#I should draw the other withereds sometime

[chloesimaginationthings]

AH<3 your Withered Bonnie is so amazing I love him !!<3

It’s funny how I drew Withered before vs the newest comic,,

[ylangelegy]

watch and learn ♾️ minghao x reader.

“show, don't tell.” # day four of (the)8 days of minghao.

☆ includes: mature content, mdni. alternate universe: non-idol, art student!minghao, f!reader, best friends & roommates, pet name (‘pretty’), cussing, nude modeling/drawing, fingering, implied oral [m receiving]. word count: >4,000

It takes you all of five minutes to figure out why your best friend-slash-roommate looks like the world has crashed down on him.

The answer comes in the form of a piece of art on the coffee table. You crane your neck to check the bright red mark on Minghao’s latest homework. “A grade of ‘B’ isn’t so bad,” you offer, even though you can already see how he’s going to react from a mile away. 

Sure enough, he shoots you a sidelong glare that would be withering if you hadn’t been on the receiving end of it for years.

“That’s what the ‘B’ stands for,” he deadpans. “Bad.” 

You’ve long since reconciled with Minghao’s tendencies when it came to his academics and his art. With a half roll of your eyes, you settle down onto the couch next to him. The offending assignment stares up at you. 

“It’s not bad,” you say as you eye the piece. In your honest opinion, it really isn’t terrible. A part of you must admit, though, that it’s not really up to Minghao’s usual standard. The strokes are not as defined; the edges are a little rough. 

What’s supposed to be a piece for his The Art of the Human Form class looks more like something akin to abstract impressionism. 

Minghao lets out a low sound of displeasure at your feedback. “You don’t understand,” he says frustratedly. 

When you don’t immediately respond, he runs a hand over his face. “Sorry,” he sighs. “I just— I really need to pass this class.” 

You give him a reassuring pat on his knee. For a moment, the two of you just sit on the couch, staring down at the homework that’s brought him so much grief. “What’s your issue with the class, anyway?” you ask after a long moment of silence. “Is it the professor?” 

“No, the professor’s good. Great, even.” 

“Your material?” 

“That’s never been the problem.” 

“Well, what is it then?”

A groan slides past Minghao’s lips; he lets his head fall on to the back of the couch. You turn to glance at him and you see the way his face is contorted with defeat. The words he speaks next sound like they were an actual struggle for him to verbalize.

“I’m not good with live models,” he admits. A beat. He seems to realize that you’ll see right through him, so he adds, “Nude live models.” 

You sink your teeth into your lower lip. Minghao catches the telltale sign of you holding back your laughter and he turns to glance at you again. “What?” he grumbles.

“You’re too… polite, Hao,” you say delicately, leaning back against the couch until your shoulders are pressed against each other. 

“You think I’m a prude.” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

“You were thinking it. ‘Polite’ was just your way of letting me down gently.” 

This time, you don’t hold back the fond giggle that escapes you. It was no secret that Minghao was a bit of a prig. When asked about his lack of experience with dating or intimacy, his answer had always been the same: Too busy. Too busy with uni to fuck around and find out, to mess with people he didn’t really care about. 

Some of Minghao’s annoyance seems to ebb at the sound of your laughter. He gives a slight shake of his head like he’s ridding himself of an unbidden thought before saying, “Maybe I should just drop the damn class.” 

You nudge him in the side with your elbow. “You’ve never given up on anything in your life,” you chide. “Don’t start now.” 

The platitude does very little to lift Minghao’s mood. He goes into a rapid-fire tangent about his gripes with the class, ranting about everything from the models to his coursemates. You zone out a bit— knowing it was sometimes for the best to let your best friend go on and on— until you feel the buzz of your phone in your pocket. 

Right. You had a study session. 

You try to extricate yourself from the conversation by cutting through Minghao’s tirade with an absentminded, “Well, if you ever need my help, you know where to find me.” 

That shuts him up. 

“Wha— what?” he stammers. 

Both of you fall into a terse moment of silence. It’s like you’ve just realized what you said, what you’ve implied, and you mentally curse yourself for spacing out to the point that you’ve suggested something so out of left field. 

You rise from the couch without glancing down at Minghao; a part of you thinks this might give you some more courage to double down, to feign nonchalance. “If you need any help with the class,” you say as breezily as you can manage. “Like, if you need somebody to model for you or something.” 

There’s an almost distressed way to how Minghao says your name, then. “I’m supposed to work with nude models,” he repeats, like he’s not unsure you caught it the first time. 

“I’m aware.” 

“Are you—” 

“Only if you need it, Hao. It’s not that deep.” 

It is kind of that deep, honestly. Your heart feels like it’s going to beat out of its chest, but you do your damndest to keep your expression neutral as you go to grab your things. You’ve never been so grateful to have a valid excuse to cut your time short with your roommate. 

“If it’ll help you stop complaining,” you joke in a bid to inject some levity in the conversation. “Then I’m all for it.” 

He only lets out a disgruntled mumble in response. His words are incoherent, lost in the way you’re already halfway out the door. 

You call out your usual goodbye. “Text me what you want for dinner.” 

His typical response— “Take care”— hits just as the front door closes behind you. You might’ve imagined it, you think, but Minghao’s voice sounded just a little bit strained around the two words. 

It takes Minghao two weeks to come to a decision. 

Clearing his mind helped, but it’s really the most recent graded assignment that gets underneath his skin. A ‘C’. Minghao has never gotten a ‘C’ in all of his years of art school.

You’re working on something by the dining table when Minghao bursts into your shared apartment. 

“Does the offer still stand?” he spits out before he can change his mind. 

“Hm?” You glance up at Minghao, unsuspecting as ever. “What, getting pizza for dinner? I mean, yeah.” 

Your nightly text exchanges about what to have for dinner is the last thing on his mind. He takes a fortifying breath, his fingers clutching tightly around the strap of his messenger bag. 

“Not dinner,” he grits out. “The other offer.” 

Good Lord, he thinks with despair as you stare up at him skeptically. I’m really going to have to spell this out. 

He decides to go for the ‘show, don’t tell’ route. He fishes through his bag until his fingers snag his latest graded homework. Wordlessly, he crosses the room and sets it down next to your laptop. 

Your expression of confusion gives way to one of something that resembles sympathy. “Oh, Hao,” you say, and the words grate in his ears.

“I don’t need your pity.” His sharp words are dulled by the way he’s raised his fingers to pinch the bridge of his nose in a gesture of sheer exhaustion. “I just need to practice.” 

The realization of your flippant offer being taken seriously seems to dawn on you. Minghao wants to die then and there. He’s already backtracking, attempting to take it back before you can say a word. 

“Forget it,” he says. He can only hope his ears don’t look as red as they feel. “That was stupid.” 

Your hasty call of “no, no” has him freezing. “Sorry, I just— wasn’t expecting it tonight,” you say. 

Minghao can’t even look you in the eye without wanting to die of shame. You go on, your voice cautious as ever. “The offer still stands. Of course it still stands.” 

He attempts to sputter out some words about you not having to do this, about not wanting to make you uncomfortable, but you’re already getting to your feet. “Don’t make this weird,” you reprimand him. 

“But this is weird,” he protests weakly.

“I’m your roommate. I’m your best friend!”

“That’s precisely why this is weird.” 

You’re standing in front of him, now, trying to rearrange your expression into one of sternness. It doesn’t really do much, considering the way you’re at least a head shorter than him. 

“I’m the best shot you’ve got.” You plant your hands on your sides and tilt your chin up. There’s a hint of a challenge in your gaze. “So what’ll it be, Xu?” 

“No need to pull out the surname,” he says dryly. After going through a single, quiet prayer in his head, he jerks his head towards the living room. “Let’s go at it, then.” 

“Now?” 

“When else?” 

It’s your turn to blush this time. Minghao tries his darndest to keep a straight face as you stumble over your complaint. “I haven’t showered yet—” 

“That’s nothing new to me,” he shoots back, earning him a swat to the chest. He rubs at the spot you hit before grumbling, “Fine, fine. How long do you need to get ready?” 

“I’ll be quick,” you promise him as you dart off to the bathroom. Minghao resists the urge to say that he doubts it. 

His worries aren’t unfounded. By the time you emerge from your ‘quick’ shower, over half an hour has passed. He’s doodling absentmindedly in his sketchbook when he hears the door creak open. 

“About goddamn—” The last word catches in his throat as he turns to face you. 

Minghao has seen you in various states of undress in your years of friendship. He’s seen you in the skimpiest outfits before heading out clubbing, seen you in sinful bikinis during your yearly beach trips. But this? The sight of you in a beige bathrobe with the belt left untied, revealing a hint of your bare front? 

He clutches his pencil so tightly that he’s scared it’ll snap. 

“About time,” he manages, even though he’s not entirely clear what he’s referring to.

It takes an hour for you to regret your offer. 

Once the initial shyness had passed, all that was left was the restlessness. Minghao had put one of the dining room chairs in the living room for you to pose on, and you’ve spent the better half of the past sixty minutes just sitting there with your feet flat to the ground.

It’s surprisingly easy to comply with Minghao’s mumbled requests. Shift a little to the left. Move your hand to your thigh. Stop moving. 

The last command is muttered with a lot more frequency. When you try to cross your legs. Stop moving. When you go to scratch your elbow. Stop moving. When your eyes wander over to some nondescript point in the room. Stop moving. 

“You’re brutal,” you rumble after his nth ‘stop moving, please’. “This is inhumane.” 

“You signed up for this,” Minghao answers, his gaze briefly flitting over his sketchbook before going back to his work.

There’s something undeniably attractive about the way Minghao’s fingers are clutching his graphite pencil. A lot about him was attractive— the way his brow furrowed in concentration, the purse of his plump lips as he worked. But his fingers were a whole other monster all together. Long and lithe, with the nails painted to whatever he thought matched his flavor for the week. You can almost imagine what those fingers would look like in your—

Minghao drags you out of your unbidden daydream with a call of your name.

“Could you tilt a bit to your right?” he says gruffly. You scramble to comply, almost like you’re terrified he might have heard your thoughts if you didn’t move fast enough.

He lets out a small ‘tch’ of disapproval at just how much you twist. “Not like that,” he protests, putting his pencil down for the first time in the past hour. “Only about an inch. No, no—” 

“Pose me, then.” 

Where did this brazenness come from? You think that your tenseness is partly to blame, but there’s also an undercut of provocation in your tone. Surprise flits across Minghao’s expression for only a moment. 

He schools his expression into something more neutral as he places his sketchbook face down on the couch. This is a bad idea, you think, as he crosses the distance between you in small, measured steps.

It’s a bad idea, you muse, because if he touches you, he might just feel the rapid thump, thump, thump of your pulse. 

If he does notice, he makes no indication of it. His gaze is perfectly cool as he gently holds your shoulders. You can see the pencil marks on the side of his palm, the smudges of graphite transferring to your otherwise unblemished skin. 

Minghao does as you’ve asked. His pushes are light as he maneuvers you to angle yourself some certain way, and you swear there’s not a single breath of oxygen in the room. 

“There,” he’s saying as he goes to take a step back. 

Something akin to panic rises like bile in your throat. You don’t know why, you don’t know what has possessed you, but one of your hands shoots out for Minghao’s retreating form. He pauses when your fingers wrap around his wrist.  

“Where—” The words escaping you are almost a gasp. “Where do you want my hands?” 

Minghao looks down at you, his eyes imperceptibly wider now despite his attempt to keep calm. “Right where you had them,” he replies. 

You swallow around the lump in your throat, your hand sliding down to clasp his instead. “I— forgot where they were,” you say. It’s a lame excuse, but Minghao doesn’t seem like he’s about to call you out on it. “Show me again?” 

His hand is limp in your hold. For a long, terrible minute, you think you’ve overstepped. 

Then, something in Minghao’s jaw twitches. The hand that’s holding yours pushes your arm, just enough for your elbow to rest on the back of your chair.

He goes to position your other hand right over your upper thigh. Near where you want it, where you need it, but not quite there. 

Your teeth sink into your lower lip as you bite back a groan of frustration. Minghao catches the look on your face.

“Why?” he asks quietly, his voice a touch tight. “Uncomfortable?” 

“No.” You freeze at how your response comes out almost like a whine. Minghao freezes, too. 

You try to think of propriety and professionalism. You try to think of your years-long friendship with Minghao; of how awkward it would be to keep being roommates if you’ve somehow overread into this situation. 

All that goes out the window as you shift your hand slightly upward. His hand— the one still on top of yours— follows as your fingertips brush over your core. Your tone is shaky as you prompt, “It would be better here, no?” 

Minghao’s gaze snaps from your hand near the apex of your thighs, to the barely-concealed heat burning over your cheeks. His sharp features are perfectly controlled but there are the smallest signs spurring you on. His dilated pupils, the bob of his Adam’s apple. 

“You want it here?” He isn’t moving his hands. He also isn’t moving away. He looms over you, one hand holding your upper arm; the other, still close to your center. 

“I’m open to suggestions,” you say, your eyes roaming over his face for any signs of discomfort. 

A beat. And then—

Torturously slow, Minghao begins to move. He guides your hand closer to your heat until your fingertips are pressing a little more firmly against your entrance, where wetness is already beginning to pool. You clench around the feeling of nothing as Minghao remains careful about not letting his own fingers touch you just yet.

“I think this is good.” His voice is lower now. “What do you say?” 

You feel like your entire body will betray you if you try to say anything. For now, you opt to only give a jerky shake of your head. 

“No?” A corner of Minghao’s lip twitches upward in the ghost of a smile. You cling to that familiar grin as he pushes your hand up just a little more, just enough to have the tip of your middle finger pressing into your entrance. At this point, he’s moved his own fingers to wrap around your wrist. 

“Not enough?” he coos, even though he doesn’t look like he’s faring any better himself in the department of restraint. “What about here, then?” 

Minghao tugs at your wrist until your middle finger is sliding right into your slick. 

Your breath hitches in your throat. You feel your hand twitch, but Minghao only tightens his hold around your wrist. 

“I need you to answer me,” he mumbles, his eyes never leaving yours. He’s keeping you from moving your finger any further, and something about his demeanor tells you that it would be a bad idea to use your free hand to regain some control. Not when he was looking at you like this. 

“More,” you croak out. 

Minghao’s tongue darts out to swipe over his lower lip. “More,” he repeats, his own voice equally broken. He finally breaks his gaze to look down at the way your finger is buried inside you, at how your hand is completely his to move. “Alright, then.” 

