#GIRL THE HUBRIS!!!! THE HUBRIS!!!!!! YOU CAN SEE IT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!!!!! THE HUBRIS!!!!!!!

[mintytrifecta]

Real bold of me to get into crafts with a known math disability as if calculation isn't one of the most important parts of it

[dapandapod]

Concept:

Geralt works in an aquarium, near the biggest fish tank.

Jaskier is a newly hired mermaid performer

Geralt was not told about this

In my dreams, it's still Mermay 2023. Husshhh time is fake. ANYWAY here it is! Thank you @magdelanesingerin helping me beta read <3 and thank you Ella-la for the prompt! It was a lot of fun! Please enjoy <3 On Ao3 here

Technically, Geralt does not work with humans. As in, he’s not there to provide care to humans.

Most of his coworkers are human, yes, but that is not the point. He did not start working here to serve people stale sandwiches and sparkling water.

Geralt knows every inch of the aquarium, knows every work position available.

He knows how to do everything, despite actually being there for the more excotic species of aquatic animals, usually with many teeth. Pros and Cons of working with the family, he supposes.

The years he has spent out in the field and all the late nights he worked with his doctor's thesis, all the scars from times he spent crawling through knee deep water that stank of sulfur and decay, only to find his arm swallowed to the elbow by something very small with big hubris-- all of that is put to perfect use as he wraps yet another dry, overpriced sandwich, or scoops yet another ice cream.

The reason he actually stays, despite the screaming children and the sweating parents and the bored teenagers and the entitled grandparents and the weird work tasks he gets assigned, is the way a young girl's face lights up when Geralt holds up a frog, big enough for him to have to use both hands.

Or the way the sullen teen beams when one of their rare giant butterflies lands on their hands. Or when he can hold an audience captive while showing them something new and exciting and incredibly nerdy about his sharks.

Geralt loves his sharks.

Due to every summer reason ever, Geralt has sadly been called away from his animal related daytime tasks to cover shifts where their usual summer employees are out sick. Which seems to be most of this month.

Where he stands right now, in the very small and very understaffed little kiosk, he has an excellent view of the shark tank, at least. As the aquarium has grown in popularity, so has their shark tank, his pride and joy.

Coën had explained to him excitedly that their new tank would have a much bigger viewing area, and seating area, almost like a little theater. To allow for future opportunities, he had said, and Geralt thought of the way he would be allowed to show off his beauties through the window and almost got excited himself.

It is unusually crowded today, and a lot of people are gathering around the viewing area and are chattering.

It's so loud, their voices bouncing around the room and amplifying, and it's hard to hear the woman in front of him inexplicably order their largest latte and a lactose free cheese sandwich.

Luckily, Milva is coming in soon to cover the rest of the shift, so Geralt can finally get back behind the tanks, out of sight of all the people.

But before he can, the clock strikes one, music blares through the speakers the speakers, and one of the employees he knows from birthday parties steps out with a microphone. It makes Geralt frown, because this is new.

Usually, the show around the big tank would involve a kid friendly lesson about the fish and aquatic animals in their tank, sometimes accompanied by a sweaty Lambert in a mascot suit.

This time, however, there is dreamy music, the lights are lowered even more, and the employee is talking about the magical beings living in the deep, out of sight of human eyes.

See, Geralt is a man of science.

He knows there are mythical and magical things in the depths, having been up close and personal with a few. But this sounds like they are setting up for some kind of misinformed children’s movie.

Which is why Geralt's jaw is somewhere around floor level, when an actual mermaid- wait no, merman, swims up to the glass, waving at the children.

Milva has to elbow him out of the way so she can serve the next customer, while Geralt stares at the Merman flitting around in his beloved shark tank.

The sharks stay clear, because even if the merman's tail is beautiful, it is still striped much like a dragon fish, warning all of them not only with his size, but also with his pattern and coloring, that he is dangerous.

Yet his smile is wide, his claws retracted to tap a smooth fingertip at the glass and wave at the crowd with a webbed hand.

His hair is chestnut brown, matching the pattern riding up along his back, with specks of gold dancing on his skin and in his blue, very blue eyes.

Geralt somehow finds himself by the rail to the seating area, and the merman's eyes lock with his.

As they do, they widen a fraction, and the smile turns into a smirk. The merman winks, and turns, swimming in a pirouetting circle as the employee narrates his movements.

As he swims, the light dances over muscle and bone and scale, the crowd around him making ‘Oooh’ and ‘Aaah’ noises. He is beautiful.

The merman keeps showing off, his many long fins twirling around him like ribbons in the calm water. It is mesmerizing, and as the show is coming to a close, Geralt hurries to the back area and towards the tank.

He gets intercepted by Lambert, of course, who steps in front of him with a shit eating grin spread wide across his smug face.

"Like the new show, did you, pretty boy?" Lambert says, sly eyes watching him.

"I didn't realize we had a new show." Geralt grumbles. "I need to-"

"-Go and ask our new pretty fish boy intrusive questions, yes I know. Just remember he is not a science project."

With a pat on Geralt's shoulder, Lambert walks past him and intothe guest area.

"Oh, and ask him for his number. Literally everybody in the room saw that wink," he throws over his shoulder as he goes.

Geralt feels his ears burn as he moves forward again, because yeah, that wink felt very... yeah. Words fail him, which is a bit unfortunate, seeing as he is just arriving at the stairs to the tank.

Climbing them, he tries to remember what he planned to do in the first place, other than, as Lambert called it, 'ask intrusive questions'.

As he reaches the top of the stairs, the merman is just climbing out of the tank, assisted by Eskel. Once again, Geralt feels his jaw drop, noticing that his tail is now legs.

Long legs. Bare legs, that goes up, up, and lucky for all of them, the rest of the view is quickly hidden by a towel wrapped around a slim waist.

"Figures," he hears Eskel snort, "Jaskier, this is Geralt, our aquatic expert."

They are on separate ends of the room, the tank between them, but the world narrows down to just the two of them.

There is, and always has been, a specific mood to the rooms that houses the the big tanks.

The way the water reflects light, sending it dancing on the walls and ceiling, how it softens shadows, how it can be dark but bright at the same time; Geralt has always did found it a little romantic.

Which isn't something he would ever confess to unless he was swimming in alcohol, or so sleep deprived he didn’tt even know his own name, but it is there, simmering in the back of his mind.

Especially now as he is standing there in the soft, romantic light with a man, who was just a merman, looking back at him as if he has discovered the world anew. He can even pretend that the humming of pumps and gurgling of water filters and dripping of pipes are an orchestra, a symphony to accompany a first meeting.

Alright, that is overdoing it, but still.

Behind Jaskier, Eskel is rolling his eyes so hard his body moves with it.

"Every. Frickin. Time. Jaskier, good job, don't forget to wash off before you get dressed. Let's talk after... after. Later. I do not want to be here right now."

Eskel leaves, patting Jaskier's shoulder, who only nods and waves absently, eyes still fixed at Geralt.

When Eskel is gone, disappearing through another door leading to more, smaller tanks and the food prep area, Geralt finally finds he can move.

It is oddly silent, except for the metallic sound of his shoes hitting the maze of walkways hanging above the tank. He stops, even before he has turned the corner to the final stretch.

"Hi," he manages after a few seconds too long.

The corner of Jaskier's mouth tugs up into a smile, and he reaches for another towel hanging on a hook on the wall.

"Hi," he echoes, his voice just a little raspy. Jaskier wraps the towel around his shoulders, using a corner to dry his hair. "So, you are the Geralt that I have heard so much about."

Geralt blinks. He did not expect people to have mentioned him, but then again, they might actually have warned Jaskier of him.

"Ah. Sorry. I can be uh... less than tactful when something grabs my interest."

Jaskier tilts his head even more and takes a step closer to him.

"So did I? Grab your interest, I mean."

Shit. Fuck. Shit fuck shit.

"I have never met a merman before." Geralt says stiffly, ears burning something fierce, and Jaskier looks amused.

Jaskier steps closer; his feet probably hurt from walking barefoot on the metal grating of the walkway but he doesn't stop until he is close enough to Geralt to stretch out his hand.

"Well then. My name is Jaskier, as you might have gathered. Nice to meet you! Though, I am not full mer, actually."

Interesting.

Geralt shakes his hand, noticing the tips of Jaskier’s fingers are a little rough against the back of his hand.

"Is that why you have... uh..."

"Legs?" Jaskier supplies helpfully. Geralt is still shaking his hand. "In part, yes. Some Mer have a splash of elven blood, granting them the ability to choose."

Geralt should stop shaking his hand. He really should. Their eyes are still locked, and Jaskier is still giving him that amused smile.

"You can stop shaking my hand now," he reminds Geralt, but doesn’t pull his hand back.

"Right. Yes. Right. Sorry." Geralt manages to let go, and is infinitely happy Eskel has left the room, though no doubt Lambert will look at the security footage for later. Shit.

As soon as Geralt manages to break the stare into the man’s eyes, he notices the next problem. Jaskier is pretty much naked, barely covered by the towels, revealing skin, chest hair, and the hint of a tattoo along his ribs and on one thigh.

He wants to ask about that, if it transfers to his fins or not. But as he stares, he also realizes Jaskier is shivering slightly. He's an idiot.

"I uh. Should leave you to get dressed. There is a shower in the changing rooms. Uhm. Can I get you a coffee or something? Later?"

Jaskier smiles that amused smile of his while Geralt is kicking himself internally. Words never were his thing, no, but this is ridiculous.

"As in bring me a coffee, or drink a coffee together with me?"

"Whichever you are comfortable with. Sorry, I am not making a good impression here."

"You are very cute, if that helps." Jaskier says, and Geralt blinks, stunned.

When he fails to reply, Jaskier pulls his towel tighter around himself, and nods.

"Right. So, I'll go shower, and we’ll pretend I never said that. And I'll see you later. For coffee."

Jaskier’s ears are slightly red, and Geralt wants to pretend it’s from their conversation, not from being cold.

Geralt nods, and flees before he can put his foot in his mouth any further, and only after he is half way down the stairs does he realize that he forgot to ask if Eskel showed Jaskier where the changing rooms are.

Too late now, he absolutely won’t go back and risk walking in on a very naked Jaskier. Nope.

When Geralt steps into the public area again, the crowds are slowly thinning out, now that the show is over.

Parents are herding kids towards bathrooms and other viewing areas, and Geralt decides that he needs to find something just a little better than the staff room coffee machine.

It feels a little cheap to go with the aquarium café, and he realizes he doesn't even know how Jaskier likes his coffee. Geralt himself has a sweet tooth, and very few ever believe that at first sight.

He decides to stand and awkwardly waits until Jaskier comes back out.

He manages to work himself up as he waits, overthinking until he’s standing there frowning and glaring at the wall when Jaskier emerges at last.

Quirking an eyebrow, Jaskier hoists his dufflebag a bit higher on his shoulder.

"You good?"

"Hmm. What kind of coffee do you like?" Geralt asks, before he can say something dumb.

"Black as tar, so anything is good." Jaskier smiles. See? You never know what to expect, even with sunshine incarnated.

Geralt nods, and leads the way to the little kiosk where he was working just a few, life-changing minutes before. .

Milva smiles gleefully at Geralt when it's their turn, and hands them a coffee black as tar, and for Geralt, coffee with milk and three sugar cubes.

Instead of sitting down, they put away Jaskier's bag and wander around the aquarium. It turns out he never had the chance to look around before diving in for his first show.

Geralt tries to not ask all the intrusive questions bubbling up in his head, his scientific curiosity temporarily pushed down by the way Jaskier coos at tiny crabs and little fishes in weird shapes and colors.

At last, Jaskier informs him that he can't stay any longer, that he has band practice after his show, and should have gone already.

"But I'll see you again, Geralt," Jaskier promises with a smile. "Next week. Unless you want to grab a bite sometime?"

Jaskier's ears are red again, and Geralt can feel his own face getting warm.

"I'd like that," he mumble, and Jaskier beams. They exchange numbers, just in case Geralt had anything else to ask.

Not one minute after Jaskier leaves, waving over his shoulder, Lambert is on him.

"Getting some tail, are you, pretty boy?" Lambert grins, and Geralt elbows him away.

"If you say anything ever again, I'll show Aiden all your drunk texts," he threatens, which he knows will only work for a few days.

Geralt risks sending a text that same night, and Jaskier replies only a few minutes after.

They have a lunch scheduled in a few days, and Geralt doesn't dare call it a date, not yet, no matter what Eskel says.

When Geralt goes to sleep later that night, he dreams of blue eyes, of chestnut brown and gold specks glimmering in the underwater light.

[moononmyfloor]

Dashing Youth Ep 15-16: Master Li

So I have some thoughts about Master Li and need to compile them, please note that I have only seen BoY and all the available eps of Dashing Youth, but none of the donghuas or the novels. This commentary is purely based on the observations from the drama, I might change my thoughts in the future and those who know the canon, please don't spoil me on his character arc!

I actually "love" Master Li's character, as in I really appreciate seeing a properly done grey character. Actual morally ambiguous characters are quite hard to come by.

He's all fun and games and nice and kind, but only if he feels like it.

He explicitly stated he doesn't give a damn if the kids who are participating in the entrance exam for his school are in mortal danger, he doesn't really care if unauthorised people infiltrated the premises because such is the nature of martial arts world anyway.

Like, wow.

He couldn't care less when two students dissappeared right in front of his eyes, and the only reason he waited for Ye Dingzhi was because Dongjun wanted to wait, and he wanted Dongjun, because Dongjun was a student who wasn't grovelling at the feet of him in respect and that piqued his attention. (His older students have repeatedly commented on this before, that the Master only keeps intriguing disciples and not necessarily the most talented. And he especially seem to like kids who don't give him much importance, such as Xie Xuan, because it makes him go like: How? Why?)

Upon finding about Dingzhi's identity, I feel like he decided to help safely escort Dingzhi out of the city not because he really cared for the kid, but because he wanted to reassure Dongjun and keep him away from the trouble plus if Dingzhi was captured, the unrest from years ago might potentially repeat and that would be headache-inducing.

When he told Dingzhi that he should be stronger and return to save Wenjun, it WAS the truth, yes. But did he necessarily wanted the poor girl to be saved? I don't think so. He just wanted to convince Dingzhi to leave and Wenjun to let Dingzhi go. (And not to mention just how borderline creepy and unempathetic it was of him to circle around that imprisoned young girl and say "I can see why men thirst over you, if I was 100 yrs younger I'd be the same.")

When Dingzhi and Dongjun had their reunion and were spouting promises of youthful optimism and future heroisms, he stood by side shaking his head about the pointless sentimentality.

When Dongjun was asking Lei Mengsha why Shifu was always busy doing this and that and not teaching him, Lei Mengsha answered that you learn things on your own, by being your shifu he only bestowed you the privilege of being able to boast that you were his apprentice in the future, it was simply the cherry on the top to this character's design.

