#BEHOLD. MY CORPOREAL FORM

[ragdollfizix]

Trick or trea sweety!! (I'm dressed up as a blue werewolf. This is actually my costume this year) 💙

Sweety??!??!?!?!?!? Ok i guess i am pretty sweet ^-^ what do you think?

[sekhithefops]

How to Kill Microsoft's AI "Helper" Copilot WITHOUT Screwing With Your Registry!

Hey guys, so as I'm sure a lot of us are aware, Microsoft pulled some dickery recently and forced some Abominable Intelligence onto our devices in the form of its "helper" program, Copilot. Something none of us wanted or asked for but Microsoft is gonna do anyways because I'm pretty sure someone there gets off on this.

Unfortunately, Microsoft offered no ways to opt out of the little bastard or turn it off (unless you're in the EU where EU Privacy Laws force them to do so.) For those of us in the United Corporations of America, we're stuck... or are we?

Today while perusing Bluesky, one of the many Twitter-likes that appeared after Musk began burning Twitter to the ground so he could dance in the ashes, I came across this post from a gentleman called Nash:

Intrigued, I decided to give this a go, and lo and behold it worked exactly as described!

We can't remove Copilot, Microsoft made sure that was riveted and soldered into place... but we can cripple it!

Simply put, Microsoft Edge. Normally Windows will prevent you from uninstalling Edge using the Add/Remove Programs function saying that it needs Edge to operate properly (it doesn't, its lying) but Geek Uninstaller overrules that and rips the sucker out regardless of what it says!

I uninstalled Edge using it, rebooted my PC, and lo and behold Copilot was sitting in the corner with blank eyes and drool running down it's cheeks, still there but dead to the world!

Now do bear in mind this will have a little knock on effect. Widgets also rely on Edge, so those will stop functioning as well.

Before:

After:

But I can still check the news and weather using an internet browser so its a small price to pay to be rid of Microsoft's spyware-masquerading-as-a-helper Copilot.

But yes, this is the link for Geek Uninstaller:

Run it, select "Force Uninstall" For anything that says "Edge," reboot your PC, and enjoy having a copy of Windows without Microsoft's intrusive trash! :D

UPDATE: I saw this on someone's tags and I felt I should say this as I work remotely too. If you have a computer you use for work, absolutely 100% make sure you consult with your management and/or your IT team BEFORE you do this. If they say don't do it, there's likely a reason.

[halflifebutawesome]

BEHOLD! FOR THE SECOND TIME, THE GBVRAI LINEUP! now with another weird old dude!

waves my hands around vaguely I wanted to make a nicer looking lineup and more coherent post actually explaining the au. I've now made 2 gbvrai lineups but never a plain old hlvrai lineup. Whatever.

There's a complete AU explanation and individual character profiles (?) under the cut! check it out! ASK ME ABOUT IT !!! SMILES!!!!!

The basic gist of this au is that the science team, are a group of ghost hunting paranormal researchers. The Ghostbusters. You mightve heard of them. This isn't a 1 for 1 au where certain characters take the role of others, it's more just. What if the science team existed in the Ghostbusters universe. They're just the Ghostbusters now.

On a particularly odd case, they bust a ghost that seems... off. It's sentient, it's talking back, and it's psychokinetic energy is off the charts.

Thinking nothing of it, they return to the firehouse and prep the trap for containment disposal. Gordon's the new guy, so he's the unlucky dude who's been assigned the job of disposing of the traps. All the while the ghost will NOT shut up. It's weirdly powerful and seems mostly unbothered. It's name is Benry, and he's a little freak.

the ghost containment unit has been unstable for a while, overfilled with ghosts, but they have to dispose of Benry somehow, so they go ahead with it.

In this AU I'm kind of combining the Resonance Cascade with the Manhattan Crossrip (the Manhattan crossrip is the big scary ghost event that happens at the end of GB1). Basically what happens is that Benrys weirdly powerful ghostly energy, combined with an unstable ghost containment unit, tears a big rip in the fabric between the ghost realm and ours, letting all sorts of ghouls and specters free.

Imagine the Resonance Cascade, with all the aliens getting out and ravaging Black Mesa, but it's a bunch of ghosts getting out and ravaging New York. Gordon and the rest of the team have to fight their way through the ghost filled streets of NYC, and close the crossrip.

Heres some closeups and more individual info/thoughts for the gang!!

GORDON FREEMAN! The new guy. Again, this is less a direct 1 for 1 swap au kind of deal, and more just putting these guys in situations. Gordon's HEV suit, tho, I wanna talk about.

In Ghostbusters canon, they DO have a weird fucked up hazard suit. It first appears in the TRGB episode "Xmas Marks The Spot", where Egon uses it to travel into the ghost realm. I know it makes another appearance in the comics, in a way that's more HEV-esque, but I never finished the comics so idk. It's real tho.

I imagine here that the ghost containment unit is more like the reactor in half life, where it's hazardous to be around for too long, probably bcos of like. I don't know. Concentrated psychokinetic energy. Sure. In any case he needs to wear the HEV to use the containment unit.

My design here is taking the chest piece, helmet, gloves and belts and modifying them to look a little more HEV-esque.

Bennyyyy. Benrey benry beny. He's a ghost, as far as they can tell. It would be more appropriate to call him an entity of sorts.

He's not a ghost simply for the fact that he wasn't ever human. He wasn't ever a living person that died. He's some pure, really powerful, concentrate entity/being that leaked through from the ghost realm. He looks like. A guy, for the most part, but he's a mimic. Something pretending to be human. He's been around for a while, and has settled into this form. He's mostly corporeal, but can phase in and out as he pleases (noclipping) Switching from corporeal/incorporeal when it's funny.

He met Tommy when they were both a lot younger, Benry being fresh out of the ghost realm, and have been bestfriends ever since. ☝️ my au my weirdly specific tommybenny dynamic. Dw about it

TOMMY & SUNKIST!!!! Tommy has grown up around ghosts his whole life, and is pretty in-tune with them. This is proven with his bond to Sunkist, who's decidedly not a real dog, and his longtime friendship with Benry.

I gave him the goggles cos. Tommy's my fave and Ray's my fave and I think they're fun. Also cos if it WAS a 1 to 1 swap I would def have Tommy as Ray. Anyway. He's been a part of the Ghostbusters since he was little, like I said he grew up with them and around them. He's really knowledgeable about ghost types and physics. He knows all the ghost rules.

Sunkist isn't like. His dead childhood dog cos that seems. Kind of sad. Instead she's kind of a church Grimm or hell hound. An entity taking the form of a big huge dog that Tommy befriended when he was a kid, and has now kind of bonded to him. She's pretty corporeal as far as ghosts go, and can interact w the physical environment pretty well.

DARNOLD ^^ my friend darnold. Darnolds not usually super involved in the actual ghostbusting, and prefers to stay behind. He's more of the research and tech kind of guy, he studies the readings and takes measurements.

He's interested in psychokinetic energy and ghost residue and all sorts of like. Ghost sciences. Why some people stay behind, why some people just seem to die and disappear, the properties of the ghost realm and the ghosts themselves. Corporeality and degradation of personhood the longer someone's been a ghost.

When the Resonance Crossrip happens, he opts to stay behind and observe the effects of the insane amounts of ghost energy on the corporeal world.

Hes also a transfer over from the ghost engineers! That's a fun thing for me. I love the ghost engineers idc frozen empire gave me everything I wanted

FORZEN. Forzen is... the same thing as Benry. A mimic, something taking the form of a normal ghost to blend in or hide in plain sight.

He came through with the Resonance Crossrip, but obviously like. He knew Benry before (we WERE bestfriends..). He's not as powerful, which is why he wasn't able to sneak through when Benry did. He's also not super corporeal. He can only interact with the physical world if he's exerting a LOT of energy. Prone to flickering in and out of vision.

Upon coming thru the Crossrip, he kind of just. Decided to hang around the firehouse. Didn't wanna go much further, for fear of being ghostbusted and sent back into the containment unit. The source is the last place they'd look for him!

Darnold, who's holed up in the firehouse, is more than delighted to meet a ghost who's sentient and willing to cooperate to do some tests and experimentation to get never before documented results. They bond and they're cutesit. ☝️ DARZEN WIN. hi splash 👋

Dr Coomer and Dr Bubby are two of the three original founders of the Ghostbusters! They've been around for a looooong time. They're also married obviously but that's like a given.

They helped found the Ghostbusters, having met in college while both were studying parapsychology. I imagine their like. Parapsychology -> Ghostbusters pipeline was very in line with how GB1 starts, where they used to work in an academic environment before getting kicked out and founding the GB.

They're also both. Psychic. Because frozen empire has once again given me everything. Coomers got some like. Idk something that lines up with his self awareness in HLVRAI, maybe prophecy? Vauge visions of the future? Bubby has pyrokinesis. Duh.

and... Mr. Coolatta..... Tommy's dad...he was one of the founders along w Coomer and Bubby and at some point he. Died. And is now a reeeally really powerful ghost. maybe from the exposure to ghost energy or smth?

Now hes got gman powers and just kinda hangs around. Pretty corporeal and solid and. Present. For lack of a better word. But he IS a dead guy. Used to be human.

This is why Tommy kind of grew up around ghosts and knows alot about them :) Mr Coolatta is pretty benevolent, and mostly just kind of spooky and fucked up.

And that's. About it? I believe?? PLEAAASE ASK ME QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS I have so many thoughts. I've been working on this for like 2 months now. Lol.

[godihatethiswebsite]

Tethered Bonds

✽ Poly 141 x f!reader (Omegaverse AU)

A lucky stroke of fate led you right into the arms of your alpha soulmates. But is it everything you dreamed it would be or just the continuation of a nightmare?

Main Masterlist ✽ Ao3

✽ Part Five - On Trial

Apologies for the delay as there were a few speed bumps that my foggy brain just did not want to hump over. This chapter gave me some grief, but I'm still happy with how it turned out :)

Trigger Warnings: religious imagery, ptsd, angst, brief mentions of rape/incest/assault/drugging/coercion/miscarriage

Flat deadened eyes bore chasms through your own.

They peeled away the impregnable shroud of shame masking the abhorrent malefactions of those you’ve wronged.

In a split second of time, those eyes foisted judgment upon all your heinous sins with an executioner’s toll. Damning you to an endless oblivion amongst the cacophony of wailing souls eternally condemned to the River Styx.

Behold! The face of your adjudicator!

Blackened barbed wire constricts the fat of his gluttonous form. Exposed sickly ashen skin held together by threaded catgut, bursting at the seams with bone-white mold. Hellfire caged in little glass vials illuminates the agonized expression glued to a visage of perpetual torment, standing against a backdrop of towering decayed limbs, basking in the multitude of jewel toned offerings left by those who worship at the base of this miserable creature’s sacrificial altar.

…Of all the cheerful residents from the Hundred Acre Wood, who on god’s green earth decided that Eeyore of all things would be the poster boy for Christmas?

The melancholically predisposed cartoon character was a mess of tangled Christmas lights, having apparently failed in his endeavor to liven up the wilted excuse of a barren evergreen behind him and somehow succeeding in trapping his own pudgy form in the decorations instead – the ‘D’ in December knocked crooked in his fruitless struggles.

A paltry souvenir magnet from someplace sunny holds the calendar aloft, Winnie the Pooh designs posted on the side of your fridge with thick glossy sheets. A gift from your fathers; a new one included in their holiday care package every year. 

You’re sure the overstuffed box currently shoved beneath your kitchen table for lack of anywhere more reasonable to house it has its plastic-wrapped replacement buried amongst the other contents. Previous years involved such colorful settings as early 2000’s internet memes or a compilation of fun facts regarding the world’s different varieties of cheeses. Not for your own enjoyment, of course, but for the chagrined expression your family insisted on basking in come Christmas morn.

Not that you admitted to liking this past year's theme of childhood whimsey…

The curlicue numbers on the wintery grid mark the passage of time – crossed out with dry streaks of red ink. Christmas is naught but five days from now, the emphasized date stamped in the upper righthand corner with a glittery ribbon as if the holiday needed even more call for attention. It means almost nothing to you outside of a familial facetime over a microwaved breakfast of cheap eggo waffles. 

You’ll suffer congenially through the good natured poking and prodding. Chloe will send a text; Alex won’t. And the day will pass by in a whisper of silence – the magic of miracles stored back in their damp corporate box for cheapened rehashing the following year.

Holing away in the confines of your solitary habitat came with the added benefit of only exposing yourself to the overhyped celebration on a reasonable once-weekly basis, driving to and fro your therapist's office; painfully ignoring the garish spectacle of such yuletide enrichment as fuzzy wonky reindeer antlers wedged atop sticker splattered minivans, off-key fourth graders caterwauling carols in the backseat, tinsel and fiberglass grating on your teeth.

At least, your antisocialness normally would save you from such headaches. 

When the pharmacy didn’t bungle communications with your primary care physician and refill your prescription two weeks early. 

The voicemail left on your phone this morning was a little more than a minor annoyance. You’d only just finished chasing the taste of bile with citrusy mouthwash, leaning your leaded weight against the cold marble of the sink, stomach still spasming with painful braxton hicks-like contractions. Shaky hands splashed tepid water on your face, wicking away the evidence of exertion and clearing your chin of digested chicken noodle. 

You’d only half paid attention to the robotic voice droning over speakerphone, wiping off your face with a disgruntled glare at your reflection and muffling a groan into the pilled fabric of your hand towel at the automated message. This was not a day to be playing at adulthood. This was a day for warm chunky socks and Disney movie marathons. 

And now because some overworked new hire chugging Red Bulls probably keyed in the wrong refill date in an over-caffeinated zeal, you were once again paying for someone else's mistake. 

(A running theme for your life.)

You shook off the bitter thought with a weary sigh, hanging the damp towel from the plastic command hook on peeling wallpaper. The buzzing of the keypad rattled the counter as you’d cleared out your phone’s voicemail, scooping up the device and trudging back around the corner to begin what should’ve originally been an easy day. 

Now, a few hours of lounging had garnered you enough gumption to voyage out amongst proper society once more, rinsing your chubby dinosaur mug from earlier in the sink as your eyes flick up unwittingly to the calendar nearby. 

You know what you’re counting even as you abash yourself for it. 

The crumpled bag of mostly full coffee grounds has been sitting in your bin for the past two days, put there in an abstract protest to the blatant disregard of your feelings by a caustic alpha. The taste on your tongue has become as phantom as the scent that once clung to your coat rack, wafted away by a bottle of descenting spray the same way you wish to purge his lingering effervescence from where it's taken root in your spine.

The offending bag collects dust at the top of the pile, placed there in a huff at the start of every morning. When its existence mocks your suffering and the grief of a life you’ll never get to live is at the forefront of every painful heave into grimy porcelain, forced onto your knees like the flaccid servient creature that beast has morphed you into. 

Still, there’s no sign of refuse or food waste on the flimsy outside packaging. It never stays put long enough to accumulate filth or bury itself in neglected disuse. At the end of the night, when the wounds of before are wrapped in a somnolent layer of protective padding, it returns to its spot amongst the clutter of your countertop, a pitiful idol to the foolish part he’s allowed to fester against your better judgment.

God, you’ve tried so hard to ignore it – you really have. With what little there is to occupy your mind in this lackluster environment, the labor of staying detached is proving arduous. John’s memory agitating the stripped-bare axis of simple order your world rotates upon.

Distraction eludes you at every attempt to forget. The warmth of your nest is the comfort of his leather embrace, the Zofran on your tongue the calloused paw at your nape grounding you in tempered reality. Soft boar hair bristles are his fingers, the zest in your meal his vigor. His face is in the deep prussian sweater jailed to the back of your closet for the sole crime of coming too close to the cerulean shade that haunts your waking memory.

You thought you already knew what it meant to belong to another. To be branded with someone else’s signet like a bored kid in history class taking chunks out of his desk until it was too desecrated with graffiti to be regarded as anything other than his unofficial property. No one wanted to touch what the school bully had already sullied.

Until John.

It didn’t matter that the seat was already occupied. He just scratched out the nameplate with safety scissors and staked his claim with a wad of gum beneath the chair.

He was dark matter wedging its way to take up space between condensed molecules, bullying the other elements into submission until his chemical makeup twisted you to something there was no coming back from. Sweeping in with the strength of a category five and the persistence of the big bad wolf.

You despise John for the damage he’s incurred to your house made of straw – all of them really – but you detest yourself even more for the gnawing disappointment flooding your gut that he hasn’t shaken the foundations further.