Wordlessly, he guides you into pulling your finger out and then easing it back in. This time, his focus is entirely on the way you swallow up your finger with each shallow thrust; how his own movements are dictating your pace, your pleasure. 

You writhe in the chair, feeling absolutely mortified at how quickly you can feel heat building in your stomach. It’s been simmering for the past hour; this was only leading you to the tipping point. And Minghao isn’t even touching you yet at this point, just helping you get off. 

“Hao,” you exhale, your breath warm against his face. He finally looks back up at you and you can see all of his want on his expression, clear his day. “Hao, I need—” 

Him. You need him. That’s what you mean to say. 

But your best friend seems determined to drag this out for all its worth. 

“You need to stop moving,” he murmurs as he deftly pries your index finger free from its curl. “I don’t think I’ve said that enough.” 

This time, he helps you push two fingers into your heat.

Your head lolls back and your lips part in a silent gasp. Minghao seizes the opportunity of more skin being bared to him. He leans down to press a chaste kiss to your jawline, then to your collarbone. All the while, he keeps driving your own fingers into you.

It feels like a special kind of purgatory.

“Please, Hao,” you plead. 

“Words,” he mumbles against our skin, rewarding— or punishing— you with a particularly sharp thrust of your two fingers. You fold in half at the sensation, only managing to still sit somewhat upright by virtue of Minghao’s other hand holding your back up against the chair. “Use your words, pretty.” 

You bury your face in the crook of his neck. There’s a wretched quality to your voice as you pant, “Need you, please. Need your fingers instead.” 

“And why’s that?” 

“‘Cause—” You clench around your fingers; he feels your body tense underneath him. Both of you let out small sounds of pleasure at the reactions. “Your fingers are better, they’re— they’ll get me there faster— please, oh—” 

Your incoherent babbling seems to amuse and appease Minghao, enough for him to give in. 

He pulls your two fingers out and, before you can whine about the loss, he replaces them with two of his. They’re as brutally precise as you’d imagined them to be. Your knees almost close in an attempt to tide the pleasure that’s about to crash down, but Minghao holds your thighs apart with his other hand. 

“Don’t.” His voice is strained with effort. “Wanna see you. Please?” 

It’s the tacked on please that bowls you over, that has you nodding helplessly. You’d do anything Minghao asked if he asked in that tone. 

The squelches of his two fingers thrusting into you are obscene, but not quite as filthy as the sounds that slide past your panting lips. You moan and whimper and whine, and each little noise only seems to have Minghao moving with renewed vigor. He’s pulled away from your neck to watch you, but his eyes keep darting from your microexpressions to the way his fingers are swallowed up by your velvet heat. It’s like he can’t decide where to look first. 

“You’re a work of art,” he chokes out, his teeth grinding together as he focuses on your face. “So goddamn beautiful— sitting here all nice and pretty for me.” 

One of your hands fly to his hip in a desperate bid to hold onto something, to anything of him.

“Gonna finish,” you sob as you force your eyes open to meet his. Inadvertently, you cant your hips upward to meet one of his sharper thrusts, and the friction has the two of you moaning a little more. “Hao, fuck, can I—?” 

“Please,” he pants. “I need it. I need it so, so bad—” 

You climax with a silent scream, a sound that’s muffled as you lurch forward and press your face back into his neck. His other hand holds the back of your head in a supportive gesture as you come undone, coating his two digits in your slick. 

Minghao lets out a low cuss as he presses a kiss to the crown of your head. “You’re so beautiful,” he says dazedly, sliding his fingers out of you carefully. “How are you so beautiful?” 

All you can manage is a shaky laugh as you come down from your high. As you keep your head pressed against Minghao, you catch sight of the tent in his sweatpants. Tentatively, you reach up one hand to cup him over the fabric. 

He says your name like it had been punched out of him. “Hey—” he tries to say in warning, but his body betrays him by bucking into your hand. 

“How long has that been there?” Your voice trembles, thick with a heady mix of exhaustion and desire. 

Minghao’s gruff response comes as your fingers twitch around the outline of him. “Since you stepped out of the damn shower,” he admits lowly.  

You let out a contemplative hum. There’s still a low ringing in your ears, a slight buzz in your brain from the last vestiges of your orgasm, but it can’t just be you who’s having all the fun. 

You shift back a bit so you can meet his gaze. You’re torturously slow as you palm his aching hardness, and you revel in the way Minghao reacts above you. His eyes have all but rolled into the back of his head and breathless little gasps are rising from the back of his throat.

“You’ve posed my hands,” you say, trying— and failing— to keep your tone even. “Wanna show me where my mouth should be, Hao?” 

His fingers tighten at the strands of your hair. He lets out just one more cuss before he’s using his other hand— the one still coated with your release— to pull down his bottoms. 

“Watch and fuckin’ learn, pretty,” he breathes, and you have a good feeling that he’ll make good on the threat.       

(Minghao gets an ‘A’ on his next assignment.)

[queenburd]

Hi, yes, I know it's been a minute since I wrote fic. it's been a long year. have this. Happy holidays.

-----

I don’t know how to explain to you that the Parable is both a prison and a home, so instead I’ll say this:

The Narrator has been trying to make changes.

Not big changes, mind you! Not to the story, and not to the structure of the place. Endings remain untouched, halls stay as they are, going where they have always gone except for when the game decides they should go someplace else. The Narrator leaves it all in place, because why fix something that’s not broken?

No. No, it’s small things he’s trying to change. The painting in Stanley’s office. The textures of the chairs.

Let’s talk about that.

See, Stanley isn’t happy. This is abundantly clear, in the way he walks about the office—sometimes bored, sometimes irritated, but mostly… lost. There’s vacancy in his eyes. He’s walking just to do something. He doesn’t have anywhere to go, and while this can fill him with a deep-seated anger, lately it’s been making him…

Rather morose.

And this is a problem, for the Narrator.

It isn’t just that he wants Stanley to follow the story (although that would be nice, wouldn’t it), but he struggles to properly grasp why the quiet misery eats at him. Perhaps—perhaps he feels inadequate? He certainly thrives off positive feedback, and withers when criticized before striking with a sharper tongue than he means to. Or maybe, maybe he worries that Stanley isn’t truly… hearing him? Isn’t responding to him. That certainly doesn’t sit right with the Narrator.

And yet, for all that these are genuine, selfish reasons the Narrator has to feel bothered by Stanley’s dismal attitude, none of it really grips at the core of him. None of it captures the reality he’s still trying to come to grips with.

He wants Stanley to be happy. If… if Stanley isn’t happy, then the world is wrong.

And the Narrator must fix it.

So! The changes. Yes. You know, he thought it would be simple enough to change the textures of the chairs in the office, to start. They’re only office chairs, after all. And they look terribly uncomfortable, Stanley is always trying to stretch out his lower back when he stands from a reset, surely the Narrator can make them a bit more plush? A bit more, er, ergonomic, that’s the word! More comfortable. With armrests!

It can’t be so hard to edit the model.

Er, tangent, completely unrelated, really, don’t look too hard into it—have you ever seen a video game asset clip and break into the floor with such a violence that it threatens to throw the assets around it into a warped amalgam of broken and stretched textures?

Okay, have you ever seen every single type of that asset on a map try to do this at the same time?

The entire office seemed to jitter, and Stanley had run nearly all the way to the two doors room before a violent reset had returned their world into its normalcy.

“I swear, Stanley, I wasn’t trying to kill you! I was trying to—I just—I wanted to—oh, but it was supposed to be a surprise—oh, what’s the use. The cat’s gone and killed itself in the bag.”

It's an unmitigated disaster, one that threatens to completely overtake him and make him throw in the towel, but Stanley sees his new painting (nothing special, simply one of the other assets already in the office), and he—he touches it simply with the tips of two fingers, and he sort of smiles a crooked half-smile, and.

If the Narrator can make that smile happen again, isn’t it worth trying?

(The painting changes out every handful of resets, and Stanley—he always taps it just once, when it does. An acknowledgment. But it’s not enough, it’s not nearly enough!)

Alright, so, back to the drawing board on the chairs. In the meantime, what else? Office decor? The Narrator kicks around the idea of balloons for a bit, but he shelves it. It might be tacky, and there’s so many options on what they might say. Perhaps desk displays! Yes, more variety in the office. He’s not technically meant to let Stanley play Solitaire, since it distracts from the story, but, you know, to hell with it. Solitaire, and Minesweeper, the Narrator even considers a rare Mahjong game before he forcibly reminds himself that minimal is good, and these types of computer would not have it, and really, Mahjong is a little above Stanley’s mental faculties, isn’t it?

Alright, so technically, none of these spawn at Stanley’s computer—it’s important that his monitor display the lack of orders. But his coworkers, well, maybe a couple of them are slouching off, the Narrator excuses. And hell, maybe, if Stanley ever asks, the Narrator can let him play in office 427 and. And…

Oh, what’s he thinking? Giving Stanley other games to play, when his is supposed to be the star? What’s he doing?

He’s… is this fixing it? Is this making it more bearable for Stanley? (Is his game really so bad to play that Stanley would play other games instead?)

Stanley sees the monitors, and he pokes at the games, but he says little and the Narrator doesn’t address them, too afraid of the answer he’ll get. And eventually, Stanley returns to wandering the halls and playing the game made for him.

Is… is that a failure? Is that success? The Narrator can’t tell.

Focus. Try to focus. Remember why this is so important. His memory is faulty (a fact that still frightens him), but he still holds right to the fundamental point, even when the thought of Stanley’s near-smile distorts and becomes distant. The point. The point is happiness. The point is Stanley’s happiness. That’s what the story is about, right? That’s what he wrote.

A quarter appears on Stanley’s desk, unannounced. It lasts through the reset following that run’s ending, and the reset after that. When he finds the second quarter, left unceremoniously by a mug in the meeting room, he pockets it. When the reset hits, it sits on top of the first quarter, by the phone in his office.

The Narrator comments on none of it, and pretends the air does not grow thick with anticipation each time Stanley stops in place and examines the tiny, unassuming things, hardly out of place save for the mere fact they were not there before.

In this way, Stanley finds small change throughout the building’s many twists and turns, until after many many resets, the final quarter appears on a low coffee table in the lounge.

And, one ending later, Stanley is dropping his small hoard into the thin slot on the vending machine. Each coin makes a satisfying cla-chunk, a noise the Narrator is exceptionally proud of implementing so perfectly.

And then…

Stanley chooses a beverage. The machine gives another very satisfying ca-clunk as it drops a small can with a green label at his feet. The label is nondescript, just like the blurry options on the vending machine, but there you are. The Narrator watches with bated breath as Stanley picks up the can…

And waves it above his head, scowling.

“Mm?” The fellow tries to come off as unbothered. Distracted. Uninterested. “What? What’s that you’ve got, then? Oh, it’s a can of soda! What a stroke of luck you’ve had, getting a drink from a machine that purportedly doesn’t work! Surely, things are turning up in your favor.”

Stanley continues to scowl, which is…. Befuddling. Shouldn’t he be delighted by this?

“And what exactly is the problem? Got the wrong flavor, have you?”

The lines deepen on the office worker’s face. No, no, this isn’t right! A hand moves to ask a question, in line with the clear irritated query he offers the Narrator—

[ What the hell is this? ]

“Hmph. I already said what it is, or are you really intent on not listening to me? It appears to be one of your classic canned beverages, chilled of course, like it says on the machine.”

[ I know that, ] Stanley insists, [ but it’s not supposed to work. You changed it, didn’t you? ]

Ah, now’s the time to take the credit, to accept the praise and preen a bit under it, before humbling oneself politely. To offer it as a sign of generosity, yes!

“Well, I certainly can’t deny that I had a hand in the matter of getting the machine to function! It really did take a bit of figuring out, but I think the effort was worth it in the end to get something that really—“

Stanley cuts him off with a motion from both arms, like an X in front of his body before slicing through the air. His grimace remains.

[ Why? ]

There’s no gratitude. There’s no joy. There’s only a deep distrust, and the Narrator flounders in the face of it.

“Why? Well I—I thought—well I just thought it might make for a, a nice change. A little mini game maybe, I don’t know! Honestly, I thought you’d be more grateful about this, Stanley, you’re always in here prodding at the machine despite my repeated comments that it’s just a textured box—isn’t this what you wanted?”

[ Since when has what I want mattered? You just want praise. That’s why you’ve been changing things in the office, isn’t it? You want to make your stupid office setting more realistic. ]

It shouldn’t hurt, really, but it does anyway. To be told that his intentions aren’t genuine, to be told he has ulterior motives—and, worse, to wonder if Stanley is correct. Is this another selfish attempt on his part? Is this just a way to make himself feel better? To, perhaps, offload his guilt?

The Narrator fumbles, and then he falls back on his tried-and-true technique—he pushes back. He’s not proud, but it’s so instinctive, don’t you see?

“Now look here. Don’t you pretend you haven’t appreciated a break from what you yourself have described as the monotony. You’re actively gaining something out of this, there’s no need to be so ungrateful about it! Can’t you appreciate the work I’m putting in for you, for once?”

An accusatory finger pointed up at the ceiling, almost in victory. Stanley shakes the can still in his hand, and throws it at the wall between two paintings. It near about explodes.

“Oh, now look what you’ve done! All that hard work, all that change, and for what?! A smear on a wall. Great job, Stanley. You really showed me.” There’s a sneer in his voice. He’s angry. He’s upset. He’s been rejected again.

He just doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong.

“What do you want to hear, that I changed a few paintings and added a few features and made an entirely new mechanic, just for you to pump up my ego? Do you really think so little of me, or that I care so much for your opinion of me? Is it really so hard to believe that I just wanted to try to ease your misery?”

Stanley stares at the smear on the wall with a furrowed brow, his eyes dark and his mouth a grim line. The Narrator just keeps talking, like he can’t stop. He just can’t stop.

“Look at me, I’m Stanley, I’m trapped in an office building with only a narrator for company, and he’s so awful, really! He wrote me a whole story where I end up happy and he tries to get along with me but he’s just so terrible, he lets me play games that aren’t the one he made just for me, what a horrible fellow!”

Stanley covers his ears but that’s never helped. He storms out of the lounge and then across the maintenance room, and then through the meeting room into the closet. The door doesn’t slam behind him but it’s a near thing.

