#How many times am I gonna write about this?

[salemlunaa]

﹏𓊝∘˚ THE SUCCESS OF SHIFTING: THINK AS IF 𓇼∘˚

two things i love doing when it comes to my desires

i know, i know, you’ve heard that phrase more times than you can count. But i’m asking you, think of the person you want to be, the person you are yearning to be. Congratulations, that’s you now. I don’t care what you’re seeing with your physical eyes. However so many people ask “BUT SALEM HOW DO I ASSUME?”

well, i’m gonna give you two steps to success:

1. WRITE A SUCCESS STORY

if you succeeded you would write one right? I’m not telling that you must feel it real but you would be proud of yourself and so so happy, or even have a surreal natural type of feeling in you when you wake up in your desire state? Whatever feeling, you would write a success story, because you… succeeded? No one is telling you to go lie but go into your notes or whatever you use and write a success story.

Look back on the story every time something comes up and remind yourself that it’s already happened. I mean of course it did, you wrote a success story. Feel that feeling again and let all your worries wash away.

2. IMMERSE YOURSELF IN YOUR NEW POV

suggest you do this while inducing or tryinh to shift or even trying to flip your thoughts: Close your eyes. I want you to envision a pov of your desired self. What are they doing, or should i say, what are YOU doing? are you on a date with your s/o. Are you chilling in bed, a private jet. Are you with family, whatever it is, envision a point of view from your desired self, as if you’re looking through the eyes of your desired self. You have to really really feel it, the warm sun, the laugh of your friends, really immerse yourself

Feel the feelings of calmness, it’s already done and you’re so happy. Now I want you, from the point of your desired self to think about the worries you have now, from your old life your old story. Like an inner monologue, repeat your worry but now from the point of view of your desired self. How would you react?

If you’re looking at life from the point of your desired self, who has everything, would you be worried about getting your summer body? Would you be worried about not getting your dream life before a certain date if you’re living it?

For example Angelica wants to induce pure consciousness, in the dream life that she has scripted, she’s a teen actress.

Angelica is worried about not manifesting her dream life before March. She closes her eyes and imagines life from the pov of her desired self’s eyes. She’s in her trailer infront of the mirror getting touch ups on set. She’s repeats her worry “What if i don’t get my dream life by spring break?” Angelica, now in the state of her desired self laughs at that. “I’m literally getting my makeup done on set, what am i even yapping about?” “Lmfao why am i scared of not living the life i literally have right now?”. And all of Angelica’s worries fade away because she knows she’s shifted.

Jaime wants her dream body but fear is creeping up that she won’t be able to manifest it by summer and will go another year avoiding all the cute clothes and bikinis she wants to wear. She closes her eyes and envisions a pov of her dream self looking in the mirror with her new body. She repeats the worry, and now find it silly because “why would i be scared of not getting something i already have”, she then looks at her success story reminding herself of what’s true.

And when it comes to manifesting, shifting and inducing the void, you already have your desires, so just tell yourself you’re going to relax Procrastinating because you’re scared of failure? Why would you be scared of failing something that’s already happened, so there’s no need to procrastinate. You’re confident in your abilities because you were able to produce success, that success story of yours is proof. Why are you upset about how you “just can’t do it” when you literally have a success story under your belt. Go look at it. Why are you scared of not have something YOU ALREADY HAVE.

There’s no need to rely on the void for your dream life, since you’re already living it. By tricking your mind into thinking that you aren’t reliant on the void, reliant on that shift, since you already have what you want, will make the void way easier and more accessible and natural to you. It won’t be on a pedestal and it won’t take forever for you to finally relax and let go.

Look at your worries from the perspective of your dream self and you’ll realise how pointless worrying is.

IMMERSING IN YOUR POV + REVISITING THAT SUCCESS STORY = SUCCESS

[amywritesthings]

I have to put all of these tags in a read more because when I'm telling you I have read them over and over to the point where I have teared up alsdfjkalsjdf peach you absolutely spoiled me with these reactions, you really did. This is every author's dream to see: a wall of text with many capslocks and screeching. If I was self conscious about my smut, then I am certainly no longer thanks to you!!!!

#the second and I mean the SECOND I saw ‘resolved sexual tension’ I started giggling like I fucking goblin #plus ‘nipple play’ Amy you’re trying to kill me #I’m on my period and you’re trying to kill me #idk starting with cradling her head when that’s the thing she hit and how he lost her?? I’m fine. I’m fine. #(I’m sobbing loudly) #instinctually you jump knowing he’ll catch you’ oh you’re out for blood ok #‘fighting or fucking. the odds are fifty fifty’ when I tell you I snorted #Hange’s got a bet pool going I know it #HIM CUTTING OFF HER APOLOGY I AM EATING THIS UP SO HARD AMY #the two of you know the language of violence so well but you know each other better is actually an insane line #Amy you always blow me away but THIS?? #it’s so tender and sweet and you can just feel the sense of *finally* #like yeah there are pieces still missing but they’re falling back into place and that’s what matters #YEAH JAMES CLIMB THAT MAN LIKE THE TREES YOU CRASHED THROUGH #‘do you think the others —‘ ‘I don’t care’ might be the hottest exchange I’ve ever read #god you catch his personality so beautifully. it’s such a treat to read your Levi #even if dirt was a sin apparently you were not. <- Amy I’m going to kill you /aff #tit lover Levi I love this song #HIM HOLDING BACK IM GONNA SOBB #he will never forgive himself for what happened I know it but he won’t let that keep him from what he wants and I love that so much #PINNING HER DOWN BY HEE HIPS WHILE SHE COMES I SWEAR I DROOLED #“our rule’ oh I would’ve cursed his ass out over that fucking three rule thing. now is not the time Levi!! #still remembering to use protection!! my conscious babies!! #‘I never stopped loving you’ hey what if I threw myself off a cliff?? dramatically #‘TAKE WHATEVER YOU WANT FROM ME. IT’S ALWAYS BEEN YOURS’ #AMY WHO GAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO JUST WRITE BANGER AFTER BANGER #‘I’ll cum so fast’ yeah that’s the goal stupid. #oh he’s a babbler. #’let go. I’ll catch you’ AMY FUCK OFFFFF /aff #you’re killing me with this. the symbolism of falling as something good compared to last chapter and the start of the story

silver underground. | chapter 24

( Read on AO3 )

Pairing:��levi ackerman x f!reader (attack on titan / shingeki no kyojin) Word Count: 6.3k Summary: day 163 - continued.

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI - explicit smut, resolved sexual tension, oral (f!receiving), nipple play, body worship, fingering, dirty talk, multiple orgasms, protected piv sex, angst, mentions of death, sensuality Credits: dividers by @saradika-graphics

Previous Chapter. / Next Chapter. | Masterlist.

I feel... you.

The answer to your question you’ve been asking the moment you opened your eyes.

The clarity you’ve sought ever since you locked eyes with the captain of the Scouts.

I remember you.

Levi kisses you like he knows you, and the rest of the world ceases to exist.

His sturdy hands flutter in a flurry, touching every part of you like he wishes he could have it all.

Chilled palms cup your face, cradling your head as if it's the most precious thing they've ever touched, before sliding down your neck; to the slope of your shoulder, dipping down your sides — pulling you closer, closer, until you’re airborne.

You’re not afraid of falling.

Not with him.

Instinctually you jump, knowing he’ll catch you. 

Your thighs clench around his waist as one strong arm supports your weight, unwilling to compromise the position of his other hand. It remains on your cheek, cupping your face to hold your kisses steady.

As the man stumbles forward, you hear the abrupt slam of the wooden chair go flying across the room, skidding to its side on the floor. 

It’s loud.

(Surely someone downstairs will hear.)

Hange, Moblit, Erwin — in a best-case scenario, those who stayed behind will be the only privy to the commotion.

However, if the entire squad has returned from the forest...

Well, there's no mistaking the shuffles and slams coming from Captain Levi's room.

Fighting or fucking; the odds are fifty-fifty.

He doesn't seem to care.

Honestly?

Neither do you.

(Too much time wasted on open secrets.)

With immense control and strength, he slowly lowers you both to the bed. The bed frame creaks in its age under the weight, but the mattress feels soft compared to the forest floor you crashed into mere hours ago.

Your back touches the ivory sheets, engulfing you in the scent of him. Something uniquely Levi; crisp and impossibly clean with a musk that’s making your mouth water. 

You’ve smelled it in passing the few times he’s passed you at headquarters — always at arm’s length, no matter how close you try to get — but now it’s bound to stick to your body, your clothes —

The way it used to in the Underground. 

The way it used to in this very bed.

His kisses are messy yet precise, focused on the feel of your mouth against his. When you let out a shaken breath and whimper, overwhelmed by his reinvigorated passion, Levi outright groans. 

The same arm once holding you up snakes around from under your back to meet its twin cradling your face, keeping you in place.

(As if you’d ever wish to leave.)

“I’m sorry,” you whisper between kisses.

“Don’t,” he replies just as softly, tugging at your lower lip with his teeth. “Not now.”

“But—”

“I don’t want your damn apologies,” he sighs, traveling south to pepper your jawline with short, chaste kisses. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

When he senses your hesitance, he pumps the brakes on his kisses and raises his chin to look you in the eye. The storm in his eyes has darkened to a damn near black.

His button-down hangs off of his bony frame, giving you a view of the expanse of skin beneath.

“Nothing,” he repeats.

Like he knows you want to fight.

(The two of you know the language of violence so well, but you know one another better.)

The protests, the pleas, the endless stream of begging dies on your tongue the second his thumb grazes your lower lip with reverence.

Emotion flickers across his face, gone as fast as it came, before he dives back in for another kiss — slower this time, the push and pull deliberate with reassurance.

This.

This is what your lips should be doing, not apologizing.

The message is received loud and clear: you tilt your chin to meet him in every kiss, hands blindly raising to run through the soft strands of his black hair. He exhales through his nose, the hot breath tickling your skin.

For the longest time, it’s all you do.

Kiss.

One for every day spent apart.

One for every fight you’ve ever had.

One for every memory you’ve yet to recall.

The puzzle has a frame, yet there are still missing pieces, destroyed edges, that may never return. Maybe he’ll never make peace with it, but knowing you were a stone’s throw away from death surrenders that grief into confetti.

There will be new memories to make.

(As the keeper of your heart, you trust his recollection of the details you can no longer recount.)

This life won’t be perfect, it never has been from the beginning, but so long as you have this — have Levi — then nothing else matters.

“I can hear you thinking.”

The first part of that statement is muffled by a kiss, but he pulls away to check in during this languid, yearning make out session.

Levi squints down at you, lips pink from exertion.

“I’m not,” you lie.

His eyes narrow further. 

“Fine. I am.”

“About?”

“About how badly I want you.”

The blatant honesty dissolves that narrowness in seconds.

“About... how you—”

With the strength harnessed by adrenaline, you push on Levi’s chest, hard, until he’s flat on his back.

The bed creaks again when you crawl on top of him, straddling his hips while your hands plant themselves on the soft flesh of his wrists.

Down; you push down, pinning him underneath.

Levi doesn’t tense. He simply stares above, allowing you to do this.

“Want you,” you clarify, “yes.”

His throat bobs, but his expression stays cool. 

“Are you sure?”

“Do I look like I’m hesitating, Captain Levi?” you challenge, leaning down to hover over his face.

His hands leisurely flex under your hold, as if to relax them from their clenched state. 

For a moment, doubt creeps in.

Even if he’s confessed, there is still so much time unspoken for; so much to talk about, so much that you have missed.

Maybe it’s too much.

The grip on his wrists falters. “Unless if you don’t want—”

With inhuman strength, he uses the light hold you have on his wrists to push up, setting you off balance.

