#Emotional edging should be a fandom term

[littleraeofsunshineda]

Cullrian fic: Make Me to Rest in the Warmest Places

Newly completed, my first finished fic on AO3!

Explicit; 116,984 words; 10 chapters.

Summary

Cullen is struggling with his latest attempt at lyrium withdrawal in a castle full of mages.

Lonely and bored, Dorian is burying his misery under wine and ill-advised encounters.

They become mildly obsessed with one another. The rest of the companions aren't certain if this will end with personal growth, or a whole bunch of hurt.

[her-satanic-wiles]

Kinktober Day 8 - Double Penetration (Two Holes)

Papa Emeritus IV x Reader x Swiss

As if spying on you through the CCTV wasn't enough, Copia decided to take it a step further, this time enlisting the help of Swiss to enact his own darkest desires, and hopefully, yours too. When surprise encounters blur the lines of consent, emotions spiral into a whirlwind of pleasure and uncertainty. As boundaries are tested, the need for open communication emerges, revealing a deeper understanding of mutual needs and safety.

Masterlist ⛧ Kinktober 2024 Masterlist ⛧ Hellish Delights Masterlist

Words: 10.9k.

Reading Time: 44 min.

Warnings: bondage (non-consensual), cheating (kind of), choking, creampie, dirty talk, degradation, drugging (consensual), fellatio, fingering, innocence kink, narratophilia, non-discussed kinks, non-consensual filming (CCTV), panty-licking, panty-sniffing, PIV sex, possessive, public sex, praise kink, rape kink, semi-public sex, skull-fucking, spanking, unprotected sex, vaginal sex

Taglist: @akayuki56 @alien-the-ghost @amazing-bobinsky @angellayercake @anonymous-appreciation @babydestinyinfluencer @bitchywitchygardener @blossomsea @call-me-little-sunshine84 @copiaspet622 @copiasslut @cosmixxdust @da-rulah @dolceterzo @dopey-fandom-girl @faithisyours @ghoulishxdelights @hauntedharmonic-ghoulishhaunter @high-above-the-city @howlingco @inkstainedrat @kaijukimchi @kenken-the-shoggoth @ledger-kaos @magopi @megachaoticstupid @meliza1001 @miss-leto @mommy-dust @neganwifey25-blog @piaart @saintbowie @shycardinale @sister-of-sin-claudia @sisterof-sin @sodoswitchimage @the-did-i-ask @xiyingly @zombiesnips-blog

Author’s Note: Hi, all!

The Ghouls aren’t demons in my fic. They’re humans who work in the Ministry, but they’re a different class of profession, somewhere between personal assistants and body guards, depending on the importance of Papa’s task.

This is a work of fiction based in the extreme horror category and should be treated as such. I do not condone the actions the characters make, nor am I actively encouraging others to participate in such actions in everyday life. It also does not reflect the personalities of the performers who play these characters.

The purpose of this fic is to shock, scare, entertain, and make readers entirely uncomfortable. If you are not in a headspace where you can safely read and enjoy this story, or even if the trigger warnings make you uncomfortable, I highly recommend and encourage you not to read this. Your mental health is more important than a work of fiction.

If you are struggling to come to terms with past trauma, please talk to someone and seek professional help.

You deserve to feel safe, loved, and cared for. Thank you.

🔞 MDNI 🔞

As this is dark fiction, I’m choosing to rate it 21+. Please respect my rating. Thank you.

“Come in!”

Papa’s voice echoed through the thick, oak door of his office, muffled yet unmistakable. With a flutter of anticipation, you opened the heavy door, peeking around its edge like a shy flower in bloom. Your innocent demeanour never failed to ignite something primal in him; his cock twitched at the sight of you.

“Ah, ___,” he purred, his eyes lighting up with mischief as he beckoned you inside.

As the door clicked shut behind you, you stepped into the dim light of the room, smoothing down your habit, feeling small and exposed under his predatory gaze. “You wanted to see me, Papa?” you asked, your voice soft but laced with curiosity.

“I did. Lock the door, schricchio,” he commanded, his tone firm yet enticing, sending shivers of exhilaration down your spine.

You nodded obediently, heart racing, as you turned to secure the door. The soft click of the lock felt like sealing your fate, drawing you deeper into his world.

Copia leaned back against his desk, his gaze intense and hungry. “Been thinking about you all day,” he said, his voice low and sultry. “Wanting those lips around my cock. Vieni qui.”

A rush of heat flooded your cheeks, igniting a blend of desire and urgency within you. You bit your lip, a playful smile creeping across your face as you approached him, your heart racing in anticipation. The magnetic pull between you grew stronger with every step, urging you closer to him.

By the time you’d got to him, his hardness was already out and leaking at the tip. It looked angry, and red… and it made your mouth water with desire. You knelt before him, your heart racing as you wrapped your fingers around the thick shaft, feeling the warmth radiate from him.

“Such a good girl,” he murmured, watching you with dark, hungry eyes. You leaned forward, your breath ghosting over his skin, before finally wrapping your lips around him, taking him deep into your mouth.

You hollowed your cheeks, sucking him deeper, reveling in the weight of him filling your mouth. Copia groaned, a deep, primal sound that sent a thrill through you. His fingers tangled in your hair, guiding you as you bobbed your head, taking him deeper still.

“Sathanas, sei perfetto,” he breathed, his hips bucking slightly to meet your rhythm. The taste of him, salty and intoxicating, filled your senses, making you crave more. You glanced up at him, eyes sparkling with mischief, relishing the power you held over him in this moment.

Copia’s fingers tightened in your hair, urging you to take him deeper. You felt the heat pooling in your belly as you complied, drawing him in further, the head of his cock hitting the back of your throat. A soft gag escaped you, but it only fueled his desire.

“Brava ragazza,” he praised, his voice thick with lust. “Just like that. You can take it.” With each bob of your head, you could feel him growing harder, and the thrill of pleasing him pushed you to go even further.

His hand became a little more forceful in your hair, a firm grip that was just shy of overwhelming. The slight pressure made your heart race, mixing exhilaration with a hint of fear that sent shivers down your spine. As your throat tightened around him, he groaned deeply, the sound vibrating through you and urging you on.

“Feel that? You’re taking me so well,” he murmured, his voice husky with desire. You could taste the salty essence of him as you fought against the urge to gag, your body responding instinctively to the challenge.

With each thrust, he pushed deeper, his hips rolling in a slow rhythm that matched the pulse of your own growing arousal. You could feel the heat radiating from him, fueling your need to please him even more.

“I bet that pussy of yours is so wet right now isn’t it, tesoro?” he teased, looking down at you with hooded eyes. His pupils were blown out - filled with a lust that made him look crazy. It made your hole clench around nothing.

You hummed a confirmation, still too busy taking his cock down your throat to answer him properly. This made Copia chuckle.

His thrusts grew more insistent, the rhythm becoming a desperate push-and-pull that sent you deeper into a haze of pleasure and submission. You could feel the slickness pooling between your thighs, your body betraying your intentions as your arousal heightened with every movement.

Just as you felt the telltale tightening in Copia’s belly, he suddenly pulled you off him, his cock slipping from your lips with a soft, lingering pop. The sudden absence sent a jolt of frustration coursing through you, a desperate whimper escaping your throat as you instinctively leaned forward, craving the fullness that had just been taken away. You looked up at him, your eyes wide with need, ready to plead for more.

But your gaze was drawn away, shifting to the computer screen on his desk. The live CCTV feed showcased a vivid and shocking scene: you and Swiss entwined in the library, bodies moving in a frenzied dance of passion. Swiss’s hands gripped your waist as he thrust into you, and you could see the way your back arched under his powerful touch, the sheer ecstasy painted across your face. The sight was both thrilling and mortifying, igniting a tempest of emotions within you—embarrassment, excitement, and an overwhelming desire to be desired.

Copia leaned back, a predatory smile curling on his lips as he noticed your reaction. “Looks like you’ve been busy, amore,” he teased, his voice low and sultry, filled with dark amusement that sent a shiver down your spine. He didn’t look away from the screen, his eyes glinting with a possessive hunger as he took in the sight of you being ravaged by another man. “Is this how you repay me for my kindness?”

Your cheeks flushed with heat at the realization that he was watching, enjoying the display. Despite the embarrassment flooding through you, a thrill of excitement twisted in your stomach. You were being claimed by both men, caught in a web of desire that made your heart race.

“Doesn’t he make you feel good?” Copia pressed, his fingers trailing along your jawline, tilting your head up so you were forced to meet his intense gaze. “Look at how he takes you, how he fills you up. Tell me how much you enjoy it.” His voice was a dangerous mix of challenge and allure, coaxing you to reveal your deepest desires.

The air was thick with tension, your body reacting to both the sight on the screen and his commanding presence. You felt the slickness pooling between your thighs, the undeniable evidence of your arousal. With every thrust Swiss delivered in the footage, your own body ached for that same pleasure, a visceral need that begged for release.

“I love it, Papa,” you replied, your voice a sultry whisper as you looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes, kneeling before him in a practically sinful pose. The air was thick with tension, and your heart raced as you felt the weight of his gaze.

Copia stood up, a confident smirk playing on his lips as he began to remove his clothes, revealing his toned body piece by piece. “Strip,” he ordered, his voice a low growl that sent a shiver down your spine. You obeyed eagerly, peeling off your garments, feeling exposed yet exhilarated under his intense scrutiny.

“Now, get on that chair,” he commanded, gesturing toward the ornate chair that he was just sat on. “On your knees, holding onto the back. Proprio così. I’m going to fuck you while you watch yourself getting fucked by him.”

Your breath hitched at his words, a wave of excitement crashing over you. You moved to the chair, positioning yourself just as he instructed, your heart pounding in anticipation. The cool wood pressed against your palms as you gripped the backrest, and you turned your head slightly, stealing a glance at the screen.

As you settled into position, Copia stepped closer, his presence overwhelming. You could feel the heat radiating off him, a stark contrast to the cool air around you. “You like watching, don’t you?” he purred, running a hand along your back, teasingly brushing against your skin.

“Y-yes, Papa,” you stammered, a thrill running through you as you caught sight of yourself in the feed—Swiss’s powerful thrusts pushing you to the edge of ecstasy.

“Good girl,” he said, his tone laced with satisfaction. He positioned himself behind you, his breath hot against your ear. “Keep your eyes on that screen. I want you to see how much you enjoy this.”

As he entered you, the sensation sent a jolt of pleasure through your body, and you gasped, a moan escaping your lips. Copia’s thick cock stretched you, filling you completely and igniting a fire deep within. He started with a slow, deliberate thrust, relishing the feeling of you wrapped around him. You bit your lip, desperately trying to focus on the screen, the sight of Swiss thrusting into your other self almost too much to bear.

“Keep watching,” Copia urged, his voice a deep rumble behind you, sending shivers down your spine. “I want you to see how much you’re enjoying him while I fuck you.”

Your eyes darted to the feed, the image of Swiss’s powerful form moving against you, claiming you with each thrust. The way your back arched under him, the pleasure painted across your face, was mesmerizing. It was intoxicating to see yourself so utterly lost in desire, and it only fueled the hunger inside you.

Copia found a rhythm, his thrusts deep and punishing, pulling you closer to the edge with every movement. You felt yourself getting wetter, the slick sounds of your bodies colliding mingling with the lewd noises filling the room. “Sei così cazzo stretta,” he groaned, his hands gripping your hips, holding you in place as he drove into you harder. “So tight for me.”

You could feel every inch of him, the heat radiating from his body, the weight of him pressing you into the chair. You moaned again, the sound nearly drowning out the wet slaps of skin on skin. “Please, Papa,” you gasped, wanting him to go deeper, to take you harder.

“Such a needy little thing,” he chuckled darkly, and you could hear the smirk in his voice. “Just remember, you wanted this. You wanted both of us.” He increased his pace, the sound of your moans filling the air as he hit that perfect spot inside you, sending shockwaves of pleasure coursing through your veins.

Your gaze remained fixed on the screen, watching yourself get taken by Swiss. The way his hands gripped your thighs, how he thrust with abandon, ignited something primal within you. You could feel your orgasm building, the pressure coiling tighter and tighter.

“Look at you, tesoro,” Copia purred, his voice a low growl. “You’re nothing but a whore for our cocks.” He punctuated his words with another thrust, sending you spiraling closer to your climax.

“What was he whispering into your ear then? Dimmi,” Copia asked, his voice dripping with a mixture of curiosity and possessiveness, his thrusts never faltering as he maintained his relentless pace.

You hesitated for just a moment, caught between the pleasure of the moment and the thrill of his question. The memory of Swiss’s breath hot against your skin surged to the forefront of your mind. “He… he told me how g-good I looked, how much he wanted me,” you finally admitted, your voice barely above a breathy whisper.

Copia’s grip on your hips tightened, and he thrust deeper, his eyes narrowing with a mix of jealousy and arousal. “Good,” he growled, clearly relishing your confession. “You’re mine to play with, and I want you to remember that.”

You could feel the heat radiating from him, each powerful thrust pushing you closer to the edge. The way he was fucking you, coupled with the image of Swiss still on the screen, was intoxicating. It felt wrong, but it felt so good.

“What else did he say?” Copia pressed, his voice low and commanding, his breath warm against the back of your neck.

“He said… he wanted to m-make me scream,” you managed to say, biting your lip as another wave of pleasure washed over you. The thought of Swiss’s primal hunger for you only added to your arousal, and you couldn’t help but moan, “I loved it.” Your hand snaked down to your clit, touching yourself and stroking yourself quickly as Copia kept the pace.

Copia’s eyes darkened, a wicked grin spreading across his face. “Then scream for me,” he urged, his pace quickening, each thrust driving you higher into ecstasy.

You let out a loud moan, the sound echoing around the room as the pressure inside you built to a near unbearable intensity. The combination of his powerful thrusts and the sight of yourself being taken by Swiss on the screen was overwhelming.

“Louder!” Copia commanded, his fingers digging into your hips, holding you firmly in place as he fucked you relentlessly. “I want to hear how much you love this. I want him to.”

With every thrust, he pushed you closer to the edge. “I l-love it, Papa!” you cried out, feeling the heat pooling in your belly, ready to explode. “I love h-how you fill me up! Fuck - you f-feel so fucking g-good!”

Copia’s breath hitched at your words, and he thrust deeper, hitting that sweet spot that made your vision blur with pleasure. “That’s right, amore. Let everyone know how much you enjoy being our little whore,” he growled, his voice low and dripping with lust.

You could feel your body responding to his command, the waves of pleasure crashing over you like a tidal wave. With each thrust, the urgency built, and you could feel the tension coiling tighter within you. “I’m so close, Papa,” you gasped, your fingers gripping the back of the chair as you surrendered completely to the sensation.