“Yes! Fine! Go into your little room where I can’t see you, who wants to talk to you anyhow?! Who wants to engage with someone who outright refuses to accept a gift offered to him?! Not me. I have better things to do with my time."

It will be a couple hours before Stanley leaves the broom closet. When he goes to the Freedom ending, it’s a clear attempt at a peace offering—but it’s obvious from both his slow steps through the mind control facility and the lack of drama in the Narrator’s voice that neither of their hearts are in it.

The Narrator is not proud. And he takes away all the changes he made, not as a punishment, but because they were stupid. It was stupid of him to try to make this place better. It’s never going to be better and he’s never going to be more than the fellow keeping Stanley here.

He can’t make Stanley happy, can he? He can’t be enough. Of course he would never be enough.

Stanley wanders through the building again, and again. The Narrator says his lines best as he can, but he know his performance is slipping. The tired, lost look returns to Stanley’s face.

-

“Do I remember the Confusion Ending?” the Narrator repeats, when Stanley prods him after a reset at some point. “Er… no, no let me think for a moment—that’s the one with a LineTM? I think? Yes, I have a note here somewhere on that,” he says, feeling more confident, “although I don’t think you and I have ever found it, so—oh. No? That’s not right? We’ve… we’ve done that one?”

Stanley nods.

“Oh.”

The voice makes a noise, like a throat clearing.

“Did we, um, did we just do that one?”

Stanley nods again.

“Oh. That’s…. I see.”

It never ceases to unsettle the voice. It tries to power through, best as it can.

“Is there um, is there any particular reason you’re asking?”

Stanley seems to think this over. He signs, cautiously, [ You say some things. I was never sure if you actually meant them, or if it was another joke at my expense. ]

“What sort of things do I supposedly say, then? Maybe I can clear up any—aheh, aheheh, confusion, I suppose.”

Stanley doesn’t smile at the joke, though his mouth does a complicated thing. He warily opens up the shape of his memories, and the Narrator brushes a metaphorical finger across a metaphorical page. The voice tries, tries terribly hard, to let it roll naturally over the both of them instead of forcing them through the ordeal.

(Remembering a memory and reliving a memory, they’re not supposed to be so different. Still, you don’t feel like you have hindsight in this way. You’re in that moment, same as you had been, without being quite able to separate yourself from it.)

“Just me and Stanley, forging a new path, a new story! Well, it could be anything! What do you want our story to be?”

When the voice is itself again, its fingers drawn back from the page, it finds itself somewhere just left of shaken. Composure. The Narrator must find his composure.

“Well, that’s… that was certainly an, um, an enlightening experience!” he tries. “I guess that explains the Adventure Line™️ that I’ve found in the files. I had wondered when I would need to use that feature.”

Stanley is looking at the ground.

“Well… what’s wrong? It—oh, yes, you were asking me—“

[ Even if you meant it then, I don’t think you mean it now, ] Stanley signs, and no, no that just won’t do.

“Would you even let me finish speaking before you come to some kind of foregone conclusion! For goodness’s sake, Stanley—“

The Narrator sighs. Melancholy overtakes him, when he speaks again.

“I’m trying to make you understand, I’ve been trying and trying but I just can’t seem to get through to you. Stanley, my story ends with you being happy.”

There’s a vicious snap of the head up as Stanley visibly prepares to retort.

“No, please let me finish, I’m not done! I’m trying to make a point here! I’m… I’m trying to explain.”

Stanley, still visibly unhappy, holds his metaphorical tongue.

“The point… the point, Stanley, is your happiness. I know you don’t believe me, and, and I know that what you want more than anything is to leave. Believe me, if I could give you what you want, I would! If it were in my power, I, well I—“

(”I don’t want to be trapped like this!”)

He sighs. “There isn’t a way out. I know that isn’t what you want to hear. I’m really, truly sorry. But I do want to do what I can to make your time here… not miserable. Do you understand?”

Stanley is looking at the floor again. The Narrator tries, gently, to reiterate himself.

“I really do want to make you happy.”

Hands lift. They stay at chest height for a full minute. Then:

[ I can’t be. ]

It hurts, like nothing else. He can’t help the small, defeated, “oh,” that slips out.

“Okay. That’s… okay. I understand."

Fist to heart. Circles against a chest.

“No, no, you don’t have to apologize,” oh goodness, is the Narrator sniffling? He sounds, he sounds on the verge of tears. How humiliating. “What is there to apologize for? Listen, why don’t I load up button heaven for you, and you can have some time at least without me incessantly in your ear? That sounds nice, doesn’t it? Yes? With nice, big buttons to mess around with.”

After a long moment, Stanley nods, hesitant.

“Perfect. Let me just get that set up on your monitor. There you go. Have fun.”

He knows it’s not enough for Stanley. He knows Stanley is just trying to assuage him.

God, maybe there’s a benefit to forgetting. Maybe it stops the pain.

But if he forgets, then the lesson doesn’t stick, and the Narrator needs the lesson to stick, doesn’t he? So that he can be a realist about it all.

Stanley doesn’t trust him, and they are not friends.

Okay.

-

The Narrator prides himself on being a professional, so he collects himself best as he can and he performs to the best of his ability. If there’s any hint of despondency in his lines, well, there is plausible deniability, nobody can say for sure the script doesn’t call for it.

Nevermind that he’s said all the words, so many times.

He’s allowed to play with the delivery, he thinks.

He’s fine.

It’s when he goes off-script that the Narrator struggles more. He snaps at Stanley in their usual spats, they butt heads; and even then the voice finds it keeps exposing that vulnerable honesty in the hopes that maybe this time, it will be enough. Maybe this time, Stanley will see that it’s trying.

It’s a fool’s errand, obviously, but the Narrator is very much a fool.

And sometimes…

Sometimes Stanley seems…

Better.

How to describe it? The way he will move with intent, to do something as silly as jump out a window to hear a limerick, and grin, even though he’s heard it perhaps a hundred times? The crinkles in the corners by his eyes when he closes the doors in the hall attached to room 217, to stare inside the room with a focus that can only be for show?

He stacks mugs, sometimes, collecting every one in the cubicle rooms that he can find and carefully assembling them like one would with playing cards, with some kind of arrangement or sorting that the Narrator cannot make heads or tails of. Stanley tells him that he has a process, the fellow couldn’t possibly understand, and, well, that’s for sure.

Rating the game features every single possible number. Trying to beat the baby game with one finger stuffed in an ear while the other hand slams buttons. Walking up the stairs, then down the stairs, then back up the stairs, on the way to the boss’s office.

The Narrator doesn’t really know what to make of it all. Part of him, the part that’s easy to fall back to, wants to find it all irritating. Another wants to find it funny. Not charming, necessarily, but… silly. He wants it to continue, he would encourage it if he knew what to say. Would a joke be acceptable? Should he tease? Affect grumpiness? What’s the answer?

He’s never been very good at making choices. Once again, Stanley makes the choice for him.

[ The computers don’t change screens anymore. Did you do that? ]

“What? Oh, from—yes, I did end up removing that feature, with the computer card games,” he says, feeling a bit on the back foot.

[ And my office painting, ] Stanley continues, uncannily perceptive.

“Yes, well, I realized they weren’t doing much to—that is to say, when I realized they weren’t improving your experience, I—“

[ You didn’t do it because you were angry with me? ] It almost feels like an accusation, which stings, but then, hasn’t the Narrator lashed out before? Wouldn’t that be par for the course?

And the expression Stanley wears isn’t resentment. The Narrator can’t properly place it.

“Wh—no! Goodness, no, did you think I was trying to—Look, I know that there are endings where I act as though I’m trying to punish you, but those are part of the game!”

Stanley’s eyes go to the carpet. Oh, has he said something wrong again? Quick, salvage it!

“The changes weren’t making things better for you, like I had hoped. I scrapped them because they weren’t good, that’s all. You weren’t enjoying them. It wasn’t—I wasn’t trying to take something from you,” he says hastily, before adding, perhaps a bit too honestly, “To be honest, I just thought you didn’t care."

Stanley’s eyes don’t lift, but after an uncomfortable pause, his hands raise to reply with agonizing caution.

[ I didn’t dislike them. ]

(God, it’s like pulling teeth with this fool, getting him to show any kind of positive response.)

“Then I’ll put them back,” the Narrator tries to say casually. He feels… fluttery. Does that make sense? How can a voice feel fluttery? “Do you, um…”

Does he ask if Stanley wants the soda machine back, and force the man to acknowledge it was good, as though prying out praise? Does he wait for Stanley to bring it up first, forcing the protagonist into uncomfortable vulnerability?

Broaching the subject is… difficult, for the same reason either way: it means Stanley admitting he wants something.

Why is communication so hard? It shouldn’t be this hard, when half the party is just a voice!

Stanley finally looks up from the floor, and he focuses on the space between two light fixtures, above the copy machine. He shifts a little uncomfortably where he stands, arms crossing, then uncrossing, but at the very least, his expression takes on a determined and almost challenging air as he lifts his chin. Like he's making a decision.

[ If you wanted to implement that coin hunt for the soda machine... thing, I could give it another go. Make sure there aren't any bugs to work out. ]

“Oh?” He says, hopeful, catching the framework he's offered. “Yes, you know, I don't know that I got all the flavors right, you know? It's not as though I can test them out for myself. You'll have to give me thorough feedback on what needs improvement, so I'm sure it will keep you busy.”

The man squints, motions quick. [ You'll have to deal with real critical feedback, you know. You sure you want my real opinion, and not just some fluff for your ego? ] But there's the barely-there tug at the corner of his mouth, just visible in the pulling muscle of his cheek; a little tell that he's trying to joke.

“Oh, please, if anything, we can think of this as a way to educate you on how to thoughtfully and usefully critique game design and feature functionality. Genuine critique is an art and a skill, Stanley, one that I'm sure you could learn to appreciate,” the Narrator sniffs. The pride is a cover, of course. He's in on the joke.

They're on the same page, they're communicating. Of course, it makes sense, it's the perfect excuse for both of them to hide behind; if it's “new features” to implement for “the game”, then Stanley has to test them, doesn't he? To make sure they work effectively! And, if it curbs his boredom, if it gives him just a hint of enjoyment—of joy—then they both win, don't they? Stanley won't have to feel like he's admitting to liking what's been made for him, it won't be about praising the Narrator's game. It will be a matter of professionalism; of game maker and playtester.

But they'll know. It will be their little secret.

“You know,” the Narrator says thoughtfully as he glances over his many concepts and files and assets, “I'd been considering changing some of the office chairs to a newer model... A retexture isn't enough, I'm afraid, I'm thinking about loading up a different asset design program altogether.... Have you ever heard of a program called Blender?”

-

I don’t know how to explain to you that the Parable is both a prison and a home.

I can't quite find the words to properly convey to you that this place wasn't really meant to be changed, but it wants more than anything to be played, so anything that furthers that goal, that satiates that need, is acceptable in its metaphorical eyes. I can't really properly articulate that it was made to go on forever, so the two people inside it were designed to be diametrically opposed so they could pull at each other and make the world keep spinning.

It's a complicated concept, and I've been trying to find the words to explain that it's not malicious, it just wants to live. It was made like this, and it can't really be anything different.

But it's a small world, and it's malleable, and it's a game meant to make a person laugh. Maybe the point of it is to bring joy, right? Maybe it doesn't have to just bring joy to the player. Maybe a person can become comfortable inside it, and find its traits charming, or familiar, little quirks and needs and demands like any place that's lived in for long enough.

I don't really know how to explain that the Parable is complicated, and yet at the end of the day, an extremely simple mechanism.

So instead I’ll say this: The Narrator has been trying to make changes.

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

Love Sea Excerpt: Tongrak and Mahasamut's First Time (Ch 5: The Price I Paid)

"Haha," Mahasamut couldn't help but chuckle.

He felt crazy watching someone work, especially since that person wasn't even acknowledging him.

I gave him such a wonderful service, and he didn't even like it. That hurts.

Mahasamut thought, and laughed out loud.

"Quiet, I'm working."

But then, the man who'd been silent for so long spoke calmly without even turning to look at him. The sound of the keyboard continued, causing Mahasamut to pause mid-laugh, even as his lips curled into a wide smile.

He's quite charming in his working mode.

The still, solemn demeanor and focus that seemed to belong to a completely different person only piqued his interest further, making him want to see more of Tongrak's emotions. But he figured he should probably keep quiet if he didn't want to be kicked out of the room.

The thought made his sharp eyes fixate on the fair neck reddening from sunburn, the fair skin smeared with sand from the beach. But the man himself didn't seem to care. Perhaps only he couldn't help but think about how he wanted to bite into that man's neck, and the taste that he'd savored earlier confirmed just how sweet that fair skin was.

Looking any longer might not be a good idea.

It looked like his VIP guest was alright. He was in a hurry to get back to work and leave his little buddy to wither away. Mahasamut shrugged and looked down at his own body, which was initially soaked with seawater but now almost dry, except for the sand covering him. He decided to get up and head to the bathroom.

Just a quick rinse. The room's owner probably wouldn't mind.

---

---

Mahasamut had barely disappeared into the bathroom when the sound of water hitting the tiled floor echoed out. However, what brought the man in front of the screen back to reality wasn't the sound of water, but the last sentence he typed to finish the chapter he'd left.

He'd solved the problem of how to describe the love in this story.

"Phew," and with that, Tongrak let out a sigh of relief.

While the famous writer Tongrak had many romantic works, few knew that he struggled with writing love scenes, and his solution to the problem was... having sex.

Sometimes, it couldn't be solved with just a warm embrace.

But most of the time, that wasn't very effective. Connor was one of the people whose embrace felt warm to Tongrak, but the problem was that he already had a boyfriend. When stuck or when he couldn't grasp the concept of warmth or love, he'd just go to his best friend, snuggle into his embrace, and some ideas would start to flow. But now, that was no longer an option.

And yes, one of the reasons he agreed to go to this island was because... he was tired of the men in the city.

It was so dull that he thought of changing the scenery for his work.

And then he met...

Tongrak turned to glance at the slightly ajar bathroom door.

After completely ignoring the other person in the room, Tongrak saved his work and shut down his laptop. From slow steps, his pace quickened. He pushed the bathroom door open with force and saw a robust, naked figure standing under the rain shower. Thick, wet hair clung to his cheeks, and one hand braced against the wall while the other cradled... his substantially sized shaft.

As those sharp, intense eyes met him, the cascading water made the man look even more dominant, magnifying his dangerous allure.

The man's expression shifted from fierce to his usual teasing smirk.