That last scene in ep 16 was

A

M

A

Z

I

N

G

But you basically sealed the fate of martial artists with that hubris 🥲 It was badass but incredibly unwise. You angered the Emperor and now the future generation will have to deal with the repercussions.

He's not your quirky fun grandpa who will always have your back when you are in danger. He's a bored af immortal who's humanity and heart is slowly eroding away and will only help you not really out of kindness but because he thought you were amusing enough. Jeebus. And this actor plays him to a tee, unassuming sagely old man at first glance, apathetic and insufferable on closer inspection.

In fact, it was sad to see how these young martial artists, full of hopes for adventurous futures do not have any adult who actually care about their troubles (Dongjun does, but they are back at home. Changfeng's shifu is lovely but he's a recluse), except for those who find they are amusing/want to use them for their own agendas. The only people who care are some more kids who are only a little bit more older than them. 🫠

[elvenmother]

I need to talk about the latest episode of Ahsoka. So obviously, there are spoilers.

The flashbacks to the Clone Wars were brilliantly done and I noticed something that the live action version was able to pull off better than the animated version.

Just how young Ahsoka was at that time.

She was 14 when she joined Anakin on the front lines. 14!!

Now, I know that the Padawans being on the front lines was all part of Palpatine's plan to corrupt the Jedi Order, but the Jedi Council went along with that plan.

A group of Jedi Masters sat there, and when it was suggested that they put children into battle, they went: "Sure, that sounds right."

They turned an entire generation of Jedi into child soldiers. Granted many of that generation didn't survive because of Order 66, but if they had the Jedi Order still would have been screwed. The amount of trauma those children experience could never have been undone.

Ahsoka was 14. Kanan (Caleb Dune) was probably about 12/13. Cal Kestis was 12.

Any way you look at it, these are kids. And the live action Ahsoka was able to really drive that home. Age can be difficult to gauge in animation, but to see a teenage girl playing Ahsoka really shows the age gap between her and Anakin.

Another thing... part of the reason the Council approved the idea to send the Padawans onto the front lines was their own hubris. Their way of thinking at that point was, "We're Jedi, we're the only ones who can do this because we're the greatest."

They couldn't imagine a galaxy where they were in the wrong. This arrogance is seen times and again throughout the Clone Wars but also before it. Master Sifo-Dyas foresaw a war coming. When he tried to tell the Council, he was told he was wrong. They couldn't sense anything coming, so he was wrong. He wasn't.

There are other examples that I can't fully remember of Jedi and others warning the Jedi Council of the threat only to be hand waved away.

Anyway, this was my anti Jedi Council rant that bubbled up after watching Ahsoka. The Jedi themselves were the reason for their downfall. All Palpatine did was take advantage of their own arrogance and blind belief that they were infallible.

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Tony Stark

The whole fucking point of this character is that he is an arrogant billionaire arms dealer who realizes that he Kind Of Sucks and consequently spends the next fifteen years trying to Not Suck to mixed but ultimately decent results. On one hand you’ve got the people who act like hes terrible and like I get it I would hate him in real life too but this is a fictional character and you have to admit theres more going here. On the OTHER hand are his legions of fans who insist that he has never done anything wrong ever, he is the smartest nicest little boy who isn’t actually even a little arrogant, and actually everyone who ever went against him even for understandable reasons (incl. very morally upstanding Captain America) is Evil, actually. I say this as a fan of the character: PLEASE you can like this man and have him suck a little at the same time!!!!! I am begging you!!!! Help!!!!

Literally a millionaire who started out manufacturing weapons for the military. Was then chased by the consequences of his actions while not making any sort of reparations. Of course stayed a millionaire the whole time. Then did not communicate with the team about making a sentient "suit of armor" that turned into a massive slaughter bot. People claim that this should be excused as a result of PTSD but is his responsibility to seek out help and he most certainly had access to whatever treatment he could choose as a -in his words- "millionaire playboy philanthropist". Then supported an accords rife with human rights violations that he was of course exempt from - and refused to hear any of the others rebuttals to it - like they were not millionaires and did not have access to entire legal teams that would work to exonerate them. Then exposes Clint's family and farm which he had revealed to Tony in confidence and kept secret from any authority to protect them. Then Tony spends the rest of Civil War trying to straight up murder Bucky - ignoring that it had already been established that Bucky had no agency nor autonomy in his time as the Winter Soldier, in doing so ignored the Accords he had advocated for. He then kidnapped a 16 year old child - who he did not tell why he was taking him - in direct contradiction with the accords and then allowed for Steve's team to be held in a maximum security prison with no trial. He then proceeded to refuse any sort of communication with Steve, resulting in a delay of him defending Earth from Thanos' invasion. After this - despite his failure playing part in the deaths of half the universe, and the child in front of him he treated as a son - he refused to rectify his failure because he had a family now - ignoring the literal entire universe who had lost their families. Upon his death he was treated as a hero and the one who saved the universe, despite his actions being that of hubris.

The Darkling

Okay so this guy is the main bad guy of the series. He made “the fold” this barren wasteland of darkness and monsters dividing the land, causing like hundreds of thousands of people to die. He killed his mom. He psychologically manipulated his girlfriend (like, he caused her to hallucinate and a whole bunch of other crazy stuff). He made one of his followers (a young girl) use her body to slowly poison the king over time. He started a cult. He did a LOT of crazy stuff. However, we do see his backstory of him as a kid, and learn that he did all this in the name of equality, so people would stop torturing and killing the ‘grisha’ or the witches/magic users. Later, he fakes his own death and starts a cult worshipping him and acts as the leader of the cult, going by his old name Aleksander. He is a very complicated character. So tell my why everyone thirsts after him and is like “he did nothing wrong” HELLO?! He is NOT your poor little meow meow he is complies please please don’t sanitize him

[manorpunk]

(Rough Draft)

The fist of Marcus Aurelius Bezos collided with the extravagantly large wall-mounted display screen before him. The screen cracked and crumpled, denting inwards from the blow. The room dimmed as the live coverage of the 206X election was suddenly replaced with darkness.

“Disgusting.”

He slowly pulled his hand back, still clenched into a white-knuckled fist, trembling with tension.

“Absolutely disgusting. America is in the thrall of jumped-up manor-lords and checked-out VRheads, and who do they choose to pull them up from this muck? Who, at this turning point of history, do the people elect as their president?”

He looked down at his fist. Shards of glass were embedded in his knuckles, and rivulets of blood were trickling down his arm.

“A vtuber. A goddamned anime girl vtuber.”

He reached for his tabule with his other hand, trying to keep the blood from dripping on anything expensive, which, in a muskling’s house, was most things.

“Steward,” he spoke into his tabule, “Send a MediBot to the viewing room.”

“Dispatching: MediBot, to: viewing room,” the tabule replied in a crisp, soothing voice.

Marcus sat down and slumped back in his chair. He closed his eyes and the tension began to ease from his body, slowly and begrudgingly.

“Fine,” he said to himself through unclenching teeth, “I have lost the battle, but not the war. That girl is in over her head. It’s only a matter of time until she’s forced out in disgrace. And when that happens, I will be there, and I will be ready.”

He barely stirred as he heard the whine of the MediBot’s electric motors. The MediBot - a device which looked sort of like a tool cart with robot arms - gingerly took his injured hand, spritzed it with antibiotics, and bandaged it.

Marcus lifted his head and raised his hand to inspect the MediBot’s work - perfect, as usual. His eyes wandered back to the massive broken screen on the wall in front of him.

“Mark my words, Sunny Roosevelt. You will fall, and you—“

“Incoming call from: Sunny Roosevelt,” his tabule interrupted him.

He sighed, picked it up, and pressed ‘reject call.’

“Call rejected. Incoming call from: Sunny Roosevelt.”

He pressed ‘block caller.’

“Caller blocked. Incoming - gzhhkk… manual override. Connecting to: Sunny Roosevelt.”

There she was, in all her digital glory, smile beaming, eyes wide, being seen whether one wanted to see her or not.

“Hey Marcus! Whew, that was quite the race. No hard feelings, ĉu ne?” Her voice was light and unrepentantly charming.

“This isn’t over, Sunny.”

“It is, sorry. The official votes from Piedmont and Texaplex were just announced. You’re watching the coverage too, right?”

Marcus glanced at the broken screen again.

“Yes, this race is over. But the battle for America’s soul shall rage for decades to come.”

“Neat. Well, I’m graciously waiting for you to give your concession speech before I start celebrating, so, y’know. Hurry it up.”

Marcus spluttered for a moment before responding. “What makes you think you can order me around?”

“I’m not. I just know you’re big on ceremony and propriety and all that, and it’s traditional to let you give your concession speech first.”

Marcus breathed heavily through his nose as if trying to shoot fire from his nostrils. “You called me just to rub your victory in my face, didn’t you?”

She giggled. “Maybe just a little.”

+++++

📓 Faction: Musklings

The billionaire class of Imperial America is long gone, but the final testament to their hubris lives on: their mass-reproduced children, ignominiously dubbed ‘musklings.’ Born en masse on surrogate farms, used as test subjects for poorly-understood genetic modifications, and sometimes even subjected to bizarre and unethical ‘training regiments’ in the hopes of breeding the next generation of rulers.

That was all long ago, before the Polycrisis. After the Qingdao Accords, musklings were given ample stipends in perpetuity in exchange for losing control of their various shares and dividends - the buying-off of claimants to the throne, essentially. Today (i.e. 206X), the typical muskling is a quixotic nuisance, chasing pipe dreams, buying friendships, and doing anything other than getting therapy for their obvious neuroses and parental trauma.

But not all musklings are typical.

[ileftherbackhome]

on my hunger games bullshit but to further my analysis of president snow, lets turn to Coin and why her arc mirrors snow so precisely as well as the symbolism of her being murdered right in front of snow and the others.

first, snow and coin are both power-hungry fascists. they do not give a fuck about the districts, they only want to be the one doling out punishment but Coin is just as arrogant in her own snake-like intelligence as Snow is that she makes a critical mistake just before her death. She confesses to Katniss that she was a pawn in her own mastermind strategy to take power from Snow not to end the games but to dole out her own form of justice against who she considered to be the ultimate "evil."

in this moment, we see the startling comparison to Snow in her belief that she could speak to the GIRL WHO WON HER REVOLUTION FOR HER like that and expect her to go along with these "punishment" games, as if she isnt all too aware of the official narrative of the CURRENT games SHE LOST HER SISTER to change, as if Coin didnt know she LOST HER SISTER FIGHTING FOR COIN, but Coin believed Katniss would cow in fear of her "leadership" over all 13 districts, believed Katniss would cow under her "cunning" strategy to win power for herself and believed Katniss would feel out-numbered by her superior wit and inteliigence to Katniss specifically. Thats why she invited the other victors, some of which she knew were angry enough to agree in the heat of moment with Coin, as a way to force Katniss to submit to her privately and then publically because Coin believed she was smart enough to control anyone, just like Snow did. Except unlike Snow, she differed in just one critical aspect.

Her hubris led her to lie to Katniss and everyone else around her because she believed nobody was smart enough to pick up on those lies. She believed that nobody could fool her, and that is when Katniss called her bluff by pretending to agree herself. if Coin was as smart as Snow, as smart as Katniss, she would have known right then and there that she had fucked up. not even Snow was presumptuous enough to believe he could lie to Katniss, no he KNEW he would have to be honest with her in order to get her to move even a little bit the way he wanted her and if Coin was even smarter than Snow, she would have realized that Katniss would never have let her get away with her identical plan to Snow.

The fact that she brought Katniss in front of her supporters, whom I fully believed she expected would protect her from Katniss because she thinks everyone is as image obssesed as she is, to kill Snow and then she stood right on top of him, the visual representation of being a bigger threat than Snow could ever be because at least Snow had fucking a moral code, and expected Katniss to do her bidding for her and usher in her reign of terror was absolutely brilliant of Collins tbh.

it shows us that the most dangerous move of all is the assumption that you are the smartest person to have ever existed, because other people are just as capable of lying to your face as boldly as you do. it shows us that even the most terrifying of villains can be taken down and stopped by another human killing them because ultimately their power is not innate. it is earned through fear, abuse, and terror and that is something that good humans can always overcome because we just fucking outnumber the villains.

the most powerful lesson from the hunger games is that we're all fucking human, every last one of us and we all have reasons to behave badly but at our core, we should try and be good because if we give in to our evil impulses, we will ALWAYS be outnumbered by the sheer amount of good that exists in the world.

[renee-writer]

Out of Time Chapter 19

AO3

SWAT goes first. Everyone is at high alert. The explosion on all their minds. Hard eyes scan the little house, on the quiet street. A for sale sign are on the lawns on either side.

 

“No neighbors. Helps to keep the secret.” John mumbles. He stands behind Murtagh and Jamie. Geillis is in front of them and Mary behind.

 

“Aye.” Murtagh replies. They walk briskly behind the SWAT team. Guns are at the ready and eyes are scanning. 

 

The old porch gives a groan as the step on it. A brisk knock, a shout, “The police, open up!” and the door is breached. Everyone spreads out. Guns out. “Clear!” echoes as each room is searched.

 

“They aren’t on the main floor. I would imagine a basement.” Geillis heads down, following a few members of the SWAT unit.

 

The smell is what they notice first. It is the smell of a teenage boy, times a hundred. Semen and sweat. The men try to run but SWAT gets them.

 

“Where are ye going?” a big burly man says as he grabs one of the brothers. “You ashamed of yer handiwork.”

 

“Right o, don’t ye want to introduce us to your dates?” Another says, grabbing his brother.

 

Geillis radios her team and they head down. Ambulances are called as the brothers are roughly manhandled upstairs and loaded into separate cars.

 

Mary swallows hard at seeing Windy and Dana. “At least we can get them back to their families. Maybe they won’t remember much.” The paramedics are starting lines, taking vitals and hurrying to get them out of the basement.

 

“Depends on how deep they were under.” John says.

 

Jamie and Murtagh sit across from Joe Gerald. “Pretty stupid to have sent those videos to our tech analyst. That is how we found you.” Murtagh days in a conversational style.

 

“What do you expect from a lad who has to drug a lass to be able to rape her.” Jamie adds looking at Joe can with unveiled disgust.

 

“Your hubris was your downfall. You and your brother thought you were smarter then us.”

 

“Bad mistake. No one is smarter then CB. You will now spend the rest of your miserable lives in prison.” Jamie shakes his head, “Where I pray you get to experience what it is like to be raped yourself.”

 

Joe stays quiet throughout. He just sneers at them.

 

After a short plane ride they arrive home. Murtagh and the other members of the team hug Claire. Jamie hugs her and then, as promised, kisses her. This brings a air of levity that is surely needed after that case. The kiss is work appropriate. Just a bare pressing of his against hers. It leaves them both longing for more.

 

“Hey baby girl how about I take you to dinner.” He whispers so only she can hear.

 

“I would like that.” They grin at each other.

