#And I utterly decimated him

[i-just-look-at-pictures]

'The confession is so casual that it takes her a while to understand the severity of what he says.

'I did it on purpose, you know.' He murmurs, with a huff of laughter.

'Did what?' She asks, smiling at the mother playing with her two daughters in the sand as they pass.

'That first time.'

She frowns. 'What are you talking about?' 

'Remember?' He asks. 'When I... finished.' She stops then, dead in her tracks and he guffaws, elbowing her affectionately. 'Come on Goody, a man does what he has to! It worked out OK, didn't it?' But still she does not understand, he laughs again. 'How can someone so beautiful be so damn stupid? After a year of marriage you still don't know how it works?'

Clearly not. She needs him to clarify because it cannot be what she is interpreting it to be.

'I wanted to marry you.' He says, grinning like he is proud of it. 'I knew I wanted you to be my wife. So I thought, why wait? You hopped right on into bed it just seemed the right timing.' He sighs, wistful about their fertility issues. 'If only we knew then, huh?'

She stays where she is stood, barefoot on the sand and her mind sinks to those panicked weeks at the start of their relationship, sinks to her late period.

'Are you serious?' She demands, voice catching. She feels sick.

He turns, surprised. 'What about?'

Their marriage ends on that beach, Grace realises, with hindsight. Because in that moment, something inside of her changes and she discerns the difference between love and loneliness, between passion and pain, between a man who is bad and a man who does bad things.'

Chapter 28, Thomas Shelby laughs in his sleep, at least he used to.

AKA - the chapter that actually broke my heart.

[heizlut]

Little Lamb

ꕀ cw: public (no one is around though), one mention of kidnapping

ꕀ tags: sub fem!reader, dom!scar, creampie, rough sex, oral m!receiving, minor spoilers for rover’s 1st encounter with scar, mostly proofread

ꕀ nsfw under the cut

ꕀ m!list here

Scar stalks circles around you as you stand there in the abandoned village that was decimated by a ritual done by its own people, “Don’t you wonder whatever happened to the little lamb in my fable, love?” Your eyes track him as he moves around you, as if you were the prey to a very dangerous creature, “Maybe you should enlighten me.” He smirks down at you then moves behind you in one smooth motion, “Gladly…”

His hands travel down your body slowly, sending tingles down your spine. His fingers trailing lightly over every curve, pausing only to linger on your breasts. He didn’t squeeze them as you had expected but the lingering touch ignited something inside of you. Scar’s fingers trailed lightly over your pebbled nipples that poked through your top, making you let out the softest, breathy moan.

His smirk widens at your reaction and he bends down slightly to whisper huskily in your ear, “Did you like that, my sweet lamb?” You capture your bottom lip between your teeth, not trusting your voice to answer as you arch your back against his chest. Scar chuckles lowly, “That’s what I thought.”

His hands continue down your body, resting at your hips when he suddenly pulls you flush against him. His hardened cock pushing against your ass as he whispers down in your ear once again, “Such a helpless little thing… Whatever should I do with you?” The feeling of his cock against your ass practically has you reeling, “Please…” Scar raises a brow and chuckles once more, “Please what, little lamb?” You whimper at his response, hoping he would just read your mind and get on with it instead of relentlessly teasing you.

A resounding laugh falls from Scar’s lips and his grip tightens on your hips, “Come on, love, tell me…” He grinds his throbbing, clothed cock against your ass, making you moan and your eyes flutter, “Please… I need to feel you inside of me.” Oh, if you could only see the smirk on his face, you would’ve crumbled within his grasp even more than you had already done, “Anything for you…”

With that, his hands were tugging down your skin-tight pants. Maybe a part of you was silently thanking the fact that no one else was around, but truthfully, your thoughts were a muddled mess. You are held against him, in just the cutest red panties Scar had ever seen. His fingertips trace the edges with a feather-light touch, his hot breath fanning over your ear, “Did you wear these in anticipation of meeting me? How cute~”

You wanted to shake your head and deny his claims, but that would’ve been a lie. You’d heard of him briefly through others from this strange new world, but you would swear it was just your subconscious preparing yourself for an encounter such as this. He laughs again, it’s a husky sound that drives deep within you, “You can’t even deny it~”

You shiver under his touch when he begins to slowly pull those panties down, already dripping in anticipation for his more intimate touch. Scar of course does not give you what you want as you expect it; his fingers slowly moving down and teasing your inner thighs, oh so close to where you were desperate for his touch, “Is there something more you want to ask from me?~” Scar’s voice is low and teasing as he speaks. All you want are his fingers on your clit and inside of you, pressing into your most sensitive spots, “I.. want your touch..”

Scar laughs, his eyes darkening, “Cute… To think such a powerful being would fall so weak to little old me~” If you had been lucid enough to respond properly, you would have rolled your eyes and maybe even walked away, but it was as if you were under a spell… His spell… Maybe you wanted this. Maybe there was something about him that made you utterly weak to him. That had to be it, why else would you be here? As if you’d view him as an actual romantic interest…

The calloused pad of Scar’s middle finger presses against your clit, making you weak at the knees as you suck in a sharp breath. One corner of his lips curve up, “Just trust me… I’ll make you feel pleasure you’ve never experienced before.” Who were you to deny him?

His finger rubs in slow, sweet circles on your clit. Your back arches once more against him, your breathing heavy. Scar uses his other arm to hold your upper body close to his, his free hand gently squeezing your breasts.

He relishes they way your breasts squish and mold into his touch. His tongue darts out and licks the shell of your ear, sending a new round of hair-raising tingles throughout your body, “Your reactions are simply too delicious for me to stop… I should just take you away into one of my domains and lock you up so I can have these reactions all to myself… whenever I please.”

Before you can even try to get your thoughts straight to respond to him, Scar’s finger dips into your dripping entrance, immediately curling against your sweet spot. “S-scar..!”, you whine as your eyes threaten to roll back from pleasure. His breathy, low chuckle fans over your ear as he continues his motion, “Oh how I love when you say my name~”

He removes his finger from your warm walls and forces you to face him. Your eyes take in his scarred face and mismatched eyes, making Scar’s lips turn up in a dangerous smile, “See something you like?” If this had been any other interaction with him, you definitely would’ve scoffed and spat back some witty retort. But this interaction wasn’t normal. And maybe you were completely fine with that.

Rough fingers trace along your jaw, his thumb pausing on your bottom lip then presses down gently on it, “Open up, little lamb. I want a taste…” The way he spoke was so low, twisting with an aura of danger and pleasure. You open your mouth only for him to make another demand, “Tongue out.”

Once you stick your tongue out of your open mouth, Scar leans down and flicks his tongue against yours before sucking on the tip. Once he released your tongue, he straightens back up with a devilish smirk, “Mmm.. so sweet, I could just swallow you whole~”

You stand there almost gawking at him, trying to comprehend what just happened. You had expected a kiss, not the strange sensation of his tongue licking against yours and the feeling of your tongue sucked between his pretty lips. You can definitely understand why people would follow him with his magnetizing aura. It made you tremble in both fear and excitement.

The sight of you pulls a husky laugh from his lips and he tilts his head slightly, his shaggy white and red hair following his motion, "That look in your eyes tells me I've got you right where I want you..." With that, he grabs your thigh and lifts your leg, making you more exposed than you already were. He wraps his other arm around your waist to support your now off-kiltered balance.

Scars lips almost graze yours when he speaks again, "Why don't you be a good girl for me and take out my cock, yes?" You blink, wide-eyed as you process the request, bringing back that devilish grin on his lips, "Go on... Unless you'd like to stay in this position til someone finds us here~"

You gulp at the thought and his voice lowers to a hushed teasing tone, "Unless that's what my little lamb would like?" That snaps you out of it and you make quick work of the zipper of his full-body suit. A stray thought crosses your mind that this would've been so much easier if he had been in a proper outfit with pants you could just tug down, but you would have to make do with this.

You didn't know how much time either of you had before some random adventurer wandered through this village. You fumble slightly as you reach in through the zipper and your fingers make contact with the soft, velvety skin of his cock that was throbbing to be pulled out.

Scar sucks in a sharp breath when your fingers wrap around his length and pull it out, the tip already oozing with pre cum. With your hand wrapped around his cock and the way he inhaled so sharply made you feel like you had some semblance of power over him, if only but for a moment. You rub your thumb across his slit, the pre cum wetting the pad of your finger.

Scar bites his bottom lip at the feeling and his grip on you tightens, "That's enough playing." Not allowing you to linger in your newfound sense of power, he pushes his hips forward, the tip of his cock rubbing against your clit and through your folds, "I"m going to fuck you so hard your pussy will only be able to take my cock, no one else's."

The motion and his words seep into you as you subconsciously let go of his throbbing length that twitches and bobs from its own weight. Scar clicks his tongue and your eyes find his mismatched ones yet again, "Gonna make me do all the work huh? Grab it and position it correctly while I'm still playing nice, yeah?"

You let out a choked whimper and wrap your fingers around his cock once more, lining it up with your dripping entrance. You let go once you feel the mushroom-like tip push into your awaiting gummy walls. With a breathy chuckle, Scar pushes in hard, sheathing his full length inside of you as you quickly wrap your arms around his neck for support, "What a good girl~"

Scar wasted no time as his hips begin to thrust up into you at a rough pace that you could barely handle. It was silly to even think that he would give you a moment to adjust to his thick length. He was a villain after all. You felt stuffed full beyond belief as his cock ruts into the deepest parts of you, hitting in all the right spots.

All you can do is hold onto him and babble his name between the lewdest sounding moans and whimpers. Scar's hair begins to stick to his forehead from sweat, his abs flexing with each thrust as he holds your leg up. The angle made his cock feel even bigger than it truly was and you were not about to complain.

His hot breath fans across your lips. You mouth falling open in a sweet moan. Scar takes this moment to capture your lips in his, his tongue twisting and moving against yours. His thrusts become shallow and remain deep, not due to an impending orgasm, but with the need to be as closely and wholly connected to you as humanly possible.

Your clothed breasts bounce and squish against his broad chest in time with his cock fucking into you. Scar's voice is raspy and breathless as he speaks, "Need to feel your pussy squeeze around my cock. Come on, little lamb, milk me for all I'm worth."

Everything was overwhelming your senses and his words drove you over the edge, "Ngh! Scar!" You cry out his name, letting it echo through the abandoned village as you cum hard on his cock. Your wet, tight walls squeeze impossibly tighter around his length, causing Scar to let out a deep, resounding groan from his throat. He was about to fucking lose it.

Everything about you made him wish he could have you all to himself with 24/7 access. Gods be damned if he couldn’t make that reality. From the moment he saw you in this very clearing, trying to make sense of the tragedy that occurred in this poor village, he knew he would make you his. His cock throbs and pulsates within you, unintentionally pressing up against your sweet spot which made your eyes flutter shut.

Scar clicks his tongue once more, “Eyes on me, sweetheart.” Your eyes gaze deep into his as he gives a particularly harsh thrust up into you. Your pretty eyes on him is his undoing as ropes of cum spill into you as a ragged groan falls from his lips.

The way he’s holding you so tight is sure to leave bruises, to which he hoped you would proudly flaunt. His cock twitches with the residuals of his orgasm, his cum already leaking out past his length that was still resting inside of you.

Gently, he releases your leg, but being back on both legs after such a brutal fuck had you literally weak in the knees. You would have collapsed if it weren't for his strong arms wrapping around your waist as he smirks down at you as if he wasn't just as affected by the occurrence, "See? You need me."

The weak whimper that claws up from your throat just boosts his ego even more. He pulls you against him as he looks down at you, almost nose to nose with you, "Follow me, little lamb, and you'll be granted everything you could ever wish for..."

🂲🃍🂶🂲🃍🂶🂲🃍🂶🂲🃍🂶🂲🃍🂶🂲🃍

a/n: this is what i would like to think would've happened if we had been given a third option in our dialog with him while he tried to get us to look for clues😌 (i chose to fight him after looking at the first two clues, i couldn’t resist lmao)

[cultven]

hii i love reading yor fics sososo much T_T<333

I'd like to request a fic where Logan dreams that he hurts the reader, almost killing them. The reader notices that he's having a nightmare and wakes him up, he's disoriented and in panic, but when he realized what just happened he is incredibly relieved to see that reader is ok and alive. Maybe he even breaks down and cries, which really shocks the reader cuz they arent used to seeing Logan like this 🥺 Then the reader comforts him and takes care of him until he's back asleep.