Mahasamut didn't even care that Tongrak was now inspecting his impressive lower half.

Tongrak secretly thought the guy must be well-endowed, but he hadn't expected it to be this impressive.Whether it was the size or the shape, the veins that stood out from arousal, it was all something he wanted to look at.

"If you keep staring like that, I'm going to start charging," came the teasing voice, drawing honey-colored eyes back to meet his gaze.

Mahasamut wasn't shy about showing off his body.

The guy was so confident that it was almost sickening.

"Usually, when the money's in, you can consider it done. I already gave you a service, and yet here you are, watching my body for free. I'm running at a loss here..."

Thud!

Tongrak didn't wait for the man to finish speaking. His lead body pushed the broad chest until it hit the wall, also bringing himself under the shower. The slender frame pressed close to the broad chest, allowing the sensitive part beneath his pants to press against the hot flesh, feeling the heat between them, and then...

Tongrak swiftly captured Mahasamut's neck and kissed him fiercely.

A tongue licked teasingly over the irritating lips. Tongrak bit down on the lower lip hard enough to almost taste blood. After that, the pretty one pulled back to look into his eyes.

"How much?"

"..."

Mahasamut remained silent. The only sound was that of water droplets hitting the tiled floor.

"How much for letting me see your body just now?"

"..."

"And how much to sleep with you?"

"..."

"How much would it cost for you to take me?"

"..."

Tongrak then asked the final question.

"So, what's your price if I want to buy you?"

Their gazes locked, neither willing to back down.

Strangely, this time, Tongrak didn't have a hint of his usual complaining demeanor. There was only a serious look in his eyes, like a businessman negotiating a deal.

Yet, this seriousness was... sexy.

The once arrogant man was now eagerly seeking an answer to how much it'd cost to be 'taken'.

"... I'm not cheap, you know." Mahasamut finally replied after a long stare, and that turned the serious businessman into a man of passion.

"Money won't be a problem."

At Tongrak's words, it wasn't just one of them who moved first, but both of them closed the distance as if they'd been waiting for this moment all along.

Lips crushed and ground against each other.

Bodies moved close, leaving no space between them.

Hands intertwined, caressed, and stroked each other without restraint.

It was Mahasamut's turn to flip Tongrak's body, pressing him against the wall while his hot mouth continued to suck hungrily and nip. His tongue invaded deeply, tormenting the other without pause for breath, sweeping and pursuing, attacking and pressing until clear liquid seeped and smeared at the corners of their mouths. The sound of their sweet exchange echoed loudly.

The big man pulled away briefly to strip Tongrak's shirt while Tongrak himself quickly discarded his pants with a swift flick.

"Ah, ha... oh, that's good... so good..."

With just a large hand scooping up the pale leg to bring their lower bodies into close contact, Tongrak moaned in satisfaction. He enjoyed the sensation of his sensitive parts rubbing against the larger, hotter area, the scorching heat nearly burning his flesh at the lower abdomen. He liked it so much that he wanted to pull that large part into his mouth.

But today, Mahasamut had other ideas.

"Hold this for me."

Mahasamut grasped Tongrak's hand, pulling it to hold the heated flesh that throbbed between them. Tongrak complied easily, but a single hand wasn't enough to contain them both. Both hands worked together to gather their moist parts, pressing his palm against the visibly larger and longer part of Mahasamut. His hips moved with desire, hot breaths touching the broad chest.

Wide eyes shimmered with emotion, and skin flushed from pale to a spreading red that reached the ears. Now, a hot tongue traced and nipped at his fair skin.

"Ah! You really like to bite, huh? Were you a dog in a past life or something?"

It was then that the larger man used his free hand to grasp the slender neck, tilting the flushing face upward, allowing him to bury his face into the crook of a fair neck. He licked at the marks left by previous bites, eliciting a hoarse moan from Tongrak, who couldn't help but ask, even as he was nearly delirious with... excitement.

He liked it when Mahasamut did this to him, bit him like this, nipped him like this.

It wasn't so violent that it hurt, but it was enough to make his body scream with pleasure.

Mahasamut's gaze flickered for a moment, and Tongrak was certain he saw a smirk at the corner of his mouth. Then...

"Woof."

The big man let out a sound that should have been endearing, but it made Tongrak cry out as a tingling sensation spread through him.

The giant dog, burying its face against the slender chest with just the right amount of muscle, licked the tender nipple that stood erect with a flick of his tongue as if savoring a delicious sweet.

Mahasamut alternated between biting and smoothing with licks, repeating the motion until the area felt numb and swollen, the nipples turning a bright red. The voice grew higher with every moan, hips moving, calling for their flesh to rub together.

Now, it was impossible to tell whose slick fluid filled the palm of Tongrak's hand.

"Mahasamut, suck, suck more, ugh, ah, that's good."

Since he'd already given in, why hide his desires any longer?

When Tongrak played with himself, he enjoyed teasing his nipples hard while slipping a fingertip into his behind, stimulating both above and below. Although it was exceedingly rare for him to be without a partner, what he truly relished was the way Mahasamut would incessantly suck and pull at his nipples as if insatiable.

It was a delicious torment, almost maddeningly good.

Meanwhile, a large hand caressed his back, kneading the soft flesh until fingertips sank into the smooth skin, a touch that made the more prominent man want to squeeze even harder.

"Ah..."

If it were just about thoughts, it wouldn't be Mahasamut. As soon as those sharp eyes saw the person in his embrace pushing his body against him, the adorable body trying to grind him like an animal in heat, the beautiful face flushed red, breathing heavily, sweat glistening across the forehead, he too moved the hand that wasn't busy to turn off the water and back to firmly clench the round buttocks.

It was enough to make Tongrak moan with a trembling voice.

"Play with my insides... do it..."

Just the touch of a fingertip teasing the tender passage he'd been playing with earlier caused it to clench, and the person in his embrace begged with a quivering voice, eyes moist as they looked up at him until...

"Uhh..." their lips met with precise heat.

A fervent kiss that escalated the passion to its peak while the adorable person before him pleaded even more.

"Uhh..."

Mahasamut felt the trembling moan in the other's mouth as soon as his fingertip teased the sweet passage. The suction that seemed to invite him in nearly drove him wild, unable to resist until...

His middle finger slid in as the person in his embrace widened his eyes, writhing, gasping for air close to his lips.

Now, Mahasamut wasn't just growling but roaring.

Who gave your body permission to be this sexy, Mr. Writer?!

Now the soft walls were clenching around his long finger, the searing heat gripping tightly, sucking eagerly just like the person in his embrace, as the long finger curled inward, seeking the spot that made the more petit person in his arms twitch.

"Ah, ahh, uhh, ugh..."

As soon as his lips were free, Tongrak let out a trembling moan, his eyes tightly shut, indulging in the sensation of the probing touch moving in and out of his passage.

Seeing that Tongrak could handle it, a second finger soon followed.

"You are really something," Mahasamut growled.

"Why, am I... sexy... or something...?"

The sexy one squinted his eyes open and licked his own lips fervently, his gaze narrowing, but only for a moment, as the two long fingers stirring inside him that initially stuck close together were now... parting.

"Ah, ah, don't, don't- Mahasamut-ah, ah!"

Damn it!

There were a few times when Mahasamut lost his patience, especially with the pretty man before him, biting his lips and moaning unintelligibly, was clenching around his fingers, forcing him to pull his hand out of that soft channel in one swift motion. He flipped the smooth body to face the wall, his strong knees pushing the slender legs to spread wide.

"Put it in!"

Meanwhile, the small body cried out passionately for the loss of the hot part, disliking the sudden emptiness.

He liked how Mahasamut spread his fingers, liked the thrilling discomfort, liked the tightness that almost split him open, liked the long fingers reaching spots he couldn't reach himself. It was enough to make him beg for the other person to tease his sensitive passage once more.

"!"

But at the sound of his plea, Mahasamut would forcefully push three fingers in all at once. It was fierce, raw, merciless to the point of taking Tongrak's breath away. His legs trembled, his hands braced against the wall, his breaths coming in short gasps, unable to contain the rising desire that edged him to the brink.

"Ah, ahh!"

The long fingers almost completely withdrew, then... slammed back in.

Each time, they hammered insistently at that sensitive spot, bringing him close to the edge, his tender part stubbornly releasing drops of fluid.

Mahasamut couldn't take it anymore either.

He wanted to thrust himself into that sweet, inviting hole so badly.

"Condom."

"Hah... in the bag."

No need for further questions. They understood each other well, and then...

Mahasamut yanked Tongrak's arm, pulling him back into the bedroom, pushing the smooth body to fall onto the bed while he himself walked over to the open suitcase.

"The front one," Tongrak called out with a trembling voice.

The tall figure took only a few seconds to find the box of condoms that had... every size imaginable.

Mahasamut quickly grabbed one that fit him, but as soon as he turned back...

He felt the urge to spank a petite body.

Who'd have thought that Mr. Perfect, someone like Tongrak, would be on all fours on the bed, legs spread wide, hands bracing against the soft mattress, exposing every inch of his bare body, even the twitching tightness that was eagerly awaiting?

"Hurry, Mahasamut, hurry," the slender figure urged with a quivering, breathy voice, legs spreading even wider.

Smack!

"Did you just spank... Ahhh!"

Tongrak was about to curse in shock when suddenly, a large hand slapped his soft buttocks. But before he could finish his sentence, the sting from the slap was nothing compared to the intense heat that was pushing in, making him feel unbearably full, almost bursting at his very core.

"Wait!! Wait! You're too big, you... ugh!"

The deep penetration brought tears to the brink of his eyes. His fair hands reached for the strong thighs in an attempt to restrain, but it only spurred the larger man to thrust deeper, causing Tongrak to clutch the sheets, his face digging into the soft mattress, his breaths echoing throughout the room.

It was so tight.

"Can you take it?"

"I don't know, Mahasamut. I don't know, ah!"

At this point, he knew nothing, his mind was completely blank.

But when Mahasamut moved...

"!"

A scream tore from Tongrak's throat at full volume.

The initial pain from the size was immense, but it also meant there wasn't an inch left untouched, not a space left unfilled. Every craving, every tingling sensation shot straight through his chest with each hot thrust... deep... into the deepest part.

"Ah, ugh, huuuh!"

Now, within the luxurious room, there were only the moans and low growls of two men, mingling with the raw sound of flesh against flesh in a strong rhythm. The temperature in the room soared, rendering the air conditioning useless, but why would Mahasamut care when the sight before him was far more captivating?

The stark white expanse of a handsome man's back stretched out before him, beads of sweat seeping out until the hair at the nape of his neck was damp against the smooth skin. Large hands pressed into that back, urging the other to let himself fall flat against the bed, with only the beautiful arch of his hips raised high, allowing him to indulge his desires.

It was so enticing that Mahasamut leaned down to lick the sweat at that smooth neck, something he had longed to do.

"Ugh!"

"Huh, ugh!"

As the hips met each thrust with full force, the soft buttocks pressed tightly against his abdomen. He could feel the intense twitching of the person beneath him, who jerked violently. Fair hands reached out to grasp his thighs and clung tightly, hips tilting higher, while his one large hand braced against the headboard, the other reaching to cradle the lovely, soaked part that signaled that Tongrak... had already climaxed.

"Hah, hah."

The person in his embrace gasped, his body trembling as if consciousness was slipping away in the aftermath of reaching heaven.

Then, a flushed face turned to look at him through tears, eyes still adrift in the blissful moment. This prompted him not to tease Tongrak with a 'You finish so easily, don't you?' Instead, he kissed him to soothe and comfort him.

It seemed Tongrak himself hadn't expected to finish so easily.

"Ah, ugh."

Warm lips pressed against a gentle, comforting kiss, contrasting with the lower body's movements that quickened, urging him on to match the rhythm of the beauty who'd reached the climax before him. And that taught the southern man something new.

With a face contorted in pleasure, a throat filled with moans, and a body twitching below, this person enjoyed him plunging deep even after cumming.

Damn!

The larger man growled low in his throat, eyes blazing with passion. This was almost maddening, but the discovery only made him more curious.

How to kiss and touch to make this person melt in his embrace?

That was the thought of the one thrusting his body hard, hands now shifting to lock around Tongrak's shoulders, pulling him close, listening to the sweet moans whispered close to his cheek, and that...

Mahasamut felt the tension, his hands clenched tight, his body taught with strain, and then... he released.

Mahasamut shut his eyes, pulling himself back from the blissful sensation he'd just experienced. When he opened them again, he intended to press a kiss onto those beautifully colored lips.

"If you're done, then take it out."

But before he could act on his desire, Tongrak raised a hand to cover his mouth, panting slightly but... with a cold tone in his voice.

"I need to get back to work. If you're done, then take that thing out already."

The gesture made Mahasamut want to smack the older man once or twice.

Geez... Just moments ago, he was begging for me, and now that it's over, I'm being kicked to the curb.

Part of him wanted to tease a little, but maybe because he'd already gotten more than he expected today, the tall figure clenched his teeth and slowly pulled himself away, looking at the trembling face that was still affected by the fiction that had occurred.

"As you command."

What else could he say when his employer had given the order?

"Do I have to leave right now?"

"Yes, why would you stick around after you're finished? You can go."

"Kicking me out right after we're done, huh?" The big man chuckled.

Tongrak didn't seem to care. As soon as he collapsed onto the bed, he pulled the blanket over himself and commanded, "Take the condom and throw it outside, then lock the door."

"No goodbye hug?"

"Get out."

When teased, Tongrak looked up with a stern voice, making the other laugh softly. He dressed in his sandy clothes from the bathroom and returned with the evidence of their encounter. His sharp eyes glanced at the man lying in the middle of the bed, but before leaving...

"Do you want me to clean up? I have long fingers, you know."

That's when Tongrak threw a pillow at him, still not lifting his head from the thick blanket.

"I told you to get out!"

"Okay, okay, see you tomorrow."

Mahasamut willingly left the room, making sure to lock the door behind him.

When he heard the door close and the lock click, the person on the bed lifted his head again, revealing a flushed face, moist eyes, and messy hair that could only be described as sexy. And the handsome man cursed to himself...

"Damn it Rak, how could you let him do something like that?!"

As his senses returned, he remembered everything he'd said, and more importantly...

"That was damn good."

The sex this time around was exceptional, easily ranking in the top three experiences of his life. It was so good that he'd almost choked to death trying to suppress the desire for another round. Thinking back on what had happened, he brought his hands up to cover his face.