As you waver he quickly finds the upper hand, switching your positions once more so he can pin your wrists to the mattress beneath.

“Don’t even try to finish that sentence.”

To make his point, he drops his head to your neck and plants open-mouthed kisses against the column of your throat. You can’t help but make a strained noise of desire, eyes fluttering shut from ecstasy.

From this vantage point, you feel it — the sheer tension in his hold on your wrists, how desperately he resists clenching down, how gentle he aims to be when he glides both of your wrists from the sides of your face to over the crown of your head.

Levi doesn’t tremble, not like you. He remains as calculated as ever.

His lazy, methodical kisses trail up your neck to your jaw to your mouth. Both of his hands work to carefully connect your wrist in an x-formation. Once satisfied by your compliance, he slides one of his hands over both to latch on, pushing them down — yet still giving you plenty of room to escape if something doesn’t feel right.

(For the first time in over six months, everything feels perfectly in place.)

Panting against his mouth to catch your breath, a floating thought comes to mind once again.

So you speak. “Do you think the others—”

“I don’t care,” he interrupts, capturing your lips in a searing kiss. You follow his lead, tilting your chin up to meet him. “I do not fucking care right now, James.”

His candidness earns him a gentle giggle, and you feel the slightest shift against your lips:

A smile of his own.

You tap his hip cascaded by the disheveled fabric of his white button-down with your knee.

“Then take this off.”

The kisses cease at your request — no, demand — and Levi pulls away enough to stare down into yours.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Those beautiful gray eyes, stormy with droplets of blue — you realize the deep hurt in your belly is a pang of loss.

You say it before you can regret holding it back.

"I missed you."

His expression smooths with how earnest you sound beneath him, before clearing his throat.

“Which part?” he asks, voice slightly strained from the efforts of holding back.

You blink twice. "Which part?"

"Of me, yeah."

Searching his face, you decide to play along.

“Are you going to get mad if I say all of you?”

His eyes narrow. “Lazy.”

The flatness of his joke earns a genuine belly laugh from you. 

Levi lets go of your wrists to sit up, nudging your legs apart so he can wriggle out of the way. You easily comply, careful to leave your boots hanging off of the bed when you widen your thighs.

Stepping away from the bed, he bends over first to remove both of your boots, then his own.

Any other time he’d have a conniption over the dirt, the grime, that you’ve brought into this bed.

(If there was one thing to remember about your past, it was that people from the Underground City could still be just as clean as anyone else. So much time spent cleaning the endless grit from under your nails; an impossible feat.)

Even if dirt was a sin, apparently you were not.

He doesn’t even blink at the specs that may very well still be in your hair.

Instead he’s focused on watching your face as he unfastens the harness at his sternum, shrugging out of his own leather straps. Tossed carelessly to the floor, he rips off his dirtied cravat and ODM gear skirt next.

Pressing a knee into the mattress, he rejoins you on the bed to reach for your chest.

He hesitates, throat bobbing with fleeting uncertainty before he begins to slip the leather through its loop.

“Sit up for me.”

You acquiesce, sore muscles protesting the movement as you prop yourself up on your elbows.

He’s softer with his movements when it comes to your uniform, pulling it apart piece by piece, as if afraid one false move will ruin this dream.

It’s not a dream, you want to tell him. I’m right here. I’ve always been right here. I won’t be going anywhere ever again.

You don’t.

Can’t, not when you’re so mesmerized by the way he pauses at the first button of your shirt.

For a short moment he meets your gaze, studying it, before nodding once.

One by one, deft fingers unbutton your shirt until it’s hanging from your frame, revealing a chest band. All of the air rushes from his lungs in one swift woosh, until you realize—

The scars.

Shit.

The dreamy spell is broken, and soon you find yourself scrambling for something that will quell any negative emotion bubbling in his belly at the sheer sight of your body.

A part of you wants to cover up, act coy and switch roles —

But clever Levi, forever two steps ahead, dives right in to kiss the one of the many healing scars littering your body after the fall — the jagged line just above your left breast — with such fierce devotion that the gesture nearly knocks the damn wind of your lungs.

“Beautiful.”

The murmur is tattooed into your skin, invisible to the wandering eye.

“So—”

He unsnaps the bind.

“—fucking—”

Like a feral animal, his hand tugs once, twice, until it gives and unravels.

“—beautiful.”

Levi forgets himself when his eyes meet your breasts, and you see the way his pupils damn near dilate at the sight.

His lips part, slick from the way he licks between them, before he exhales one single curse like it's a prayer.

“Fuck.”

You stay perfectly still on your elbows, perched on an incline in his bed.

At a loss for words as he stares at your torso like it’s a work of art, your heart hammers in your chest as you telepathically plead with him to simply do whatever he wishes.

Anything he desires, so long as he moves.

Your voice dissolves to a whimper.

“Levi—”

“Can I?”

“Please.”

His own voice crackles like a spark readying a flame. You want to feel him, separated by the absence of muscle memory; to have his hands, his lips, scorched on your skin forevermore.

Levi gives into temptation and kisses south, his nose tracing in a straight line until both hands hold your breasts.

Hot sighs heavily flutter across your skin before those very lips kiss the rising bud they’d been seeking, causing your back to arch clear off of the bed. You whine, trying desperately to stay quiet.

Levi’s too busy worshipping the nipple in his mouth to chastise you for the sound.

His tongue swirls to harden it faster while his other hand massages the other breast, his calloused thumb rolling in the same direction.

Your nails dig into the sheets, anchoring your hands from clawing up his back.

“Levi.”

He hums around your nipple as his answer, its tone dismissive.

When you’re brave enough to open your eyes, you see that his eyes are completely closed — softened in an otherworldly ecstasy at the sheer feel of your body against his.

The sight shoots a dizzying amount of arousal to your belly.

When he switches it up and sucks, those eyes lazily open to stare up at you: a challenge to let him stay like this, to never leave.

He wouldn’t have to ask twice.

If this was your entire night, with Levi’s mouth on your chest while he lives in the memories of you old and new, then you’re inclined to say that there are worse ways to spend your time.

(No, you’re happy to say like this forever.)

Except a chill passes over your pampered breast as Levi kisses across it, abandoning your nipple to trail to the other side — 

Fuck.

“You’re going to kill me,” you rasp, too worked up to care if you sound wrecked.

“Won’t,” is all he replies as he dives back in, worshipping your body.

“Will,” you grit, trying your damnedest not to cry out from just how good it feels.

With one final kiss to your nipple, Levi detaches with mercy to shrug the pesky white button-down off of his shoulders.

The fabric joins the mounting pile of clothes on the floor, but his hands hesitate when they touch his belt.

His eyes notably flicker to your belt — a pause.

Deciding.

If it’s too soon—

If it’s too much —

No, you want to cry out. It’s not enough.

The words die on your tongue, possessed by the ghost that’s plagued your mind for months.

Instead you take action: sitting up on the bed, overly eager fingers tremble as they begin to unbuckle his belt, working at the leather straps crisscrossing his thighs and calves. 

“James.”

His voice is dying on his tongue; a singular syllable of surprise.

“Let me.”

You notice the way his abdomen tenses at your words as you tug the first belt from its loops.

“Are you s—”

“I said,” you slowly repeat, moving closer to kiss the trail of dark hair peppering just under his belly button. Levi exhales like he’s been punched. “Let. Me.”

Punctuating each word to show your seriousness, your eyes meet as he stares below.

Inch by inch, you press slow, meaningful kisses in his skin — first to the left, curving towards his hip. 

Your hands push down the trousers of his uniform pants, using the strength to drag the leather straps wrapping around his legs to fall with them.

Levi stands before you in merely white briefs, and there’s no hiding the immense arousal straining against the thin fabric.

The sight causes your breath to simply evaporate from your lungs, unable to stop staring.

From your peripheral you see the hand at his side flex then snatch into a fist to combat the desire to touch you.

He must feel guilt.

He must be so terrified that this moment will simply evaporate like the rest of your memories.

That you may have woken up, yes, but you can still fall back asleep.

You refuse.

“You can touch me,” you murmur into his skin, and Levi’s throat bobs. 

When he doesn’t move, you take the first at his side and systematically uncurl every finger.

He lets you.

Slowly, calculated, you raise his hand until it’s running over the crown of your head. His nostrils flare as he takes control, abandoning the guide of your hand to cup the side of your face.

A gentle thumb smears across your lower lip in reverence.

“I won’t break,” you tell him, knowing he’ll protest. Your voice drops to a hush. “I won’t.”

“I know,” is all he can reply — then your back hits the bed again, and he drops to his knees at the edge of the bed.

Levi disappears from your immediate line of sight, but you feel pressure on your hips: inch by inch, he’s undone the belt and buttons and yanked your uniform down your thighs, your knees, until they’re hanging at your ankles.

Oh.

One by one, he slips your feet from the pants and uses your ankles to widen your knees, bearing you to him at eye-level in just your white cotton underwear.

“Shit.” 

A feeble gasp escapes when his lips start at your left foot. 

You can’t see him, only feel him — he presses a tender kiss to your ankle then another just above it, creating a careful line up to your calf. His fingers gingerly curl around it to keep you steady as he ascends with his lips touching every single inch he can.

When he reaches your knee, you see it: the darkness in his gaze, how stormy his eyes have become, while making direct contact with you.

“Levi,” you moan, refusing to look away as he makes a point to stare at you while he nudges your left thigh further out to keep kissing it.

Stay awake.

Don’t forget this.

Don’t ever forget this again.

“Can I?” he asks, and you nearly miss the question in your intoxicated, aroused state.

You know.

You know exactly what he’s asking to do.

There’s no chance in hell you’d ever say no.

Wordlessly you nod, but Levi’s tongue darts out to taste the skin of your inner thigh. “Say it.”

(Fuck, when did he get so demanding?)

“Yes,” you exhale. “Yes, I want this. Want you.”

He doesn’t answer with words — a mere wanting growl takes their place.

Raven-black hair tickles your bare skin as he shifts, and strong arms drop to your rope under your knees.

With one swift tug, he drags you directly against his face, and the world becomes a myriad of brilliant colors.

Even if it’s a mere kiss to the cloth of your dampened underwear, you whine from the sheer desire flooding through your veins.

Maybe in another life, you would have teased him for his eagerness.

Maybe before the fall, you would have made him work for it, asked him to crawl to you, to beg.

Not this time.

You don’t have time to be coy, not when it’s been so long.

The tip of his tongue sensually drags up the center of your underwear, the slowness obscene. Your head slams back into the mattress with a soundless cry. 

The hot puffs of his breath tickle your inner thighs as he continues to swirl his tongue against the final barrier between you and his mouth.

“Please,” you beg, throwing all dignity to the wind.

He doesn’t seem to hear you.

Levi’s hands grip your hips firmly, keeping you in place as he continues to gather the taste of you on your panties.

When you have the courage to watch him again, you see that his eyes are closed.

Like he’s found some kind of paradise right here.

With you.

“Levi,” you whimper louder, voice terribly shattered, “Levi, Levi, please—”

His moans against your clothed clit damn near scrambles your brain.

Finally ending your torture, he pulls away to tug your soaked underwear down your thighs, your knees, until they drop to the floor of their own volition.

“Been dreaming of this,” he finally states, his voice several octaves lower and cracked. “The goddamn taste of you—”

He cuts himself off when he runs his thumbs down your folds, parting them with his thumbs.

If you weren’t so eager, then maybe you’d be embarrassed by how wet you were.

Dripping, really, from the way he worshipped your chest only minutes ago.

You almost scream when he dives in and kisses your clit, before his tongue languidly glides against it. By some miracle, you don’t.

