalating means.

Between Love and Agony by Duckyboos (Explicit, 53k words)

Dean Winchester is in love. Like, bonafide heart eyes and deep sighs, hung-the-moon love. There's just one problem: the lucky guy is his husband's identical twin, Castiel. The two of them have been having a kinky affair for years, burrowing under each other’s skin and setting up camp. Which is why, after Castiel goes missing, Dean’s about ready to tear the world apart looking for him. When Castiel eventually returns to him, he’s been through literal hell, managing to drag himself out, bloody and raw, for Dean. Together, they discover a way to make Castiel whole again — though the price will be gruesome… and there will certainly be hell to pay.

CONventional Psychopathy 'Verse by Mayalaen (Explicit, 441k words)

Castiel Novak is a Cleaner. One of the agency's best. He and his Handler, Dean Winchester, have a high success rate in a world where the worst criminals aren't imprisoned for their crimes, but instead are captured by licensed serial killers who dispose of them, doing what they do best while getting paid for it. Cas doesn't form attachments, doesn't leave himself open for a risk like that, but Dean wormed his way into Cas' life and into his house. Does Dean realize what falling in love with a serial killer really means?

Do Anything For You by ImYourHoneyBee (Explicit, 7k words)

“How’re you feeling?” his earlier worry and fear have faded into the background because of how freaking good Jimmy looks right now, but that’s the thing to ask. Besides, even if he was planning on killing him soon, propriety has to be observed. Dean has a reputation to uphold as a fine, upstanding citizen in this city. Patrick Bateman wishes he was as smooth as Dean is. “Better than the guy who hit me,” Jimmy tells him with uncharacteristic bluntness, nodding toward the curtained-off bed, “I overheard the doctors saying he flatlined around the same time I did.” “Oh shit,” Dean says, glancing over to try and mask the sick roil that sets up shop in his stomach. “He make it?” The ghost of a smile plays over Jimmy’s chapped lips, “He’s in a better place now.” x The one where Cas's soul takes over Jimmy's body.

Free to Be You and Me by jhoom (Explicit, 49k words) --- This says incomplete but it's a satisfying ending so we think the author just didn't close it out.

Dean lost his parents in a fire when he was younger, and he’s never been the same since. Based on the prompt: "I was ten years old when I witnessed the murder of my entire family. The police told me that the person I saw commit the crime was a figment of my imagination - a result of the trauma - but I couldn’t let it rest. In a strange way, they saved me - with everyone else gone I might have gone to pieces, but I HAD to find the killer, so I held it together, I got through school, I rose through the ranks of detective, and now finally, finally, I’m on their trail. I have to find them. I have to meet them. I have to tell them that I love them."

Hello Night by almaasi (Explicit, 11k words)

Demon!Dean/Priest!Cas AU. Castiel summons Dean to the crossroads, and he only wants one thing: him.

Make Me by saltnhalo (Explicit, 4k words)

A beautiful man on a motorbike shows up at Castiel's business with a t-shirt that says Make me and a smirk that could put the devil to shame. How is Castiel possibly meant to resist?

Monsters by Miss_Lv (Explicit, 11k words)

Castiel prayed to God, to help them, to save them. God never answered. But Dean did. It was the monster who saved Castiel, not God.

Seven Heavenly Virtues by Strixes (Explicit, 108k words)

The Mark of Cain turns Dean into a demon once more. Dean is adamant that this time he's found a way to keep the mark under control but it's clear to Castiel that Dean needs help if he's going to fight the mark's influence until they can find a way to get rid of it. More than anything Castiel wants to save him, but if anyone needs to be saved it's Castiel as he tries to navigate where Dean ends and the Mark of Cain begins.

The Prodigal Bond by vipjuly (Explicit, 68k words)

In exchange for conjugal visits, Dean Winchester gives FBI Supervisory Special Agent Castiel Novak all the dirt he needs to bring down national crime rings. It's a tit-for-tat situation; primal, animalistic, and probably ten kinds of illegal. When a case is revealed to be closer to Castiel than what he considers safe, he and Dean must work together to make sure that Crowley goes down for good. Will Castiel be able to keep Dean at arm's length, or will the charming convict finally get what he's been asking for all along? What lengths will Castiel go to... at Dean's behest?

These Violent Delights by SomethingBlue42, xfancyfranart (Explicit, 43k words)

Dean Winchester, war vet and functioning alcoholic with a life that’s going nowhere, takes a job at Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Dean had never heard of Dr. Castiel Novak notorious serial killer and cannibal given he’d been dodging bullets and performing field triage during Novak’s sensational trial. Seasoned orderly Rufus lays out the rules: Do not touch the glass. Do not approach the glass. You pass him nothing but soft paper - no pencils, no pens. Use the sliding food carrier only, no exceptions. If he attempts to pass you anything, do not accept it. And most importantly: don't tell him anything personal. But Dean was never much for following the rules and Castiel has a way of making Dean feel like he isn’t the grade-a loser his hot-shot FBI agent brother thinks he is. Then, a senator’s daughter goes missing, setting forth a chain of events that put Dean on a path that forces him to choose where his loyalties lie and just how far he’s willing to walk into the dark.

This Tainted Love You've Given by LazarusRose, xfancyfranart (Explicit, 17k words)

Everyone has their hobbies—Dean’s just happens to involve a lot more blood and screaming than most people’s. And sure, maybe murder isn’t the nicest way to blow off steam, but Dean’s always thought that being nice is overrated anyway. His latest victim, a pretty guy with startling blue eyes, should be nothing special, just another nameless body on Dean’s list. But then, after Dean kills and buries him, he turns back up at Dean’s house again the next day. What’s a guy to do when they’ve accidentally gotten an immortal witch convinced that they’ve got some kind of profound bond?

Happy Halloween!!👻🎃

[abiiors]

birthday surprise - matty x reader

part 2 of matty's birthday weekend a/n: this is scheduled. by the time this goes up, i will (hopefully🤞🏼) be on a beach somewhere, day drunk 😌 cw: vomit (because hungover), dramatic (because sad), once again vague descriptions of depression. some kissing and suggestive stuff. idiots friends to lovers wc: 3.1k

george’s massive hand rests on matty’s back while he retches into the toilet. 

his head pounds mercilessly, the sunlight streaming in through the window is barely helping and the soured wine churning in his stomach comes back up once again, leaving him gasping for air. a loud splash echoes in the bathroom and matty groans, gagging a bit more. 

george is a good friend. he lets matty lean on him and holds the glass of water so matty can slowly sip from it.

it barely works though. he feels like shit regardless, and none of it can be cured by water or food or painkillers. 

george helps him get back to bed once matty feels slightly better. the whole time neither of them say a word. matty doesn’t know how much of last night has been told to his friend—does he know the precise way in which matty fucked up? did he see matty in the act? overhear the conversation accidentally? 

george’s face looks completely blank. he does all the right things—sets a glass of water and a few painkillers next to matty, grabs him a bucket, draws the blackout curtains. he even offers to get breakfast.

“fry up from that small cafe down the street,” he says in a hushed voice. “come on, greasy food’s good for hangovers.”

matty mumbles something like a vague yes, if only so george would step out of the house for a bit. once he’s out, matty searches for his phone, wedged somewhere between the mattress and the headboard. the sudden brightness makes him wince but once he manages to open his eyes, he checks for messages and missed calls. 

apart from one missed call from george and one from jamie, there’s nothing. 

nothing from her. 

not one message. 

the last message he’s sent to her sits at read—it’s nothing special, just the address to the pub they were going to meet at. and then… yeah, matty remembers how well that went. 

he remembers the last look on her face before she stormed off. 

then it’s just a fog.

his throat feels clogged, his eyes sting but no tears come. matty just lays there, curled up like a pathetic worm, clutching his pillow until seconds or minutes or hours later george re-enters his room. 

“right, come on,” he flings the covers off matty, making him feel a sudden draft of cold air. “i’m not getting you breakfast in bed, mate. you’re hungover, not an invalid.”

“‘m not hungry,” matty mumbles. his voice is hoarse and his throat hurts—probably the vomiting—but it’s nothing in comparison to his head. a delayed realisation hits him that he never took the painkillers. 

george huffs. “don’t be a diva.” and if matty had any strength he would absolutely be offended by that. then again maybe george doesn’t know the full extent of last night. 