I think I'm in trouble.

---

---

Content Note:

Tongrak demands Mahasamut take the used condom and throw it away in an outside bin. This is a reference to the events of Love Sand.

Khom is confronted by a homophobic former classmate named Jun. Jun had already run afowl of Connor and Khom, but he makes inquiries among the locals who work at the resort and learns that Connor's trash has been full of used condoms, and Khom had been staying with him most nights.

After Connor leaves the island, Jun attacks Khom in front of a crowded market. He loudly outs Khom as gay, a secret Khom religiously kept from everyone, including his family. Jun then beats Khom half to death, with the crowd only standing there watching, some making faces at Khom.

Mahasamut finds Khom in the hospital and helps him flee to a college dorm Khom has on the mainland. He also tracks down Jun and beats him severely, then forces him to crawl to Khom's parents and beg forgiveness.

Tongrak is very aware of what Khom has gone through, and in the Love Sea show as well as novel, you see many gestures by Tongrak to obscure or hide his sexual relationship with Mahasamut, such as when he tells Mahasamut to throw the used condom away in a public trash can. He knows using the in-room trashbin was what led to Khom's attack.

[fnaf-enthusiast]

FNaF 2 general Headcanons

Withered Freddy

He is still the same tbh

Nothing much changed for him and on him

He somehow drops even more dad jokes

'Raises' Toy Freddy like one would their son and the others always giggle at that

He deeply hates BB but won't show it openly, he probably doesn't even know himself why he dislikes him

Actually likes the new tunes the toy animatronics play but still prefers the songs his band used to play

Whithered Bonnie

We all know he has a lot insecurities now because of his face and his arm but mostly his face

He is the most insecure of the four and it shocks his friends to see him not only change appearance but also personality

He's now just deadpan walking around and sometimes makes a sarcastic joke or two

Though he sometimes still talks a lot and is back to his old self when he talks with the other withered animatronics

He actually doesn't hate his replacement they hangout sometime but it's more like a distant friendship

He also started to swear a lot more and it actually funny to see BB's expression when he hears those words

Withered Chica

She is a close second next to W. Bonnie when it comes to insecurities

She somehow still manages to keep that secret, she sometimes talks with Foxy and Bonnie about such stuff, and she is still very extroverted and happy

She's kinda sad she can't eat pizza anymore but she surprised herself by not caring about it that much

Loves to scare everyone with her broken voicebox and sometimes teams up with BB to annoy the others

Withered Foxy

He's not as flirty as used to be but he doesn't really care all that much

He's had his own insecurities a long time before and knows how to handle them

He turned the flirty jokes and dark jokes up a little now

He and Bonnie now take bets on who will start a 'fight' with who because the toy animatronics always manage to get into arguments

Scratches the wall with his hook and 'draws' his storys and tells them to BB

Once in a week or two he talks with the Puppet because he reminds him of golden Freddy a little

Golden Freddy

He's even more distant now

He already kept to himself but damn he sets new records for that

It isn't like he's insecure, he never really was, but he's afraid he might get a little too emotional when he sees they others

He hangs out most of the time he shows himself with the Puppet

They both are mostly silent or whisper to each other but they love to just observe what's going on in the pizzeria

Toy Freddy

He's like an average teenager

He would play fortnite if he could 100%

He sometimes tries to prank the withered animatronics but almost always fails and gets scolded by Freddy or cussed out by Bonnie

He and toy Chica make almost every day a food fight and sometimes W. Chica and W. Bonnie join

He rages relatively quickly when he loses, no matter what he's loosing at

A huge fan of ice cream, choko-mint to be specific

Toy Bonnie

He is very social but has small mood swings

One day he chats nonstop and the other he sits in W. Bonnies corner with him and talks about live

Is a little clumsy but covers it up by using a joke he got from W. Foxy or W. Freddy

He loves slushys(ya know what I mean, right?)

He always empties the machine and tries to mix every flavor possible

Has also no concersln about himself when he wants to win a bet and makes all types of crazy stuff

Toy Chica

She loves to talk with W. Chica and is from her personality a lot like her original

Sadly has no taste in music and somehow ends up with everyone teasing her about it

But she can tease back and she is very good at making people flustered

She can also be very sassy

Loves lollipops and would probably also love cotton candy

Mangle

my poor bby

She is very distant from the others

Has a lot of insecurities, knows that they should talk about it, but doesn't have a clue how to talk about her problems

Since mostly static comes from their voicebox they don't have that much courage to talk

But sometimes she talks with others, the others can understand W. Chica even though her voicebox is almost just as broken, most times they talk with W. Foxy or hang around Puppet because they find their presence comforting

Puppet

Is the calmest but also the most caring of everyone

Is almost like a therapist for everyone

They mostly keep to themselves but don't mind a nice soul keeping them company

Has a nice laugh wich reminds one of a small child

'Protects' BB when he once again gets in trouble for one of his pranks

Once in a blue moon they tease one of their friends in a fun, harmless way but they don't do that often because they are worried of hurting someones feelings

Baloon Boy

The biggest troublemaker of them all

But also the worst

Has distorted his laugh to scare the toy animatronics multiple times and got his ass almost yeeted across the pizzeria

Puppet is his safe zone

He loves cotton candy, he inhales that shit

Tied to learn the guitar on multiple occasions but somehow he can't learn it

Mad respect tho, he won't stop trying

He laughs at almost every joke, no matter if he understands or not

[lampert3008]

"Someone should really clean those floor buttons..."

[ OOC ]

hey freaks, welcome to the lampert regretevator blog. i'm finally getting around to making a funky scuffed little intro post to pin, so feel free to join me below the cut to read a whole bunch of nonsense

WHERE AM I? WHAT IS THIS?

okay first of all, calm down

This is an ask/RP blog based off of Lampert from the Roblox game Regretevator. Though, keep in mind it won't be 100% canon, and will both be sprinkled with my own headcanons and also occasionally out of character for Lampert because, shockingly, I am not Lampert Real Life™ and do not know how he would react to everything. I try my best though.

Lampert uses primarily he/him pronouns, but sometimes I sprinkle in some he/they in there. as a treat

I'll try my best to respond to asks with drawings, although I am very fragile old man and am decaying with each passing second so sometimes it is difficult for me to get myself to draw

(i am sixteen years old) (i also have a very shit memory and will forget that i have asks to answer whoopsies) (i may be 16 but i feel like my bones are going to fold in on themselves like a lawn chair and wither away at any given moment constantly)

i'll try to remember to tag asks as #lampertasks and non-asks as #lampposts (haha get it) or #ooc if i'm talking to YOU. (im get you.)

WHO ARE YOU?

heya, i'm ray, the owner of this blog, i do not have a main blog and you have no proof, nor will you find it. if i. um. if i had one, i mean. which i dont. don't go look for it. because you. wont. find anything. um. yeah

i am genderfluid and use all pronouns, i am the master of pronouns, the pronoun wizard one could say, simply refer to me. full stop

please do not sex me i am a minor (i yearn i yearn i yearn for the tunnels the coal the coal the mines i yearn i yearn for black lung i yearn please put me in the mines please give me a pickaxe i am mentally stable and can be trusted with big sharp objects)

do not sex lampert either. you cannot fuck the lamp i forbid it

if you try i will lock you in the Dungeon for seven thousand years

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?

as i already mentioned, do not try and fuck lampert or you will face the consequences, lampert may be an adult but i am not

sex jokes are fine though. to a point. just dont be creepy. be funny or Die (/hj)

i have no opinions on shipping content, i will probably not take it seriously and will shitpost with most of it. i mean of course i have regretevator ships i enjoy, like come on im a tumblr user what do you expect from me, but i doubt i'll insert them into this blog unless it's for The Funny (or if it's my partner's Unpleasant blog. but that also classifies as being for The Funny)

i'm totally cool with roleplay asks from other RP blogs, canon or OCs, and will respond in-character. i mean like, this blog is connected with three other regretevator RP blogs so i don't see why not

aforementioned three other regretevator blogs:

@displeazinggradient

@sk8tr1101

@detectivebive

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH ME? ARE YOU GOING TO HURT ME?

yeah lmao

[everettes-requiem]

Hello Everette! How are you, my preciosu child after that homophobic crisis ?I came here to ask for your opinions on Norman Alexander, Kikita, Ann Dwight, Michael6 and Nathaniel to draw you all again!!

love you^^

(kisses to Kuni too)

im doing, alright, i suppose. i’m doing as well as i can considering we’re stuck on an island? or did you forget? i wouldn’t be surprised, i mean with the amount of people i’ve had to interact with who seem to be complete and utter imbeciles who can’t even think, what’s one more?

well, i will say that it isn’t the worst. going to the shore and sitting under the shade of a tree is nice, if you aren’t being bothered by the littluns who seem to constantly be everywhere all at once on the island, like pieces of rubbish on the street. or sometimes when i go into the ocean water to wash off my hair it makes me feel slightly better about the situation at hand it… reminds me of how my mother used to bathe me. ‘hough, my hair has grown out since then and tangles easily, and the water is cold, and my fingers can’t replicate her tenderness. but, it isn’t good either, obviously.

there’s things to eat on the island, various berries and fruits, but god knows if these ‘hings are fit for proper consumption in the long run. there’s pigs too, but merridew and his useless hunters can barely even graze the skin of one. not only problems of sustenance come up though. with the failed attempt at trying to get rescued and the tension that’s building between some people because of not only that, but disputes over chief. the place other boys thought of as paradise is bound to wither as the days pass. civilization is going to go to ruin, savagery will unavoidably take hold. the island isn’t protected from the corruption of war, after all

my concerns haven’t consumed me however, unlike that one littlun. i believe his name is percy? perceive? something along those lines, i can’t bother to recall it. all he does is cry and mutter nonsensical white noise under his breath, it’s incredibly annoying. they can all have their frolics around fires and pigs, arguments over chief and meat. as long as i don’t get dirty and tossed about, then…

i pray for our safety, or at least my safety, every night. i hold out hope that we’ll get rescued because god loves me, so surely i’ll get some safe… i have to get home. i can’t imagine how worried mam must be. i pray too, for her safety, that the war hasn’t taken her like how it crashed our plane down onto this island in the first place.

but i digress since i’ve been neglecting your question, which happens to be about other people, again. fine, whatever. i’ll try to keep it short and sweet, but if you’re the one asking about my opinion on them ‘hen of course you should listen to me no matter how long winded the answer may be. people should revere me, after all.

ann dwight, i don’t know much about her except she’s one of the few whose belongings survived alongside her. she holds little importance to me, unlike how she does to the littluns. i often hear the littluns call her mother, or mum, and she does play the part. nurturing, caring, a maternal figure. she one of the only people who can soothe one of those things to sleep, or to stop them from crying. in a way, to some extent, im thankful towards her because god knows that without her on the island i would have lost my mind. i hate children.

im indifferent about nathaniel, he’s just a childish kid who i can’t seem to understand, not like i want to either. he lives in his own world, albiet oftentimes he bleeds it into the real world. he plays pretend a lot, one of the only things i actually remember about him other than his name because it’s one of the only things he does. he pretends that he’s a vampire, he says he’s a vampire, he insists he’s a vampire. it’s as if he actually believes he is one, it’s something i truly don’t get. why would you want to? why put up a facade of something created by the devil?

loud and obnoxious, ‘hose are the first words that come to mind when thinking of michael. honestly, i don’t want him to even cross my mind because he’s just that loud and obnoxious. it’s as if i can hear his voice shouting in my head, which could very well actually be him shouting from across the island. no one even knows where he came from, he appeared at random one day when we were sure we had accounted for everyone on the island.

ever since then he’s never stopped blithering. at the very least he makes use of it by giving way for entertainment by unknowingly provoking merridew. speaking of that, he did propose an idea to me. something about calling merridew idiot in french? i still have to get back to him about that because he was yelling at me when asking and i got fed up and left. but, the idea does sound promising.

kikita… was choosing the most insignificant people, or the people who are total nuisances, on purpose? if so, she is definitely a nuisance. no, she’s more than that actually because who in their right mind and in gods name bites people? how do i know this? for one, i’ve seen it been done to the other boys. she’s bitten michael, she’s done it to ralph too, and i’m sure she’s gone around and bit a few more for good measure. that’s not what i’m getting at though, it’s that worst of all, she bit me.

god it was awful, it was as if she was stuck to me because no matter how hard i tried shaking her off she would not get off! human bites are no laughing matter you know. with the amount of bacteria that mingles in our mouths i was sure that i was going to foster some type of ugly disease if the bite broke ‘hrough my skin. luckily it did not, but it still left an indent on my pristine skin. putting her savage tendencies aside ‘hough, i am, somewhat partial to her though because she did push merridew to the ground that one time.

alexander kid? alexander kid… oh, him. you must be referring to norman alexander. yes, i’ve been made aware of him. it’s hard to miss him when he’s so unreal. don’t be mistaken, im not trying to say that “oh he’s so amazing, he’s out of this world!” even though that’s how many see him. littluns, other boys our age, adults alike. that would make me gag saying that about him, saying that about anyone really. what i’m trying to say is that he feels so synthetic, so superficial in a world full of authentic flesh.

there’s something about him. his smile, the way he looks at the world around him, the way words leave his lips. it’s all, unsettling to say the least, but it isn’t at all compelling. i think the most indicative part of him is his dodgy attachment to simon and how he’s seemingly close to merridew. rather, it’s more so obsession than anything actually. i would prefer not to speak about him much longer ‘hough, otherwise he might actually think i pay attention to him, something he would think most likely. he isn’t worth my time, none of these people are.

— everette ainsworth

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Meet me at midnight to see how dark we can take this crackship

Only, not as dark as I thought it could be? Oh well, @elder-dragon-reposes REALLY liked it! I mean really.

ao3 | masterlist

Her footsteps on the stair were not the first inkling he had of her presence in his tomb.

There was a shift in the air, a whisper through the stagnant corridors hissing of a presence that had not been in the halls of Forelhost since the Traitor was a young acolyte in the Order. But as alike as her presence was to that lir, there was something light that was entirely this being, this volaan that was all her own.

He would handle her. Did he not handle the Nordic invaders long ago?

"You know how you dealt with the last wave of volaan."

Froda's ghost sneers in his hollow ear, a draft that persisted in invading his chamber even after millennia. He snarls into the darkness, and silence falls again.