His thumbs leave you in favor of holding open your legs for him as he feasts, refusing to allow them to close from the shock of the forgotten sensation.

With one hand grabbing the pillow above your head while the other threads through his hair, you’re unable to take your eyes away from how thoroughly he eats you out.

“Oh fuck,” you whisper, and the vibrations of his groans of agreeance damn near take you out.

The captain’s tongue explores every atom of you as if it has navigated this journey more times than he can count; as if he knows you better than you know yourself.

Because a part of you can remember —

The things you like.

The things you don’t like.

The hazy desires that plague heated dreams at night.

Yet Levi reaffirms them, teaches your body language right back to you, as his eyes lift from his task to yours to watch you watching him devour you whole.

Mesmerized, you stare back.

His lips close around your clit and suck as if to challenge you to look away, but all you can do is tense your abdomen and moan, louder this time, while your eyes flutter.

Stay open.

Don’t ever forget.

Lips parted with shaken breath, you witness this man mercilessly pleasures you.

Stares, so he knows that you’re still taken by him.

Worships, so he can remember what it’s like to finally have you in his bed after so many months apart.

It won’t take long to fall clear over the edge.

Not at this rate.

But you don’t want it to be over.

“Wait,” you whisper, “wait, I’m almost — I want you in—”

The second syllable of that word is lost in a sharp cry to the ceiling when he abandons solely sucking on your clit to focus instead on flickering side to side, rapidly, ensuring you’ll come no matter how badly you want to fall into bliss alongside him.

There’s no chance you can stave it off.

Your climax, a damn near year in the making, approaches like a bursting star.

“Levi—” you breathe, higher pitched than usual. “Levi, Levi, Le—”

You can’t finish the next syllable before you're surging off of the mattress, and he shoves you down against it by the hips so you don’t hurt yourself.

The world morphs and shapes into brilliant bright colors in the back of your skull as you come, and you do your damnedest not to shout.

As soon as your moan reaches its peak, your hand manages to smack against your mouth, muffling the strained screech.

His tongue slows down, instead focused on leisurely catching your essence with his mouth.

Greedily collecting every last drop.

So he doesn’t have to dream anymore, you realize.

So he never goes without again.

Panting heavily, your chest rises and falls rapidly as you try to remember which way is up.

“Holy shit.”

That doesn’t even begin to describe how otherworldly you feel at this moment.

“Levi…”

When you finally open your eyes, you see him resting his cheek against the inside of your thigh, nose and mouth glistening with the essence of you.

You’re not sure who is more satisfied.

“You okay?” he asks, softly this time.

Hardly a whisper.

You nod wordlessly, but hold your hand out for him. “Please?”

“Please what?”

“Let me have you.”

A storm flashes across his expression as he stands from the floor, his knee coming to rest on the edge of the mattress.

You can tell he isn’t putting his whole weight on it, avoiding the creaking of the bed frame as he contemplates.

“Not yet,” he murmurs, his fingertips running up and down your thigh absently.

“Why?”

“Because it’s been a while.”

The wandering fingers travel up, toying with the mess between your legs. Your hips jerk from oversensitivity, and a ghost of a smug smile passes across his lips.

“And I’m not rushing this.”

“Why?” you repeat, this time in a whine.

“Like I said—”

He begins, testing the give of your entrance as his middle finger pushes its tip into you.

You sharply gasp, forcing him to instantly stop. Those gray eyes flicker to your face.

“—it’s been a while.”

“I don’t care,” you state. “I can take it.”

“Well I do, so deal with it.”

There.

That commanding tone reserved for his position as captain pokes through, and it shoots straight to your lower belly.

Rocking your hips to try and force more of his finger into you, you shake your head wildly.

“You do realize that the more —”

His fingertip eases out, causing you to cry out in frustration. “Shh.”

There’s only so much sanity left in your body to plead your case.

“It — ah — the more time we spend away from the others downstairs—”

“As much as I like hearing you talk,” he reassures, voice dropping to a husk of its former self, “I really don’t want to discuss the whereabouts of anyone else when I could have my fingers inside you instead.”

Then that same finger suddenly pushes.

One knuckle.

Two.

Your head drops back when he buries his middle finger into you, unapologetic.

His free palm drops to the side of your head as he hovers over you, easing you to relax as he pushes one finger in and out.

The fringe of his black hair falls over his eyes, his face flushed with inexplicable lust.

“Do you remember our rule?”

Do you really expect me to think straight now? is what you want to say.

Instead you keep your eyes on him as he fucks you on one finger, too tight yet not nearly enough. You maintain eye contact, scrambling for an answer.

“With what?”

When his finger curls, you have to bite your tongue not to shriek.

“C’mon, James,” he purrs, the heel of his palm rubbing against your clit, “what’s my rule for you?”

Rules.

Rules, rules, rules—

Then it clicks, the puzzle piece unearthed deep from your psyche.

“Three,” you weakly whimper, realizing just what’s about to happen.

When we had our own place—

He nudges his index finger beside his middle finger, opening you up more.

You widen your legs with little shame, sinking into the sheets as this man thoroughly takes you apart in his captain’s bed.

—I always said I’d give you three.

“Think you can give me it?” he asks with feigned confidence.

You know what he’s really asking:

Is this too much?

Am I moving too fast?

Would this be taking advantage too soon?

The opposite; what he’s doing isn’t enough, because you know what you want.

You need to give him what he wants first before you reach your goal.

Belatedly, you nod emphatically.

“Good,” is all he replies in that baritone voice of his, before dropping down to kiss you when he curls his fingers again, relentlessly fucking you.

The kiss is maddening. Searing. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as you try to keep up with the messy press of lips, all too eager to indulge in what it means to feel alive.

This.

This is what home feels like.

You never had to build it with nails and wood and insulation.

It was always in the person hovering above you, working you open with a sneaky third finger that causes a pathetic strangled moan to die on your lips the second his tongue dips into your mouth.

Relentless.

You’re so far gone that you don’t even realize you’ve already come a second time.

It’s Levi who pulls back, looking down at his hand as he keeps curling his fingers into you.

“Shit, already? Can feel you getting tighter– Fuck, James.”

Shaking from the less intense but no less amazing orgasm, you come silently on his hand as you melt into the sheets.

Stars blur your vision like the first snow of a winter.

Weightless.

Watching Levi pull his fingers out of you to immediately put them into his mouth, licking each digit clean, is an out of body experience.

Nothing to waste, nothing to lose — he relishes in the taste lingering on his tongue before you leisurely nudge him with your knee.

He’s still wearing his underwear, but his cock is practically ready to burst through the fabric. His hardness looks painful, the flush of his skin prominent against the ivory cotton.

“...do we still have condoms?”

Your voice is faint, an exhale at best.

His eyes widen briefly before his jaw clenches, and his hair flutters as he nods.

“Yeah. They… should be expiring in about two months.”

“But not right now.”

Levi considers your inquiry, searching your face. “Not right now, no.”

A moment of content silence passes, his eyes glued to yours.

You want to reassure him that you’re more than ready, that it’s been too fucking long since you’ve had him, that you need this more than anything you’ve ever needed in your life.

You can’t.

All you can do is beg, as you have this whole day.

“Please?”

His head drops in defeat, shoulders slumping.

All of the air leaves his lungs as he leaves your side to rummage in the nightstand by his bed, and you can see it clear as day on the hand that is still pressed to the mattress:

He’s trembling.

Sitting up on your elbow, you reach to gently place your palm over it. His attention whips back to you, first staring at your joined hands before looking back at you.

“Are you sure?” the captain asks, looking for complete and utter consent.

You open your mouth to respond, but Levi curls his fist over the condom foil and sits up taller.

His hand lifts the two of your hands together, switching their positions so your palm ends up on his cheek.

In a tender moment, his lips press a chaste kiss to its center.

“We can wait if it’s too much.”

You shake your head wildly. “It’s not too much.”

“You only just—”

“Levi.”

Exasperated, you crawl around him to slowly hike your bare leg over his hip.

Hovering over his lap, his eyes round when you snap the waistband of his briefs between pinched fingers. Instinctively his hand reaches to steady your bare hip.

“I know you have every good reason to worry that I could change my mind. That I could forget.”

He flinches, if only for a fraction of a second.

“But I never left you. I never stopped wanting to be near you. I never…”

Trailing off, you realize.

The words are right there on your tongue.

The image flashes through your mind: two kids just barely making sense of this cruel world, tangled together, when his whispered words tickled the shell of your ear.

Words that would change your life forever.

“I never stopped loving you.”

With a single blink, the lines on Levi’s weary face soften.

The captain’s throat bobs, swallowing the emotions that come with your confession. 

He speaks with a conviction unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

“...I never stopped loving you, too.”

Joy blossoms in the center of your chest as you lean in, capturing his lips in a kiss that seals the promise of forever. He kisses back just as eagerly, his hands leaving your body to push his underwear hastily down his hips. 

You hear the tear of a wrapper foil, feel the shuffling of his hands between your bodies, before lining up the tip of himself against your entrance.

You both stop.

Testing the give with a gentle nudge, you both let out a gut-punch exhale.

“Want you to set the pace,” he states against your lips, trying his damnedest to keep his voice from shaking. “Take whatever you want from me. It’s always been yours.”

Yours.

Nose to nose, you allow him to hold his hard and eager cock steady as you wrap your hand around the back of his neck for an anchor.

Levi lets out a shaken breath when you begin to sink, face flushed with sweat and arousal.

No going back.

(You never want to leave again.)

Inch by inch, you ease yourself onto Levi’s cock. Your eyelids flutter from the sheer ecstasy of finally, finally, having him inside you again.

The captain seated beneath you is oh, so focused, nostrils flared as he bites back a heavy groan.

Although it takes baby steps to get there — you rock your hips and fuck the tip of him, your body slowly relaxing enough to take up more of him — you eventually end up seated with your legs wrapped around his waist.

Levi instinctively curls a strong arm around your waist to keep you in place, looking utterly wrecked as he fully submits to your will. His brows are screwed tightly together, eyes struggling to stay open — to watch.

So you watch him, too.

When you lift yourself off of his cock and drag back down to the hilt, you both groan in harmony.

You can’t help it.

A smile bursts on your lips, stretched wide.

This.

This is where you’ve longed to be.

You roll your hips and ride your captain with reverence.

The room reverberates with the sound of skin against skin, your moans and his grunts, the squeak of a well-worn mattress on an ancient wooden frame.

To hell with subtly.

You don’t care who hears downstairs.

Once he has his own emotions under control, Levi memorizes your pace and begins to buck up in a thrust from below.

You gasp, and you see it: he smirks, his own confidence gaining on him.

“That’s my girl,” he groans, his words as finite as ash. “Fuck, there she is.”

The praise has your blood singing, burning, as you bounce on his cock with an urgency to bring him to his long-awaited climax — and your third. 

“I love you,” you tell him, earning a bitten-off grunt for him.

“Fuck, don’t,” he begs as he matches your pace, bringing himself deeper. “I’ll cum so fast.”

“Maybe I want that,” you tease.

“James,” he warns, pinching your nipple as punishment.

You can’t help but cry out, head dropping back. Levi takes the golden opportunity to lean in, kissing the column of your neck to mask his own needy moans.

The fingers once rolling your nipple as you ride him glide down your belly until they catch your clit, causing you to collapse into his chest. You whimper, and you can hear the utter filth against your ear as Levi picks up the pace.

“Love you.” You clench around him, causing him to hiss. “Shit, I love you so goddamn much. Feel so fucking good.”