As It Should Be

Wolverine X Reader

Content: Comfort, crying, poor Logan cannot catch a break, but you're there to dig him out of his sadness hole, he loves you a lot, lots of fluff while comforting him

Word Count: 1.39k

Warnings: Some graphic violence during the nightmare segment

a/n: Thank you for the kind words! This one honestly got a little graphic in terms of gore, but nothing too bad, so hopefully that’s ok! This was fun to write, enjoy!

No. What had he done? 

Logan stood in a pile of debris and rubble, his white tank top and jeans now caked in blood that wasn’t his. Claws refusing to retract, Logan felt utterly hopeless against his own body. His actions weren’t his own as he trudged towards the only person left alive; you. You were scared, that much was clear by your facial expression and hasty movements to crawl backward away from the mutant. 

“Logan… this isn’t you, please.” You plead, eyes darting around the scene to find help, anyone that is still alive or conscious. All you could take in was the decimated mansion and the mauled corpses of your loved ones. What had taken over Logan? Why did he destroy the very things he risked his life for countless times? 

As Logan looked into your frightened eyes his heart clenched, knowing what was coming next. He just wishes he could stop it. Watching himself tear through his other family hurt like hell, but having to watch you die he didn’t think he could bear it. You were his entire world, the only thing that could ground him when he fell down the pits of self-destruction. He would forever kill himself before harming you. But this version of himself had other plans. 

He trudged over, claws glistening in the light of fire around them. “No, no no no…” You chant, still trying to escape the man but your legs are rendered useless due to your paralyzing fear. With one swift movement, Logan begins to tear through flesh and muscle, watching in horror as his hands mutilate his love against his will. You could do nothing but lay there, screaming in pain, your mutant ability keeping you alive for longer than you wanted to be. Logan wished he was the one being gutted. In a way, he was. Anyone else, anyone but you deserved his wrath. 

Tears clung tightly to his eyes as his hand retracted from your body, lining up for the final shot to the head. As the blade commences its soar towards your skull, Logan jolts up from a lying position and hastily takes in his surroundings. It was dark, he was under a blanket of sorts, and oh, he was in your bedroom. Had it only been a nightmare? No, it was far too cruel and realistic to have been. Even Logan’s mind wasn’t so callous to make him live through such a horror. So then, it must have been real? Logan begins to hyperventilate, raising his hands to eye level. His claws were away, and his rough skin was clean of blood. But, as he blinked, grotesque images flashed through his mind. Sick crimson blood, your blood, begins to stain his hands, drying in a disgusting reddish-brown. He immediately jumped out of bed, went into the ensuite bathroom, and scrubbed his hands raw. 

“No, no no no.” He chanted under his breath as he tried to scrape off the non-existent material. The cold water was not enough to ground him back to reality, Logan eventually gave up and put him back to the skin, sliding down towards the floor to cradle his head in his hands. Thanks to the sound of the water running in the bathroom and Logan’s hard footsteps, you eventually stir awake. At first, nothing seemed wrong, maybe he just had to use the bathroom. But after the sound of continuous water for five minutes you grew increasingly concerned. Deciding to confront the man you carefully walk up to the bathroom door and gently knock three times, not to startle him during whatever he’s doing. 

“Lo?” It was only one syllable, but your sweet voice saying his nickname out loud was enough to send Logan scrambling. The door eagerly burst open, and when it did the sight you were met with shocked your heart. There was Logan on the ground, clearly disheveled, eyes bloodshot and teary. “Oh baby, what happened?” You coo, going to take a step forward but immediately retreating seeing Logan flinch. 

“You’re- you’re real, right?” Logan tentatively asks, sounding scared. Of course, you were real, why wouldn’t you be?” 

“Yes, love.” You stay put in your place. You didn’t want to upset him further.

“No… I ripped you apart. You died by my hands.” You resist the urge to outwardly exclaim how ridiculous he sounded before realizing he more than likely had a nightmare. Logan was prone to bad dreams, but none ever shook him quite as much as this. The only good thing that came out of the consistent night terrors was that you now knew how to soothe him in times like these. 

“I’m right here my love. I’m not hurt. See? I’m perfectly okay.” Your voice stays calm and soothing, not wanting to startle him further. “Touch my hand. Feel my skin. I am right here.” Usually, the sensation of touch grounded him from this distressed state, but this time he seemed hesitant to even look in your direction. 

“I can’t. I might hurt you again.” Logan looked so small and it broke you. He was huddled into himself, still looking at you untrusting. The thought of himself harming you any further plagued his mind, twisting his stomach and making him want to vomit. You were his world, his everything. He curses his body for the immortality that was bestowed upon him because if anything happens to you he wants to follow right behind. 

Realizing you may seem intimidating due to the fact you’re standing tall over his curled-up body you lower yourself and sit criss-cross applesauce across from him. Putting your hand out in between your two bodies you silently sit there, waiting for Logan to take this at his own pace. After a few minutes, Logan seems calm enough to touch your hand. Fingertips only brush at first, then a loose handhold, then a firm grasp on each other. Before either of you knew it you were fully embracing, Logan nuzzling his head into your neck. He needed to take you in every sense, to prove this was real. His nose took in your intoxicating perfume, his hands gripped your curves, his ears heard your soft breaths release from your mouth, and when he pulled back his eyes took in the sight of you. You were as stunning as always even with your messy hair and tired eyes. You were real, you were here, and you were his. 

Seeing as your boyfriend has calmed down you decided to relocate to a more comfortable area. “Let’s get off this gross floor, okay love? Let’s go to bed.” You whisper, carefully tugging him along to your shared bed. Once you two got settled down you were instantly back in his strong arms, protecting you from the rest of the world. You thought all was said and done for the night until Logan spoke up. 

“You were so scared. I made you scared.” He hated seeing you that way. It hurt him. What hurt worse was that he was the cause of it. He now understands it wasn’t real, but your expression was so gut-wrenching he couldn’t shake it off. 

“Logan I know you would never hurt me on purpose.” You reassured him. “Except maybe when you squeeze me to death with your bear hugs.” Logan chuckled a little bit, your humor always lightens the mood. You lay in silence for a bit, almost dozing off until you hear a voice next to you. 

“Thank you for dealing with me.” You smile, leaning over and kissing the man gingerly on the cheek. 

“It’s what I signed up for my love. Besides, you could never be a bother to me.” He smiles back, a rare sight to anyone but yourself. “I love you, Logan.”

“I love you too.” With that resignation you two cuddle, arms and legs entangled with one another’s. Eventually, Logan is lulled back to sleep while listening to the steady beat of your heart. Instead of another nightmare, he is met with a blissful dream of the two of you living together on a mountain, away from all the violence and harm the world holds. Just as it should be. 

[avocado-writing]

Omg i love your poly Deadpool and Wolverine fics !! I especially love that reader is totally a sunshine ! Could you do any fic with them and that trope ? 😍

vague sequel to this

Your bad day has been utterly forgotten. 

It’s not incredibly hard for them to cheer you up, Logan and Wade have learned. You’re so rarely sad that it’s hardly an issue anyway, but all they really need to do is redirect your energy into something else. A distraction to take your mind off of whatever’s gotten under your skin.  

There’s a little carnival that’s set up near the apartment. One of those ones which is constantly on the move, overcharges for everything, and is exactly the kind of place you love. So it was a no-brainer to take you there for the evening. 

Logan bought you a necklace made of hard candies, Wade took you on all the rollercoasters which were definitely not safe but you screamed with joy while riding. You’d insisted all three of you squeezed into a boat through the tunnel of love, and they’d come out the other side with your lipstick all over their faces, you smugly sandwiched between them. 

And through the evening you’ve been fucking jubilant. Your laughter rolls like thunder, but the kind which means a storm is going to clear out the oppressive atmosphere of a muggy day. A sweet, loud kind of laughter which peals from your very soul. Wade and Logan catch each other’s eye as you absolutely decimate a stick of neon blue cotton candy: they’ve done well. 

The three of you are preparing to go home when something catches your eye, slowing you to a stop as you stare. It’s a prize booth - the kind where you have to knock over a tower of tin cans to win. Hanging from the rafters are huge plushies of your favourite animal. 

“C’mon baby, you know these games are rigged,” Logan sighs, aware he’s marching into a losing battle. You lick the sugar off of your fingers and dump the wooden stick into a garbage bin, eyes wide in the fluorescent lights of the bumper cars nearby. 

“Aww… but they’re so cute…” you sigh, looking really disappointed. 

Well, neither of them are ones to let that happen, so Logan and Wade find themselves speaking in unison when they say: “I’ll win you one.”

They exchange a look and you grin. Oh. This has become a challenge, and both are too stubborn to back down. Together they step up to the counter, each slamming five dollars down and making the poor teenager manning the booth jump. 

“Uh, okay, you have two balls and need to knock the whole tower—”

The teen doesn’t even get a chance to finish their explanation before Logan has launched one of the pathetic beanbags at the cans with such force that it crumples a couple of them in half. They’re cleared off completely in one hit. The attendant can only gawp as he smugly points to one of the huge plushies which is dutifully fetched. You let out a little woop of joy as he passes it into your arms, giving Wade a look which says beat that. 

Wade hums, throwing the beanbag up and down in his hand, testing its weight. 

“Okay, well, not all of us are barbarians who need to use brute strength to compensate for our advanced age. It’s all about the finesse, pookie.”

Wade angles his throw so it bounces off the side wall, clearing all of the cans but one. Logan lets out a smug huff. Wade frowns. 

“Hey, look, is that Spiderman doing full-frontal nudity?” he says, pointing into the distance, distracting the teen with one hand while he whips out a knife with the other and skewers the can to the back of the booth. 

“Prize please!” he says when they turn back, turning pale at the sight of what’s been done to their game. They pass him another plushie from the roof with shaking hands, and Wade presents it to you with a flourish. 

“That was cheating,” Logan states as the three of you walk away.

“Uh, I cleared the cans, old man. No cheating about it.”

“You had a second ball to throw,” you point out, and Wade pauses. 

“Do you want the toy or not, sweetcheeks?”

And that is how you find yourself more stuffed animal than human, waddling out of the carnival with a huge smile and arms full of polyester. The whole thing is sort of ridiculous but, honestly, if you’re smiling? Logan and Wade can agree it’s totally worth it. 

taglist: @falsewordz @malfoys-demigod @belilwen @mildly-salted @tvwebs @childeslegstrap @getmeoutofhell @s1eep-o @just-a-beatlemaniac69 @yrthr @momopad @sugarplumz100 @captainjinkx @madspads @acrosstheunivcrse @yeethaw13 @na-is-salty @florduarte @hunterispunk @starfleetteddybear

[callooopie]

Modern!Davos Blackwood headcannons (pt. 1?)

— SFW —

I’ll hit it from the back, just so you don’t get attached — i like the way you kiss me // artemas

I can definitely see myself making more of these. Adding to the modern! Davos lore. Not proofread. LMK if y’all have other ideas or headcannons too!

Benjicot Davos Blackwood. People call him Davos. Only close friends call him Ben. Only you can call him Benji. Although, he goes by his middle name usually. Now, bloody Ben? That’s a story to be told later on how he got... (There is no story. It’s just people saying “Shit.. there’s bloody Ben..” or something like that. There’s no violence to the name, only pure exasperation when people see him)

This is the boy you need to hide away in your closet or under your bed when your parents come checking in on you randomly. You could’ve been working on homework, or just hanging around. And somehow this “annoying” guy appeared outside your bedroom window—and you just had to let him in. “C’mooon, let me in sweetheart.. you think I can’t climb up there? Stand back, I’ll show you.”

He is the type of person to rant about how the education system is rigged, set up to fail students, or rant about it in general and as a whole. Anyway he’s got a 4.0, and makes it onto the dean’s list every semester in college. However he is always late to class—complete with either a Monster or Red Bull drink in tow.

He invites you over to his place like a gentleman. Ignore his “annoying fuckass” roommate.. (it’s Aeron.) He does the whole (“it’s a little messy :3”) as he leads you down the hall of their apartment. “Hello MTV, welcome to my crib.”