The hiss of pain between your teeth as you adjust the abrasive scarf around your neck serves as a sobering reminder of the real cancer infecting your cells. Even if the claim was buried under layers, it didn’t mean your flesh didn’t still carry the scars from its etching. 

Slinging your purse over your shoulder, you take to the task of unlocking each of the bolts guarding you from the true terrors of an alpha’s altruistic attention. 

Please just let this be quick.

The sneer from the old crone in aisle two has you ducking the latter half of your face in the itchy fabric that hides the one thing you’re currently being judged for.

You don’t know her name, but you’ve seen her outside the steps of your apartment enough with her hellspawn of a pomeranian to know she lives in your building. The grey curls of her poodle cut perm do nothing to hide the splotches of alopecia that come with age. Tissue paper skin dappled with sun spots begs for the youth of collagen, gaunt around her cheekbones and only highlighting her witchy exterior, a moth eaten shawl hanging loosely over the quasimodo hump keeping her from standing at a height taller than that of a twelve year old child.

The grouchy bat is clever, though, you’ll give her that. There’s a discerning eye behind those tortoiseshell frames that speak of a bygone prime filled with intrigue and gossip that’s followed her well into her twilight years. 

She’s honed her intellect well.

And she knows.

Your skin crawls with maggots under her heated glare, boring subdermal tunnels that reach beyond the capabilities of a simple itch. The writhing anomalies only add to the growing discomfort of waiting in the pharmacy queue for far longer than need be. Ten minutes you’ve been behind the same middle aged man – too diffident to interrupt the conversation going on ahead of you – as what should’ve been a simple snatch and grab of his blood pressure medication turns into three decades of catching up with a bygone acquaintance from primary school.

“–when Janine drank some weird concoction back at Jimmy’s place. Fucking health nut has his own carbonator in his kitchen and she got the bright idea on six shots of cuervo to run a glass of milk through the damn thing. Ended up spewing all over Crystal’s pants.”

To their credit, the pharmacist had at least been working on filling prescriptions as he prattled on with the bald spot beta in front of you, bustling between stocked aisles of jarred substances and counting out little white tablets with every ping from the database. He just didn’t seem to care about the goings on inside the store. “Adam mentioned that when I ran into him at the football match last June. Isn’t that O’Hara’s omega? The one who used to save her gum in a giant ball after she was done chewing it?”

Eww. Seriously?

“Nah, that’s Abigail. Crystal was Billy and Carter’s girl.”

That seemed to catch the other alpha in his tracks, a quizzical brow replacing one of mild interest as he paused his fingers over the keyboard. “Was? What happened to her?”

���Fucking up and left them, that’s what. And right after they supported her through that unfortunate miscarriage too. Came home one day to an empty nest and a note on the table telling them she was done. Poor guys never even saw it coming.”

“Wow. Who would’ve thought she’d turn out to be one of them?”

“Yea,” the beta’s tone turned sour. “Unfaithful bitch.”

The Unfaithful. 

That’s what they call you now. 

Those who have forsaken their oaths and disgraced the name ‘omega’. The sanctity of packdom desecrated by egocentric bond breakers. Scheming harlots abandoning their worshipful protectors– denying them their designated rights and withholding the gift of eternal peace upon those alphas worthy enough to be chosen.

False omegas. Government apostates to how things are supposed to be run.

Doesn’t matter that those who claim to be victims before the courts are the same conniving bastards stripping us of our bodily autonomy. Nothing is impermissible. 

Rape. Incest. Assault. Drugging. Coercion. Words that carry weight become cotton candy deadlifts in the face of a mating bond. It has no undoing – no magic words or medical procedures. There is no running towards the arms of a better pack in hopes of a brighter future; no room for another in the tether of your soul. That anchor has taken root in the rock bed and cannot be claimed outside the mysticism of a scent match. 

Crueler parts of the world would hunt you down like the runaway slave they’re too cowardice to admit they perceive you as, a bounty placed upon your head and welts on your back for disobeying, brittle nails clawing at the dirt in a last attempt at freedom, dragged back to your master in an iron wrought collar displaying the shame of your sins. 

Suppose you should consider yourself lucky that here, amongst the dredges of refined society, your kind are merely shunned.

Bosom friends all turn their backs, work desks empty into a cardboard box under the guise of ‘performance issues’. The deli at the corner claims they’re closed, red blocky letters drawing blood by the gallons as the patrons inside regard you like you’re nothing more than a sopping wet stray begging for scraps in the rain.

There are no laws that protect from discrimination for people like you. The lease in your fathers’ names and the lie from their lips are the only things sheltering you from homelessness. Others are not so fortunate as to have the word of an alpha keeping them off the street. 

The forlorn promise of a better tomorrow is all that greets you now in the wake of devastation. There is no higher contract than the bite marks on your neck. 

The scathing look from the disgruntled woman would be warranted by those around you if they were privy to the same suspicions she carried. The signs were all there if they only knew where to look.

“Miss?”

You hardly notice when they end their interaction, the off-putting customer service smile from the alpha behind the counter making the pit of your stomach rumble with unease as you scurry to the front, quietly offering up your personal information as you place your ID on the counter.

If he only knew he had the power to blacklist you in his hands…

You fork over the cash in far shorter time than the previous customer did, spending less than two minutes to his twenty before you duck away from the substantial line that’s formed in the time since your subsequent arrival. 

It’s your luck the old hag is three guests behind you, averting your gaze to the task of stashing your meds to try and keep from further interaction. Too bad a half century’s worth of smoking comes out in the rasping slur she spits at you from underneath her breath.

“Fucking glitch.”

You’ve heard the words directed at you once before, only far more cutting and uttered from a far different mouth. That didn’t stop the insult from piercing through to bone, a deep ache in your ribs that slows your gait and gives you pause beside the basket drop-off. 

A quick glance around confirms a lack of disdain from your fellow shoppers. You’re surprisingly fortunate that her biting remark hadn’t been made any louder. You frequent this shop often enough to be recognizable to most of the staff – though not on any sort of conversational terms. Being blacklisted here wouldn’t just result in an inconvenient trek farther for medical service, but a mark that would deny usage no matter the location.

Every step out your front door is a chance for your past to catch up to you… in one form or another.

A shock of cold jolts you from your far-away stare, startling a yelp that draws brief attention as you jump back from the unwanted contact, hand retreating away at the abrupt offense. Cradling it to your chest, you’re met with cobalt eyes and sunshine hair, a bright eyed pupper beaming up at you from its spot perched at your feet.

“Sorry about him!” An apologetic voice squawks to the left of you, calling your attention to the hobbling beta woman at the other end of the leash. Her neon green marshmallow puffer greets you before her dark curls and round cheeks, a prosthetic hand keeping grip on her furry friend. “He’s a well behaved boy I promise! Ain’t gonna bite ya or anything.”

“Oh no, he’s fine!” The tremble in your words is more from social awkwardness than anything, having been caught off guard in a place far too crowded for your tastes, rolling your shoulders to halt the impulse to scratch. “Just wasn’t expecting a wet dog nose is all.”

The beta, on the other hand, has no problem running a knitted mitten over the back of her neck. “Yeaaaah, it’s not often he gets away from me like that. You see, he’s my service animal.” She calls attention to the black vest around his body, a litany of bright colored patches and big blocky words adorning the functioning harness that you hadn’t quite discerned upon first glance. “He uh… was just alerting to you.”

It takes you a moment to process the words, blinking down at the panting canine regarding you with eyes more keen than the pea-brained expression would suggest. 

Good to know even a dog can sense you’re nine different levels of fucked up.

“You can pet him if you want,” comes the gentle offer upon spying the embarrassment painting your features, taking her faithful companion’s inattention in stride. The quirk of her mouth gives you a green light even if her words already did. “Far be it for me to disagree with the boss here when he puts his mind to something.”

The words of declination rest limp on your tongue, a moment’s hesitation giving way beneath the understanding gaze of an impartial animal whose sole purpose is to provide the comfort of love. Crouching down to its level – uncaring of the salt trekked state of the tile – it's almost instinctual to wrap your arms around the retriever for an act that seems so much more dangerous coming from any other being. The muzzle that finds home in the junction of your shoulder roots you through the floor, going beyond solid concrete foundation and miles of serpentine pipeways, winding through terraceous cracks unyielding to the progress of man to find purchase in the damp soil unseen for thousands of years, unbowing to the anything but the turn of the earth.

Calm is not the word; the pounding pulse in your ears and the headrush of being out in public still ring through the chittering bustle of checkout lanes to keep you on your toes. Yet the ache in your soul feels less like a boulder and more like a handful of a pebbled shore.

Pulling away from the smell of damp fur, slobber greets your face in the form of affection, features pulling taut against the playful onslaught trying its best to intrude between the cracks of your mouth. 

“Easy does it, bud.” A soft yank on his harness serves as a gentle reminder, turning from loveable pup to esteemed gentleman panting in perfect submission. “No one wants to taste what you had for lunch earlier today.”

You flash her a grateful smile for the interference, fingers moving next to scritch around the bright red collar mostly hidden by dense hairs, a glinting dog bone with cursive scrawl clacking against the knuckles of your hand. “Rocky, huh?”

“Yea,” she chuckles. “Don’t judge, but he was actually my favorite power ranger as a kid.” Her mittened hand joins yours in the thick pelt of his neck, scratching at some secret spot that gets his tail thumping, the appendage a whirling propeller trying in vain to achieve liftoff. How long they must’ve been in each other’s company for such familiarity. “Figured since this little guy was gonna be my hero too, he deserved a name befitting the courage he inspires.”

Her sincerity sparks something in you as you reach back to your own childhood, the sizzling of pancakes on the griddle against a backdrop of Saturday morning shows. Your smile warms at the memory. “Hey, no judgment here. After all, mine was Tommy.”

The moment breaks with shattered glass somewhere off to the right, the both of you reacting with varying degrees of frazzled nerves. You don’t miss the way her hand strikes out with practiced swiftness towards her hip, something nonexistent bumped away from flexing fingers by a patience nudge. Wide eyes glance down at her stalwart companion, already staring back with all the surety of his namesake, pushing her palm further against the smoothness of his head, urging her to stay with him in the safety of the moment. You don’t know the ghosts that haunt her–doing your best to avert your gaze from the glimpse of carbon fiber–but you watch as they retreat with calming breaths back to the place where they were born.

She shoots you a look you know she rather wouldn’t, an unspoken apology wrapped in embarrassment as familiar to you as it is to her, understanding passing between mirrored irises. There’s a shuffling of feet as you both scurry on your respective ways, you towards the outside air while her path takes her further inward. A quick glance over your shoulder finds him pressed against her side, snout turned upwards with a lolling tongue and dopey smile, eyes on the caregiver staring back at him with fond devotion. To have something that loves you that much…

Your gaze softens along with your words. “Good boy, Rocky…”

Fire ants bite into your cheek as the sharp crack that accompanies them leaves an outline of lava, the slap mark on your face glowing red hot and searing with the weight behind their assault. It dulls as the molten rock cools, a beating heart on the surface kept in time with the now racing pulse in your neck. The shock of it is almost as painful as the protruding iron shelves getting knocked against your spine, blowback jostling the festive display contents some poor stocker worked so hard on as cardboard cubes of kleenex clatter like ornaments to the muck-stained floor.

The outcry from your lips is muffled in comparison to groaning metal shifting under your weight, hand instinctively flying up as a wall to protect from further onslaught. Heat blooms again even under your careful touch, hissing in a gasp as wide eyes filled with glistening saline catch up a moment before your nostrils take in a familiar decadence. 

Her omega scent of rich warm brownie, fresh out the oven – but swallowed from the edges by the beginnings of char. Too high a temp getting cooked for too long, potent in its fury as it cracks and concaves. A sickeningly sweet outer shell transmuting under pressure, turning perfect gooey fudge into bubbling tar.

The visage that greets you is tempered by dread; a mixture of refined beauty and smoldering hate.

White fluffy earmuffs contrast against long chocolate waves spilling like molasses over a matching pristine peacoat – as if not even fate itself dared to sully such purity. If the air of refinement somehow doesn’t outclass you than the designer handbag does. No pack could ask for a more exemplary omega.

You’ve seen those cheekbones on the cover of magazines, that glassy skin splashed clean in luxury skincare ads. Perfect porcelain as artistically rendered as fine chinaware. Every model you’ve ever envied taken shape as your worst nightmare. Dark bambi eyes red-ringed with acidic tears, button nose flaring with each heaving rise of her trembling shoulders. Full pouty lips quiver under the enormous weight of emotions that threaten to claw almond manicured nails through your skin like chainsaws.

There is anger, but there is also pain.

And you caused it.

You do not know which response consumes you more: panic, or shame. 

“You–” her voice breaks like her heart, delicate wind chimes in a spring downpour. “You s-stay away from them…” Her words come in a struggle, fighting for stability whilst she hangs onto her composure with a thread as thin as spider silk. “They’re not yours… so… so just– just leave us alone!”

Gone is the lighthearted vision spun in innocent etherealness from that day in the store. Sparkling doe eyes now filled with scorn don’t suit the unblemished being not a foot in front of you. There’s an ingrained sweetness in her now pitiful form that so easily calls to an alpha’s protectiveness, a creature that deserves to be cherished, adorned; royalty reincarnated to a modern day princess.

There are only traces of that now standing a few feet in front of the automatic sliding doors, a smashed box of tissues keeping the mechanism from closing and sending a chill over the entire conversation. 

You shrink in on yourself, lowering your gaze in a meek show of submission that speaks where your own voice fails. How could you continue to look her in the eye when you are the reason this woman is suffering? When you are the bad guy in every sense of the word?

Filth. Sullied. Poison. Suffocating her with your very presence as if your own tainted pheromones could overcast hers.

You expect more–deserve more–but she turns on her heels, the sensors allowing passage as she hurries back out the way you suspect she only just came.

You’re as stunned as the bystanders around you, blinking at her retreating form into the small parking lot beyond. You can’t help but watch as she races across the asphalt, thoughts of her own task left behind in a trail of her own tears. Badly muffled whispers start in earnest at the display. Chorused words of ‘wicked woman’ following you out onto the pavement. Tongues lashing into open wounds kept bleeding by your own shame. 

That pain is nothing in the wake of the familiar figure of a towering form.

He meets her halfway, hulking mass climbing out from the cab of a blackened range rover at the first sign of her obvious distress. From this far away you can only make out the sounds of heaving sobs, watch as dainty hands clutch the dark material of her protector, the furrow of his brow as he searches for answers to her suffering.

Whatever she responds, you find yourself once more snapped in place by the weight of his stare, looking no less worse for wear than the first time he did. 

Logic says the phantom tartness on your tongue is a hallucination ingrained from previous exposure, but the inner omega whining helplessly to be understood doesn’t comprehend the self inflicted wounds she scores with brittle claws at the first chance to taste. In many ways, designative instincts retain the innocence of youth: purely reactionary in their naive disregard. They’re doe-eyed five year olds holding up the mangled body of a broken baby bird and proclaiming ‘they can fix it’. To them, they don’t realize the damage that comes with wishing for a bite of lemon zest when they know that cupcake is theirs, deaf to the scolding of a parent who knows better. 

After all, what gives you the right to take what hasn’t been offered? For wishing for the comfort of an alpha’s scent that doesn’t belong to you? All it does is make you feel like the shameful thief the people in the shop think you are.

So you keep your distance from the alpha and his mate, once more stuck in a whirlwind of unintentional trouble. He’s too far away to make out the hues of his eyes, but his body language tells you exactly where he stands in all this. Fingers flexed in a possessive grip, the placement of his hand curled around her mid back, the subtle hunch he takes as he tucks her tearstained face beneath his covered chin.

A choice. 

Conceal. Protect. Intruder.

You once wondered at the outcome if you hadn’t run that night; if the call that beckoned you ‘wait’ had kept you rooted to the floor. How would this mammoth have reacted - the one who only watched in pure neutrality as your world crumbled apart? Would he have let his friend make the first move forward? Would there have been an altercation? Spoken words and awkward introductions such as with their Scottish brethren? Did they care about your cowardice? Did the alphas give you chase? Lose your scent in the produce aisle and catch their breaths in the crisp night air? 

At last you have your answer. 

The judgment he passes as he turns his back to you has far more gravitas than the mopey donkey on your fridge. The conjured images of morbidity that entertained you earlier this morning feels like a holiday in comparison to the way your arteries shrivel from necrosis; down another size and a half by Grinch standards.

(Would it ever grow again?)