“seriously george—”

“matty. you’re going to get out of bed and come to the kitchen. we are going to eat and then we are going to talk about last night.”

well… there goes that. a stubborn side of him wants to be an absolute ass and dig his feet in. say all sorts of mean things to george just so he’d leave. but isn’t that what got him here in the first place? he really isn’t in the position to hurt more people in his life. 

like a small child matty drags his feet the entire way to the kitchen, turning his nose up at the food on the table. (even though it looks really good and his stomach does growl now that he can smell the food) george doesn’t egg him on any further. he just motions to the chair and slides a mug of coffee in front of him.

“you said what?” 

it’s the eerily calm edge to george’s voice that makes matty shrink in his seat. he does feel better with some food in his stomach, physically at least. but the way george stares at him—eyes cold, lips pressed in a thin line—makes him feel sick to his stomach all over again. 

“i said– i– i said it was the first of april, i told her it was a joke.” his voice is a pathetic whisper, words drowned by shame and guilt and self-hatred. matty wishes he could go back in time and undo it all. he won’t say any of it. 

he won’t even touch the wine in the first place. 

“right after you said i love you.”

“yeah.”

“huh.”

easy for george to say that. it’s not his love life blowing up in his face right now. matty stabs the tomato next to his half-eaten toast, watching it spill its guts onto the plate. red. just like last night. 

he remembers that part of it. 

“what happened after? how did i… get home?”

george goes a bit silent for a second, not meeting matty’s eyes which sets alarm bells ringing in his head. 

“do you really not remember?”

when matty shakes his head, george just sighs and then softly says her name. “she called charli, crying a lot and i figured something went down. i called you–don’t you remember that?” when matty’s blank face gives him the answer, george continues, “you sounded really awful like… you were gasping for breath. i could barely understand you. so i thought i’d pick you up and get you home. i’m glad i did.”

in all of this the only part matty focuses on is her. and that she called charli crying a lot. of course, he thanks george but it’s only half-hearted, distracted. he can’t get the image of it out of his mind—her sobbing on the other end of the phone, barely able to get a word out. it breaks his heart all over again. 

he did that. 

this is all his fault. 

“matty… you have to make it right.”

that’s the biggest problem of it all—he doesn’t know how. what is he supposed to do, call her up and say: hey, so you know how i drunkenly said i love after which i assumed you looked at me with disgust and then i said it was all a joke and you stormed off? well it was not a joke i am seriously in love with you and i don’t know what happens to our friendship after this. 

yeah. there’s no way to put it any better. 

so he just nods. at least, that way he doesn’t have to answer to george right now. he’s figure out a way to do it later, once he doesn’t feel like a raisin. he’ll figure out a proper plan, build up the courage to call her. 

for now matty can only swallow the rest of the now-lukewarm coffee and hope that he can just sleep the rest of the day off. 

for three days after that, his messages stay on delivered. 

it’s a harrowing process, to pick up his phone and dial her number only for it to go to voicemail after the second ring. almost like she’d stabbed her thumb on the glaring red reject button. 

all his messages went unanswered too. all the—

hey

can we talk please?

please!

i just want to say sorry 

just hear me out

—all of them ignored, like all his other efforts to reach her through her friends. 

day four charli shows up at his doorstep, face twisted in a scowl, eyes like embers ready to singe him if he stepped one toe out of line, mayhem in tow. 

the puppy is his last straw. the fact that she sent mayhem back with charli instead of dropping him off herself… matty doesn’t even want to think what that means for him. for them. 

he mumbles a quiet “thanks” to charli, afraid of speaking anything louder. 

“if it weren’t for george—” she starts and swallows, as if she’s literally swallowing her anger. “nevermind. forget about it.”

and then she leaves him standing at his doorstep like a loser, mayhem’s leash in hand. 

much later he realises that the collar is different now, it’s no longer the slightly frayed old brown collar from before. this one is new. 

this one is green. a green that matches her hair… 

the thought of it makes his throat clog up with tears once again. when had she even had the time to go buy him a new collar? one to match her hair so perfectly? was it before or after he fucked up? matty scratches mayhem behind his ears who lets out a soft little whine and nuzzles him in return. maybe the puppy is sad too, maybe mayhem prefers being with her instead of being with him. 

the next few days he spends like a pig in a pigsty, surrounded by his own filth of food cartons and cigarette butts and coke cans. he makes it a mission to call her once every day—all of them go unanswered anyway so what’s the point?

by the time the seventh of april rolls around, matty doesn’t even bother thinking about his birthday anymore—there’s no pointing in celebrating it, he’s not even in the mood right now. one failed celebration is enough.

his friends, of course, have a whole different plan in mind. 

jamie shows up at his house the evening of the seventh, not ready to take no for an answer. it’s just a small dinner, he says, only friends and family. (matty knows that’s not true, knows it’s going to be a whole surprise party) but every “no” is met with a gentle refusal to accept it and so ultimately, he gives in and dresses up in his cleanest, least sad shirt. the one that least screams “i took my first shower of the week today”. 

jamie, to his credit, tries engaging him in conversation. matty, to his credit, tries not to answer in one syllable words. it gets exhausting real quick though, so they end up spending the rest of the car ride in silence.

everything that happens after is a blur in his mind—the pub looks ordinary from the outside, inconspicuous. everyone yells “surprise!” much like he predicted. matty smiles, cheery and fake. someone hands him a drink, which he tries to refuse but the person is too far away to hear him over the music now. his stomach roils at the thought of being in another pub, in the middle of another birthday party. 

he just wants to go home and curl up onto his bed and never move again. 

except…

matty’s heart stops when he spots a green head. 

he blinks rapidly, about to rub his eyes to make sure he didn’t hallucinate. maybe there are drugs in the air, maybe the (untouched) drink in his hands is actually spiked. 

but the green head moves and she steps away from behind george, a glass of some dark cocktail in her hands and her eyes trained on him. matty staggers to a stop, about to drop the glass in his hands. 

“hey…” her voice is hesitant, unsure when she first walks up to him. from behind her, george throws matty a look, his brow raised as if to say one chance, matty. better make it right.

of all the things that have happened today, this… this is the real surprise. 

matty stands there like an idiot, tongue-tied and wide-eyed, unable to come up with a simple “hi”.

“should we… uh, head outside?” it’s when she points vaguely behind her, to the smoking area, that he realises just how loud it is inside. the consistent beat of the song thumps through his chest, making him feel more anxious than ever. in a daze, he nods and then dutifully follows her outside. 

as soon as the door to the smoking area closes behind him, she whirls around, arms crossed in front of her chest, brows knit in an indecipherable expression. “talk.”

oh.

well, that’s what he had said to her hadn’t he? in all the text messages he had sent. that he just wants to talk. he just wants one chance. and now that the chance is here, his mouth's as dry as a desert. 

“i was… an idiot, no forget that, i was a real cunt to you. just like you said, i’m so sorry for the awful shit i said, i…” his words come out stilted and awkward. he has no idea where he’s going with this, he only knows he needs to earn her forgiveness somehow. 

even if he has to get on his knees. 

“i got drunk an–and cruel and said things i didn’t mean—”

“what things?”

“w-what?” 

“the things you didn’t mean,” she clears her throat, “what things were they? the part where you said i love you or–or the part where you said it was all a joke?”

matty’s insides feel like jelly all over again. it’s like he’s back where he was a week ago—just a boy, standing in front of the girl he loves, about to say the stupidest thing in the world. 

“well?”

“i didn’t mean it as a j–joke.” his voice comes out as a cowardly whisper, high pitched and barely audible. that’s no way to say the things he really wants to say! 

gathering all his courage, matty steps closer to her. to his utter surprise, she doesn’t step away. 

“it wasn’t a joke, what i said to you. i—” he chokes, nervously running a hand through his hair, wondering what the slight widening of her eyes means out of the million possibilities his brain’s already conjured up. 

“i know i was drunk and barely making sense but i meant it… i meant all of it.”

slowly, she uncrosses her arms, letting them dangle at her sides. the crease between her brows relaxes too. suddenly, it’a her taking a step forward until they’re toe-to-toe and she has to tilt her chin up to look him in the eyes. the moonlight shines bright on her face, the glitter gleams on her eyelids, and for a moment matty is completely awestruck. 

how is he meant to find words when she leaves him so completely tongue-tied?