He cooks at that desk, game-wise. Faceit level is between 5-6. CSGO rank is Master Guardian II (He does tell you he once hit Global Elite. But he stopped the grind to focus on school, not because he’s washed or anything—maybe you could be his Valorant duo? Or be his support in League; he’ll have you know he makes a mean ADC.. do you do overnight discord calls?—)

If you play more casual games (Minecraft, stardew, etc) he will play with you, HOWEVER, he will either ruin the aesthetic of the minecraft world via automated farms OR speedrun the mines in stardew (he passes out so much it starts to affect the money you’re trying to save for farm upgrades). Every time he goes fishing in either game he puts on a country accent and makes “gone fishing, getting away from my bitch wife” jokes. “I’ve uh- carved out an area for the iron farm. Nothin’ too big—just something to get started.” (Shows you an utterly decimated and leveled biome)

Davos Blackwood fun fact no. 43; he does rallying (rally racing). He went to a rally school for fun over the summer. Ignore the price tag; yes he saved up for that! no it’s not dangerous! Regular driving wise he does donuts in empty parking lots, and takes corners way too fast. He is the type to street race a random ass pickup truck or some other car that pulls up beside him. It is thrilling, and he knows you enjoy it too despite your protests and how you grip the handle above the seat. “No it’s fine.. pfft—don’t worry don’t— I’ll smoke him. Just watch.”

Speaking of cars. Do not complain about his car. This is his baby. His one and only. It’s an old car; it’s so old it’s bordering not being considered street safe anymore. Ignore the anime girl stickers with their tits and ass out, that was there already he didn’t do that. “It’s safe don’t worry—I’m getting the bumper and everything fixed like Monday I swear.. no I did not hit anything why would you say that-“

He’s oddly in-tune with his emotions and emotions of others despite appearances. He’ll KNOW if something’s bothering you. Maybe you’re just a little too quiet, you laugh at a joke a little too late or even if it sounds unenthusiastic. Whatever it is, Davos is on the case. A hug, some pep talk, he’ll let you punch his palms to get any anger out. He’s your ride or die, of course he’d do anything for you. And maybe if it’s a person who upset you he might pay them a visit.. “Who was it this time? Oh—that bitch? Ugh. I’m sorry about that… I have a gun just saying—“

Needs your hand in his. Or some part of you touching him. Whatever works. If he does not get a modicum of affection in 5 minute intervals he shrivels up like a plant—no he’s not being dramatic. Is the type to whine loudly about it regardless of where you’re at. On occasion he lets out bloodcurdling screams as a joke, lamenting about being denied tender love from you. You think it’s funny in private, you do not think it’s funny in public. Which is why he always does it in public. “Gimme your hand. Wha? What do you mean ‘it’s too hot out’? I wanna.. I wanna hold your hand… I don’t care if you’re sweaty—LET ME HOLD YOUR HAND”

I do believe his brain would be.. a little rotted. He sends you tiktoks, niche memes, shitposts. He will watch twitch streams or league/csgo content creators on YouTube. His vocab is normal, but does consist of slang from the gaming community. This can be good and funny, or sometimes bad if he uses it during serious moments. However he’s at least a normal human being and knows when to talk ‘normally’. He says joever unironically

Shadow boxes you. No matter what’s happening or where. You could be looking at something in a store and you just see slow, dramatic punches going toward you. He makes the whooshing sound too. This is how you know he’s bored. He’s also the type to tackle you to the bed. Not in a sensual or cutesy way but in like a WWE way that initiates a caged fighting match between you two.

Regardless of your mastery level of skateboarding he will hold your hands and pull you around on his board. Late at night when the parks or lots are empty, you both will be there. And he’ll be a smiling goof as he gently steers you around on the board. He usually says fuck helmets (his one big flaw), but carries one around just for you. His safety be damned. Yours? No question about it, you’re wearing all the gear required.

Smoker. Red flag. Marlboros, sometimes he uses zyns. It’s bad. Yes he knows he’s going to get lung cancer and succumb to nicotine. But he just can’t help it—it helps him relax. It’s why there’s a plethora of gum and also a cologne bottle in his car. Does it help? That’s to be determined. Does not smoke near you however if you don’t like that, he’s not that bad of an asshole.

[demon-country]

The fact that I have already seen a good number of people complaining about how mean Stolas was supposedly being to Blitz in his song and thinking that he legitimately believes that Bliz is a wretched little worm that he owns is just. Utterly baffling. I'm genuinely unsure how anyone could miss the fact that it was an act. It was all a ruse he threw together on the fly in an effort to protect Blitz, wherein he pretended to be a big, bad, masterclass manipulator who was just using Blitz as his pawn.

For anyone who doubts it, here's the truth straight from the song writer's mouth:

This is literally the same exact ploy he pulled in Truth Seekers. He came in at the last minute and put on a big show to convince the people threatening Blitz and the rest of I.M.P that he was a big, scary demon who was so much more powerful than them (which he is) and practically owned them as his minions used to carry out his evil deeds (which he doesn't).

Though, perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised, since pretty much everyone I've seen talk about that scene fails to realize that that and his "who dares threaten my impish little plaything?" and "what's the matter, demon hunter? Never seen a real demon before?" comments were nothing but an act and he didn't actually believe any of it, too.

In Mastermind, he was trying to make sure that all of the blame would be put on himself, so that, as shown above, they would give Blitz the same treatment the others got when Blitz claimed they had nothing to do with it and were just following his orders.

In Truth Seekers, he was trying to intimidate the humans and make them so scared he wouldn't need to resort to violence to stop them. Why else would he put on that whole horror movie display and announce himself and his relationship with Blitz at all, if his entire goal was anything other than to incapacitate them with fear? If all he wanted was to get I.M.P out, he could have quickly and easily killed them without saying a word. Calling Blitz his plaything and saying that he was a real demon served to a) establish that he was the kind of person who had playthings, because that's the kind of cruel, domineering creature that most humans expect demons to be, and b) further intimidate them by implying that he was exponentially more powerful than the demons who just decimated their whole entire team.

He didn't mean any of it either time (except for when he called Blitz an idiot, maybe); those weren't things he actually believed. Why would he legitimately think of Blitz as his plaything and someone he owns when in both cases it was far enough in the timeline that he was already in love with Blitz and wanted a real, genuine romantic relationship with him and not just the fleeting taste of one he got while restrained by the full moon deal?

Those were classist/racist things to say, of course, and that was the point. That was language he deliberately used because it fit the persona he was using to appear villainous. Where he went wrong the first time and how his actual internalized racism came into play was in how he didn't for even one single second think about how those statements would look to the members of I.M.P, because he'd never once had to think about the fact they must get those kinds of demeaning comments all the time and had no way of knowing that he was faking. Calling them "little creatures" while he was scolding them probably wasn't part of the act though, and he didn't realize that it was classist/racist to say those things at all, regardless of intent, so he never apologized or reassured them that he didn't actually believe Blitz was his plaything or that they weren't real demons.

But with the power of hindsight and a more omniscient view of the characters that we get later on, it's so clear to see that all of these comments were only said as part of his theatrical portrayals of a villain, rather than things he truly believes, because he doesn't talk like that after Ozzie's when he realized just how much he had unintentionally been hurting Blitz. Don't fall for his ruse, guys, especially not when it's as blatantly obvious as it was in Mastermind.

[somerandomdudelmao]

Okay okay hear me out.

We all know that Donnie was devastated to discover what happened to his brothers. But in light of the most recent update, new meaning has been added to the panels of him watching their deaths' play out.

Look at him here. At first glance, it simply seemed that Donnie was grieving the loss of his brothers. "We lost. They're all gone. My dumb dumb brothers sacrificed themselves. I'm alone."

BUT after today's update, we realize that NOOO he's not just regretting that they're gone, he's BLAMING HIMSELF. Not only is he sad, he feels GUILT.

Looking back, his face clearly says, "I could have stopped it. I could have saved them. I failed. This is my fault."

"If I had been with you, the outcome might have been better." What hurts is that Don is RIGHT. He WAS the keystone of the resistance. Everything does indeed fall apart soon after he's gone (hence the episode name). It's a cruel, ironic twist on Survivor's Guilt-- because in that timeline he didn't survive. He was gone. And he blames himself for being gone.

We often talk about Future Leo's guilt over the apocalypse, but Future Donnie's guilt is not to be taken lightly. It actually makes a LOT of sense for him to blame himself for his family's deaths. We know that all dear Donton has ever wanted is validation for his tech, and his tech is his way of expressing to his family that he loves them. Ergo, all Donnie wants is to make tech to protect his family to Show Them That He Loves Them.

This is probably why he opened up to Raph, all but admitting his guilt over the less-than-perfect security system: it was like saying he and his love failed to protect them for long.

The character analysis deepens~

Here (and throughout all of The Little Things, really) we see him taking steps to make sure his brothers (and the resistance) will be taken care of. Delegating everything, even The Little Things (ah HA) all to ensure that all he does for them (to prove his love, of course) continues to happen.

Even here, when Donnie has been hanging onto life for so long that the Kraang are shocked he's still alive, Donnie wants to help. He could not "sit here and listen to them get killed," because he is Donatello, and he loves his family. Cass, you said it yourself: Violence is his love language. Rushing into battle, decimating the Kraang, saving his family. Because he may be dying, he may be clinging to life by a few threads, but he is Hamato Donatello and he loves his family.

But in the end, that's what he does. In the end, he DOES sit there and watch them get killed. Watches with his very own tech. One. By. One. They. Die. And deep down, Donnie thinks that if he would have been there, he could have found a way to make a generator NOT from Raph's heart. That he could have supported Mikey enough to keep him from disintegrating. That he could have protected Leo in those final, self sacrificial moments.

Donatello blames himself for not being there for his brothers. He blames himself for his tech not being flawless enough. He blames himself for dying on them.

Which is why he won't rest until they're ALL back home.

He is Mr. "I Can Fix This", so of COURSE he's going to fix this.

And afterwards, when his family is SAFE and HOME and TOGETHER he's going to apologize for "letting them die" and he's FINALLY going to get some SENSE knocked into his OWN dumb dumb brain (probably by Dr. Delicate Touch). His brothers love him because he's DONNIE. I cannot WAIT for the moment when they make him realize that they didn't miss his tech, they missed HIM. He's gonna realize just how utterly loved he is and I'm so excited for you, Cass, to show us that moment.

(I apologize; this got out of hand quickly, but the analysis has been bouncing around my head all day and I NEEDED to share it)

OH THIS IS ONE GREAT ANALYSIS RIGHT HERE

[sepublic]

The Forbidden Five each have a uniquely-shaped hat, so we can tell that Nokt is the one who will break Lloyd’s sword. And he’d better, no offense to Lloyd, because we did not spend an entire ten episodes revolving around freeing the Forbidden Five and hyping them up as world-ending threats (ten episodes used to be the length of an entire season!!!) just for our only properly-displayed member to be made an immediate fool out of.

They better make up for this in P2 by having Nokt live up to the hype. I wanna see him utterly decimate in the Tournament of Sources and make Ras look like a punk who just got lucky. I want to see Lloyd get the beating of his life and have his sword broken right in front of him, allowing Nokt to move upwards and setting up another protagonist to defeat him. I want Cinder’s beatdowns to look G-rated compared to Nokt’s.

[pinkusmaximus]

I absolutely love your Wade and Logan protecting their partner post 😍 How do you feel about their partner can't help but scold both of them while crying? You know that they have their healing factors but it doesn't mean you want them to literally shield you with their bodies! Your body is fine but your heart hurts! You even try to make both of them promise to never do that again 🥺 but both of them admitted that they would do it again in a heartbeat 😤 Please tell me your thoughts if you don't mind!

Well, you already know the problem, anon. Of course they’d do it again.

And I’m sorry, this won’t be as pretty as you’d hoped. It never is with them.

Despite the fact that it left you housed in a birdcage made of ribs glistening with blood, gristle hanging off each bone like scraps of fabric clinging to old curtain rods in a long abandoned house. A peek of Logan’s heart pulsated through the holes in his chest— this wasn’t what you’d meant when you’d asked him to show you how he felt inside.