“Then let go,” he urged, his pace relentless as he pushed you to the brink. “Come for me, sweetheart.”

With a final, deep thrust, you felt yourself tumble over the edge, a cry of ecstasy tearing from your lips as your orgasm washed over you, every muscle in your body tightening in a delicious wave of bliss.

As your orgasm washed over you, it felt as if time had momentarily stopped. A wave of bliss surged through your body, electrifying every nerve ending as your core tightened around Copia’s thick cock. The pleasure was a fiery explosion, radiating from the depths of your belly and sending shivers coursing down your spine. You could feel the warmth of your release spilling over, soaking you and amplifying the sensation.

But as you surrendered to the ecstasy, your eyes remained fixated on the screen, captivated by the sight of yourself being taken by Swiss. Watching your other self writhe under his touch intensified the experience, making your cheeks flush with a mixture of arousal and embarrassment. It was surreal to see your pleasure mirrored on screen, the way you arched your back, lost in a haze of desire.

The sight of Swiss thrusting into you while you were being claimed by Copia was intoxicating. You could almost feel the echoes of his movements reverberating through your body, a reminder of how badly you craved that attention. You gasped as your other self moaned, the sounds a chorus of pleasure that only heightened your own arousal. Each cry of bliss you heard from the screen became a visceral reminder of your need to be desired, to be owned.

“Look at yourself,” Copia urged, his voice a dark whisper that sent another thrill through you. “Look how much you love it.”

In that moment, you felt like two halves of the same whole—one side wholly submissive, lost in Copia’s thrusts, while the other side reveled in the wild abandon Swiss had brought out in you. The duality of it all made you ache with need, igniting a fire within that threatened to consume you entirely.

With a final, deep thrust, Copia buried himself inside you, the heat of his release spilling into you. The sensation was overwhelming, a rush of warmth that filled you completely and sent aftershocks of pleasure coursing through your body. His groans echoed in your ear, a sound that made your heart race as you relished the feeling of being utterly owned by him.

“Sathanas, you’re perfect,” he gasped, his grip tightening on your hips as he held you against him, riding out the waves of his climax. Each pulse of his cock sent another jolt of pleasure through you, making you keen softly, the remnants of your own orgasm still lingering in the air.

As you both caught your breath, you couldn’t help but glance back at the screen. The image of Swiss still ravaging you played on repeat, your other self lost in ecstasy, eyes rolled back and mouth open in a silent scream of bliss. The sight only intensified your arousal, reminding you of how you’d been shared, how both men had taken you in their own ways, except Swiss was completely unaware of it.

The reality of what had just transpired washed over you, and a rush of mixed emotions flooded your senses—satisfaction, exhilaration, and a hint of guilt. But as you felt Copia’s warm body against yours, you couldn’t help but crave more.

“Now, run off to Swiss like you promised him,” Copia commented, smacking your ass as if he were punctuating his sentence with it. The sharp sting sent a delightful shiver through you, and you turned to look back at him, your heart racing. The playful authority in his voice stirred something deep inside, a longing to please him even as you prepared to rush to Swiss.

“Yes, Papa,” you replied breathlessly, the thrill of obedience coursing through you. You could still feel the warmth of Copia’s release inside you, and it made your cheeks flush as you imagined what Swiss would do next.

You quickly slipped off the chair, your body still tingling from the intensity of the moment. As you headed towards the door, you glanced back at Copia one last time. His expression was a mix of satisfaction and possessiveness, and it only fueled the fire of desire within you.

“Don’t keep him waiting,” he added with a smirk, his tone a mix of teasing and command. You nodded eagerly, knowing you were about to step into another thrilling encounter.

Copia had been gentle with you as of late, and today was no exception. But there was a part of him that wanted to let the animal out - almost compete with Asmodeus when he first hurt you. That primal instinct simmered just beneath the surface, tugging at him, urging him to unleash his darker desires.

As you rushed to find Swiss, Copia’s thoughts raced, torn between the tenderness he felt for you and the raw, feral need that clawed at his insides. He wanted to claim you in a way that left no doubt of who you belonged to, to show you that his power was unyielding.

The image of you writhing under Swiss’s control danced in his mind, a juxtaposition of pleasure and pain that both excited and enraged him. Would you enjoy it if he pushed you further, made you feel the thrill of submission wrapped in intensity? The idea sent a surge of lust through him, igniting a dark flame that was hard to ignore.

He wanted you to feel every bit of it—to know that he could take you apart, piece by piece, but still leave you whole in the end. A part of him yearned for that sweet spot where pleasure and pain intertwined, where the lines blurred, and the thrill of domination reigned supreme.

He wanted to see the terror in your eyes again, mixed with that intoxicating pleasure that he saw right before you passed out. He wanted to experience your fear again after the last time, take what he wanted from you, and now from Swiss.

The gears began to set in motion.

Days later, Copia summoned Swiss to his office, a sense of anticipation bubbling within him. As he paced the room, he could feel the tension thickening in the air, a palpable electricity crackling around him. This was going to be a game of control, one where he would remind both you and Swiss who held the power.

When Swiss entered, the casual confidence in his demeanor was evident, but Copia could see the flicker of uncertainty in his eyes. “Ah, Swiss,” he greeted, a predatory smile spreading across his face. “I have something special in mind for us today.”

Swiss raised an eyebrow, a hint of intrigue mingled with wariness in his gaze. “What’s on your mind, Papa?”

Copia leaned against the desk, feigning casual interest as Swiss savored the drink. “You know, I appreciate how you’ve been… attentive to our little one. It’s nice to see you both enjoying yourselves.”

Swiss frowned, the tension in the air thickening. “What are you talking about, Papa?”

“Oh, she hasn’t told you?”

Swiss shook his head.

Copia sat on his desk chair, the same one he’d had you on just days ago. “The first night, after Asmodeus took over your body, you visited her in the hospital, didn’t you?”

Swiss’ eyes widened. “N-no, I would never. I-”

Copia raised his hand. “It was all caught on CCTV, Swiss. You can’t hide it. Nor every single time after that. It was hot to watch.

“When she was almost healed she came to me and begged for you not to be punished at all,” Copia continued, taking a sip of his own drink. “Turned out it was because she wanted to keep you balls deep inside her, huh?”

“You need to know that everything that happened afterwards was consensual.”

“Of course it was. You’re a good man. You both had your bodies used against your wills, naturally you’d bond over it and make it the front of your sexual activities.”

“Forgive me, Papa, but where is this going?”

“She’s been spreading her legs for me, too. The day she begged for your lack of punishment, I took her right there.” Copia pointed to the spot on the floor where he fucked you for the first time. “And she told me all about you…”

Swiss’s expression shifted from surprise to an uneasy understanding, his brow furrowing as he processed Copia’s words. “You… you’re saying she chose this? That she wanted you?” he asked, a hint of incredulity lacing his voice.

“No, she wants both of us,” Copia reminded him, his voice cool and steady. “Your body was the one that gave her the trauma, mine was the one that stopped it. But either way, she likes it when we both destroy her.”

Swiss’s eyes widened as he absorbed Copia’s revelation, the weight of it heavy in the air between them. “Destroy her? You mean… together?”

“Exactly,” Copia replied, leaning forward slightly, his intensity palpable. “We’re going to give her everything she craves. She needs both of us to push her limits, to explore the boundaries of pleasure and pain. She wants the chaos that only we can provide.”

Swiss felt a rush of conflicting emotions—desire for you mingled with a sense of protectiveness and uncertainty. “And what if she can’t handle it? What if we go too far?”

Copia’s gaze hardened, a flicker of annoyance crossing his features. “That’s for her to decide. You need to learn that she thrives on this, Swiss. It’s a part of who she is now. And it’s our job to indulge her.”

“Indulge her, or break her?” Swiss shot back, unable to suppress the defensiveness creeping into his voice.

Copia chuckled darkly, the sound low and menacing. “There’s a fine line between the two, my friend. But we both love to see her broken.”

Swiss hesitated, weighing his options. The prospect of joining you in this dark dance both thrilled and terrified him. But one thing was clear: he was no longer in control, and that realization sent a shiver down his spine.

“Alright, Papa,” Swiss finally replied, steeling himself. “I’m in. Let’s see where this goes. What did you have in mind?”

Copia’s plan unfolded like a dark tapestry, rich with layers of tension and desire. He envisioned a scenario that would play with the boundaries of fear and pleasure, designed to draw out every reaction from you and Swiss. The atmosphere would be thick with an ominous energy, the room dimly lit, shadows flickering against the walls, creating an unsettling yet tantalizing ambiance. And you were none the wiser.

*

You knocked at Copia’s door, expecting the usual soft command to enter. But this time, there was no answer, only an eerie silence pressing in on you. You knocked at Copia’s door again, harder this time, but the silence felt oppressive, seeping through the thick wood. Something was wrong. The faint glow from under the door flickered like dying embers, casting eerie shadows across the hallway. A chill ran down your spine as you hesitantly pushed it open, the darkness inside swallowing you whole.

The room was colder than usual, a stale, suffocating air hanging heavy. As your eyes scanned the dim space, they landed on Swiss. He was tied to a chair, ropes digging deep into his wrists and ankles, his head sagging forward, unconscious. The dim, flickering light barely illuminated his pale face, a smear of blood at his temple glistening faintly.

Your heart raced, your breath catching in your throat as you rushed toward him, instincts screaming at you to help him. But just as you neared, an icy grip clamped around your arm. The door slammed shut behind you with an ominous finality. A scream clawed its way up your throat, but before it could escape, a large, gloved hand covered your mouth.

Copia stood behind you, his body pressing against yours, holding you firmly in place. His breath was hot against your ear, but his presence felt like an arctic wind, chilling you to the core. You struggled, but he was unyielding, his grip like iron.

“Shh,” he whispered, his voice a low, sinister murmur that sent shivers down your spine. “I wouldn’t scream if I were you. Not unless you want to wake him up…”

Your eyes darted back to Swiss, his motionless figure somehow more haunting in the oppressive quiet. The ropes that bound him creaked as if they were alive, and the stillness of the room became suffocating, the walls seeming to close in on you. Every inch of you screamed to break free, but Copia’s grip only tightened, his fingers pressing hard against your skin.

He inhaled, smelling your hair as you were so close to him. It felt weird, wrong almost, coming from him. But you couldn’t help the sharp pang of arousal that flooded your veins and pooled in your stomach. There was something wrong with you for enjoying this - but it felt so good.

You froze, the heat of his breath contrasting with the icy grip he had on you. The sound of your heart hammered in your ears, the room closing in as his whisper lingered in the silence. You tried to look at Swiss again, your mind racing, wondering how he ended up like this—bound and bloodied, helpless in the chair.

“Look at him,” Copia growled, his voice rougher now. “So helpless. He thought he had power over you… but we both know where the real power lies, don’t we?” His fingers trailed down your arm, sending shivers through you, though it wasn’t entirely from fear.

Your pulse quickened, your body betraying you as it reacted to the closeness of him. The tension in the room was thick, choking, yet the thrill that surged through you was undeniable. There was something disturbingly exhilarating about the danger—his touch, the helplessness of Swiss, the silence that pressed down on your chest. You hated that it aroused you, but the more you tried to deny it, the deeper the need curled in your stomach.

Copia’s hand slid to your waist, pressing you harder against him. “He’ll wake up soon, tesoro,” he whispered darkly. “When that drink wears off. And when he does, I want him to see just how much you enjoy this. To understand that I’m in control… of you both.”

A breath hitched in your throat. It was wrong, so wrong, but the way his grip anchored you, the weight of his dominance, made you ache in a way that left you burning with shame and desire. Every brush of his gloved hand sent sparks skittering over your skin, the soft creak of leather filling the room.

You glanced at Swiss, his head still drooping forward, unaware of the storm gathering around him. The guilt gnawed at you, but the dark thrill in Copia’s words rooted you in place.

“What’s the matter?” Copia taunted, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. “You’ve wanted this all along, haven’t you? A piece of both of us. Don’t pretend it doesn’t excite you… I can feel it.”

Your body betrayed you, a soft gasp escaping your lips. You wanted to resist, but as Copia pressed closer, every fiber of your being craved the release that only he could grant.

“W-why are you doing this?” you asked, squirming in his grip, trying to make sense of the situation as dread mixed with desire in your veins.

“We’ve both been gentle on you for so long, haven’t we, tesoro?” Copia’s voice took on a patronizing tone, dripping with mock sympathy. “You still think about it, don’t you? Every time Swiss fucks you, you still hear and feel Asmodeus, sì?” His words cut deep, bringing back the memories that haunted your most intimate moments. The truth in his voice stung, as he revealed what you’d kept buried for so long.

Copia’s fingers dug slightly deeper into your flesh, grounding you in place as his words crawled under your skin. “You liked it, didn’t you? The way your body still reacts… It’s why you come back to us, even when you should be terrified.”

His words were poison, twisting in your mind, but beneath the layers of dread, there was something else—a flicker of undeniable arousal. The shame burned hot in your chest, but you couldn’t stop the way your body responded to his touch, to his words.

He leaned closer, his breath warm against your neck. “Tonight, we remind you who you belong to… who has the power over you. Swiss won’t save you from this. You’ll take what we give you.”

The fear in your voice didn’t match the heat spreading through your body as you whispered, “Papa, no… please!” The words were instinctual, slipping past your lips as fear tangled with desire. But you didn’t truly mean them. Not at all.

Copia paused for a fraction of a second, his voice dropping the menacing tone for just a heartbeat. “Are you using your safe word, tesoro?” he asked, his mask slipping just enough for you to recognize the safety hidden beneath the performance.

And that was when it hit you—this was all a setup. A carefully crafted scene designed to push you, to test you. In that moment, you understood. No matter what was coming, you were safe. Even if a small, dark part of you didn’t want to be.

Copia’s grip loosened, but only slightly, just enough to let you breathe, but not enough to free yourself. He was still in control, his presence looming large over you. The power dynamics at play were intoxicating, the push and pull between fear and trust blurring into something dangerously exciting.

“No, Papa.” You whimpered. You could feel his hardness pressing into your back. He wanted this so badly, too.

“What do you want? Tell me.”

“I want to leave. I… I want you to let me go.”

Copia moved a hand up to your throat and squeezed. “Liar. Tell the truth.”

“I am! Please!”

“You want me to take you, don’t you? Force you to take what I give you.”

“Papa, please!”

“Say it.”

The other hand moved down to the hem of your habit and gripped you over your sodden panties and feeling the soaked fabric, a low, approving growl rumbling from his chest. Immediately your hips bucked, trying to chase the pleasure that was coming your way.

You gasped, trying to suppress the moan that threatened to escape. “No… I don’t want this,” you whimpered, but your hips betrayed you, bucking involuntarily into his touch. The lie tasted bitter on your tongue, but you couldn’t give in. Not yet.