[neurospicy-diaries]

How I realized I am autistic

So, let's get started with a fun one! It's also long, so brace yourself.

It was two years ago and the catalyst event that caused the lighting strike scared the shit out of everybody, except me (and my mum and sister).

It all starts with a snake.

It was the end of August, I was back from vacation, bored and lonely. Luckily a friend of mine was back too. I begged her to see each other in the evening and up we went to the park near my apartment.

It's a nice park, well kept. Surprisingly my city has very nice parks and this one it's quite historical too. It's my favorite and in the 17 years I lived in this city I firmly refused to even consider moving away from the it and the river (which, in retrospect, was a clear indicator too).

The evening was not too hot and we were on the condos side of the boulevard, on our left the park and the busy car lanes. In front of us, like 20 meters, a group of adults and children were gathered around something. I understood immediately what was going on.

-----------------

Back story!

That was the first very hot summer for us. Being in the north of the country we always "enjoyed" not so hot summers (compared to the central and southern regions at least, not the summers of my youth; lets just say that till that summer fans were enough to keep us cool during the day). Very hot weather causes lots of things, specifically it causes things to get out from their usual spots because now they're too hot and they're searching for relief outside (where they usually don't venture in). Two months before two of these things did exactly that, in the center of the city, in a third floor apartment, scaring the shit out of the humans: they were two grass snakes. Very harmless of course, but fully grow and this is the big city. The media had two field weeks. As a mountain girl I was very annoyed.

End of back story!!

-----------------

As I was saying, I understood immediately what was going on: another poor snake got out searching for relief and found itself with wall at its back and a dozen of humans all around. The snake was small and it kicked in me a double protective instinct: not only it was a poor defenseless snake, it was a baby snake! I had to save it!

I activated my (quite arrogant I must say) mountain personality and entered the circle. One the men told me they weren't sure if it was a viper or not but come on! We're in the big city, vipers don't live here, so of course it wasn't!

That's when one the of the many educational holes my parents left me with manifested itself: they never taught me how to catch a snake. I'll give you a hint: you don't do it like lizards, which is exactly what I did.

The snake, in all its right, bit me and that's when I realized the mistake of my hubris: it was a viper alright. If the two fangs bite wasn't enough to confirm it, the vertical pupils were just the icing on the cake.

Despite this, not only I did not disclose the truth to the audience but I assured them it was just a normal snake bite (because I didn't want another social media storm about snakes in the city).

So, while my friend was panicking (because she's not a city girl either and immediately caught on the truth) I calmly kept reaching the park while thinking of a place to dispose of the very damn cute viper. I also gave my phone to her so she could photograph it and send it to my mom that, in 5 mins, was able to reach a friend to confirm that yeah, it was a viper. I reached the river bank (it's a big river) and decided the snake could take a swim, cause I needed to go to the ER (snakes can swim). I was able to launch it in the water and off we went to phone the emergency line.

Everything that happened after that was very funny.

(Like, literally, for me at least).

First, the operator couldn't input the address we were at for the ambulance, because I was inside the park, not in an actually street with a name and number of the buildings, so we had to go to the edge of it under a very well known city landmark. It took us like 15 mins to rendezvous. Once on the ambulance, we actually had to wait another 15 mins because they didn't know to which hospital send me. I mean, fair, it's not everyday that in a metropolis people get bitten by a viper. At the ER, it took another 15-20 mins to actually being admitted because the doctor didn't believe it could be a viper (again, fair; 1 million people city in the plains!!) and made me send the pictures of the baby to the Poison Control Center. After a while they confirmed it: not only was a viper, it was an aspis!!

My inner Egypt enthusiast child was over the moon (while my friend was outside on the verge of a panic attack and was sharing it with everyone we know. Still today I can't hear the end of it from them, while I'm very peachy and actually excited from the experience).

So I got admitted in the ER trauma department, which is the one were all urgent patients comes in and then back after surgery to be monitored. A couple of things about this department: they rarely get conscious people and when they get them back they're never conscious. I was and I remained it for all my permanence (except when I fell asleep of course).

What does that mean? So much hilarity for me.

They weren't prepare to a patient that was able to:

move

listen

talk back

needed to go to the bathroom (thus to be disconnected/reconnected from everything)

eat

I had to remind them at dinner time and breakfast that I had regular needs. It did catch them by surprise both times.

During the first assessment (in which the nurses were a bit taken aback by my chilliness) I received the visits of two police women (because a viper is serious business and they have to keep track of this thing) that were assured I did it for the kids (it's the official reason written in the report so nobody snitches on me, ok?!?!) and the first batch of curios personnel that wanted to see the woman bitten by a viper in the center of the city (yes, I was a hospital celebrity for two days!). More would have follow till the next evening (only curios people, not policemen).

I got to ear experienced doctors and nurses racking their brains on manuals that they probably never opened before to search for a procedure they never thought they would have to follow, discussing which medications I needed (anti venom is not used anymore except if you're about to die!) and reporting hourly with the PCC to gave them my status. I also got to be annoyed as fuck in the night by the constant beeps of the machines when they disconnected patients to move them (because sedated people don't complain about the noise and awake people need to hear them).

One of the first times they came to check on me I answered before they could ask their question (door wasn't completely closed nor very sound proof) and it was hilarious to see their face. But they got their kicks back because I fully felt the epinephrine entering my system (NOT FUN).

Next day after breakfast they moved me to the emergency department. It's where patients with sever complications stays but even in that department I was an anomaly because:

I could move without help

I would move often

I rarely napped and I needed my phone charged to not get too bored

One of the nurses got a little startled when I got out of the bathroom one time (I also heard several: "Why are you in this department? You're fine!!").

I also probably lowered the average age of all the patients because mostly only old people get sent there.

Let's keep going.

Despite the beds being the most amazing beds ever (I got two fabulous night of sleep, I'm not exaggerating when I say I felt like I was on holiday again) I was bored and still lonely. People came and went to hear about the viper bite, a friend of mine that works there came too, but nobody could stay long (also, covid procedures were not fully lifted yet, so no visitors), that's why when the hospital chaplain came for his daily rounds I refused the prayer but happily talked to him (I'm an atheist and quite anti-religious).

Last parenthesis: this is Italy and the chaplain was from Tuscany. If you don't know, the Italian language owns its origins to Tuscans and Dante is considered the first one to have written a complex work in vulgar Italian. Still today Tuscan regularly talk with terms that feel out of use in the rest of the country and a quite precise phrase construction (and choice of words). It's one the reason I like them.

So, we were chatting and I told him my tale, he was perplexed as anyone else of course and said these exact (translated) words: "That's weird, because a viper it's quite easy to spot, it has a rhomboid head..." and I stopped hearing anything else.

In that moment I was John Belushi finally seeing the light and the light was: fuck, I do process information differently.

As I mentioned I come from the mountains and vipers are not uncommon up there (despite me never seeing one till the evening before). Of course they explained to me till the nausea how to distinguish a grass snake from a viper: the first one has a round head, the second one has the tip of its head triangular.

However, I never understood it, never, because my brain always figuratively translated the description like this:

and no amount of repetitions changed that. It was no surprise that I got bitten after all (when I told my sister, she upped the ante saying "Well of course, you have grass snake when you can't see where the head stops and the tail starts, with the viper you do". Thank you sis for sharing this after I got bitten).

The moment the chaplain said "rhomboid" everything fell into place.

I was autistic.

And you people on this hell site had a huge part on it.

You were sharing more and more about your experiences, quirks, feelings and behaviors and I was relating. But I always said to myself: "Look at that! apparently anxiety, depression and social trauma causes to have some things in commons with neuro-divergent people".

That was quite the shoe that dropped: I was one of you!

I wasn't clueless, I wasn't literally able to understand and process social clues and settings without somebody translating it for me. I wasn't easily offended, I had tantrums because of overwhelming social stimuli, constant breaking of routines (mine and the established work ones), trying to conform by going way over my comfort zone daily, allowing the crossing of my boundaries, not protecting me from excessive stimuli, etc. I wasn't easily tired, my brain had regular-person.exe and compare-situation-with-past-ones.exe always running in the background.

It was a relief.

I was not stupid, I was autistic.

I was not socially handicapped, I was autistic.

I was not fragile or neurotic, I was autistic in a world that catered only to neuro-typicals.

In the next weeks I found and took some neurodivergent tests online, talked to my analyst and family doctor and started the process to be diagnosed with our NHS.

I was about to turn 38.

Today I'm a week shy of turning 40, I have a public assigned autism therapist, earplugs for noisy social settings and stopped several masking behaviors. I express any discomfort when I have it to my friends and I ration my energy carefully.

I'm autistic and it's ok.

And everyone knows.

Except my mother.

Nobody tells my mother!!

----------------------

SNAKE PICTURE HERE

And here's the aspis!! (And the bite on my right middle finger)

[zawazawanightmares]

Ishtar & Naked Princess

You, Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order), are connected to Naked princess Your partner selected the 18+ server.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): Hello there, mortal!

Naked princess: "Ah! Who is there?"

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "It is I, the most beautiful goddess of them all: Ishtar!" The goddess proudly strode into the room. "Ah...but I found such a delectable treat in front of me nonetheless..."

Naked princess: "Goddess or mortal, do treat yourself then," the princess smiled, a gentle nod of her head directed towards a large plate of grapes. "It would be ill custom not to welcome a visitor."

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "Treat myself? Hmmm..." Ishtar put a finger to her own lips. "Well, as a goddess, anything I desire is within my right to take. But if you are offering, I won't refuse..." Ishtar suddenly wrapped a hand around the princess' waist, pulling her into a close embrace where she pressed her lips to hers.

Naked princess: "Even gods have to satisfy themselves with but the offerings given to them - lest they become too greedy for their own good." The girl laughed, her body within a large bathing pool recoiling to easily evade the intruder's grasp. "And you know well what was and what was not offered to you yet."

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "Do I? Maybe you didn't and I did." Ishtar smugly chuckled. "A god that can be too greedy...most would call such a concept evidence of a mortal's hubris, you know."

Naked princess: "Yet gods wait patiently for their priests to serve them, and for the common men to come to their temples out of free will." The girl smiled again, crossing her arms over the small chest concealed under the water surface. "What brings you to my chambers?"

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "I heard there was royalty here that has yet to prostrate itself before my temple." Ishtar patted her own petite chest. "I wanted to see what was delaying such a necessary act."

Naked princess: (How is she dressed, by the way? Anything particularly divine about her appearance overall?)

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): (I'll send a SFW ref. And her divinity can only be sensed by her aura in this form.)

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): https://typemoon.fandom.com/wiki/Ishtar

Naked princess: "It would do poor to prostrate myself right now," the princess giggled, slightest bow of her head already submerging her lips into the water.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "I suppose I would excuse such impropriety for the time being; of course, such a magnanimous show of mercy will require an offering to make up for it." Ishtar noted with a smirk.

Naked princess: "I have shown you far more mercy myself than I would to anybody else daring to enter my chambers uninvited and disturb my swimming time." The girl smirked in turn. "But do treat yourself to the grapes. They are lovely, and it would be in poor form to refuse my offering." She turned her head again, motioning the goddess to approach and take a seat at the edge of her pool.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "Such arrogance from a mortal. Need I remind you that I am a goddess?" Ishtar moved to sit on the edge of the pool. "I could smite you, make you barren, ensure you have no luck in love-related manners, throw a planet at you..."

Naked princess: "Maybe you could do all those things. Or maybe you are but a madwoman deluded to call herself divine." The girl shrugged, tips of her bare shoulders coming out of the water for a moment. "But if you did not come to quarrel, then goddess or not, you should behave as befits a guest." She extended an arm from the pool. Her slender hand picked up a grape from the golden plate and moved to feed it straight to the goddess's mouth - like a serving girl attending some decadent noble.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): Ishtar frowned, absolutely floored by the disrespect of this mortal...before moving to eat the grape, delicately taking it from the princess' fingers with her lips. "So you seek proof of my divinity?" Ishtar asked as she chewed.

Naked princess: "I did not say that." The princess smiled. "You came uninvited and unannounced, when I am alone and defenseless. Normally, I would be surrounded by servants doing this to me." She picked up another grape and repeated the process, seemingly content to play the servant's part herself. "And normally, guards outside would strike any intruder down. By some miracle, none of that is happening, does it?" She smiled again.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "Ah, that. Well..." She repeated her previous action, keeping her face near the princess' fingers this time. "Your guards are fine, if that's what you're wondering. As I was prompting my investigation, I was accosted by them on the way in. By using less than a fraction of my strength, I soundly put them to rest to think over their actions as I entered your palace."

Naked princess: "Then they have done well enough." The princess nodded and shifted even closer to the edge of the pool, grabbing one grape to swallow herself before she continued feeding her guest. "It would be a shame if one of my favourite handmaidens go ill and barren or struck by a star." Her eyes met the goddess's gaze, trying to judge her displeasure. She had been nothing but respectful when she had every right to scream for guards and flee in fright, but perhaps her divine visitor did not see it that way.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): The infamously proud Ishtar met her gaze with no shame, simply showing her resolute desire to obtain. "I believe that does not need to happen. As long as I receive an appropriate offering for my grace, I will leave without any further conflict."

Naked princess: "You wish to leave already?" The princess raised an eyebrow. "Is my company not to your liking, and my welcome not hospitable enough?"

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "Your company is adequate and your welcome was satisfactory despite your doubts in my divinity..." Ishtar explained. "But I have much business to attend to, being such a beloved goddess, and I'm afraid I cannot spend my time entertaining mortals in this fashion, regardless of how delectable they appear even to a noble being such as myself."

Naked princess: "Oh, say no such thing," the princess giggled before covering her smiling mouth with her slender hand. "You are welcome to stay as long as you wish, and I am happy to serve you as long as you desire - but do not dismiss my humble hospitality so lightly before I have even had a chance to offer you a drink." And if myths were even by half true, divine attention was not so easy to lose. It was better, then, to at least be appropriately reverent.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "Hmm...I suppose you have handled yourself well enough that I cannot depart without accepting one drink." Ishtar agreed. "You may fetch for it and I will join you in a toast."

Naked princess: "Fetch for it?" The princess giggled again. "I will not have my divine guest to wait upon some common servant to bring her a cup." She moved now to the very edge of her pool, clearly wishing to come out. A polite mortal would have turned away and gave her some privacy to do so unwatched.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): Sadly, a polite mortal was not in the room. A rather proud goddess watched with obvious interest as the princess rose from the water, taking note of how the beads of water stuck to such an elegant if slight form. She watched while waiting for her cup although she had an unusually patient air around her today.