Saliva tinged pink with hemoglobin slipped from Wade’s wrinkled lips, deep red settled in the cracked skin. The only thing keeping them upright was the way their hands desperately clung to one another’s arms, bruises blossoming under Wade’s fingertips and Logan’s claws sunk into Wade’s shoulders, settled deep beneath the scapula. There was no breathing besides your own, just deep, wet rattling— unsettled that your ears registered the sound from their gaping chests, not their mouths.

Utterly tranquilized, eyes so wide it felt like your eyelids were stuck to the sockets, you felt a deep sense of helplessness as you realized they’d be stuck like around you that until their bodies repaired themselves enough to move again. Sure, they could typically keep moving through the worst of torment, but when it was every inch of your body used as a sponge for- god, you could barely remember what had even happened, your memory suddenly blinking out- and maybe they weren’t even still for that long? Maybe the seconds were passing like minutes, like hours, because suddenly the sound of a sick shlick alerts you to Logan retracting his claws from the meat of Wade’s shoulders, dropping from kneeling to sitting on his calves, head slumped against the back of your neck.

Just as quickly, Wade collapses into your front, his head lolled into the crook of your shoulder and arms at your sides, a hand managing to grasp weakly for Logan’s fingers. Your face feels wet and hot, covered in tears that drag through the blood and offal. You find your arms raising without telling them to, bringing them to Wade’s sides in a faltering embrace.

“Thank you,” your vacillating voice chokes, thank you, because how could you say anything else? You couldn’t leave them. They needed as long with you as possible with your fragile, short life. You needed as long with them as you could manage, too.

The organic, gristling sound of flesh mending itself, cartilage reattaching to bone, fascia connecting to muscle, fills your ears as Logan places a weak hand on your hip. His breath hot and fetid against the back of your neck, the smell of rapidly repairing soft tissue indescribable. Not that it mattered. The pulp of their decimated bodies was threading itself back together, little by little, cell by aching cell, as you held each other in a vulnerable, frighteningly feeble embrace. How could you feel anything less than grateful? Afraid, yes, queasy, qualmish, absolutely— but every atom of your entirety trembled with thankfulness.

This was something beyond love, what you three had. Something transcending any kind of devotion comprehensible or able to be upheld by man.

[literary-motif]

Modus Operandi

Alex x Reader

Alex is doing terrible after the breakup.

Warnings: references to depression and suicidal ideation

When you walked out, you took a part of his heart with you. Not a part, that would imply that there was something left in the gaping, aching void in his chest. 

Alex supposed there had to be. If you had had the grace to tear out his heart entirely, there would remain nothing to hurt, but he did. The burning in his chest spread all the way to his throat, pressing down, choking him until he could no longer see properly through blurry vision, and the feeling of utter desolation threatened to swallow him whole. 

He hurt. Every breath was painful, every glance around the apartment and the empty spots where your things had been before you left — before you left him — felt like a stab to his heart that tore its decimated remains apart more and more. 

You had slammed the door, leaving him sitting alone in the kitchen. A haze seemed to surround him, blocking reality from truly sinking in. He had expected you to come back any moment — “Alex, this is stupid. Come on, we have been together for two years, I know you. Let’s— let’s try to work this out, yeah?” — but you never did, and those words never left your lips. Instead, you shot him one last pained look through the tears that gathered in your eyes before the anger prevailed and you threw your key onto the kitchen table.

The evening turned to night, and as the realization that you were not coming back sunk in, Alex found himself slipping. You were gone. He had nothing now, nothing but his work. The overwhelming feeling of loneliness as he looked at your key choked him up, tears springing to his eyes as the illusion finally broke and he sobbed his heart out, his chest spasming painfully. 

You were gone. You had left. And the thought that hurt most was that he did not even have it in himself to try and stop you. 

Alex was shattered, spiraling into this feeling of nothingness, into regret until he felt utterly untethered from the world, wandering through life with his lifeline cut. 

How he wound up on Kayson’s doorstep he had no idea, but as his friend opened the door and his eyes widened at the sorry, pitifully sobbing mess he was, Alex was suddenly glad that he had found his way to him as he gathered him in his arms and ushered him inside. He did not need to utter a word, Kayson seemingly understanding the situation from a glance at him alone. Alex was glad for that, taking the steaming cup of tea with a small nod of thanks and nibbling at a cookie Kayson urged him to try. 

He carefully avoided telling Alex that he had baked them that day with the love of his life.

This shared night, with Alex curled up on the couch, tears still leaking from his eyes while a distraught Kayson tried cheering him up turned out to be the last time the two of them met for a long while. 

Come morning, when his tears had dried and the overwhelming hurt in his chest felt a little more bearable as he got used to its burning, Alex went straight back to work. There was nothing else he could do. Checking his emails and messages, he accepted every commission, beginning his work on what would be an exhausting schedule, clouding his mind with enough photography that thinking became a task and he collapsed into bed at night utterly spent and rose in the morning just as tired. 

It worked. Work was the best way to keep the pain at bay, and he would rather face the issues of overworking himself into an early grave than face the root of the feeling that drove him to it. He could not stand thinking about you. 

Remembering what he once had — what he had lost and now missed tore him to pieces. It made his eyes water, remembering your warm body curled around him in bed, your sleepy smile in the morning, finding you pouring over papers in the kitchen while dinner cooked on the stove, seeing your eyes light up when you found another one of his weaknesses, your playful grin as you teased him about it relentlessly. 

He missed your scent. He missed your presence. He missed your company on the lonely, dreary night when everything looked a little too dark. He missed your company on the bright, sunny days when he returned home with news of a new prestigious project that he was excited to work on. 

You were gone, and he felt your absence terribly. The apartment was a constant reminder of who was no longer there. It made him want to sob once your pillow lost your scent. It made him want to tear out what remained of his heart when he found one of the stick-it notes you had written him once, the simple words ‘I love you, eat lunch!’ cutting deeper than he had thought possible. It made him want to disappear, sink into nothingness knowing his life only consisted of work, knowing he had pushed away everything else. 

It made him want to die, knowing he had been going through the motions for half a year, waiting for a phone call that slipped further and further away with every passing day. 

His work did not suffer despite the breakup, and he could find at least some pride in that. Alex lost count of how many commissions he had done. How often he had gone to a photo shoot, how often he had toiled the night away editing the pictures he got out in the early hours of the morning to whoever had wanted them. 

He was continuously praised for his rigorous work ethic. People marveled at the breakneck speed with which he completed his work. He felt like he was drowning, and the only way not to sink was by speeding through work, moving from one to the other in the blink of an eye to keep himself afloat. 

The photo shoot in the park had nearly been his breaking point. 

He had tried looking at it through a professional lens. It was a scenery like any other. It was a setting like any other. It was a model like any other. And when that had not been enough to steady his hands and keep his eyes from watering and smearing the colors he needed to see clearly, he had tried thinking of it as a dream. A vision of what could have been, a manifestation of his imagination. Somehow that had been worse, and as his lower lip wobbled, he knew he could not keep it together anymore. 

Editing these pictures was hell. He kept breaking into tears, sobbing at his desk for half a night without getting anything done and he felt horrible in the morning, dragging himself to his next photo shoot with bloodshot eyes.

He felt faint. There was a distinct pounding in his head that made it hard to concentrate and as he fixed the details on the large table filled with food he was tasked to capture, the thought suddenly struck him that he could not remember when he had last bothered to make himself something nice. 

When was the last time he had made himself a home-cooked meal? Hell, when was the last time he had eaten more than crackers or a few slices of fruit while he edited? 

He sighed, wondering how he had managed to get caught up on the same person still half a year later. He had not seen you in half a year, he had not heard your voice in six months. It should not hurt as much anymore. He should not miss you constantly anymore! 

Especially not when you seemed to be doing fine. Pictures were an illusion, he knew that better than most, but on the ones you posted — with the new mug you had bought or the beautiful sunset behind you — he could not help but notice how your eyes sparkled. You were doing fine. Perhaps it could be better, but you were fine.

Meanwhile, he was still a wreck, filling his life with work and holding himself afloat with meager, superficial success in the world of photography to keep himself from collapsing into dust. 

Maybe it was time to move on. Maybe he needed to let go of you, send you the remaining things in the apartment, move somewhere new, and try again. Passing up the job offer in New York seemed like a mistake now, but he knew he could not have lived with himself if he had accepted. 

‘If you change your mind, I’m sure we could find a spot for you, Alex.’

Perhaps he should get back to them, see if they needed him after all. New York was like a dream come true, and while it would be lonely, he supposed anything was better than the way he felt now. He would reach out, he decided. Tomorrow. He would. 

His phone rang suddenly, and his heart stopped when he saw the caller's name. His hands shook as he reached out for it, taking a deep shaky breath and exhaling it slowly before picking up. 

“Hello?”

[rustedleopard]

Always found it a bit strange that in a No Mercy Run, Clover reduces Asgore -- the strongest monster in the Underground -- along with the flowerbed, the throne, and wall behind him into ash, and utterly decimates Axis with one Justice blast, meanwhile Zenith Martlet can take dozens of those and still keep standing... at least until I remember how reluctant Clover is to fight Martlet. They let her escape twice before the final fight and give her the opportunity to monologue as well as inject herself with DT when it would've been better to just shoot first. Hell, they even have to pry into her memories just to muster up a reason to hate her (and don't seem to come up with anything). No matter how much they grew to hate monsterkind on their journey, Clover seems to genuinely like/respect the hell out of her. They don't want her to die. But she also stands in the way of their goal, so they have to kill her. Even if their heart's not in it.

[thekingofwinterblog]

So one part about the terrible direction Veilguard went, made me realize that there was one more prophecy/foreshadowing from across the Dragon Age franchise that was thrown into the garbage.

So in the endings, we learn that Dorian becomes Archon and the Tevinter Imperium lives to fight another day... And that really bothers me.

Not that he makes the attempt, but rather thar the empire survives at all, because the games had been setting up the idea that Tevinter's time was finally up and heading to a close.

The idea is first brought up when the Guardian of the urn of Sacred ashes tells of his duty of protecting the ashes for pilgrims... Until the Imperium has "Crumbled into the sea", and when the Warden tells him that the Imperium is no longer as strong as it used to be, he ominously says that perhaps this is the beginning of the end then.

In hindsight, what seems to be said here is that he is referring to the "Beginning of the end' as the first step to leading to the climax of the series as it was planned and already being set up this early.

The concept that eventually became Veilguard, when the Elvhen gods would finally break free and it would all end in a cataclysmic battle that would end the Tevinter imperium as the Guardian(By far the living person who is the strongest argument that the Maker was real after all) has forseen.

Obviously we didn't get that, but this isnt the only place where this idea is floated around.

We get talks here and there of there being a time for something new, a "next great empire" as one of the Inquisition soldiers calls it.

And time and again we are hit by the reminder that the Imperium has seen much, much better days... And that the Qun WILL invade again in the near future, and when it does, it will probably level it.

There is the mention of the elvhen revolts starting up, the culmination of thousands of years of abuse and slavery, and just the nastiness of tevinter in general having completely degrading their society and its hopes for the future.

Vivienne actually talks about this with Dorian, as she pretty much tells him that Tevinter WILL fall, and she would prefer he had a backup plan to survive and thrive when it does.

And most of this does happen... But in ludicrously cartoonish ways.

The Qunari Antaam does invade... But not for the Qun, but instead because they serve the Elvhen gods.

As does the Venatori, because... Why? Why does the Tevinter supremacist follow false gods none of them have worshipped for near a hundred years? That they now know are elves?

The elvhen revolt never really happens.

The Evanuris does break free and begin destroying shit... but rather than elvhen followers as all logic dictates, are instead backed up by humans and Qunari... Because.

Also, rather than turning all their wrath loose upon the Tevinter imperium, the logical target that should either be conquered or exterminated to begin the rebuilding of their ancienct empire, they isntead focus the wast majority of their attention on the south... Because.

Im just gonna come flat out and say it.

I 100% believe that when Bioware was originally laying the foundations for This story, the planned climax was going to LEVEL Tevinter and make it "Crumble into the sea".

THAT was the direction as originally planned, and was the logical endpoint that everything was hinting at, and building towards and frankly would have served as a great climax and ending to this evil, decadent empire.