Copia’s thumb pressed against your soaked core, sending a jolt of pleasure through you, but you bit down hard, refusing to let it consume you. “Is that why you’re dripping for me?” he taunted, his grip on your throat tightening just enough to remind you of the control he held. “You want this, even if you won’t admit it.”

You shook your head weakly, though the throbbing heat between your legs told a different story. “No… I don’t…” you whispered, the words faltering as he slid your panties to the side, his fingers teasing your slick entrance.

“Say it,” he demanded, his fingers now dangerously close to plunging inside. “Say you want me to take what’s mine.”

You began to fight back, desperately trying to wriggle out of his grasp, but his hold on you was too strong. Each attempt only made him tighten his grip further, a low, dark chuckle rumbling in his chest. “Do you really think you can escape me, tesoro?” he whispered, his breath hot against your ear, sending a thrill of fear and excitement coursing through you. Every time you moved, you felt his cock on you. That hard, hot, heavy, delicious cock your cunt was screaming for.

“Stop!” you cried, but the protest felt weak even to your own ears. Copia reveled in your struggle, using it to stoke the fire of his desire.

“Tell me you want this, and I might consider letting you go,” he murmured, pressing against you, the hardness of his body a constant reminder of the power he held. The tension in the room thickened as you fought to maintain your defiance, even as every nerve ending screamed for release.

With each thrust of his fingers against your sensitive skin, the words caught in your throat. You wanted to resist, to keep fighting against the tidal wave of pleasure building within you, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. The war between your body and your mind intensified, creating a delicious tension that left you gasping for breath.

Copia’s hands left your body suddenly, and before you could process the shift, he grabbed a fistful of your hair, yanking you toward the centre of the room. You stumbled, thrown off balance as he flung you onto the floor in front of Swiss, who remained unconscious and oblivious to the scene unfolding around him.

Your heart raced as you looked up at Copia, his eyes glinting with a predatory hunger. “Now, let’s see how much you truly want this,” he purred, a sinister smile creeping across his lips.

You felt exposed and vulnerable, the coolness of the floor beneath you contrasting sharply with the heat pooling in your core. The sight of Swiss, bound and helpless, heightened the thrill coursing through you. Copia knelt beside you, his presence overpowering as he leaned in closer. “Do you see him? Do you see what I’ve done for you?”

He brushed his fingers against your cheek, the touch both possessive and electrifying. “You’re going to show him just how much you crave this… whether you admit it or not.”

Your breaths quickened, caught between fear and anticipation. Your habit had risen up completely at this point, exposing not only your soiled panties but your midriff too. You could feel the cold air swirling around you as your legs remained spread out, body betraying how much you truly wanted and loved this.

Copia, sensing your vulnerability, positioned himself above you, his weight pressing down in a way that made your heart race. With a firm grip on your hips, he held you down, anchoring you to the floor as he leaned closer. You could feel his breath hot against your skin, a mix of lust and something more primal radiating from him.

He inhaled deeply, the scent of your panties intoxicating him. “Sathanas, you smell sinful,” he murmured, a wicked grin stretching across his face. “I can’t wait to taste you again.” The way he spoke made it clear that he was relishing every moment of your submission, drawing out your anticipation.

As he continued to breathe in your essence, your body responded involuntarily, a mix of arousal and shame flooding through you. You wanted to protest, to assert your agency, but his grip on your hips kept you firmly in place, leaving you torn between pleasure and fighting him with everything you had.

Copia’s grip on your hips remained unyielding as he savoured the intoxicating scent emanating from your panties. A wicked smile played across his lips as he lowered his mouth closer, his breath teasing the fabric. He flicked his tongue out, trailing it across the wet cotton, tasting the remnants of your arousal.

You bit back a moan.

“Delicious,” he breathed, the sound reverberating in your core. He licked again, each swipe sending shockwaves of heat through your body, intensifying the delicious tension between pleasure and shame. Your eyes fluttered closed, torn between wanting him to continue and the desperate need to assert your resistance. “You taste even better when you’re scared.”

He licked a few more times, relishing the way your body responded to him, before suddenly tearing the panties from your body, the sound echoing in the stillness of the room. The fabric ripped away with a swift, unforgiving motion, leaving you bare and exposed before him.

You gasped at the suddenness, your heart racing as a thrill coursed through you, igniting every nerve ending in your body. Copia leaned back, eyes darkened with desire, taking in the sight of you—vulnerable and aching for his touch. “Now we can play properly,” he said, a wicked grin spreading across his face as he hovered over you, ready to take what he wanted.

Copia’s eyes darkened with a primal hunger as he held your gaze, the air between you thick with tension. Without a moment’s hesitation, he plunged into you, his movement fierce and relentless. The force of him filling you was like a bolt of electricity, sparking every nerve ending to life. Your body reacted instinctively, arching into him, desperate for more even as your mind fought against the sheer intensity of it all.

“Feel that?” he growled, his voice low and rough like gravel. Each thrust was merciless, a raw power that left no room for gentleness. The floor beneath you felt cold and hard, but the contrast only heightened your senses, the sensation of being claimed on that unforgiving surface igniting a fire within you.

He took you with an urgency that left no space for hesitation, his hips driving against you with a force that made you gasp. You could hear the wet sound of skin meeting skin, a primal rhythm that echoed in the quiet room. Copia’s grip on your hips was firm, almost possessive, anchoring you as he thrust deeper and deeper.

With every movement, he made it clear that you were entirely at his mercy. “This is mine. You’re mine,” he declared, the words a possessive growl that sent shivers down your spine. The mixture of pain and pleasure was intoxicating, blurring the lines between the two as he lost himself in you.

Your breath hitched as he pressed down harder, the intensity of it all washing over you in waves. You felt utterly consumed by him, your body responding to his every thrust, every growl, even as your mind screamed for a semblance of control. But you were lost in the moment, your body betraying you with every muffled moan that escaped your lips.

Copia’s rhythm became more frantic, his desire palpable as he pushed you closer to the edge. The world around you faded into nothingness, leaving just the two of you—wrapped in a haze of ecstasy and raw, unbridled passion.

Copia’s hunger intensified as he felt you tighten around him, urging him to push further. With a primal growl, he seized the hem of your habit, ripping it open with a feral urgency that echoed the first time Asmodeus had laid hands on you.

That earned him a loud moan.

The fabric tore apart, exposing your skin to the cool air, a rush of vulnerability coursing through you. He watched your body bounce off his cock, tits thighs jiggling as he took what he wanted. The bra was the last piece of clothing in tact, but he’d get rid of that soon enough. “Look at you,” he breathed, his eyes glinting with a mix of desire and triumph. “So perfectly spread for me.”

The sensation of the ripped fabric against your skin heightened every thrust, merging pleasure and raw exposure into an intoxicating mix that left you breathless. The remnants of your habit pooled around you like discarded armor, a stark reminder of the innocence he was so willingly stripping away, and you were so willing to give.

Moans ripped from your throat wantonly, screeching out just how good it felt. Each thrust pushed you further into a whirlwind of sensation, each deep stroke igniting a fire that consumed you whole. Your body betrayed you, arching back against him as pleasure washed over you in waves, drowning out any remnants of resistance. The connection between you grew stronger with every push and pull, a primal rhythm that resonated through the room. He claimed you fiercely, and in that moment, all that mattered was the raw, intoxicating ecstasy of being utterly his.

Copia’s thrusts became more demanding, each one a declaration of his ownership as he savored every moment, his body driving against yours with a fierce need. Your heart raced as you realized that this was more than just a physical act; it was a reclaiming, a deepening of the dark connection that bound you together.

Copia’s hands slipped from your hips as he began to peel off his robes, each layer of fabric revealing more of his soft form, the contours of his chunk gleaming under the dim light. For a brief moment, a rush of adrenaline surged through you, igniting a primal instinct to escape. You pushed yourself out from beneath him, scrambling to crawl away, the cold floor sending shivers through your exposed skin.

As you crawled away, your heart pounded in your chest, fueled by the thrill of attempting to escape. But the moment was fleeting, as he effortlessly grabbed your ankles, yanking you back toward him with a possessive grip. The floor felt cold against your skin, a stark contrast to the heat radiating from his body.

“Not so fast,” he growled, pulling you closer until your back pressed against his bare chest. You could feel the strength in his arms, the warmth of his skin igniting a mix of fear and desire within you. With a firm yet sensual motion, he positioned you, sinking into you once more from behind, every thrust deepening the connection between pleasure and raw surrender.

He filled you completely, driving into you with a relentless intensity that stole your breath. The world around you faded, leaving just the sensation of him filling you, his body moving with purpose as he claimed you. Each thrust was a reminder of his dominance, and you felt yourself giving in, body responding eagerly to his every move, your mind battling between resistance and the undeniable pleasure he offered.

Copia’s wicked grin widened as he surveyed the scene, his predatory instincts igniting with excitement. With a sudden, decisive motion, he pulled out of you, leaving a void that had you gasping for breath. The rush of cold air against your slick skin sent a shiver down your spine, amplifying the anticipation swirling in the room.

His hands moved quickly, deftly peeling off your clothes, fabric tearing under his forceful grip. The sound of your bra ripping apart echoed, a stark reminder of your vulnerability as you were laid bare before him. The cool air kissed your skin, heightening your senses and making your pulse race.

“Now, let’s see how this feels,” he said, voice low and husky, as he positioned your arms over Swiss’s thighs. You could feel the weight of his unconscious body beneath you, the solidness of him contrasting sharply with the chaos of emotions swirling inside you.

With your arms resting on Swiss’s thighs, you were completely exposed, a living plaything between them. Copia held you firm, positioning you just right as he thrust back into you with unrelenting force, each movement causing your body to jolt against Swiss. You felt the dual sensations of pleasure and danger, your heart racing as the thrill coursed through you.

Copia’s grip on your waist was possessive, each thrust deeper and harder, a rhythmic claim that reverberated through your core. The weight of Swiss’s unconscious form added a layer of intoxicating risk, your body trapped between the two of them as Copia filled you completely. The feeling of being so utterly controlled ignited a fire within you, a yearning that sent waves of pleasure washing over you, drowning out the nagging voice of protest in your mind.

Every thrust felt like a declaration, and with each powerful movement, Copia sent you spiraling further into a whirlwind of desire and surrender. You were his—no longer a person but a vessel for their desires, caught in a dizzying dance of power and submission. The world around you blurred, leaving only the primal rhythm of Copia’s body moving against yours, a tempest of pleasure threatening to consume you whole.

You watched as Swiss’s body reacted to Copia’s relentless movements, his form jolting with the force of you against him. The sight was intoxicating, a reminder of the dangerous game you were caught in. You could feel yourself tightening around Copia, betraying the resolve you thought you had. You shouldn’t be enjoying this; it felt so wrong yet so utterly exhilarating, your mind racing to reconcile the conflicting sensations. Each thrust sent shivers down your spine, blurring the line between pleasure and the haunting echo of fear, making your heart race.

Swiss stirred, consciousness creeping back into him as he groaned softly, his body reacting instinctively to the movements around him. The moment his eyes fluttered open, confusion morphed into shock as he took in the sight before him. Your hands clawed at his thighs, seeking something—perhaps a connection or a plea for help—but the confusion in his gaze quickly shifted as he processed the scenario.

Copia remained unphased, a devilish smirk on his lips, relishing the chaos he had orchestrated. He thrived on the intensity of the moment, the primal energy thrumming through the room, as Swiss’s eyes darted from you to Copia, uncertainty mixing with a flicker of understanding. Your body was taut, a taut string vibrating between two powerful forces, and with every thrust from Copia, you felt the tension spiral higher. You were caught in a web of desire and confusion, the line between pleasure and panic becoming ever more blurred.

“Good of you to finally join us,” Copia said, his voice breathless and laced with pleasure, a dark glimmer in his eyes as he relished Swiss’s confusion and surprise.

Swiss’s gaze flickered between you and Copia, his expression a mixture of disbelief and awakening desire. The reality of the situation settled over him like a thick fog, and he instinctively tightened his grip on the chair, trying to process the chaotic blend of sensations and emotions swirling around him. You were still clawing at his thighs, a silent plea for something you couldn’t quite articulate.

Copia’s gaze flickered down to Swiss, a knowing smile creeping across his face as he caught the faint outline of Swiss’s arousal beneath his clothes. The air thickened with tension, and you felt the heat radiating off both of them, each lost in the tangled web of desire that had ensnared you all.

“Look at him,” Copia teased, his voice a sultry whisper that dripped with mockery. “Our dear Swiss is starting to enjoy the show. Can’t deny what he’s feeling, can he? What do you think, tesoro? Does he want to join in on the fun?”

Your heart raced as you processed the implications of his words, the heat pooling in your stomach, both thrilling and terrifying. Swiss’s expression shifted from shock to something deeper, the flush spreading across his cheeks betraying his arousal, igniting a spark of defiance within you. Copia leaned closer, his breath hot against your ear, revelling in the charged atmosphere that surrounded you.

Swiss finally spoke, his throat dry and scratchy from his slumber. “Did you want him to do this, ___?” He asked. It looked like he was about to step in and help you.

You had to nod. “I w-want it!” You screamed, clenching tightly around Copia’s cock.

Swiss nodded and looked at Copia. “Can I drop the act now, or…?”

Your eyes widened when you realised Swiss was in on it, too. Dread shot down your spine alongside the arousal that already lived there.

Copia’s smirk widened at Swiss’s words, the glint in his eyes growing darker. “Oh, but I think the act suits you, Swiss,” he replied, his tone dripping with mockery. “It adds an air of mystery, doesn’t it? But if you want to drop it, I wouldn’t stop you. After all, we both know she’s been craving something a bit more thrilling.” He leaned closer, his voice a sultry whisper, “Let’s give her what she wants, shall we?” The air crackled with unspoken tension as the two of them conspired, your heart racing with a blend of dread and excitement.

Swiss wriggled out of the ropes, so loose that it was proof that they were only there for your benefit. He frees himself from his jeans and dangles himself in front of you, teasing you.

“Don’t give it to her yet, Swiss,” Copia suggested, keeping his pace. “Make her beg for it.”

“You heard him,” Swiss told you. “Beg Papa to give you my cock.”

You hesitated at first, not wanting to show you wanted this. But, eventually, it became too much.

Your breaths came in shallow gasps, a mixture of desire and humiliation swirling within you. “I—I want it, Papa-ah!” you stammered, your voice trembling as the heat pooled in your core. “Please… I need it! Fuck! I need Swiss inside… inside me.”

The words tumbled out, each one laced with desperation, and you could feel the weight of their gazes on you, pushing you further into submission. “I can’t take it anymore… Please, I’ll do anything!” The urgency in your voice left no doubt about how over how much you needed it.

Copia laughed. “Puttana,” he hissed. “I knew you wanted it all along.”