“and what’s ‘it’, huh?”

the faint ringing in his ears starts up all over again and music from inside the pub floats through the walls, mellowed and somehow peaceful. this is it, he thinks. he fucked it up once, he absolutely cannot do it again. 

“i meant i… i love you. not as a friend. i mean n-no, of course, i love you as a friend but i also meant it as something more. not that you have to reciprocate! i just–it’s just what i feel—”

the rest of his words die on his lips. get cut off by someone else’s lips more like it. her lips. against his. 

matty’s eyes resemble wide saucers until her arms wrap around him, fingers tangling into his hair. her nails brushing against his scalp is what makes his body relax and suddenly matty’s kissing her back. 

tenderly, he holds her cheek, tucking away stray hair behind her ear. his other hand rests on her waist, too hesitant to grip her tightly but too scared to just let go. as if once he lets go of her, she’ll float away, far away from him again, out of his reach. matty’s sure she can feel his heart hammering in his chest. he’s not super proud of it but the kiss makes him forget all about being embarrassed. 

the feel of her tongue lighting teasing his lips is all that matters. 

she makes a sound at the back of her throat, almost a… moan and pulls away abruptly, looking shy all of a sudden. 

matty touches his lips with trembling fingers. 

“was that too—”

“are you joking?!” if he though his voice was breathy before, it has nothing on what he sounds like now. the sound that comes out of him is hoarse, like he’s struggling to breathe and it’s making him feel dizzy. the good kind of dizzy. “so i fucked up, majorly, might i add! and i get rewarded with a kiss?!”

she giggles, all anger from before melting away right in front of his eyes. “it was more to shut you up honestly, you would have been here all night. rambling.”

for the first time in a week, matty can finally breathe, can finally feel the blood in his veins flow again. for the first time in a week, matty feels like a person again. “it wasn’t a reward. just because you’re pretty and a good kisser doesn’t mean i’ll forgive you so quickly.” 

matty grins, “you think i’m pretty?” and promptly gets punched in the arm.

it takes them a moment to stop giggling, but when they finally sober up, she turns serious again. “seriously though, matty, it hurt me a lot, what you did. i think… i think i can set it aside for tonight but i’m going to need some time to figure things out. 

matty nods. of course, he knows the impact his words must have had. shame and guilt blooms deep within him, strong and acrid. 

“don't forgive me yet, love. forgive me when i earn it. forgive me when you think i’m worthy of it.”

when she kisses him again, it’s deeper than the last time. her entire body is pressed against his, so warm and soft in arms, exactly like he’s imagined countless times before. he can’t stop himself—can’t stop him from finally holding onto her waist, hand sliding down to her ass. can’t stop himself from pushing her back till her back hits the wall and a soft gasp leaves her mouth. every nerve ending in his body is on hyperdrive. everywhere she touches, electricity zings through him. 

matty slides his tongue in her mouth, pulling on her bottom lip with his teeth and soothing the sting away with his tongue. every time he feels her shiver, matty presses further into her. he just wants more and more and more—more than he can do here and now on this balcony. 

all his friends are inside for fucks sake. 

“you can start now,” she teases, smiling roguishly against his mouth. “you’d look quite nice on your knees, i think.”

blood simmers under his skin, rushing south all at once and this time it’s matty who shivers, struggling to stand upright. 

“yeah? that what you want, sweetheart?”

“take me home, please,” she says. and matty agrees in a heartbeat. 

taglist: @scooby-doodoo @partoftheairforce @justgoatsbreakinghearts0855 @beachesgetpeaches @you-muppet @mcabister @alexmarie29 @at-her-very-foreign @hfkait @squishysoupy @sierraeslaprincesa @harrie-fic-center @alien-girl-violet @thereisaplaceintheheart @kennedy-brooke @lolidontknowanymore @theoriginalwhatsername @celestcies @sugarkane1001 @ari-turner @thewaywewereinsaigon @daphnesutton @beliefandsayingsomething @ros3chu @nothingrevealedeverythingdenied @zzzhealy @mattymybeloved @fck-off @indiaamars @sofaritsalrightt @k4tie75 @wondersecret @humptyhoran @indierockgirrl @hanbiior @moreyoulove-moreyouknow @rossgirly @if-my-heart-bleeds @little-lovely-darling @abriefnirvana @renitypoem @sinarainbows @lady-may-targaryen @love4agesss @angrylittlebaldman @oneluckygirl @sinarainbows @starvchaser @noacfapologyst @abouttofillhisshoes @tbhnotthatfunny

add yourself to the taglist

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The fandom can't make up its mind on what's supposed to be a joke and what's supposed to be serious because the show can't either half the time. It's a tonally disjointed mess that wants to have absurd over-the-top humor as well as a plot and moments of drama, romance, and angst that demand you see the characters as people and feel for what they're going through. Except you can't do that without also treating the dumb bullshit in a somewhat grounded way. Like, you're still dealing with the same characters. You can't just go "Oh, that? Let's ignore that!" the moment it's no longer convenient to you. You've opened this can of worms and now you have to sleep in it. So, every character flip-flops between two different versions of themselves depending on what the writers need in any particular scene.

This is not to say surreal humor can't be used right alongside characters you're supposed to empathize with, Teen Titans (not Go) did that and it worked. It's just that the absurdity can only come from the setting (Mad Mod, Mother Mae-Eye, pretty much anything Control Freak is in) or from designated joke characters (Date With Destiny). Teen Titans never had the main characters acting in clearly absurd ways as the butt of a joke unless those characters were brainwashed somehow, because the writers knew that would ruin any of the more grounded moments they wanted to write. The writers of Miraculous missed the memo on that one.

I don't disagree. A perfect example is Derision where the show takes all of the bad jokes about Marinette's crush and decides to take them seriously as if you can possible take them seriously without making Marinette come across as unhinged and dangerous. You can't, which brings us to the topic at hand: how do you even begin to understand these characters when the show is constantly making character-breaking choices?

My approach - and the approach I recommend others take if they're going to keep watching the show - is to focus on the characters' cores and reject anything canon does to violate those cores. I don't argue for this stance because I love the characters so much that I only want the good things to count. I take this stance because, if you don't, then the characters fall apart. There is no way to make them work as fully realized characters while embracing every choice canon has made. Miraculous has massive characterization issues that go well beyond the humor.

For example, Adrien has multiple moments of terrible behavior that are played in a serious manner such as the moment in the episode Frozer where he tries to start a fight with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma attack because she wouldn't accept a rose from him earlier:

Setup

Ladybug: I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already. I'm in love with someone else. Cat Noir: I know, M'lady. But if he weren't here, would things be different between us? Ladybug: Well, you know, I can't even begin to imagine him not being here. I'm sorry, Cat Noir. I really gotta get going, and you better do the same. (Swings her yo-yo to head back home; Cat Noir is sad, looking downwards, with one petal of the rose falling.)

Payoff

Ladyice: Cat Noir. We need to set up a trap for whoever turned the city into a giant ice rink. (throws yo-yo) Icecat: (bitterly) My feline instincts prefer to track and observe before I attack. You go your way, I'll go mine. Ladyice: Please don't tell me you're mad at me about the rose. Icecat: There may be a certain chill now between us. Ladyice: I get it, but we should really focus on saving Paris right now. Icecat: We don't always have to do everything together, after all. It's not like we're a couple. (skates away)

There's no way to argue this off as a bad joke. While Adrien has every right to feel hurt, those feelings don't excuse him acting like a pouting child in the middle of an akuma fight. It doesn't excuse him acting like this at any point! Ladybug is not a villain for telling him no. She wasn't even mean about it!

I clearly fully agree that Adrien looks awful and selfish here, but I'd still argue that it's not something that should be used to define Adrien's character if your goal is to tell the "ideal" version of Miraculous. "Ideal" being the version that canon seems to be going for based on the overall picture we can sort of make out if we back way, way, way up and look at the extremely abstract picture canon is clumsily painting.

Unless canon is going to do something monumentally stupid, Adrien is Marinette's endgame romantic interest. It's also clear that there is no plan to cut him from the team. He's going to be Chat Noir for the rest of his life or at least well into his adulthood. This means that he is supposed to be a good hero who deserves his miraculous just like he's supposed to be a charming and cute romantic lead. These are the two things I keep in mind when trying to shift through canon to figure out what writing choices I should fully embrace and what writing choices I have to either ignore or treat as true flaws that get an actual character arc. In my book, either approach is fine because most of the characters are deeply flawed at this point and you can't give them all arcs without bloating the story to nonsense levels.