Naked princess: And yet, despite being watched, the princess had no hesitation. Her body easily slithered up and rose to full height, slender and graceful even in its complete nakedness. Pleasantly cold water was streaming down her well cooled pale skin, long hair black as night was cascading down her shoulders and back, twirling through the air as she turned on her toes. The two could be mistaken for sisters - so similar in appearance and so unceremoniously casual in each other's presence. The one that was completely nude tiptoed to a table, keeping her bare feet from touching the marble floor too much, and picked up a massive golden pitcher to fill an elegant silver wine cup. She then, quickly pulling the cup's exact twin from a box, filled that one as well and returned to the pool's side where she knelt before the goddess and bowed her head, extending a hand with the first cup in offering.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): Ishtar made sure to take it with both hands, not letting a single drop spill as she brought it close to her chest. She then waited for the princess to get her own cup, wishing to silently show her goodwill by drinking with her instead of merely being served.

Naked princess: The princess was in no hurry, though. She had more wine than even two of them could possibly drink, and a proper offering was due anyway. Once the goddess had taken the cup, the girl before her lowered her empty hands. "Take of my bounty, now and ever," she recited reverently. "Grant me your blessing and smile upon me when I do as you bid me." She fully prostrated, her bare body pressed against the cold marble of the floor.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): As much as she wished to clarify her intentions, Ishtar was as bound by the rules of hospitality as any woman from her era. The princess had done nothing but treated her kindly and had given her an offering. She drunk deeply from the cup, not a single drop spilling from her lips before she finished with a breath. "Princess, you have the blessing of Ishtar. May you remain victorious, beloved and fertile in all your endeavors."

Naked princess: "Grant my victories, and you shall have no end of bounties and praises to your name," the princess replied in kind, just as bound by the formalities and rituals to remain put and prostrated until given the leave to rise. Cold stone floor of her bathing room, devoid of any carpet, was so pleasant to walk upon barefoot on a hot day or even, as the goddess was doing, sit on it, but lying on it completely bare was another story. Not shameful, but it still was humbling enough to remind her of the place of mortals in gods' eyes, even if it did not hurt her pride any. It was so much easier to perform these rites in a temple... maybe because the goddess was not watching there so closely and so personally.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "You may rise, Princess." Ishtar instructed. "Rise and look upon the goddess who will grant you her eternal boon." Even in this semi-mortal form, there are still certain favors she can bestow upon mortals.

Naked princess: And the girl rose - not to her full height yet, but to her knees, now level with her seated guest. She had plenty of chairs and pillows and sofas elsewhere in her rooms, of course, but here by the bath the only seat was on the floor. Thankfully, the goddess did not seem to mind it, and the princess was content with remaining here rather than trying to usher her guest elsewhere and then having to solve the awkward question of still not wearing anything. Here, at least, she had the excuse of being caught by the sudden visit while she was having a swim. "You are always welcome in my lands and in my chambers," she assured the goddess. "Allow me to refill your cup."

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "You may." Ishtar held her cup out while smiling. "To prostate yourself so quickly and effortlessly before divinity...you truly do have noble blood coursing through your veins."

Naked princess: "Mightiest tree bows to a storm, strongest warrior bows to his king, but even greatest kings bow to the gods." The princess smiled again and rose to her feet to walk to the table. She returned with the pitcher in hand, reasoning that it was going to be easier to take it once than to constantly run back and forth for it - as, she suspected, it was going to be far from the last cup. With an elegant bow, she refilled Ishtar's cup to the brim without spilling a single drop, then sat down again, finally raising her own full cup. It was her favourite wine - light enough to keep her head unclouded, sweetened with herbs and stored on ice to keep it cold. A drink worthy of a princess, and hopefully satisfying enough for a goddess too.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): Ishtar nodded her head for the princess to drink before taking another swig herself. "Ah, such luscious wine...although I should have guessed that its taste would be memorable from the grapes I had earlier."

Naked princess: "If something else is more to your liking, I can have it sent for," the princess shrugged as she brought the cup to her lips and took the first sip. "Or, rather, I shall go myself before I would have you waited upon by some common serving girl."

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "It is not necessary. You have done more than enough." Ishtar stood up, placing her finger on the forehead of the princess. "I hope your body is prepared." Ishtar spoke as a golden aura began to emanate from her...

Naked princess: "A good host is always ready to do more for a welcome guest." The girl smiled again, but her body tensed at the divine touch, a shiver running down her spine - not just from sitting bare and wet on cold marble and drinking iced wine.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): A sudden pressure was put upon the princess, not physically but on her very spirit. Her very soul had something molded into it, an eldritch feeling building inside of her until it suddenly settled, like it never happened in the first place. "It is done."

Naked princess: She trembled head to toe, her pale skin shining with a reflection of Ishtar's own radiance. Unable to make any words, she only bowed her head deep in gratitude and tried to calm her nerves by taking another sip.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): Ishtar placed a hand on her head with a gentle smile, not sure if the princess will be able to stomach anything for a bit after such an experience. "From now on, you will succeed in any battle, you will be able to charm anyone who catches your affections, and you will never be barren."

Naked princess: That was a lofty promise - but in essence, it was the exact same as what Ishtar's priestesses promised to any worshiper coming with a prayer and sacrifice. And yet, somehow, in every battle somebody still managed to lose. Being given a direct blessing by goddess's own hand had to account for something, but the princess was not so foolish as to rely on that alone for the rest of her life. "And you will always have a worthy welcome for it," she responded meekly, refilling the goddess's cup before trying to sip her own wine again.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "I'm counting on it." Ishtar drunk from her cup again, certain she made the right choice in giving away such a hefty blessing.

Naked princess: "Then I am ever your servant." The princess nodded and reached to feed the goddess another grape.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): Ishtar stopped her, moving in to plant another kiss on her...this time, on her cheek. "I believe you have shown me enough kindness. I'll take my leave now."

Naked princess: "Will you have me follow?" The princess asked with a smile. After all, she did promise to serve as long as the goddess desired - if she wanted to hold her to that word, Ishtar could whisk her away. Sure, the girl doubted that she will, but who can know the mind of a goddess?

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "I believe you'd do better here...for now." Ishtar stood with a happy sigh. "You may be worthy to enter my own courts but it seems the mortals of this kingdom could use your guidance for a little longer."

Naked princess: "Where lies your journey then?" Now the princess's tone was nothing but a simple girly curiosity. It was a rare sight to have a goddess manifest walk through her doors, clad in mortal flesh. What roads awaited such a being? Was she simply going to dissipate and return to some celestial realm, or there was more to her existence?

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "I must assist another mortal in a certain contest, a war in some respects." Ishtar stretched before her. "Even with my lessened abilities, victory is almost certain assured but who knows? It can be still be fun."

Naked princess: "That does sound fun," the princess nodded with a smile of a royal girl who had never set a foot onto a real battlefield and stood up as well, hurrying to keep herself from sitting before a guest. "I trust that I will see you again?"

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "I hope I am met with the same treatment when I return." Ishtar winked flirtatiously at the princess. "Perhaps with more private privileges?"

Naked princess: "If it is your desire to be fed and served, I shall gladly oblige it," the princess burst into laughter. "And if you give me but a minute's warning, I will even be properly dressed for it next time."

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "Aww, such a restraint to be placed on me...but I will consider it." Ishtar took her leave. "Until next time."

Naked princess: "Only consider?" Now the poor girl was awkwardly blushing. "I do not wish to offend." Her hands belatedly moved to bashfully cover her bareness.

Ishtar (Fate/Grand Order): "There is no method in which one as radiant as yourself can offend me with your body." Ishtar sultrily answered before disappearing into the halls.

You left the chat

[seaalgae]

I know you didn't ask but I feel like you need to know more about Vriska

So she lives on this planet where only the young trolls live, so everyone is less than 18 human years and she is not older than 13 when the game begins (they count age in another way though but that's unimportant)

So before the game begins and she's a little kid she is playing a roleplaying game that allows her to murder a whole bunch of kids with the help of her beest friend who she's manipulating into thinking they're "just killing the bad guys". These children are what she feeds to Spider Mom, a ginormous spider who took care of her since she was a grub. (Troll babies are basically larvae)

This gets her in a conflict where she mind controls one of her "friends" who she relentlessly bullies into jumping off a cliff so he is paralyzed and she doesn't even feed him to the spider just keeps bullying him for being disabled and weak.

This gets her into a conflict with her victim's friend who sends ghosts to haunt her so Vriska mind controls that girl's boyfriend into showing up outside her house and killing her so she turns into a ghost and her boyfriend is traumatized.

This gets her into a conflict with her best friend who gets an omniscient child predator to blow up Vriska's arm but that makes Vriska mad so she mindcontrols the disabled kid to mind control her ex-bestie's parental dragon into mind controlling her to sleep walk out into the very dangerous sunlight which might've been meant to kill her but instead it just blinds her and she has to rely on her sense of smell to do everything now.

While she's still constantly abusing the disabled kid she also has a weird crush on him and kisses him right in front of the girl who has a crush on her which throws her into this weird passive aggressive conflict.

Later she has the life beaten out of her by the ghost girl turned robot this is an entire side plot but she survives by I think she was mind controlling the disabled kid or something to take her to her quest bed so she's basically immortal now except for if her death would be heroic or just.

She continues being a bitch and gets into a rivalry with her ex-bestie using these two human guys to train them and see who can make the best 'hero' out of them

Her bestie has to kill her because she gets so much hubris she tries to go fight one of the main evil guys on her own which would kill everyone.

Later when she's dead she manipulates her ancestor/descendant from another universe into becoming "friends" and enslaving a massive horde of ghosts of their dead friends from different universes through mindcontrol to kill the main bad guy because she's obsessed with inserting herself as the hero even though it might lead to everyone's death

The story gets retconned and she survives and I think trapped one of the other characters in a fridge for almost the rest of the story ? Don't remember exactly what happens after this point

Gotta love her, though. Sometimes she does good things too ?

i don't actually know what to do with this information but thank you

[dessarious]

Misconceptions, Miscommunication, and Misinformation Pt104

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The entire way back to the bakery, Jon was shooting not so subtle looks at Marinette. She wasn’t certain what it meant, but it was getting Chloe worked up.

"Eyes front and off my girlfriend, superdork." The words came out in a growl and Marinette could only roll her eyes. Jon went red while Damian just had an amused smirk on his face.

"I didn’t… I’m not… it’s not what you’re implying!" Chloe just sneered at him.

"I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you to keep your distance. It doesn’t matter what your intentions are." Well, this was going swimmingly. She stopped and motioned for the boys to keep walking. Jon hesitated, but Damian grabbed his arm to keep him moving. Chloe just continued to glare at them.

"Chloe, you need to calm down. Jon really doesn't seem like a threat to me. He doesn't have a clue what's been going on either, so apparently Superman's hubris extends to not warning his family when he pisses off beings that can unmake the universe." She spoke as softly as possible to try and stay out of Jon's hearing, but Chloe was far too irate to think of that.

"After what has happened, I'm not about to let my guard down, and not just because of who his father is either. Your entire life has been changed so many times in the last year, it's insane. I'm not just going to sit back and watch it happen again because I didn't see the right threat."

"Oh, Chloe." Mari pulled her down into a hug. "You should have said something. Nothing that happened to me is your fault and you shouldn't stress yourself out being hypervigilant all the time. Not to mention, not all change is bad. I got you, didn't I?" That got a tiny laugh before Chloe pulled back enough to look at her.

"Pretty sure I'm the one who got the better end of that deal. I can't just stop worrying, though. It's not altruistic either. You're all I have. I can't lose you."

"I'm not going anywhere." Chloe tried to pull away, but Mari hung onto her shoulders. "Hey, I'm not just saying that as some insincere platitude. You have no idea what kind of protections Tikki and the other Kwami have put on me. At this point I'm pretty sure you're not getting rid of me short of a world ending event. If then." Chloe's posture relaxed slightly, and she leaned in to kiss her. There was an urgency to it though, like she was still afraid Mari would just suddenly be gone.

"What the hell?" Chloe stood up to glare at the interruption and Mari just groaned and buried her head in the girl's stomach. This was not going to go well.

"Any chance it's just going to go away?" She spoke softly so only Chloe would hear her and got an amused snort in return.

"Given the slack jaw and stunned expression, probably not." One more thing she had hoped to put off coming back to bite her in the ass. She lifted her head to look at the boy.

"Hi Nino. How have you been?" She tried to keep her voice upbeat. The last thing she needed was a lecture on her attitude, or rather Chloe beating the shit out of him for trying. He didn't seem to hear her at first, but finally blinked.

"What happened?" She just frowned at him for a moment before she realized what she meant.

"Oh, I was attacked and my legs ended up paralyzed. I suppose you can all celebrate that I'm not walking the streets anymore." He flinched, but she ignored it. One of their favorite things to do in her last few weeks was accuse her of being a prostitute because Lila said she'd seen her in a bad part of town while she was doing charity work with the homeless. "Now, if you don't mind, my parents are waiting."

They turned to go and actually made it half a block before she heard sobbing. She looked back to see Nino on his knees, crying into his hat. Um... Chloe looked as dumbfounded as she felt. The smart thing to do would be to keep going, so of course she turned around and went back.

"Nino? Are you okay?" The boy just cried harder and Mari was at a loss. "Just try to breathe. Whatever it is, it'll be okay."

"No, it won't." He was still sobbing and talking caused him to start hiccuping as well. "I want to apologize, but I can't. Luka said we needed to know why we were so willing to believe Lila first, but I don't know! Every time I try to figure it out, I can't. I was just so upset and angry all the time. I don't know why I believed it. I don't know why I was so angry at you. None of it makes sense." Well, that was an unexpected development.

"When did you stop being angry at me, exactly?" Nino looked confused for a moment.

"After the school closed, I think? I was... I talked to Kim and Alix, and they said they stopped being angry at you after the class was separated. They seemed just as confused as I was." That made absolutely no sense. The people who were the worst to her regretted it faster? Why would... oh. She looked at Chloe.

"Well, that throws a wrench in things." Chloe blinked at her. "Think about it. Who was pissed off at me and stayed with the less violent ones? Who wouldn't have as much influence over you due to exposure?"

"You think Adrien did this?" The pure rage in her tone made Mari grab onto her so she would try to go kill him.

"His mother is an empath. It's not a leap to think he might be able to project his feelings on others. At the same time, it's entirely possible he doesn't know that he's doing it." She'd have to talk to Plagg and see if it was possible that it was something they missed. It really was the only thing that made sense, though.

"What about Sabrina?" Mari blinked at her before frowning. That was a good point.

"You two stayed separate from the class a lot, and she did keep acting the same towards me even when you stopped bullying me, so it's possible she was effected just not as much. Or your influence over her was just stronger. There's a lot to look into." One more headache she didn't need.

"So, it might not have been my fault?" Nino's soft question got a glare from Chloe. "I'm still sorry." He sounded a bit panicked.

"It's possible that you all let Adrien influence you. It makes a lot more sense than Lila doing it, since he already had a good connection with you all. But nothing is ever that simple. In order for it to work, you had to trust his judgement more than your own, or just be willing to let someone else think for you. It doesn't mean that you wouldn't have done the same on your own, just that you were willing to be nudged in that direction. I wonder if Mme. Agreste knows. It would explain why they wanted to keep him homeschooled so badly."