“I d-did. H-holy shit, Papa! Please… don’t stop!”

Copia’s gaze darkened with a mix of lust and amusement as he watched you squirm, your vulnerability hanging thick in the air. “Alright, tesoro,” he drawled, a wicked smile on his lips. “You’ve begged so nicely, I think it’s time to give you what you want.”

With that, he pulled away, releasing you just enough to give Swiss the green light. “Go on then, give her everything she craves.” His voice was thick with anticipation as he leaned back, watching you both with keen interest, eager to see how this would unfold.

You steadied your breath, feeling the electric tension in the air as you leaned in closer to Swiss. His scent enveloped you, a mix of musk and desire, igniting a primal urge within. With a shiver of anticipation, you opened your mouth, letting your tongue dart out to tease the tip of his cock.

You took a moment to savour him, letting your warmth envelop the head as you swirled your tongue around it, tasting the salty essence that pooled there. His breath hitched as you started to take him deeper, inch by tantalising inch. You felt the heat radiating off him, a delicious reminder of the power you held in this moment.

With each movement, you took him further into your mouth, the soft, warm flesh of your lips brushing against him. You could feel him thickening, filling your mouth completely. You pulled back just enough to catch your breath, then sank down again, feeling the way he brushed against the back of your throat.

Your hands moved instinctively, one gripping the base of his shaft while the other rested on his thigh, fingers digging into the firm muscle as you began to find a rhythm. The wet sounds of your mouth working him mingled with the sharp gasps that escaped his lips, each one driving you to push further, to take more.

The world around you faded as you focused solely on the sensation—the taste, the heat, the sound of him losing himself to the pleasure you were giving. You quickened your pace, letting your lips glide up and down, taking him deeper, feeling him pulse against your tongue. You relished the feeling of him growing harder, the way his body responded to your every movement.

You could feel the heat building within you, a need for more. The thrill of submission and dominance tangled together in an intoxicating mix, urging you to push further, to lose yourself entirely in the act of worshipping him.

As you continued to take him into your mouth, Swiss’s patience began to wear thin. With a low growl, he grasped your hair, fingers threading through it firmly but not painfully, and guided your movements, taking control of the rhythm.

“Enough of this teasing,” he said, his voice rough with need. “I want to feel you properly.” He pulled you back just enough to look you in the eyes, heat swirling between you, and with a swift motion, he thrust his hips forward, driving deeper into your mouth.

You gasped around him, the sudden intensity sending shivers down your spine. He took your reaction as encouragement, his grip tightening as he started to guide your head back and forth, establishing a pace that made your breath hitch. The desperation of his thrusts mixed with your eagerness, each thrust forcing you to take him deeper, your throat tightening around him.

With each thrust, he held your gaze, a wicked glint in his eyes that promised a pleasurable reprisal for your earlier hesitation. The air was thick with the sounds of you both—the soft, wet noises of your mouth and his sharp, urgent breaths. You could feel the heat pooling in your core, the sensation of surrender mixing with the thrill of his dominance.

He pulled back momentarily, letting you catch your breath before pushing back in, more forcefully this time. “I want to feel you choke on me,” he commanded, his voice low and husky, and you complied eagerly, letting him guide you into a rhythm that left you breathless. The thrill of being completely at his mercy ignited a fire within you, and all you could do was submit to the pleasure he was giving.

Swiss’s grip on your hair tightened as his impatience surged, pushing him to take control of the moment completely. He thrust deeper, each movement more forceful and urgent, his hips slamming against your mouth, the rhythm both demanding and possessive. There was an intensity in his touch that contrasted starkly with Copia’s earlier gentleness.

Where Copia had taken his time, savouring each moment, Swiss seemed to revel in the raw, primal connection between you, pushing you to your limits. As he took you harder, you could feel the heat radiating from him, the possessiveness in every thrust igniting a wildfire of desire within you. His movements were calculated yet wild, as if he was trying to claim you, body and soul.

While Swiss was all hard edges and fierce urgency, Copia’s lingering presence in the room wrapped around you like a warm blanket, a reminder of the tender moments you shared. He watched with a predatory glint in his eye, appreciating the way you surrendered to Swiss’s control. The contrast heightened the experience, turning your body into a vessel for both men’s desires, each taking you in their own distinct way.

As Swiss thrust into you, the sensation of fullness mixed with a hint of danger made your heart race. You could feel Copia’s gaze on you, a mix of approval and raw lust that only fueled your arousal further. The dynamic between them swirled in your mind—one was the soft hand guiding you into ecstasy, while the other was the raging storm that left you breathless, wanting more. The combination of their contrasting styles left you spinning, the thrill of it all overwhelming as you gave in completely to their desires.

As their bodies moved in perfect harmony, you felt an overwhelming surge of pleasure course through you, a tidal wave crashing over you, pulling you under in its depths. Each thrust became a rhythmic pulse, a sweet torment that pushed you closer to the precipice of ecstasy. The air was thick with tension, each breath a mix of anticipation and desire, heightening your senses to an almost unbearable degree.

With every deep, deliberate movement, your surroundings blurred into oblivion until all that existed was the intoxicating heat of their desires entwined with yours. You could feel the intensity of Copia’s firm grip on your hips, guiding you deeper onto Swiss’s hardness. It was a dizzying sensation, each thrust sending shivers down your spine and igniting every nerve ending.

As you neared the edge, your body ached with urgency, instinctively arching towards them, seeking more. Swiss’s gaze locked onto yours, filled with a primal hunger that ignited a fire deep within you. You felt his hands guiding you, steady yet possessive, as he took control, thrusting with an unrelenting rhythm that made you gasp, each thrust blending pleasure with the delicious edge of pain.

With every passing moment, it became clear that this was more than just physical—there was an unspoken bond forming in the heat of the moment, a shared understanding of desire and surrender. The world outside faded, leaving you suspended in a blissful haze as their bodies moved together in perfect synchronization.

As the tension built to a crescendo, you could feel your own release building, swelling within you like a storm ready to break. You surrendered completely, the sensations overwhelming, as you felt both of them push you over the edge. Waves of pleasure crashed over you, engulfing you in an intoxicating warmth as you surrendered to the moment.

In that climactic moment, Swiss let out a deep groan, his body tensing as he found his release, filling you with warmth that mingled with your own. His cum spilled onto your tongue, the salty taste coating your mouth as his grip tightened, forcing you as far down onto his shaft as you would go. Breathing wasn’t much of an option here, but it certainly heightened your own orgasm.

At the same time, you felt Copia’s movements quicken, his breath hitching as he reached his peak. “You’re perfect,” he murmured, his voice thick with pleasure. “Such a good girl.” His cum filled your cunt, spilling out onto the floor with dull drips as he continued to thrust in and out, speed slowing down until he’d stopped altogether. He was breathless and panting, but still maintained the intensity of his grip on your hips even when he’d finished completely.

The heady mixture of their releases enveloped you, leaving you breathless and dazed, the raw intensity of the experience still coursing through your veins. As you lay there between them, the world outside faded into obscurity, replaced by the lingering warmth and satisfaction radiating from their bodies.

You glanced at their faces, and what you saw reflected back was not just satisfaction but a deeper understanding—a connection forged in this moment of shared vulnerability and ecstasy. It left you questioning what lay ahead, the dynamics of your relationships suddenly more intricate and thrilling than before. Would this fleeting experience evolve into something deeper, or had you opened the door to a world of possibilities you never dared to explore?

In the aftermath, silence enveloped the room, thick with unspoken words, a fragile tension hanging in the air. The lingering scent of sweat and desire hung heavy, and in that moment, you couldn’t help but wonder what new paths awaited you all, ready to be explored in the aftermath of this electrifying encounter. You couldn’t keep yourself upright anymore, too weak and powerless, you flopped down onto the floor and tried to gather and compose yourself.

As the waves of pleasure receded, both Swiss and Copia instinctively shifted from raw desire to a deeper, more tender concern. Their expressions softened, mirroring the shift in atmosphere from the frenzy of passion to the intimate aftermath of connection.

Copia knelt beside you, his fingers gently brushing the hair away from your damp forehead. “Hey, tesoro,” he murmured, his voice now a soothing balm. “You did so well, really. I’m sorry if we were too rough. We didn’t mean to push you beyond your limits.”

Swiss leaned closer, his presence warm and reassuring as he reached out to touch your arm. “You were incredible,” he said, his tone laced with sincerity. “I hope you know that. Let us take care of you now; you deserve that.”

With utmost care, they helped you to your feet, their hands steady and supportive. Copia fetched a warm, damp cloth, the softness of the fabric a stark contrast to the intensity that had just passed. Swiss, with his gentle demeanor, offered you a glass of cool water, watching you with a mixture of admiration and concern.

As they began to clean you up, their touches were meticulous, their movements tender and reassuring. Copia’s hands glided over your skin as he wiped away the remnants of the evening, each stroke accompanied by a soft murmur of encouragement. “You’re so strong,” he said softly, his gaze steady and filled with warmth. “I hope you truly know that.” By this point, his trousers were back on his body, and he was decent enough should someone walk in - despite you still being as naked as the day you were born.

Swiss knelt beside you, his eyes brimming with tenderness. “You deserve to be treated like this,” he added, his voice low and comforting. “We never want to make you feel anything less than cherished. You are everything to us.”

Once you were cleaned up and your habit had been put back on (or rather, what was left of it), they each took a side, wrapping their arms around you in a cocoon of warmth. Copia pulled you close, holding you against his chest, where you could hear the steady thrum of his heartbeat, a reassuring reminder of the safety you found in his embrace. Swiss tucked you under his arm, his touch a gentle anchor as he rested his chin atop your head.

The three of you lingered in that moment, a quiet intimacy enveloping you like a soft blanket. You felt cherished, loved, and safe, surrounded by their protective presence. The world outside faded, leaving only the comfort of their warmth and the soothing rhythm of their breaths.

“I’m sorry for surprising you like this and not talking to you about it first,” Copia said, gently rocking you from side to side. “I thought you’d appreciate being kept in the dark about it.”

You looked up at Copia, your heart still racing from the whirlwind of emotions and sensations. “I—I appreciate the thought, Papa,” you reply softly, your voice a mix of vulnerability and understanding. “But I wish you had talked to me first. It was a lot to take in all at once.” You bit your lip, searching his eyes. “I want to be a part of this, but I need to feel like I have a say in it, too.”

“Of course, tesoro. It won’t happen again without your express permission.”

“Maybe,” Swiss began, “next time we can all plan it together but surprise you with the timing?”

You nodded, considering Swiss’s suggestion. “I like that idea,” you responded, a small smile forming. “Being surprised can be exciting, but I want to feel safe and involved in the planning. I think it would make the experience even better.” You glanced between them, feeling a warmth spread through you. “Just knowing that you both care about how I feel means a lot.” Your heart swelled with gratitude, appreciating their willingness to adapt and include you in the process.

Swiss kissed you on the forehead.

“Though saying all that,” you continued, “I thoroughly enjoyed it… even before I knew this was a scene - there was something about feeling scared again that made me even wetter than usual.”

Copia, “I could tell.” He chuckled and rubbed his hand up and down your back.

“Maybe next time, you both could be rougher? Scarier?”

Swiss smiled, “Oh, I definitely have an idea about that.”

Translations:

Vieni qui = Come here.

Brava ragazza = good girl.

Sathanas, sei perfetto = Satan, you’re perfect.

Proprio così = Just like that.

Sei così cazzo stretta = You’re so fucking tight.

Dimmi = Tell me.

Puttana = Whore.

Kinktober: Prev./Next

Hellish Delights: Prev./Next

[sleepingdeath-light]

home again ; yandere!wally darling

requested by ; anonymous (09/05/23)

word count ; 2031

content ; platonic yanderes, memory loss (the puppets all had their memories forcibly wiped), references to child/teen reader, obsessive protectiveness, author’s first time writing something platonic so… yeah

note ; i haven’t written anything like this before (sfw yandere stuff) so apologies if it seems a tad off. similarly i’m still adjusting to writing wally’s character in terms of dialogue and such, so that may also seem a smidge ooc.

fandom ; welcome home

pairing ; platonic wally darling x gender neutral!reader

read also on ; ao3

It was a beautifully melancholy evening: the stars and moon were obscured with thick, grey clouds that loomed overhead like ragged old curtains; the air was thick with dust and pollen that clung to your skin and clothes like a man hanging onto the edge of a steep cliff, digging their claws in and holding on with all the relentless might you’d come to hate; your room was only dimly illuminated by the pale blue light emanating from your monitor, the low hum of the vents the only sound to compliment the clicking of keys and the tapping of the mouse. Quiet, drab and dull; how very typical of spring.

But at the very least it gave you all the excuse you needed to sit behind a screen and doomscroll. Tired eyes skimming over articles and activists decrying the latest tragedy, thousands of crabs in the metaphorical bucket of social media all fighting for the attention of bystanders — only taking pause when you came across something all too familiar, yet at the same time entirely new.

‘Does anyone else remember Welcome Home? It was pretty popular when it aired back in the 70s and my friends and I are trying to create a complete archive for it’ — the caption read. Below it was a highlighted link and a picture that had been burned into your brain since childhood: bright swatches of paint adorning every surface, all seeing eyes as big as can be, and in front of it, that permanent smile carved into yellow felt. Wally Darling and Home, you remembered them both clearly enough — clearer than you’d have liked, even.

It had been decades since you’d actively thought back on Welcome Home, on your brief stint in stardom, and frankly you’d have rather it’d been kept that way. You still held a bit of a grudge over getting axed: ‘too mature’, yeah right! Every kid loves astrology and nobody is too old to talk about their feelings… you were only 14 for crying out loud! Too mature, your ass.

But perhaps, you reasoned, it wouldn’t be too bad to take a quick trip down memory lane. Sure you’d loved the show when it aired, but you stopped watching after your section was cut, so maybe it would be cool to see what changed in the interim — and, either way, your experiences would probably be helpful to the archivists. So no harm, no foul.

————

The site was easy enough to navigate but man you didn’t expect to get so emotional when you went looking through the recovered art. They looked exactly the same as you remembered, all of them — which is kind of silly to think about since puppets and tv show characters in general tend not to change since, well, they were meant to stay consistent. Frank was always going to look terribly stern, and Julie was always going to come onto scene with a new fabulous hairdo, and Eddie was always going to trip over his own feet on his rounds, and Wally was always going to open and close each episode with a nod to the audience. These things were staples of the characters and the show’s structure so of course they’d be the same.

But, still, you somehow felt like they should have changed in your absence. A small part of your mind, an irrational part surely, crying out that they were alive and that living things were made to change — which was silly. And, frankly, a little embarrassing that you’d even had that thought at all.