Unfortunately, Veilguard had no interest in a climax where the parts of the world YOU the player fought to save would be utterly decimated no matter what you did, so instead the empire survived, while the south of Thedas was obliterated.

So hey, the evil, slaving empire that is the source of so much of the world's evil, and will innevitably fall back into utter decadence and never change it's ways got to live on...

While Ferelden, the true heart and soul of this entire setting, burned to cinders and it's was people exterminated offscreen because Bioware wanted to get ridd of all player choices.

What a climax.

[yellowocaballero]

Reading 'Solo Leveling' (a webtoon/webnovel about a guy who uses a game-like interface to level up and fight monsters and become ridiculously OP and the coolest and hottest guy in the whole wide world) really proves something to me that I've thought about.

The goal of a story is to achieve what it wants to achieve. Different genres have different certain marks the story should achieve. If it doesn't hit those marks, it's not a good example of the genre. In a lot of was it's not even a good story - it doesn't entertain the audience in the way that they want to be entertained. A romance novel isn't a bad story because it doesn't feature great action scenes, but neither is it a bad story because it doesn't delve deep into the sociopolitical implications of neocolonialism. Does it make the reader feel happy? Is it cathartic? Is there a happy ending? Then it's a good romance story - even if you think stories shouldn't need happy endings.

The 'satisfaction' of stories like Solo Leveling is the fact that is very entertaining to watch a guy be super powerful and mow down bad guys and have everybody around him go "WHOAH that's a cool guy". Maybe it's cool because you're projecting, or maybe you like great action scenes, or because you like 'underdog gets powerful' stories. It's a power fantasy. That is the goal of Solo Leveling, and so long as I'm going "WHOAH COOL", then it's a good story. And Solo Leveling is the example of the power fantasy video game dungeon OP protag. It does those elements, it executes them competently, it's a good story.

This is the third of these types of stories I've read more than 5 chapters of. The first was Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint. And baby. This is no ORV.

ORV a big reaction to Solo Levelling in a lot of ways, since Solo Levelling was very genre defining and influential, and it's hard to write these OP stories without having a relationship to Solo Leveling. It's like the most popular webtoon out there. The OP hero, the gaming interface and rules, the gods fucking you up, power fantasy - they're all checked off by ORV. It doesn't subvert them much. You watch kdj pull one over on a shmuck and you're like HEY YA BABY and you watch him utterly decimate some schmuck and you're like WHOAH COOL. You like ORV, basically, for the same reasons you like Solo Leveling. They're the same genre and in a lot of ways the same story.

But ORV has driven me nuts and after a while Solo Leveling has gotten boring. Because ORV has a fantastic supporting cast that puts the MC's OPness in relative perspective. Because there's cool action scenes with different teams, of different dynamics, giving freshness to each chapter. Because you get to see kdj slowly implement some nuts gambit of the course of the entire arc and when we finally hit the end point where it all comes together it's FUCK YEAH. I'm leaving out the actual depth here. But ORV and Solo Leveling do the same thing, except ORV has a great deal of other story elements that build into the main 'point' and escalate the satisfaction, joy, and intensity of those points. You don't read these OP hero novels for the supporting cast. You read it to watch a dude be cool. But ORV's supporting cast - and, like, the fact that they're actual characters, even the women - gives us a lot of other smaller 'hey yeah!' moments, gives it buildup, makes the OP moments meaningful, and gives a grand climax and huge satisfaction when kdj does what the SL guy did by himself. And the supporting cast is only one example of this. A story is a good story if it accomplishes its point, but a story like SL will never really deliver its promises nearly as well as ORV could. Not because ORV is deep and has """themes""" or fucked up shit like that. The 'WHOAH COOL's are just better. Because ORV knows why stories are good and what makes a good story.

Anyway I'm fucking begging you I have tears in my eyes this is why your fic needs more than the hot ship of the day I promise it won't detract from the ship it will make the ship BETTER but you have to get WHY you like these homosexuals so much and it's NOT just because they're CUTE sometimes there's OTHER REASONS THAT ARE IMPORTANT LIKE THE WOMAN YOU'VE BOOTED AND -

[39oa]

(nonsensical hrpf data exercise) degree centrality graphing & other archive insights

intro/prior work

hello 🙇‍♀️ i'm not sure this post will make any kind of sense at all, but i love analyzing ao3 data and i especially find it fascinating in the realm of sports/hrpf because of the amount of player- and team-related attributes that offer dimensionality to fandom analysis when examined in parallel with archive metrics. i've already kind of done hrpf overviews on two separate occasions over the past year or so, but my method of collection differed in each instance and also always gave me new things to chew on and potentially explore, such as expanding on the link between player talent and shippability and whether high-draft picks have more fic written for them on average.

i most recently examined player data based on aggregated relationship counts since 2022, but this was a limited snapshot meant to piece together recent ficdom trends (see top ships since 01/01/22) and not be representative of fandom overall. basically, things i want to visualize/talk about now are:

hockey is so widespread as a sports fandom because there are 32 teams in the league, which when compared to a community like f1 makes it difficult to succinctly summarize primary relationships for. there is no self-contained grid of 20 drivers that remains generally fixed within a season, where every move in/out of that "roster" is highly reported upon and instrumental to fandom makeup, but instead a more amorphous network of malleable rosters featuring high-variance cascading orders of character visibility; in short, the difference between the most and least popular driver in f1 fandom is not the same as the difference between sidney crosby and that one ahl lifer who was called up to your 4th line two months ago because your team is utterly decimated and gunning for bedard.

Still: because rosters are so malleable and trades happen with some amount of frequency, and because hockey is still an "insular" ecosystem in terms of geographic accessibility and junior-age development (for better or worse; mostly for worse, but that's neither here nor there), players intrinsically have a low degree of separation between one another, whether it be as teammates now or as friends growing up in the ohl, ntdp, etc. i therefore wanted to take that a step further and look at it through fic metrics especially: can we use a summary of ficdom's real, tangible output and visualize it through a similar network? (+ where and how does that network differ from player connections in practice?)

back to the impact of draft pick # and assessments of talent relative to popularity, i also wanted to look at the most "successful" ships in ficdom from this network and evaluate the different distributions and impacts of their respective attributes. are certain player positions more popular? which nationalities are the most commonly shipped?

etc. But let's just get into it.

process

getting any kind of information from a 60%-locked fandom on ao3 is a nightmare and introduces a myriad of data-collecting limitations, so i do feel it important to disclaim that what i present in this post functions more in the realm of Approximate Interpretation and Potential Correlation than any actual 100% objective representation of fandom metrics.

a perceived limitation i have with character tagging metrics on ao3 is that they don't exactly reflect shippability; that is, if q.hughes is tagged as a character in a n.hischier/j.hughes fic, it gets attributed to his character tag but doesn't actually say anything about how many Relationship Fics exist for him on a whole. my best solution for this was essentially uncovering most of a player's relationships and summing their individual fic counts to create an approximate # of "relationship fics" for each player. so any kind of shippability graph going forward will use that metric.

i used ao3's relationship tag search and filtered by canonical in the men's hockey rpf fandom and only pulled relationship* fics ("/" instead of "&") with a min. of 20 works. ao3's counts are... Not the most accurate, so my filtering may have fudged some things around or missed a few pairings on the cusp, which again is why all the visuals here are not meant to show Everything in the most exact manner but function more so as a "general overview" of ficdom. although i did doublecheck the ship counts so the numbers themselves are accurate as of time of collection.

(*i excluded wag ships, reader ships, threesomes to make my life easier although i know this affects numbers for certain players, hc/gm ships, and any otherwise non-NHL Player ship. for ex., this eliminated anna kasterova/evgeni malkin, tyler brown/tyler seguin, and kyle dubas/william nylander, just to name a few)

all ship data was collected march 16, 2023.

PART 1. SC87 ship networking

when i first began this exercise i tried graphing ships for all the first-overall picks from 2003-2022 because i wanted to get an overarching sense of their connections. however, doing so made me realize that sidney crosby was by and far the most-connected node in the graph (and basically all hrpf in general) with a degree of 11, and that he was centering one huge component to which only two ships failed to connect (op/kj and slaf/xhekaj). basically:

so then i was like, right! let me instead use sidney crosby as my sole starting node, map out all ships with 20+ works from him specifically, take the players he connects to and map out their corresponding ships (excluding sid) and just keep iterating until i basically reach a final child node. through this, i yielded 112 ships and 98 unique players, with my final connecting node coming 9 degrees of separation away through brady tkachuk ↔ tim stützle/quinn hughes. unfortunately i can't actually host this little code snippet anywhere lol but i also wrote an input to check the pathways between any two players which was kind of fun:

here is the actual network graph with colors from automatically generated clustering, which doesn't really mean much but i thought was one nice way of presenting it. the edge width refers to the sum of fics for each ship and the node size refers to the degree, or number of ships, for each player.

i then also joined my player set with a dataset that included draft year, drafted team, position, etc... and through that color-coded the graph with the team each player was originally drafted to (i always struggle between using current team and draft team because which one matters more is super contextual, but... using draft team made my life easier this time so i hope it's still interesting.) here i only included colors for 13 teams that had 3+ players each:

→ [full-size graph]

we can do a bit more analysis based on this specific sidcros network, like which players are the "most-shipped" or overviewing cross-team shipping tendencies:

but! of course, not ALL big hrpf ships lead back to sc87. using him as a central node essentially just helped me filter out excess "noise" when searching for relationship tags on ao3, because now i could exclude anyone connected to him at all (note: the relationship fics from my set equaled upward of 19,000 works, accounting for 60.4% of the entire men's hockey rpf archive) and hit other significant tags more efficiently.

through this method, i singled out a new set of 76 ships and 134 unique players (notice the significant decrease in overlap), which i then combined with my sid ships to create one massive set of Hockey Ships With Over 20+ Works On Ao3 that i could analyze holistically. no idea if this makes any sense but bear with me:

PART 2. general ship insights

i won't bore people with endlessly listing out ship rankings but here's the previous top chart with the new ships slotted in:

now for some overall player analysis!

first i wanted to look at how attributes like draft round, nationality, and position (F/D/G) are represented in the player set.

the nationality distribution is pretty close to all active nhl players this season, so there aren't major disparities there. however, the vast majority of players 1) were drafted in the first round and 2) are mostly forwards, with the forwards also seemingly reflecting the general philosophy of faster development/higher recent-round representation. we can take this overview a step further and actually examine the fic averages for each characteristic as a proxy for measuring shippability/ficdom popularity.

first, i scatterplotted all players by their draft pick and number of fic to (try and) show the heavy skew toward top picks (inspired by the gar draft pick value curve and other similar plots). this is... well, limited in many ways, and if i had an actually adequately large dataset i could specifically plot averages per distinct pick number and try to present something there, but the problem is that a lot of these later pick numbers only have like one player so there's way too much variance LOL.

but just for the sake of this exercise i excluded j.benn as an outlier and grouped fic averages by round (left below). again, noting the sample sizes, let's just say that first rounders on average seem to have the most fic written about them, even if it's not a particularly shocking insight. we can also try creating a histogram for "shippability" by draft year, binning here for every 2 years, to see which draft years appear to have had the most success (right below). note the peaks around 2005 and 2015, aka the sc87 and cm97 ~Generational Years~ 🤔

i've also been interested in figuring out which positions are commonly preferred—since centers are so often the faces of a franchise and are essentially the most sought-after position, and since goalies occupy a positionally static role/are less oriented toward contact (and the presumed homoeroticness thereof) in the way skaters are, is that reflected in the fic metrics as well? turns out: yes.

some ship analysis

learning more about player data in a vacuum is fun, but we also have all of this relationship data that lets us examine how different characteristics interact with each other, which is meaningful as well! for example, we know that forwards are heavily represented in the dataset, but is center4center the most common combination? or is there love for a franchise center and his beloved winger or the team's dependable 1d?