“Levi—”

“I got you,” he promises, holding you up as he pounds into you from below. “Won’t let you fall. Gonna make me cum so hard, s’like you were made for me — fuck…”

He loses his train of thought as his fingers rub your clit in furious circles, desperate to get you to the same edge where he hovers.

Over and over you moan out his name, unable to even think straight as pleasure succumbs and fills every vein in your body.

From the way his rhythm is faltering, you know:

He’s close.

You’re not very far behind.

“I love you,” you tell him one more time under your breath, unable to say anything else beyond that and broken variations of his name.

His thrusts become more urgent as he answers between clenched teeth.

“I love you, too.”

“Let go.” 

You wrap your arms around his body to hold him close. 

“I’ll catch you, just let go.”

For what it’s worth, he holds on for a few seconds more. 

He gives you the performance of a lifetime as he thrusts up into you, running after his orgasm with a desperation reserved for you and you alone.

Then you feel it.

Levi grabs the back of your head and slams his lips to yours in one final, devastating kiss before you abruptly come around him.

Your muscles spasm and clamp down around him, milking him for all he’s worth before he’s moaning loudly against your mouth. 

He’s forced to fall off the deep end with you, coming inside you. 

You leisurely ride him through your joined orgasms until his hand comes to your hip, stilling your movements.

Eventually the fingers at your clit still, pressing against it to feel its erratic heart beat.

Forehead to forehead, the two of you stay here, catching your breath—

Refusing to part.

.

Author's Note:

taylor swift vc: it's been a long time coming...

If you've been around my blog for the last several months, then you know I got hit with the author curse (seasonal depression kicked my ass, my day job issued an RTO mandate, I was sick a few times, I have a surgery in late February) so the creative juices were not there. Apologies (and the biggest thanks!) to all who have been waiting so very patiently. To readers old and new, I am so grateful for your reblogs, comments, and inbox messages.

So I ask, after five long months away from you: how are we doing, Jevi Nation?

[s0lar-ch3ri]

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO @justyouraverageleafykinnie AND @dogboyratgirl TAKE THE SILLIES

tw theyre fluffy and sweet in this so yeah (also long. also will maybe post to ao3 someday idrk)

title is "together we can figure it out!" a bears in trees lyric

this fic features lint from wonderlust as well as wonderlust ocs of my friends :3 (I AM NOT CAUGHT UP WITH WONDERLUST DO NOT EXPECT TO GET FUTURE EP REFS I DONT MIND SPOILERS IM JUST SAYING)

description: It's Aluntine's day (or their world's Valentine's day), and for strange, almost 100% homosexual reasons, Lint can't do anything but find his way back to Apple.

Lint had faced many Aluntines days inside the bakery with his mom, just making cookies. Couples came in, grabbed sweet little treats for their sweet little treats (that isn't incredible wording, maybe he hangs out by Troy too much), and left. It wasn't a lonely time, not when it made business. As he looks across the tables before opening, things feel different.

"You alright Bumblebee?"

Lint half-buzzes back a response. It's not even opening time, he needs to keep it together. Come on!

"Repeat that?"

He buzzes a bit more, less responding to the question and more mumbling to himself. Nothing else is different, nothing's too special about today, well maybe minus...

He leaves the bakery, off to find his sweet little treat.

Apple is not expecting much today. Yes, this time around, Apple could have gone with Lint somewhere nice, however he knew Lint was busy today at the bakery, so maybe he would bug him after. In the meantime, Apple was working on writing something. The plan was simple: finish this, check on the orchard, maybe visit the bakery and see that bee, all that good stuff.

Just like how he changed his life, Lint had changed his plans. With a jumpscare that made Apple fall out his chair, a special bee came buzzing in. All of Apple's panic faded into something softer seeing the culprit of the noise. He sighs a bit.

"Hello, sugarfly."

"I...I feel strange." Lint stands a bit awkwardly in the doorway. Apple repositions himself so they sit up better.

"Go on."

"I thought today was gonna be a normal day, but it just...doesn't. And I didn't know where to go so..."

"Of course." Apple starts cleaning up his writing supplies. He can finish it later.

"Do you uh- how do you ask this sort of thing..."

Apple bleats curiously.

"Do you want to be my Alumni? I just...I don't know. We can uh, hang out, like always, but, special? Not really? Help me out here..."

Apple giggles. "Of course darling."

He buzzes excitedly and Apple can't help but grin at him. I mean, when it's a nice day outside, pretty and basically shining, who could help themself?

"What were you thinking of?"

Lint sinks a bit into himself. Oh cog, he didn't think of something big. Or, uh, anything. What did Mars say? Deep breaths? He takes a couple, in for 7, hold for 6, release for 5. Surely Apple wouldn't mind. He hates liars anyways.

"I uh...I don't know. I just knew I had to come to you."

"That's okay! We can figure it out together!"

Cog that goat was pretty. No, Lint, focus! You have to give them the best date he's ever seen! Just how…

“Maybe a nice restaurant?”

“They may be all reserved out babydoll…”

“Oh…Does my place sound nice?”

“Always does.”

Did it feel silly to take Apple from their house to bee’s? Yes, but to be fair, there were specific things Lint needed there to make sure this was perfect. Apple deserved nothing less.

Walking in, she hears some commotion from the kitchen, mostly just grumbling and the sounds of the assembly of a gift. Looking past his neutral green walls into the kitchen with its purple walls, he sees Troy, bright red and looking just pissed. He angrily puts a ribbon around a set of orchids colored with mint and blue orchids. Despite his pissed…everything, Troy handles the flowers with much care.

“Something wrong Champion?”

“JAX.”

 “Is he-”

“THAT STUPID PRETTY BOY BASTARD ASKED ME ON A DATE BEFORE I COULD AND I NEED TO BEAT HIM WITH MY SLED. ALSO MAYBE KISS HIM.”

“You go do that love.”

Troy stomps by him, grabbing his face gently and kisses his cheek. Lint giggles, which sounds a bit like a buzz. He buzzes a lot. That wasn’t a bad thing, he hopes. Maybe he should just set up the movie.

“We uh, we’ve gotten a lot of movies. There’s Ratatoing- that’s not a good one, there’s Cloverfield, Jax may have left around his strange ‘Ratnarok’ documentaries or something- what interests you?”

“Uhhhh, all of them?”

“Love Rattually it is.”

As Apple helps with selecting the movie, he sets up the couch with its assortment of pillows and blankets. One is plain and fuzzy, a muted green, another a felt one with sunflowers on it. Lint grabs some pretzels and popcorn in the kitchen, he also prepares 2 cups of coffee, one for himself, and one for his heaven send.

Apple is still by the couch, sitting, waiting for Lint. He holds the letter he had planned to give Lint later that day, going over each carefully plucked and nurtured word. Lint had brought lights to his days that he would have known from no other being or aspect of living, the least he can do is give him something of perfection. Lint deserves nothing less.

He adds a couple details to it and carefully folds it so as to not crease it. He hopes it’s good enough. They finish the set up as footsteps come on by them behind the couch. Lint holds his arms around Apple from above as bee places in his hands a cup of coffee.

“Got you a cup! Made with love.” Lint is buzzing with joy, putting his head on Apple’s shoulder. Apple takes this as the chance to pepper him slightly with kisses, but like any well made dish, too much seasoning- well here it just made him giggle and light-heartedly protest.

“Let me put my cup down first angel!” He smiles and snickers and Apple feels his heart flutter around and he gains another reason to love him.

Lint climbs over into the blankets and snuggles up next to Apple as they play some movies, drinking coffee. At certain parts, Apple turns his gaze back to Lint and sometimes Lint’s looking at him. As eyes meet, the boys giggle as they give each other compliments and flirts and kisses. As their binging goes on, their energy simmers down with the time, fading into simple cuddling on the couch. Cups sit on the table, basically empty, with the TV’s hum as natural to the environment as Lint’s buzzing was to him. He adored this bee beyond words.

He carefully wriggles his letter out from his pocket, using the blue light to guide his reading ability.

‘’Dearest sweetest bee I’ve known, Lint

There are many things I want to tell you. I want to tell you how you are the light of my days and how no sun nor star could outshine you. I want to tell you how your voice is a gracious melody, with each note and buzz writing a harmonious tune I wish to hold forever. I want to tell you how I could count the stars that trail the sky and name all the shades of its majesty and not once could I think of a world where it’d be a more beautiful sight then the warmth of your smile. I want to tell you how you’ve taken my world and sculpted it to a more magical and wondrous one then I could have arrived too. I want to tell you how the ideas of love and friendship were carefully taught to me by the wondrous bee you are. I want to tell you how you’re the sweetest nectar I’ve tried and I’ve never felt once a need to find another.

There are many things I want to tell you. Maybe I can settle with a few words. I love you Lint, you are a shining star, thank you, I love you, thank you.

All the love I can give,

Apple’’

He’s still unsure if all he’s wanted to say is there, if that’s what bee would understand is true. Thoughts swarm Apple’s head, like a wasp hive, aiming for his heart. Before he gets lost in his mind, Apple hears a small faint buzz from a special someone under his head. He seemed to have fallen asleep a bit ago. The small reminder grounds Apple and his heart calms down with him. He’s got someone too close to there to be so worried. He remembers Lint’s words before, what he didn’t exactly say but was always there.

I didn't know where to go so I came to you.

Apple smiles a bit, closing his eyes and falling for the background TV ambience himself. Together they will figure it out.

[centrally-unplanned]

Alright, last Current Events Drama post, is not a super valuable activity after all. I have seen a lot of Discourse that goes like "I may oppose these efforts but man the PR strategy of this Musk thing is pretty genius, they have a whole generation of people thinking USAID was funding the Liberal Media now". And they certainly aren't without agency, I agree there is an intentional PR strategy going on. In particular it is not just the creation of narrative, but the creation of momentum - every day is a new discovery, a new victory, a sense of progress.

But this isn't really that hard when your supporters are just really stupid? Like you can make shit up for these people! They don't care, they don't have that instinct that goes "okay hold up I'm going to need to see some sources here". The current Admin didn't make that happen, that is a deep, structural change around the internet flattening hierarchies and all that shit. When you know your audience wants results and also you can just invent results out of thin air then, idk, is this that hard? How could you not deliver that?

It is funny because the actual playbook here isn't even their invention, it is the same as the 2010's "Woke Boom". That entire model was that deep, slow, technical solutions to structural inequalities achieved via grinding electoral politics is boring. That shit is for fucking losers. I am not gonna have a role in that all! So instead we will achieve social change via randomly harassing my progressive coworkers for their black comedy tweets about AIDS until they get fired and have a nervous breakdown. Obviously - just like with the current right, don't be tricked! - there was another side of this movement that was much more serious, a huge side actually (we are just focusing right now). But for so many that serious side was window dressing, the real mush was that you got to feel like you were a part of something, doing something, and at a certain point they started running the show. This playbook being reversed really isn't that impressive (and also, in a sense, inevitable)

I will give the Social Justice aggros though that they had some standards - passing around photoshopped tweets was uncommon. Most of them did actually believe in this model for change (and so invented insane ideologies to justify it, but w/e). That isn't really as true on the right - I should partially walk back my statement above, a lot of these people aren't that gullible? They are just apathetic. So many people retweeting stuff about how The Deep State funnels millions to Politico don't really even care, for them it is a game. It is funny to own the libs. They laugh off your attempts at calling them out for accuracy - you care about that? What a cuck you are.

Which makes it particularly sad when you see the earnest ones, the ones writing essays about the implications of what USAID propping up the New York Times means for our political future. Nothing worse than being a true believer in a church where not only the leaders but also your fellow congregants know it is bullshit.