Tremors worble through the air, sometimes brushing the stones and at others, pressing against his ears. The volaan's encroachment into the catacombs was neither explosive nor vivid. If he weren't so attuned to the wards and runes of Forelhost, he would not have known she was there until it was too late.

Time passes. It creeps forward, frost covering the ground with the advancing winter. A chill curls down his withered spine, coiling in his chest with the harshness of a cold drake. He could taste the blizzard building in the air the closer the volaan came. He would last through her winter, just as he did others before.

"You call this outlasting the winter? It has broken you, wuth jul."

The whisper dissipates, but the growing chill does not. It permeates the stone so that frostbite threatens the dead nerves of his skin. The temperture continues to drop.

Hours pass.

Then, with a gust of icy wind, the doors open. The volaan arrives.

"Will you kill her, then?" Yes. "What a shame."

He prepared to rise, to release the ward sealing his sarcophagus, and burst into the room in a blaze of glory. But then Froda's words touched him. Why was it a shame?

Power coiled in the air, the crick shrrr hiss of ice crystals drifting through the air and shattering on the dusty stone. Dusty stones in a broken temple at the heart of a fallen city, dedicated to dead gods and a forgotten religion. Long ago, was Forelhost not the last remnant of the Dragon Cult's power? And now what was left, but dust and bone and shattered stone? Yes, yes, it would be a shame. It would be a great shame to meet such power, only to incinerate it.

Rahgot would not join the ashes on the altar to his god.

He feels her skirt the room, her chill pushing back against the heat of his wards. Closer and closer she came to him. What to do when she arrived?

Her hand on the lid was a shard of arctic ice. In life, he was familiar with the clever men and mages' magic lurking under their skin, leaving tell tale signs of each person's strngths--and weakness--in the arcane. But hers was not subtle; it was a raging storm.

IF he concentrates hard enough, he can recall a similar potency in the Traitor's presence, electric and biting in its intensity.

Both are a storm.

Dovahkiin . . .

His whisper is kiss of warmth through the coolness. He can feel her hesitate above him, and he thinks he moved in error. She was leaving. He should have remained silent.

But then the lid is sliding, solid and heavy, to the floor. Snowflakes flutter into his sarcophagus, and Rahgot sees the Dovahkiin for the first time.

He is struck by her resemblance to the Traitor, chestnut curls framing an almost golden face, wherein sat a pair of eyes so blue that the sky would weep with envy.

But yet, there is a softness in her face that wasn't present in the Traitor's, a light in the eye and draw of the mouth that spoke of exhaustion and perseverance. Where the Traitor was full of pride, this woman, this fahlil was patiance.

Where the Traitor came and went with the flash of a summer storm, hers was the long cold that seized Atmora and threatened to outlast the world.

"She'll outlast you."

But Froda's warning goes ignored.

Her hand is on the staff. Though he has not wielded it since beyond the reach of mortal memory, its heart of flame still burns like an inferno. Her mouth purses when her hand grips the stave, its heat daring to thaw the permafrost under her skin.

It is as she draws her hand back, steam curling around her finger tips, that he takes the staff in familiar hands and rises from the grave.

The Dovahkiin stumbles back, her ring-clad hand held to her chest as his presence looms before her. He can taste the power trailing from his staff to her hand.

It is quick. It is almost easy. Vahlok did not have such a fortunate confrontation. Rahgot is up and over her in a vengeful blaze.

She drops to the floor, not in defeat, but to escape his fire, and Rahgot descends--

--but she is not there. In a whirl of smoke, he turns to find her poised on the side of his coffin, ice gathered in her hands. Her face is hard, her eyes frozen.

YOL TOR SHUL! "FO KRAH DIIN!"

The songs of fire and ice meet and burst against each other, dousing the chamber in a blanket of steam. He hears her gasp at the heavy air.

But a lich does not need air, nor does he need to see.

As she stumbles backward into his sarcophagus, Rahgot falls on her, a smothering shadow. She screams when his spidery hands find the collar of her armor and the pillar of golden skin above it.

"FEIM—"

But his hand crushes her windpipe, silencing the Thu'um in her mouth. Her eyes are blown wide, sightless in the dark.

How simple, how exquisite it was to have a creature so full of power within his hands.

She is bound up in a hard shell of silver ice, but Rahgot would see to that later. His hand still on her throat, he traces the other over her face, cresting over sharp elven bones and soft mannish cheeks. He reaches her ear, and feels a tremor in her throat when his finger catches on the leaftip.

Long ago, they said Traitor's power was born from dovah sos in his veins. At the time, Rahgot did not, would not believe such a blasphemy to the gods. But over the long ages in rumination with nothing but Froda's ghost and the mountain winds to haunt his ears, he pondered the possibility of a true Dovahkiin.

Now he believed, and now he holds one in his hands. A goddess in a mortal's skin. The power of the gods could be, would be his!

"You are a fool, Rahgot."

His hiss is ghastly, banishing Froda's ghost to the fringes and washing over the Dovahkiin's face in a cloud of decay. She gags beneath him. In retaliation, he pinches her ear between two bony fingers, and she chokes, gasping.

But it wouldn't do to kill the goddess of his new religion before he's preached his message. He would seal her in his own coffin as he prepared his ascension to a new priesthood.

His wards hold the lid in place, sealing the Dovahkiin without suffocating her. He would return for her soon, but first—

There is a gasp, a brush of frost, and then from the confines of the coffin, a whispy voice Shouts, her Thu'um penetrating through stone and death.

Rahgot rounds on the tomb, pivoting from his place on the stairs from his funerary dias. But it is too late. The Shout has burst from the air into the bones of Nirn itself.

"OD AH VIING!"

Odahviing tugs at a distant thread in the long tapestry of Rahgot's memory with the strength of iron tongs pulling teeth.

Odahviing. His old master.

But how did—?

"You've sworn fealty to your own doom."

Froda's taunting voice dances in his ears as thunder rumbles in the distance. The sarcophagus on the dias is still, but dust and debris fall from the ceiling like rain. Rahgot draws back, his staff raised to meet whatever new being threatened his sanctum.

"You know what's coming."

There was a crack! followed by a heavy crash. Dust choked the air, bitter in the cold and lingering smoke steam. Then, early morning light filters in, thin and golden. In its midst is a horned head and sharpened claw. Claws that would destroy Forelhost.

"Rahgot, mey! My teeth to your neck!"

THe roof was gone, and morning sun flooded the chambers, catching on the dust motes like magicka in the air. The smoke and steam dispersed quickly, and Rahgot, for the first time in nearly five thousand years, saw his god face to face.

Of all the dov, Odahviing was always a fierce and active ruler. Always quick to action and swift to speak his thoughts. Rahgot always knew his recklessness was why he fell in the war with the Nords. But before, Odahviing was a stalwart supporter of Alduin Thuri. His priesthood followed the example set by the High Priests in Bromjunaar. He sent lesser dov to heed Alduin's call against the Traitor.

Yet here he was, heeding the call of a weak fahlil with the blood of the gods. Why—?

But Rahgot could not ponder it any longer. His master was in the chamber. A large, brilliantly formed dovah, Odahviing's size forced Rahgot to sweep back across the cracked floor, all too aware of the heat and strength of a dragon's body. But his god did not look at him.

Odahviing's claws were prying open the lid. It fell away and he lowered his snout. Rahgot could just see small golden hands grasp at the crimson scales.

"Odahviing, I can't breathe—"

Her voice, faint, speaks a language Rahgot doesn't know. But whatever she says to the dovah turns the horned head in his direction. Odahviing is snarling.

"Mey lir, Rahgot! Ruth hi!" Odahviing, thur—

But the jaws are on him. As his bones are broken by his god's teeth, Rahgot sees the Dovahkiin sitting up. in his coffin, her arms draped over the side as she tries to catch her breath. Her hair is a whirlwind and her eyes crystal. What a ravishing goddess she would have made!

Her eyes catch his through the slits of his mask. Her face is as green as the cold orichalcum. But then her mouth turns up, a sneer, and she resembles the Traitor so utterly that Rahgot, for the first time in countless ages, grew truly cold.

"Save his mask for me, won't you, darling?" "Geh, Judsedov."

Rahgot doesn't know what the Dovahkiin says to Odahviing, but his god calls the fahlil the Queen of the Dov. The Queen.

His last thought was that she was already a goddess, and Odahviing, a god in his own right, was her loyal priest.

Froda's laughter is the last thing Rahgot hears over the rumble of the dovah's throat and the crunch of his own bones.

When the mask falls to the floor, bereft of its priest, it is several long minutes before Leara can muster the strength to retrieve it. Even then, Odahviing offers his head to help support her, and he guides her across the floor.

Picking it up, Leara fingers the cold orichalcum, tired.

"What happened?" "Well . . ."

She trailed off, warm and comfortable against Odahviing but embarrassed to continue. At Odahviing's gentle huff, she relents.

"He caught me off guard. I tried to stand on the coffin for leverage, and then the bloody lich tripped me up." "Lech." "What was that?" "Nothing, Kunziiyol."

Sighing, Leara turns her face into the warmth of Odahviing's snout.

"Let's go home."

Guiding the Dragonborn to the safe hollow at the base of his neck, Odahviing takes flight, leaving the ruins of Forelhost and the Dragon Cult behind.

"Drat, I forgot about the Word Wall!" "Ruth, vahdin."

fin

[venomquill]

So, after reading @pixlokita's brilliant comic series (which has nothing to do with this above image) and finding they'd played with a winged AU, I had to as well. I just, I had to. It was required. Having written and then trashed a story about winged people (technically bird mutants???) and one with a human with wings, I'd already developed a lot of lore about winged humans. I won't upload my sketch at gunpoint, but I used their character sheet as a reference. I hate drawing humans. Kill meeee this took days. And I forgot the tail! Just look at the pretty wings and oooh cool mask! Ignore the awfully drawn child! Anyhow~

Crying Child (AKA, youngest Afton child, known in the fandom as Evan) Would be European Robin-winged. (Like this or this) Robins are aggressive, and CC is anything but aggressive. However, genetically speaking, he would take after his father, William Afton, who is robin-winged. He's currently flightless, even though he should be learning how to fly at this age. However, his lack of confidence and the bullying from his older brother has made it very hard. He fears failing now more an ever as he's scared it would just give his brother more ammunition against him. Also, in the back of his shirt, you can see those little strips? Those are straps built into the shirt that can be buckled/unlatched and buckled/latched at will. It's the only way someone with wings would be able to put on a shirt. He still needs help from someone to latch it on for him. His mom used to do it, and then William. Then when he forgot, he and Elizabeth would help each other. With Elizabeth gone, he just tries his best. He's learned how to move them around and just press his back against the wall to get them mostly on right. Michael will sometimes tug on his shirt. But Mike's done that to other kids at school, for reasons I'll list below.

Elizabeth Afton (AKA, middle Afton child, Dad's favorite) Would be European Robin-winged, as said above. She would still be learning how to fly by the time she gets turned into ice cream by Baby. I imagine she's William's favorite by the way he literally gave her an animatronic and modeled one after her. (It ended up killing her, but that's another matter) She inherits her father's more aggressive nature and bullies her older brother. Being Dad's favorite, she can get whatever she wants. Michael being an angsty teen and her being a sweet angel, she can blame whatever she wants on him and he can't do anything about it. So he has to do what she wants or else. So Michael takes it out on...

Michael Afton (AKA, oldest Afton child, Mike Schmidt) Would be a cassowary-winged! It took me a second to come up with this one, but it made sense to me. Cassowaries are incredibly aggressive, flightless, and seriously dangerous birds. They're also terrific fathers and the mothers don't stick around. So Mikey takes after his mom and gets to be a cassowary-winged. Mom's gone (Whether she left or gets killed or both is up to the imagination), his wings are so small he can hide them under his shirt by hardly even trying, and on top of it all his little brother will learn how to fly at half his height and his sister rubs it in his face. His wings are dangerous as he has a dewclaw and the quills on what would have been the primary flight feathers are sturdy and sharp. He doesn't need long slits in his shirts and has actually torn the shoulder holes with his dewclaws/quills before. So, as a teen, he's spiteful and lashes out. He has a huge fluffy tail that gets in the way all the time. But when he grows up a little, he grows into that more "protect the children" aspect of a cassowary's nature. I did sketch him out fully, but I spent literal days on CC. Instead, I drew his mask with the intention of a pre-withered Foxy look and referencing FNaF 1's crooked-jawed Foxy. I also found through Nightmare Foxy that he does indeed have a pale muzzle. (Withered, Nightmare, Foxy bro)

[spectator-moon]

My thoughts on Martyn Secret life lore stream (Eyes and Ears AU)

first, Martyn why would you hurt me with that imagery? Poor scar ;-;

-I really like the idea of the logo being the pincer on the Watchers. Grian is a force of nature and should be represented as such

-I am of the personal belief that Jimmy did not break free from the canary curse, since he died right before Wither/Warden boss fight and the entire point of Canarys is to warn of danger

-slightly irralevently but I need to draw the Scar

-BOY do I love the idea of Gem being used as the Watchers new tool because of the Zombie outbreak (send Gem all the love for that skill!!!)

-love Gem being taken by Watchers in general, especially adding in her lore that in Empires she thought everybody was just roleplaying, so she came in thinking it was roleplay and got stuck.

-i also like the idea of Jimmy getting struck down because of the Watchers being confused by his "funeral" and once Lizzy dies, then going "wait no he's supposed to be dead hold on-" and striking him down immediately

-i need more ideas for art. Also references. Please more references proportions are awful

-"if given the right tools, how many seeds of chaos can {Gem} sow, and it turns out, she's a bloody good farmer." Good quote. Make art for quote

-negative emotions being ~spicy~

-martyn being the seperate party in the gang of winners

-the watchers pushed Jimmy off a ledge

-players still having that sense of connections and support (i.e. swapping out) despite being in murder games (also I love the idea that when the Listeners swap out players, the players get a choice, so it's all the much more heartbreaking)

-(personal headcanon that Ren was desperately hoping Martyn would recognize him in Tango's body)

-(personal headcanon that all players start new life series incredibly sore from being tensed as they fall, even though they're unconscious)

-(other personal headcanon that fragmented players i.e. life series players are the only ones who can see the fragments on other servers)

-Speakers maybe being part of a group which works as mercenarys (being paid in whatever currency they use to give players the task of helping each other) (speakers being true neutral)

-y'all imagine the cinematic beauty of the climax I want full animaticssss

-Grian couldn't cash in on success because he either isn't fully in, or because the Watchers are being petty

-the two watchers being the actually evil equivalent of Jesse and James from pokemon

-Grian has emotions about previous series absolutely stunning idea

-like the idea that Winners get to keep their emotions (hence Pearl and Tilly, Grian w/ Scar, etc)

-Fragement lore fragment lore fragment lore

-THE PLAYERS ALL HAVE FRAGMENTS AND I NEED TO CHECK THE POST WHERE EVERYONE PUT THEIR IDEAS FOR PLACES

-Martyn is furry (fragment dog collar) (very not serious)

-fragments appear as important moments from lore? (Can Scar just have a big ol' one where he got punched in the face by Grian from third life?) (I know they don't appear because final death but it was a generator of so much angst)

-autocorrect my beloathed. (Grian ≠ Groan)

-sometimes fragments become scars, and everybody gets confused because "this moment wasn't important I have no emotional attachment to this moment why is there a scar?"