(fought for my life trying to figure out how to map this properly so please accept a horrible bar chart instead) as it turns out, the most common combination is centers/wingers, followed afterward by centers/centers. i don't know whether this really means much to me because i'd like to dissect the combos even further (is C/C more often 1C 2C or cross-team rivalry 1C shipping? are C/W usually linemates? etc.) but 🤷‍♀️ here's a graph.

i also distributed ships by their nationality combination, displaying to the surprise of no one a heavy preference (a whopping 66.4%!) for north american-exclusive shipping. i also thought stacking by "draft year" (= averaging the draft year between both players for each ship) offered some interesting insight into usa4usa shipping having slightly younger representation. also i do think usa/germany being singlehandedly driven up this chart by one family is remarkable and hilarious LOL.

also in the realm of draft year analysis, i wanted to look at draft year differences and whether fandom preferences seem to lie by way of same-age-ish pairings and In-Class Bicycling so to speak. graphing ships by these differences spanned a range of 20 years, with the oldest "age" (draft) difference being 20 years between zdeno chara and charlie mcavoy. overall, of 175 ships with a drafted player, 60.5% were drafted within 2 years of each other (18.2% in the same draft), and only 5% had a draft difference of 10 or more years.

then, of those 32 ships drafted within the same year, i distributed their counts by year to see which draft classes featured the biggest in-class clusters, leading us again to the Famed Class of 2015:

closing thoughts

i'll stop here :saluting_face: something else i had on the agenda that i don't really know how to adequately explore with this dataset is basically stanley cup champion stuff, e.g. looking at players and ships and fic counts from winning teams and how/whether a sort of "winning bias" has been trending down as of late (see the relative success of ships from teams like phi/ana compared to tbl/stl)—temporal data is so particular and difficult to wrangle with ao3 though so i'll have to let this one percolate a little bit.

finally, another thing (!) that i love examining is captaincy and how it often helps inform shippability; C/A/guyswithletters shipping obviously generously overlaps with being drafted early, high-impact players, some positional stuff like Young Star Center having the role foisted onto him, etc. and many of these aspects are immediately identifiable in top ships like 8771, 1634, 1386... just to name a few obvious ones. unfortch i don't really have the time or space to look at that here but it's something i'm still interested in maybe expanding on, and i also never ended up collecting actual skater *performance* data which would be super fun to eventually get to, e.g. mapping ficdom output to not just background identifiers like draft year/pick but also 1) actual tangible evaluations of player goals/points/(salary?!?)/etc. and 2) some dimension of draft outperformance/underperformance, which is pertinent for scenarios like late-round picks who have defied career expectations (see outlier jbenn having a shit ton of lifetime fic) AND early-round picks whose trajectories have not panned out as expected for whatever reason; often the ~tragic~ frustration of being a bust actually invites more narrative focus and scrutiny, but at the same time ficdom trends have pointed themselves to being attracted to many historic, talented, generational, and so on players, who more often than not are also winners, which potentially posits a need for some sustained line of access/visibility to high-expectation players significantly before they're regarded as "busts" in order to organically grow and generate initial interest that can survive the renewed reality of their situation. but who knows

again, i don't know whether any of this even makes sense or is interesting to literally anyone at all, but i personally enjoyed just dicking around graphing shit and getting to join a ton of tables together for absolutely no reason lol. that's all!

[magicalbats]

Kinktober 2024 Day 15: Childe x Reader

Rating: R-18+

Word Count: 6849

Warnings: Afab!reader, Traveler reader, friends with benefits to enemies then back to friends with benefits again, outdoors, impact play (male receiving), switching, femdom elements, handjob, mentioned cunnilingus, Childe being a pain slut

A/N: I have been fighting tooth and nail all day trying to get enough time to post this while I'm at work and nothing has wanted to cooperate with me. lol Also I wasn't able to have this one beta read due to my own negligence, so please forgive any mistakes. 🙈

⭐

You weren’t expecting to run into him out in the rolling fields and verdant grasslands of Inazuma’s countryside. In fact, you hadn’t expected to run into him at all. 

The last you’d seen of the Eleventh Fatui Harbinger was back in Liyue, a whole stretch of ocean between here and there, and he’d looked half dead on his feet at the time. But that was months ago now, and he seems to be back in good health as he lifts a companionable arm to wave over at you from further down the gently sloping hillside.

“Hello, comrade! How are you today?” 

An instinctive prickle makes you puff up as if to make yourself look bigger than you actually were, yet your hand pauses halfway through the motion of reaching for your sword. He wasn’t giving off any ill intent that you could pick up on where you were stood looking down at him, his posture relaxed and at ease to match the big, easy going smile on his face. Not that that really amounted to much in your mind anymore. After all, he hadn’t given the impression of someone who would summon a long sealed god to decimate a city full of helpless citizens the first few times you’d met either, but you knew how that had ultimately turned out for you. 

Still, you hesitate to draw your blade for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on. He looks friendly enough as he casually saunters his way up the hill, those long gangly legs of his easily clearing the distance quicker than when you’d climbed up here. And you’re just confused enough by his sudden appearance in such an unlikely place that you allow him to get closer than you probably should. Was he following you? 

“What are you doing here, Childe?” 

“Ah, I’d say I could ask you the same but I already know the answer don’t I? How goes your search, Traveler? Any luck yet?” Stopping about six feet away from you, the tall Snezhnayan lifts both his hands to brace them against his narrow hips. For a moment he just looks at you as if this were a completely normal, everyday encounter and not one that’s caught you utterly off guard. 

“I’m sure you know of the Fatui’s presence in Inazuma by now?” He finally says. “Not that I have anything to do with the gnosis or whatever is going on at the capital, mind you. I’m just doing some busy work, that’s all.”

“What sort of busy work?” You press, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. 

“A simple investigation and nothing more. Interested?” 

Hesitating, you take a moment to quickly weigh out your options before deciding on the truth. “A little.” 

“Good. Something tells me you’ll be a lot more amenable if I’ve got information you want, so let’s chat. You’ve got the time, right?” Still grinning, Childe loosely drops his arms back down to his sides and starts to shuffle towards you with the clear intent of closing the distance. A nagging little voice in your head warns you to be careful of him and his sunshine smiles, but for some reason you just can’t bring yourself to tell him to stop or back off. 

Letting your mouth tug into a frown, you defiantly nudge your chin up as he comes to stand over you, his considerable height making it so you have to crane your neck back just a pinch to look him in the face. It was probably a mistake that you’d let him get so close but it was much too late to start backpedaling now. No way were you going to stand down and give him the satisfaction. 

“That makes it sound like I have a history of using you for my own purposes, but I seem to recall the exact opposite happening in Liyue.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to exact a little payback for that, Traveler. I’m right here if you want me.” He says, throwing you a quick, overly confident wink that makes your cheeks start to warm. This man … 

“If that was what I’d planned to do,” You softly intone, enunciating each syllable to make sure he catches every word clearly. “I would have done it when you were too injured to walk out of that Ruin Guard factory on your own. You seem to have plenty of connections to some bad actors but don’t mistake me for one of them. I’m not going to backstab someone after calling a truce.” 

Delightedly laughing in response, Childe lifts his brows at you in plain faced admiration. “Well said, comrade! I knew you had the true spirit of a warrior as soon as I met you. I’m glad you didn’t disappoint me.”

You breathe out a terse huff, nearly giving in to the urge to roll your eyes at the hypocrisy. But before you can let that juvenile compulsion get the better of you, Childe subtly shifts his weight and reaches out to just brush the tip of one gloved finger over your wrist. A soft inhale rattles in your chest at the contact, even for as brief as it is, and you widen your eyes up at him in question. 

“I know the same probably can’t be said of me,” He tells you, perfectly earnest now. “And you have my sincere apologies for that. If I promise not to do it again, do you think you can forgive me?” 

You catch yourself impulsively starting to say ‘for what?’ There was a long list to choose from, after all. Acting as if he was really going to kill you? Unsealing a long dormant monster from the bottom of the ocean floor to wreak havoc on a largely defenseless city? Or maybe it was all the underhanded trickery and little white lies he wanted your forgiveness for. 

But you don’t say it. What’s done is done, and in your eyes at least he’d already gone a long way in making amends to you during that impromptu adventure across the rocky Liyue countryside with his little brother in tow. It wasn’t perfect and it was certainly difficult to forget about that whole attempted killing thing, but you’d seen both sides of him now. Both the man and the monster, and you were fairly certain that Childe wasn’t actually a bad person. Of the few Harbinger’s you’d met so far, he was very close to being nothing more than a normal youth, the kind you could run into anywhere in Teyvat. Headstrong and a little foolish at times, but ultimately kind of heart. 

So you finally heave a quiet sigh through your nose and rock back to take half a step away from him, indicating that you were giving him the high ground now. “Fine. I’ll forgive you. If you’ll spar with me, that is.” 

“Oho. A challenge you say?” His smile instantly takes on a sharper edge, looking really quite eager now. “You wanna’ go hand to hand with me, Traveler? I’ve pretty much fully recovered from last time so be careful what you say.” 

You give your head a slow shake, trying not to giggle at his enthusiasm. “As much as I hate to admit it, you’re physically stronger than me and bigger too. The outcome of that is obvious.”

“Then weapons, to balance it out - -“ 

“No. I don’t want to accidentally hurt you or get hurt myself. I’ve still got a long journey ahead of me and I can’t take the risk of you getting too caught up in the moment to keep your strength in check. We’ll use something that won’t accidentally maim either of us.” 

“Alright, you’ve piqued my interest. What did you have in mind?” 

Pinning him with a sly, mischievous little smile now, you back up another step and then another, coaxing him to follow after you. True to nature, Childe doesn’t even seem to give it a second thought and he trails in your wake with an anticipatory grin stretched across his mouth. This was not the first time the two of you had looked at each other like this and as long as both of you continued to keep yourselves alive out there it probably wouldn’t be the last. 

Falling back to the edge of the shady tree line with him, you make quick work of unclasping your sword sheath from your hip so you can drop it in the grass. He watches you attentively while you do it, the visibly stiff set of his shoulders giving away his thoughts on the matter. Just as you’d anticipated, then. A hot blooded young man like him could only ever seem to think of three things at any given moment: fighting, fucking or eating. 

But you manage to take him by surprise when, rather than reaching down to relieve yourself of your clothes next, you instead stretch out your hand to grab a sufficiently proportioned stick from a nearby tree limb. You can see him looking at you rather strangely now from the corner of your eye while you work to get it broken off with a series of sharply brittle snaps before handing it over to him. 

Looking really quite perplexed now, Childe slowly takes the offering from you to hold it up for inspection. “And what are we going to do with this, solnishko?” 

“Spar. Didn’t we already agree to that?” 

“Ahh,” The dephtless blue of his eyes seems to glitter from within, lit by an internal spark as he gives the stick a brief wave through the air. “We’re going back to children’s games to settle our differences then. I like it. We’d have to try very hard to kill each other with these.” 

“Exactly, and no one should get hurt either. Not too badly, anyway.” 

Trying not to grin and failing, you pick out another low hanging branch that looks to be about equal in shape, width and length to the one you gave Childe, working to get it tugged down to another cacophony of rustling leaves and snapping wood. Soon enough the two of you are setting in to get the smaller twigs pulled off to leave just a bare strip of mostly smooth bark along your substitute weapons, exchanging snickering commentary back and forth while you do it. 

In truth you were now looking forward to this a great deal more than you’d expected to when the idea first came into your mind. Sure, it was a little silly and even childish but this should do wonders to repair what consisted of your relationship with the Snezhnayan, whatever that was. Things had been so easy and uncomplicated at first, when he was still showing you around Liyue like some kind of professional tour guide and throwing yet another purse full of mora at you every time you turned around. It just sort of made sense that you’d naturally fallen into bed with each on one or two, or three occasions. 

Alright, maybe it was more like a dozen but you’d had little else to do in the evenings after wrapping up preparations for the Rite of Parting with Zhongli, and the Harbinger always seemed happy to entertain you no matter what time you came calling. 

Even in its simplicity it was still far from ideal considering his various attachments to what seemed to be the opposing side and your own nomadic life in Teyvat. But it was fun and casual in a way that didn’t appear to beget any hard feelings at the inherently impermanent nature of the arrangement. If you could go back to even some small semblance of that dynamic with him instead of the largely awkward skirting around each other you’d had to endure in front of Tuecer then you would be quite pleased with the end result. 

And as the both of you move into position after deeming each other's sticks fight worthy, you realize just how much you actually missed this lighthearted atmosphere with him. You'd probably never be able to find quite the same balance between work and play as before considering how deeply entrenched the two were on both sides but as long as you came out of this as friends again then that would be just fine by you. 