Closing your eyes against the sight is all you can do to maintain your sanity.

“Lass!”

As if life hasn’t finished causing you torment enough, the rough brogue catching your ears has your eyes peeling back open, the depression gluttoning away at your insides taking note at the promise of further feast, cackling gleefully at the tousled mohawk rounding the the opposite side of the vehicle his companions are approaching. Concern sits heavy on his brow, footsteps sure of their path as the pair sidle up along the drivers side of their SUV, lemon shuffling his omega through the open door he holds and into the relative safety of the back seat. You expect John to join them – to fuss and coo over her the same way he did for you in the cafe. Your masochism soaks up the envy like a yorkshire pudding at Christmas dinner.

But he makes no move to join his mate, blazing a path that leads beyond.

It’s not her he’s calling out for. It’s you.

Something smothers in your chest at the meaty glove that yanks him backwards, the heft of his brawn outmatched by the iron grip stopping him from advancing any further, shoved back against the shiny black of the range rover. The suspension creaks from the sheer force of the impact, giving you a hint as to the momentum which was suddenly reversed and applied to the hull, vehicle tilting a few centimeters off its wheelbase before thudding back down to settle on its chassis.

Charged static fills the air as overwhelmingly as the growl ripped from their chest – from which alpha you aren’t sure. The palpable anger that must be flaring in their scent chokes those unfortunate few nearby into hurrying along, a group of teenagers giving wide berth as the old man a few cars over shoves something fragile into the boot with a telltale crunch, slamming the latch shut before climbing over his center console to the steering wheel from the opposite side. No one wants to get involved in pack business, much less find themselves collateral damage in a showdown between behemoths. 

Where lemon’s mouth is obscured, John’s isn’t, giving you unfiltered access to the snarl he spits up at the man a few inches taller than him. He makes his displeasure clear in a volume still too quiet for you to grasp, but his argument is apparent in the gesturing of his arms, the wildness matched by the heart he so clearly wears on his sleeve. His packmate stands in complete opposition to the outward show of aggression by the former, striking in his marble-like appearance, firm against the blunted chisel of whatever’s being discussed. The only sign that he’s participating comes in the form of the other’s interrupted pauses. 

Your thoughts turn to the omega inside overhearing all of this. The discontent she must feel down the bond from those she loves most has to be just as painful as the ability to hear the quarreling itself. What must she be going through–huddled alone in the shadows by herself–having to listen to what you assume is an argument over another woman… one that a mate is clearly defending?

What consumes her more? Is it rage? Betrayal? Anguish? Abandonment? Jealousy? Your heart goes out to her at this moment in a way you’re not sure her packmates are knowing or even empathetic to. 

You suddenly flinch as if being struck by the accusatory finger pointed in your direction by the up-until-now stoic alpha, nose to nose with a man he’s spent nights pressed even closer against. Whatever point he makes, there’s no rebuttal from the Scot this time – only a strained moment’s silence.

At last John shoves away the arm holding him, straightening his jacket with a look that says this isn’t over as his companion walks away to the driver’s side door. You don’t pay him further mind though as John huffs out his anger like a bull, raking a hand through his hair before meeting your gaze with far more softness. He sees it in your eyes the same way it reflects in his. Two pained apologies spoken without words.

Dark tint keeps you from seeing them as they enter the vehicle and drive off, peeling away with a nod to the discomfort inside but with enough self control to not endanger the ‘precious cargo’ in the back seat.

You knew the other day was too good to be true. It’s clear now the damage you’ve incurred in your foolish desire to forge a connection. The lies John told you to placate his unthinking selfishness. Why the radio silence has been deafening your apartment. 

Nothing is alright. Everything is broken. You’ve ruined god knows how many years of passion and devotion by the sole act of your own pathetic existence. 

You’ve robbed her of that–robbed them. Another reminder that they cannot give it to you. She has taken your place. They cannot claim another.

It’s your fault. Your fault.

Your fault your fault your fault your fault your fault… 

You can’t breathe.

Something’s crawling up your throat. You can’t– 

As customers pass the threshold of the automatic glass doors, no one pays any mind to the sounds of retching in the dumpster.

<< ✿ Previous ✿ <<

[notalostcausejustyet]

Behold and See if There be Any Sorrow

A bit late, but here's my holiday GO fic. This one is very, very personal to me. Many thanks go out to the @goodomensafterdark writer's guild and the always spectacular @adverbian for their help betaing and sorting my sorry lack of HTML skills lol.

Excerpt:

The vaults of St. Bartholomew’s transform the sound of the human voice like nothing else on earth, as the church has done since its inaugural services almost a millennia ago. Even from here, beyond the heavy doors, well away from the hallowed grounds. The ancient façade shimmers in the wavering illumination cast by  halogen streetlamps and the sound of the organ and chorus swells out into the frigid night air. It is forty-one minutes past midnight on the morning of December 25th and Handel’s Messiah is well underway inside the historic church.

A lone figure tips his head back to the night sky from where he is lounging against the side of a classic Bentley that is darker even than the shadows it sits in. Waiting, always waiting. He has stood sentinel over midwinter rituals longer than the gargoyles that flank the walls of the garden here, and he will stand guard over this one as well. London has blessed them with an unusually clear evening for December, and while the city will not grant him the stars he so loves, the brilliantly cold night has brought the moon into beautifully sharp relief, its cold glow casting diamonds into the frost that has formed on every surface, creating something miraculous out of the mundane.

Crowley looks upon the impassive face of the moon and reflects on the irony of how he worships still. He cannot stand in the nave, nor partake in the terrible, bone-aching beauty of the choir first-hand. Only once, in his long history on this pale blue dot, has he trespassed upon sanctified ground. His soles ache distantly at the memory; the scars of that night are deeper than the fragile flesh of this corporation. Cont. on A03, Link embedded above.

[kikyoupdates]

Goddess Wink ⭑˚💘⭑ 𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒

bnha x f!reader

reverse harem, my hero academia x fem!reader, slowburn

Ever since your Quirk first manifested, you’ve been the apple of everyone’s eye. With the goal of becoming a hero, you enroll to U.A. and soon find yourself drawing the attention of many. Will you form genuine connections with others, or is this all just your power's will?

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So far, you were feeling good. You’d minimized usage of your Quirk and you’d conserved your energy and stamina. The first part of the obstacle race was behind you, and now, for the second—

You were staring at a cluster of pillars interconnected with thin tightropes. The space on each pillar was small, and one misstep in moving onto the next would result in a rather unfortunate fall. You couldn’t even see the bottom of the chasm from where you were.

Your brows pulled together. You were agile, and you could probably clear this stage with physical prowess alone, but it would take a while. The gap between the front-runners would only keep widening as a result. If you didn’t get through here in a flash, you had no chance of winning. As expected, you couldn’t tackle this all on your own. You needed to find someone, anyone in the crowd that looked like they’d give you the opportunity to rise to the top.

“It looks like now’s my chance to appeal!” a cheery voice cried out. You looked around, trying to pinpoint the source, and your eyes landed on a pink-haired girl clad in goggles and various other equipment. “It’s time for my support items to bask in the limelight! Are you watching, support companies of Japan?! Behold the wire arrow and hover soles!”

“The Support Department!” Uraraka exclaimed. “Is it really okay to take items into the race??”

“Students from the Hero Course regularly receive actually fight training, right? Just to keep things fair, we’re allowed to carry the items and costumes that we developed ourselves, so this equipment has all been okayed! For us… this is the perfect chance to show off our inventions and appeal to the corporations!” She grinned ear-to-ear, and a cable came shooting out of her suit and hooking onto one of the suspended pillars. Your eyes widened. This was it! Having it be a girl was a bit unlucky, but… it’s not like you could afford to be picky right now.

“Stop!” you cried out to her, activating your Quirk just before she could launch off. Her head spun around, and she stared at you, confused, but her hesitation allowed you to bridge the distance in between the two of you. In an instant you had your arms locked around her, your voice escaping in silky ribbons. “Take me across to the other side using that invention of yours.”

“Huh? No way! This is my chance to show off my adorable babies!”

You blinked, stupefied. Even though your body was pressed against hers, your Quirk wasn’t working? Sure, it had always been less effective on members of the same gender, but she felt nothing? No attraction to you whatsoever?

T-This girl definitely doesn’t have love on the brain at all. What do I do…?

She was squirming, trying to get you off. You seemed to be quite a bit stronger than her, but the more time you wasted, the further the gap between you and the front-line would widen. You’d never run into someone and have them be completely unaffected by your powers, so you had no idea how to handle this. Was it possible for people to have no romantic desires at all? But your Quirk had even worked on children back when you were young yourself…

“I need you to take me across. Right now.” You inhaled, clutching her face close to your own and pressing your lips against her cheek. Her body stiffened for a moment, and then it seemed to turn to jelly in your arms. You could hear her giggling in a weak, dazed voice.

“Sure thing… hold on, okay?”

You held on tight as she jumped off the edge, then pressed down on a button that reeled you towards the hooked line on the other side. A relieved sigh left your lips. For a moment there, you’d lost your composure. This poor girl would probably be nearly out of commission for the rest of the race after that kiss, though.

The two of you cleared pillar after pillar, and you were getting decently close to the front now. Shouto had just finished the second stage and was moving onto the third and final one. From Present Mic’s voice booming excitedly overhead, a field of landmines apparently awaited you on the other side. With the help of your new charmed ally, you eventually made it all the way over, and you pulled off the girl with a smile.

“Thank you for your help. I kissed you, so you’ll be feeling really weak for the next little while. Try to take it easy.”

 She nodded, her grin wide and shaky. “Will do…”

“What’s your name?”

“Ah… Hatsume Mei.”

“Thanks again, Mei-chan.” You pressed your palm against her forehead, closing your eyes for a moment. “Take care as you clear the last stage. You’ve helped me a lot, so do your best and make it across that finish line, okay?”

Mei nodded again, her knees buckling underneath her. You smiled and turned back towards the race. Shouto was still a good ways ahead, with Katsuki hot on his heels. The landmines seemed to be placed at random, and they would go off every now and then on an unsuspecting student. Since Katsuki was able to use his explosions and go airborne, this sort of terrain didn’t affect him much at all. You didn’t really know if there was a way to use your Quirk to your advantage somewhere like this, and you were running out of time.

There are still too many people ahead of me. If they would only stop running, and stop detonating those mines…

You narrowed your eyes. You’d never tried using your Quirk on such a large number of people before, and you didn’t even know if it would work. You moved forward carefully, a pink haze enveloping your body, and you chanted the word over and over again in your mind.

Stop…

Stop…

Stop…

“Everyone, stop.”

A wave of energy crashed over the field. Students looked over at you, their jaws unhinged, effectively stopping right in their tracks. It wasn’t everyone. It was only the students that had been close enough to hear your voice, but it was enough. You’d just rooted countless aspiring heroes in place, and the thought alone was so powerful that your cheeks flooded with pride and warmth.

“My gods,” you whispered. “It actually worked…”

You didn’t have time to loiter around. You ran forward as fast as your feet would carry you, flushed and out of breath. You had a real shot at winning this right now. Shouto and Katsuki were both neck-to-neck, but they were too focused on fighting each other off to even take note of you, and you were getting close.

“Katsuki-kun! Shouto-kun!” you cried out. “Stop running!”

They were too immersed in their fight; they must not have heard your voice over the countless explosions the blonde was setting off. You took a deep breath, yelling out to them again, but they didn’t react.

I need to get close enough to touch them or it won’t work.

You needed to, but you weren’t fast enough to get to them. You bit down on your lip, glancing around to see if there was anything or anyone else you could make use of, but it was just the three of you this far ahead. You were too close to the goal now to consider backing down. You’d never used your Quirk to attain victory like this before, and now the thought was so intoxicating that you couldn’t stand to have it torn out of your grasp.

“But what can I do if they can’t hear my voice?” you panted.

“Then make your presence known some other way.”

Again, that voice in your head. A soft, angelic voice. You wondered if this was Aphrodite herself communicating with you. The gods were a meddlesome kind; you almost wouldn’t be surprised if it actually were her.

“I don’t know how else,” you grimaced. “If that really is you, honored goddess, then please give me some sort of sign or help me figure out another way!”

“What a helpless child. Though I suppose you’ve done a fine job up until now. Very well. I’ll grant you the power to latch directly onto another’s heart, just for a brief moment…”

You gasped for breath. It was as if you’d been struck by a lightning bolt; your limbs were tingling and running red-hot. You felt yourself being crushed under the sudden weight of divine power. It was too much at once, and it hurt, but when you looked back at Katsuki and Shouto the difference was clear as day. They didn’t see you, nor did they hear you, but just as you desired in your heart, they stopped before you.

“What’s this?!” Present Mic cried out. “The two front-runners have suddenly gone stiff as stone!”

Just as the voice had said, the power lasted but a moment. You felt the weight lift off your body, and you ran forward as fast as your limbs could carry you. Katsuki and Shouto were still stunned in place, their eyes wide and incredulous as you passed them by. Any minute now and the effects would be lifted, but you were so close to the finish line! It was right there; you were actually going to win. You were going to take first place and—

Your ears began to ring. The sound of an explosion from close up. You lifted your [e/c] orbs to the sky, where a curly-haired boy was soaring overhead on the back of a metallic plate. He tumbled through the air, and just as he was about to land, he slammed the plate down and triggered a land mine. You weren’t close enough to be blown back, but your eyes squeezed shut through the smog, and when you opened them, you were no longer the nearest to the finish line.

“Oh, dear. This is not a position befitting of a goddess.”

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d been this tired.

“Wow, Izuku-kun… you sure showed me!”

You chuckled good-naturedly, meanwhile the freckled boy was shaking his hands furiously, his expression more guilty than anything else.

“I-I’m so sorry!” he spluttered. “[Name]-chan, you were amazing! You even managed to pass Kacchan and Todoroki-kun, and I happened to get lucky with the mine I triggered and took that all away from you…”

“It’s a competition,” you smiled. “These things happen. I was definitely surprised, but if I had to lose to anyone, then I’d really rather it be you!”

Izuku’s cheeks were quick to break out into their signature blush. He scratched the back of his neck, chuckling awkwardly. You looked up at the sky with a frown. There was almost no doubt in your mind that you’d channeled the strength of Aphrodite herself just earlier. She’d never made any attempts to communicate with you before, so why now? Because the Sports Festival was a competition and the gods hated to lose? It was actually plausible.

Well, I ended up losing anyways so I doubt she’ll be in touch again anytime soon.

You pursed your lips, but you were broken from your reverie by a violent tug on the collar of your shirt. You cried out, surprised, and found yourself staring into a pair of crimson eyes. Katsuki was breathing down your neck, his expression venomous at best.

“What the fuck was that?!” he roared into your ears. “What kind of shit did you pull back there, fucking [Name]?!”

You blinked innocently. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, you little asshole! How the fuck did you—I mean, how did it—fuck! Just explain!”

“I said I wanted to hide my Quirk until the Sports Festival, remember?” You slowly pulled his hand off your collar. “If people knew what it was, I wouldn’t have been able to use it as effectively. It was just strategy, that’s all.”

Katsuki gritted his teeth. “That’s not what I’m asking. No shit you used your fucking Quirk on me! I’m asked how you did what you did. What the hell is your power?!”

“I can control other people’s actions to a certain degree. It depends, though.”

“What does it depend on?” he snapped. “You’re not explaining shit!”

You giggled, cradling his cheek with your palm. “There, there. No need to get angry. Everyone out here is trying their best to win. I’m sure you wouldn’t have appreciated me holding back on you, right?”

Katsuki outright gasped, retracting from your touch as quick as humanly possible. His cheeks were flushed a shade of crimson that mirrored his eyes. “That!” he pointed his finger at you accusingly. “You just did it again, didn’t you?! You just used your goddamn powers on me!”

“I didn’t do anything,” you laughed. “You’re just being overdramatic now.”

“Fuck off!”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and stomped away from you. It was so childish and cute that you couldn’t help but laugh. Izuku had made himself scarce during the whole exchange, and now it looked like he was finally breathing again. Even now, people still didn’t know how exactly your powers worked, and you’d managed to come in second place for the first stage.

“Alright, everyone!” Midnight announced. “The results are up on the screen for everyone to see! The 42 at the top have earned the right to advance to the next round. I’m sorry to those who didn’t qualify, but there’s always next year!”

You looked around. Everyone from your class had qualified for the second round, as you’d expected, but that still left a whole bunch of students whose powers were still unknown. Before you could even ponder as to what the next round would consist of, new writing had turned up on the screen.