"I really am sorry." She blinked at Nino. Honestly, she couldn't bring herself to care right now. "I know that it doesn't mean anything. Words don't fix anything, but I wanted to say it. I'll try not to be so suggestible." He frowned as he said it, obviously having no clue how to accomplish that.

"Maybe try verifying things. Try looking at past behavior to figure out the likelihood of things. Don't take people's words at face value if they haven't earned your trust." He flinched, and she realized how annoyed she sounded. She knew she should just forgive him, all of them, and move on. But... they wouldn't have been influenced if some part of them didn't want to be, and that hurt. "Just always think about why you're doing something. If you can't find a good answer, that's a big reason not to do it."

He looked like he was going to say something else, but thought better of it. Instead, he got up and fiddled with his hat before slinking away. Mari couldn't believe how stupid she'd been. She'd been so focused on Lila that it had never occurred to her to look for a different source.

"I'm proud of you." Mari could only give Chloe a confused frown. "You didn't just forgive him and tell him everything was fine. You didn't let him off the hook just because someone might have been messing with his head." Well, didn't that make her sound like an asshole?

"I don't know that it's something to be proud of."

"Given the way you used to just roll over and take the blame for everything, it is. You don't have to forgive the people who hurt you. You can just walk away. Even if you do forgive them, you can just walk away. It's not your job to make them feel better." No, it wasn't, but she didn't think she should feel so apathetic about it either. She was so tired.

"We should go. Who knows what my parents are doing to Jon." The poor boy was probably getting stuffed with pastries, that or being interrogated. Chloe just hummed, but was giving her a concerned look as they went. When they got to the bakery, they found Jon and Damian in a corner. Jon looked extremely shellshocked. "What happened?"

"Sabine." Mari blinked and look over at her mother. She was having what looked like an animated phone conversation. "I don't know how much you told her about the Justice League meetings, but Selina must have filled in the blanks because she's on the phone with Kent's mother telling her all about his father's behavior." Jon wasn't even paying attention to them, just kept flinching every once in a while, she assumed from something one of their mothers said. This was a shitty time to have superpowered hearing. "What took you two so long?"

"We ran into Nino." She didn't elaborate, and Damian didn't ask. She was grateful for that, since she still didn't know what to make of what happened. He at least sounded like he was going to try and do better, and before that would have been enough. Now though... she just couldn't work up the energy to forgive or help him, or the others, for that matter. She didn't know if she liked it or not. Maybe it was just because Nino was right. Words didn't mean shit. If she saw him or the other actively trying to change, it might be different. She hoped so, anyway.

"So, Jon, will you be staying in Paris long?" Her Maman's too cheerful voice pulled her out of her head, and she could see Jon starting to panic.

"Um, no ma'am. It doesn't seem like I'm wanted, but I wanted to talk to Damian. I didn't mean to intrude."

"Nonsense. It's always good to meet new people. Your mother said she gave you permission to stay for a week." Jon was eyeing the front doors.

"Well, yes ma'am, she did, but Damian doesn't want me to stay unless I'm willing to keep secrets, and Bruce just told me to go home so-"

"Damian's right, and you should be getting a message from your mother about that. As for Bruce, you can ignore him. He doesn't get to ban people from Paris. And enough with the 'ma'am'. Call me Sabine." Mari wasn't certain what to make of the fact that her Maman wanted the boy to stay. Yes, it would annoy Bruce and that seemed to be her main source of entertainment at the moment, but he was also a liability if he couldn't or wouldn't keep his mouth shut. Something in her talk with his mother must have made her think he would. "You should stay and get to know everyone. That way, when rumors start flying, you'll know what to believe."

Well that was an interesting strategy. Get the younger heroes on their side so at least the next generation wouldn't be a headache. It wasn't an immediate solution, but it was something. Mari still felt the urge to run away, though. Just go somewhere and start a new life where none of these problems could find her. Even knowing it wasn't possible doesn't lessen the desire. She was really, really tired.

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[howaboutcastiel]

Dirty Talk (Jake x Layla)

Kinktober prompt 3 (Kinktober Masterlist)

A/N: guys listen don’t think about the plot for too long on this one. Porn is more important than plot. This one’s short because dirty talk makes me uncomfy. 

Word count: 2.3k

Content: dirty talk (...duh), smut, PIV in particular, choking, canon-typical violence (mild), probably improper use of Arabic swears

It was progressing just like every other mission.

Layla didn’t prefer to work with Jake, she preferred to work with Marc. Marc was her husband, her partner—Marc was the one that knew her best. She was happy to work with Steven when needed. He was kind to her, he was good at planning and plotting, and he seemed to have unlimited knowledge to pull from whenever the mission required something that Layla didn’t know. 

But when a mission required Jake? Layla was less than thrilled, to put it lightly. It wasn’t that she had a problem with him…no, maybe it was. Layla definitely had a problem with Jake, who had twice as much hubris as Marc and thought through his plans only half as much as Steven. Sure, he was charismatic, he was quick-witted, and he was more agile than any of the others, but he was arrogant. 

What was worse, though? He absolutely loved working with Layla. The feeling wasn’t mutual. 

They were infiltrating a drug-trafficking ring. Layla was undercover as a buyer—a wealthy buyer, and Jake was stationed about a half-block away on the roof of a hotel. He could see everything from a bird’s-eye view, talking Layla through her cover using an earpiece she had styled to look like an earring. Jake dawned his suit, ready to swoop down at Layla’s cue and take down the most heavily-armed of their targets. It was a straightforward mission and it was progressing perfectly. 

So much so that Jake decided he would have a little fun. 

“You see that table to your left?” He asked her, a soothing purr in his voice. Layla rolled her eyes, leaning away as to not alert her ‘dealer’ of her conversation. 

“Yes, 'ahmaq, I see it. What about it?” She was expecting him to tell her there was a gun taped underneath it, or perhaps an important document on top of it. It wasn’t pertinent either way—she had her target in front of her. 

“I’d do anything to bend you over that table. To watch your ass shake while I fuck you stupid. You’d look so fucking good.”

“What the hell, Jake?” Layla heard him chuckle over the line. It wasn’t uncommon for him, especially when he was confident that a mission was going to go well. “Cut it out. I almost have him.”

“I’d like to have you, once this is all done. Maybe in that alleyway over on your right.”

“Ayreh Feek, I don’t have time for this.” Layla hissed at him. She turned back to the dealer, brandishing an overly-seductive smile and batting her eyelashes. He moved to gather a rather large package of prescription opioids, as Layla had arranged, and she tried to ignore the gratingly confident voice in her ear. 

“Let’s make a little deal, huh? You get through the rest of this mission without blowing your cover, I take you out for dinner and drinks. You blow it? You have to blow me at our rendezvous spot.”

“Whatever. I never blow my cover.”

“Ah, you will.”

Layla didn’t know the parameters of the deal she had made, but she had a pretty good idea. The dealer prompted her to follow him deeper into the alley, no doubt to make the exchange with armed company ensuring his safety. And his money. Her earpiece hissed again as she started to move her feet. 

“Your mouth is gonna look so pretty around my cock, baby. I know you can take it all, too. You’re such a fucking slut, It’ll make you gag and you’ll still take it all. Gonna feel so good.”

She could hear Jake smiling on the other end of the line. Layla felt her face and chest heating up, but the man before her didn’t seem to notice. 

“Maybe I’ll tug on those curls of yours. Force you to take all of me. I might even hold you down, let you choke on my cock. God, you’d sound so pretty. You know that you’d love it. You’d be a good girl for me.”

“So, how again did you say you were going to distribute my product?” The dealer asked suspiciously. 

“I can assure you, you don’t have to worry about any cracks in my operation.” Layla felt her breath quicken a bit. She cleared her throat. “I don’t like to make noise.”

“Oh, hermosa, don’t lie to that poor man. You love to make noise. Those pretty little sounds, so desperate and loud. I bet I could make you scream tonight if I tried. I love to hear you scream for me.”

“Are we doing this or not?” There was just a little too much haste in her voice. The man scowled at her as he led her back to a dead-end alley with two other men, both bearing silenced firearms. 

“Wow, those are pretty big guns. You think they’re compensating for something?”

“You have the cash, I assume?” The man peered at Layla with a satisfied, greedy look and she nodded, reaching into her bag. The guard pointed their guns and she slowly pulled out a large wad of cash. All hundreds. 

“Alright, papi’s gonna light these fuckers up. You ready to summon your suit?” Jake asked, adding of course, “I love your light little ass in that suit.”

“Let’s get on with it, then.” Layla responded, both to the dealer and to her partner. She wouldn’t admit it, but a select few of those words had made their way down between her legs. It wasn’t enough to break her focus. 

Layla held her other hand out, proving to her onlookers that there were no sudden moves for her to make, as she slowly raised the other out to the man. He held out his package likewise and everyone seemed to relax a bit. Just a bit. The guards loosened their grips on their triggers, and it was more than enough. Layla summoned her suit. 

The movement disoriented them and by the time they had processed the apparition in front of them, Jake Lockley was quite literally descending from the sky. It didn’t take long to disarm all of them. Jake didn’t move like Marc—that is, like a boxer and an ex-marine—he practically danced around the men, confusing them so much that they never even got a good hit in. The suit didn’t have any bullets to absorb, as they could never train their eyes on him long enough to fire accurately. They were on the ground almost instantly. 

Layla had subdued the dealer herself, locked him in a chokehold and extended her wing to no doubt give him a nasty concussion. He would certainly live, though. Perhaps the same couldn’t be said for those Jake had manhandled. 

“Nice work, carino.” Jake cooed. “I’m disappointed, though. I really thought I was gonna win that one.”

Layla rolled her eyes as she started to walk away from him, cash still in hand. He followed her while vanishing his suit and pouting. 

“Ah, come on, doll. We finished the mission, right? Don’t be like that.”

He walked just a little bit faster than her, trying to catch up. Jake groaned and dragged his feet as she showed him no mind. He went to put his hand on her shoulder, willing her not to be pissed at him, and the very second his palm made contact with her shirt?

Jake was on the ground. 

Layla shouldn’t have been strong enough to overpower him with one hand, but he wasn’t expecting it. She flipped him onto his back, pinning her arm across his throat and baring her teeth. Jake’s eyes blew wide as she squinted at him. Another wave of energy went right to her cunt at the sight of his terrified face. 

“You wanted to make me mess up? You wanted me to blow my cover.” She scoffed at him as his face relaxed. “Why do you make things more difficult than they need to be?”

“Because it’s fun. I like to rile you up.”

She grunted frustratedly and pressed harder into his neck. The smile on Jake’s face only grew. He brought his hands up to cup her wrist, his breath labored from the pressure. 

“Well then,” Layla’s face darkened with decision. “You’ll get what you want from me.”

She loosened her grip and Jake wasted no time in flipping them over, smashing his lips into hers. Layla relaxed into the kiss, letting him part her mouth with his tongue and straddle her hips as he ground against her. She let out a soft moan. 

“Are you riled up, baby?” He murmured against her skin. “Decide against the wine and dine after all? I’ll make it worth your while. Be a good girl.”

“Oh,” she touted, “I will.”

Layla was already soaking her panties and Jake was more than half-hard himself. He continued to roll his hips against her, sucking and nipping at her neck delicately. Jake didn’t even notice her beginning to unbutton his shirt, her fingers trailing the fabric so lightly he couldn’t feel it at all.

“You want me to be a good girl for you, papi?” He hummed a low growl into her skin, right against the base of her throat. Layla started to trace his chest with the pads of her fingers, working up goosebumps in the wake of her manicured hand. “I’ll be good for you.”

She pushed Jake over so that she had all the leverage, now. He didn’t seem to mind it so much, groaning and throwing his head back as she pushed his shirt off of his shoulders. Layla’s hand trailed down past his waist, settling on the button of Jake’s pants. His chest shuddered as she snapped it open, snaking her hand underneath the hand of his briefs. 

“Dios mío,” he breathed. She chuckled into his skin, the hot air making the hairs on his neck stand up. Layla tilted his head back with her off hand, using the other to wrap around the base of his dick. As she forced his jaw upward, baring his throat to her, Jake choked a whimper that made her giggle once again. 

“Is this what you wanted?”

Layla batted her lashes, trailing her index finger down the center of Jake’s neck before wrapping her hand widely around his exposed throat. His eyes rolled back in his head as she started to apply pressure. Her other hand pumped his cock until she felt precum leaking onto her knuckles. Once she did, she tutted and withdrew her hand from his pants. He whined. 

“What’s that? I can’t hear you, papi. What do you need your good girl to do? Do you want me to…press harder?” Jake nodded furiously, deliriously. She loved to break his facade this way. His cheeky, confident grin that begged her to fear him, to revere him. She likes to watch it crumble beneath her touch. Layla squeezed him tighter, just a little, and he whimpered again blissfully. 

She used her free hand to pull off her leggings, careful to keep Jake’s head angled just right to watch her do it. His pupils were blown so wide, the thin layer of brown in his iris was barely there at all. He was covered in a thin layer of sweat, and his cock was aching. His whole body was aching for her. 

Layla was aching for him, too. 

Pulling her panties to the side and stilling her knees, she began to slowly sink down on him. The stretch made both of them forget how to breathe for a moment. Jake sputtered and coughed out a groan as Layla threw her head back. Her curls cascaded onto her shoulders, bouncing and shining and enamoring him as she started rocking herself up and down on his cock. Jake desperately wanted to keep his eyes open, but they snapped shut as she clamped down onto his throat once again. 

The pressure was too good, too much, and Jake couldn’t help himself but buck into her with all his strength. She giggled and tisked and pressed her hand into his belly, forcing him down. 

“Don’t tire yourself, papi. Let me be good for you. I’m being so good for you.”

Jake couldn’t last long with her voice in his ears. He wrapped his hand around her wrist, desperate to be closer to her, but not wanting the pressure to stop. Jake tried to run his hand along her still-clothed chest, to tug at her hair and feel her warmth. She grabbed his hand from where it sat atop her breast, kissing his knuckles and squeezing. 

That’s what put him over the edge. 

He gasped and he stilled and he spilled his load deep inside of her, his climax ripping through him hard enough to steal the strength from his limbs. Layla continued to roll her hips, cumming seconds later. Warmth crept over her body and electricity shot through her core. She all but collapsed on top of him, her hand still resting at the base of his throat. 

They laid in the alleyway for a minute or two, just panting for breath. Jake wrapped his arms around her, holding Layla tight to his chest and breathing in the scent of her shampoo as he tried desperately to regain control of himself. Layla lifted her head a brandished a wide, cheeky, devilish smile. 

“What?” He asked. 

“You still owe me dinner.”

