#I would like to clarify this is not my idea of a perfect finale. probably not even a good one. but all the people I dislike are dead!

[aro-throughyourchest]

ok finally finale posting I think the original ending was supposed to be c!Sapnap killing c!Punz and c!Dream using his three lives and dying in the process. unfortunately, they never touched it.

I'm gonna do something similar to what @dsmp-lainey did and just read out my disc 2022 finale headcanon in an alternate universe where Dream respects other people's lore and Sapnap shows up for basically anything. I did entirely write this like a dsmp wiki summary of an arc so bear with me if you hate those.

and also it is really long.

tubbo tommy and sapnap all band together to kill dream. it's july when sapnap meets with tommy and tubbo after months of being in hiding. they build a bunker off stream, despite tommy's paranoia and that's where sapnap tells the both of them about the Book of Death. He trusts tubbo with it until the plan is set. tubbo keeps it on his person at all times. neither are aware as tommy spirals into insanity.

sapnap makes progress checks with tubbo and tommy; how plans and further research is going. tubbo and sapnap develop a pact. it's unsure and built on a promise neither are sure they can keep, but tubbo promises if sapnap reveals as much as he can, tubbo will do the same.

in the same stream, sapnap goes to check on tommy and finds him in a bit under his house, messily dug out and only lit up by lichen. He greets sapnap, visibly disheveled and coughing and sputtering. fading in and out(?) and talking... Off. the entire time they talk he mines out more and more webs and tunnels from his house and keeps lining them with tnt. sapnap, not knowing what to do, coaxes tommy into the same promise as tubbo. he then leaves up the ladder, not knowing tommy's downing an invisibility potion beneath him. tommy later has a scare as an empty potion bottle lands on a plate of tnt.

a couple weeks later, tubbo and sapnap are deep within the bunker, discussing the revival book. tommy comes in, bursting off the walls, talking with the most glee they've heard from him in months. all the stuff he knows dream and punz are doing he's got them all figured out. he knows their sleep schedules and what time they eat, what time they think and what time they leave the building. tommy talks so much when sapnap shakes him it is only then he realizes how incoherent he sounds. "tommy. what are you talking about?" tubbo gets up from his seat. tommy explains he's been following dream and punz around for the past several weeks. he figured out their every move and it feels so. "tommy." sapnap's grip sinks into his shoulders. "were you followed?" "followed?"

the door upstairs opens and footsteps can be heard.

sapnap stops. looks between the two of them. "run"

sapnap was slain by dream

the hideout is burned down by dream and punz. they never find out; they never go back. it's almost october. now with even less gear and whatever books they could carry. sapnap is on two lives now. everyone is considerably less confident. sapnap has been adamant that neither of them use their lives, but now it's going to take both of sapnap's lives to kill dream. tommy doesn't try to stop him. he's too tired.

every time they miss a single thing from their list of items, they swap base. scorched earth everything and run as if they never existed there in the first place. eventually tubbo directs them to his nuke base, empty of a nuke. tommy asks why he never mentioned this. tubbo says it was a last resort. he explains the effects of nuclear warheads what they do to the surrounding area. "it's worse than l'manberg." nothing survives, he calls it. nothing can grow back. nothing, nothing, nothing at all.

for several weeks, they don't see the sun. they grow food using tommy's shitty farming method and occassionally, ranboo brings them food and gift baskets. tubbo wishes in private he could stay down there with them. he misses him family.

before they launch the mini-nuke as tubbo calls it, he'll ask tommy about the invis potions. "jesus tubbo wasn't that fucking ages ago" "tom, I'm serious." tommy says he only used them to spy on dream. tubbo asks if he has one in his offhand. tommy asks him about the pufferfish. tubbo says that's not relevant. they have the first honest conversation they've had since the disc war. possibly before. tubbo thinks it's a final goodbye. tommy can't be sure tubbo's not lying to him.

within that time, tubbo has built a rocket not as big as a nuke, but large enough to blast a hole through the prison. they're banking on the server being dead enough, only they'll have to deal with the consequences. while tubbo and tommy keep dream and punz busy, sapnap will be on the sidelines, trying to kill one of them.

they get in position. a massive hole explodes through the siding of the prison. tubbo joins the vc. "if you know what's good for you, you'll drop your weapons and come out."