“Human cavalry battle,” you frowned. “But I thought everyone here is competing as an individual. Isn’t that a team game?”

“You’ll all form teams of two to four people in horseback configuration,” Midnight explained. “It’s basically the same rules as a normal human cavalry battle, where the goal is to swipe the enemy riders’ headband and guard your own. Except for one glaring difference… and that’s that everyone will receive points based on their performance from the last trial!”

“Oh, so the point value of each formation will change based on who’s in it!” Kirishima chimed in.

“Don’t cut to the point before me!” The heroine cleared her throat, “but yes, that’s correct. The number of points you’re each worth will increase by five-point intervals based on your ranking. 42nd place will be worth five points, 41st is worth ten, and so on and so forth. Oh—with the exception of 1st place, whose head will be worth ten million points.”

Ten million—?

“So if I were you,” she chuckled, “I’d aim for the guy who placed first.”

You turned around, and suddenly all eyes were on Izuku, who had broken out into a nervous sweat. Maybe you should’ve been somewhat relieved that your victory was stolen from you. It may very well have been a blessing in disguise.

“The time limit is fifteen minutes. The one to wear the headband will be the warhorse’s rider, so think of them as the standard for how much that particular formation is worth. And what I wish to stress the most is that even if you should lose your headband at any point or your formation should crumble, you’re still not out of the game!”

You nodded. “So even if we lose our headband, we still have the opportunity to get it back, or steal another’s.”

“Exactly!” Midnight grinned. “Quirks are of course allowed, that being said, anything overtly malicious or violent will result in immediate disqualification, so keep that in mind! You have fifteen minutes until we begin. Your negotiations start… NOW!”

Students were already scurrying around, rushing to put together a team. You wondered who exactly you’d have the best synergy with. You definitely wanted to partner up with people from your class, since you were most familiar with their powers, but you didn’t have any offensive power to speak of. It was also possible that your Quirk may not affect certain people depending on the distance, positioning, and their own personal character. In that case, it was probably best that you group up with a team that did have offensive power, so that you could support them best. You wanted to help Izuku out, but…

“Izuku-kun,” you said firmly. “I have to be honest, but I don’t think I’d be a good addition to your team.”

His eyes widened. “U-Um—”

“I don’t have any offensive or defensive power, really. My Quirk relies on manipulating others, and even then, there are certain conditions that need to be met. I would really like to help you out,” you frowned, “but I don’t know if I’d be able to protect our headband, especially since you can’t use your Quirk unless it’s absolutely necessary, right? You’ll break your bones.”

“Well… that’s true,” he acknowledged. “I’m not good at controlling it, and besides injuring myself, I could also risk severely injuring someone else, so I’d like to avoid using it unless I have no choice…”

“Do you know how my Quirk works, Izuku-kun?”

He shook his head. “Not at all.”

You leaned in, pressing your forehead against his own. You hadn’t activated your Quirk, but his face was burning so hot it was as if he were running a fever. “I can charm people to my advantage,” you told him. “The more attraction or affection they experience towards me, the more effective. Ideally, I’d have to touch someone to make sure my powers take effect, but during this cavalry battle, I doubt many would put themselves in that kind of position. That’s why I don’t think I’ll be able to protect our headband if we’re on the same team.”

You pulled away before Izuku could collapse from embarrassment. “A-Attraction?” he spluttered. “I mean, I always thought you were super pretty, [Name]-chan—I mean, no, sorry! Not in a creepy way or anything! I just meant, um—you know? Ahh, I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore…!”

“It’d be nice if I could just tell order everyone to keep away from our team,” you sighed. “But if someone attacks us before I have the chance to say anything, I can’t offer any protection. I probably need to find a different team that can make use of my powers.”

Izuku fanned his warm cheeks. “Um… but then, if we’re going to be on different teams, why did you tell me how your powers worked…?”

“I want us to have a fair fight,” you smiled. “You’re the only one who really knows how my Quirk works as of now. Besides, I’m sure there can’t be only one team that advances from this stage. I’d like it if we could both win and move on together to the next one.”

“I-I see…”

“Good luck, Izuku-kun. I hope you find some good members for your team.”

You watched the boy’s shoulders slump as you walked away. It was unfortunate, but with the way your powers worked, you couldn’t see yourself winning if you were on the same team. You’d already used your Quirk so much more than you were used to, and channeling Aphrodite’s power from earlier had taken a bit of a toll on your body, too. It still needed to last you for the next stages. Well, assuming you qualified.

Ideally, you would’ve liked to be on Shouto’s team. He was a strong contender, and he’d been first in the obstacle race for the majority of the time. From what you’d seen, he was good at using his Quirk, his ice was versatile in terms of offense and defense, and he didn’t appear to have any glaring weaknesses.

You scanned the crowd to try and find him. Luckily, his dual-colored hair didn’t make it too hard. Currently, his team was comprised of himself, Yaoyorozu, and Kaminari. Good. They still had room for a fourth member. You began to head over there but stopped yourself as you saw a familiar bespectacled face.

Iida-kun? I assumed he’d be teaming up with Izuku-kun…

Shouto’s team was full now, so that was no longer an option. You began to nibble on your lip. Maybe you wouldn’t have any options besides working with Izuku after all. Other members of your class had already formed their teams as well, and you didn’t want to be stuck working with a stranger. You continued walking around and stopped before a cluster of students. All of them were from your class.

And all of them were trying to join Katsuki’s team.

“This might actually work…”

He was volatile, unpredictable, and he’d technically flipped out on you earlier, but with a powerful Quirk like his, you might be a surprisingly fitting addition to the team. You strode forward, the group of students instinctively separating to give you way. You took a deep breath and put on your best smile.

“Katsuki-kun,” you spoke. “Would you like to team up together?”

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[oxygenbefore1775]

//celare artem inciting incident fragment

//posting it cuz I will blow up if I dont share it

//wc 2.5k — my inbox is open for any questions

Jean lay in wait, eager for Reiner’s immediate, and thus genuine, response. A sigh escaped him, stifled and quiet, as if great strength was needed to contain the initial emotion stirred by the visage on the canvas. The words came to him after much time — time spent mulling over the exact form of his answer, no doubt.

“Your petty display of dissidence will gain you no coin,” his voice sounded too strained for a man who had been doing nothing but lounging on the settee for the past half an hour. “You care to remember who has commissioned you.”

So close were his lips that Jean could sense the air reverberate at the sound of each word yet the forced proximity barely fazed him as the rebellious artist turned to face him. In Reiner's eyes he saw a reflection of his own face, tense and dark with subdued perversity. 

“I have no care for your filthy coin, patricius.” Jean declared. “My skills were bought to capture the likeness of Reiner, not at all that of Hominis Nobilis. The latter I have no pleasure of knowing.”

Pleasure. It certainly would not have given Jean any even if the chance of mingling with the bloom of the Venetian nobility had ever arisen for him. The sight of their bright lush faces roaming in the marble galleries — the very same ones whose minds plunged the Lion into the chains of God-fearing depravity — would stir nothing but ire within him. In the safe cocoon of his workshop, the intrusion of even one such face threatened to shatter his composure. 

The naught of a distance between them granted Jean the opportune contemplation of Reiner’s features, if only a brief one, before one of them would decide to pull away. The years spent apart would have faded the memory of Reiner’s image for any other person, but not for Jean whose trade compelled him to gaze upon and capture human visages, reproducing them later on tender vellum. His eyes, honed to remember, thus never forgot the fresh-faced boy of fourteen they once had been blessed to behold every day. And all the more striking were the changes Jean had no hope but to take notice of as he watched the unfamiliar yet oh so familiar face. 

Though the fan of his breath that Jean felt on his lips was as hot as he remembered, Reiner himself had grown cold and pale. What an irony. One would think the scorching Latian sun would warm his temper and complexion, not rob him of them. Perhaps such was the simple nature of the Roman palazzos and cathedrals. His features, in turn, remained just as youthful, free of the wrinkles and blemishes that usually burden a man of Reiner’s age and station. The glass impermeable skin — there was no one in Rome that could bring it to imperfection through either smiles or frowns.

No Reiner remained. None that he could see. Only patricius Braun stared back at him. 

The starched reticella lace glistened like a silver collar about his neck. 

Unbeknownst to himself, the stiff line of Jean’s lips broke into a tremble. It was the sight of it that led Reiner to pull away, casting his gaze towards the canvas instead. He entertained another exhaustive look at the web of strokes that set off their bickering in the first place, as if another contemplation of it would miraculously alter the image. 

With a curt huff, Reiner walked away completely from the easel. Jean watched the gleam of Reiner's rings as they sank into his golden hair, his fingers carding through the strands in a rare display of frustration.

“This won’t do.” He finally announced. “You will change it.” 

In response, Jean only shook his head, unconcerned if his act of silent defiance would at all be noticed by Reiner. 

How feckless was the sudden resistance of an artist against his patron. After all — it was his trade to vest the wishes of others into existence, always serving his role as an instrument harnessing the intangible into the corporeal. Yet today was the day Jean forsook the ropes of his craft for the sake of something so much more valuable than the mastery of his hands. More valuable than any payment Reiner could ever offer for his work. So trifling seemed materiality in the loom of Jean’s most sincere impulses, too numerous to name. No amount of coin in the patrician’s coffers could force his hand now. 

“I won’t,” suddenly defenseless, bare in his resolve, Jean looked to his fingers, black with coal. “There’s no changing the way I see you.”

His voice disappeared into the lapping water of the channels, and with it — the last hope of preserving any ambiguity between them, if the portrait hadn't been a loud declaration of it in and of itself. 

The air in the workshop froze as Jean waited for the response — for there should be one after such a revelation — willing his body into still obedience. The sound of his own heart pounding deep in his chest, so hard that its ravenous beating suppressed any words Reiner might have uttered in the meantime. Jean could not but hope the answer would come to him quickly. 

His voice was just as quiet and too gentle to belong to a man of his stature. The sound full of painful familiarity reached the artist across the chasm of ten years, only to bitter the memories. 

“Jean—”

Regret laced the name. Soon after, Jean felt the sting of the same lament — if only he hadn't been so extreme in his insolence as to take on the job. Mayhaps the news would have come to him under a better guise than that of a failed confession. 

“—I am to be married. The portrait is for her.”

Jean appreciated the restraint in the announcement. Delivered with temperance, it could now be treated and reciprocated in the same spirit. Had Reiner been any more merry with his tone, Jean would have surely seen himself break down on the spot.

This was the most blatant confirmation of the conjecture that sprang to Jean's mind the moment he saw Reiner at the doorstep of his palazzo. Only a mother as prideful as Karina would commission such a thing — a final exaltation of her son’s likeness before her control over him would be relinquished forever (if indeed it ever would be, given the notorious possessiveness of the Braun matriarch over her only child). The reticella was a fitting choice then, a perfect place for a tight leash to be forever affixed. Yet, perhaps, the grim reminder would be redundant for any future wife-to-be. The suffering endured through association with this… most honorable signora Braun would be swiftly negated by the joy of having her son for a husband.

“Then I suppose congratulations are in order. She is very lucky.” Jean said in a composed manner. 

Oh so lucky. He wished for the words to come through the gritted teeth of his scowl. He wished he’d seethed the sincere felicitations. However justified the perceived grievance of Reiner’s announcement was, Jean's resolve to see Reiner retaliate had long since withered. For seeds of resentment, his heart had always been harsh and barren soil.

Jean's eyes glinted as he flashed a polite smile. Humility came to him with surprising ease.

“Though I can’t deny my confusion,” his voice slipped back into the drilled politeness he used to speak with his patrons, much to Reiner’s chagrin, its true root cause unbeknownst to Jean. “Shouldn't the patrician's betrothal be the concern of the Republic? I haven’t heard any announcements about it.”

An inquisitive look Jean gave him was returned with one of abashment. Clearly, an explanation was long due. 

“Because betrothal is what I still seek to achieve.” Reiner’s eyes reverted to the vellum. “With this portrait.”

Jean remained in eloquent silence, his thoughts too obvious to vocalize. Reiner’s discontent with the sketch was well-placed after all, considering it was intended for a signorina with whom he supposedly had no prior official relations. Yet one thing still remained a mystery. Though �� Jean judged by Reiner’s contemplative expression (as he searched for the right words, no doubt), it wouldn't stay unresolved for long.

“There is a girl,” Reiner started his exhaustive clarification. “Comes from a prominent house in Giudecca.”

Jean’s heart fluttered with recognition. Of all the maidens of marriageable age that Venice had to offer, he hoped Reiner’s sights weren’t set on that one. 

“Blue eyes, golden hair,” Jean picked up after him, feigning obliviousness to the mild irritation such interruption caused. “A second coming of Simonetta Vespucci. Or so I’ve heard.” 

The pause he initiated was not to offer poignancy to his words but to give himself much needed respite. Despite never seeing her, Jean still must have been one of the few to get the true measure of her appearance from the word of mouth of other artists just like him. 

It was foolish to dare to want a chance against her.

“But her looks are not what you wish to gain in this union.” The guess, uttered with such defiant confidence that it might as well have been a bold assertion, must’ve struck a nerve with Reiner who suddenly pulled away from the conversation to pace around the workshop. 

The union that he himself sought to secure by the means of his looks, Jean couldn’t help but to point out. In traditional courtship it would have been the opposite. 

“I only want the favor of her family.” He spoke. But whereas the confirmation soothed Jean, it only stirred Reiner’s unrest even further. “The Great Council is more likely to give the admiral position to a son of the revered nobility as opposed to—”

He paused, just as he always did whenever the subject of his lineage entered a conversation. Even the many years of their friendship hadn’t eased his reluctance to speak of it — or perhaps it was the time apart that made him forget the solace of Jean’s willing ignorance on the matter. Before he could offer some respite by reining the discourse back to the issue of the portrait though, Reiner broke the silence first.

“I’m not here to spite you. Neither with the news nor this commission,” came Reiner’s turn to pour salt onto the wounds. “They desire nothing from the Republic — neither riches nor influence. So much so that they would not force their daughter into marriage for the sake of an alliance they could gain.”

That meant he had a chance, Jean ventured to assume. Still, another thought lingered in his mind — the lies. All the lies Reiner would unleash if he chose to pursue the match. Jean’s role would be part of the glamor.

His eyes, which had been intensely studying his hands, rose once more to Reiner’s face, seeking his gaze but finding no such luck. Yet another thought, one Jean was resentful to utter even in his own mind, surfaced. Perhaps because the true answer to it would bring him no pleasure. 

Would Reiner have come to see him first thing after returning to the city if it weren’t for the damned portrait?

“If it’s true,” the words laced with any level of uncertainty lay heavy on his tongue, just as always. Reiner hesitated once more, as if unsure if he truly wanted to continue. “If what you said about me is true.” 

And what truth was that, Jean couldn't help but to wonder. He'd told so many, which one seemed to have caused him such unrest? Evidently, it must be the one whose uncontested nature rubbed Reiner the wrong way — the matter of his chance to secure such a match, the obvious guess sprung to mind. Truthful or not, Jean had already regretted uttering it in the presence of his patron and patricius. 

“About Phoebus.”

The tough bloodless line of Reiner's lips broke, much to his own abashment. And much to Jean's welcome surprise. “If you paint me like you say you can, then maybe I’ll have a chance for her favor.”

His voice suddenly lacked the conviction Jean was so used to hearing. Reiner struck an uncertain figure — a rare sight for Jean, indeed. If only he had some resolve to spare; but none could be offered, as Jean himself was so full of doubt. 

Such an untimely moment for hesitation, when it was Reiner who found himself so compromised before Jean. As if all of the sudden it wasn’t the patricius, prospering with coin of gold, commissioning a debased artist — but an artist deigning to indulge the patricius in the luxury of his art. 

If the artist decides to do so. No. If Jean decides. 

“I wish I hadn't heard all this, really,” first leapt from Jean’s lips — his sincere words.

Alas, propriety kept him from diving deeper into the truer nature of his exclamation, or else Reiner would never hear the end of the unflattering epithets aimed at his noble persona — and at the signora unfortunate enough to be named his heart’s promise. (And perhaps, Jean’s own naivete for believing things between them would remain unchanged, to boot.)

A heavy sigh — his heavy sigh — ruptured the silence of the workshop. 

If he could paint Reiner the way he claimed he could, it wouldn’t just be her who falls for him — the entire Republic would follow suit. Of that, Jean was life-threateningly certain.