My goal with this approach is never to say, "oh, that moment shouldn't count in terms of how people feel about the character." It's more, "that moment goes so hard against who this character is very clearly supposed to be that I can't take it into account if I want to tell the kind of story that Miraculous is trying (and clearly failing) to tell."

As an example, let's list off Adrien's worst behaviors. The things that make him look terrible:

He sucks at communicating his needs and feelings, leading to multiple moments where he gets mad at Ladybug for things she's totally unaware of

He has quit or considered quitting without warning multiple times and only one of those was because of something he did "wrong" (NYC Special)

He puts his feelings before the safety of Paris on multiple occasions, even going so far to purposely miss akuma fights to see what happens

He is incredibly pushy about his crush, often ignoring Ladybug's feelings on the topic by continuing to bring it up even after she asked him to stop

There have been multiple instances where he almost cataclysmed multiple people in a fit of anger

His love for Ladynette isn't strong enough to let him break free of things like akumas and nightmare dust even when he's looking her in the eyes making him a pretty crappy romantic lead

People will argue that some of this behavior makes sense for his character because of the abuse that canon has technically introduced, but that the writers seem blissfully unaware of. I don't disagree with that argument, but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is acceptable behavior for a hero and Adrien is a hero who keeps doing these things. A sad backstory doesn't give you the right to behave poorly without consequences.

At the same time, if I fully embrace these elements of canon, what I get is an Adrien salt fic where he loses his miraculous for good while Marinette finds her real true love or even just a non-salty fic where Adrien leaves for his own meatal health and gets replaced by someone who can handle being a hero right now. Canon's not writing either of those, so the only way to engage with these flaws while enjoying canon or aiming for the same end goals as canon is to say, "I guess this doesn't count" or "I guess I need to tone this way down and work through it via a character arc" or even "I guess that was just a bad joke maybe?"

That is the essence of what I mean when I call myself a writing salt, character sugar blog. It comes from looking at canon and seeing that there's simply no way to embrace the worst moments and the best at the same time. We're not dealing with a coherent plot and/or complex characters. We're dealing with a nonsense plot that will warp the characters to bizarre shapes to make random ideas work even if those idea go wildly against canon's end goals.

As an example, Glaciator and Frozer should not exist in the same universe or, at the very least, something should explain why Chat Noir randomly changed his stance on Ladybug's crush from acceptance to pushiness. As is, the pieces don't fit together. The behavior is too contradictory. Remember, this is how Glaciator ends:

Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like, I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all.

Where did this version of Adrien go? Why did he regress in Frozer? There's no in-universe reason. It happened because the writers weren't ready to let the love square date or grow close, but they also wanted the love square to cause drama, so Adrien ends up looking terrible just like Marinette ends up looking terrible when it's her turn to cause love square drama. Her terribleness takes a different flavor so it can be hard to realize that this is a systemic issue, but that's what it is. It's deeply frustrating, but it also clearly stems from cheap writing and not quality characterization.

This is also why my stance is that canon as a whole only supports my Doyalistic core-character analysis style of approach. The writing is too poor quality to do Watsonian analysis where you embrace the full picture and try to put it all together. The closest I'll get to Watsonian analysis is pointing out how much the writing botches a Watsonian take by showing you all the way the writing contradicts itself, twisting into a nonsense pretzel of frustration where the payoffs never satisfy! (See the season four rant for an example or anything where I talked about Chloe's supposed damnation arc.)

There are even characters where canon is such a total mess that you can Doyalistically argue for two separate takes! Gabriel is a perfect example. He is all over the place and his ending was so poorly handled that you can make strong arguments for writing him as a cold-hearted villain or a sympathetic villain without the end result feeling like it spits in the face of canon because both takes maintain his one core element: villain.

That's the big thing I keep in mind when I look at the characters and the lore and the plots and try to come up with versions that the average fan would like. I don't think that there's one true version of any of these things, but I do feel comfortable saying that there are versions that will very clearly only appeal to people who are salty about a specific thing that canon did poorly. That's not who I want to appeal to in my adaptions, so while I'm not going to argue that those takes have no backing in canon, I will argue that those takes are not supported by canon as a whole. Embracing them requires you to take the worst parts of canon at face value while ignoring what canon is clearly trying to do with the overall story.

I get the appeal of that, but it's not fun for me because that approach feels like rolling around in the mud with the pigs. I don't want to sink to canon's level! I want to have fun! That's why I talk about how to make canon into its best self, not its worst self. If you want its worst self, just go watch the actual show. I will be shocked it if disappoints you.

[batsyforyou]

Random Pet Peeves: Feanorians Edition

Tags: Pet peeves (things that annoy people)

Pairings: None

Author's Note: I have Eonwe coming up as well as the pokémon one. Just thought to post this while I was at it.

Taglist: @asianbutnotjapanese

Curufin 

Fidgeting. He hates it, between the noise it can bring and the constant movement it drives him insane and causes him to lose focus. Like when you're on your last nerve and someone keeps making McDonald straw music insane. Like just stop already! 

Maedhros

Jokes about his height and comments about his missing hand. The 'How's the weather up there?’ jokes and the constant questions about his hand from those less informed drives him crazy. I mean honestly, how many times can you hear the same thing before it gets old? Now imagine being an elf with centuries of experience with these things. 

Celegorm 

Open mouth chewing. Most of the time Celegorm doesn’t care about anything anyone does but when it comes to eating and everyone is at the dinner table it's gross and noisy and he is sometimes convinced that their saliva food spatter somehow got in his food. Which he will promptly make a scene for and refuse to eat. 

Even worse is when he is feeling overwhelmed and stressed and chewing noises begin to drive him nuts like, oh my word, I’ve been there.  

Caranthir 

Mud and dirt tracked all over the floor. Especially if Celegorm is the one who couldn’t be bothered to take his shoes off before coming inside. 

Maglor 

When someone touches his stuff. Most of the time he can handle it with grace and be completely chill with finding his harp being moved into a different room. Because while it is annoying it isn’t world ending. So he’ll just roll his eyes, sigh and politely remind the culprit *coughs* Celegorm *Cough cough* to not move his things around. 

But if you really want to get his goat do what parents (and some absent minded friends) do best. 

When he goes to show you a journal with his music notes and ideas, flip into the area he didn’t show you. Like when you show someone a photo and they start SCROLLING THROUGH EVERYTHING. 

That will get him raging mad lol. 

Amrod and Amras

They both hate it when they get called by the other's name. And I don’t mean like when a stranger, like a servant, just makes a mistake (they are very understanding about this) I mean when they’ve known this person for literal years and they still can’t tell them apart. 

They also can’t stand it when family members confuse their hobbies with the other twins. While it isn’t big it doesn’t really feel good and can really upset them on days they aren’t doing well mentally. 

Celebrimbor 

When someone refers to his family as the monsters under the bed and uses them as scary ghost stories. Yeah, his family did kinda do it to themselves but that doesn’t mean it isn’t annoying. Especially when they get the details wrong like, “No, Maedhros didn’t have dark hair. His hair was red and curly.” Like if you're gonna try and scare people using real life people at least get the basics right. 

It also sucks because people will also turn him into a story character as well. Coming up with different assumptions and making weird rumors about him eating worms or something. It can be really bothersome and isolating. 

Besides all that he still loves his family and remembers them more as people with troubled pasts rather than monsters that hide under beds.

His Uncles and Atar are way too big to hide under beds anyway. 

Feanor

When someone questions his work and decisions. Not just once out of curiosity but over and over again. It grates on his sanity. 

Nerdanel

When someone talks about her children and husband leaving and doing all those horrible things. Like honestly can’t they have some class and not shove it in her face? Or even when someone asks her how she didn’t see Feanor’s behavior change or why she didn’t try to stop him sooner or the classic, “What did you ever see in that elf?” 