-PLAYERS CANNOT REMEMBER THE EMOTION GOBBLING AND ARE JUST GENERALLY CONFUSED WHEN THEY HAVE AN EMOTIONAL REACTION TO SOMETHING SOMEBODY SAYS

-headcanon that the Watchers do a real shoddy job at emotion gobbling and often leave the memory, which can prompt an emotional reaction. Also, Watchers actively ignore certain negative moments in favour of those spawning more negative emotions (like a cobblestone generator but for negative emotions)

-datastream Martyn??? Please explain I have not the time to watch all the vods

-eeeee winner theory!!!!!

-we love Villain scar

-PEOPLE CAN SHATTER IF THEYRE TOO FRAGMENTED OH MY GODS PLEASE FANART AND FICS

-so wait if they get to watch how it ends does that mean they had to sit and watch Scar go insane???? That makes that sadder

-so without any knowledge of Datastream Martyn, can I suggest that mayhaps datastream means that literally Martyn leaps between worlds by moving through the literal data stream? I have seen references to a Doc, so maybe he and Martyn were experimenting and Martyn got stuck? I know something happened to Doc, probably bad given that the reference was 'yes the red stuff was definitely ketchup', so was it because of the knowledge he has gained? Again, never seen any data stream so take all of this with a grain of salt. I just like analysing stories and have read enough to be able to pick out plotlines fairly well.

-oooh lore comic i want to read that

-Secret Keeper is Watchers putting on a trench coat and going "yes yes no watchers here yes yes"

-imagine how invasive it would be to spawn in and just KNOW the rules, with no background for why or how you have that information. Boy that could be a cesspit for angst. Imagine the panic of that inserted information. (Grian has to calm somebody down fic???)

-new lore enjoyer, but I love this already.

-making a proper movie with this concept would be AMAZING

-players were kidnapped lmao

-Scott having that forewarning for Jimmy and Scar is a funny thought

-Listeners are oldest children fighting their middle siblings (Watchers) because Mom and Dad will blame them for the poor player hurt

Making a part two because this is so long already

[szczekaczz]

them... you can read about who they are here. design notes for the future below

Gwizdak. my beloved tortured Gwizdak.

body-wise they're inspired by lurchers - meaning similar to a greyhound, but the anatomy is not so extreme haha. lean and sleek shapes. long back, tail, legs and snout (to correct in the future drawings - it should be more narrow).

the fur is very long but thin, making them feel cold most of the time, though it hides their protruding ribs quite good. most of the dogs in this universe are underweight due to the conditions they live in so yeah. the fur is longest on the torso, tail and ears. short on the legs and face. medium length on the cheeks and neck.

funny ears. idk how to describe them. the fur on them is very long and soft, good for scratching. you can also see a few hairs "standing" (?) too if the weather allows them. they just grow at the funny angle lol.

the tail is very shaggy and the only important thing is that it takes a quite sudden turn down on the tip. someone brush that damn thing oh god.

they also have a blue neckerchief... very important item story-wise. who knows how they manage not to tear or dirty it.

the colors are quite simple - all of the fur is light gray. they also have two patches on the left side of their body, one bigger and one smaller, and one patch around their right eye. all of these patches are darker gray. eyes are amber.

height. in my ancient notes they are around 55 cm at the withers. maybe a little smaller. i want them to be just a regular sized dog, not too big and not too small.

in terms of body language... due to their role in the universe they want to look trustworthy and non-threatening. they try to be Normal. too bad it looks almost comical sometimes lol. "i want to help you and i know how to do it so Please don't think i'm a threat". their movements are soft and careful, you can plainly see they are a quite anxious and unsure animal. lots of non-confrontational poses towards other dogs. could grow some spine tbh.

Nobody aka the dog wisdom embodiment <3

some sort of a livestock guardian dog. strong, robust build, but not overly muscular. strong and big paws. you look at them and just know not to start anything funny because they might harm you even unintentionally (not true personality-wise but you know. it's the first impression).

their fur is very very thick, hiding the general lack of fat and muscle (especially in the beginning of the story), but they lack the "mane" of tibetan mastiffs and similar breeds haha. warm doggie. good for cuddling during cold nights and such. fur on the muzzle is sparser, but soft and smooth. good, good dog...

big jaws. pronounced head stop. tiny v-shaped ears <3 quite big brows and calm, dark-brown eyes. they don't drool like most of these huge dog breeds thank god. their teeth are weak... poor thing.

i still don't know what to do with their tail after five years. first it was curled and very fluffy. now i think it's an otter tail maybe? thick-furred but not in excess. they wear it low and don't move it much.

another thing that's giving me trouble is their coat pattern. i know it's muted yellow/cream in color, but otherwise? no idea. i think they might have a slightly darker saddle on their back and a mask on the jaws. the ears are definitely very dark too. i just of them as a yellow dog that's it...

they are huge. like Huge™. around 90 cm at the withers in my notes. it's the whole deal etc. Gwizdak doesn't even reach their head in their height comparison i made a few years ago.... you can imagine they make other dogs uneasy just by existing.

their body language is interesting and changes as the story develops. first they are very stiff, don't move unless necessary etc. stare blankly in the distance. it drives other dogs insane because there's no way to tell what their motives are, what do they think and what they may do next. but nobody's just in a terrible headspace in the beginning and they are still figuring out the whole "existing like a dog beyond the tiny kennel" thing and they just. tag along with gwizdak wherever they go. leave them alone omg. but as the story develops and nobody finds more of themself they grow into a very stable, secure and calm being. they still don't move in excess, but it's not the corpse-like stillness. they're just thoughtful and mindful and they like to chill, but they also know how to stand their ground and can just. communicate a lot with their gaze lol. also very gentle and careful with the puppies, nobody #1 best nanny in the world <33

[wanderlust-writings]

Well here we are again. Another day has past and the comforting blankness of the evening has once again fallen.

I'm trying to write as much as I can. I know you think that should be incredibly easy but I'm here to inform you that couldn't be farther from the case. Now there are some circumstance that are unique to me such as having a, at times, debilitating chronic illness, an autistic brother who requires my attention at times, the increasingly annoying fact that I still live with my family which can lead to numerous distractions--just to name a few.

Beyond that this world is so busy. I feel like I'm on one of those spinning carnival rides where the g-force increases and you are pushed up against the way. It just keeps getting faster and faster and though I try to push through the gargantuous invisible forces that are pressing down on me, I tend to find myself just thrown into another wall.

I'm not going to lie. I'm not the most disciplined. I get distracted by shiny objects and luminous screens. They draw me in with their effervescent allure, hypnotizing me into a trance-like state. Everything just seems more grand in screens. Pulling me out of myself and into the shoes of the fantastical, the glamourous. It's easer to consume than to create. Less energy and less chance of failure. A roundabout way of being a part of something without ever having to apply oneself. The safety wife to life trapeze act, allowing oneself to get lost in the sea of screens. To turn off our brains completely and simply float while someone else holds us up.

Sometimes I like easy. Other days I need it, but I don't want to become reliant upon easy.

No, my raison d'être is too glorious for easy.

Maybe that's sinful to say. That I rise above all the others. To even begin to think that my life has some sort of grandiose purpose. That my life matters more than the person down the street. Truthfully I don't believe that's true at all. Believing that I'm extra-ordinary is the greatest lie that I tell because I have to. If not, that means all this suffering that I have experienced will have been in vain. Ending up some rotten corpse in the ground, some etching carved onto a stone in a language that could one day be forgotten.

What's the point? Doesn't this all have to matter? To mean something?

My greatest fear is that it doesn't. That we are all just blindly groping our way through some maze trying to latch onto some inkling of meaning so we don't gauge our eyes out in the break room. So will find a person to copulate with and continue the species, a task that's been scorched into our DNA. We lie so we have some reason to wake up in the morning and contort ourselves into being another cog in the man's machine. We will do this over and over for our entire lives until one day we are withered, our bones brittle, or eyes cloudy, and our souls mute. All this bullshit--there has to be a reason? Right?

You wanted to know the sickest part? It's not that I'm trying to forge some philosophical meaning with these words. It's that I know how shitty my attempt is and yet I still do it anyway. The definition of insanity. It's that somewhere deep inside me I know that I'm worthless no better than a rat stuck in some maze intended to amuse others greater than me.

I'll keep trying. Set up a routine. Dispel all the garbage out of my soul and onto the page in hopes of discovering my golden chalice that will attract hordes or people, of their praise. Keep force-feeding myself this plastic lie until I'm knelt, face buried in the toilet, purging. Unable to continue to live this facade anymore!

until that day comes

x

[xeymol]

Woah new pinned post jumpscare.

Hello I’m pie, you can call me whatever you want tbh. pie, xey, xeymol, weird void cup, whatever as long as it’s not mean i don’t care lmao

(Used to be known as SoggyMuppet)

Commission sheet

Some important information about me:

- i am EXTREMELY nervous and shy so I apologize if I tend to be awkward with any interactions with anyone

- I may be shy but I don’t mind getting asks, I actually kinda love getting them wither it be answering actual questions or getting doodle requests

- I absolutely love and adore making gifts for people especially if I consider them a friend so gifts for others should be a fairly common sight

- I tend to go for long periods of time without posting, it’s not because I feel I need a break or because I have artblock (may possibly be the case at some point actually) but it happens because I just have a genuinely hard time getting my ideas on paper

- if you ever want to send an ask but your Nervous or I seem scary please know I’m quite harmless and I don’t mind getting asks, it may take me awhile to respond but do know It’s nothing against you and I either just haven’t checked my notifications yet or I’m just taking awhile to type my answer (possibly also drawing something to go with it)

- I am extremely apologetic so I apologize if that gets annoying, I’m just a strong overthinker and I get overwhelmed by it easily which leads to me apologizing a lot for very small thingys

- unreasonably anxious and overly sensitive, if your going to be rude to me please at least be straight up, I can’t tell if or when someone is being jokingly mean and that causes me to overthink and become stressed

- I am very forgetful, some things leave my head instantly so I need to be reminded of things multiple times

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Random Info:

- my persona is some sort of Eldritch creature made of void with a cup for their head, their name is granola

- I absolutely ADORE birds, I can’t draw them for shit but I love seeing pictures of them

- I am not funny. my humor is absolutely horrible, I try to stay family friendly on here but an adult joke might slip sometimes, though I do cuss a lot so I guess I’m not very family friendly💀

- I genuinely do not make sense half the time and when I do it’s either weird or concerning, I’ll say shit like “holy shit Freddy fazbear in portal 2 real not clickbait?!?!?!?!“ or “will skin you alive then boogie on your corpse” and other strange shit, I have something wrong with me

- I have horrible grammar and spelling, autocorrect loves to fuck me over so I’m sorry if a sentence ever comes out wrong on accident

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

My main interests right now are:

- space

- horror/body horror

- making strange critters

- a few of my personal projects

- don’t starve/don’t starve together

- regretevator

- Roblox pressure

- animal crossing

- POKEMON‼️

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

I usually make fanart for whatever fandom I’m in at the moment but there’s a rare chance I may share if stuff and or original story’s I’m working on, most of what I post is doodles but there is a rare case of fully rendered art. I might post kinda gorey or body horror and genuinely just spooky art one day and if I do I’ll definitely put a warning and try my best to tag it properly, I enjoy making sorta cutesy silly shitposts most the time and I tend to get sorta extreme with my facial expressions lol. I’ve been drawing for technically all my life really, I’m not the best but I’m very devoted to art and designing characters and story’s, my art tends to have heavy shading and overall a sort of dark atmosphere and that’s just due to my immense love for horror and spooky vibes

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Anyways that’s all I have for now, I’ll add to this if I ever have anything more I feel I should add

Goodbye for now, hope you have a lovely day/evening/night💕

___________________________________________________________________________________________________Commission status: currently open🙏

[lemonnbug]

Part 2

Dmitri x plus size f!reader

Warnings: None for this chapter I think, don't you dare ask me to proofread

Sunday Bingo Night was, thankfully, Russian Man free. As a matter of fact, the rest of your week had been as well, leaving you to put all of your focus (and anxieties) into your work at the local library. It wasn't a stressful job per say, not when compared to other fast paced environments, and the hours and pay were decent, but still you had the habit of working yourself up over the smallest things. Case in point, you were currently sitting behind the circulation desk with a notepad trying to figure out everything that still needed to be done for the upcoming Friends of the Library Event, a relatively small gathering that was held each year to drum up more funds, and the second it had been assigned to you to take care of, you'd felt that all too familiar dread of 'what if I mess up?' wash over you. It wasn't as if you didn't know what to do, you'd worked here for years now and you worked hard, sometimes spending extra hours just to get more work done, opting to finish filings or sortings sooner rather than the next day, and going out of your way to think of and make fun displays to draw more of the community in. And your hard work hadn't gone unnoticed either, after just 3 years you'd been promoted to co-head librarian, head librarian being your 64 year old coworker, Delores.

No, you knew what you were doing, you just often did more than needed to be done.

"I know we've decided on tea sandwiches," you say to Delores as she flips through some papers, letting out a sigh when you bring up the event again, "but what if people want a second option? Like, what if they get sick of the sandwiches? It's 2 hours, maybe we should have something else as well?" Delores fixes you with a withering look over the rim of her glasses, lips pursed in thinly veiled aggravation, "Like what?" You scramble for an idea, you were sure she'd shoot you down without even considering it. "Umm, how about chips and dip?"

"Too messy."

"Devilled Eggs,"

"Too smelly." Fair.

"We could have fruit!"