And oh, he could. God had blessed his hands with such mastery for this very purpose, surely. It was the integrity of his mind which troubled him so. 

To sit here, day after day, studying the lines of his body. To sit here, night after night, adding the blush of carmine to his flesh. If it were anyone but him, the forbidden temptation wouldn’t have devoured him whole. But it was him. 

The thought of such a fate sent a tremor through his fingers that doomed him to endure this torture. The shaking had the insolence to continue even after Jean realized Reiner had caught him in this miserable state. In that moment, perhaps both of them were pitiful: Reiner — for unburdening himself with the request. Jean — for preparing to burden himself with its consequence.

“I— I will do as you say,” Jean gave in, lips trembling. “But I would do it as I see fit. Who else but me could adorn you, and flatteringly so.”

The bold words drew an unbidden reaction from Reiner — a smile, quickly stifled. He brought a fist to his mouth, hiding it behind a feigned cough.

“Sure you will,” Reiner’s tone lacked any color for Jean to discern the sincerity behind it. Not that he cared for it at this moment anyway. His decision drained him of any will to think of Reiner anymore.

His presence was not something he could bear any longer.

Rising to see him to the workshop door, Jean cast one last glance at the damned vellum — the thing he'd already given countless hours to.

Bowing, Jean bid his simple farewells.

“Patricius.” in a tactful cold manner.

Yet he thought of another name.

Reiner.

[markerofthemidnight]

Abstracted Heart, Mind and Soul

Art I kinda pushed out of an AU/concept that I need someone to write for me because I have too many WIPs.

I call this the “Abstraction AU” (unrelated to the Amazing Digital Circus, but does share some similarities), and here’s how it works:

The Basics

Inspired by Core Suppressions from Lobotomy Corporation

Basically, whenever one of the three undergoes extreme stress, they “Abstract” into one of these forms

The Headspace basically stops working the way it’s supposed to until the transformation is reversed: the way it’s affected depends on who’s Abstracting

The transformation only wears off once the side passes out: which sounds like it would result in a big boss fight or something

BUT, luckily for them, since Abstracting is basically letting out all your emotions and strength and fighting with all you’ve got, it is EXHAUSTING

so once it’s happened they’re typically not conscious for any more than an hour

Contrary to what you might guess at first, the side is still “themselves” while Abstracting: it’s just difficult to tell since the stress that causes the transformation also makes them act irrational and overly violent

Despite this, post-transformation, the side typically doesn’t have memories of what happened during the fight… until a few hours after waking up

It can happen to the same person more than once, but to Abstract for the first time you have to be pushed PARTICULARLY far

After that it gets a bit easier for it to happen again, like you’ve given into your inner monster

To further emphasise that, they all get “battle scars” from their first time Abstracting that stay with them for the rest of their lives

And to go into what the first time abstracting was like for each individual:

Heart

Abstraction is usually caused by intense stress.

While this is still true in Heart’s case, since being emotional is his job description, he needs to be pushed further than the others in order to Abstract

(because if that wasn’t the case, he would Abstract all the time)

Anyways, his first time probably came after days on end of extreme trauma

Specifically, trauma that neither Mind nor Soul did anything to try and stop

He likely Abstracted out of view from the others, and they didn’t even notice until Soul was like “wait why isn’t my trident working”

As Heart is… the heart of the Headspace, when he Abstracts, magic stops working there

His design was obviously based off of biblically accurate angels, as well as a Beholder from DND but without eyes so it would look like a heart

You’d think he’d be biased towards Mind while like that, but no- he goes after Soul.

He expected Mind to ignore him, but Soul? It’s his job to make sure things are alright with him, so why’d he just abandon him?

Even without the benefit of the Trident, though, I imagine Abstracted Heart wouldn’t be all too difficult for them to take down if they really tried their best, so he goes down rather quickly

After he wakes up, his head’s basically just in one big blur for a while until the memories start to come back

Then he just starts shaking and hugging them while constantly muttering apologies (even though he still has EVERY RIGHT to be mad)

”Battle scars” take the form of purple(-er) wings, fangs and a halo

Mind

Mind’s is a pretty different case

While his was also caused by days of repeated trauma, as Abstractions tend to be, his problem is that he kept trying to bottle it up and only started to show even the tiniest cracks just before the transformation

(after all, I don’t think they’d take a chance like that again after what happened with Heart)

He likely Abstracted right in front of Heart and Soul

His design was based off of UFOs, obviously, as well as a brain and spine. The eyelashes are meant to look like the sun’s rays

When he Abstracts, all laws of physics in the Headspace basically stop working and the place gets even weirder than normal

Despite having the advantage of Soul’s trident this time, taking him down is a lot harder since he’s metal: the key is to tire him out

When he wakes up after the fact, he’s even more of an asshole than usual, but mainly because he’s still tired and stressed

He gets all quiet once the memories start to come back to him though, like he feels bad about attacking them so violently but doesn’t really know how to express it

”Battle scars” take the form of rhombus-shaped pupils and back spikes

Soul

If you’re a time loop fan, then Soul Abstracting is typically what restarts the loop

He was designed to be the most humanoid to show that he was the closest to Whole, with three heads because… you know why

When he Abstracts, he fuses with his trident, the Headspace becomes black and white, and starts slowly to fall apart

Heart and Mind do not stand a CHANCE in this fight, hence why his Abstraction is inevitably what restarts the loop

However, if by some chance they lasted long enough for things to go back to normal, I imagine Soul would be… surprisingly nice after going back to normal

It’s like finally letting it all out made him calm down a bit. He’s still pretty awkward around them, but better than you might think

Even when the memories come back, sure he kinda shuts himself in for a bit and avoids talking about it, but he’s not as closed off as Mind is

Battle scars take the form of his right eye becoming normal (as in not identical to his left eye as seen in the art), and the left side of his face being covered in black (to match his face in his Abstracted form)

[inquisitornocturn]

⊱─ 𝕥𝕖𝕞𝕡𝕦𝕤 𝕙𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕫𝕠𝕟 ─⊰

➺ 𝕡𝕒𝕚𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘: Cazador Szarr x f!reader the vampire spawn

➺ 𝕥𝕒𝕘𝕤: no y/n is used, rating - E, POV second person, mentions of torture, fear, canon-typical violence, fear play, smut, dubcon, hand job, vaginal fingering, praise kink, cockwarming, corporal punishment, spanking, blood play, anal, blood as lube, masturbation, no aftercare.

➺ 𝕤𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕣𝕪: Master Cazador wants to see you and that rarely means anything good. You dread going to him, but as his spawn you have no choice, disobedience is not tolerated in Palace Szarr after all. Yet you can't help but wonder what he has in mind for you tonight. Another punishment? Another torture? Something worse that even your frightened mind can't come up with? You will learn soon enough, you know that as you stand in front of the door and knock.

➺ 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕕 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥: 8,663

𝕒𝕦𝕥𝕙𝕠𝕣 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕖: this has been sitting in my drafts for so long, unfinished, until lo and behold - i finally finished it! i'm delighted to finally share this, i enjoyed writing slower pace and different approach to Cazador, dipping my toes in writing Master/Spawn dynamic. sign of things to come, perhaps? haha, i won't tease, but please do enjoy♡

When Chamberlain told you that Master wants to see you, you didn’t know what to think. Usually he compels you all, a swift command striking through your thoughts and your very brain, making absolutely sure that you go where you are needed. But not this time and that makes you scared more than anything. What could it be? Did you do anything to be punished? Oh gods, not the punishments again. Last time Master made you pull out your own fingernails with your teeth, simply because you started gagging when he served you a putrid rat. His type of a joke that got only him laughing. He has many of those.

As Chamberlain pushes you out of his room, you slink through the corridors, feeling the walls around you squeezing the very air out of your lungs. Not that you need to breathe being a vampire spawn, but this is one luxury you allow yourself among the bricks of the palace and the bars of cages – last shred of mortality in a form of a memory you keep repeating again and again, making your chest rise and fall. It gives you comfort, except for when you scream.

You keep your eyes down as you drag your feet towards Master’s study room. You know you should hurry up but you can’t. Cazador, your vampiric master, has turned you only seven months ago but those seven months already have been filled with lessons you don’t think you will ever forget, even if you fail to follow them sometimes, which leads to even more brutal reminders who you are and who you serve.

One such reminder came early one night when Master Cazador invited you to one of the empty rooms and told you to strip. When you did, he had you lie flat on an empty table, face down, and with candlelight assisting him, he proceeded to carve a sonnet onto your back with an enchanted razor, the sun-like magic burning and not letting you heal, making sure that the scars will remain for eternity. You held on as much as you could, but apparently the more you screamed, the more mistakes he made. And the more editing was required. You experienced different horrors before that night and after, but that specific night has carved itself into your memory just like the razor did into your body. The tender touch of your Master’s fingers against your skin and the sharp, mind-numbing pain that made your head swim.

You dread another such artistic endeavor as you trudge towards the study room with your feet made of lead. You swallow hard and breathe, trying to soothe yourself, trying not to imagine what other poems Master Cazador could carve into you and never let it heal. At least the one on your back is merely more than a collection of scars now and despite your luxurious diet of pests, you still heal faster than a mortal would, thus you feel at least grateful for that, but being your Master’s canvas to mutilate at a whim because of it, is the downside of immortality and eternity.

When you reach the door your feet stop on their own. You’ve come this way many times but was never let inside. You spoke to other spawn and seems no one but Master Cazador himself and his victims are allowed, yet here you are, nearly shaking with fear to knock on the door and enter, if permitted. But you can’t just stand here like one of the statues adorning the ballroom. Master doesn’t like indolence, he will punish you if you’re not obedient enough. So you rise a shaky hand and rap your knuckles against the hardwood door.

A pause, silence follows. You wonder if you should knock again but then you feel a wordless permission entering deep within your brain and you sigh.

As you take the door handle and push it down it feels like years are flying by. Your terrified mind slows time itself for you alone while you watch yourself open the door and enter, as you rise your eyes and see the open door at the end of a short corridor, the maw of the empty frame feeling like a mouth of a dragon just waiting for you to sacrifice yourself on the altar of blood and jagged teeth. Your legs move and you get closer and closer, beginning to see more of the room. The elevated platform upon which Master Cazador’s massive desk sits upon, the bottles of most likely blood on one edge, a candleholder on the opposite. A quill running across the parchment with swift, precise strokes and then you stop as you are just past the entryway, finally witnessing your Master.

You swallow dryly if at all while your eyes take in the figure behind the desk. He doesn’t raise his gaze, focused on the parchment, and you study his expression that would look almost relaxed if not for his knit eyebrows and the glow of his ruby-like pupils, giving a visage of a Lord. He is one, after all, a Lord of your very life and death, until he releases you. Or destroys you.

Not uttering a single word and not moving even a muscle you stand there as if planted, watching Master Cazador write whatever it is he is focused on writing. Steel noses of his boots under the desk and a royal coat he’s wearing tonight are making him look particularly imposing, especially with the sleeves split at his elbows, creating an image like he’s wearing a cloak, like he’s dressed for battle. You just hope that you’re not here to be the duel he may be looking for.

At last Master Cazador stops his hand and lifts his eyes to you, red embers of them burning into you immediately and with such force you nearly waver and step back. You try to swallow again but this time your throat is completely dry.

“You asked for me, Master.” You say with your tone polite and with your words measured, you won’t make a mistake of disrespecting him.

Your presence, however, seems to delight Master Cazador and he smirks at you, lowering his quill onto the desk and leaning back in the armchair, the backrest of it rising tall behind him and making him look as if he’s sitting on a throne. And he is a master of his home, patriarch of his coven, governor of your very being. He is all powerful in his domain and you’re just a small trinket among the vast amount of his possessions.

A pause, it’s like he’s thinking what to say or, rather, what to do with you now that you’re here and you keep standing still, trying not to show emotion. Sometimes even as little as a frown or expression of sorrow will end up with him losing patience and letting his fury descend upon your trembling form in a form of a fist, a staff, a dagger. Sometimes in a form of his teeth or claws ripping at your throat, making sure that what little blood you manage to keep in your starved body is spent uselessly, forcing you to grovel and beg for seconds. But Master Cazador rarely gives anything supplementary, unless it’s pain.

As he gazes upon you with cold cruelty in his smile, you wonder if you should speak up again, but thankfully you don’t have to. You watch your vampiric overlord slide his right elbow onto the desk and prop the underside of his jaw with a relaxed fist.

“Undress.” A simple command but said with enough authority that he doesn’t need to use his link to you to enforce it. He knows you will obey.

And obey you do.

You hesitate only for a split second, this is all you and others like yourself are allowed in Palace Szarr, just a fraction of a moment before fear gets treated as disobedience, and disobedience gets disciplined. Until it sticks – the Ruler of Kennels likes to say as he too works hard to please the Master. Master is most pleased when he hears screams. Sometimes you wonder if they drown out echoes of the sins he has committed, but you do not linger on those thoughts. It’s not for an ant to question reasons of Gods.

So you undress. You don’t just drop your clothes, no, that’s not permitted. You fold each garment and place it neatly on the floor next to you, continuing to do so until you’re naked. You still feel a degree of shame when your body is exposed to a man who sees you as nothing but a tool, but this is not a place for pride or dignity, you can’t afford any, the price is just too steep.

“Put the clothes on the chair, child.” Master Cazador commands with a wave of his unoccupied hand, gesturing a specific chair for you to put your unworthy clothes on and you do as he wishes. “Come closer.” You don’t pause and don’t hesitate, you simply walk to the desk even if your knees feel weak, even if your brain is conjuring sensations of life: a sound of a heartbeat in your ears that stopped months ago, a rush of blood to your face that your starving veins would crave to absorb if given an additional drop. Still, you stop by his side on his left and Master Cazador watches you with chilling amusement. Maybe he senses what you’re feeling and thinking, but you don’t dare ask.

Another moment passes and his burning gaze slowly slithers down your body, taking in everything that you are in this very moment, and you can swear you can feel the heat of his eyes on your skin. It’s both pleasant on your cold, famished for warmth body, and deeply unsettling at the same time, making you live through sensation of insects under your skin. You just pray to whatever Gods that might listen that Master Cazador doesn’t turn these imaginary impressions into a memory that will threaten to slice your sanity into shreds.

“Turn around.” There’s a strange softness in Master’s voice now but you don’t allow yourself to linger on a vain hope that this night might not end up with your screams splintering your vocal cords. Instead you turn around, feeling exposed not only in flesh but in soul as well, and your throat contracts again in an attempt to swallow saliva that is not there. “Back to me, child.”

When you turn back to your Master, you still see the same mildly amused expression playing on his sharp features, the same satisfied smirk making him look almost humane and you may wish to forget what a monster he is if not for the cutting reminders circling in your mind like eels that are waiting for a morsel of hope to drop so that they can devour it without delay.

“Your hand.” Master Cazador lifts his arm, palm upturned, awaiting for your hand to be obediently placed there and you do as he wishes, raising your hand and hoping that he doesn’t see the tremor in your fingers, yet you know he will feel it once he touches you.

With your fingers in his palm he grips them gently like a lover and it gives you a pause, your eyes now looking for any hint in his face of what his mind has brewed this time, but Master Cazador just holds your hand for a moment longer then guides it towards him, and as your mind reels in attempt to prepare yourself for whatever is to come, your hand is pushed against the hardness of his crotch. Your eyes widen before you can stop yourself and you glance down, then up to his face again, seeing the sea of red nearly engulfing your senses completely.

A moment passes, a tik of a clock somewhere inside the room, and you manage to return your expression to neutral once again, too scared to show more emotion than you already have. Master notices this and grins, his mouth displaying his sharp fangs that more than once found their way into your neck before and will again, for as many times as eternity lasts. You manage to stifle a tremble threatening to wash over your body and Lord Cazador raises an eyebrow at you.

“Good. You learned how to control yourself.” He rubs your palm over the hardness in his pants slowly, near teasingly and you move your clenched jaw ever so slightly as you watch his face, looking for any hint to help you guess once again what your cruel Master has thought of tonight.

Master Cazador releases your hand but you keep it there without command. Everything you do has to be predestined by his words so you wait until his arrogantly smug expression instantly turns into a frown.

“You impotent idiot! Undo my pants!” He snaps with tone as sharp as a dagger and you flinch as if hit.