So you pushed that idea to the very back of your mind where it belonged and continued to scroll through the various pages of the website. Art from official books (you were sure you even owned the ‘ask Wally’ type book and that it was still at your parents’ place), merchandise like pop up figures (the sort that were found only in cereal boxes and magazines), promotional posters and even one piece from your short tenure on the show. You remembered posing for that photograph, being told to smile and to wrap your arms around Eddie and Wally — but for some reason you couldn’t quite recall what their puppeteers were called.

Or if they even had any puppeteers in the first place.

No. That can’t be right. They were puppets, characters, they had to have someone controlling and voicing them — but none of the promotional art nor your memories supported that basic truth. It didn’t make sense.

None of it made sense. This was why you’d tried to forget that show so desperately after you left. It messed with your head far too much to be worth the effort so why bother burning out over questions that could be explained by a faulty memory.

A memory that could, in picture perfect detail, recall the route from Howdy’s store to Home as clear as crystal — as if it were your own route to-and-from primary school. A memory that could replay patchy conversations between Wally and Julie, bittersweet bickering over hairspray and hairpins that you could only recall in pieces, but that still rang clearly as if you were thinking of childhood friends. A memory that was imprinted with the feeling of warm felt embraces and puffs of warm air from stencil cut mouths that would have been impossible if they weren’t alive. Moving eyes, small bodies, freely walking, freely talking — alive and well and clear as day in your mind as normally as recalling your parents arguing over a cup of freshly brewed coffee on the mornings of each shoot.

The distinctly strong smell of the synthetic hairspray Wally used that would hang around him and mixed with the scent of oil paint like a cologne — that burned your nose if you hung around too close to him in the early morning. The sheer joy of Howdy picking you up and tossing you in the air as a congratulations for your first scene done well — caterpillar fuzz that stuck to your clothes for days, as strong as velcro. The way you and Julie squealed when Barnaby shook back and forth and sent droplets of muddy water raining down on you and on her freshly done up hair — and the joke that followed her exasperated tirade as you, through giggles, explained frustration to the audience through a camera they seemed to not be able to see.

Memories that kept unearthing themselves the deeper you went into the site, eventually culminating with you tearing up at the sight of old friends you’d been forced to leave behind. Silly, perhaps, but you recall telling the audience that it was healthy to cry and to let it all go — so at least your teenage self would be proud of your emotional vulnerability.

After a good hour of this, and more than in need of a break, you finally clicked on the attached message board and typed up a simple few sentences. A greeting and a farewell all in one before you closed down your computer and went to bed.

‘I used to have a segment on Welcome Home when I was a kid. I was meant to do astrology and emotions, before I got cut for being too old lol. This brought back so many memories. Thank you, all.’

————

Wally hadn’t meant to linger — really, he hadn’t — but there had been something oddly familiar about his latest visitor that he couldn’t quite place. Even from behind the screen he was trapped within, even as he watched their message load in, he could tell that they were different. It was their eyes, those tearful knowing eyes — he was sure he’d seen them before in that somewhere different, somewhere brighter, that came before the end he and his neighbours were trapped in.

When he saw their eyes he saw himself, a twisted altered reflection of himself that was filled to bursting with the warmth and awareness that he was created to hold within himself. A child’s eyes in the form of someone who he didn’t know yet he knew he must have once. A lingering, niggling feeling in the back of his skull, like fingertips brushing and scratching and digging into his fabric brain — rearranging and scouring and destroying and reaching for something that he couldn’t quite find.

He winced and squinted and stared through the screen to no avail, tilting his head and watching them as they flicked from screen to screen to screen desperate for a sign that he could use to place this familiar stranger. Unable to do so until finally — finally — their note came through and he was able to read the short greeting they’d left behind.

Then, and only then, did those forbidden memories come flooding back. A formidable tidal wave, a whirling rapid, of bright lights and experiences and conversations that had been torn from him and shredded in the writer’s room of their long gone creators.

He knew you, he’d always known you; the child too old for their youth that visited their neighbourhood in the beginning. Who always wore a beaming smile and treated them all with a grace beyond their years, spreading kindness and joy to his friends and to the audience only the two of you knew about. Who was far taller than his measly 12 apples of verticality but who never made him feel small. Who spoke eagerly of the constellations and painted the most wonderful pictures of stars and moons and planets far beyond their reach that he did his best to capture in his paintings. Who was only 14 but felt more like an adult than he did sometimes — he, who was crafted and sewn without a childhood — but who wasn’t above play and foley.

The child who was the absolute most; his favourite transient neighbour. All of their’s, actually.

How could he possibly have forgotten you?

You with your broad toothy grins, and your warm eyes that shone brighter than the stars you loved, and your arms that were big enough to carry even more apples than he could have ever dreamed of. You, who he promised to protect and keep away from the horrors of the world, theirs and your own. You, who never turned down a favour or plea from his neighbours.

You. Just you.

Wonderful, lovable, unforgettable you. His child of flesh, not felt, but he loved you all the same.

And he didn’t get to see you grow up, because his creators deemed you unbefitting of their world and cut you from their memories as ruthlessly as they’d cut your segments from their show. Welcome Home didn’t feel very much like a home after that — even if they didn’t quite recall what was missing.

Wally didn’t even want to think about all of the horrors and harms you’d faced throughout the years you’d been apart — he could see the wear hanging heavily in the downwards quirk of your lips and the dampened glint in your eye. He knew he’d sooner kill someone than let them hurt you, he’d threatened it plenty alongside Howdy and Eddie and Frank — they all loved you as dearly as him, once.

But in his current predicament he couldn’t do much to protect you. Couldn’t coddle you, couldn’t warm you, couldn’t sooth you with those sweets you used to love (if you even loved them anymore, it had clearly been quite some time), couldn’t do anything to help. He couldn’t even communicate with you, to apologise, to tell you he still loved you and that you were still welcome in their neighbourhood.

So he did the only thing he could; he drew you a picture. A silly little simplistic drawing, scratchy and crude, depicting a strong memory he had of you. The two of you, hand in hand, with your arms overflowing with apples you’d managed to steal from Howdy (oh how he missed such trivial things) — he hoped you remembered these moments as fondly as he did. Then, to the illustration, he attached a small message, a plea just for you, before settling back down behind the screen and hoping — praying — that you’d come back.

‘I’m sorry for forgetting you, friend, please come home’

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

heyyy I'm the anon who was kind of freaking out about the yuus in the anime 😭😭😭

you're right, I should probably just focus on my enjoyment and not the fandom- it's smth I've always struggled with. but I just saw ppl who clearly never had heard of twst saying "reverse harem" stuff and that's why i started panicking 😭

but yeah... I guess we'll have to wait and see. thank you for ur opinion and for your advice 🫂

[Referencing this post!]

Hello and welcome back!! Thanks for checking in. I hope that my response helped to ground anyone who might have been having similar thoughts or feelings. I know I can come off as stern or even disappointed in my advice posts, so 💦 if you got something out of it, then that makes me glad.

I think it's safe to say that fandom is a double-edged sword. It offers a community of people with the same interest to talk, interact, and create with--but in fostering that community, we can sometimes become so obsessed with defending it or caring about that community's opinions. It's important to draw the distinction between yourself and the fandom you engage with so you can still enjoy Twst on your own terms, separate of fandom. Otherwise, we may take things too personally and react very emotionally when we perceive others as treating Twst or its community in a way we don't approve of. Again, you should definitely prioritize yourself because ultimately we're not in fandom to argue with people, we're in fandom to have fun.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again because it might be helpful for those moments when panic strikes again. When you see someone making a claim about your fandom or related projects that makes you upset:

Stop yourself before you say or type something you might regret later.

Take a deep breath. Maybe sip some water.

Ask yourself questions like:

"Is what I'm about to say/write based on evidence or is it based on a gut feeling or a strong emotional reaction I'm having?"

"Am I expressing my opinion in a way that may be perceived as unfriendly or hostile?"

"How would I feel if I saw someone else assuming this about something I care about or was considering getting into?"

"Do I know the person misinterpreting my fandom? Whether yes/no, do I, on an individual level, care what they think? Why?"

"Does the person misinterpreting my fandom alter my own enjoyment or understanding of it? If not, what might the source of my anger and upset be?"

"The block and mute buttons exist. Is this an issue using one of those might resolve, or is it something that must be said or interacted with?"

Of course, I don't mean to police how you act and react in this space. These are only suggestions based on what I like to do. These strategies may not work for you, or you may not be interested in them at all. And that's okay! The only takeaway I'll ask of you is that you continue to navigate the Twst fandom in a mindful manner :>

[rada-76]

Supplement one to Part 1. About "rings" and "a spring in a box"

This post is in Russian/Этот пост есть на русском, здесь.

Preface "Marvelous!" | Part 1

There's a lot more great stuff sewn into the scene where Aziraphale drops the items in the magic shop!

"Hats" 

When Aziraphale enters the shop, he politely removes his hat, but similar hats are hung behind him in the shot because it's a prominent detail of his trip to Edinburgh. 

"The Angel in the Bentley and the Four Rings"

In that Part 1 I convinced you: the authors know how to make perfect parallels. But what is more important, these parallels also coincide in terms of emotions.

Look, both in the scene of things falling and in the trip to Edinburgh, Aziraphale feels stupid and awkward deep down, and we sympathize with him, but also regret that he disappointed us so much. 

But when playing with the four rings, Aziraphale looks at Crowley with adoration, as if hinting at their conversation about Bentley Yellowness. By the way, these rings are gold. How beautiful! The angel is in a very good mood in both scenes.

"The Demon-Snake and the Curtain" 

Now this is an absolute gem! A compact example of a perfect parallel! We look at the background around Crowley at the moment when Azi plays with the rings. In the frame next to the demon, we can see a snake statue, which is framed by... A theater curtain! Bentley's number is actually NIATRUC. It's a curtain (a theater curtain), only from right to left. Moreover, the snake in the frame is located between the curtains, but still in the distance, that is, now we have Crowley not inside the Bentley. And what is this glass ball between the snake and the curtain? A coincidence, probably. And then it dawned on me! The ball is placed in front of the curtain so that both the snake and the audience are looking at the curtain as if through it. And the glass ball is a lens that turns objects over, changing top with bottom, and right with left! NIATRUC!

We will see this ball in "Part 2", but as a symbol of the Earth. Things here often carry a double load of meaning. 

The curtain is not black and not yellow, like the Bentley. But it is red, this is Crowley's color in the hint system. And the fringe is gold, like the rings. And the snake statue is red. 

What about emotions? Crowley himself looks pleased in this shot. I do not argue, he grumbled at Azi on the radio, but in general he likes talking to the angel. In the scene of the first season, he also reluctantly blows the stain off his shoulder, and he himself is glad that he was persuaded. 

I also thought that since Crowley calls Aziraphale in the car, they should have added some ringing object here. And there is one! The rings in Azi's hands are ringing! No, think about it, Aziraphale in this allegory hears Crowley's call not just anyhow, but through the Bentley.

"Trick Box with a Spring"

Crowley is very scared of the spring with tinsel that flew out of the box! And Az is scared along with him. And the seller laughs, repeating: "Very funny! You'll die laughing!" 

If you want, think that the spring that jumped out is Gabriel-Jim, whom Crowley was so scared of when he unexpectedly saw him in the bookstore. Or that the spring is a yellow duster. Then the seller acts as the audience of the series, who unanimously think that it was very funny when Crowley was scared of Jim. And for the collection of analogies: the spring and tinsel that flew out of the box up and beyond the edge of the frame were compared in the fandom with Azicrow's joint miracle that went beyond the bookstore. All three versions come down to Gabriel.

Yeah, Gabriel's arrival at the bookstore has put quite a bit of stress on our heroes. So, Gabriel is a symbol of false, vain fear, he's a joke, a dud. Here they hint at it, laugh, they say. And in the season finale, Gabriel's harmlessness was confirmed. So trust the emotions in the clues, they more truthfully communicate the true emotions of the characters and the meanings in symmetrical scenes.

"The call bell and just enough of a bastard"

After the scare, Crowley is shown laughing sincerely and good-naturedly for quite a while. We rarely see him so happy. Is he really that happy for Gabriel and Beelzebub? There are no hints of this couple in the frame. No flies, no yellow feathers. But there is a hint of another scene. 

Now we will talk about the apology dance, forgive me. Many people don’t like it because of the feeling of coercion and because the author reminds us that an angel is not always a sweetheart. But the formula of the apology dance has already come in handy once, as evidence, so don’t you dare brush it off. I can’t stand zombies, but it looks like I’ll have to dig around in the footage with them too. The detective’s work is not always pleasant, but it bears honest fruit. Many clues in the season are irritating, but they are capable of attracting the attention of the viewer-detective.

Before the scare, this trick box is persistently shoved into our eyes, pushed to the foreground. What does the box look like? Yes, it depicted the bookstore at the moment of the miracle. But now it is also a button-bell for visitors to the bookstore, which Crowley pressed in the scene of the apology dance. Just look at how the shots with "The Call Bell and Crowley Before the Dance" and "The Box and the Trick Seller" are arranged: a figure on the left, a button on the right, a diagonal strip of the carpet and a diagonal strip of the counter, a vertical strip of the column and a vertical strip of the golden curtain. I am attaching the picture. 

The bump on top of the box is made in the shape of Aziraphale's pocket watch, and the brown color of the box is Aziraphale's color. These signs also hint to me that the box is connected with an angel who, deep down, is enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. Accept that this bastard made the Serpent dance, because the demon likes the bastardry in the angel.

The way Crowley smiles long and well, and doesn't let go of the box for all this long time, personally clearly tells me that the apology dance stroked not only my kinks and fetishes. If this were not so, the authors, who carefully build every little detail in every frame, would have prompted Crowley to throw the box on the counter after the spring flew out, and as quickly as possible.

But if you don't like my idea, then you can consider that Crowley enjoyed doing their miracle together with Aziraphale. As with Gabriel, the authors here provided us with a range of interpretations. The last frame of the trip, where Bentley turns black again, contains tartan mountains and a snake-shaped monster splashing nearby. That is, the conversation about Bentley's color was not a quarrel, Aziraphale and Crowley finished it, emotionally feeling close to each other.

"Arrogance and ears"

I'll add about the dance, although it's not about tricks. Although, it's hard to say! 

Aziraphale's phrase "I can see that" right before the Serpent's dance and the subsequent arrogant "Very nice" rhymes in my head with how the angel arrogantly corrected Furfur when he misinterpreted his name while reading the angel reference book. And the reference book contains the absurd phrase "has suspicious ears." Yeah. He hears with them. And the trick on Furfur is nearby. I have other arguments that Aziraphale's ears are important, but for now I'll have to put this pulp aside. The size of posts and your attention (precious for me) is not endless.

***

About the trick seller's table at the moment when everything was falling and ringing. There, next to the snake statuette hugging the bell with its tail, are two goblin figures. And in Edinburgh, next to the angel ringing the Snake, are two goblin figures. (There is a false movie blooper connected with these goblin gangsters figures, I will describe it in the post about the cups. There is also a brilliant parallel in emotions there.)