She loves her family very much and hates when people act all snotty about things.

masterlist

[mochiwrites]

Any thoughts to share about the secret husbands reunion? It's giving me such brain worms, they're so soft!

ofc!!! :D

so after they reunite on mumbo’s redstone world and catch up, grian stays there for a few days with scar Constantly visiting. and honestly I think it’s an opportunity for mumbo and scar to become better friends as well! the three of them spend a lot of time in each others company after all. but mumbo does try to give scar and grian some space (I think mumbo is one of the first to notice they’ve got feelings for each other)

he also gets a front row seat to scar becoming his normal self again. the man can’t stop smiling, and he’s like a bouncy ball with how much he’s just moving around and cheerful (mumbo catches grian looking at him with a terribly fond smile Very often)

grian probably stays with mumbo for hmmm two weeks? maybe a bit longer? after crashing into his world? it gives them a lot of time to get to know each other (they get along extremely well — just like scar thought they would) and while grian doesn’t tell him Every little detail about the watchers, mumbo does end up learning about what happened and is one of the only people who knows the most

when scar isn’t with them, he’s back on the season five world hatching a plan to sneak grian onto hermitcraft

said plan is foiled Very quickly when it’s found by cub and xisuma himself. they laugh about it because “scar you could’ve just asked us to invite grian” and scar is rambling because he knows it has to be a unanimous vote and what if not everyone agrees and he’s just gotten grian back x :( he can’t be separated from him again :(

to which cub just sets a hand on his shoulder and tells him it’ll be fine (scar brings it up at the next meeting and everyone is enthusiastic about grian joining them. scar cries. a lot.)

and when he and mumbo pop into mumbo’s world again where grian is, they drop the news on him (no scar did Not tell grian about any of this beforehand) and maybe grian gets a little teary eyed too

scar stays in the world that night, curled protectively around grian and they whisper to each other about hermitcraft, the sort of server it is and the people in it. and he’s quick to reassure grian of his place in it when grian is doubtful

after grian’s injuries heal up enough mumbo lets him have his own lil plot in the world to practice his building again. it’s been so long that he’s… nervous about doing it again. what if he’s no good anymore?

when scar comes to visit he’ll sit and watch grian build, introducing the new blocks and colors and oh he’s greatly missed the way grian’s eyes sparkle with interest or when he’s got a new idea for a build — sometimes they build together, and sometimes mumbo joins them, learning some things

(he’s kind of in awe, watching the two of them work together. it’s very inspirational)

sometimes they do a build competition, with little prompts and everything. they take turns on who judges the build/gives the prompt and who actually builds

and when it’s time for season five’s ending, grian is alone in mumbo’s world for a bit while scar and mumbo wrap up whatever they need to. it’s… hard to be alone, but he comforts himself by looking at the reminders of scar (and mumbo) and he gets through

scar gets a bear hug when they return though. and then mumbo too, just so he doesn’t feel left out <3

then finally… scar brings grian home. and they’re both very emotional about it. grian sees jellie and she’s glued to his side despite his fear she wouldn’t remember him. she is extremely adamant about sleeping On grian at night, and scar teases him about stealing his cat. “our cat,” grian replies with a big grin. though scar says something about jellie missing him just as much

(I think on those days when scar would stay at their hypixel apartment in hopes grian would come home, jellie went with him. and at night she’d curl up on grian’s pillow a lot. her favorite toy would be on his side of the bed, always. scar would hold bring grian’s pillow in close with her on it and cry)

while waiting for season six to start they spruce up the apartment a bit !!! they try to get back into the swing of their routine while accounting for the new things (grian’s wings, his fears, his nightmares, the powers they gave him)

it isn’t easy, but they get through it. and when the season properly begins, they spawn in, and grian goes off on his own to adventure and meet everyone. he’s… a little awkward and shy (very unlike him, he knows) but ironically ends up right by scar and mumbo and he’s so relieved (I think scar and grian talked about basing near each other before the season began)

and yeah :D

[ewingstan]

Halloween and cringetober may be behind us, yet I remain, coughing this up onto your back porch. Alec Lisa and Aisha were the only ones who enjoyed the costume party. Individuals and costume explanations below the cut:

Aisha and Brian: Power and Aki Hayakawa Chainsaw Man

This one goes out to the nine-year old I work with who wore a Denji costume for the school Halloween parade. Shoutout to you guy I don't know how you're allowed to watch that its the blood and sexual fantasies show.

I feel like miss suiciding-baiting-people-on-4chan would like Power. Aki works for Brian as they carry the "supposedly normal responsible one of their batshit group who very clearly has something wrong with him" niche of their series.

I feel like CSM is something that Brian and Alec would put on in the background when they were hanging out together. It's not really either of their thing, but it good pizza night fodder. Brian freaks out when Aisha mentions watching it.

Brian agreed to be Aki after he learned he could just wear a suit instead of making a real costume. Brian obviously likes objectively ridiculous costumes but it has to be something strained through 5 layers of machismo and a 17-year-old's idea of professionalism. He'll dress like something that gets painted onto a van but if there's too much whimsy or fun he'll start to freak. So halloween costumes would be weird for him. Aki just wearing a suit and a sword seemed like a good solution for this right up until the point where he had to explain what it was. Its from, hm, y'know, uhhhh this anime that my sister likes I'm just here to match with her.

Whenever he pulls the "I'm just in costume for my sister" thing Aisha makes everyone forget she exists. No escaping the weeb allegations for you Brian.

Taylor and Lisa: Madoka Kaname and Homura Akemi, Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Don't know if I need to explain this one, Worm/Madoka comparisons are almost cliche at this point

The costumes were Lisa's idea. Obviously.

The costumes were also Lisa's purchases, and enough was spent on them to make a veteran cosplayer weep. Her refusal to die her hair black would also make them weep but for different reasons.

After taking a look at herself Taylor enveloped herself in a particularly dense bug swarm for the whole night.

She eventually retreated to some side-room she found Brian hiding in and chatted with him for the rest of the party. On the condition that he make a darkness cloud for her.

She started choking on a prawn half an hour in after remembering he could see through his darkness clouds.

Rachel and Alec: Jade Harley and Dirk Strider, Homestuck

They are not going as a matching pair. Rachel does not know that she and Alec are wearing costumes from the same comic. She does not know what Homestuck is. This is one of the many ways she's better than us.

Rachel thinks she should've just been able to wear her usual dog mask for this party. Its a costume. What do you mean it doesn't count.

And why is her usual mask not enough, but the dog ears Cassie was really excited to loan her are fine? Aren't ears less costume than a full mask?

Admittedly apart from the pseudo-mind-control Alec and Dirk don't have a lot in common. Alec probably thinks he's more like Dirk than he actually is.

Dirk is if the concept of being in your own head was a guy, nay several guys, while Alec literally has to outsource getting in touch with his emotions to other bodies. Honestly the closest worm character to Dirk would probably be Krouse, considering the whole "chessmaster-manipulator who puts everything on himself and overmanages all his relationships while self-identifying as the person who can handle being the bad guy" thing, which Alec doesn't have going on at all. However:

It let me put Alec in a silly little fancylad outfit.

(Also they're both SB&HJ fans, so honestly I think its the perfect choice).

[sunflowerseedsandscience]

Various Storms and Saints- Prologue

"You still haven't told me if he's cute or not."

Scully sighed and pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead, cradling the phone in the crook of her neck. Nobody could make her regret bringing up a subject as quickly as her sister when she put her mind to it. "No, Missy, I haven't," she allowed. "Because it's irrelevant. Mulder's good looks aren't the reason I miss working with him."

"So you admit it? He is cute?"

"Missy. Can we please have a serious conversation, for once?"

"Fine, fine," Melissa acquiesced, though her tone made it clear this point would be revisited in the future. "Tell me why you miss working with him, then."

"Well... part of it is the cases we tackled together," Scully said. "The autopsies I'm stuck doing now that the X-Files are shut down seem so boring in comparison to murderous clones and mind-controlling worms in the Arctic."

Melissa whistled. "Yeah, I can see how that might be a little bit of a come down. What's the other part?"

"What other part?"

"You said the cases are part of the reason. So what's the other part?"

Scully closed her eyes. How to define this most indefinable of relationships, especially to Melissa, who so often seemed to think every person in her life fit into a neat box? "I miss the way he spoke to me," she said finally. "He never talked down to me, not even when he was standing so close I practically had to break my neck to meet his eyes. He made me feel like the things I have to say are important... that they carried real weight with him, even when he didn't agree with me." She chuckled ruefully. "Which was most of the time. He's always shown me a respect that I don't get that often, being surrounded by men in positions of authority who all love to hear themselves talk."