Near panicked now you move your trembling fingers to lift the edge of his shirt and find the belt there. You struggle and fumble with the buckle, feeling your anxiety rising with each passing moment. Suddenly you are hit, a slap on the side of your face so hard it sends you reeling backwards at least two steps before you collapse to your knees. Your head swims, everything becomes shades of red and black, the lines of all around you double as if they are being haunted by ghosts of selves and you raise your shaking hand to your cheek. It hurts so much, but every touch Master Cazador inflicts in rage hurts, you just learned to appreciate that nothing will hurt again like dying did.

“Finish what you started and you better hurry, girl.” Your overlord commands and you crawl on your hands and knees to his chair, scuttling not unlike a rat to perform your duty.

But what duty is that exactly? You don’t know yet and you are afraid to know, not being able to hide the tremor in your hands and fingers any longer as you reach for the belt buckle again, your gaze downcast with obedience but also shame – you made a mistake once again, despite trying your best not to. You were lucky that he only hit you once, usually Master makes sure that you remember your every transgression and the lessons that follow with excruciating precision.

With your cheek throbbing and your fingers still trying to disobey you and the Master, you tackle the buckle again, this time succeeding in being faster and more precise and you hear Cazador push air through his nose, indicating that he was about to strike out again but won’t have to anymore, you earned yourself this small mercy. You clench your jaw and unbutton the fly of his pants now, your eyes watch your own fingers and your mind is blank as you try not to waver anymore, not pause yet again, letting your mind focus on the task and the pain in your face that is quickly dulling to almost gentle beats of ache.

Pain that is common in your life now, like a whimsical lover that comes and goes as he pleases but always reminds you that he will forever remain with you, even if he occasionally leaves you. A constant presence with a ghost-like soreness that you’ve come to anticipate and sometimes even appreciate. Most often it feels like it threatens to cleave your mind in half, but sometimes it’s the only thing that anchors you, grounding you to your body, grounding you to your reality even if you would sacrifice everything to have a different one.

Still, once your fingers finish unfastening the buttons, you pause again and glance up, meeting Master Cazador’s eyes looking down at you with fierce fire in them and his expression a familiar frown.

“What?” He suddenly chuckles, making your insides clench at the sound. When Master is angry - you witness his fury, when Master is happy – you experience his cruelty. “Your task is not done, child. Take it out. You know what to do.” Lord Cazador says and his voice is almost relaxed, almost cheerful, as if he’s finding joy in seeing fear permeate every cell of your body.

You quickly and curtly nod back to him and lower your eyes again as you carefully part the fly of his pants and slide your hand in, grasping at his hard cock and maneuvering it from beneath the fabrics he’s wearing. Without delay you first use one hand to begin stroking him, then add the other hand, feeling your knees become quickly painful from kneeling because the thin carpet is not cushioning the hardness of stone underneath it.

“Good, keep going.” Master Cazador’s voice is a satisfied coo and your mouth contracts in yet another attempt to swallow, your nerves so taunt you feel like they might snap any moment, like a bow that has not been properly strung.

With your eyes focused on Lord’s length you see every little detail. The veins that snake around the shaft, the color that changes slightly near the smooth tip of his cock despite his undead state, the tip itself, velvety and soft when you pause to gently rub the pad of your finger against it until a drop of precum escapes it. You swiftly lean in and swipe at it with your tongue, knowing already that Master Cazador doesn’t like messes, even his own.

“Such a well behaving child you can be.” He expresses the closest thing to a compliment he ever bestowed upon you and you relax just a little bit. Maybe not all is lost tonight, maybe you still can please your Master and make him spare the cruelties he could have in his mind that are meant only for you. Maybe, if you try hard enough, if you obey quick enough, all you will have to do tonight is pay attention and submit, which you have already been trained to do well enough, like a dog beaten into obedience until it knows nothing else.

You proceed to stroke his length, knowing from experience what pace and strength of your grip he exactly prefers and you consider yourself succeeding in this because another strike doesn’t come even after his approving comment. Your eyes wander over his cock, so close to your face, but you know that if he wants you to take it into your mouth – he will tell you so, or more likely grab your hair and force it deep into your throat without a warning, because if you gag or sputter then you give him another reason to make sure that you won’t do that again. Your eyes wander to his balls, sitting in the nest of his pants and underwear underneath it after you pulled his cock out, you see the smoothness of them, wondering if you should touch them, fondle them. Master Cazador does like that sometimes, but you’re too scared to take initiative, you are sure he will give you permission for that too if he feels in a mood.

“Stand up.” His voice is like a strike of thunder because you were distracted by your thoughts and you immediately stop your hands, then release his cock, seeing it waver without the support of your grip and then rest against his shirt.

When you stand up and look at him, you see a small pleased smile tug at the corners of his lips, his eyes showing actual satisfaction with your performance and you wish you could sigh with relief, but you stop yourself before you do, you stop before you even inhale. You won’t ruin this, the rare occasion when he’s willing to show patience with you, you don’t know when another such occasion will happen, if at all.

“Hm.” Master Cazador hums to himself as his gaze sweeps over your naked body then he finally moves one hand, you see a flash of red and silver of his family ring as it reflects the candlelight for a brief moment before he turns his palm up.

You watch the movement and stiffen, your mind reeling with million possible outcomes, most of them predicting pain, but no, Lord Cazador’s fingers simply graze over the mound of your pubis and then slip between your legs, two of them pressing against your folds and sliding up to your clit. You don’t react at first, too stunned by his sudden touch that is nothing but gentle. A soft touch, so rare, so precious, and your lips part to ask a question but thankfully you stop yourself before you do.

Master’s eyes narrow as he smiles wider, gloating at you while his fingers quite expertly begin to massage you, fingertips parting the folds to dip inside of you for a moment only to return to your clit and rub it. There’s silence between the both of you as he does this and you know he’s waiting for your body to respond to his ministrations, to give in to the sensation and leap at the smallest promise of pleasure instead of torture. You feel yourself drowning into the crimson sea of his eyes as you do begin to relax, your muscles losing their tautness, your jaw unclenching and your lungs expanding as you allow yourself to slowly inhale through your parted lips.

Your body gives in, you feel it succumbing to Master Cazador’s touch the next time he dips two fingers into you, deeper this time because you’re becoming wetter. When he pulls out his digits he smears your arousal on the outside of your folds and teases your clit again, gently flicking the underside of it and eliciting a smallest gasp, a suppressed half of a moan, out of you. He grins widely, showing you his teeth and his fangs as his eyes become burning gems, focused on your face only.

“You are here to accompany me tonight, child. You are to sit in my lap and not move until told so. You are to remain silent until told otherwise. Is that understood?” Master Cazador asks and you quickly nod as you try not to moan again because his fingers are still moving between your thighs with ease, your clit beginning to throb with need to be attended to with appropriate attention, something you do not expect to happen at all but crave for anyway. “Good girl.” he hums and even though you know better, even though you know how Cazador likes to toy with people, your chest still swells with yearning to hear his praises again, urging you to do everything you can within your limited power to make him speak the honeyed words again.

But before you can even begin hatching a plan of how to make this night a night of reward instead of punishment, Master pulls his fingers away from your body and raises them to your face. You immediately know what to do and lean over them, taking them into your mouth and obediently sucking on them, cleaning his digits from remnants of your body’s surrender. Master Cazador is still smiling as you do so, his eyes locked on yours and not shifting from them even for a second, then he moves his hand away and for a moment you make a smallest step to follow the journey of his fingers through the air with your tongue but stop yourself. A surprise chuckle escapes Vampire Lord’s lips and you look at him again, finding his expression relaxed and amused.

“Such an eager pup. I’m satisfied to see that the lessons are finally sticking. Maybe I will even reward you with privilege to reside in Favorite Spawn Room next month.” Master speaks as he wipes remnants of your saliva from his fingers onto the skin of your chest. His words - a promise so sweet to your ears that your stomach recoils from sudden anxiety and nerves gripping you.

A reward, an actual reward if you please him, a chance to sleep without other spawn wailing their laments every dawn and a bath, all for yourself. You know you have to keep a gentle touch on this fragile bird-like opportunity lest you release it by accident or crush it by yearning too strongly. You have to be careful and you cannot let this chance slip away from your grasp, because you have so little in this existence as is.

“Come now.” Master Cazador turns in his seat, fully facing his desk again and he pushes the chair he’s sitting on from it just enough to make space for you.

You lick your lips, still tasting remnants of your arousal on them and your eyes move over his form, watching him rest his arms on the armrests. Again you hurry to obey his command, even if this time it’s soft like a feather brushing against a bleeding wound. Throbbing in your face is gone entirely now and you forget the heavy hit as the promise of prize lures you with hope.

Slowly and carefully you begin to move your naked body. You step closer to your vampiric overlord, moving conscientiously as you place one knee on the edge of his chair and pause just for a second, your eyes finding his calm gaze while he waits for you to position yourself upon him. Your throat clamps on itself when you rise your hands and place them upon Master Cazador’s shoulders, allowing your fingers to clutch onto them through the soft fabric of his coat. You notice him rising an eyebrow at you in response and fear grips at you again. You quickly begin to worry that you’re taking too long, that another strike is coming, that his rage once more will etch itself into your body and flesh in form of bruises and lesions.

The terror of possibilities urges you and you pull yourself into his lap, feeling so stressed that you could throw up if your stomach was full the moment you come face to face with your Master. He lets out a small, irritated noise and you feel his palm on the small of your back, pushing your body against his.

“Take it in.” He says simply and you can’t help but pause, trying to understand what he wants from you, what is this command exactly, while you settle into a straddling position upon his seated form.

Then it dawns on you.

Your lips part with a tremble and Master Cazador grins.

“Hurry up, girl. I don’t have all night to wait for your meager thinking capabilities comprehend even the simplest of tasks.” The tone of his voice is slightly irate and your stressed nerves nearly scream with panic that threatens to overtake your senses.

Without any more delay you grab Master’s right shoulder with increased firmness and lift your hips so that you can use your other hand to grasp his still very much hard cock at the base before you bite your lower lip and guide it to your seeping cunt. The moment you nudge the tip of his length against yourself you have to stifle a moan, your starving for affection body and desperate for praise mind working against you in most excruciating way, making you crave for this in a twisted way, telling you that your Master can be kind, that he picked you because he appreciates you. All the lies that sound so sweet in your head right now, burying the reality underneath them.

When you begin sinking upon Master Cazador’s cock you let out a small whine, at which you feel his fingers twitch as they rest on the small of your back, but he says nothing, letting you proceed until his whole length is inside of you and you’re biting your lip so hard you’re nearly breaking the skin. Then you lift your eyes to his face once more and see his expression - serious, but calm.

“Keep yourself close to me and out of my way.” He orders and you immediately press your chest against his, wrapping your arms around his neck and squishing your mouth against his shoulder just in case your throat decides to compromise your chance at pleasing your Master. “A little closer.” Lord Cazador’s palm on your back pushes your hips closer to him, letting his cock bury itself even deeper and you move yourself over him until you finally feel his palm leave your skin.

You look over his shoulder at the curtains and the stained glass peaking from behind them, intricate lines and colors distracting you for a little while after your Master picks up the quill and begins scribbling again. At first you feel your cunt clench upon the bittersweet intrusion but as minutes tick away your body relaxes, making you think that this is going to be easy if this is all he wants from you tonight.

But you are not so blessed as you wish to be. Maybe fifteen or so minutes later, when the stained glass is not as interesting anymore as it was at first, your brain signals your muscles to move. You can barely stop yourself from doing just that and your eyes widen with shock that you allowed yourself to forget your situation. Your body shudders and in your embrace you feel Master Cazador tense for a moment, his quill falling quiet. He’s waiting for you to tremble again, he’s waiting for you to fail.

“Master-“

“Not a word from you, girl.” Your vampiric master immediately stops you with a tone that’s near as punishing as a whip on your flesh and you wrap your arms around him tighter, trying not only to stop yourself from speaking but from shivering as well.

The sound of a quill on parchment resumes and you close your eyes for a second, trying to soothe your nervousness, but then your eyelids snap open when you feel Master Cazador’s left hand moving, leaving the armrest it is on, and land on your naked thigh. His grip is firm as he squeezes your flesh, his nails digging into your skin and breaking it, but he only does it to adjust you upon his lap. Despite you clinging to him you have started slipping off it seems, or maybe he just decided that he wanted you positioned slightly different. He adjusts your body, your hips moving and making you grind against him ever so briefly, your clit pressing against a bunched-up end of his belt under the shirt and you clench your jaw because you find pleasure in it.

You can feel your cunt squeezing Master Cazador’s cock and you shut your eyes, pressing your eyelids hard and waiting for another correctional command or maybe another brutal grip on your leg, but as seconds pass nothing happens. If anything, Master’s grip on your thigh relents but stays there comfortably like a touch of a beloved partner.

Yet when you open your eyes again you realize that you cannot distract yourself anymore. Neither the curtains or the windows can draw your attention and nothing else exists in your narrow field of view, worthy of even a glance.

Instead you sense Master Cazador’s hair against your left cheek, you feel his body against yours suddenly making you realize that he’s simulating breathing just like you. Chest to chest like this with him, snuggly close as if you are entombed in a single coffin, you again are barely in time to stop yourself from moving, your body instinctively demanding that you ride his cock, grind it deep inside your cunt, stimulate the spots that are begging for attention.

No, you can’t allow yourself that, your instructions have been clear and you know all too well that this relatively pleasant task can turn into a brutal lecture about failures of your very nature. Some of the past ones still sting despite having healed without a trace. Now with desperation you try to think of something else, your mind wandering to his resting touch on your thigh and a pain that already faded from when his sharp nails dug into your skin. You try to think of what he must be writing, why he wanted you here, in this position, you try to think of nothing else but questions you will never be permitted to ask, but Master’s cock twitches inside of you and all the feeble attempts to keep yourself focused crumble down immediately.

Your muscles begin tensing again and this time you cannot relax even if you shout at yourself inside your skull. The strain you are starting to feel would send your heart racing from panic if it still beat in your chest. But instead you just try to remain as still as possible, your eyes widening as you begin feeling an approaching shudder and know with cruel clarity that you won’t be able to stop yourself this time.

Then it comes, the shiver that starts at your hips and runs up your spine like a tickle of a mischievous tongue, trying to get you in trouble. As it reaches the back of your neck you can’t help but throw your head back, your lips parted and ready to let out a moan that’s been stuck in the back of your throat since your Master shushed you last, and your cunt rubs against his belt, stimulating your clit again ever so briefly but so deliciously.

You can’t stop it.

You can’t help it.

“Be still, idiot!” Master Cazador’s words cut suddenly and sharply, making you immediately freeze before any sound leaves your mouth and you turn your head just enough to see his profile, so near for the first time ever. He never let you get this close before.

So for a short moment you let your eyes study the side of your Master’s face. You examine his dark furrowed brow that peaks with a sharp angle near the end; his vermillion eyes with a ring of deep brown around the iris which never stops glowing as he keeps spawn like you in his thrall; creases around his eyes telling you about the life he lived before he was turned into a vampire himself; the imperfections and spots on his skin make you wonder who he was before he became a Master but at the same time, in your eyes, they also make him look more like the elven man of his ghostly past than a sadistic Vampire Lord of your present; you closely see his nose that has a gentle curve in the middle and yet it still doesn’t make his features look any softer, on a contrary – it emphasizes the angles of his face; finally your gaze lands on the bend of his upper lip, resting calmly against his bottom one, making you realize just how alluring his lips must be when he’s feigning honesty and flirtation.

You only notice you’re taking too long staring at Master Cazador’s face when his jaw moves, briefly pushing his strongly round chin forward for a moment, and you swiftly burry your own face into the crook of his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Master.” You murmur against the fabric of his coat.

SLAM.

You near jump in Master’s lap when he slams something against the desk.

“Get off!” Lord Cazador commands with anger in his voice and you can’t stop your entire soul from shrinking within you. You failed.

Youfailedyoufailedyoufailed.

Too terrified to upset him even further you lift your hips, releasing his cock from your body with a wet sound, making you chew on your bottom lip as you proceed to move off of him and find your footing before you let go of his shoulders. There’s not much space between your Master in his chair and the desk, so you hurriedly try to move away, scuttling away like a pest that’s about to be squashed if it’s not fast enough, but before you move even one step Cazador grabs your left wrist with such force you feel your bones grind against each other.

With a wince and horrified eyes you look at him, being near his face level even though he’s sitting, his imposing figure not letting you forget about it even now, and you see rage in Master Cazador’s eyes as his nails dig into your wrist, drawing blood just like they did with your thigh earlier.