-

-

@theaussiedragon @ahookedheroespureheart @rmoonstoner @moonmoonboys

[chezzywezzy]

Yandere Miranda Vanderbilt (1/3)

Word count ; 4.3k

“If you’re looking for a child that’s good at taking orders, my Y/n truly is the best in all the land. She doesn’t talk back, she does chores, and she’s always kind,” my mother insisted while straightening back up.

“Oh! That’s so wonderful. Don’t you think, Clyde?” the Queen exclaimed, grabbing the King’s arm.

“Yes. But that’s not what we’re looking for!” King Vanderbilt squabbled dramatically. “We’re looking for a child that can be a friend servant, not just a servant her age. And we’ll need someone of high enough status and talent, otherwise we’ll never find a servant suitable enough for our daughter!”

My mother visibly tensed. I stared up at her with adoring, yet confusing eyes. Mommy told me that I was coming to play, but for some reason, she wasn’t letting me go anywhere. And there wasn’t even a playground or playmates!

“O - oh, well you have no need to worry,” she tittered, holding my shoulder tighter. “My daughter can play multiple instruments, studies very hard, and has won many school competitions! She’s very bright for her age. I’m sure her and Her Majesty will get along well.”

Just because I was a kid didn’t mean I was dumb. I wan’t sure why mommy was lying, but I was actually very bad in school and never learned anything. Was she lying so I could play with a new playmate?

“Really, now?” Queen Vanderbilt gasped. “That’s incredible! Why, I’m great at making decisions and all, but - well, why don’t you decide, King?”

The King perspired. “Uh - not that I’m bad at making decisions either, but, well, why not have Miranda decide? She has the right to meet her potential new friend serf and all…”

The couple nodded eagerly. I jumped excitedly, but mommy halted my movements nervously. I tilted my head. Wasn’t I supposed to be happy that I was meeting my new playmate?

From the end of the hallway, entered a parade. Confetti and fireworks burst into the air and a marching band rolled down the carpet. The marching band wrapped around the side just as some slaves emerged from the back. The slaves were driving a golden chariot that scratched the marble with its weight. There was a curtain, but I could see a small shadow for inside. The chariot paused right in front of me and mommy while one more trumpet cried.

A carpet rolled down from the chariot and servants curled up into balls to act as steps. I was blushing with awe as I imagined what could possibly be inside. A unicorn? A god? Another queen?

A small foot kicked out of the curtain and landed on the servant, who let out an ‘oof.’From the chariot emerged a small mermaid child. She had glistening pink skin and lighter pink gils on her lower arms. She wore a large tiara too big for her head and she had a grand gown that trailed way past her feet. She had a boastful grin and her cute eyes twinkled with hubris.

After stepping on several of the step servants, she landed right in front of us. My mommy’s immediate reaction was to bow, and with her hand on the small of my back, she made me do it too. I was stuck staring at the girl’s sparkly diamond shoes for the longest time.

“You’re my new friend servant, yes?”

“Well, sweetheart -“ the King sounded notably meeker now -“ it’s your decision. She can play instruments, study hard, and —“

“Shut up dad!” the girl screeched in annoyance. “I don’t care!” She inhaled quickly. “And stop bowing. You’re nothing to be a bowing servant.”

Mommy stiffly stood back up and I followed suit. I gave the girl a goofy grin and extended my hand to her. Mommy looked utterly mortified. “Hi! I’m Y/n. Do you wanna play with me?”

It was as though the entire room went silent. The girl furrowed her brows and leaned into my hand, inspecting it and poking it. “What’s this? Are you gifting me your hand? Usually I get elephants instead —“

“No, silly! You shake it! It’s how you meet new people,” I giggled, bopping her nose.

The girl let out a small ‘ooo’ and attempted to do so. When she clasped my hand, I shook it eagerly, catching her off guard. “I’m not used to such a commoner ritual! How exciting. You’ll be my new friend servant!” She declared, to which I nodded in agreement.

“What’s a serv… serv… serf?” I asked. “Does that mean we get to play together now?”

“Yes, of course! It’s ‘servant.’ And it means you will listen and do everything I say.”

“But friends are supposed to be equal —“ I was quickly cut off.

“Enough,” the King boomed. “This child is a disgrace. They should know their place. Guards! The mother and child must be beheaded immediately —“

“Shut up, dad, I’m tired of you bossing me around! This is my new friend servant and you can’t tell me otherwise!” the girl argued.

I tilted my head at mommy, who seemed scared shitless. The King retorted,” But she’s disrespecting you —“

“No, she’s teaching me about friends!”

“…Fine, you can keep her as your servant only if you allow me to behead the mother.”

The girl giggled maniacally. “Go ahead, I don’t care. I have a new friend servant!” With that, she began pulling me out of the thrown room and into the chariot. My mother was screaming and crying and guards grabbed her, and I made sure to wave her good-bye.

“My dad’s so annoying. Now, friend servant, what do friends do?” She asked, and I felt the chariot began to move. The screams were growing distant.

“Well, we play! And we tell each other our feelings when we’re sad —“

“Oh! I’ll have to introduce you to my feelings servant! Mommy got him for me so he could experience difficult emotions for me.”

“That’s cool! I wish I had one of those,” I agreed eagerly, kicking my feet around the chariot excitedly. “But when I get sad, I have to cry myself. It’s too tiring. Serv… serfs seem fun!”

“Yes, exactly! Finally, someone understands,” she sighed. “All my other servants are so sad about their jobs. It should be an honor to be my servant! And why do you keep saying serf?”

I blushed, embarrassed. “Well, I just have a hard time saying that word.”

The girl grinned and declared,” Fine! Then I’ll make a royal decree! It will be illegal to say the word servant, and will be replaced with serf instead!”

“Wow! You’d do that for me?” I gaped, grabbing her hands tightly. “You’re a great friend! It’ll be so fun to play with you… Hey, what’s your name?”

“You haven’t heard of me?” she seemed shocked for some reason. I just waited for an answer. “Why, I’m Princess Miranda Vanderbilt! You’re lucky you’re my friend serf, because if you were any other, I’d have you poisoned this instant…!”

“That’s not very nice, Miranda. Friends don’t hurt friend. Promise me that, okay?”

Miranda seemed annoyed at the least, but huffed in agreement. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

My own voice started me. I let out a gurgle of fresh air - aka water - and sat up straight. I immediately let out a yelp, though, as my back hurt a lot. That made me remember - oh right, King Vanderbilt was planning to execute me so that Miranda would be willing to go to Monster High. Apparently serfs weren’t allowed to go, which was dumb. I mean, we were the same age, all this bullshit about ‘terrorizing potential teachers ad students alike’ was wrong! Just because I accidentally started two world wars and often participate in terrorizing the locals by exchanging their organs with sea urchins didn’t mean I didn’t have the right to go to school with my bestie.

So, I waited. Patiently, may I add, even though I knew how to escape the shackles due to how many times I was put in them in the first place. I guess that old man finally wanted to get rid of me for good. But I knew Miranda, and I knew she’d throw another temper tantrum. They always ended up being my saving grace because her fuckin’ dad was a total simp.

Ah, there it was; the angelic sound of Miranda screaming at the top of her lungs while probably tearing some of the guards’ hearts out of their chests. Absolutely magnificent.

“If you don’t let her out right now, I’ll have you executed immediately for disrespecting royalty!” she screeched. “Release my serf right now!”

I snickered lowly. Ore shouting came from own the hall, becoming more and more incoherent. And, as expected, I heard a squelch and flop. Poor saps, they were only following their orders and in return they got beheaded. Oh well.

I flashed the girl a grin as her pink figure showed up. She leaned against the bars and dug her manicured nails agains the iron. “Y/n! I can’t believe my father put you in prison again! I’m sorry for being late, but I tried to find a prince to save me so that I could save you.”

I rolled my eyes. “As if you need one. You’re a total girlboss. I mean, you behead random serfs all the time! What’s not badass about that?”

Miranda smiled and wiped under her eye dramatically. “You flatter me. Now, let’s see about getting you out of that dismal cell.” She stomped her foot, feigning daddy’s-girl. “Gua-a-ards!”

Padded feet surged down the hallway. Two mer-guards showed up, and even if their faces were cascaded with armor, terror was radiating from them. “Yes, princess!” they obediently answered.

Miranda hummed, pleased. “Unlock the cell and free my friend serf this instant. Oh! And after that, clean up the bodies, they always make such a mess,” she demanded haughtily.

The guards knew better than to argue with the girl. They were shaky with their movements. The moment the shackles flew to the ground, I rubbed my wrists and hopped to my feet. My back cracked loudly and I let out a groan, patting it like the old granny I was.

By the time I exited, the guards had escaped, so I was left with a beaming, beautiful Miranda. She grabbed my hand and puffed out her chest. “Let’s go get a massage! Oh - and let’s go to the hot spring too, a prince might be there —“

“Miranda!”

I flinched when the king boom fro down the hallway. Cape dragging along the ocean floor, he stalked toward us. A frown was etched into his features, but I couldn’t help but defiantly smirk. The king could put on a power-crazed act as much as he wanted, but at the end of the day, I knew he would bend to Miranda’s will.

Miranda flutters her eyelashes, gils fraying. “Yes, daddy?”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You are being incredibly disobedient. Just let me behead your serf already!”

“No, daddy! She’s my favorite serf, my best friend serf! The only way I’d ever go to that commoner monster high school is if she’s with me to make things boring —“

“Friend serfs are for childhood, dear.” The king was already crumbling. “You must go to school so you’re a suitable future queen —“

“Daddy, it really would be a shame if you were poisoned tonight at dinner,” Miranda giggled. “I mean, if you really insist on executing my friend serf, it wouldn’t be… productive if you weren’t alive to witness it, hm?”

I rolled my eyes playfully. This was the third time this week that Miranda’s threatened to poison her father. But I guess that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.

Her father sighed. “…Fine. I will spare your serva - serf if you agree to go to high school. With your serf.”

Miranda giggled in glee. “Yes, yes, yes, I do! Thanks so much daddy, I love you! Now go away, my friend serf and I are going to go to the spa!”

~~~

“Ick! There’s just… so many commoners, it’s disgusting,” Miranda groaned, grabbing my arm and interlocking our hands.

I snickered a bit. “Aw, c’mon, I bet there might even be a suitable suitor here. Don’t be quick to judge.”

I was relieved of my serf duties today - I’ve never thought that being a ‘friend’ is work - since Miranda demanded to have book-carrying serfs, note-taking serfs, and, of course, her eating serf. One thing about being Miranda’s bestie is that we always have a crowd around us.

We arrived at her locker. Immediately, she looked disgusted and glanced around at the other lockers. “Ew, ew, ew! My locker’s so… plain. Y/n, remind my reminder serf to get a designer for it by lunchtime.”

“You got it, girl.” I took out my schedule. “So, our first class is… ugh. Human biology in the Franken-lab. That sounds boring as hell.”

Miranda pouted. “It’ll be fine! My serfs will just take the class for us. That’s how school works, right?” she ponders innocently while book-carrying serfs organized her locker.

“No, Miranda, that’s the thing. For school, we have to do the work. It sounds annoying as hell,” I sighed. “I thought the over-water world would be way cooler, too. At least I have gym to let out some steam.”

Miranda pouted. “Stop complaining so much, if I knew you were going to, I would’ve brought along my emotion serf.”

I tutted and was about to head off the the Franken-lab with Miranda when an explosion came from down the hall. Miranda let out a scream and called out for a price to save her, jumping into my arms. I could hardly see what had happened, as my attention was solely on not dropping Miranda as she smothered my neck with anxious grabs.

After blowing some of her silky pink hair out of my face, I realized a demon had set off a bomb by the lockers. Everyone else was shook, but he was cackling confidently as he eyed his results.

“Hell yeah! Take that, you fucking… fucking locker!” he hollered, pushing the air.

Miranda was still clinging onto me, but I was eager to meet the dazzling demon. I walked away, Miranda letting out some theatrical cries. The demon’s attention turned to us as we approached. I coughed slightly from the floating ashes, gaze glued to the giant, black hole in the wall.

“The fuck did the locker due to you?” I inquired.

The demon beamed proudly. “I couldn’t open my fucking locker. So, I thought, if I couldn’t open the locker, just get rid of it!”

I snickered. “Can’t fault you for that.”

Miranda interrupted, clearly on edge. “And who do you think you are to be interacting with my friend serf?” she sulked. I helped her get back on her feet.

It was amusing that, for the first time, the people around her weren’t on their hands and knees praying toward her. The demon held an air of arrogance, not submitting himself the the tiny mermaid princess. With a confused expression, he answered,” Uh, Damien? And who the fuck are you?”

Miranda gasped. “Me? I’m Priness Miranda Vanderbelt the third, future queen of the sea! How is it that you do not know me?”

“Babe,” I said,” The guy’s a demon. He’s from a different realm. Don’t take so much offense to that.”

Miranda’s brows furrowed. “W - well, yes, but… Well, anyways, are you a prince of some sort? I don’t stand for my best friend serf interacting with commoners.”

Damien shrugged. “I couldn’t give a single fuck. And I’ll have you fucking know, I’m the prince of hell or some shit.”

Our conversation was cut short by the ringing of the bell. Damien’s smirk grew. “Hey, ‘friend serf,’ wanna skip class with me? This shit blows.”

I jumped from excitement. “You kidding me? Hell yeah I do, I’m only here ‘cause of my bestie.”

Damien grinned. “Fuck yeah. What do ya wanna do?”

I shrugged. “IDK, I’m in the mood for a little arson. You can’t really, uh, do that underwater.”

“Oh-ho-ho, do you have a lot to learn. Let’s ditch this shitty popsicle stick. Meet me in the bathrooms.” Damien took off, and I tried to memorize his path. It’s not like I knew how the hell to get to the bathroom, but I sure as hell would try.

Miranda was glaring at me, though. I returned my attention to her. “Yes, your majesty?” I chuckled.

She crossed her arms crassly. “You didn’t even ask for permission, Y/n! Are you really going to separate from me on the first day?” she wailed.

I tilted my head. “It’ll be fine, I’ll see you at lunch! I’m just trying to make some new friends, ya know? That’s the whole reason for going to high school.”

“…Well, can I come?”

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea. Imagine how your dad would react if he found out you were responsible for arson,” I replied with a chuckle. “Besides, you’re not really meant to cause trouble.”

She pursed her lips defeatedly. “Oh, fine. But you better be there to serve me lunch! And as a punishment for being disobedient, you have to do my homework instead of my serfs, got it?”

I bowed my head slightly. “Of course, your majesty,” I agreed with a cheeky wink. “It’s always a pleasure, bestie. Anyways, I’m gonna go find those damn bathrooms. Can’t wait to blow some shit up.”

I ruffled Miranda’s hair before leaving her petite form behind.

~~~

To make up for my first day of school, I actually attended classes on the fifth. Yes, I skipped, like, the whole entire week. Miranda and I shared the exact same schedule, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad. Plus, now that I had Damien’s number, we were able to text during all the menial class time.