It reminds me of the Gamestop Meme Stock Crash and its slow, agonizing burn (a not unrelated event!). A bunch of people on the rise of the stock created the idea that buying Gamestop could Stick It To The Man, you could short squeeze the hedge funds, diamond-hands-hold that yield, bring Wall St to its knees - to the moon, baby. And some people bought it! And then the wheel turned, the crash happened, and most of the people posting those memes sold their stock and dipped so fast they had disappeared from the subreddits before they could even begin to say "bro, you thought I was serious?". Leaving a stalwart few holding the bag, spinning epicycles of conspiracy theories to justify why they had it to begin with. Which happens on autopilot a this point. You don't really need any PR strategy to make this happen.

[stylespresleyhearted]

any mota fanfic recs?

OH MY GOODNESS DO I EVER 🗣️🗣️

the *amount* of talent found in the mota fandom alone is insane, it blows my mind. i read these pieces and my mind can’t comprehend that someone wrote something so beautifully heartwarming or heart-wrenching and is allowing me to read it for FREE on the internet. it belongs in an archive of beautiful literature. (I think i meant a library …)

of course i got to start w marina (mommy 🫶🏻) : @precious-little-scoundrel

dear john - of course i gotta be biased it was part of my yelling and the beginning of john egan stealing my heart. john writes a letter to lana tierney, a famous actress, who writes back and slips in a gift to raise the major’s spirits 😉 (also coming up with the acornym A.C.O.R.N was so fun)

she’s also got a phenomenon currently ongoing Those Who Can - I support all these characters and Marina beautifully juggles so many sensitive, delicate topics and does so with the respect and understanding needed to do so.

But in all seriousness I followed Marina from the Elvis fandom (where we were also in cahoots) to MOTA fandom & she’s so lovely, supportive, protective, and in many ways has become a rock for me. what i don’t see in myself she manages to bring out and encourages me to keep trying my hand at writing so i’m grateful for her always ♥️

@joeyalohadream her cooler-verse fics oh my gooodnesssss i am NOT exaggerating when i say i have reread like at least 13 times. i love love love to read them late at night or early in the morning it’s comfort reading to me and the love language displayed between john and gale in her stories resonates deeply with my love language so i think it helps me further invest into the story. so heartbreakingly good. it truly only hurts because they love each other SO MUCH.

- at this point i’d be lying if i said i haven’t read everything she has written though. let your heart be light currently occupies my time, thoughts, and soul. there’s one portion in it’s different with you and me that has made me reread a handful of times: She eyes him in his uniform and he sees the way the night could go. The way it should go.

But all it makes him think about is Gale.

Gale, who doesn’t watch the girls at the pub, but who watches John.

Gale, who tenses up when the guys crowd him, but melts under John’s arm like it’s the most comfortable place in the world for him to be.

Gale, who went a whole day and a half giving him the cold shoulder after John came back to their room painted in red lipstick stains and smelling of cheap perfume.

So, he chats and he smiles, but he doesn’t flirt and he doesn’t touch. Because if there’s even a possibility in this world that there’s a chance Gale is like him and that he likes him, he’s not blowing it for anymore nights of chasing a fleeting good feeling.

@johnslittlespoon i stumbled upon their tough and sweet universe and ohhhhh myyyy looordddd. Yes pls. Age gap. Younger bucky. Biker gale. Biker Gale who is so tender and gentle and caring and sensitive to all of Bucky’s emotions and helps stabalize him. Gale who asks him what he wants to do and how his day was and respects his boundaries and cares for him. brb gonna go cry. so soft for them. (Im secretly hoping benny and brady are gay in this fic but idk lmao) also marge is awesome but we all knew that. and paulina’s a bad ass every fic.

@swifty-fox geez louiseee where do i even start!!! i just reread wormwood today (retaliation has been promised 🥵) and one thing that continuously draws me in is the backstory they manage to create. obsessed w little beasts it’s burnout! John and pastor! Gale and i wish i had the words to talk about how amazing it is. we were left on such a cliff hanger and they’ve been brought into each other’s family now (kinda) and gale said this line: only me? that i haven’t been able to stop thinking about. i can’t believe (and also can’t wait) that these two are gonna date and be a couple and hold hands and kiss and cuddle and - 🤯 most recently there is cicada season and i don’t want to go into that one i just want everyone to read it. their way of writing human complexity, sin, acceptance, grief, anger, insecurity — everything is so raw and cutting and beautiful. i wanna poke swifty’s brain bc they are so smart and knowledgeable but alas i want to remain unblocked.

I feel like I’m missing SO MANYYYYY GAHHH there are so many one shots i’m sure i’ll probably reblog to add 😭😭

[chrisevansredbelt]

Playing Dangerous

pairing: dbf!frank castle x reader

warnings: not really any! this is kind of a backstory intro. death, funeral, smoking, drinking, drugs, and the sheer thought of jon bernthal.

summary: after your fathers death, you find yourself familiarising yourself with his best friend. his hot, dilfy, big thighed best friend.

multiple parts planned! all inspired by lana del rey songs

a/n: me when im back bc i missed writing... anyway this is a somewhat different universe to my og dbf!frank story but also not because it follows the same concept of lana del rey songs.

ALSO even though it is frank castle... im using characters from the bear... sorry i guess i really am only using frank because of the name i just didnt feel right writing jon or michael SORRY

and i am also using sex and the city characters too okay im sorry if nothing makes sense now but ENJOY

playing dangerous by lana

.・。.・゜.☘︎ ݁˖ ・.・𝄞・゜・。.

Pulling up beside the familiar cars parked in front of the church, Frank swiftly gets out of his truck, shutting the car door behind him. His brother Carmen, and cousin Richie, stand by their cars, gathering however once Frank approaches them.

"Thought we weren't gonna see another one of these until it was one of our own and when we're 80." Richie notes, hands on hips as the three of them observe the crowd of black disappearing through the church doors.

Frank scoffs, "Yeah, well, Brock loved stupid games." He marvels at the amount of people who showed up. Brock always made note of how many enemies he had, he must have forgot to mention how many friends he had too.

Brock was Franks best friend. Ever since being enlisted together, they were pretty inseparable. They then went on to work with each other, shady business that subsequently cost Brock his life.

Brock was on the run from police... corrupt police who would do anything for $20 and a donut. Brock had a hit out on him ever since fucking over an old acquaintance by insulting his wife.

As cops chased him down one night, he was cornered. Brock ended up shooting and killing the cop he hated but was subsequently shot and killed by another.

Some good did end up coming about Brock's passing though, as an investigation was launched into the dead officer and the bribe's he took. Which ended up revealing an international bribe ring of some sort that landed Brock's enemy in jail with a hefty sentence.

Frank wished he had been with him that night, wondering if Brock's life could have been spared in any way. But on the flip side, Frank knew that Brock would have died happy killing the officer he hated so much and recalled the many nights Brock had confessed his disdain against the lifestyle he landed himself in.

"At least he's with his wife now." Carm then adds, earning a nod from the others.

As the last of the guests enter the building, Frank decides it's probably time to follow suit.

As painful as it would be to see his best friend no longer living, they all had a few words to say in the session and there was no backing out now.

Though everyone was still finding their seats, when the three men had entered, they had all still managed to give them pitiful looks. Eyes reading 'Sorry for your loss'.

The three of them make their way to the front row of seats, joining the few others that had clearly arrived earlier.

"Hey," Their sister, Natalie, smiles up at them, scooching over on the pew as they take their seats next to her. They offer greeting smiles back. Frank gazes around the church, admiring the many eyes of religious figures that stare back at him. "Hey, did you see his daughter turned up?" Natalie adds in a quiet whisper, making the three of them shoot their heads around in the direction of her gaze.

There, in the front row beside them sat you. Brock's only child and daughter. Everyone kind of just knew of you and your existence, but never actually saw you.

Though Brock always bragged and boasted about you, how beautiful you were, how proud of you he was, the truth was that he rarely saw you. A few years after he had left you, he occasionally made the effort to at least see you on birthdays and Christmas. But his visits slowly died off.

The relationship was still there, you texted and he sent you letters and money, but you lived with your friend and her family for most of your teen years.

Richie nudged Carmen, wiggling his brows, whilst Frank just takes you in. The men can’t help but ogle at you. You were almost like a fable or myth, and seeing you now for the first time ever was strange.

"Poor kid." Natalie purses her lips, brows furrowed in concern.

Frank knew he had to speak to you. Maybe it was the fact that you were his life long best friend’s daughter. Or maybe it was the funny feeling in his stomach as his eyes scanned your figure.

-

You watch as people leave in their expensive cars down the gravel road, sighing in relief at the lack of attention you were now getting.

Your father was laid to rest in the cemetery beside the church, in a space next to your mother.

Though few people still linger around their cars parked on the other side of the church, you keep your head down and make your way back up the church steps, pushing your way through the big, wooden doors.

You were glad no one else was here. Your social battery was drained for the month after today and you didn’t think you could take another ‘I’m so sorry for your loss’, ‘Your dad was a great man’, ‘I’m sure he’s happy to be reunited with your mother’, 'I didn't know he had a daughter'.

You made your way to a random row and knelt on both knees, clasping your hands in front of you and bowing your head.

You weren't entirely religious, nor did you really know what you were praying for. All you knew was that if someone saw you, they would at least respect the gesture and leave you alone.

Wrong.

You hear the church doors open behind you and you close your eyes, quietly sighing. Whoever it is, they do not speak, but you can feel their eyes burning a hole through your back.

Out of curiosity, you lift up your head and turn to the back of the church.

Oh?

"Hi," The man greets sheepishly, "I'm sorry if I’m interrupting.” A small, reassuring smile on his face. You stay silent but shake your head softly, allowing him to continue. He takes a few steps closer, "I'm Frank."

You blink up at him a few times until you connect the dots on who this Frank person really was (and stop ogling at his god-like face) "Oh." You let out accidentally, before clearing your throat and correcting yourself, "Yeah, I’m familiar with the name." You choke out, standing from your kneeling position out of respect... though you wouldn't entirely mind staying down there- God, you mentally slap yourself and remind yourself that you're in a church. And on top of that, you knew of Frank to be your dad’s friend... his best friend. You never saw him or heard anything else about him other than him being your dad’s best friend, but it was nice to finally put a pretty face to the name, “I’m Y/N.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you.” He smiles warmly now, extending a hand out for you to shake which you do so quite timidly, "Listen, if you need anything… I know you've probably heard that a lot today, but I'm probably the only one who really means it." He jokes and you can't help but let out a small smile.

“Thank you.” You nod. He was right though. Out of all of them, Franks did seem the most genuine. "Thanks for taking the time to check up on me."

He nods in response before reaching into his back pocket, pulling out a wallet and from that wallet, a small card, "Here, take my number." You take the small business card from him, "If you really ever need anything, reach out… If I had knew your dad would pass so soon, I’m sure I would’ve promised him to look out for you.”

You weren’t annoyed by Frank’s social interaction, unlike everybody else who talked to you today. Everyone else just seemed so full of shit. And Frank at least knew who you were.

-

You watch as another car passes by before sighing. The heat was starting to get to you a little and as the sun began to set, it landed opposite you, blinding your eyes.

After the funeral, you made the decision to walk to the closest bus stop and make your way back home that way. Though you caught an Uber to the church, you couldn’t bare any more questions or painfully awkward small talk about your day. So you opted for the bus.

The area was nice in any case, a small neighbourhood 20 minutes from Manhattan where you used to live as a child.

It was nice to experience the silence as well. You were so used to the loud of the city that you’d almost forgotten what it was like to just sit with nothing but the birds, the bugs and the leaves. And to actually see the sun without being blocked by some high rise building.