Wordlessly he stands up, pushing his chair across the carpet behind him and you near whimper when he suddenly is towering over your naked form. You want to shrink, to disappear, to become just one of the specks in the stone that’s under the carpet at your feet. Suddenly he releases your wrist and smirks, the expression cold and cruel. Master raises his finger and points.

“Turn around and bend over.” Despite his explosive anger just seconds ago, Lord Cazador’s voice is level again and you obey without delay.

When you turn around you see the parchment, quill and inkwell he was using until now. The quill is broken and the inkwell has tipped and spilled over the parchment, probably when he slammed his fist against the top of the desk, and you shrink at the thought that your little mistake cost him a whole letter. From quickly catching the amount of words written on it, you realize he was writing the same thing the entire time. You fear the punishment that you are sure you will receive because of this.

Yet you have no other choice but to bend over the desk. You try not to press yourself against the spilled ink, carefully placing your palms on the desk away from the puddle, but your nipples threaten to dip into cold liquid if you lean down any lower.

Your attempt is wasted anyway as Master Cazador suddenly digs the heel of his right palm between your shoulder-blades and forces you to lie flat on the desk. You gasp, partially from pain and partially from the wet, uncomfortable feeling of ink immediately coating your skin, but you make no sound.

“As you can see, idiot girl, you caused me to ruin my letter.” Lord Cazador says behind you, his palm leaving your back because he knows you will remain as he put you no matter what. Disobedience is the first thing he beats out of every new spawn, after all. “At first I just wanted to teach you a lesson in patience. Which you failed like a mongrel bitch you are.” A sound of a slap followed by a sharp sting makes you wince when Master Cazador’s palm connects with your rear. “I keep trying to teach you all the important things, to make you better than what you are and how do you repay me?” Another slap and you whimper as tears gather in your eyes. His hits are hard but you are just relieved he’s not using his left hand for them, where the Szarr family ring rests on his fourth digit, because you know the platinum of it would split your skin faster than his strikes. “But it is clear to me now that without my constant corrections you are still less than nothing.” And another hit connects, making you cry out this time and you feel your skin not withstanding this attack, it begins oozing blood that you quickly notice dripping down your skin.

“I’m sorry, Master!” You respond because you can’t keep silent any longer. Sobs choke you when you try to speak but you get the words out anyway as your tears erupt onto the desk surface where the side of your face is pressed.

“Yes, I know you are sorry, but have you learned anything? I very much doubt that.” Yet another sharp hit, this time even more painful as your blood makes his palm connect to your flesh much stronger, the impact of his strike making your knees buckle and you scramble to grab the front edge of his desk before you crumple to the floor, because you know that you will be punished even harder if you don’t remain as he propped you up.

“I’ll do better, Master! I promise!” You can’t stop yourself from openly sobbing as you plead for mercy and you expect another hit, another pain that raises from your backside to the very roots of your teeth, but nothing comes.

Instead of another correction in pain you feel Master’s fingers trace ever so gently over the spot he hit, smearing his fingertips in your blood.

“Hm. You always promise.” He muses and his touch leaves your skin but when you strain to listen you hear the softest sound of his tongue against fingers as he tastes your blood on them. A heavy silence falls while you try to stop your sobbing, forcefully ceasing your breathing to prevent your throat from contracting until Master Cazador confers his ultimate mercy: “Fine then. I will forgive you this one time. You are trying, this much even I can see among all your failures.”

Immediately you sigh with relief and your body relaxes upon the top of the desk but then your eyes widen as you feel something against the burning flesh that sustained considerable abuse even from as little as his palm striking it. Something soft but firm rubs against it until you realize that Master is coating his hard cock in your seeping blood. You bite the inside of your lip and try to remain quiet as pain radiates at every stronger nudge and sigh when you feel it retreat. Whatever warped satisfaction he got from that – it still felt like a caress compared to how he touched you just moments ago, with force and brutality.

“Tell me you’re sorry again, child.” Master Cazador demands and you obey.

“I’m very sorry, Master. I will do better. I’m deeply sorry for my mistake.” Words spill out of your mouth faster than you can string them together in your mind but you don’t care if it allows you avoid the pain.

“Do you think you still need to be reminded of your teachings?”

You pause now and not only because you hear sinister gloating in Lord Cazador’s voice, but because you thought he has forgiven you, he even said so, so why…

“Y-yes, Master. Please remind me.” You hear yourself say, your words coming out with ease of a childhood prayer.

“Good girl. I do have such high hopes for you.” Master’s grin is evident from his tone and you immediately grit your teeth as you feel his length press against your hole, making you understand why exactly he was coating it in your blood. Sickeningly twisted but you just close your eyes and accept it. “Your instructions were clear and they remain. Do not move.” Last command before Cazador begins pushing his cock into you against the resistance of your body. He has used your body in variety of ways before, even this one, so the sensation of being filled like this is not new and it’s somewhat easier to bear when your blood eases the invasion.

“Yes, Master, I won’t move, Master!” You hear yourself babbling before you cut yourself off with a moan as he thrusts himself deeper and the side of his hip presses painfully against your right buttock, the one that you suspect is still bleeding. Yet the cold touch of his skin against yours that is achingly painful feels soothing, almost comforting.

“I expect you not to.” Master Cazador’s tone is irritated but that doesn’t matter because you feel his strong hands grip your hips like a vice, his thumbs press into the small of your back and then he begins thrusting.

You squeeze the edge of the desk again as he begins to fuck your ass, right from the start his pumps are hard and unrelenting, showing no mercy either to your hole or your sore flesh that he keeps slamming his body against, making you wince and moan consecutively.

“If I didn’t know any better I would think the only lessons you truly remember are the ones taught with my cock.” Lord Cazador grunts as he rams into you again and again, it’s like he’s trying to get back at you for ruining his letter, for making him angry, for failing him yet again.

“No, Master, it’s not-“

“Only sound I want to hear from you are your cries.” He snaps at you and you swallow your words before they threaten to emerge again. Instead you let your voice punctuate his every thrust with a loud cry.

Pleasure is quickly becoming bigger than the pain but that’s not enough, you want more. Forgetting yourself, forgetting your Master’s rages and disciplines, you release the grip on the edge of the desk with one hand and begin to move it, twisting it and maneuvering it as you try to avoid touching items on the desk even though it’s hard, with your eyes heavy lidded from increasing physical gratification that your body is granted. Then you hear a mocking chuckle.

“I see what you are trying to do, you greedy little pup.” Master berates you while you keep moving your hand unless you’re told to stop, you take the risk despite having perfect knowledge of what will happen if his mood suddenly shifts. “Very well then, touch your harlot cunt, you slattern.” Cazador’s words do not relent as he keeps fucking you, granting you yet another mercy that he hasn’t before.

For a moment you even think it’s a trap, to test your resolve even in this situation, but again you take the risk and let your slender fingers slide to your side, over the bend of your hip and between your parted legs, finding your soaking folds and you finger them for a moment before you are permitted a second of stillness to focus on your throbbing clit.

“Yes, touch yourself and let me hear you, let me hear how your Master is merciful to you, child.” Lord Cazador speaks in strained words and you know you are running out of time before he spills himself inside of you.

He won’t wait for your pleasure, of that you are absolutely sure, so you frantically move your fingers over your clit, moaning loudly and frequently as his cock in your ass makes your body shiver and tense. You rub and circle, massage and stimulate, until the heat begins to spread all over your body. You can’t deny it – it rarely feels this heavenly when Master lays his hands on you, so you allow yourself to indulge in this pleasure to the fullest. You deserve it, you need it. Were you not good to him? Have you not tried with all that you have?

Suddenly you realize that you hear your Master’s voice, strained and barely above a mumble and you glance over your shoulder at his face, seeing sweat on his face and his eyes on his cock as it impales you again and again in increasingly erratic rhythm. His lips are parted and he’s speaking to himself, language you don’t recognize, language that you guess might be Kozakuran but you have no way to be sure and it doesn’t matter either way. Master is pleased and when Master is pleased then you don’t suffer.

You close your eyes and let the sensations engulf you. Your fingers are beginning to get tired from the straining angle you have your hand positioned at, but you don’t want to stop, you’re so close. Suddenly, with a groan and a fierce grip on your hips with sharp nails digging deep into your flesh Master Cazador comes, his few final thrusts having so much power behind them that you hear his desk scrape against the stone floor as it moves. As he spills inside of you, just as you expected him to, you rush few more rubs of your fingers against your clit before you climax with a cry and a shudder of your whole body. You move your fingers as your orgasm rips through you, clenching around Cazador’s cock and making him spend every last drop of his cum inside your hole before his thrusts finally stop.

As Master stops you stop too, letting your arm drop limply while your other hand remains desperately grasping onto the desk so that your knees don’t betray you once again. You pant heavily, letting yourself a precious moment to enjoy the aftermath of your bliss but serenity doesn’t last.

Not before long you feel Master Cazador grunt again and pull out of you, then his nails slide out of your flesh and you hear him stepping back. You’re about to gather yourself up from the top of his desk, but you feel his hand grip your left buttock and pull it to the side as if he’s inspecting just how well he filled you. And well he did indeed fill you because you feel moisture beginning to seep out of your hole downwards, dripping over your soaked folds.

“Hm.” Is the only thing you hear and then he releases you. “Get up.” Lord Cazador commands and with shaky muscles you begin picking yourself up from the desk.

As you push yourself up you find your footing, then you slowly lift yourself on your palms, seeing front of your body completely painted in black ink. Yet this is not a reason for you to do anything else than obey his order and you finally straighten your back and turn to face him. It looks like while you were doing all of that, Master already made himself presentable with his clothes fully in order as if nothing happened.

His cold eyes sweep over your body, noticing sweat, blood and ink mixing on your clammy skin and he raises an eyebrow before his gaze meets your still cloudy one.

“Go clean yourself up. You disgust me.” He snarls and you bow your head, then in silence step away from Lord Cazador’s desk when he moves to the side, permitting your exit.

With your feet shaky and unstable, you almost forget to gather your folded clothes, and you sneak a glance back at your Master, noticing his mildly approving look that you remembered this detail, then his attention turns to his ink-covered desk.

“Go to Dufay. Tell him to come here immediately, girl.” His voice is calm and not even a hint in it of what just happened.

“Yes, Master.” You respond and turn, walking to the door as quickly as you can, knowing that your presence is no longer needed or desired.

As you open the door and slip outside, you turn back to close it and at the end of the corridor, the one that made you feel much like marching towards the gallows just earlier when you arrived, you see your Master picking something off his desk, casually inspecting it, then tossing it aside, seemingly not a care in the world.

You sigh and close the door carefully, trying to be quiet, not unlike a mouse hiding from a predatory cat. Among all the cruelties that Master Cazador has and will do to you whenever he desires – at least this night was the best you had in his usually unwelcome company so far.

A small hope begins to bloom in your dead heart. A hope that you know you shouldn’t let grow, one that you know you should immediately snuff out like the last ember in the firepit. And yet it grows with each step you take across the ballroom towards the massive metal door.

Maybe this night is a sign of possible better future under Master’s boot that is pressing onto your neck for every moment ever since he turned you. Maybe if you obey well enough, just like you did tonight, he won’t punish you as harshly or torture you so sadistically.

Hope.

Before he snatches it away.

[suffarustuffaru]

hello. its day 6 of rezero s3 fanweek (Alternate Universe / Absence / “No one would blame you.”) and so i have dug up more ancient texts (my old artwork) and BEHOLD. spiderman otto au jumpscare from three years ago (there was some lore attached to it so ill say a few bullet points of what lore i remember under the cut if you want) (includes a small drabble so ig that also counts for extra fanweek material?)

very very VERY loose marvel inspired au where otto is A spiderman and frederica was black cat (…yellow. cat. golden cat? gold cat? anyway.) and subaru is a deadpool esque figure (and secretly a former avenger ahahahahah and totally not contracted with echidna ahhaha dont worry about it). emilia was probably vaguely frozone from the incredibles / captain america inspired.

otto got his powers from a radioactive spider bite like most spiderpeople but he did that on purpose. to himself. (he was already a mutant of sorts who could talk to animals.) his little brother is totally not dead/missing due to mysterious circumstances and he is totally not a corporate employee for big shady government (russell fellow) and definitely not a vigilante in his free time. and that suit is definitely not sentimental to him or anything.

also he accidentally gains a new little brother ???????????????? anyway thats the main gist of this au that i still remember

ALSO I MADE A WHOLE SPIDERVERSE-ESQUE INTRO FOR HIM YEARS AGO here you can have it. I was gonna draw it all but as you can see i didnt finish it pfft so have it in text form instead !!

Let’s do this one last time.

My name is Otto Suwen. I was bitten by a radioactive spider. And for the past six months, I’ve been the one and only Green Lynx.

And—And I’m named that because of the green lynx spider, not because I-I’m a lynx cat! I sewed web patterns into this outfit, alright?! I’ve put so much time, effort, and money into this! This design had to be perfect…

Anyway, I think you can guess the rest. Saved the city, talked more cats out of trees, helped save the city again, got new glasses—they were free, by the way, they just needed some… fixing… broke my back on patrol once, got shit on by birds, they said it was an accident, I ran into several buildings, my cape got caught under a car once, twice, maybe three times, made some terrible money decisions, don’t ever invest in oil—aha, that’s just my luck.

But don’t worry! I handle it all very, very well. I just don’t do friends anymore. (kicks away letters from his family) (ghosts messages from his family) I needed to focus more on my career, you know? I can’t afford to get distracted by anything.

(insert ending where he proceeds to get distracted by something, probably like him going back to his apartment and OOP WHY IS THERE A FERAL CAT OF A TEENAGER IN HERE)

Like I said. (insert panicked speech bubbles of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA from both garf and otto) I don’t get distracted by anything.

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 1B! MATCH 3 OUT OF 8

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Ylfa:

She just went through so much and so much growth and i love her very much.

She becomes a big bad wolf

She met Death and Death wanted her to live.

Great depiction of a teenager by Emily Axford. A lot of scenes get really emotional with her being a symbol of the cycle of life and death and eventually she will always become the Big Bad Wolf.

she faced off with Death and he told her to live. this Death, who was much older than the Death she was supposed to meet, stared off with Yilfa for days until she succumbed to hunger and ate him alive. other iterations of death apologized to her for the story she was forced to suffer through, for the punishment she had to endure over an unrealistic and unabidable rule she was destined to break. her corrupted story turned her into the big bad wolf, into death itself. she sacrificed the beloved memory of her grandma, her namesake, so that her friends would be able to save their world. even though she gained it back in the end, she was willing to live the rest of her life as the wolf, a harbinger of death, and when she was reminded that she was just a child, that it wasn’t her responsibility to guide the dead, she cried, and separated from the wolf. she was able to grow up normal and happy after suffering from the looming presence of death. i’m gonna make me friend also submit yilfa bc they’re smarter than me and can make better propaganda

my mutual really likes her

Her narrative arc about growing up and life and death is so beautiful and her being a werewolf is so cool. Emily Axford gets girlhood like nobody else.

she is the bravest little girl in the world she met death and death wanted her to live she split his skull and ate the innards of death himself she is just a little girl!!!!!!!

PRIMO Red Riding Hood adaptation. Ate the wolf who ate her gramma. Is a werewolf and a metaphor for puberty. Loves her friends. Can break her bones to reshape her body into various animal forms.

Not only did she have to lose her grandmother, but she also nearly dies of starvation and exhaustion until The Big Bad Wolf, aka Death, convinced her to live, by her killing him and eating his flesh, therefore making her Death

Ylfa has a snazzy orange top hat given to her by a very attractive fairy. Three Blind Mice is her favorite story. She brought her grandma lollipopcorn and threw the broth in the river halfway there. She first developed a crush on Pinocchio when she saw him use his nose as a stripper pole and didn't kiss him until they were twenty-one and having an awkward conversation about her grandma's death and Toy Island. She fought a baron with a spoon. She wants a bra. She jumped into The Terrible Dogfish’s stomach to save her friend. She has pinkeye and grandma hobbies. She fought off a shit ton of homicidal tables at once. She is pals with Little Miss Muffet. She killed her family. She sacrificed the memory of her grandmother to become Death. She was basically adopted by Mother Goose (who is a cool old gay dude). She Wildshapes by horribly contorting her body into animalistic forms. She is a Barbarian who acts as a support character. She is the bravest little girl in the whole world.