However, it was more eventful than I thought it would be. Miranda was huffing the entire class, and every time I glanced away from my phone and to her, she was glaring at the small device in my hands. Each time I opened my mouth to try and say something, she lifted her finger to my lips and pinched them shut.

When the bell rang, though, she continued to train after e like a clingy puppy. It was lunch time, thank god, and I knew Miranda couldn’t be passive aggressive for much longer. She always burst in a few hours of being in a sour mood.

I went to reassure her by holding her hand, but she pulled away stubbornly. We arrived at my locker, and I dropped off my useless textbooks and school supplies. Miranda stood straight and stiff, unable to tear her gaze away from the floor. After I shut it, I turned to her.

“Okay, girl, you gotta tell me what’s up.”

Miranda tensed. “As if. What makes you worthy of knowing my ailments? You’re just a serf.”

I hummed, rather amused. “I’m also your best friend. Mira, and you’ve been glaring at me all morning. What’s up?”

Miranda bit her lip. “W - well, you’re just spending way too much time with that - that Damien! You’re my serf, you don’t have the right to spend so much time with some common-monster!”

I nodded slowly and pulled her in for a tight hug. “There, there. I’m sorry that I’ve been ignoring you, Mira. How about this; I think you really need some more friends too. And I think if you got to know Damien and everyone else, you’d be way better off. I think you’d really get along with Polly and Vera.”

Miranda huffed. “Oh, fine. But I’m going to set a schedule so the you spend the most time with me everyday, got it?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, let’s go have lunch. Damien’s gonna sit with us.”

Miranda sent a glare, but didn’t say anything. We weaved through the crowds until we arrived inside. I spotted Damien, already digging into a bucket of fire buffalo wings - aka, buffalo wings that were actually on fire. The dude had a promising career in fire eating at that rate.

We got our trays and plopped at the table. Miranda’s serfs set out her many silverware before taking their seats, starting to eat for her. Damien was bewildered, and he sent me confused glances. “The hell’s with all these extras?” he exclaimed crudely.

“They’re my serfs,” Miranda proclaimed arrogantly. “And they eat for me. Are they too much for you?”

Damien scowled. “Hell no they’re not. They’re just boring as fuck. Why not have cool serfs like bombers or serial killers?”

Miranda shuddered. “Because I have class. Beheading and poisoning is the most elegant way to kill people. And I just have Y/n do the job for me!”

Damien appeared to be impressed. “Damn! You didn’t tell me you had a kill count, Y/n.”

I winked. “You didn’t ask. I’ve been looking for a partner in crime, you know.”

Miranda interrupted,” You already have one! That’s me, obviously.”

I quirked a brow. “Babes, I hate to break it to you, but using the soup spoon instead of the dessert spoon isn’t illegal.”

“Really?” she gasped. “But it should be! Any common should be executed for making such a mistake! Other than you, of course.”

“Fuck, man, you got a lot to learn,” Damien snickered. “You’re too much of a prissy royal to fit in with us.”

I tossed my arm around her shoulder, noticing the dangerous glint in Miranda’s eyes. “Now, now, she just has to learn. And I know just the best way to do it. Hey, Damien, what do ya think about showing this girl how to burn down a library?”

Damien nodded eagerly. “I’m thinking… I don’t fucking know. Just fire is boring.”