As you zoned out, staring at the ground, you hear the bus finally arrive. Only, you thought it was the bus. You look up and you’re met with a black pick up truck coming to a stop right in front of you and now your heart races.

The window rolls down and a familiar face slightly judges you, "You seriously taking the bus?"

You stand from your seat, small kitten heels clanking against the concrete as you step closer to Franks truck.

You're kind of loss for words. You had made sure to linger in the church for a while and only left when you believed everyone else to have already left. Frank must have stalled in the cemetery or something?

“I..." You start, "I thought it would be relaxing.” You explain vaguely, shrugging your shoulders. Frank quirks a brow and you sigh in defeat, “I didn’t feel like talking to nosy Uber drivers.”

Frank cracks a smile, shaking his head and reaches over to the passenger door, unlocking it for you, "Get in."

You're unsure what it is that makes you give in to getting into his car. Perhaps that Frank was probably the closest thing to your father that you were ever going to get in your life and you automatically felt safe with him. Whatever it was, it felt right.

Jumping into his car, you get comfortable, admiring the interior of it. You couldn’t help but notice, however, the faint smell of either cigar or weed lingering in the car, mixed with the efforts of the Black Ice air freshener dangling from his rear view.

Not only this, but you see his packet of cigarettes in his cup holder.

You’d been dying for a cigarette ever since the funeral started, but couldn’t bring yourself to whip one out as you walked to the bus stop- more concerned about your heels and feet surviving the journey rather than your urge for nicotine. And you refrained from doing so at the bus stop in case it pulled up any second.

“May I?” You ask after rummaging through your purse and holding up the small box of sticks.

“Go ahead.” Frank shrugs with a soft smile, “Where do you live?”

You blow out your plume of smoke out the previously opened window, offering it to him, “West 84th.”

“Upper West side.” He notes with an impressed nod, taking your cigarette from you gratefully.

You raise your brows a little, you could not believe it either that you lived there now, "Inheritance came in handy."

The drive to the city with Frank was nice. It wasn’t awkward and you were able to keep a steady conversation. You could definitely see why Frank was a life long friend.

"Which one is it?" Frank asks, cutting your thoughts short as he pulls into your street.

"This white one here." You point and Frank's lucky that there's a vacant spot out front. He seems impressed by your house as he leans over his wheel to get a look at it while he parks.

To be truthfully honest, you were a little bummed once you had come to a stop.

"Do you wanna come in?" You don't even realise what you're asking until it's already out and Frank's looking at you dumbly. Fuck. “I-I just got so much of his stuff, m-maybe you can help me figure out what to do with it?” You try to cover up.

You internally cringe however as you wait for his answer. Why the hell did you just invite this man into your home without hesitation?

You really didn't expect the words to come out of your mouth. But what was even more surprising was Frank's answer, "Sure."

You take Frank up the small stairs to your house, unlocking the door, “Sorry, it’s a bit messy.” You apologise as he walks in after you. You watch as he takes in your apartment and feel a little insecure for some reason. God, what did it matter what this man thought of your brand new apartment?

“No, it's nice.” He nods and you feel yourself relax. He makes his way into your living room and stares at the piles of boxes and plastic covered furniture. The last of your furniture had arrived yesterday and you had no time, or energy (or frankly manpower for that matter) to sort it out.

"It's a work in progress." You sigh, "I always imagined this to be something my dad would have helped me with." You admit and again, cringe at yourself for being so depressing.

"I can always lend a hand?" Frank offers.

You open and close your mouth like a fish. You didn't mean for Frank to get to that conclusion but at the same time, Frank seemed like he was already going to offer. But you were too humble to say yes, even if you were too cheap to get movers (even though you now had money, old habits never die) and you were convinced you could do it on your own.

But now that Franks offering, you’d be stupid to decline.

The one thing that needed to be put together was your bed, but aside from that your furniture was old, vintage pieces. They were also light so it’s not like it would be entirely arduous labour for Frank, but it would just mean a lot less chain smoking and broken nails for you.

You ended up ordering pizza for the both of you and fuelled Frank with beer as he got to work on setting up your furniture. You helped him out with the light work, but you mostly just smoked and chatted away.

Frank had no issue with it though.

Frank told you many stories about your dad. You realised Franks memories with him definitely outnumbered your own, which was humbling to say the least.

You found the both of you now seated on the hardwood floor of your home, taking a break as you take the time to really talk and eat.

"Can I ask..." Frank starts carefully, and you're mindless to what he's about to ask, "Did you resent your dad?" His question makes you put down your drink, " It's just- you seem to be taking his passing quite well and you were actually at the funeral... Most people I know in a situation like yours wouldn't do such a thing."

You dart your eyes around the room, running the question through your head. You, too, had realised that your own fathers passing hadn't made you a hysterical wreck, like it would have made most people. You also questioned why.

When you got the news that your dad died, you cried but only sparingly and never again after that day. But you went to class the next day, drinks with the girls the next. What the hell was wrong with you?

"I know the shady shit he did killed my Mom." You tell Frank, "I did actually resent him for a while for leaving, then I accused him of killing her and didn't talk to him for a few years." You admit shamefully, "But as I got older, I understood him leaving was keeping me safe and I couldn't argue with that... As for the day he died..." You begin, but take a second to find the words, "I don't know... I guess... it's like he's not really gone." You say, but watch as Frank tilts his head a little in confusion, "Well, he is gone... but it's felt like that for a long time now... Maybe I'm used to it." You feel as though you've just solved the mystery. You feel hot all of a sudden, looking up at Frank and seeing his eyes staring right back at yours. You clear your throat, "Um- What about you? H-How did you handle it?"

"Oh, man." He starts, shaking his head, "It was one of the worst days of my life... I was a wreck." He admits. This might be unfair to say, but you didn't expect a man like Frank to be so open about his emotions, "But your father was all about seeing the good and I just thought, he would kick my ass if he saw me like this instead of celebrating the life we had together and the man he was."

It was silent after that, but you must note that it was a comfortable silence. You let each other sit with the feelings from the conversation had and it felt nice.

Frank is the first to break the silence, by nudging your foot with his, “But what's up with you, girl? Are you in college?”

You smile at him and his effort to lighten the mood a little, “I graduated last year in journalism.” You sigh. It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, certainly not for New York. But it was the only thing that really interested you- having spent most of your formative years journaling your each and every thought, experience and emotion. Writing just came natural to you, “What about you? Are you married?”

Fuck, was that too forward?

“I am not married, no.” Frank answers anyway, with a laugh even.

You would be lying if you said you didn't search for a ring when he first introduced himself to you. What could you say, he was a gentlemen. And plus, you wanted to ask in case you just so happened to be keeping him from her by having pizza and beer at your house while he helps you build your furniture.

Yep, that's the only reason.

Frank only stayed for about an hour longer after that. It had gotten pretty late anyway and you were both tired from the day you had.

You walked Frank to the door, giving him a new case of beer as a means of thanks. Seriously, with Frank's help, all you really have left to do is unpack your boxes and decorate the house.

“Thanks for all your help, Frank.” You say, unable to even recall how many times you've expressed your thanks today.

“And I mean it when I said to call me if you need anything.” He reminds, pointing at you and you roll your eyes.

If you were dying or in jail, maybe. But you didn't have many plans to bother Frank. You wish you could-

“Where do you live?” You ask, simply out of curiosity... or desire to be in his presence longer.

“Engelwood.”

You widen your eyes, but then furrow your brows, “You drove me all the way here even though you lived like 5 minutes away from the church?” You ask in disbelief. He just laughs as an answer, meanwhile you're rummaging to the side through your foyer drawers and handing him a bunch of crumpled President Jacksons, “Here.”

He laughs down at the money, pushing it back to you, “Sweetheart, I’m not taking your money.”

You look at the money shoved into your chest in defeat. But you know he's not going home without something, “Fine.” You mutter before digging through your purse on the same table.

You pull out your metal cigarette case and hand him a pre-roll that you planned to smoke after the funeral.

Frank looks at it longingly, averting his gaze back and forth before slowly bringing a hand up to take it, “Fan of the Blazy Susan’s I see.” He notes, eyeing the pink paper and you roll your eyes.

“Oh, is it too girly for you?” You mock, leaning against your door, contempt now that you've paid your dues.

He tucks the joint behind his ear in response, “Whoever you're buying from, tell 'em you've found someone new."

You're not surprised Frank grows and sells, but you scoff at his persistent concern about you, "I'm sure my weed isn't laced." You assure him.

He shrugs, "Maybe not, but at least mines free."

He had you there. Weed was an expensive habit and you'd considered stopping for a while now, but could never bring yourself to do it. And now that is free and most definitely safe, you wonder if you'll ever stop.

You bid Frank a final farewell and safe drive as he takes the steps down to his car. You wait and watch as he drives down the road and only retreat back inside once he's around the corner.

You can't help but miss his company now that the house is quiet, but lingers his smell.

And as Frank drives through the quiet streets of the city, he can't help but wonder... as do you as you flop into bed...

'Why do I feel this way?' Shortly accompanied with, 'Would it really be that bad?'

.・。.・゜.☘︎ ݁˖ ・.・𝄞・゜・。.

MANY PARTS TO COME

i hope ive hooked you in, im excited for this series

thanks for reading okey byeeee

[unordinary-diary]

Blyke and John: the Followup

In my last entry, I pointed out the similarities between chapters 249 and 121, but I had hit the image limit and wasn’t able to embed screenshots. I got around this by linking the chapters, but this is probably my favorite parallel, and to do it justice I think I need to really put them next to each other.

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

(121) (249)

It’s the same fucking scene but backwards and in a different font.

They’re the SAAAAAAAAAAME!!!!!!!!

This was definitely on purpose. Shit like this ^^ doesn’t happen by accident.

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

heeyyy gaaanggg

the pose and the background of the album version (left) are based on oingo boingos only a lad album art. not cause i think he has anything to do with it but just cause ive been wantin to draw that pose for like. weeks and i didnt know who to put there. so why not my latest bug man.

[ghostofsnails]

so did you guys know theres this character called tristan vik disventure camp and

[hood-ex]

There are less than 600 works in The New Teen Titans category. This has to be rectified *Jack Skellington voice* immediately!

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2025: ADRIFT IN CURRENTS CLEAN AND CLEAR by Seanan McGuire.

Ah, yes, my favorite January tradition: heartbreak in tiny series installment form :)

This one is about a turtle-obsessed disabled Russian girl who gets adopted by an American family and fitted for a prosthetic she doesn't ask for, want, or need, and then she splashes through her Door.

I love Russian language and culture things (shout out to accidentally double minoring in college), so I was excited for a Russian protag and a Russian-coded Door world! Excellent enrichment in my enclosure. Neat cultural expansion on the Wayward Children universe (multiverse? cosmos?? insert appropriately scaled setting word here).

I also liked the aquatic nature of Belyyreka--terrifying giant frogs and delightful giant turtles and delightful talking foxes on the riverbanks were all lovely, and the worldbuilding about different weights of water was neat! Very mind-bendy kind of setting, I dig it.

This installment felt very slim (146 pages in my copy), and Our World Heavy--the first 46 pages were in Colorado, and the last 100 were in Belyyreka, but it felt like we did More Frequent and Larger Time Skips in Belyyreka compared to Earth? Kind of speedrun mode, sans Quests, really (this one was a lot more oriented toward Finding/Building Your Family, which was signposted pretty clearly upon our arrival in Belyyreka). Mostly a quieter installment up until the, y'know, Typical Impending Tragedy of Return at the end. (Did I almost put it down at 1AM last night with 30 pages left so everyone could Be Happy? perHAPS,)

Overall: I had a good time! But, ow, my heart (once again and forever).