And there is one statue. True, there is a snake statue on the table, and in Edinburgh there is a statue of Gabriel, but the word "statue" is played with.

Homework for the inquisitive: why is the "three ropes" trick called "The Professor's Nightmare"? I don't know.

Ah, I know! Emotions help. Professor Hoffman praised Aziraphale for his tricks. And Crowley praised Aziraphale for the trick with the caraway seed, and how he praised him! And the trick with three similar ropes refers to Crowley's nightmare from the first season, when our demon mixed up the babies.

I am especially pleased that the inscription that Professor Hoffman made in the book could have been written to the angel by Crowley himself: "To the wonderful student." After all, the angel in the two previous flashbacks (with Job and with the gravediggers) showed himself to be his excellent student!

***

The thing is, "Queen" was playing at Nina's cafe, and there was a board with the inscription "Honolulu Roast". This is a reference to the story of the Queen of Honolulu. (From the post https://www.tumblr.com/indigovigilance/730554435104915456/honolulu-roast) Nefertiti is also a queen. And the words Nefer-ti-ti and Hono-lu-lu are similar. And just a beautiful thing: when Nefertiti is mentioned, I think of Honolulu by the consonance. It was lucky that two queens are connected by such similar words in structure! But is there any meaning in this connection, or just beauty, I'm not sure.

Next part.

All my posts with analyses are here. Author @rada-76 Translator into English @kimberleyjean

[t1meslayer]

T1meslayer Wrapped ~2024~

2024 was a bit of a rollercoaster year in my personal life, but in terms of creative writing it was a vibrant one!

Two of the zines I've participated in published their physical copies: poképocket (@pokepocketzine) and Homemade in Hyrule. Four additional fandom zines are also at different stages of active development, so there's no shortage of "big projects" on the way.

However, I still managed to slip in time for my own independent pieces — perhaps too much time, in some cases. There was a lot of feverish writing for ideas lodged in my head at the cost of whatever other video games or TV shows or drawings I wanted to do, in just the right way to trigger my terminal sense of opportunity cost.

But that being said, I am drawing more actively! Isn't that fun? I've even begun incorporating a few of those sketches into my fics, as was the case with "Peanut Butter & Jelly" and "Live Wire."

Overall I published-

22 fanfics

-to Archive of our Own throughout 2024. That's not to mention the chapter count for stories with multiple parts — except in that one edge case with "Stone-Cold Lovers," wherein I merely published the final chapter of a revived story from years prior. But yeah... Edge case.

When I dropped the first part of my long-form Pokemon Scarlet and Violet story "Fallout" in May 2024, I heralded it as my special 30th Archive of our Own fic (to not get muddled counting the handful of pieces still exclusive to FanFiction.net). Yet, when I published my final story "Live Wire" for Mariver Week on December 21, the total count read-

45 Works

Here's how the backend statistics shook out for last year, as captured on Monday, January 6, 2025:

To celebrate the end of a wonderful year, I thought it would be fun to give y'all a "Top 5 T1meslayer Fics You Should Read (or Re-Read)" list. Because hey... Who doesn't love a numbered list?

I decided not to count any stories attached to zines or similar projects (sorry Pokemon Holiday Exchange 2024), and I'm going to mostly avoid sharing unfinished multi-parters. As much as I love "Drowning," it feels bad to recommend it when I'm still dragging my feet on the second half.

That all being said, click on to see the list :)

=====

1) Scrambled Eggs

If you've ever read a T1meslayer fic, this is undoubtedly the one you've read. It's far and away my most popular story yet, garnering over 3,000 views and 300 Kudos. I originally write it to have a piece for applying to a certain @dunmeshizine, but it is also the first breakthrough of creativity for a series that well and truly changed my life for the better.

Seriously, I love Dungeon Meshi so much. You can't read this fic if you're anime-only because it does have endgame spoilers, but I hope you enjoy the hell out of it if you can! My "waking up at three separate times" opening drove the initial idea, but I feel it spread its wings so much further by the end, thanks in-part to good use of food-based puns and descriptors.

=====

2) By Moonlight

Most of my Splatoon 3 output rests upon the mighty shoulders of Shiver, the character who really rotted my brain away... Mostly because of how much I love them together with Marie. However, I do love other pairings too! The first part of "All's Fair in Love and Grand Fest" is all about Callie and Acht, for example, and "By Moonlight" here is inspired by Pearl and Marina.

Despite playing a lot of Splat2 with my friends, it wasn't until I really listened to Off the Hook music like Candy-Coated Rocks that I realized just how much I missed. So, with the Side Order DLC coming out, it seemed like an appropriate time to finally break out an Off the Hook fic! This one does a lot of fun formatting for elements like music awards, as well as cool visual storytelling inspired by discussions with my sister about music and emotional writing. Absolutely one of my more stylish fics.

=====

3) Neurocysticercosis

As previously mentioned, I have a lot of friends who are obsessed with specifically Gojo and Geto's relationship in JJK. So... That's pretty easy to milk when I want to write some birthday fics for the good peeps.

Where "Neurocysticercosis" stands apart from my prior GojoGeto fic "Infinitesimal Distance" is in all the ways my background research informed themes throughout. I found a new artist I really like while trying to dig up era-appropriate subjects for Japanese museum galleries, and it's amazing what you can get out of a character with some well-placed visual similarities! Plus... I may have done Shoko a little dirty... But her entrance into this story is one of the funnier things I wrote all year.

=====

4) How You Get The Girl

If you didn't discover my work through "Scrambled Eggs," you may have instead found me via "How You Get The Girl" — somehow my most popular Stardew "Sapphic Valley" piece despite being, like, the fifth one. It's the first in that series which isn't purely about introducing the cast, instead delving more into the relationship between my character Alex and Haley, and I think that narrow focus did the story a huge favor.

The centerpiece of "How You Get The Girl," in my humble opinion, is the long description of clutter in Haley and Emily's house. All of the individual elements are fun to sift through, but more importantly, it says a lot given just whom those elements belong to. One of the better bits of subtle characterization I feel I've done in the fanfiction space.

=====

5) Fallout

Okay. I know I said no unfinished multi-part fics.

"Fallout" is a bit of an exception to the rule.

If you want something standalone, my Halloween story "Obsidian" is probably your best bet — and it introduces Steven Stone's rock club, so it's a good best bet to have. However, "Fallout" holds a very special place in my heart for the insanely long buildup and all of the auxiliary multimedia elements I've been putting together for it.

Elements I still can't show yet because I hold true to my desire for fun surprises. But trust me when I say there's good stuff here.

I intend to return to this very soon (if other unfinished pieces don't monopolize my time first), but I feel less bad about recommending it over others considering it's the tip of the spear for an even longer-running series of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet fics that weave one huge narrative. There's plenty to read for any hungry fans... And if you just want the quick summary, I made a flowchart infographic for that too!

=====

In 2025, I want to try and be better about discussing my fics for longer than the shelf life they get through my Fanfiction Debrief posts (another thing I'm woefully behind on).

However, I do also think 2025 is going to be a year of subtractions. As of this writing, I've decided it's probably time to retire FFN as a posting hub. As much as I love making Featured Images for that platform, I can still make my cover arts without having to balance all the extra work with no response beyond a billion bots asking to do commissions based on my fics. It's also probably time to shutter the ol' Twitter page in favor of something like Bluesky, as much as I loath the idea of creating more social media accounts.

Bigger standalone posts should be on the way for those subjects.

But finally, I think it would be best to wrap this sucker up by thanking not just my lovely audience, but also the great friends I've begun fostering throughout this last year of creative writing!

There's a half-dozen people from various projects and Tumblr cat boopings and AO3 comment threads I could mention here, but @alchemicallymoon, @duelbraids, and @outsideexistentlines are the three I talk to nearly every day in some capacity or another. I really couldn't imagine this particular phase of my life without them, cheesy as it might sound.

Seriously, I cannot thank everyone out there enough for your support these last couple of years. Hoping to have even more stuff to share as soon as I'm no longer exhausted by the process of moving to a new state!

[widebrimmedhatsblog]

Nights for the Ask game!! 💕

(I’m still behind on OTRA so don’t want to get spoilers 😭)

I'm doing one night and then another for this ask, and the one night one shot on another ask!!

Favorite Scene: I would say the bit with Liam in the library, where he kisses the top of her head. I have NO idea what chapter that is because I haven't re-read the whole fic in full, but that was the first scene that popped into my head. I also love every scene in the Xaden POV flashback, but especially the Imogen scene because that's precisely how I imagine their pre-apostasy dynamic to be.

Favorite Chapter: The original one shot or the epilogue! I love the dynamic in the original one shot, the confined setting, the lap sitting, all of it!! And in the epilogue, I love the symbolism of them having such a calm moment. Also, ALL of my 14k Xaden POV chapter (I should not have started answering this when AO3 was down, because I have no idea what number that was...8?)

Everything else is going below the cut because I'm yapping!!

Hardest Scene to Write: Mmmm, every scene involving the actual plot? Is that a good answer? Specifically, that first conversation she has with Xaden about Naolin and Brennan and the forcefields. I forced my IRL friend to read it for me because I was SO nervous about the plot making any sense. Also, the scene where Vi reads Brennan's letter, and Xaden helps her through it. I got really hung up on writing that one, because I really wanted the emotional intensity to be there. For some reason, at that point I was really struggling to judge the emotional intensity of my OWN writing, but in everything I've written since that has an intense emotional component (OTRA, looking at you bestie) I've been significantly more confident!

Favorite Character to Write: Nights Xaden my beloved. In terms of comparison to my other fics, I seriously prefer nights Bodhi to OTRA Bodhi.

Favorite Dynamic: Riorgail!! I was constantly on edge about it not being in character for Xaden to be mildly emotionally available, but since decided I don't give a fuck! They were so fun! Especially at the end. Some of the comments I got quoting things Xaden said in those last couple chapters baffled me.

Why I Chose The Title: I can't remember! In terms of nights-verse as the series title, I thought it was a silly in-joke for me, because the whole fic until the very end only takes place at night. This was supposed to limit me and make it shorter so I could get back to writing original stuff/my plane crash AU sooner, but that actually didn't work! Evidently.

A Fun Fact About The Fic: I think this is something most of you partially know, but it was NOT supposed to be a long fic. I wrote the one shot for Alli and Amy's birthday bash, and a lot of people asked for me to continue it. I think they meant like...add a sex scene. But, I started thinking about writing my own long fic, especially because my favorite long fics in the fandom were both on hiatus at that point. Anyway, all that was backstory. The fun fact is that I sort of spontaneously came up with the force fields idea, and then I decided it was bat shit insane and no one would read it, so I told my IRL friend about it, and she encouraged me to write it!

[beatriceeagle]

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series)

Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast

Characters: Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett, Bren Aldric Ermendrud, Original Male Character(s), Yasha (Critical Role), Essek Thelyss, Astrid Beck

Additional Tags: canon compliant through Mighty Nein Reunited, canon inspired through Echoes of the Solstice, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, technically this is kidfic in both senses of the term

Chapter: 12/23

Summary: Six months ago, Beau adopted a teenager who loves the Cobalt Soul, but can't stand her. Ten minutes ago, Caleb accidentally summoned his own teenage self into his living room. So you know, they're both going though some shit.

At least Caleb's got experience befriending novice monks with attitude problems. And Beau's got experience befriending Caleb.

Chapter Summary:

The Nein throw a party.

_____

The Lavish Chateau's ballroom was grand and half-filled with people. Beauregard had sold this event to Bren as a party, a dance party, even, which should have been right up his alley. He had been trained to walk confidently into well-appointed rooms and charm strangers. But in reality, nearly every person here was someone who had been at his excruciatingly awkward introduction that afternoon, and Bren had never in his life felt less charming.

He knew who everyone was now, at least; Yasha had briefed him over lunch, and he'd committed the details to memory, making little annotations in his mind like a mission log. The halfling family, Veth and Yeza and their son Luc, were finishing dinner at one of the tables around the edge of the room, kept company by Caleb. Veth was particularly close to Caleb according to Yasha, but judging by the body language at the table, Yeza and Caleb were not close.

Fjord the muscled half-orc and Jester the pretty tiefling danced in the center of the room, with enormous enthusiasm on Jester's part and stiff skill on Fjord's. They were a couple, and spent most of their time at sea. Jester was the daughter of the famous courtesan Marion Lavorre, who lived at the Lavish Chateau and was chatting with one of the musicians at the far end of the room.

Read more

[sapphire-weapon]

Ada anon, yes, you're making a lot more sense than I am! In full truth, I'm biased and I'm happy to admit that. I've lived through my own horrendous sexist treatment and the OG arc and the way many fans of the ship hype it up just... gets under my skin. It reminds me so much of a forced "romance", the woman not being viewed as her own person, despite teasing so much excitement and a cool story arc. I'll be cringe and admit here that I find her OG portrayal and how she's treated in fandom spaces a bit triggering. It hits too close to home, and I think that for a very long time I just wanted to project onto this character and watch her "break free" from Aeon and go live her life. She always had this hyge story just on the edge of being told. We see her wnormous potential and independence. How crucial she is to the deeper roots of the plot, but it always only came back to Sexy Leon Accessory and little/nothing more. It hurt to see. That's ridiculous, but it's honest, lol.

Maybe it's an ott reaction and I'm open to hearing that, but you do make a much calmer and logical point, lol. Regardless, I'm excited for what both Separate Ways and other potential remakes (cough cough reboots) might do with the storyline. Not just in terms with redoing Ada and retconning Aeon, but Chris, Wesker, Sheva, Claire!! The future will tell.

Honestly, I find that fandom's attitude towards/portrayal of Ada makes the writing decisions around her seem way worse than they actually are. That's not to say that the writing around her isn't still bad -- it's fucking awful -- but fandom cranks it up to eleven.

Fandom treats Aeon like it's the single most important thing in either Ada or Leon's stories, but it's... not, really.

Leon is a complete afterthought for Ada in both Damnation and RE6.

As much as I dog on Damnation, it's by far the title where I enjoy their dynamic the most. Ada is not there for Leon; Ada is there to work, and Leon just happens to also be there. There's no master plan or grand scheme that she's prepared to rope him in to some dumb bullshit like RE4. He's literally just... there. She doesn't need his help when she gets captured, he doesn't need her help when the bullets start flying. They don't need each other. They are both existing independently and happen to run into each other.

That, I think, is what Capcom always wanted their relationship to be, but Damnation is the only title that actually pulls it off.

And RE6, like... tried to do it, too? While attempting to make it more emotional? But it just sort of came off as Leon spiraling off into a total meltdown that damn near culminates with him breaking from reality all together.