"That does sound like it would be tough to leave behind," agreed Melissa. "Couldn't you... I dunno, lobby to be his partner on whatever assignment he's on now, though? Then at least you'd still be working together even if it wasn't in the X-Files."

"He's working with someone else," said Scully darkly. "At least he was on his most recent case. I don't know if they're officially partners or not."

"And you don't like whoever it is," said Melissa knowingly. "I can hear it in your voice." "I don't really know anything about him," Scully admitted. "But... there's something strange about him, you know? He just makes me nervous." There had been something about Alex Krycek's fresh-faced innocence that had seemed less than genuine, even if Scully couldn't quite put her finger on it.

"Bad vibes, huh?"

"Maybe." Scully sighed. "For all I know, it's just my jealousy getting in the way because I want to be the one out there with Mulder."

"See, I knew you liked him," crowed Melissa, and Scully groaned, exasperated.

"Melissa. It's not like that."

"Fine, fine, whatever you say," Melissa huffed. "Hang on a sec, okay?" The phone was muffled, as though Melissa had put her hand over the receiver. Someone's voice asked a garbled question, Melissa gave an equally garbled response, and a moment later, she was back. "Hey Danes, I gotta go, okay?"

"Wait, Melissa, what's your--"

"There's a meditation session I'm supposed to lead and they're waiting for me. I'll call you soon, okay?"

"But Melissa, where are--" There was a click, and the line went dead.

Scully dropped her bedroom extension back into its cradle on the nightstand and sank back onto her bed with a sigh, snuggling into the cardigan she'd pulled on over her work clothes when she'd walked into her apartment. She'd come home from work for lunch, having finished her morning teaching session a little early, and had been available purely by chance when Melissa called for the first time in two months. Phone conversations with her older sister, while always welcome, tended to be exhausting these days. She hadn't seen Melissa in years, not since the day after her graduation from medical school. Melissa hadn't made it to the event itself, but she'd shown up at the party her parents had thrown her afterwards. Melissa hadn't understood her sister's disappointment, and Maggie Scully, as she so often did, had defended her elder daughter to her younger.

"You know big ceremonies aren't really your sister's thing, Dana," she'd said, patting Scully's shoulder consolingly. "She barely sat through her own high school graduation. Just be thankful she's here for the celebration, all right?"

Sitting through a graduation ceremony was boring, to be sure, but that hadn't stopped Scully from doing it for all three of her siblings when they'd finished high school, plus for Bill and Charlie when they'd finished college. In her opinion, it had nothing to do with how exciting or boring the ceremony itself was, and everything to do with showing up for the people she loved when their hard work and accomplishments were recognized.

Showing up. That was something Melissa had traditionally had difficulty with, when it came down to it.

They hadn't even had a working phone number for Melissa last Christmas when Ahab had passed. Scully, tasked with handling everything while her mother waded through her initial shock and grief, had called every friend of Melissa's she could think of, trying to locate her sister, and had failed. She'd been reduced to sending a letter to Melissa's last known address in hopes it might get correctly forwarded. But it never got to her, as was evidenced three months later when Melissa had called home, chatted with Maggie cheerfully about her recent travels, and then had asked to speak to her father and had been completely lost when her mother had burst into tears.

"Free-spirited" had always been how the family had described Melissa. But deep down, in her darkest and most shameful thoughts, the word Scully sometimes landed on was "selfish."

Scully's cell phone rang, startling her out of her reverie. She half-expected it to be Mulder, begging her to do another autopsy he couldn't trust with anyone else, but it was Roy Seekamp, a fellow FBI pathologist whose office in the Hoover building was next to Scully's.

"Where are you?" asked Roy. "One of the AD's came looking for you but your office is locked. Skinner, I think his name was?"

"I came home for lunch. What's going on?"

"Something big is going down in Virginia," said Roy. "Some hostage situation with an escaped mental patient."

Scully frowned, confused. "Why would they need me for that?" she asked.

"I don't think they actually need you or anything," said Roy. "The AD was just looking for you to let you know your old partner is there on the scene."

Scully's heart skipped a beat. "Mulder is there?" She got off the bed and raced out of her bedroom, tearing off the cardigan and snatching up her bag. "What's he doing there? He's not a hostage negotiator!"

"No idea," said Roy. "I think AD Skinner just wanted you to hear it from him. You coming back to the office?"

"Yes," Scully said, pulling on her shoes. "Be there soon." She ended the call and stuffed her phone into her bag, then looked down and realized she was still clutching her cardigan. She folded it in half and draped it over the back of her couch on her way out the door.

It stayed there, untouched, for over a month.

[arsene-fixates]

Informant Really Does Care (About Family)

I got brain worms the other night so (arms stretched wide) hi everyone thanks for tuning in to yet another analysis of this guy

this one's a combination of a continuation to my older 'he cares about the townspeople' analysis and also a third parter to my analysis about his family

spoilers under the cut as always ^_^

Initially i had thought that Informant didn't truly like his family, with how dismissive he was when he first revealed himself to felix in the forest-- his words being 'i had to leave my friends, home, and family' with family being the last in the list (mild hinting at how he wasnt really a fan of them from the start)

or how when informant and felix first reunited, they had almost gotten into 2 arguments, first one due to felix almost resigning as the mayor and informant trying to convince him not to do so, which led to informant revealing that felix has never really listened to him when they were children and was always making decisions for him

the second argument being how felix wants informant to come back and throw away his life of being the informant and just live as his brother which leads to informant cutting himself off from the family

but in the scene where he decides to cut himself off from his family, he says this

but the thing is that even with how detached he acts towards felix, he genuinely does care still

like.. informant was going to sacrifice himself by becoming the wolf forever for the sake of felix, to put his worries at ease, and just before he was going to do it, he asked me to give him a locket which contained a picture of him and felix when they were young and he says this

'it reminded me of what truly matters'

or when he had to submit to the witch to figure out why he was acting so recklessly, (the thought parasite arc) the thing that calmed him down was a childhood memory and he has also kept keepsakes from their childhood. I Am Crazy

I feel like this strained behavior that he has around his family is connected to an inferiority complex he has, similarly to how he doesn't talk about himself much, he also tends to brush his own issues aside

note how he says it has a passing remark, lets it linger for a bit and then just moves on as if it isn't a big deal

"i still bring my loved ones so much trouble" and "i thought felix would be better off with me"

i think this was a product of the thing that felix had said to him just before informant disappeared

"I have no time. There's a pile of papers i have to deal with" and while felix did admit that the paperwork was more important to him than informant at the time, his disappearance was a burden on his shoulders <- his words

and reminder, informant was already a pretty solitary person (and frankly, quite lonely) before he became the werewolf, a person who had always kept to himself

i imagine felix saying this was also a blow to his self esteem. He never felt he fit in with the people around him, and now his own family is turning him away? it must be hard to have to warm up to family again after being apart for so long

he misses him, but he acts detached, arguing as if they were young and then cutting himself off from the family... Informant feels too kind for his own good if i could be honest, kind and independent to a fault.

i was absolutely fooled by him.. he truly does care...

ALSO i don't know if i mentioned this in the previous family analysis stuff but one thing i love about felix and informant is how they perceive each other's actions differently

Felix is protective of informant because he's his little brother, and by quite a large age gap too so its natural for him to feel like an instinct to worry and want the best for him but but informant perceives that as felix being controlling

and WHILE YES, THAT BEHAVIOUR ESSENTIALLY MAKES FELIX NOT QUITE CARE ABOUT HOW INFORMANT FEELS ABOUT THE DECISION MAKING, FELIX'S INTENTIONS ARE OVERALL GOOD BUT INFORMANT TAKES THAT AS NEGATIVE

and Informant wanting to take back that control of his life.. felix perceives that as informant rebelling and "not him" because informant had been obedient to him for so long and now that informant's doing his own thing felix feels apprehensive to it

blood is thicker than water but neither water or blood can account for separation from it's source. they've existed outside their roles as siblings for so long with different experiences that they're just different people at this point

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hello :-) I was just wondering if you have overall thoughts now on how you feel about The Drop in series one now we’ve seen all of Louis’ perspective on what happened?