[luminescent-cow]

sukuita twins AU. brocon

yuuji was at a party and someone proposed the game smash or pass. sukuna's standing somewhere flirting with some girls.

when it's yuuji's turn, the round started out just fine, yuuji saw some weird fiction characters that got recommended by his friends, some of the people he didn't know, friends and teachers too. That was until the screen flickered on a picture of sukuna.

"smash."

yuuji answered like it was his instinct. Like he knew his answer by heart. He didn't even give a chance for his friend to apologize for the mistake of putting sukuna's picture in.

everyone wanted to think that yeah sukuna is kinda good looking so it's not surprising. but the way yuuji was so firm and quick on his answer... and the way his eyes were still staring intently at the picture like how a predator would to its prey and how his breathing was unnervingly calm despite the bewildered and disgusted glances thrown at his way.

"yo... he's your brother.."

[a-gay-bloodmage]

AGB Femslash February Fanfiction Announcement!

Hello again, everyone! Coming back to yell words at you all to formally announce that I am once again taking on another month-long writing challenge!

This time, it’s all about the girls and the gays and the bisexuals and the occasional confused boy! Instead of waiting around for a Femslash February prompt list to drop, I decided to use the prompts provided by @loveofdragonage for their Love of DA 2025 event and just fulfill them by writing femslash-focused pieces. Just like AGBInk, I’ll be posting works from Origins, II, and Inquisition, with a wee bit of Veilguard sprinkled in. 

Beneath the Read More, I’ve attached a list of the prompts and a small summary of what the fic is going to be about. When the fics come out, unlike Inktober, they will have titles that are different from the prompt name!

I would love it if you gave the rest of this post a read-through to see if anything sounds interesting! My goal is to get everything posted to my Archive of Our Own on their assigned days with a tumblr post that links to the AO3 version. I will be reblogging the fics the next morning in case anyone missed it the evening before! I really hope that you all enjoy my work. Likes and comments and reblogs mean the world to me! 

Here are some links to posts about my Wardens, Inquisitors, and Rooks! 

Day 1: Life of Devotion

A letter arrives on the Spymaster’s desk. Despite her urge to burn what is certainly another letter from another thorn in the Inquisition’s side, she hesitates long enough to see Faelyn Tabris’ familiar penmanship. 

Day 2: Thought You Were Dead

Semiha Silva-Adaar has tried, her whole life, to be a good Andrastian despite her grey skin. Becoming the Herald of Andraste was a dream come true. And then she went into the Fade again. And now she doesn’t know how she was so stupid. 

Day 3: Queer Culture

After another evening of pressing their bodies together, Sera asks Kiora Trevelyan what knocking bits was like back in the Circle. A part of her wishes that she never asked. 

Day 4: Against All Odds

Semiha Silva-Adaar fought for her hand. That was several years ago, but Josephine is still yet to see her love in a wedding dress. She sets out to ask Bull the proper way to show a Qunari that she’s serious. 

Day 5: Playing Cupid

Hawke has been invited back to Merrill’s house for Wintersend. She doesn’t want to go alone. As a result, Anders and Justice are dragged along to be spectators to an afternoon of watching their first friend in Kirkwall pine after a blood mage. 

Day 6: Assassins

Faelyn Tabris is enthralled by everything that Leliana does. While talking with her new friend, Zevran, the topic of Leliana’s bardic talents comes up. While she isn’t initially sure if it’s the best idea, Leliana agrees to teach Faelyn a thing or two.

Day 7: Romantic Tension

Sera is convinced that Lady Mallie wants to get into her leggings. Mallory Trevelyan is convinced that Sera doesn’t know how to sew. Ultimately, somebody’s trousers are going to be on the floor. 

Day 8: Angry Because They Care

Kiora Trevelyan is a mage obsessed with the Fade and all it entails. She, more than most people, understands how impactful and frightening dreams of a lover dying can be. 

Day 9: Convoluted Confessions

The Inquisitor is weird. Pretty, but weird. Sera can’t tell if Kiora Trevelyan is flirting with her or not, and it’s driving her frigging insane. 

Day 10: Found Family

After being freed from his capture by Tevinter slavers, Cyrion Tabris allows his daughter to herd all of her new friends into their tiny apartment. He never expected to see his daughter alive again, let alone see her love again. 

Day 11: Mutual Pining

Marian Hawke is the nicest and prettiest shem that Merrill has ever met. Even if she’s really just met her. She’s coming over for a visit. Merrill hopes, desperately, that she doesn’t make a fool of herself. Are there particular rules of friendliness amongst shemlen that she doesn’t know yet? 

Day 12: Discovering Poly

After going against her better judgment and spending a night with Orest Mahariel, Velanna tries to stealth her way through the morning-after walk of shame. A certain peppy ex-Legion member catches her. On their way to breakfast, Velanna learns that, maybe, relationships aren’t as black and white as she thought. 

Day 13: Time for a Bath

Out in the Hinterlands, Harta Cadash, Varric Tethras, Dorian Pavus, and Sera stop by a pond. The girls take the chance to bathe. Harta knows that Sera has a thing for her, but she’s not foolish nor selfish enough to let a young, do-good girl like her fall for a woman in the Carta. 

Day 14: Courtship

It seems that Semiha Silva-Adaar has never been good with girls. As a Qunari raised amongst humans, she never got the chance to learn. When she comes to Blackwall for advice, he does his best to build her courage. There’s only one monster in that barn, and it’s not her. 

Day 15: Bickering

Velanna is sick and tired of that so-called Witch of the Wilds and her constant condescension. So, when she hears her name mentioned in a conversation between her and the Commander, Velanna can’t help but eavesdrop. 

Day 16: Duels

Josephine is engaged. It breaks Semiha Silva-Adaar’s heart to know that Josephine’s family would marry her off to someone she hasn’t ever met, but it isn’t unexpected. What is unexpected, however, is the idea that a duel with an Antivan Lord could wrestle Josephine’s heart back into the hands of the Qunari that loves her. 

Day 17: Platonic Flirting

Ishal Mercar is a flirt. She can’t help it. And when the world is falling apart, she wants to at least have a little fun. At least Neve is willing to play along.

Day 18: Awakening

Faelyn Tabris is still mourning the loss of her should-be husband Nelaros. When she tries to talk to Leliana about love, she learns some things about the world that she didn’t think were even possible. She might even be realizing a thing or two about herself. 

Day 19: Chantry Bashing

In a little house in Redcliffe, the ghost that trails after Kiora Trevelyan finally tells her what’s been helping them locate the shards. Sera doesn’t know what to do to keep it from breaking the woman she loves. But she tries.

Day 20: Lover is a BAMF

In a dirty hideout in Val Royeaux, the Red Jennies receive a letter from a Friend about the new Inquisitor. The Friend is convinced that this “Mallie” is almost too good to be true. She’s a looker, though. 

Day 21: War Table

Faelyn Tabris has never had a problem showing her love for Leliana in public. After spending so much time apart, she only has so much patience, and this “war table” is taking up far too much of her Birdie’s attention. 

Day 22: Crafting

After her arm is finally gone, Harta Cadash’s lover, Dagna, devotes herself to making her a new one befitting such a beautiful woman. Once it’s finally complete, they allow themselves to indulge in some light touches. And more. 

Day 23: Parties and Gifts

As a Circle mage, Kiora Trevelyan doesn’t have much experience at all when it comes to giving gifts. She’d never exactly had much to give. Therefore, it only makes sense to ask the members of the Inquisition what they’d recommend she give Sera to show her appreciation. 

Day 24: Rune Recipes

Nobody expected this “Arcanist” to be a dwarf, let alone such a sweet-faced one. Even if Dorian is one, it doesn’t take a genius to see that Harta Cadash has a thing for magical experts. 

Day 25: Crossovers / AUs

Hawke and Merrill are shaping up to be quite the cute couple. Isabela is fascinated, but she’s let down by the lack of steamy gossip and late-night chats. She decides to take matters into her own hands. 

Day 26: Black Sheep

Now that she’s fought for Josephine’s hand and won, sealed the Breach, lost her arm, and disbanded the Inquisition—listed in no particular order of importance, of course—Semiha Silva-Adaar can’t help but wonder if she can do anything to properly endear herself to the Montilyet family.

Day 27: Anchored to the Past (AGB Original Prompt)

Sera is used to being dragged into Kiora Trevelyan’s dreams. It’s one of the perks of dating someone so in love with the Fade. What Sera isn’t used to, however, is being dragged into Kiora’s nightmares. 

Day 28: Follower-Selected Pairing Day

Merrill smells good. Really, really good. Hawke knows that it’s probably a side effect of working more on her Reaver skills. But that doesn’t make it any less tempting.

[itsmistyeyedbi]

There's so much I want to write and so much I want to read, but I can't fully engage with much of anything right now and it's killing me😭

[dyketennant]

oh i can already tell i’m about to have some really unpopular opinions about the edge of sleep tv show

[volostogekiss]

an eternity spent (one-shot)

No warnings. GN!reader, time-traveling/immortal Volo. Established past relationship. This man is just in love with you a lottt okay. It gets pretty wholesome because I want a happy ending :)

(Based on the Pokémon Masters EX and PLA premise because I’m waiting for when Volo is released in PoMas plsss)

Summary: Life was just how it should’ve been between you and Volo in Hisui. A love tried through trials immeasurable would never be broken, but fate always had a way of taking the things you treasure the most from you when you least expect it. After what had happened on Mount Coronet, you’d hardly spent a few months together, until you’d disappeared without a trace one day. 

But perhaps, fate could be merciful as well.

Volo had spent nearly two hundred years without you, waiting for the day to find you once more. He has his chance when he’s brought to Pasio, and it just so happens that he learns you’re the first Champion of the island.

He won’t let you go, this time.

I’m the one who is lucky to have you, my love.

How often had he thought of that, told you so as he’d embraced you?

He’d always trace his teardrop pendant he’d given you as it sat around your neck, his fingers drawing meaningless patterns on your chest and his lips caressing yours.

How often had Volo thought himself lucky to have you by his side, even when he felt undeserving of your love?

He was lucky that you had forgiven him for his misdeeds, his anger, his hatred. You’d forgiven him for breaking your heart, but your benevolence to allow him a second chance to love you…

Volo hadn’t ever experienced such happiness before, until you.

He was foolish to think that he was lucky enough to stay with you forever, however. It was too easy to lose himself in the bliss of your perfection, but how could he have avoided it? You were perfect.

Of course, his Pokémon were dearly important to him, but you were the one good thing he’d never thought he could ever really have. How right I had been.

He cursed Arceus for taking you from him.

The morning he had awoken with you gone… it haunted him every night. At first, he’d thought you had merely wanted an early start to the day, that you were trudging your way to Jubilife from your home far down in the Sandgem Flats. It had disappointed him that he hadn’t been able to kiss you awake, but as the day dragged on without you, that was trivial in comparison to your unexplained absence.

Volo could do nothing but wait for you. He trusted you. He knew you would return, wouldn’t you?

Creeping in before he had really wanted to acknowledge it, that doubt stole into his mind, worried him, and hounded at him incessantly. You weren’t there to stop it.

You weren’t there.

He hadn’t wanted to believe you had left him. Volo trusted you, as you had trusted him.

But three days after your disappearance, he went to Jubilife, hoping that someone else had seen you.

No one else had.

You had just vanished.

Part of him wished that you had left him, if it would spare him the pain of being separated from you in a world not even of his own. A world he had no connection to, no way to reach, a world that condemned him to agonize without you.

He knew it was so, for it could have only been another cruel act in the play of Arceus’ grand absurdity.