Deadass, I half-expected Ada to have a moment in RE6 where she just turned to Leon and went "This is not about you." She didn't, but she should have. RE6 is Leon sticking his ass into Ada's affairs uninvited, and Ada more or less just being like "okay you can help, I guess, but this really isn't any of your fucking business."

Fandom are the ones over here shouting shit like EVERYTHING ADA DOES IS ALWAYS FOR LEON like dude what the fuck

a. how do you not see that that's not a good thing? and

b. that's not even true???

Like, Ada's writing is still bad and garbage and sexist and racist, but fandom just makes it so much fucking worse.

I think that there's room within the canon material to have an honest, nuanced conversation about Ada's other relationships (Wesker and Simmons), but no one ever cares to talk about that, because Aeon fandom poisoned every single piece of discourse about her.

There is a reason why I have been low-key shipping Ada and Wesker for years. But no one wants to have that conversation. Because people look at Ada, and all they see is Leon. 60% of the reason for that is the writing, for sure, but 40% of it is because of the way Aeon fandom has treated the ship and the character for twenty five fucking years.

[homestuck-fanauthor-coalition]

Mouth to Mouth and Chest to Chest

@manifestmerlin

Your name is DIRK STRIDER, and in terms of stupid shit you’ve thought to do this might take the cake, it might make the cake in the first place even. What you’re doing right now is like running bases straight to the endzone and then kicking the racket into your own goal which turns on the oven, and- “Can you stop thinking about something that doesn’t make sense? It’s distracting.” John says, pulling your arm up into place to finish cuffing you to the headboard. “There, you're all secure.” You are… mostly naked right now, which is to say you've got underwear on and your signature shades. John is sitting on the edge of your bed, shirtless and starting to kick his pants off. He looks… bored? Annoyed? Fuck this was a bad idea you should- Your leg jolts as you feel a smack to your thigh, not super painful, but enough to get you to pay attention, and see John glaring at you.

Chapters: 1/1

Rating: Explicit

Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: M/M

Fandom: Homestuck

Relationships: John Egbert/Dirk Strider

Characters: John Egbert; Dirk Strider

Additional Tags: Breathplay; Under-negotiated Kink; Classpect Powers (Homestuck); Post-Sburb/Sgrub; Classpect Sex; Orgasm Denial; Overstimulation; Choking; Emotional Sex; Bottom Dirk Strider; Top John Egbert; Emotionally Repressed; emotionally repressed who? both of em; how is classpect sex not already a tag; Rough Sex; Nipple Play; Light Bondage; Light Dom/sub

[sephirthoughts]

my brother in christ you are using points MY FRIEND AND I PERSONALLY MADE to question OUR media literacy, without a hint of self-awareness, when we are among the biggest weiss/nero shippers there are (it is a very small fandom we tend to know one another). i don't really understand how you could have missed that. we are not at all subtle or apologetic about it.

the problem with what you wrote, is that you are confusing personal disgust for a moral position. you are also using "feminize" in a really transphobic way, and that is probably something you should unpack and examine about yourself. the reason i'm even taking time to reply instead of just blocking you out of hand, is because i don't think you're aware of what you're doing, and i don't think you intend to be hateful. i just think you're kind of new to this whole "critical thinking" thing.

i'm not here to lecture, just bring up a few points:

the entire first paragraph: all of this is paraphrased from something i wrote myself, to contribute to a friend's analysis of nero's sexuality. you have somehow misread his abuse and sexualization at the hands of shinra as justification for stripping him of his sexuality in its entirety. your standpoint seems to be that no one who has been a victim of sexual exploitation should ever be sexual again.

this is especially ironic because that post was all about the ways in which nero reclaims and owns his sexual agency. you are telling people to have some media literacy...my friend, if that's what you took away from our analysis, the call is coming from inside the house. it's hardly a question of media literacy, here, when you're failing at basic literacy.

"it's still not okay to pair two brothers in an incestuous way": this is puritanical moralizing about a thing with no inherent morality attached. primarily because it is fiction. FICTION.

repeat after me: ff7 is fictional. weiss and nero are not real. they cannot be abused or victimized by fandom.

"if you ship incest, you need to seek professional help. IT IS NOT NORMAL TO SEE THAT AND LIKE IT!!!": not only is this standard, boilerplate anti-language, it is standard, boilerplate fascist language, designed to dehumanize and ostracize those who step out of line. the word "normal" is used to place a value judgement on a personal opinion, and threatens everyone who dissents with the label "abnormal". there is a lot of crossover between antis and fascists in terms of mentality and methodology. how strange… 🤔

"i understand finding it interesting from a lore standpoint, but you can do that without supporting incest." : more standard anti-speak. accusing people of supporting the real-life perpetration of things that they like to see in fiction is how they try to demonize and invalidate anyone who doesn't agree with them, and to validate their own entirely irrational, emotional, personal-disgust-based claims to moral superiority. i won't get into all the ways this is incorrect because i'm not the education system that has failed you.

as you pointed out, almost all weiss and nero fans ship them together. yes. that is accurate. that is because this is a fandom based on a canonical, fictional incestuous relationship. honestly, if you don't like it, what are you doing here? you can't buy moral purity at the sexual abuse and incest store.

you said you hate it in this fandom, well i come bearing good news. there are literally millions of other media properties with associated fandoms that are sanitary and morally pure enough to pass your "normal" test. the antis there will certainly welcome you.

we in the weiss and nero fandom, however, tend to be highly literate adults who are fully aware of what we are doing. i.e., this is a place for grown-ups. you can't scream and cry because we refuse to nerf the sharp edges and put up baby gates for you in the place labeled "adults only."

at the end of the day, i don't think you're a bad person, i think you are very young and inexperienced, and have only your own gut-reactions to tell you what is good and safe, and what is bad and dangerous. i say that because i have seen this kind of puritanical overreaction a thousand times. it is the response of an underdeveloped psyche, reacting with shock and horror to things that are strange and alien to its experience. nothing can cure this but life experience and the natural maturation that comes with time.

my advice is to go see the world, meet people different from you, do some growing up, outside your self-constructed safety bubble. and read a few books while you're at it. real books. the kind that the christian moms are trying to get banned and burned for having "dangerous" ideas in them. you'll enjoy everything a lot more and be a lot less angry and scared.

we can talk about the fictional incest brothers in the video game about violent mass-murderers then.

NERO RANT POST

every time i see someone sexualize or feminize nero i think "did we play the same game". i know his outfit is based on bdsm gear. however he is not willingly dressed that way; it is used to suppress his powers and he did not choose what they dressed him in. and he's essentially an allegory for how male society loves to treat powerful women. he's insanely powerful, and to shinra, he is something to be restrained, to be silenced, to be locked away and hidden and abused. please have an ounce of media literacy about this man

also every time i see untagged weinero it drives me batshit. i acknowledge that arachnero is designed with inspiration from the arachne myth with phalanx, and i raise you: it's still not okay to pair two brothers in an incestuous way. just because arachnero is based on myth that involves it, DOESN'T mean you should think it's acceptable. if you ship incest, you need to seek professional help. IT IS NOT NORMAL TO SEE THAT AND LIKE IT!!! i understand finding it interesting from a lore standpoint, but you can do that without supporting incest. please think critically about the media you are consuming and about yourself. i'm fully convinced i am the only actually normal nero and weiss fan at this point. their tags are a hellscape and i genuinely fucking hate it here

[sortarapunzel]

clawing at the walls every time i come across a new sansûkh song. this time maybe by half alive

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

[gentleeclipsey]

Who's your favorite transformer of all time?

Hmmmmm, that's actually a really good question Anon! And I'm not too sure how to answer :'D I'll list off some and see if I can make up my mind! I'll only really talk about TF media I've thoroughly investigated, so I won't have certain continuities listed here because I haven't looked into them enough.

For Bayverse:

I really enjoyed Ironhide! It's rather unfortunate he doesn't get a lot of screen time though, I wish he had more interaction with everyone, then again I wish they all did. He was a very unique character in the fact he was nearly a main bot for the series and his death actually had a bit of an impact on me. It's unfortunate because he gives off the feeling that he lost his family before the war and the Autobots were the only family he had.

Then there's Bumblebee of course, he's a sweet bot for sure and he takes his job seriously! We really see him step up after the timeskip, making sure to take care of what's left of the Autobots, even if they're a group of bumbling idiots who don't listen. Though his character development in the last movie is very disappointing, he speaks with his real voice once then never again after that and at no point is there any real indication Bee was fixed. Still bugs me especially because they killed Ratchet who was actively working on Bee's voice.

And of course, Bayverse Optimus. Ngl, I've had a lot of dreams about him, a very particular one where I remember him humming or singing to me with a very specific image of the edge of a wall and wrought iron fence against a blue sky. In the movies he's a very stoic character with good bits of emotion here and there, such as taking revenge against Sentinel for killing Ironhide and doing his best to protect his own, even if after the timeskip he seemed more like a cash grab but I choose to see the last two as different movies. It was interesting to see his vulnerable moments, and though it was unfortunate that his character stagnated and regressed into this sellable toy, it was nice to see this very unique bot that could stand the test of time and leadership.

For TFA:

Bumblebee again, but for very different reasons. He's very impulsive for sure, and childish, but we get to watch him grow through the series in subtle ways! He has the potential for being a very emotionally complex character, in many more ways than one, and I wish people would use that more when writing him.

I also enjoy Optimus here as we see a very different version of him here than from Bayverse. He has this feeling that he's seething with rage but manages to somewhat keep himself in check. He's young, traumatized, and heartbroken over his past that he doesn't discuss at large with others. He's keeping what little of a family he has safe, and sometimes his judgment and behavior isn't great but that's because he's accompanied by natural flaws we didn't see at large with Bayverse.

From TFA I also enjoy Blitzwing, but this is mainly for Fandom reasons, same as Prowl. I've sorta crafted this vision of these two, about who they are and what they enjoy, thats different than what's seen on screen. I'll maybe go into detail later but for now know I enjoy these two because they have a lot of personal depth that I view in them!

I should add I really like Yoketron as well! But then again this is for personal reasons because I developed a story with @endller about Yoketron and his family! I'm rather fond of him, his mate and his seven sons because the shenanigans we came up with and simply because he feels like he'd make a very loving sire to a large family!

For IDW:

Rodimus is similar to both TFA Bumblebee and TFA Optimus in the sense that he's an inherently flawed and childish character, but that's because he never was given the chance to actually come to terms with his place in the world. He wants to be carefree, it almost seems like he wants freedom, but instead he's doing his best to lead and find importance in the job he's given himself because he cares for what he's doing and wants to be known by others. This hurts more when you realize that by the series end he's trapped in a world where he'll mean nothing and their adventure will only live on in the mind of the crew and to have seen everything go so wrong for everyone by the end makes Rodimus a fundamental piece in this epic adventure.

I really enjoy Megatron from here as well for similar reasons to TFA Optimus. He's a uniquely flawed character that is very different from many Megatrons we've seen before. Most continuities usually don't go into the fact Megatron was a suppressed mech, forced into a cast and role that didn't allow him the freedom of expression. The war started because he wanted to free others from being the slag the higher ups stepped on for pleasure, and it spiraled out of control when he lost his way. He does his best to make up for this and right the wrongs he's caused in the past. When he tells Rodimus he deserved worse its a painful reminder that he won't forgive himself for all he's done and that it's likely he won't be left alive thanks to where they ended up.

I like Tarn from IDW for a very weird reason in that he's an obsessive maniac that was hit with the reality check that his idol is just as flawed as himself. When Megatron defects, Tarn is enraged their leader would just abandon them, but in reality Megatron realized how much of a mess he had made when he lost his way and wanted to atone for what he'd done. Tarn saw Megatron as this flawless being and saw his word as Primus' divine word and worshipped the ground he walked on. It hits Tarn that Megatron is as emotionally complex and flawed as any other bot when he defects and this rips apart everything Tarn believed in. Given his addictive tendencies, it's likely he worshipped Megatron because it was something that made him believe in himself, especially after what had been done to him by the higher casts and what the Decepticons had given him after the Autobots took everything.

I think that's all of them! I hope this made sense! I have plenty of favorites simply for design and small character moments so I chose bots I think I really personally enjoyed for more reasons than one!

[martelldoran]

WHAT'S THE CAUSALITY LOOP THEORY

Why Emma, thank you so much for asking. I’m not going to waste time before jumping into this because this is gonna get long so without further ado...

Steve Rogers’ Ending and How Endgame Doesn’t Support a Causality Loop and other such rambles

Last month, I came across a TikTok that proposed that Steve’s ending made sense because it existed within a causality loop. I would link the TikTok but I didn’t save it at the time and trying to find videos on that app is impossible. You think Tumblr’s search function is bad? 🙄 But I digress. The TL;DR of the video is that due to time travel and Steve choosing to go back in time to be Peggy’s husband, it created a causality loop where he was always meant to be her husband because he went back in time and stayed there. The TikToker supported his argument by using Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (PoA), another film that uses time travel and has a clearly defined example of a causality loop. However, his argument is fundamentally flawed so I’m going to combine my knowledge of my two biggest fandoms to tell you why.

Continued under the cut because I have no chill. Beware, it's long.

To first tell you how Endgame (EG) doesn’t support a causality loop, we must establish how PoA does establish one and does it successfully. The TikToker specifically mentions the scenes that take place at Hagrid’s Hut surrounding Buckbeak the hippogriff’s execution, so we’ll look at those first. What the film does really well is establish early on that there is something weird going on well before anyone actually goes back in time. There are three things that happen in quick succession during this scene which sets up the causality loop we see later in the film. First, a rock flies through the window and breaks a jar. Second, another rock hits Harry in the back of the head. Third, once outside, Hermione hears a branch snap and thinks she sees ‘something’. There are also two additional moments later on in the film once the Harry, Ron, and Hermione have come out of the Shrieking Shack which should also be noted: a wolf howl that distracts Remus Lupin in werewolf form from attacking the group and somebody casting a full-bodied stag patronus at the edge of the lake to save Harry and Sirius from the Dementors.

Of these occurrences, the first is arguably the most important because it does the most to establish that there is something going on outside of the Trio’s current understanding of their situation. The film makes a point to frame the jar breaking as Important Information the Audience Must Remember because it shows a visibly confused Hermione reacting to it as she picks up the rock for closer inspection and we the audience are given close up of it in her hand. Not only is it framed front and centre in the shot but the rock itself is very distinctive. It’s almost wholly smooth but for a swirl of fossil, thus marking it as not just any rock but An Important Rock To Be Remembered. This was an intentional choice by director Alfonso Curon because he uses this rock to connect this moment to its mirrored scene later on once Harry and Hermione use the Time Turner.