I’ve been mulling it over (and trying to separate it from the fact I find the discourse in fandom about it (Lestat) annoying). I can see why the show runners wanted to do it; it makes the relationship’s toxicity much more clear and Lestat was abusive in the books, just not as clearly as 1x05 lays it out. So I can see why they wanted to give Louis (and especially Claudia) that much more motivation. I did also find Sam’s reasoning - that it’s important to show Lestat’s underlying toxic masculinity more clearly - compelling too. But I also just don’t like that they did that to Lestat. I do think it’s something that changes who he is and what he’s capable of. But maybe I’m just too much a Lestat girl and it is better for the story and it’s actually just laying out some difficult truths about him in a way that’s not comfortable. Obviously he’s a monster, even if in the books he’s a monster that generally tries his best to help and care for those he loves. Where do you land on it?

(I totally understand if you don’t want to open this can of worms, but I’d be interested in the discussion or you pointing me in the direction of your previous thoughts if that’s easier)

Hey!

All good. I have talked about this a few times, so I'll try to... condense where I am at this moment :)

So, re that "toxic masculinity" and the arc they're aiming for... I think it's important to remember here that Akasha does aim for Lestat as her tool because she does see "everything wrong with the males" in him. So that arc makes a lot of sense for them to set up.

Ultimately this is what she misjudges Lestat on though, and why she, why her quest fails - he actually isn't, and he turns against her because he isn't.

I said it before, the abuse is in the (first) book - but not at this level. And not with the added layer of domestic violence, and I think that level will come back to bite the show in the ass again and again (and the fandom is a mess because of it), because what the show showed - and what they let stand for almost two years - is something decidedly different than "two vampires fighting". Which we're supposed to take away from it now. And which is "only" the inside part of that... fight.

The outside has been hinted at in the video with Sam you're referencing now as well, totally apart from the missing blood everywhere which makes the scene unlikely to have happened as shown, there was also the hint re... something else, that Sam caught himself on. I have theorized early on that the outside might be connected to Amel, and I do think that might hold true. Which is no excuse, btw, since Amel uses certain skills and tendencies. We'll see.

So now the drop.

I am not sure if we have seen all, tbh. There were comments about something about the "blood of Akasha" that was cut from that scene, for example. It would certainly makes sense with the tower scene. Also Lestat being so frustrated with Louis and whatever discussion they had up there to drop him? Still doesn't make sense to me, but I guess that's more or less confirmed now. Still reeks like the tower drop parallel to me (that we might get in s3, who knows).

I think there is something quite powerful they could do with the drop vs certain upcoming book canon "flying scenes". I know some fans said that they destroyed that scene with 1x05, but I actually disagree. The level of trust needed would actually only enhance where they are with each other then, but we'll see.

So. After the comments re "toxic masculinity" etc (mostly by Sam) it made click for me.

I think I know why they're doing this, I think I know how they'll spin it. But I don't particularly like it.

Still, it will likely work. In the end.

After a lot of (fandom) pains.

[sadquickchristmassnowman]

hii I have a community question so I thought I'd reference your encyclopedia

are there any references to music that abed listens to? I know they do it for other characters sometimes (like I'm pretty sure britta said she liked the pixies but maybe I made that up) anyway I'm trying to make a playlist about him

thanks<333

hey! thanks for the ask 💯

after sitting here and scanning my brain’s database (and searching the internet) unfortunately I haven’t come up with much… I did remember about this:

which is part of the whiteboard Abed had set up in 1x21 Contemporary American Poultry, on which he says he likes banjo music lmfao

the only other things I can think of are probably not very helpful at all, but I’m writing them down anyway lmao. he participated in defending The Barenaked Ladies from Jeff’s criticism (although, the entire group does that, and it probably doesn’t speak much to abed’s specific music taste), and maybe there’s a song he put into one of his documentaries or something? although, I’m pretty sure most of, if not all, the scoring for those is the same as the scoring for the actual show itself. he also dances to Roxanne by The Police in Remedial Chaos Theory, but, again, the whole group does, and everyone knows that song. also, at the end of 1x14 Interpretive Dance, he is shown tapdancing, and Merry Happy by Kate Nash is playing. but, I don’t think he put on the song himself— in fact I don’t think he can hear it at all, I think it’s just score. so, again, probably doesn’t speak to his actual music taste. but, in my personal opinion, that kind of music fits him the best, so I might look more into Kate Nash and related artists if I was making an Abed playlist.

so, yeah… his pop culture references don’t really seem to include music lol. there’s a chance he listens to movie soundtracks sometimes? movies like Back to the Future have some more commercialized songs on their soundtracks, so maybe he’s into that. looking more into soundtracks from classic 80’s films might help you a bit.

I did find this on his twitter (if you don’t know about the twitter character accounts lmk that’s a whole other can of worms that I am happy to open with you all) so obviously he has music he listens to, but I scrolled through all his tweets and he never mentions any specific artists or songs. lame

but yeah. sorry that this was all I could do, dude. I’m gonna open the floor to anyone who has any Vital Information™ that I missed, or for anyone who just has some headcannons or opinions on what they think Abed might listen to. thanks again for the ask and I hope this was at least semi helpful o7

(also, you’re right about Britta liking Pixies! she has a poster up in her room in the cold open of the season 2 premiere, and also there’s this Jeff quote from Digital Estate Planning: “this place is twenty cat turds and a Pixies poster away from being your apartment.” she also likes Natalie is Freezing, but they only exist in the Community universe unfortunately lol. but at least those two things give us a handle on what music Britta likes. Abed remains an enigma lmao)

[kyliafanfiction]

What was the fic concept that ended up not being workable?

I've had several, but the one I was probably talking about most recently was an attempt to do a Fusion-AU between Worm and NBC's The Blacklist (which has at least 3 good seasons. I dropped out early Season 4, so I don't know where it goes. I hear... things about later seasons, but I don't know about the middle) (If you're familiar with the premise of that show, you'll see the parallels here in the premise)

The idea was to adapt the story of the first episode of the Blacklist to a Wormish verse as the oneshot, leave it open for more later.

The premise would have been in a world were parahuman powers were a bit more low-key, or at least, generally were (Also no Endbringers or Scion). Less OP powers too, generally.

Victoria Dallon is recently divorced (from Dean. I actually like Dean, but the story I wanted worked better if he was out of the picture) and crashing at her sister's place in DC. Victoria is Glory Girl/Polaris, and Amy is still Panacea. Victoria's 'day job' is a field agent for the PRT. She gets called in on her first day not to her normal investigative position, but a new task force.

Anne-Rose Weaver, international criminal mastermind with the power to control bugs, has turned herself in, but is saying she'll only talk to Victoria Dallon. So a small task force led by Assistant Director for Parahuman Terrorism Emily Piggot and Hannah Washington (AKA Miss Militia when in costume) as the leader of the OG Weaver Task Force is now handling her.

Weaver (who is Taylor, but no one has linked her to that name yet, but Victoria does feel like Weaver looks oddly familiar) says that the daughter of General Tagg is going to be kidnapped shortly by Victor, a former Empire 88/Former Geselleschaft cape gone rogue. She wants Victor dealt with, they want Victor dealt with, their interests align.

The story started to fall apart as I tried to both stick to the general trajectory of the OG episode and also have things account for parahuman powers better. Amy was supposed to get abducted and pretty badly hurt.

(There's also a bit early on in the one-shot about Amy's string of bad relationships ever since her HS gf 'Taylor' vanished right after graduation, but Amy is really looking forward to introducing her latest girlfriend, Cherie Vasil, to Victoria, because she really thinks this one will last.)

Amy would be recovered, Victor dealt with, and Weaver would reveal she has a whole list of criminals, parahuman and otherwise, that the Federal government doesn't, in many cases, even know exist and she wants to cut a deal to start turning them in. But she'll only tell those names to Victoria Dallon.

The oneshot would have ended with Victoria finding an old picture of Amy and her gf Taylor Hebert... and realizing that Weaver is Taylor.