He had cursed his forsaken god more times than he could recall, so he couldn’t believe it had been the one generous enough to bestow him this opportunity to reunite with you on Pasio. He could put no faith in Arceus, for the deity had never accepted it, but presumed it fitting to both bless and damn him with immortality. Then, instead, Volo chose to lay his faith in the strength of your love—the only constant he would keep in his heart. Perhaps his fate had finally played out as it should have—with you, and only you—or maybe some other force besides Hoopa, as he’d learned, was at work, but Volo wouldn’t let you escape him.

Not when you were here, too.

His heart had almost shattered with a hysterical joy when he saw it was your picture flashing on the walls of the buildings all around the island. Maybe it’s once more that I’ve been lucky to find you. Of course, he wasn’t surprised that you were crowned as the strongest Trainer—the first PML Champion, as he’d heard. You’d defeated him and Giratina, after all. A lofty pride surged through his heart as he thought of your success here, and a burst of desperation compelled him to find you despite knowing nothing of Pasio. Its differences in landscape and culture compared to the Sinnoh he knew from only decades prior were inconsequential when you were here, waiting for him to seek you out. Ignoring how people had stared at him while he asked for you, whether for the uniqueness of his features, his noticeable accent, or some familiarity they said they saw in him, Volo thought only of you.

Their opinions were naught but useless blathering, for only yours meant the world to him. He needed to hear you. He needed to see you. He needed to feel you.

After what felt like an eon apart, Volo wouldn’t let anything take you away from him again.

Not when he knew how much he loved you, and how much he knew you loved him.

It didn’t even matter that you couldn’t remember anything of him.

Still, he hadn’t expected his heart to sink when you had first met at the Trainer Lodge, as people said you often were there in the morning. His heart should have soared upon seeing you, exactly as you were, exactly as he remembered you, but he supposed he was truly unprepared for the reality that you had forgotten him.

Smiling at him as you did to everyone else, you greeted him like a stranger after you gave him your name. “Oh, hello!”

The heat roiling inside him had almost caused him to lurch forward, pull you close, and call you his love. But Volo simply smiled at you, unable to keep the adoration from twinkling in his eye when he saw his pendant around your neck, even as you remained unmoved when he spoke his name.

“‘Volo’…” you repeated his name with a thoughtful hum, and by the stars, he trembled. It was almost as it had been back then, when you’d said his name in so many different ways, brightened by your happiness, shaded by the flushed tint of yearning love, and even coarse amid your grief. Ah, his name always sounded best upon your lips!

“It’s nice to meet you!”

He was glad you said nothing about his uncanny likeness to Cynthia; it was a difficult point to ignore as it was one of the most common things he’d been told upon his appearance in Pasio, but of course, you would be the one to look at him for who he was. And despite how much he’d heard of her, his descendant he should rightfully be interested in—shouldn’t he?—Volo found he couldn’t be as fascinated with her as he was enamored with you. You were always his priority, and he couldn’t change that.

He would make sure you would remember. If he could wait almost two centuries to see you once more, then the time spent to recapture your heart would be mere seconds in comparison. He would hold dear those seconds, treasure them like nostalgic days far gone in the past.

“Here,” you proposed generously, showing him your own decorated Poryphone, which he thought looked awfully akin to your old Arc Phone, “how about we stay in touch?”

Volo couldn’t help that his mischievous nature had revealed itself so readily in your presence. “I’d love to. You’ll have to teach me how we go about things on this island, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, I’d be glad to!” You’d accepted his Poryphone and flashed him another smile. “I think we’ll get along well—I just have a feeling.”

Volo grinned. “I happen to think so as well.”

And while he supposed he should have been acquainting himself with everything this artificial island had to offer, nothing could captivate him like you did. He often asked you more questions about yourself than Pasio, even after you’d taught him about battling with his Togekiss as a sync pair. He should’ve been focused on the second upcoming tournament. He should’ve been focused on battling harder, for your skills had only improved after your time apart.

Even more so, you’d graciously invited him to compete on your team, but he couldn’t help himself. He needed to know if you could remember him, if you knew anything of Hisui. You had even said it yourself that he was a man of many questions, but you never seemed to grow tired of them. Then and now, you had said you enjoyed hearing his voice, and Volo absolutely loved it. You hadn’t changed.

“Hm, so even as I and other Trainers were brought to Pasio with our memories intact,” Volo considered with an uncharacteristic sullenness marring his expression, “you haven’t been able to recall anything.”

The pair of you were seated upon a square balcony, framed by flowers at a seaside café. A shared breakfast plate rested between you two, just as Volo saw it on the little dining table you had built together in your home.

“I don’t know. I wish I did. A few of my Pokémon were brought with me, but I don’t remember anything still. I wish I remembered…”

One of your hands drifted to the silver pendant settled on your chest, the action so natural it was apparent you had often fiddled with the charm. Volo smiled at that. It was reassuring that you subconsciously thought of him, even if you couldn’t remember him.

It really was you.

You brought your hand down, rested it on the table beside your untouched cup of neatly sliced fruit and berries. “Sometimes, with how many things are happening on Pasio, and the fact that I’m the Champion, I tend to lose myself in how happy I’ve become.”

Volo then wondered if it was better for you to remain happy without your knowledge of everything that had hurt you in Hisui, even if that included himself. Only you knew what he’d done to you, since you’d told no one else about his betrayal. And with how Adaman and Irida had welcomed him as a friendly face on Pasio, he knew you really hadn’t said a thing. Should he let you feel that pain again? He shook away the alternative of leaving you ignorant of matters that were yours just as much as they were his. Your love was worth that suffering; you had told him so, and you always did when his doubts were too easily read on his face.

He often left it at that.

He could never give you up anyway, regardless of what you’d told him.

After all, months had passed, and Volo was sure that you were seeing him as more than a friend. Despite how common it was to exchange Poryphone numbers, he had been on Pasio long enough to understand that whether one continued communicating after that really spoke volumes of your relationship. You were popular, of course, as your prestigious station demanded, but you still wanted him by your side. So why else would you have wanted him on your team? Why else would you keep showing up to talk to him and present him little gifts whenever you saw him in the Trainer Lodge? He knew why. It was exactly how he’d been all those years ago in Hisui whenever he’d seen you. He’d curl into your palm tokens of his affection, the mementos small, but telling of his boundless love for you. His hooded gaze, warm touches, and reluctance to part from you were surely clear enough signs for you, weren’t they?

Privy to rumors as he’d always been, Volo knew that it was certainly obvious to anyone else who looked your way. With their knowledge of your relationship from the past, the two clan leaders could see it, but neither felt it right to interfere with history, instead allowing him to court you as he had before. So why should he still wait to proclaim his love to you? No one else could love you like he did. None had waited nearly two centuries to be reunited with you, and never had he faltered in his stride to find you again. Throughout the lonely years that had stretched over the melancholy patience in his heart, Volo never forgot you.

He could never forget you.

When he least expected it, the rush of emotions—relief, love, and sheer happiness—tended to overwhelm his heart. But then at the worst possible moment, when you faced one another in a training session, he often felt himself pulled back to that day on Mount Coronet, and it slowed his reactions, forced him into clumsy mistakes, and worried you.

Like today, as the two of you fought against one another, in a secluded clearing at the northern forest’s edge of the island.

“The intensity of our battles sometimes brings me to such a state of nervousness that even I can’t quite comprehend it!” he lied, and he hated that he had done so again.

The last time he’d lied to you…

He didn’t want to think of it.

And yet, you never let him remain lost in his uncertainties. Your wit, your humor, your genuine concern… Volo could see how you looked at him with nothing but appreciation for who he was. So much more for someone who had been a stranger to you just short of half a year ago—

“Well, don’t think I’m not watching you,” came your playful retort as you stepped closer to him.

From behind you, Solgaleo pawed at the ground, its tail twitching. It almost looked amused.

Volo ignored your sync partner. He turned back to you with a smirk he hoped would distract you. “I’d prefer it if you watched me all the time, actually.”

“Volo—!”

He laughed, and he was relieved that it wasn’t long before you did too.

Oh, how he’d wanted to hear your laughter! He’d thought he’d never hear it again, but when he’d heard it so close just a day after meeting you again, he didn’t know how he’d lived without you. It hadn’t been over anything significant that caused you to snort, then laugh, but it had been because of an off-handed remark he’d made about the number of times people had felt the need to stare at him for his similarity to Cynthia.

“I think most of them are looking because you’re unfairly handsome!”

Volo had frozen. That was what you had told him when you’d first become friends. You’d admitted it with that same laugh, then gone on how the two of you should take a picture together.

And in this modern age, you’d done so more times than he could count, the album in his Poryphone full of photos of you and him.  

It seemed you were thinking of something along those lines now, for you were almost touching him, that smile you saved just for him on your lips.

His heart fluttered.

He wanted to kiss you very badly then.

Volo often realized he was dangerously close to dipping down and pressing his lips to yours, but always, always, regrettably, he stopped himself before he did. He’d brush it off as some dirt on your face or a stray eyelash dropped upon your cheek—excuses to touch you as he had when you were lovers.

Oh, and if you could just see the way you looked at him now.          

“You know, I’m really happy that you’re here, Volo,” you whispered quietly, leaning forward to gently take his hand.

He let you wind your fingers between his, felt his world tilt and rush away from him just to come careening to a halt as he thought of the first time you’d held hands. A breezy spring day. His enthusiasm for exploring the ruins he’d wanted to show you outmatched by his excitement to be alone with you. The wonderful, rugged and soft skin of your palm, the warmth blazing against his hand. The startled look on your face, then how you’d smiled at him so brilliantly. He looked up at you, saw the glimmer in your eyes, saw that same beautiful smile, and then the overlapping memories were almost too much for him.

It was almost the same, but this time, it was you who had reached for him first.

“The longer I’m around you, I think there’s something so pleasantly familiar about you that I just can’t understand.” Your lips twitched upward when he placed a hand tentatively upon your waist. “It’s like I know you, even though I hadn’t met you before you got here.”

You don’t know how well I know you, and how well you really know me, my love.

Volo tilted his head, drew you in so that your clothes brushed against one another’s. “I don’t think you realize that I’m beyond happy to hear you say such a thing.”

Not once had he ever stopped loving you.

Your eyes wavered when he cupped your cheek hesitantly, and you could barely manage to remain still in his arms. Thudding and twisting in your chest, your heart pounded in your ears, and you swore he could feel how unsteady you were. “Volo, I don’t know what it is, but when you look at me like that, I can’t help thinking that I—”

“I love you.”

Volo wasn’t even sure if he was the one who had said it, but he knew he was the one who had moved to kiss you.

He’d always dreamed of kissing you again—fantasies clouding his mind throughout his wistful mornings, or soaking deep into his skin as he lay alone at night. You’ve always been everything I’ve needed, he hoped to tell you with the craving press of his lips against yours, and somehow, I’d known it the moment I’d met you.

I love you.

He held you closer, turned to catch his breath, but couldn’t deny the desire to steal yours away again. How could he hold back any longer? He couldn’t. A wanton growl escaped him as he chased the warmth of your lips, but before he could kiss you again, you stiffened in his hold so suddenly that he had to let go.

“I knew you,” you gasped, a light in your eyes that shone clear in recognition of who he was to you. “I knew you, Volo. I—I loved you, and I know I still do.”

Immediately, with a cry of delight, Volo swept you up in his arms, twirled you in the air, and laughed to the heavens, the unprecedented reaction catching both you and him by surprise.

“My love, I’ve waited for you for so long—”

You were the one to lean in and kiss him this time.

“You’ll have to tell me everything later—“

He nuzzled against you, then set you back down on the ground, his lips brushing against yours.

“Of course,” Volo chuckled, “we’ll have all eternity, now that we’re together again.”