dream and punz gather at the side of the blast hole, suddenly taking radiation damage. they rush backward, as tommy and tubbo swarm in with hasmat suits.

sapnap hides underground, relying on his communicator and downing water-breathing potions in the meantime.

dream says some bullshit about how he always wins, how he gets up every turn. punz starts coughing. "punz?"

punz was killed by admin command

sapnap was killed by admin command

dream doesn't move for a second. tubbo, taking no chances, charges him. He doesn't allow him a single hit out of pure blind adrenaline he keeps hitting until dream's on half a heart. dream calls out to tubbo and doesn't even get to finish his sentence.

dream was killed by admin command

sapnap was killed by admin command

"What?" tubbo stares at the message in shock. tommy sputters. "we... we almost had him—he didn't have to—"

It's, with a heavier heart, they realize Dream didn't have the revival book. Both then flee the scene, back to snowchester.

Tomorrow, Foolish and Eret will fight XD. They will send everyone home or lose. But today, Dream is dead, tubbo and tommy are packing Michael's bags, and all is good, if only for three seconds. or maybe, 24 hours.

[archaeren]

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

[kuroppiii]

  soft launch ᵕ̈        timeskip! sakusa kiyoomi x gn reader ˎˊ˗

⋮⋮ ˒ ₍ᐢ..ᐢ₎ 𖥻 ⿻ : it's just a silly   ⋮⋮  little tiktok, nothing major ... ⋮⋮  right ?

📋 content     ♡ # 𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘧𝘧 🐮     ♡ # 𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘵 🥛     ♡ # 2.6k 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴

🎶 on shuffle “ never lose me ” - flo milli ( specifically the trending clip of " yeah he my man , he was never your type . if you try me , ho it ' s on sight " , but whatever tiktok audio you ended up using is up to you lol <3 )

🧸 directory ‹ ✩  like what you read ? check out more of my blog !  •ᴗ•

💬 kuroppiii ─ “ first time i ' ve pulled myself together to write about sakusa bc when i think about him , i simply can ' t think straight . an exaggeration ? man i wish !! ”

you weren’t anyone special, really. you lived your life, pursuing your goals and hobbies, spending time with those you love. there were things you were good at, sure, but any sort of recognition or praise for those things only ever came from those closest to you. if you walked down the street, no one would bat an eye. "ordinary" couldn't have described you any better.

your boyfriend on the other hand, star wing spiker and outside hitter of the msby jackals, jersey number 15, sakusa kiyoomi certainly was a bit extra-ordinary in the public's eye.

if you took any of his official social media accounts, they easily skyrocketed ahead of any of your accounts in the sheer numbers of following or likes or views. but that's only natural, as the reasons you love your boyfriend–talented, cool, handsome–surely would be shared by the thousands he's subjected to by being in the limelight of the popular and successful pro-volleyball team.

but what else is natural, is that you've always wanted to be able to "soft launch" him, your boyfriend. you've scrolled through your tiktok "for you" page and your pinterest feeds and have undoubtedly saved every "soft launch inspo <3" post you've seen.

the idea was just perfect, you thought–sakusa often prefers not having his face in photos or videos anyway.

to sakusa, however, well... he didn’t really get it until you sat down and had to explain it. you always found it ironic he was never the most active online despite having the bigger following count between the two of you, after all.

“so you want to go public?” he asked, a bit of surprise in his voice.

"well, yes. but also no," you tried to clarify, leaving him with an even more perplexed face that tugged at your lips as you smiled and calmly continued with your elaboration.

you and him have discussed how to navigate your relationship with his volleyball stardom in the past before. it's not like your closest friends and family didn't know about your relationship, but granted, some of your more casual friends and acquaintances who followed your socials probably didn't entirely know either.

the general public definitely did not know, though, of course. but that's why you'd just post something on your accounts, significantly smaller than his.

“are you okay with that?" you made sure to confirm with him, after explaining your thought process on the whole idea.

he came over to you and placed his hands on your hips gently, a concentrated look in attempts to understand your idea adorning his features as he spoke, “i mean, i'd love to be able to finally let everyone know about us–but really it's up to you if you're okay with it. when it comes to things like this—always has, love.”

and what he said was true, from the moment you started dating he was always trying to protect your peace from the media and reporters and cameras. to him, you were like his private repose from all that. but admittedly, as time went on, you both came to realize keeping your relationship under wraps could get pretty hard at times, especially when you wished to go on normal dates out and about instead of resorting to small secluded get-togethers with the handful of people you who knew or nights spent inside your home.

you shook your head as you reached up to brush some of his curls out of his face, revealing his beauty marks above his eye—brows subtly knit together as he considered how your idea might play out in the longrun.

his arms lovingly pull you even closer as you reassure him, "it's just my friends and family who might see it, anyway. it's just a fun little thing to do, omi, that's all!"