“Shall I go easy on you, Traveler?” He laughs over at you, the playful note in his voice ringing loud as he rather proficiently twirls his stick over his knuckles. Cute trick. 

“Don’t even think about it. I still owe you a solid hit or two for the way you were acting underneath the Golden House but I plan to exact it fair and square.” 

“Ooh, how confident. I like that about you, y’know.”

“I’ve noticed.” Holding your branch much like you would a sword, you drop into a braced fighting stance. 

Childe takes that as his cue and does the same, giving his stand-in weapon one last flip over his broad hand before snagging it in a proper closed fist grip. Except the stance he falls into is wide legged and open, leaving enough vulnerable spots in his defenses that most would assume him an amateur if they didn’t know any better. 

You do know better though, and even after fighting him once before in a real high stakes battle you still take a moment just to study him. Broad shoulders and thin wasted, quite tall but not entirely filled out just yet. He’s almost lanky in a way that you think should make him seem awkward when he moves, just as his posture falsely implies he’s too loose in that stance and too over confident not to get his ass handed to him. 

But after seeing Childe in action firsthand you’re well aware he’s not only light on his feet and perfectly in control of his body, but also rightfully arrogant in his abilities. No matter how many openings you thought you saw in his pose, you’d probably be lucky if you were able to land even a single hit in any of them. 

That didn’t mean you weren’t going to try though. 

Nudging your right foot out to the side, you start to inch your way towards him going in at a wide berth. He smirks at you, catching on that you were looking for a real window to launch an attack through and not one of the ones he’d see coming from a mile away, shifting in the opposite direction to face off with you. For a drawn out moment, all you do is simply circle each other there in the clearing underneath the shade of Inazuma’s shuddering otogi trees, listening to a bird sing in the near distance. 

You carefully watch the powerful flex of his legs while the two of you move, waiting for the right moment to strike. And it finally comes when his boot subtly dips a little lower than any of his previous steps had. He’d likely just sunk into a small divot in the ground and the change in his balance is so slight as to be nearly imperceptible, but it’s enough. 

And you launch yourself forward, kicking off from the ground to give your swing enough speed. Drawing your hand all the way across your chest and back over your shoulder, you mercilessly lash out with the stick aimed right at his stomach as if to disembowel him. The stick swings through the air so quickly, in fact, that a sharp whistle rises up for a split second. 

It ultimately amounts to nothing, however, when Childe keenly dances back on his toes just in time to avoid the strike and your arm simply completes the full arc of the swing without ever hitting anything. Dammit. 

“Woah! You’re really not playing around, are you?” He laughs, falling back just enough to keep you at arm's length. “I thought you said no one was going to get hurt doing this?”

“Too badly.” You stress, smiling right back at him as you restore your footing on the ground and bring the stick back around in a parrying position. Something told you he was going to retaliate after that. “Considering how badly you knocked me around in your other form, I think at least one good hit is deserved.” 

“Aww, want me to stand still and bend over for you?” 

A surprised laugh bursts out of your mouth, thoroughly caught off guard by that. 

In that split second waver Childe makes his move. His long legs and arms give him the advantage now just as they did underneath the Golden House, and you don’t quite move quickly enough to miss the bite of his stick whapping into the meat of your thigh. The fleshy smack that results sounds much worse than it actually feels, and you bounce away from him on the toes of your boots to get spun back around again. 

“That was a dirty trick.” You giggle through the slight sting as he straightens up, arm angling back to brace the branch over his shoulder in a tauntingly casual pose. “And I thought you said you weren’t going to take it easy on me? I know you can hit much harder than that.” 

“Yeah, well, can’t say I’m much for hitting a woman who’s only armed with a stick. But if you want me to light up your cute butt for you so much I’d be happy to oblige.” 

A slow flutter curls through your stomach, reaching straight up into your chest cavity which slowly expands with the steadying breath you pull in. This was exactly what you’d missed with him. It’s also what had been decidedly absent the last time you’d encountered each other when Teucer snuck to Liyue to see him. You liked this playful, boyish side of him much more than the solemn Harbinger who’d stood in the Northland Bank with you, learning of Zhongli’s schemes together. 

In the here and now, looking over at him across the small space that separates you two, you suddenly realize you’re grinning from ear to ear. 

“You wouldn’t dare.” 

Childe’s smile grows to match yours, flashing pretty white teeth at you seconds before he lurches into motion. He’s on you in an instant, his gangly limbs once again proving troublesome as he reaches out with his free hand to snag at your forearm. Trying to twist away from his grab does you no good and you let out a squealing laugh as he half spins, half drags you in place to turn your body to the side and point your backend at his dominant arm. It all happens in such a quick blur of motion that you’re only vaguely aware of the stick whistling through the air seconds before he pops you right across the ass with it. 

Even through your dress and bloomers it hurts this time, and you let out a wounded sound of affront when you start to bring your own branch up to blindly swat at him. 

But Childe is already pulling away from you, laughing like a mischievous boy who’s just done something incredibly fun but naughty as he tries to duck out of your reach. He’s not quite quick enough though and you just manage to snag the back of his jacket with one hand while the other rears back to strike. 

You successfully get one good thwap in across his hip, making his laughter ratchet up another notch even while he shudderingly tries to drag himself away from you. The hold you’ve got on his clothes quickly begins to slip like this so you impulsively reach down to snag the back of his pants instead. 

That sudden yank around his hips seems to upset his center of gravity just enough to bring him to his knees, much too busy whooping it up to fight you off at the moment, but that was fine by you. Letting out a victorious sound, you bring your stick down right across the seat of his pants with a good amount of force. But much to your dismay he just laughs all the harder for it, crumpling in the grass at your feet now. 

Standing there panting rather heavily over him, you can’t help feeling a little silly in the aftermath. What were you even doing out here, taking a stick to his behind like a misbehaved child? He was almost twice your size for crying out loud! 

“Alright,” You finally say when his shaking shoulders start to even out again, trying very hard not to start laughing yourself. “I think we may have gotten a bit carried away there for a moment. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I suggested we spar.”

“Please,” He says with no shortage of effort, his voice thick with lingering chuckles and reflexive tears. “You should have seen your face, Traveler. I’ve never seen you look so surprised. You didn’t even look that shocked when I used my Foul Legacy transformation back in Liyue.” 

“Well, that hurt! Of course I’d look surprised when you were still pussyfooting around when you got me the first time!” 

Childe immediately starts to laugh again as if that was easily the funniest thing he’s ever heard and you narrow your eyes down at him, watching his shaking fist pound at the grass. Although you were glad the mood between you and him was much lighter than it had been before, you can’t help feeling a bit miffed about this turn of events. 

Once again waiting until his trembling laughter starts to subside, you audibly huff a terse breath to get his attention. “Did that really not hurt you at all? Not even a little bit?” 

“Sorry, but it didn’t. I’m afraid if your goal is to hurt me you’ll have to do worse than that.” Sniffling a wounded little sound, Childe slowly pushes up to brace on his hands and knees where he lets his head hang low for a moment, trying to catch his breath. “I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time. Thank you.” 

Grumbling something unkind under your breath, you thoughtfully drop your attention down to the seat of his pants. The soft gray material was visibly rumpled from where you’d grabbed him but you could tell that he had just enough meat on his bones that he should have felt something. 

The notion that he was perhaps underplaying the sting, or had barely noticed it when he was uncontrollably laughing like that does momentarily cross your mind. But as you ponder over his narrow yet nicely defined ass an idea starts to form. Maybe the pants were actually the problem? 

Not stopping long enough to reconsider this decision, you quickly reach out to snag your fingers in the waist of his slacks so you can yank them down in the back. Immediately jolting, Childe snaps his head around to look at you over his shoulder with a genuinely surprised expression. 

“Hey — what are you doing?” 

“Just checking something. Stay still.” 

He noises an even more confused sound in response but doesn’t fight it as you yank at the material until you can get it pulled half way down. Across the narrow strip of creamy flesh you expose, you can clearly see a little red welt forming right across the meat of his cheeks as proof of your earlier strike. It certainly looked like it should have at least registered as a sharp bite into the flesh, and you were quite sure you had a matching one on your own behind to go with it, which still throbs even now. 

Lifting your hand, you gently soothe over the mark with a finger but he doesn’t even so much as twitch. “Do you really not feel that?” 

“It’s a little warm, I guess. Nothing crazy though.” A pause while he intently studies you. “Do you want to hit me again, see if you can make it hurt this time?” 

Your attention snaps up at that. “Are you sure?” 

“I don’t see why not, solnishko. You did say you owe me one good pop, didn’t you? I’ll even let you take my pants down if you’d like.” His mouth curls into a sly but still playful grin at that last bit. 

It’s his cocky attitude that ultimately sways your decision on the matter, quickly deciding that, yes, he did deserve at least that much from you. Even if only to knock him down a peg for just a moment. 

So you nudge yourself closer to kneel between the bends of his knees and lean into him, reaching around to his front. Quickly locating the clasp of his belt, you fumble to get it unhooked and then close your fingers in the material so you can pull his pants the rest of the way down without having to fight with it. 

Humming a rumbling sound of approval, Childe slowly lowers his upper half to the ground so he can brace his cheek along his folded arms, still peering back at you with a noted look of interest. You can guess what he thinks this will lead to, and you’d even admit he was probably right about that, but you still had an objective to accomplish first. Considering how much he’d left you banged up before, you certainly thought yourself entitled to some of that payback he’d spoken of. 

And as you peer over his backside, taking in all the lean muscle and the light smattering of pale freckles here or there, the reddish brown curls that are just a shade darker than what’s on his head, you understand why he doesn’t have any problem accepting a little punishment to go along with the pleasure. He was absolutely littered in scars from the tops of his thighs straight down to where they disappear in the pool of his pants and right up from the dip in his lower back to continue on beneath his light jacket. There’s even the jagged mark of a blade that was plunged into his hip — not very deeply, by the looks of it, but enough to leave a reminder. 

On one hand it was astounding that he’d even managed to live this long, given how reckless you knew him to be and all of the proof of past fights marring his skin. But on the other hand you could see now why the sting of the tree branch hadn’t even really registered in his mind. He was not only used to the pain but also probably numb in certain spots thanks to all the scar tissue. 

You’d known that going into this, of course. This certainly wasn’t the first time you’d seen him naked. But his pert little ass was almost entirely blemish free and a strange feeling in your gut compels you now to mark him up and fill in all that blank space, even if only temporarily. 

“Don’t be scared to do it.” He murmurs back at you, snapping you from your thoughtful trance. The vague pinprick sensation of goosebumps erupts across your skin as you watch him shift slightly to bring one of his hands down, reaching between his legs to idly curl the fingers over his ballsack and draw your attention to it. “As long as you don’t aim too low it’ll be fine. These are sensitive, so the one thing I’d ask is that you don’t aim here.”

“I think I can do that.” You croak, suddenly feeling almost dizzy with the sharp rush of arousal that shoots through you. 

These sorts of power games weren’t usually on the itinerary, or at least they hadn’t been before. But, you supposed, things had changed and the dynamic was slightly different now even if the two of you were no longer on rocky footing with each other. You have to figure out how to adjust and slip into this new role though, so you take a moment to palm the backs of his lean thighs and give them a brief squeeze, allowing yourself a chance to relax into it. 

Breathing out a faintly shuddering breath, Childe massages over his balls one last time with that lingering hand before withdrawing his arm so he can brace it in the grass again. Seeing how relaxed and resigned he is to this particular development encourages you and spurs you on, and your palms boldly slide up higher to feel over the rather petite swell of his ass. He’s so tall and thin that you’d almost expected him to be completely flat but he’s actually got a very shapely behind for as small as it is. There’s even just enough fleshy give for your fingers to sink into him just so, and you take advantage of this opportunity to find the fattest part to strike him in. 

It’s not long before your own excitement turns into a constant, thrumming buzz that soon prompts you to reach for your long abandoned stick again. Shifting slightly to the side so you can kneel next to him rather than directly behind, you bring the thin wisp of wood up to place it delicately over the fleshiest part of him right across the center. From your peripheral you can see his shoulders hitch slightly to accompany the faint inhale you catch, but he doesn’t protest or move to pull away. 