Yeah, let’s brainstorm,” I agreed, finally starting to eat. As I munched, an idea came to mind. “I got it!”

~~~

“Fuck, man, I’m almost drunk from all the beers we just drank,” Damien exclaimed, the three of us standing bak and admiring our work.

For our creative, dazzling arson plan, we made molotovs. But we drank the molotovs. And then we were going to use the rest of the molotovs to actually, ya know, set fire to everything. But sadly, Miranda was having a hard time getting comfortable. She refused to drink the bottles and had been hovering by the exit the whole time. So, I let her. Damien and I were fine causing chaos on our own.

“Man, I’m not sure how many more I can take,” I panted, my stomach feeling as though it was on fire. It probably was. “I’m still a mermaid, you bitch.”

“Ha! Pussying out, are ya?” he snickered, scooting over so that he was right in front of me, his eyes narrowing.

I met his gaze with a fierce, playful glare. “I’ll have one more. But I’m getting impatient as hell. I wanna see this place burn.”

He nodded his head enthusiastically. “Hell yeah.” He gave me a playful punch in the face. He may have broke my nose, but power to him. I downed one more molotov. I think my insides were melting and I was slowly dying from internal bleeding, but it was so. Worth. It.

“Miranda, get your cute ass over here!” I called, beckoning her into the library. The librarian shushed us, so I made a mental note to commit arson quietly.

Miranda scuttled over to us, not looking pleased. “Are you two done yet?”

“You bet your ass we’re not,” Damien said with a smirk.

“Yeah. And, as a beginner rite, I want you to throw the first molotov.” I squeezed her hand in encouragement.

Miranda seemed to melt under the pressure, and a small smile lifted to her face. “Why, of course, that makes sense! I am, after all, royalty. It’s my job to go first. So, how do I do this…?”

She bent over and picked up a bottle. She sent me unsure glances and lifted it up. “Where do I aim?”

I grabbed her arm and positioned it so that it was aimed at a bookshelf. “Right there, babes.”

“Right there,” she muttered to herself. Mustering all her strength, she yeeted the explosion at a bookshelf. Immediately, it lit up in flames. While Damien and I hollered and whooped - only to be shushed by the librarian once more - while Miranda was quick to jump into my arms bridal style.

Of course, I was used to her damsel-in-distress act, so I caught her gracefully. Damien took over, tossing more and more explosions. Screams rang out in the librarian and people evacuated. Of course, we eventually left too. The fire spread, so while the three of us watched the school burn down from the outside, Miranda clutched onto me.

“I sure hope daddy doesn’t find out about this!”

“Of course he won’t. The school’ll just care about, ya know, having a school.”

I sat on the ground criss-cross-applesauce, Miranda scooting around to make herself comfortable in my lap. She giggled and snuggled her nose into the crook of my neck. Damien sat down beside me, and we exchanged cheeky grins as we watched the building go up in flames.

My heart skipped a beat as his fingers interlaced with mine.

[blackenedwhite97]

Coming Out [Poly! Erasermic x {Fem}Reader]

Hello! this was a requested fic from like before Christmas. I'M A MESS I KNOW I'M SORRY! I’ll be catching up at some point, I'm in my final sem at uni and have MAJOR senioritis. Me no do unless me have to. Instead, now I just spend my time staring at the existential abyss the threatens to swallow my ceiling and think about everything I'm procrastinating. But I digress...

Content Warning: This story is of a negative experience coming out as poly to your family, this deals with rejection from the reader's mother, father, and a grandparent. This story demonstrates Homophobia, xenophobia, traditionalist and conservative values and attitudes and may be triggering to some folks.

This story includes a Polyamorous relationship

Polyamory: the practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all the people involved.

Word Count: 3.7 K (A baby story)

Y/N --- 4:06pm

Hey can my roomates come to dinner?

DAD --- 4:06

You mean the gays?

Y/M --- 4:08

Please don’t call them that. Neither of them are gay anyways, there’s more than just gay or straight.

DAD --- 4:10

Yeah whatever. Let your mom decide.

MOM --- 5:12

Sure, they can come.

Mom --- 5:23

Gma might be coming dinner tho. Maybe talk to them?

That conversation should have been enough of a warning for how the evening was going to transpire. At news of your grandmother attending dinner, you panicked and tried to back out of your plans. You had been growing steadily farther apart from your parents anyways, barely seeing them more that once a year if that. It’s not like they didn’t have their suspicions anyways, to them you were a single woman living in the big city sharing an apartment with two gay men. Not that they’d ever been to the apartment. If they had they might have notice that one of the two “bedrooms” was being used as an office. Earlier on in the relationship you were so deeply uncomfortable being around your parents alone, that you had Shouta come with you every visit because you were so paranoid you were just going to come out on the spot.

At first your parents were sure that you and Shouta were together. He had subconsciously cleaned up quite nice the first few times he met your parents anyways, wanting to make a good impression on them if you finally did tell them about your polyamorous relationship. Then as time went on you got busier and started to see them less. Shouta’s parents lived in the suburbs and you saw them on holidays, plus Shouta had come out to them as being bisexual a long time ago and hadn’t felt much pressure to hide the polyamorous nature of your relationship to begin with. Hizashi’s mom was still a city dweller in her 60’s and on top of doing the cute mom things like baking fantastic cookies and handing down family jewelry to the daughter in law, she’d also taken Hizashi and Shouta to their first pride in Tokyo and had an in-home recording studio where she recorded for local punk bands. She was, quite literally, a cool mom.

You gnawed vigorously at your thumbnail, not quiet biting the whole way through, instead riddling it with dents and cracks. Chewing your nails wasn’t a habit you’d always had, it became a sort of silent worry thing you started to do when you got to your agency and had to remain still and quiet during briefings, no matter how terrible the news was. Your ruined nail beds were an atrocity to Hizashi, who had paid several times for you to get a manicure to get your nails short and evenly trimmed so you could manage them on your own. You still somehow found a way to gnaw on the short squared off nubs of your nails though, and it drove him nuts. Shouta cared less, his hands were in ridiculous shape, he was callused and bruised, cracked and flaking all over the place and Hizashi would regularly force moisturizer on them. Shouta cared more about figure out the root stress, it’s not that Hizashi didn’t, he just didn’t know how to, so he settled for pampering you.

“It’s dead.” Hizashi huffed from the bedroom door. “Obliterated, actually.”

“Hmm?” You looked up from your phone, you hadn’t been reading any of the messages in the chat for a good few minutes and just let your eyes unfocus instead. You yanked your thumb from your mouth and hid it below the table like a child caught with a sweet they’d snuck from the kitchen before dinner, you knew he saw.

“Your nail.” Hizashi gently patted the end of his hair with his special fluffy towel that he’d convinced you and Shouta he needed to control his frizz (which he didn’t have) and padded towards the kitchen table where you sat. He placed a kiss on the top of your head as he strode around you.

“What’s up, love?” he murmured softly, leaning against the table next you. One of his legs propped up on the chair to your right and leaned down to look at your phone screen.

“This is going to go horribly.” You breathed, panicked as you set your phone down on the table.

“You don’t know that.” Hizashi looked back up at you and smiled sweetly.

“Not everyone’s mom is a cool rocker lady in her 60’s who lives in the heart of downtown still and is fully supportive of her child’s bisexual polyamorous relationship with their childhood best friend and an ex-small-town girl with an ultra-conservative family.” You huffed out in one long breath.

“That was oddly specific.” He chuckled softly. “What about Sho’s parents, they’re conservative?”

“Yeah, but his parents are at least polite and send us both Christmas gifts every year and keep any and all of their shittier opinions to themselves because they want their son to be happy.” You groaned dramatically, dropping your head onto his thigh, using the extra meat to muffle the noise.

“Y-your-” Hizashi’s leg twitched from the vibrations of your groan. “Your parents want you to be happy too, Y/n.”

You groaned into his thigh, trying to explain the difference between your parent’s and Shouta’s. Hizashi laughed and gently grabbed the side of your face, lifting it so you were no longer muffled by his leg.

“Try again.” He instructed.

“They only want me to be happy if it fits into their rigid frame of what acceptable happiness looks like.” You explained again.

“Hey,” Hizashi ran his thumb back and forth across your cheek, “have faith, baby. They’re your family, they love you.”

If only he’d been right.

Shouta was the know it all, the one that way always right. Hizashi on the other hand was quiet used to being the one that was not always right, he had no hubris about his intelligence what-so-ever. So much so that sometimes you and Shouta had to remind him that he was intelligent and offered a lot of knowledge and wisdom in many many ways: public speaking, social relationships, radio scripting, he spoke two languages fluently as well. However, this one-time Hizashi wished dearly that he had been right, that he was an insufferable know it all who never got it wrong. It was a different twisted feeling in his gut, sitting the back seat watching you try to keep it together in the front seat, than the usual mild embarrassment that faded after a couple of minutes when he was wrong about something. That was damn near luxurious compared to the painful knot tearing into his stomach.

The silence in the car was so dense and absolute that it almost physically gagged Hizashi and Shouta, the two of them were too afraid to say anything and break it. It felt as though the heavy silence was keeping you from breaking, as if it were applying enough pressure at all sides to keep the thin veneer of composure you were managing together. You felt it too, along with the heavy weight that was nearly crushing your chest, the thick doughy lump clogging your throat and the tremble in your lips. You took a deep breath, it getting caught halfway and freezing in to an unrealized sob that you pushed down.

Shouta huffed and pulled off to the side of the dark country road, slowing into the gravelly shoulder. He turned in his seat to face you, undoing his seat belt so he could fully turn his body. You kept your eyes out the window, trying with all your might not to let the tears that clouded your eyes to fall. You knew you’d need to cry about this, about your parents and their conditional love. You knew that this was something you would need to deal with, but you didn’t want to at this moment. You wanted to go home, take some sleeping medication and go to sleep, you wanted to wait until the open wound in your chest had stopped bleeding to begin treating it.

Your father was being facetious about your living arrangement as usual, whenever he was faced with Shouta and Hizashi his first reaction was to constantly point out that fact that you were a woman living with two men and that if they weren’t gay that one of them should have married you by now. Shouta and Hizashi had taken these comments like water rolling off of a duck’s back, Hizashi even grinned and mumbled something about your father tempting him. You could have kept your mouth shut, you could have kept your cool but Shouta’s hand was brushing against your thigh and you felt it tense into an annoyed fist. Something about Shouta’s minimal reaction lit a fire in you, more like an explosion. It was a surge of very sudden and very ferocious courage that lasted a split second and no longer. You’d practically shouted it, the ringing in your ears drowning whatever words you’d used out.

You were met with complete and utter silence, shock and fear thick in the air. You’d almost believed for a moment that you hadn’t done it, that you’d just shouted randomly and just scared everyone. But then your dad stood up, his shocked open mouth flattening out into a hard straight line, this jaw swelling as he clenched it.

“W-what?” he growled, stepping back from the table as if you were a threat.

You were ready to backtrack, you were so ready to just laugh and pretend you were fucking with him. But you spared a glance to Shouta and Hizashi, their faces pale and guilty. They, regardless of what you could say in an attempt to cover up what you’d just said, were basically admitting to it already. You instinctively shrunk back into your chair like you’d do when you were younger at the dinner table whenever something uncomfortable would come up. You could tell everyone was at a loss for words, the difference was that you were scared and at a loss for words, Shouta and Hizashi were shocked and at a loss for words and your father was steaming angry and at a loss for words.

Your mother, who had always been the least confrontational of the two turned away from you and almost in a show of disgust immediately went to comfort your grandmother. It was as if you were an afront to goodness, an act of moral atrocity being committed in front of them. Your father began to barrage you with passive aggressive questions and accusations towards Shouta and Hizashi. He was trying to understand while at the same time refusing to give you a chance to explain. You stopped listening after the first few sentences that came out of his mouth, falling back into an internal monologue filled with regret. He must have said something exceptionally terrible because in an instant Shouta was standing, his arm reaching out to separate you from him and he was shouting. Shouta never shouted, he barely voiced any form of annoyance or frustration in general when it wasn’t a learning moment for his students, but here he was on his feet volleying harsh word with your father.

Hizashi, you realized was attempting damage control, his hands raised and his voice lower than either of the other two men’s. You blinked back into the present, as noise filled your ears, you mother was crying, your father and Shouta were shouting and Hizashi was rambling panicked. You took a couple of deep breaths and stood up on shaky legs, gripping Shouta’s protective arm for support, and looked your father in the eyes. He faltered at the direct eye contact and you saw an opening where there was less shouting to contend with.

“Stop,” you hissed through gritted teeth. “this is why I never wanted to tell you! Why I was perfectly okay with living away from you guys for the rest- This is why I haven’t been home.”

Your mother gasped a ragged, tear-filled breath. She’d expressed before that she’d wished she could see you more often, that she’s noticed you’d been coming home less and less. You’d been good at covering it up, saying you were busy with work and simply couldn’t get the time off. You knew that what you’d just said hurt her, not in the way it should have. It hurt her because you’d just told them it was their fault that you felt unwelcomed here and not because you were afraid of your own parents.

“How long?” she breathed.

“Three years.” You sniffed, hand tightening around Shouta’s wrist.

“THREE?! THR-” your father bellowed in disbelief. “For three years they’ve been brainwashing and forcing themselves on you?!”

Suddenly you understood why Shouta had leapt up, you had just now caught up with the conversation. Red hot anger flared up in your chest, the mere insinuation that you were being forced in anyway to be with your partners filled you with utter rage.

“No!” You growled, for the first time in your life matching your father’s volume. “For three years they’ve been by my side, showing up at the hospital when I got hurt at work, celebrating my promotions at the agency, helping me make a home that I feel safe in and actually fucking caring about me!”

There was silence again, this one was thin but not light in anyway, like it was a delicate thread barely holding a great weight from falling and crushing you.

“We care for you.” You mother said darkly.

“No,” you swallowed hard, “you haven’t for a long time.”

“Get out.” You father growled.

Hizashi was already moving, grabbing your coats from the back of the chairs and pulling Shouta by the arm away from the table. It took you a good long second to move, even then it was because Shouta latched onto your shoulders and Hizashi tugged him along.

“I’m sorry.” Shouta whispered, his hand finding yours in your lap. You kept your eyes focused out the window at the pitch-black fields with barely visible for off golden dots of light. You couldn’t talk.

You heard Hizashi shuffling around in the back seat, scooting closer to you and his hand joined Shouta’s, pulling up onto the storage compartment between the seats. It was cracking, that veneer.

“It’s not your fault.” Hizashi murmured.

You sniffed hard, biting int you bottom lip. Of course, it wasn’t your fault that your parents didn’t accept you, that you weren’t good enough or right for them, that you weren’t on par with the apparent morality of the rest of the family. It wasn’t your fault that they were backwards people with terrible ideas of how a person should be. It still didn’t hurt any less that you couldn’t meet those backwards ideals, that you couldn’t be the right kind of person for them.

“Y/n,” Shouta whispered, gently grabbing your chin and turning your face towards them.

They were looking at you the way a mother looks at her crying baby in the first few months, the desperate need to connect and nurture glowing in their eyes. They were filled with worry, with pity, with understanding but also, with fear. No doubt, what had just happened had been traumatic for them too. Looking into their emotion filled eyes you felt that veneer shatter, falling away and unleashing that mournful sobbing that had been trapped inside.

Shouta pulled you towards him, holding you firmly to his chest placing his head atop yours. You vaguely felt Hizashi disappear from you for a moment, but you were too preoccupied with the trembling muscles seizing violently in your chest. Then you felt him sliding in behind you, only now realizing he’d stepped out of the car and slide in through your door as he shut it behind him. He draped himself over you rubbing circles into your back.

“It’s not your fault.” He murmured into your hair over and over again.

At first you didn’t really focus on it, thinking it idle words of comfort but the more he said the more it sunk in. The more your realized that you were holding onto the hope that there was something about this, about you, that you could fix. With every repetition of those four words that false hope chipped away and that heavy weight in your chest began to fall away. It was still painful, it still felt like you had a pen festering wound that you’d never fully heal from, but it also felt lighter. It felt as though a burden you’d believed was yours to bear was suddenly the responsibility of the many.

“You don’t have to change,” Shouta whispered softly as your sobs ebbed into weak beaths, “they do.”

That reignited some tears, to hear what you needed to said so plainly. Shouta was good at that, putting those intangible thoughts and feelings into plain words. You cried until the tears and the worry and the late hour caught up with you, until your head felt heavy and waterlogged and you slumped backwards into Hizashi sniffing. You cried until your wavering breaths evened out and your tired mind fell to silence. Hizashi pulled you into his lap and cradled you against him like a parent holding and oversized child, running his hand slowly through your hair.

When you awoke you were swaddled thoroughly with the fuzzy blanket from the couch Shouta hated because it shed and sandwiched between the two men who snored away. As you blinked in the early morning light that just barely peaked through the blinds you noticed the red rims around Hizashi’s eyes and deep-set circles under Shouta’s as if they both been awake all night. Shouta was still in his dress shirt and Hizashi had stripped down to his boxers and pulled his hair back into a sloppy bun. Neither were properly snoring which told they hadn’t been asleep for very long.

You tried to ignore what had happened last night, what had led to the heavy feeling in your head and crusty dry eyes and tight cheeks. You tried to pretend that they had stayed up for work, that they you had swaddled yourself up in the blanket nor because you were sad but because you just wanted to be cozy. Then you heard a phone vibrate on the nightstand and any and all work towards denial washed away as you dreaded checking it. It could just be a work thing, it could be Hizashi’s phone even though he’d never had it on silent even once since you’ve known him. It could have been Shouta’s vibrating against the wooden table even though you could see his slightly peeking out of his back pocket.

You sighed and sat up, daring the smallest of glances at the nightstand. It was your phone screen that was lit up, several notifications on the screen. You groaned and laid back down, scrunching your eyes shut begging for sleep to suddenly and miraculously take you. It buzzed again and you huffed. Fine. You’ll check it. I guess someone could be dying. I do stop that from happening for a living.

You very cautiously crawled over Hizashi and reached to get your phone, electing not to look at it until you settled back between your boys. You scrolled though your notifications, weather, news, a work email, a second email from a contact that made your blood run cold and three missed calls and two answering machine messages from the same contact. Grandma. Your hands trembled at you unlocked your phone and typed int your voicemail password. You held the phone up to you ear and listen to the first message which was more or less just some frustrated grandma noises and mumbles about the inconvenience of technology, followed briefly by a set of hellos. If you hadn’t been ready to shit yourself, you’d have laughed. Then the second played and you had to take a deep breath to hold yourself together enough to keep listening.

“Hello? Hello? Y/n? Oh shi- well this is just ridiculous. Y/n, I don’t know if you can hear me, or maybe this is your answering machine, I don’t know I can’t hear too well but-” her soft worn voice said into the phone, “I want you to know that I love you. Your parents love you too, even if they did not act like it tonight.”

She paused and your eyes welled up with tears, a lump forming in your throat. It was this strange feeling of pure sadness but also happiness and relief.

“Those boys,” she continued, “probably would have killed your father last night if they had the chance. I’m not saying I get it, but they sure do love you, sweetheart. I quite like the blond one he is very-”

The message cut off and the automated voice asked you what you wanted to do with the message. All you could do was laugh, laugh and cry. You were still sad, still in pain, but it was already starting to feel less life-ending.

“Hey,” Shouta mumbled blearily, “S’okay. I’m here.”

He wrapped an arm around you and pulled you close, trying to pull himself from sleep. You hugged him back and massaged the back of his scalp gently.

“Listen to this.” You sniffed.

He nodded and you pressed repeat, listening to the whole second message through again. You watched as a smile spread across his sleepy lips and he laughed softly. He pouted suddenly when it ended, his eyebrows pulling together as much as his drowsy state would let them.

“What?” you asked, worried he’d heard something you‘d missed.

“Why does she like Zash more?” he grumbled, barely awake now.

You smiled and curled into him, electing not to answer knowing that he wouldn’t like being told that Hizashi is more sociable than him. Besides, you smiled to yourself, he’d be asleep in a matter of seconds.

You were still hurt; you still had that big open wound in your chest. But with Shouta and Hizashi at your side you knew you’d heal; you knew they’d give you anything you needed. You knew that your grandmother was right, that these two boys loved you very much.

[mybullshitsensesaretingling]

A Vulcan Smile Part Three

[Part one] [Part two]

A/N: Lunar eclipses are ever 2.5 years on Earth. I just want y’all to know that

“How is it? Is it bad?” Joanna asked, peeping over the computer at you. “How bad is it?” 

“It’s not bad. It’s really good,” you told her. “Now go away and let me finish.”

With one last worried look, she went back to the sofa and you went back to reading her paper, but before you could make it through even a paragraph another McCoy interrupted you. 

“Is she gonna get an A?” Leonard put a hand on the desk and leaned over you to see the computer screen. “She better get an A.” 

“Leonard, I know that you don’t get to be here very often,” you turned your head slightly so that you could see his face, “but the whole helicopter dad thing you got going on is starting to drive me a little nuts?” 

“I’m the helicopter?” He met your gaze. “How many teachers make home visits?” 

“This is a big assignment.” 

“You’ve been here three days this week,’ he pointed out. 

“If you’re just going to complain, could you do it somewhere else so I can focus?” 

He looked back at the screen. “I’m not complaining.” 

You raised an eyebrow at him, but didn’t say anything, choosing instead to return to reading. The two of you read in silence for a moment, before a line caught your eye. 

“Looks like your snarkiness rubbed off on her,” you smiled, pointing out the line. “She’s pretty witty.” 

He looked down at you. “That was almost a compliment.” 

You ignored his comment, but the smile didn’t leave your face as you finished the paper. 

“She’s gonna get an A.” 

“She will once I fix the spelling. Move over.” He nudged the chair. “Apparently the dyslexia really is a family trait.” 

You leaned back in the desk chair. “You knew Spock had dyslexia but you didn’t know he had a sister?” 

“The details that man finds important enough to share astounds me too.” He motioned for you to get out of the chair so he could sit. “Do me a favor and tell Joanna to get ready for bed.” 

“Sure.” You got up and headed to the living room. “I do all the other parenting for you.” 

“I heard that.” 

“You were meant to,” you called back as you took a seat next to Joanna. “I’ve got good news and bad news, but I think there’s wiggly room on the bad news.” 

“Good news first,” she requested. 

“Good news is your paper is great and I’m super proud.” You held up your hand for her to high five. “Bad news is your dad wants you to go to bed soon.” 

She started to groan in complaint when she remembered your earlier comment. “You said there was wiggle room?” 

“There’s a lunar eclipse tonight. I think we convince him that staying up past your bedtime would be beneficial to your education.” 

She grinned at your suggestion. 

“That’s not gonna happen,” the doctor said as he crossed the room. 

“An appreciation and understanding of the universe is important to a young girl's development,” you told him. 

“So is sleep.” 

“She can sleep any night. She can only see a lunar eclipse every three years,” you argued.

His eyebrows lowered as his counterargument took shape in his mind. Joanna looked up at you with wide, insistent eyes and you gave her a small nod to let her know you had a handle on the situation. 

You looked back to Leonard and continued your argument before he had time to finish his, “You’ve already deprived her of the opportunity to live among the stars and learn all there is to learn about the universe while being raised by her father. Are you really going to deprive her of this too?” 

His eyebrows managed to lower further. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it once more. “I am not depriving her of anything. I am protecting her from the dangers of living on a starship.” 

Joanna rolled her eyes. 

“And now you’ve been provided the opportunity to show her the wonders of the stars safely from the ground. Don’t miss it.” 

“The wonders,” he scoffed under his breath. 

“Don’t let her grow up to be as cynical as you. Not yet.” You put your hands on Joanna’s shoulders as she did her best to look young and sweet. “Protect and foster her joy and innocence while she still has it.” 

His glare was flattering at the power of her puppy dog eyes and finally he sighed, “Fine.” 

Joanna cheered and sprinted out the front door. 

He crossed his arms. “You know she’s not gonna make it until the moon is even half in shadow.” 

“Maybe not,” you smiled, “but she’ll always remember that you let her try.” 

His expression softened further as he watched you follow his daughter outside. 

As usual, he was only half right. Joanna had stayed up to see the planet’s shadow move halfway across the moon, but had fallen asleep soon after. Her legs were draped over her father’s and her head resting in your lap as she snored softly. Your fingers weaved small braids into her hair while she slept. Quietly, you named the stars. You had started for Joanna’s benefit, teaching her the stars she could see from Earth when she was small. But you found yourself continuing long after her eyes had closed. You were barely aware of the words you were saying anymore and you were sure Leonard wasn’t paying attention. 

When you dropped your gaze from the moon you found him staring at you. Finally, the stream of star facts came to a stop. 

“Sorry,” your voice dropped an octave. “Didn’t realize how much I was infodumping.” 

“You do tend to babble,” he smiled softly to let you know he was joking. Or maybe he was letting you know that he didn’t mind. “You’re a good teacher.”  

You chuckled lightly, “Thanks.”

“But why are you here?” You raised an eyebrow at his question and he quickly explained, “If you like space so much why aren’t you working up there? They’re always looking for teachers on space stations.” 

You shuttered at the idea. “Can’t stand those death traps. They’re nothing but a testament to the federation’s hubris.” You looked back at the sky but not before you caught his smile widening ever so slightly. “I don’t know how much of this is a genuine interest anymore and how much is just affection for Spock.” 

“How’s that?”

You sighed deeply trying to figure out how to explain your complicated emotions around the subject. “Spock and I aren’t close. You may have noticed that we don’t have a lot in common.” 

��Yeah, I picked up on that.”

“Well, the one thing we did have in common were the stars. Interest in the sciences was always encouraged in our home so we could go out at night to watch the stars without being questioned. And if Sarek was gone we were allowed to just be. No pressure to hide and suppress every emotion, to stifle every human instinct.” You finished the braid you had been working on and picked up another lock of hair. “We watched every astronomical event together. Even when Spock had run away, if there was a meteor shower I could walk outside at one in the morning and find him waiting for me, like nothing had happened.” 

“Now it’s all we have left. We don’t have a shared home or parents to bring us together anymore. I haven’t even seen him in five years. But every time there’s an upcoming astronomical event, I get a subspace message detailing the event in flawless academic writing.” You chuckled. “I guess it’s Spock's way of saying he loves me.” 

“That’s unexpectedly beautiful,” Leonard told you. “I didn’t think Spock had it in him.”