Behold, 3 minutes of the weirdest and best little girl! [Link]

Her weirdgirl swag is off the charts :) [Link]

Ylfa Propaganda: [Link]

Little Red Riding Hooded Mercenary:

come on just look at her shes so fucking cool

SHES SOOOOOOOO FUCKING COOOOLL ok so like. Lobotomy Corporation takes place in an SCP type facility where a bunch of abnormalities are living. She is one of them. She is a mostly undying humanoid creature that lives for the sole sake of hunting down the Big And Will Be Bad Wolf. She lives in your facility and will BREAK OUT of her containment if she feels that the wolf is near (or if too many people are dying). You can also hire her to assist you in taking down other abnormalities, and she's actually super good at it. And her outfit is just so sooo sick? She's so cool. Please play Lobotomy Corporation it goes on sale for like $7 every Steam Sale

She's red riding hood if red riding hood had a gun. Also she kisses women

Monster based on human subconscious aka an Abnormality based on the story of Little Red Riding Hood (duh). In this story, she was mauled by the wolf (Big And Might Be Bad Wolf) who is based on all fairy tale wolf villains. Little Red then got to work plotting her revenge and making Bloodborne-esque gear for herself and the two Abnos are locked in eternal combat of hatred for one another

She's literally the coolest, just look at her. For people who might not be so familiar with her: She's one of the abnormalities that remain locked in the Lobotomy Corporation. Her past is somewhat unclear, but she has some horrid scars on her face due to the Big Bad Wolf and she swore vengeance upon him because of that incident. This lead her to become a mercenary and she looks 1000% scarier and more badass than the wolf lol. Also, asides from the fact that she may kill half of your team if she escapes containment, she is quite chill and will even help you take care of your problems if you pay her.

little red riding hood but consumed by vengeance to the point of becoming an anomalous creature hellbent on completing her eternal battle with the wolf. intense desire for revenge. baller as fuck design. will help you kill other escaping abnormalities but you gotta pay her to do it. gets pissed off every time someone escapes containment except for that one annoying bird for absolutely no discernible reason. if you let her kill the wolf she gives you bonuses but if someone else kills the wolf she goes fucking bananas. truly an inspired feral creature of a woman.

Go girl!!! We love your unrestrained violence!

She is literally the absolute coolest!!! I mean, just look at her design! Everything about it screams fucking cool! Not to mention that her story has themes of vengeance, rage, and grief!!! And Lobotomy corporation is just the fucking best and soooooo underrated.

She's starting to fall behind so GO ON AND VOTE MERC WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! (and buy Lobotomy Corp on steam it's not even that expensive!)

Vote for Riding Hooded Mercenary she's an Abnormality serving as a hired merc that means shes a hunter of her own kind and she WILL chase them to the ends of earth lest she dies herself or knows that damn Wolf is nearby. The cursor for sending hits on something is a wanted poster. She's WAW-classed too, a step below the most dangerous category for her ilk. she shares the class with things such as insane-ass magical girls, an eyeless flower horse turns people into wisteria gardens, fucked up and evil Little Prince, a bird judge that hangs its victims, the now-animate poisoned apple that killed Snow White, and of course the Wolf itself.

[rel124c41]

THAT IT. DICK OUT. SCHISM ENDING EXPLAINED IN DETAIL!

alright!! behold my genius ୧⍢⃝୨

ghost camera and it’s ability is established part 2: “Memories can slip out of the photograph and take on corporal forms.” and with Ace, Floyd, Malleus — it is established they can move, touch objects, and talk!!

part 3: it is established that Jade has a photo of them (himself and the reader) on his desk, photographed by the ghost camera, and it is established that Jade oddly enough heard the reader crying “same volume and manner” makes no sense until you connect it back to the ghost camera

i took some creative liberties with making the subject in the photo corporal form lack warmth — i figured hey, no matter how much magic it probably can’t replicate a human body’s warmth

so zoom all the way down to the section of reader talking with Ghost Camera! Jade, it proves the fragments are very lifelike, very intimately their own soul speaking

Now there’s this line: “Your soul may fiercely want both options, impossibly greedy.” & this line: “It does not matter if Floyd was a deep sleeper — which he isn’t, Jade is the deeper sleeper of the two — one should be able to sleep through this.” and all the numerous times it is stated how cold the reader is — drum roll pls

The ending that happens with a memory fragment of Ghost Camera! Reader — they’re corporal and reflective of their soul but ultimately, the Reader has ended up staying in TW.

my bf suggested i started making fucking spark-notes for my writing and i was like no, let the people suffer!!

[asksavel]

"Yes, I can. Go talk to them on the solstice."

"You misjudge Lucky. That would be a fatal mistake on your part. But then, you did not see his soul, nor his previous lives. Makes sense that you wouldn't understand a thing about him."

"Anomaly? You're odd to say such things. I am no anomaly. Maybe to you, I suppose. But I am just me. A leader doing my job."

"The only thing I resemble with Mew is a similar body style and similar size. I am bigger than a Mew, and my skill set is the complete opposite of one of those. If anything, I am the Universe's mythical Pokémon, in a way you'd understand."

"Otherwise, I am as you say. The Goddess of Spirits, even if the 'God' part is not yet official, it makes no difference in the end. I'm strong enough as I am."

"Er, no. Soul Matter, that is to say, the energy that Souls are created from, was created at the dawn of the Universe along with matter and antimatter. So, just as the Universe was born, so were billions and trillions of Souls."

"As you have understood from me - Souls can also be destroyed through the Red and Black Gates. Also, I can destroy a soul if I so felt like it. But, that is not my job. As it stands, Soul Matter will eventually run out in the Universe as everything falls to darkness, until the next Big Bang."

"So, to answer your question - yes. New souls are born sometimes. You've already met the holder of a brand new soul: Savel."

"Heh. You're funny. You're mistaken on one thing. I didn't see the Beholders reincarnate on Earth..."

"... but it was I who sent them through the green gate, at their request."

"... 'Sempai', the Kantonian word for 'teacher' or 'respected elder.' I don't mind it, though you should ask permission before calling someone such. I shall digress on this occasion, but I recommend asking in future."

"The best way to learn how to reap souls is to become mortal. The lifespan I have as an immortal was not always as is - I was once mortal, and before that, I was a spirit myself."

"I was born unto the world, as a mortal Mingle, and lived as one for 2 billion years. I suppose I wasn't exactly 'mortal' if I kept coming back, but alas, I had to deal with everything a mortal also has to. I had to survive. I had to feed myself. I had to live among society. I had to endure wars. I had to learn how to live amongst those whom I would someday judge. In that time, I had left my post in the hands of another."

"20 years is barely enough time to scrape the surface of mortality, let alone the position you find yourself in. I worry for the state of your Universe in that sense, yet I suspect if it is as unstable as you say. Therefore, I would suggest forming allies among the spirit world. Make a reaper corporation. Those that show neutrality. Those that can judge fairly and without bias."

"I wish you luck, strange one."

"It doesn't really matter how you came into existence. All lifeforms have the same basic physiology: A mortal coil, and a soul. Your kind have souls, for I've dealt with one of you in the past."

"While I don't know your lifespan as you do not exist in my home universe, however, you will live and die the same way as any other mortal."

"Hmm, a mortal tasked with the role of a reaper? It's not uncommon. Most of the reapers in my corps were once mortal, but are now mid to high ranking spirits. In any case, I won't answer your question because there is no point."

"Your universe is your universe. My universe is my universe. My advice to you would be to investigate it yourself."

"Simple. It was similar enough to Lucky's current body that wouldn't cause excessive discomfort, and also would live long enough for him to carry out his punishment."

@a-shy-mimiktwo , @docmenlonhead , @askazutheshinymew , @fugamsemidei , @kornstreif , @iamyour-peace, @seraphic-dark , @ask-a-learning-ai

[spacevixenmusic]

One thing I don't think we appreciate enough about old "bad" video game to cartoon adaptations is just how wild the sheer concept of these cartoons is nowadays. As a kid with no access to The Internet and with no idea what The Source Material ever looked like, it was already kind of mind-blowing seeing characters from a video game expanded from little pixelly Guys In A Video Game into fully-formed cartoons. These were no longer just enemies for Mega Man to shoot and dodge, now they had voices and mannerisms and frequently got put in Situations. In an era before "extended universes" were the corporate-driven juggernaut they are today, this alone was absolutely BUCK WILD to behold.

You can read more of this review on my new website! [YES IT'S FREE TO READ AND THERE ARE NO ADS]

[merbleberp]

hello, I was tagged 🤖

behold my corporeal form from 2023 (the longer hair was nice for a while but I missed having short hair so ✂️chop chop💇🏼‍♀️)

I basically never take selfies

[adultswim2021]

Paid Programming: "Icelandic Ultrablue" | November 3, 2009 - 4:30AM | Infomercials

At this time I was a very diligent Adult Swim recorder. The idea that the network might, at any time, air something weird caused me to record entire blocks, “just in case” on my TiVo. I would then scan through everything and save anything that looked interesting or novel to a DVD-R. For a short time, I archived bumpers as completely as I could.

I would also pour over schedules and look for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. I can’t say this with certainty, but I feel like I must’ve seen “PAID PROGRAMMING” on a schedule or maybe on my TiVo program guide and thought “wait, Adult Swim doesn’t air PAID PROGRAMMING usually. I wonder if that’s going to be something?” And so, I recorded Paid Programming and, eventually, I watched it, and a few minutes in I heard what was clearly David Cross’s voice and thought “oh, okay. I get it. He’s trying to do something here.” And that was roughly how I’ve felt about this ever since. 

This one is fairly auspicious for the fact that it's technically the first entry into Adult Swim’s celebrated (but wildly hit-and-miss) “Infomercials” series. The concept was that people watching at home would see “PAID PROGRAMMING” in their cable guide while flipping around and, of course, they’d turn right to it, awaiting an earnest infomercial trying to sell them the Phillips CD-I or something like that. But instead of that, you get something CRAZY and WEIRD and HILARIOUS! Is this crazy and weird and hilarious? Well, I guess those descriptors are in the eye of the beholder. But since this blog is about my beholding eye, I will answer: “nah, not really”. 

The content is, roughly: an infomercial for what appears to be a miracle drug, whose applications are somewhat vague, other than it making you feel better or solving whatever terrible personal problem you have. This is hosted by a “doctor” (admittedly he’s just dressed as a doctor, and refers to his experience as “36 years” ”spent hanging out in the medical community”), who eventually introduces a jingle contest for the wonder drug. This leads into clips of various entries, which eventually leads to a video of the producer of the most professionally produced entry talking about the importance of air-filtration while producing music. This leads to an extended pitch for the Icelandic UltraBlue air-filtration system, which is illustrated with a cartoon where good air particles round up bad air particles in an over-the-top, Nazi holocaust-esque cartoon.

This is roughly how the rest of the show plays out: a commercial for one aspect of the Icelandic UltraBlue empire suddenly turns into a different commercial, usually for a different iteration of Icelandic UltraBlue. The previous sketch segues into a sketch about a cash-for-Nazi-gold place, which segues into a sketch about a medical office that specializes in removing splinters (the owner of this establishment casually wears a diaper, and it’s treated as a very normal thing. It’s one of two times I laughed), which segues into a commercial for an embalming fluid that keeps your beloved’s remains fresh for up to three months after passing, so you can continue hanging out with their corporeal form. This segues back into a jingle entry, which turns into a sketch about chest-rash cream set at a gay guy bar. There’s gross zoom-ins, awkward acting, macabre premises, sexual inappropriateness, transgressive invocations of touchy subjects, and, uh, well? Maybe two laughs. If you’re wondering what the other, non-diaper-related one was, it was the racial slur. I’m sorry.

The problem is, this very much feels like the writers (David Cross and H. Jon Benjamin) are trying very hard to approximate Tim & Eric’s entire carefully cultivated style of humor. The casting of awkward, borderline-amateur actors, the jokes about consumerism, the attention to verisimilitude, etc. There’s a little more Mr. Show-style satire thrown in, but the entire thing comes off as a pale imitation of either or both of those things. If one can glean a set of objectives from creating this (other than “it’s called PAID PROGRAMMING and it’s gonna MESS with people, man!!”) one could also easily observe Tim & Eric accomplishing those things much better, in a less forceful way. 

The casting in particular is far less inspired than Tim & Eric’s; it runs the gamut of people who either seem like they themselves are trying to imitate pre-existing characters from Tim & Eric’s wack pack or at worst seem like they were poached from a low-level UCB class. Not that Tim & Eric are exactly pure in their intentions with their cast of “outsiders”, I sense more mean-spiritedness in hiring some guy, calling his character “Fatfuck” and having him wear a diaper. 

This was retroactively deemed the first episode of “Infomercials”; a proof-of-concept that, for my money, exemplifies the worst aspects of the “miss” installments in the “hit and miss” tapestry of the Infomercials milieu. Wow, what a great, non-pretentous sentence I just wrote. Anyway, it feels especially pathetic to me that David Cross had previously put Mike Lazzo on blast for taking the concept of Paid Programming and running with it. I too, would feel wronged, but feigning any kind of pride over this is, well, I already used the word pathetic. But it’s pathetic. 

David Cross is a person who I still respect and think can be brilliant. I even watched a few of his new video podcasts on YouTube. It was nice, like checking in on an old friend. Cross is one of those guys who, when many people discover him and become fans, seems impossibly funny and almost infallible. The more you become familiar with the whole package, the more you realize that he’s a pretty regular guy, who is capable of turning out bad work. He’s also not a particularly friendly person, and can rub people the wrong way very easily. I am not trying to damn him here; I find him to be uncomfortably relatable. Many of his flaws are also my flaws. I should basically be best friends with him. Unless he reads this, that is.

An illustrative example of his humor to me is the embalming fluid sketch. In it, a man uses it on his wife, who dies of a splinter. They both lay in bed, and he takes her hand, puts it in under the covers, and uses it to jack himself off with. I’m not knocking it for any other reason that I just found it to be not particularly funny; it’s an easy vulgar laugh.

A sketch from Mr. Show featured a similar gag; a riff on the song Monster Mash about a guy who is working through a traumatic mental breakdown from experiencing this horrifying monster party. While he’s confessing some sexual encounter or something, we cut to an “expert” who has been seen in talking-head segments watching this footage, furiously masturbating. I recall Cross proudly inserting this joke into the sketch, noting the big laugh it gets from the studio audience, despite apprehension from the other writers. Even as a teenager, I remember seeing that and thinking “I could do without that joke”. It’s too easy, and it just makes ME want to masturbate.

The episode ends (after a sketch set in a gay bar that already felt stale in 2009) with the “doctor”/host ominously talking into a wrist microphone that “phase one is complete”, and then it cuts to a “To Be Continued”. I reread the back-and-fourth between Cross and Lazzo, and he actually does mention his plans for the series arc: it’s aliens. Cool!

I don’t mean to minimize the Lazzo-theft accusations or imply that they aren’t valid. I also don’t mean to imply that David Cross is completely in the right, either. If I were in either of their shoes I’d feel like the other guy was slinging at least a little bit of bullshit at me. Cross’s specific gripe is that he pioneered the concept of airing the thing at 4AM with a deceptive title, which does make a little sense. Lazzo’s defense is tenuous at best, and sorta clouds that main issue.

But, I don’t know. It does sorta seem like the kind of idea a lot of people have had, but then deemed impractical. I’m sure other people have thought “wouldn’t it be cool to air a parody infomercial at the time actual infomercials air?” I guess I can’t think of anything else that’s really done that. The closest I could come up with were tongue-in-cheek infomercials that behaved like parodies of infomercials, but actually were unironically selling something. In 2003, The Ben Stiller Show came out on DVD, and they produced an infomercial called “Wake Up Your Smile”. The Beastie Boys did one in 1998 for Hello Nasty. Mystery Science Theater did one in 1996 hawking their mail-order VHS tapes. Hell, Adult Swim did actually produce an infomercial for Williams Street records, as noted on this blog. It sorta seems like the ingredients were all right there, man. You know?

Mr. Show did a fake infomercial too, as a best-of special for season one. Damn. I guess David Cross really did invent this shit.

MAIL BAG

handbananad writes:

I am so genuinely sorry you're stuck in titan maximum hell. At least it's almost over? Is it almost over? Was this one of those early 2000's shows with a 40 episode season and you're going to be here forever?

Thank you. The show is only 9 episodes (including a half-hour first episode), so that's a silver lining. But yeah, it feels much longer. But it is nice having a show that I can outwardly hate and gloss over defiantly. It also makes me appreciate Robot Chicken more, which is tough to do.

On the other hand, I'm real glad to be watching Venture Bros, but those write-ups are much more demanding. What's a blogger with readers in the single-digits to do?