Was he really willing to go even this far if it got him back in your good graces? You hadn’t even considered that as a feasible possibility until now. 

“Is here fine?” 

“Should be.” 

The vaguely intoxicated, thick quality of his voice makes you blink but a quick peek between his legs reveals the source. You’d been so focused on his ass that you hadn’t even noticed him getting hard. 

Straightening back up, you give the stick a gentle nudge against him to make sure you’ve got his attention. “One hit to make up for what happened in Liyue. That’s it, and then we can do … something that’s fun for the both of us. Does that sound fair?” 

“Aww, Traveler. Don’t threaten me with a good time, now. You can do it as many times as you want and I won’t stop you.” Rocking back slightly to deliberately push against the stick, Childe offers up a threadbare little laugh. “I’m curious anyway. Can you hurt me? Or are you just all talk?” 

Of course you can see what he’s doing from a mile away and you find that you have half a mind not to give him what he wants, just to see how he’ll behave then. But unfortunately you’re feeling much too on edge and anticipatory to deny him if it also meant denying yourself, so you pull your arm back into a full bend that leaves you ready to lash out. 

“Tell me you’re sorry, Childe.” 

“Wha — oohhn!” The noise abruptly tumbles right out of him as soon as you bring the stick across the vulnerable swell of his ass, cracking him right over both cheeks. He sounds more surprised than hurt, but he also shudders faintly as he twitches forward with the impact. Immediately chasing it with a low, vibrating rumble, he turns his face inward to let out a breathy laugh into the grass. “Sorry, Traveler. I know you weren’t very happy with me or that stunt I pulled. Forgive me?” 

You swallow your nerves down hard, struggling to formulate a coherent response to that. He almost sounded more amused than hurt … could it be he actually liked this? 

Ever so carefully, you pull the stick back from him to find another red welt marring his skin, this one much more pronounced than the first. So his pants had protected him from the full brunt of your earlier swing. 

And he gives his hips a brief wriggle at the loss, making his half hard cock swing pendulously between his legs. Clearly inviting you to either keep going or help yourself to other parts of his body, if you so wished, and you got the distinct sense he was happy with whatever as long as you were there with him. Did that in turn mean he’d missed you too, just as you had missed him? 

Consideringly, you glance down at the stick in your hand and then back over at his defenseless, upturned ass again. There was still an awful lot of unmarked skin there. 

Feeling some of your confidence return now, you fidget on the ground to straighten your spine and round your shoulders, before finally speaking with a smart intonation. 

“We’ll see … I think you can apologize better than that, don’t you? Tell me how sorry you really are.” 

A stiff flex works down his spine at that and he groans, breathy and soft to indicate his agreement. 

“I’m ever so sorry, Traveler — mmmhn!” 

“Without the sarcasm, Childe. Thank you.” 

Restlessly shifting in the grass now, he turns his head to peer over at you with a hazy look on his face that speaks of deep felt satisfaction. Whether it was because of your presence there next to him or what you were doing to him, it was impossible to say, but you decidedly liked that expression on him. It was nice to see him turning into a boneless puddle in response to what you were doing for a change. Usually he was a little too energetic for you to corral. 

His body language reads of perfectly willing submission now though, and you feel unexpectedly powerful as you draw your arm back in preparation to strike him again. This wasn’t just fun from your own perspective of retribution, though it's certainly that too. It was also just an exciting way to reacquaint yourselves with one another and set new boundaries after the previous ones had been shattered by his reckless actions. Although not what you’d expected to come of this, you’re quite glad things had turned out this way. 

So you thwack him once more, catching Childe right across the tight swell of his ass under the previous welt, making him slide his eyes shut and suck in a quick breath. 

“Try again.” 

“Oohn, I’m sorry, Traveler. Please forgive me.” 

Another sharp swat. “Again. I need to know you’re serious about this. Do you have any idea how much you scared me, suddenly transforming into a monster like that?” 

“Mmmm, I know. I wasn’t actually planning on hurting you though.”

“Then you don’t know your own strength.” Chiding him, you give his reddening behind another smack to leave one more faint line running across his cheeks. “I was so banged up I wouldn’t have been able to deal with Osial if everyone hadn’t stepped up to work together. I’m not very happy about that either, by the way.” 

Groaning a low, rattling sound now, Childe lifts his face slightly to fix you with a distracted, dreamy smile. “Give yourself a bit more credit, Traveler. I always knew you could handle it — hnng! Oooh, man. Gotta’ say, that’s really starting to sting the more you do it.” 

Well, at least you were making progress. “Do you want me to stop? I’m satisfied if you are.” 

He hums a soft sound of consideration at that, hips listlessly flexing as if he was starting to get antsy and impatient. And as soon as you lean closer to peer between his thighs, you understand why. Where he’d been only half filled out before, his cock was now achingly stiff and dribbling a slow bead of precum into the grass underneath him. The sight alone is enough to make you shudder fiercely where you’re knelt beside him, close enough that he doesn’t miss it, and Childe offers up a stretched thin laugh in response. 

“Yeah, wanna’ help me out with this? Could really use some of that sweet attention of yours right now.” 

You watch him give his hips a slight wriggle to make his cock tauntingly bob and draw your attention to it, and any resolve you may have had left immediately dissolves. Alright, you could forgive him. 

Quickly tossing the stick away, you nudge yourself right up against his side so you can reach under him and take his twitching length in hand. Childe gives a brief jolt at the contact only to then eagerly lean into it, pelvis working down into your fist. At the same time, you slide your other palm up along his thigh and smooth over his pink ass in a slow, savory gesture that’s meant to really rub the sting in. And it works, his chest stuttering with the hissing breath he abruptly sucks in before slowly shaking his head with a bothered groan. 

“Still not satisfied? Oohhhn … remind me to never get on your bad side again.” 

“And don’t you forget it.” You murmur, squeezing your thighs together in a blithe attempt to alleviate some of the sticky tension there even as you set in to work him over, pumping his cock with measured strokes of your hand. 

It’s clear he appreciates it and even enjoys it, but the attention grabbing throb over his ass seems to be quite distracting for him at the same time. Still, he doesn’t protest or try to pull away, merely trembling there on all fours while you insistently tug at him. 

You keep your other set of fingers busy drawing soft nonsensical patterns over the lifted welts on his skin for a drawn out moment before reaching a little lower to massage over his taint instead. That makes him sway almost unsteadily, gingerly pushing back into you with a gutted sound of pleasure. 

“Do you like that, Childe?” 

When he tries to speak all that comes out is a haggard sound so he sucks in a deep breath, steadies himself and tries again. “Y - yeah. I do.” 

Feeling your own excitement climb just a bit higher, you stroke is cock more vigorously to make his balls heavily sway with the motion. He looked so good like this, sounded so good when he was softly gasping like that. You could easily get used to this, you think. 

“Then cum for me. Go on. Let me see you shoot your load all over the ground, and then you can come eat me out with your sore ass in the air.” 

“Oohn! Shit!” 

He almost violently lurches against you, his narrow back dramatically arching for a painfully short moment before a sudden spasm takes hold of him. Breathlessly gasping and groaning, whining ever so softly in the back of his throat, Childe rides out the regretfully short lived flex of his juddering hips as his cock wildly twitches in your palm, releasing strings of creamy white discharge to plop harmlessly in the grass. Still lightly running your fingers over his taint, you’re rather pleased to find that the simple stimulation seems to encourage his orgasm to drag out until his balls have nothing left to give, and he just impotently shudders through the final few tremors. 

Finally wheezing a heavy sound of relief, all the stiff muscles in his body go lax all at once to leave him roughly panting, trying to catch his breath again. You can’t help feeling really quite pleased with yourself as you sit back to watch him recover, eager for your turn but still perfectly content just to observe him for the moment. He really was gorgeous, and it made for a potent cocktail when paired with how unexpectedly satisfying it was to have a man as powerful and headstrong as him on his knees for you. Yes, you certainly could get used to this. 

Although you weren’t entirely sure how he’d found you here in Inazuma you’re glad he had, and you full on grin at him when he at last recovers enough to bring his head up to look at you. 

“How was that?” 

“Perfect, you little minx. Now come here,” With a bestial growl and a quick flash of his teeth, Childe reaches out to snag your ankle before you can think to pull it away, physically dragging you across the ground towards him. 

Squeaking a small sound of surprise, you fall half of the way back to brace your elbows in the softly rustling grass, but he’s merciless in the way he pulls you closer. The motion catches your skirt under you and bunches it up, leaving your bloomers already partially exposed as he goes up on his knees to loom over you. Pausing only long enough to send you a darkly masculine, hungry look, he quickly sets his sights on the band around your waist to roughly tug it down, leaving you giggling an eager sound into the faint breeze. 

“If that’s the way you want it, fine. I’m game.” He croons at you, smirking deviously when he palms at your thighs to force them apart in a wide spread that fully bares you at him. “Just don’t go crying about foul play later, Traveler. I’m not going to go easy on you this time.”

⭐

Crossposted: here

[snowyh2o]

Dumb late night Hazbin ideas:

Ok, so hear me out. What if, Alastor gets a redemption arc? But it happens so slowly and unnoticed that by the end of the series you just turn around and find out that he’s already been redeemed and no one has any clue how it happened.

Alternatively, AU where the hotel’s very presence forces redemption on everyone who stays there whether they want to or not and one day Alastor wakes up and wonders if he should let Vox broadcast his shows uninterrupted that day before promptly glitching out in absolute horror at the thought. And then absolutely going out of his way to decimate one of Vox’s broadcasts just to prove to himself that he’s still just as much of an evil bastard as he always is.

Cue multiple scenarios where Alastor is trying really fucking hard to be eeeeevil and then somehow utterly failing. Watching as he’s slowly forced into being a good person against his will, and knowing there’s nothing he can do to stop it. Oh he’s still just as petty and sassy and sinister as ever, but whatever edge he had ends up lost in the thought of perhaps he should do something special for Charlie and the other residents for their first month of the hotel opening and—GODS BE DAMNED!

No one else notices it, partly because he’s always toned down the Clearly Scheming Aura when he’s around them, but also because he’ll be damned if anyone of them catches on. Husk sees through his bullshit, but ends up with the wrong conclusion and Alastor is happy to let him think whatever about leashes and deals as long as he keeps his mouth shut, buuuuut maybe he’d been a bit too harsh on the barkeep. He should make up for it with some higher quality booze and— really, it’d be nice to have something that’s more to his taste than the stuff that’s usually kept around.

Of course, Alastor’s not the only demon being forced into becoming a good person, he’s just the only one who’s noticed it. Charlie, who is 99% of the time a good person, is absolutely convinced that the better than usual behavior of the residents is a result of her efforts in the hotel. Vaggie’s also already a decent person for the most part, and after that conversation with Husk, Angel’s improved by leaps and bounds. Nifty doesn’t notice anything’s off at all, and Husk just thinks his better mood and temperament in general is because the quality of his liquor’s gone up and the company really ain’t all that bad. Sir Pentious also hasn’t noticed anything, but agrees with Charlie that her efforts have been working.

And then the hotel gets attacked and Alastor discovers this wonderful loophole in whatever spell’s got him entrapped and absolutely decimates the attackers. He’s so gleeful about his discovery and the absolute beat down he gave out without feeling the need to pull his punches that he ends up cooking everyone dinner. Everyone else is understandably very weirded out by this. Alastor couldn’t care less.

Charlie: uh, Alastor? Are you feeling alright there?

Alastor: why Charlie, I’m doing absolutely wonderful! Thank you for asking.

Charlie: oh, that’s uh, that’s great to hear!

Charlie: …

Charlie: so do you mind telling me why you’ve decided to make dinner…?

Alastor: mmmm. Just in the mood for it, I suppose. It’s been a while since I’ve cooked for others, and I’m feeling rather— creative right now!

Alastor: tell me, should I include a portion of today’s unlucky patron into the stew? It’s a bit stringy, but the stew should soften it right up!

Charlie: oh uhm. How about we don’t include any demon parts into the food?

Alastor: *raises eyebrow*

Charlie: I mean, we don’t know where it’s been! He could have had all sorts of diseases inside him. It’d uh, ruin the food if we added…. Bad meat? *nervous smile*

Alastor: mmmmm, fair enough.