(The loose backstory I had established so far was that Marquis had stolen something or acquired something that could have outed Cauldron - which in this verse would have been akin to the 'Cabal' of the Blacklist, shadowy international conspiracy of intelligence officers, criminals and other elites that Reddington, the MC of the Blacklist, had blackmail info on, or claimed to, anyway - and somehow Amy inherited it, but didn't know. Taylor somehow finds out, somehow gets her hands on that thing or at least makes Cauldron think she has it, and goes off and builds her international criminal empire to give her the resources to protect Amy from Cauldron if she had to. Weaver is turning herself in now because of some other enemy she's dealing with - who would have been eventually revealed to be Lung, filling the same role as Berlin from the OG show - and Lung had someone connected Weaver to Amy Dallon... and had hired Cherie Vasil to be a spy on Amy to figure out the nature of the connection and potentially leverage that against Weaver)

The idea also ran into issues of a shortage of certain types of characters in Worm to repurpose for the AU, so I ran into the question of if I should start bringing in Blacklist characters to fill certain roles or not. And the oneshot got to 10k words at the halfway point when I realized the whole thing wouldn't work, even as the oneshot. The idea still has some merit, but I'd have to do a lot more legwork to make it work than I was prepared to do. Come up with some original baddies in a lot of cases, which - I'm not actually good at writing procedural type stories, which is still a lot of what's happening in the Blacklist day to day - and some other stuff.

[kikiofthevast]

In planning Slay the Archivist I’ve been having a lot of Jon thoughts (below the cut because it got long)

Jon Sims is a character driven entirely by fear. His fear of spiders and trauma of his youth further isolates him from people, his fear of rejection and being known isolates him from his peers and Georgie, and his fear of the forces beyond isolates him from his coworkers (manifested in his short-fuse prickly skeptic persona).

Jon is a character who pushes people away before they can do it to him and cannot conceive that anyone can care about him.

Which is unfortunate, because his assistants do care about him!!! Not on an intimate level, but Jon and Tim at the very least are friends, and Jon respects Sasha!!!

Jon’s actual opinion of Martin in s1 is a bit cloudy, because it’s clear that Jon does not respect him or like him very much, but that mostly comes from the fact that Martin doesn’t do his job very well, or at least by the standards Jon expects based on his CV.

But on the other hand, Jon never expresses anything other than professional disdain, not necessarily personal disdain. Of course, it’s likely that Jon does truly hate Martin, but outside of the recordings in S1, Jon is significantly more generally relaxed (as shown in the tape about ostriches) and his professional academic persona is very much a mask that he puts on to alleviate his own nerves about the job.

That’s not to say Jon likes Martin very much in S1, but it says to me that he doesn’t outright hate him.

Then the worms happen.

Everything falls apart for Jon. His skeptic act isn’t keeping him safe, not like he thought it would, and Jane Prentiss is after him specifically.

Jon starts unraveling after the Prentiss attack.

Something is watching him. Someone killed Gertrude. He can’t trust anyone.

Most of his paranoia is Stranger-induced but it’s also equally a natural response. Of course, he takes it too far, and he neglects his relationships because he doesn’t think they mean anything to the people in question.

Jon is right to be paranoid, and his paranoia is validated by the fact that one of his assistants was replaced and Elias is passively manipulating him (and also killed Gertrude), but the issue is that stalking is a bridge too far.

He has a very strong connection to the Eye even early on because he needs to know everything and gain new knowledge especially about people.

Because Jon is bad at connecting with people, and he typically barely has the self-awareness to avoid sticking his foot in his mouth and he is NOT forthcoming about his trauma or struggles to any extent (we’ll come back to this) and therefore doesn’t really understand how relationships WORK.

So his breaks his slightly tenuous friendship with Tim, realizes that Martin is not as knowledgeable than he thought, and realizes that there’s a creature in his Archive that should not be there.

So he destroys the table, realizes that was also a mistake, gets chased, meets Leitner, and then is IMMEDIATELY framed for his murder.

So Jon is now on the run from the law, so he goes to the only person in his life he actually confided in to some degree, Georgie.

Georgie asks questions, but not many, and accepts that he won’t answer. She lets him stay with her and the Admiral and Jon tries not to get her involved, because he doesn’t want someone else to realize that he’s doomed everyone around him, and he doesn’t want Georgie to be doomed.

He talks to people, gets scars, tries to get away from Daisy, nearly dies to Daisy, learns that GEORGIE had an encounter and feels guilty that she gets involved, and then he gets kidnapped from Georgie’s house.

Nikola finds him and kidnaps him and he is there for a while. I don’t remember if the length of time is specified, but it’s a while, enough time for him to be missed.

Then Elias shows his true colors, Melanie and Basira are in the Archives, and Jon doesn’t know what to do.

He’s lost and doesn’t feel like he can trust anyone, and oh yeah, Tim hates his guts.

Jon goes to America, meets people, meets Gerry, burns Gerry’s page, goes to China, comes back to the Institute, and still has no idea what’s happening to him but he knows it’s bad, but feels good.

Because knowing puts him in control of a situation. Having that advantage alleviates some of his fear, and it gives him power.

Jon, who has not felt in control of anything since he picked up a Leitner as a child, craves that power.

And then there’s the Unknowing.

The Unknowing is a turning point for Jon, because arguably, the human Jonathan Sims dies in the explosion.

But his brain continues on, his consciousness continues on, and he exists in the dreams of people he watches fear and hurt over and over.

Martin spends time with him in the hospital, before he starts working in the Lonely, working to save his friends that aren’t functionally dead in a hospital bed, or already dead.

Oliver gives him a push to accept his Becoming, to wake up and live in his new existence.

And when he wakes up, everyone wishes he hadn’t.

Jon is functionally changed as a person. He wants to confide in people, wants to be someone people trust, and uh …

Yeah that’s not happening.

Elias may be in jail, but Melanie and Basira (and presumably also Martin, but it’s unclear) are still tied to the Archives due to Jon’s continuing life.

Jon is at a low point this season, and Melanie and Basira have complicated relationships with him.

Georgie has also accepted that Jon isn’t going to change, which is a shame for Jon, but well within her right as someone who has been trying to help Jon for years and never actually got through to him.

Melanie projects a lot of her blame onto Jon, when she can’t take it out on Elias. A lot of her rage is being amplified by the bullet in her leg, but the impromptu surgery doesn’t make Melanie any less wary of him.

And Jon pulls Daisy out of the Buried too, and the tapes become his anchor, his connection to the Archives and the Eye strong enough to pull him out.

The Eye is also strong enough to make him need live statements. Like Daisy needs to Hunt, Jon needs to Know.

It’s treated like an addiction in the show as much as it’s treated as a necessary thing, but the important thing is that Jon now needs to hurt people in order to survive.

The issue is that he likes it, he likes causing the fear and not experiencing it. He likes witnessing and knowing and archiving it, but he hates that he likes it because it means he’s not human.

(I personally think Jon can do whatever he wants forever but that’s just me)

Jon tries not to take live statements, but he cannot resist it forever. He knows so much but it’s never enough and he wants more.

(Mr. Spider always wants more.)

Jon also clings to the last bit of the normal past he has left in Martin, who he has learned to appreciate far too late for it to mean something to him, but even when Jon is in danger, he still goes for Martin, because Martin doesn’t deserve to get hurt.

They don’t know each other well beyond a surface level, but they are also the last thing that connects them both to the Normal, the Before.

They latch onto each other and clearly care about each other, but in S5 their relationship is far from ideal even though it’s the only thing keeping them both together.

They are in love, but they’re also missing a lot of development in their relationship.

(Arguably this makes it more realistic, but that’s a whole other post)

Causing the apocalypse weighs on Jon. He damns the world to horror and fear until the End and it’s not even his fault. Of course, it was preventable, but like many things in this show, it just didn’t happen that way.

Jon Knows the new world much better than the rest of the cast. He knows there’s no hope, that there’s only the perpetrators and the victims.

And he wants to be the one on top, over Jonah. He doesn’t tell anyone that, but based purely on his previous expressions of the apocalypse feeling right to him and the way his powers and knowledge make him feel, it stands to reason he would harbor that desire even if he wouldn’t express it.

And that’s why he inevitably kills Jonah and attempts to take his place, because if they’re going to continue living in this world, he wants to Know Everything and be in the Panopticon.

It’s selfish, but Jon does it anyway, because that’s what he wants. If the world is doomed, he wants to be king of it, if only to drink in the fear until the End took them all.

But he’s also grateful when Martin stabs him, on some level. He doesn’t want the Entities pulled into different worlds, but he also to some degree doesn’t want to go beyond his current state. Becoming on par with a god does scare him, to some degree.

And so Jon dies in Martin’s arms, and with love on his lips.

He’s a complicated man, one who cares but doesn’t ever know how to show it and is an insufferable asshole who doesn’t know when to stop.

Curiosity killed this cat, but satisfaction brought him back.