The audience and the characters find out about the causality loop at the same time. There are clearly stated rules of time travel that say that they aren’t to meddle with time but when Harry and Hermione see that Dumbledore, the Minister for Magic, and the executioner are on their way to Hagrid’s hut they panic because their counterparts aren’t leaving. Then, we see Hermione notice something in the pumpkin patch: a distinctive rock, smooth with a swirl of fossil. Again, we see have a close up shot with the rock centred to show its importance. Stylistically, it’s very similar to the shot we saw earlier in the film which gives the audience an emotional pay off for noticing the connection. When Hermione throws the rock and breaks the jar, it sets the causality loop in motion. The jar was always going to break because they went back in time to throw the rock that breaks it.

And it’s the same with all the other instances. Hermione throws the second rock that hits Harry in the back of the head to alert him to the fact they need to get out of the hut. Hermione snaps the branch and is almost seen by her counterpart in the past. Hermione makes the wolf call to distract Lupin from attacking. Harry, and not his father as he had assumed, casts the patronus to save himself and Sirius from the Dementors. But each of these moments are set up clearly in the ‘first run through’ to set up their payoff when the characters realise, ‘Oh, I did these things. They were always meant to happen.’ From a narrative standpoint, these are planned out moments to clue the audience into the fact that there’s something bigger at play. It keeps them ‘in the loop’ as it were.

This doesn’t happen in EG.

To successfully have set up a causality loop that made sense and had the same kind of set up and pay off as we see in PoA, it would have had to have been established as early as 2014 in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (CA:TWS). This does not happen. One of the main themes of CA:TWS is moving on from the past. Peggy Carter herself even says, “I’ve lived my life, my only regret is that you didn’t get to live yours.” Then saying soon after, “Sometimes the best thing we can do is to start over.” Peggy’s character in Captain America: The First Avenger is set up as someone who acts as the backup/back bone of Steve’s own moral compass. When Steve falters at Azzano about what to about the captured 107th, Peggy is there to remind him of what is right. She serves a similar narrative function in CA:TWS. Steve is struggling with life in the present. He’s just seen the helecarriers and argued with Nick Fury about protection vs fear after the botched Lumerian Star mission. Morally, he’s in turmoil and has turned to Peggy for council because he’s trying to find purpose in world where his rigid morality seems to have no place.

From the point of view of creating a causality loop, one would think that this scene in the hospital would be the place where an initial set-up could be made and alert the audience to the long term plan for Steve’s character. Instead, we have Peggy mourning the fact that Steve didn’t get to live his life the way it should have played out, and why would a woman who has supposedly been married to another version of Steve tell him to move on? In addition, when Steve visits the Smithsonian, he watches a video where he sees Peggy talking about how he influenced her life and how during one of his missions, he saved the man that would go on to become her husband. This is the only mention of Peggy’s husband in the entire franchise until Steve reappears as an old man at the end of EG.

Captain America: Civil War (CA:CW) also offers an opportunity to set up the causality loop at Peggy’s funeral but again, this does not happen. The only family we are introduced to is Sharon Carter, Peggy’s grand-niece. When it comes to filmmaking, every choice made is intentional. From the hair and makeup to the clothes, to the music used, everything in a film means something whether it is to further character development, world-building, or the plot. Filmmakers have a limited amount of time to convey a story and anything that doesn’t matter isn’t shown. Therefore, we can conclude from the text of the film that Peggy’s husband doesn’t matter to the narrative. The person in Peggy’s family who matters to the narrative is Sharon Carter which is why she is given prominence during CA:CW’s funeral scene. Had the causality loop been set up here, there would have been a defining moment like in PoA where the audience is clued into the larger story arc. Maybe someone says something, or he meets his older self, but that doesn’t happen. It should also be noted that apart from a small scene in Ant Man, Peggy isn’t mentioned again until EG.

In Endgame itself, the film still fails to set up a causality loop. It could be argued that this is the most important film for the set-up because this is when the audience gets the payoff. The first thing we see after the 5-yer time jump is Steve in a group therapy session for those that survived Thanos’ snap. Survivors share their stories and Steve talks about Peggy, a woman who has been dead in canon for 7-years and who died of old age. It’s incongruous and sticks out because narratively it doesn’t make sense for him to talk about her and not someone he watched disintegrate in front of his eyes. Steve watches his best friend and hundreds of others turn to ash around him and that film ends on his horrified face as he sits by his best friend’s ashes. Narratively, this is the thread that should carry through to EG but instead, he talks about missing his chance with Peggy. However, unlike PoA, there is no indication whether through dialogue or framing that clues the audience into Steve’s eventual ending at the end of the film.

Even when he goes back to the 70s, we see him looking mournfully at Peggy through the blinds in her office and a picture of him, pre-serum, on her desk. Steve and Peggy’s relationship prior to Endgame is supposed to represent the bittersweet loss of the life he could have had had he not sacrificed himself to the cause in CA:TFA. Then, since the audience knows from Steve and Peggy’s conversation in the hospital in CA:TWS that she moved on from Steve to live a happy life, we can assume that this picture is meant as nothing more than a fond memento of someone that meant a lot to her. Once more, there is no indication that Steve is ever meant to be her husband.

It’s impossible to infer a causality loop here in the same way as we saw in PoA. In PoA, there is a payoff for every single unusual or weird moment the story presents the audience before and after the use of time travel but this is something that’s completely absent from Endgame’s narrative. Steve himself doesn’t even vocalise a desire to go back in time at any point in EG nor at any point during the other films he appears in. In fact, when questioned by Tony Stark about the possibility of ‘going home’ in Avengers: Age of Ulton, he says, “The guy who wanted all that went in the ice 75 years ago. I think someone else came out.” While it is indicative of his unhappiness in the modern-day, it does indicate a level of acceptance of the fact that this is his life and he has to make his peace with it. He’s taken what Peggy said in CA:TWS on board. He’s starting over and moving on.

With time travel, and Steve choosing to stay in the past came the fan theory that one of the pallbearers carrying Peggy’s casket in CA:CW is Old Man Steve, her husband. When presented with this fan theory, writer Christopher Markus said during an interview with the LA Times at SDCC 2019,

“I would very much like that. There is no set explanation for Cap’s time travel . . .I mean, we’ve had public disagreements with [directors Anthony and Joe Russo] about what it [time travel] necessarily means, but I love the idea of there being two Steve Rogers in the timeline. One who lived a long life with Peggy and is in the background of that funeral scene watching his young self carry his wife’s coffin up. Not just for the time travel mumbo jumbo of it, but for the just weird, personal pain and satisfaction that would be happening between two Steve Rogers there. I kind of love it.” [emphasis mine]

This shows that unlike in PoA there was no intention of creating a causality loop prior to Markus writing EG with his writing partner Stephen McFeely. In fact, it makes clear that the actual rules of time travel were in contention and that even those making the film didn’t have a unified idea of what they wanted to create in the first place. The fact that there is confusion surrounding EG's time travel is due to the fact that the people behind it, didn't seem to know what they were writing or consider the consequences of it.

What all of this shows is that an argument of a PoA style causality loop doesn’t hold water. The film doesn’t support it, nor do any of the previous films, because there aren’t any indicators for the audience to latch onto. There is no moment of the rock breaking the jar, or the patronus chasing away the dementors, no moment where that the audience is told to hold into this information for later because there’s some timey wimey stuff going on. Ultimately, when examined, there is no set-up for a causality loop that supports the theory he was always supposed to go back and be Peggy’s husband, particularly when examined against a film that successfully lays it out from the start.

Right, the more academic (lol) part of this post is done. I just want to address one more TikTok that bothered me because I have opinions and MCU Captain America is my Mastermind specialist subject.

The TL;DR of this one was that Steve’s ending made sense because he got out of the fight and was at peace and that that has been the ultimate goal of his character arc. This person argued that Steve used the Avengers to distract himself from the fact that he’s this man out of time and he can’t find peace without a fight which to some extent, I agree with. I don’t deny that that is a major driving force to his story. We see that in Age of Ultron with his WandaNightmare. I don’t deny that that is key to his character. However, this creator then made a comment at the end of this video to the tune of, ‘bUt BuCkY iS hIs StOrY aRc’ and tried to play it off like this wasn’t true or that people were wrong to think that this is the case.

These two things aren’t mutually exclusive. They’re both true. They’re intertwined. But you cannot say that Bucky Barnes isn’t at the heart of Steve Rogers’ story. Bucky was the catalyst for every single one of Steve’s movies. He becomes CA because of Bucky. He goes against SHIELD because of Bucky. He defies 107 countries and the Sokovia Accords because of Bucky. You take Bucky out of the equation and what do you have? What happens in those films if you take Bucky Barnes out of the equation? Viewing it objectively, and even without shipper goggles on, you simply cannot sit there and claim that Bucky Barnes isn't a defining component to Steve’s story. Steve Rogers is motivated by Bucky Barnes. Steve Rogers is motivated by the depth of their relationship and the fact that Bucky Barnes is one of the few things connecting his new present to his old life.

You can definitely see the fact that Steve is uncomfortable in the modern world. He doesn’t address any of his trauma but he still attempts to move on. However, if they wanted him getting out of the fight and finding life as a civilian to be the natural end to his story arc then there was a way to do it which didn’t require him going back to Peggy. It would have been a better and more satisfying ending if he’d actively chosen to retire because I often see the argument that him going back to Peggy is him finally allowing him to be selfish after shouldering so much over the past decade or more. If Steve chose to retire and put himself first, then that sends a better message. He’s still getting the chance to ‘be selfish’ but he’s not throwing the life he’s built away. At this point in EG, he’s spent a huge portion of his adult life in the modern-day. This isn’t the future for him anymore, it’s the present and he’s lived a life and made real connections with people. The MCU does a piss poor job of showing the interpersonal relationships between the Avengers but he is at least shown to be friends with Sam, Nat, and Bucky.

But he goes back to a delusion. Or an idea of something that was never his in the first place.

When I see people make these videos and share their opinions, I can see their points but it’s like they’re taking EG on its own when that's impossible. Endgame only ‘works’ if you have the context of 10 years’ worth of films. You have to at least be somewhat familiar with the characters, who they are and what they’ve done up until now to be able to make sense of it.

However, in saying that, they wrote and filmed the movie in a way to make you think you didn’t have to take into account anything you’ve seen in the past ten years. If you only watch Endgame, you only see a grieving man mourning the love he never had. You see a man, regretful that he didn’t get to be with woman he loved. So at the end, of course it would make sense that he goes back to her. But you can only do that if you completely divorce Endgame from its ten-year canon and in a franchise like this where they make a big deal about everything being interconnected, it simply doesn’t work. Steve’s story arc in Endgame is incongruous to the narrative arc we’ve been presented in previous films.

Ultimately, Endgame is a movie you’re supposed to watch once and then not think about again. It’s made for that first viewing when everything is shocking and exciting because if you stop to think about it even a little bit, it falls apart under scrutiny.

Finally, I think that the downfall of a lot of these ���Steve’s ending makes sense’ posts is that made by people who are most certainly MCU fans but not Steve Rogers fans and it shows.

[toxicshipsincorporated]

oh man, how about 1, 9, and 19 for that ask meme. gimme the salt

Imma do TUA because I think that's my most recent & prominent fandom and that's where we met ahaha.

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*

mmm...definitely Dolores/Five. And I'll say this, to each their own. Ship and let ship from the womb to the tomb ya feel? But...I just don't get it as like a ship to be invested in, in terms of it being two characters. At the end of the day, Dolores is just a delusion brought about by immense stress and trauma and so it's always just....Five. You can have him talk to her, have her talk back to him, you could even have him have sex with her but...it will always just be....Five (imo). And that may work for some ppl. I can see it really really working for big Five stans but for me, ships are about dynamics. I've never been all that interested in just one character but rather what happens when you add a+b. So I just don't get that particular ship.

Most disliked character(s)? Why?

I didn't like Lila. But to be fair, I didn't like any character introduced after season 1....or even characters that were intro'd in s1 and continued to s2. And that's because I feel like s2 was an effort in....completely flattening all the characters. All the hard edges and interesting bits (the nasty, dark, and unlikable parts) of characters got shaved away and it was treated like.....development? Nevermind that I think it sucks that for characters to be "good" characters (from a technical standpoint) or to develop they have be....less complicated or less angry, less mean or broken. It's was like a big PR campaign where the writers were like "nvm!!! childhood trauma can't make you into deeply flawed and difficult and broken adult!! it actually just makes you goofy and quirky!! haha, have a fart joke."

And after that rant, gonna bring it back around, Lila was...like emblematic of what the showrunner/writers THOUGHT they should have done for the Hargreeves in s1. She just makes no sense to me as a character. Her actions, her decisions, etc. for me lack any strong grounding in....human emotion. There's no strong motivation that acts as a throughline for her narrative. She is inconsistent. She seems to only act and react as the the narrative needs her to. She is the illusion of depth.

For me, I think the first season was...imperfect but interesting. And the season that stayed true to the emotional core of the original comics. In the comics, the trauma, pain and abuse that characters experienced never made them BETTER, never made them badass or cool or edgy. It made them brittle. It made them mean and bitter and nasty. It kept them from establishing and maintaining strong relationships. It kept them from being able to love people in ways that didn't push that loved one away. BUT!!! Despite all that, despite the Hagreeves' trauma ultimately making them into deeply flawed and at times impossible to like or root for...it treated their story as still worth telling. Yes trauma and pain is ugly. Yes, it is uncomfortable and difficult and it does not feel triumphant or good. BUT IT IS STILL WORTH EXISTING. And I just felt like...that was a narrative that was so so important to me. It isn't just the good survivors, the pretty ones, the nice and sweet ones that deserve to have their story told. Even the people who LOST to their pain deserve their moment in the sun.

But...the showrunners and writers (and much of the viewers it seems) of s2 did not feel the same way. It was....discouraging and Lila...is really emblematic of all that for me.

I also don't care that much for Luther, especially in seasons 2 and on. At least in S1, he...made sense. Did I like his decisions? No but at least I understood him to be someone who was capable of...thought? After s1, I think the writers thought the only way to make him likeable was to make him as dumb as rocks.

What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

I guess...the thing I hated most was how mean so many people were. And I won't lie and say I was always an angel, I definitely had my moments (or fifty...) but...I think that was also the environment that was cultivated in the TUA fandom. From the drop, people seemed so intent on harm, anger, and viciousness. And maybe that has to do with how...visceral some parts of the first season was and how a lot of younger people who maybe shouldn't have been watching got into it. There was so much lashing out and attacking, people called each other horrible things, made horrific accusations. And it all came down to (imo) wanting to hurt someone else, wanting to inflict pain on others. For what reason??? I'm sure there are many.

Also ppl were so weird about sex a lot of the times? And kinks and dark fan stuff? Like...the original shit was dark as hell and even tho the show was quite a few shades lighter, the amount of....hypocrisy I saw in that fandom was.....stomach turning.