"What kind of fruit?"

"Um, how about..grapes..?"

"You want to serve tea sandwiches and grapes?" She looks at you like you'd just asked what the Dewey decimal system is. "I, uh, I guess we should just...stick to the sandwiches." Delores goes back to flipping through her papers and you dejectedly return to your notepad, scratching out where you had written 'second food option'. There's still a lot that needs to be done in five days; the rest of the recently donated books needed to be checked for marks and put in neat boxes, you needed to make sure you had enough name tags and markers, and not to mention blank labels. You had come up with a fun way for the patrons to interact with the library they help fund, by letting them go through the donated books and label them, sort of playing librarian for the day. Even Delores had thought it was a good idea. You hum to yourself, fingers tapping against the paper,

"How about a second drink option?"

¤

"Dom, dom, dom, dom, dom, dom, be, dooby, dom. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoaaaa," you quietly sing through a mouth full of tomato and sliced turkey, head bobbing as The Beach Boys' Come Go With Me plays through your headphones. You had walked five minutes away to spend your lunch break at the park that overlooked the beach, sitting on the picnic table and decompressing from your coworker's passive-aggressiveness. And decompressing here was easy, with the sun warming your face and the smell of the ocean filling your lungs, and the sweet, sweet sound of The Beach Boys crooning in your ears. Tea sandwiches be damned, this was peaceful.

"So come and go with me, whoa whoa whoa whoaa-" oh no. Walking away from the beach and towards you was Dmitri, a plain white shirt draping over his body like liquid. Ok, maybe that was a bit much, but he looked delectable. You consider getting up and walking back to the library, cutting your break short halfway through, but that would be too obvious. Maybe he hasn't seen me. Maybe he'll walk by and not even notice me. Maybe you should stop shoving your sub down your throat.

His eyes land on you as he gets closer, the side of his mouth turning up in a soft smile. "Y/n," he greets you after you slip your headphones around your neck, stopping to stand near where you sit, "fancy seeing you here." You inwardly cringe as he repeats your words from the grocery store just days earlier.

"I wahurc neher behi," you say through yet another mouthful of sub, holding your hand up for him to wait when he gives you a confused look. You swallow and continue, "I work nearby. I'm on my lunch break." He nods, moving to sit on the bench next to where your feet are, giving you the high ground, "It's nice here," he looks out towards the water as he speaks, elbows resting on his knees, "you can see the ocean whenever you please." I'm just gonna ignore how hearing you say 'please' just made me feel. "Have you gone in yet?" You ask, taking small nibbles of your sub.

"Not yet," he replies, "I haven't had the opportunity." Pal, it's California, the whole state is an opportunity to get in the ocean. "You said you work nearby?" He changes the subject, turning his head to look at you as you're mid-bite. It'd be weird to offer him some. Do NOT offer him some. You slowly hold the sub out to him, which he politely declines. "I work at the library down the street, the one with the flamingo statue out front." You love that flamingo statue, you'd named him Jacques. "What about you? What do you do?" Ok, why does he suddenly look like I just asked why his basement is locked? "I am.." he seems to be trying to think of the words, "in between jobs, at the moment." You nod and continue eating, a silence filling the space between you two as you stare out at the water. You slyly eye him in profile, taking the moment to actually look at him. You hadn't been exaggerating when you said he was hot, but now you notice just how pretty he actually is, all of the little details you'd overlooked the previous times you'd met. You had noticed how full his lips were, but not how pink, how mysterious his eyes were, but not how soft his gaze was, and certainly not the little specks of silver in his hair and trimmed mustache. God, he's like, seriously beautiful.

He catches you staring before you have time to look away, eyes boring into yours as you feel your cheeks start to burn, "Sorry," you mumble with a laugh, fiddling with the sandwich wrapper, "I was, um…" he smiles as you fumble for an explanation. "No, no there's no way to spin that, is there?" Good naturedly shaking his head, he stands up and faces you. "Perhaps I will stop by the library sometime, if that would be alright?" Did I fall asleep? Have I been dreaming this whole time? Did Delores finally snap and murder me for my incessant perfectionism and now I'm in heaven? "If not," he continues when you don't reply, "that is fine, I understand." NO! "No! That's not it," please don't screw this up for yourself, "I was just…"

"Staring." He says it matter of factly, kinda smug about it, too. Huh, add that to my growing list of turn ons. "Yeah," you admit defeatedly, "that I was." Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out one of those little pencils that were always on side tables in motels, are they called golf pencils? and a folded up scrap of paper. He tears off a section and hands it and the pencil to you, which you take with a heavy look of confusion. "Cool...thank..thank you.." Is this like...penguins gifting rocks? Is it a Russian thing? Is this a dowry? He chuckles before crossing his arms over his chest, fixing you with those piercing blue eyes, "How am I supposed to call and ask you on a date if I do not have your number?" Oh. "Oh."

Sylvia is not gonna believe this.

Authors Note: I'm sorry the chapters aren't very long but I hope y'all are enjoying the story so far! Feedback and Reblogs are very much appreciated!

[trahald-the-burrower]

Mentions of Gollum/Sméagol in JRR Tolkien's Letters (Part 1):

(in order of when they were written.) (And also occassionally split up by my own writings ((written in RED)), and important or interesting facts) (I highlighted the Gollum bits, though sometimes the entire passage is worth reading as it may still relate to the character in a subtle way)

(Ariel and Caliban are characters from Shakespeare's play "The Tempest".)

(JRR Tolkien seems to have drawn inspiration from Shakespeare, indeed -- particularly this play. Caliban is alike to Gollum in more ways than just one. He may have been named after the word "cannibal", which Gollum technically is.)

"One of the most prominent suggestions concerns Caliban being an anagram of the Spanish word caníbal (Carib people), the source of cannibal in English."

(He is also disproportionate in shape -- Creature-like.)

(He becomes a servant for Stephano, at a point, and this relationship is also quite similar to the relationship between Sméagol and Frodo, with Trinculo as Sam.)

(Here is a version of the play.)

(Now we continue with Tolkien's Letters.)

(This is the drawing Horus Engels did of Gollum:)

(Above: Tolkien talking about needing to make changes to THE HOBBIT, specifically Gollum offering to give the Ring away.)

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("I do a very pretty Gollum" -- that he does! Here are a couple of his recordings:)

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(Above: "Being stung by a tarantula when a small child." I love that he believed tarantulas stung. That's why Shelob stung?! He thought that was a thing! I love it. It works in his magical world.)

(Below: What he has to say about Sméagollum in the following letter is very important:)

("Dawning love of Frodo was too easily withered by the jealousy of Sam." I took this as meaning "Sméagol couldn't handle being antagonized by jealous-Sam", but I've seen others taking it as meaning "Sméagol was unable to repent because he was jealous of Sam". I didn't get that impression when reading that particular scene in the book, but it's also not entirely out-of-character. Sam definitely antagonizes Sméagol due to his jealousy, it's made clear more than once, but Sméagol, too, is obviously an envious and possessive person -- not just towards the Ring, but towards Frodo. It's much more obvious with Sam, but, Gollum, when at the Forbidden Pool, is upset with Frodo "not nice Master!" because he believes that he "left poor Sméagol" and "went with new friends". He's actually incredibly agitated by this, to the point that he's reluctant to do as Frodo says, despite his being Master. But… that being said, on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, when Sméagol found the hobbits sleeping together, he didn't express jealousy -- he actually softened and felt love for Frodo. I think if jealousy were the cause, in that moment, that he'd not have softened once finding them sleeping together, that he wouldn't have had a momentary change of heart at all. And Gollum reacting to Sam's accusations, that was more defensive than it was jealous. Sam, on the other hand, has always antagonized Sméagol out of jealousy, and that fits very well with the Stairs scene. "The jealousy of Sam" also matches well with "the clumsiness in fidelity of Sam", so I do believe Tolkien was referring to Sam's jealousy rather than Gollum's. That's not to say Gollum wasn't somewhat envious, but, rather, that wasn't the main reason he was unable to repent -- I think it was simply that Sam's antagonistic behavior triggered his Gollum side.)

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(The following letter has a lot of important information about young Sméagol! This entire thing should be read, honestly.)

("Déagol, evidently a relative (as no doubt all the members of the small community were)". "I imagine that he [Sméagol] was an orphan." I love that his gift to his grandmother, a fish, was given "grudgingly". I can't say that I blame him, considering Stoors were known to be rather merciless. "As a rule, they were a rough, blunt, and hearty people, whose values were territorial and emphasized the importance of loyalty, nationality, and provincialism. They did not take kindly to mischief, even of the most innocent and harmless kind, and they were generally rougher and harsher on their children than most Hobbits". "It was with the Stoors that the practice of "canning" ((that is, beating a delinquent individual with a walking-stick)) originated and was propagated for the most part." On Farmer Maggot: "he even cruelly and brutally abused Frodo Baggins in his youth by beating. Nonetheless, such behavior was common to Stoors."

(And here we find out that it's the reason they went fishing. In the book, Déagol's in the boat while Sméagol noses about the banks. So Sméagol was planning on gifting his grandmother with the fish Déagol caught hahaha, and this implies Déagol was willing to go along with that.)

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[fatedtime]

🎉😍

😍: What traits, physical and/or mental, do they find attractive in other people? Honestly (she will kill you if you lie.) Forthrightness (she cannot understand; she wants to understand.) Kindness to animals (because the divide between her and humans is so great.) Anger (she understands), bitterness (she understands), and those rejected by the systems that govern all (she understands so much it hurts.)

Also, bottoms. 🎉 Who are their party members/companions? Describe each of their relationships with your OC (however brief or detailed you want).

Mash Kyrielight

Essentially Garnet's moral compass. Garnet doesn't really want to be doing the whole 'Master of Chaldea' thing -- she's pretty convinced humanity is going to cause the apocalypse and kill Gaia herself -- but she made a deal with something beyond the stars, and that thing wants to play hero with her corpse. Mash is the catalyst for Garnet actually wanting to save people as a general concept, and Mash is also the person who would slap some sense into Garnet if she goes all ecofascist or generally gets murderous impulses.

(this is long, so more under the cut.)

Van Gogh

One eats out of love and one wants to be eaten to feel loved, this should be a relationship that gets digested before it can begin. By the time that Garnet would encounter Van Gogh, though, Mash has done a lot of good work with her, and her desire to eat people so they don't have to deal with life's burdens has been tempered in her greatly. They've got similar stuff going on -- being used by Outer Gods for their own purposes, rampant identity issues, bearers of unrequited love that fundamentally changed the course of their lives and sunflower motifs -- but they approach it in different ways, leading to mutual sympathy even though they both behave very differently.

Garnet treats her a bit like a princess at first, someone to tend to like a gardener pruning away the disease off a withered tree. Due to her rampant projection onto her, caring for Clytie's emotional wounds feels like caring for her own. However, a one-sided relationship of being nurtured isn't particularly deep, and eventually, Van Gogh will have to plant seeds in the empty spaces of Garnet's heart for the feelings to be truly mutual. (Literally. I'm drawing a comic about that one.)

It's the kind of thing where it takes them a long time to truly be on the same page, but they'd both work at it pretty hard because the other person is who they are. The mere concept of doing that too is, in various ways, meaningful to the both of them.

Garnet could also, conceivably, use Van Gogh's bathwater to trip so hard she sees the future. This is irrelevant to most things.

Sakata Kintoki

I talked about it in the narrative foils section here, but Kintoki has a lot of similarities to her and would both sympathize with her while also stopping her when she needs stopping. Mash helps develop Garnet's moral compass, but Kintoki would act as a series of checks and balances to convince Garnet not to do self-destructive shit. His simple ideas and ways of speaking make it harder for her to long-windedly work herself up into a tizzy, and often he says things that are so straightforwardly blunt that it confuses her so much she calms down.

Hijikata Toshizo

They are both battle hungry hyper-determined nutjobs and would cause untold destruction to those around them. Hijikata Toshizo teaches her that guns are highly valuable weapons. Garnet makes the 'wolf of Mibu' thing less metaphorical by encouraging Hijikata to eat things with her in a bloodlust. He would throw her through a window so she could stab a guy. Leaving them alone in a room together is dangerous, unless you keep a tea set with them, and then they'd have a lovely time together reading poetry.

Due to Garnet's disconnection with other people, she'd be weirdly... jealous of Hijikata's connection to the Shinsengumi, and would sometimes fantasize about a world where she could have been a part of it in life. (This is based on unhealthy idealization. Please don't glamorize the police, Garnet!)

Sen no Rikyu

Garnet would FUCK that old woman

Assuming that Rikyu enters Garnet's life during the GUDAGUDA event she debuts in, a Master/Servant relationship between Garnet and Rikyu would begin with a substantial amount of distance, even if they seem to hit it off immediately, because they'd fall naturally into a teacher/student dynamic.

Rikyu's mentality towards life would do a lot to temper Garnet's particular anxieties, and Rikyu would refine her education in the areas she's lacking in b/c she spend a lot of her teenage years eating people instead of studying philosophy. Garnet wouldn't be sensitive to the ghosts and grudges Rikyu carries around though, due to Garnet's own prior-status as a reliquary of souls, but she'd be polite enough not to ask questions.

Also, Rikyu being money-hungry is a huge bonus to Garnet. While Garnet hates participating in modern capitalistic-based society, she finds great satisfaction in numbers going up, so she'd treat business with Rikyu similar to a game... and Garnet loves games.

Once <GUDAGUDA SPOILERS> happens though, this greatly bridges the gap between them, because GOD DOES GARNET GET IT, LOL. What if she just broke her diet and ate Hideyoshi!!!!! What then!!!

She and Komahime would get on quite well, once they meet. Garnet is a bit trendier than Rikyu is, while not being as trendy as Komahime, so which one she'd side with in the various disagreements is up in the air. It'd be a 'big sister' kind of dynamic with her and Koma.

Caster Artoria

castoria would look at garnet and see the shambling corpse of a woman she really is. she would look at her and see the crow eating the carrion corpses of the manifold dead. she would see the mirror-pool that reflects everything back at her -- and in it she would also see inarguable honesty, because garnet apotheo demands and gives the unfiltered truth.

for once, garnet would look upon a star and think it is beautiful, and not a reflection of the festering cosmos sewn into her chest. she would think she herself is perhaps beautiful as well.

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a friend and i spent hours creating a hyper-detailed minimum wage mall employee au about them, which should give you a sense of how normal i am about castoria and garnet interacting.