،   そ   ✧   の後    🌱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 ...

a few days later, you and sakusa had an event to attend with the rest of his team. it was a nice dinner so you were all dressed up–the perfect get-up to record a small tiktok or two to satisfy your boredom as you waited for your boyfriend to finish getting ready himself.

as you scrolled through your saved audios, you stood by the humble expanse of wall where sakusa had some of his volleyball medals and trinkets displayed in your shared apartment. then it hit you: this would be the perfect opportunity for that soft launch you were thinking about.

he didn't even have to be there, you could just have his framed "sakusa 15" jersey and recognitions with his name on it in the background as you sang along to a song. it was simple. a little ostentatious? maybe. but you thought it was subtle and fun enough to entertain the people who followed you and were going to see it.

so you picked an audio and started recording. your accessories for going out that night glimmered with the gold medals on the wall in the dim lights of the apartment as you lip-synced to the lyrics, showing off your outfit with a slightly sly attitude of making claim to your relationship with sakusa–claim to what rightfully was yours.

but just as the timer on your video was up, you hear sakusa’s voice approaching from down the hallway, his watch clattering as he's trying to put it on, "what are you doing?"

you break out into a sheepish smile as you rush over to end the video timer manually, "nothing! let's head out!"

in the car on the way to the event, you posted the video and thought nothing about it. no tags, no caption, no nothing–just something cheeky for your friends and family to see and hopefully get a small kick out of.

،   そ   ✧   の後    🌱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻 ...

late the next morning after you wake up, you stretch over to your bedside table to grab your phone to do a first-thing-in-the-morning doom scroll. sakusa's still peacefully snoozing away–head tucked under your jaw, soft breaths fanning your neck, arm secured around your waist, and legs tangled with yours under the sheets–when you open up one of your socials and realize you've gained thousands of followers overnight... literally.

you swipe past notifications of your friends texting you dozens of messages to see that hundreds of comments have flooded the most recent post you made–pictures of you and those same friends on a day out in the city–no sakusa in sight yet a lot of the new comments gave mention to him.

almost thinking you're still asleep and dreaming, you scroll through the words total strangers have left for you. it was such a mixed bag: some were mean, some were just confused, and some were even very nice, complementing you on your appearance.

there were a few, however, that mentioned a certain "repost".

"here from the repost"

"RAN to see this after seeing the repost"

"it's been less than a day and there's already so many comments about the repost lol"

and so you go to look up your name with the word "repost" attached to it, and are met with dozens of articles about your "viral tiktok reposted by msby's sakusa kiyoomi seemingly hints at volleyball star's secret relationship".

shocked, but still trying not wake up said volleyball star with your reaction as he clung to you on your shared bed, you quickly switch over to your tiktok to look back at the video you had posted just the night before.

surely enough as you let the video play out, the buttons on the right-hand side of your phone screen displayed astronomically larger numbers than that you've ever seen something you've posted in your life track before.

as the video plays the moment sakusa had called out to you–with you smiling to somewhere off camera before getting up close to the camera and cutting off the recording–you look down lower on the screen and see “msby sakusa reposted”. his official account. (you knew this bc he had you help him set up his personal one, the name of which you set up to come up as simply his nickname amongst friends "omi" with the cleaning sponge and bubbles emoji.)

hearing the audio of the video, you can feel sakusa stir at your side, his brows furrow against your skin as he peeks out from under his messy bedhead of curls to look at what you could be watching so soon after waking up.

after processing it was a video of you, one of his hands wordlessly part from where it was snaked around your waist and reaches up to tap on the little heart icon on the side of your screen.

then his hand returns to where it was, and he retreats back to the space between your collarbone and your jaw, hoping to quickly be lulled back to sleep just for a bit more before you two would have to get up and get on with your day.

but after a brief moment, you can suddenly feel the vibration of his voice against your skin, groggy and sloughed down by drowsiness to a deep treble as he lazily mumbled, “oh... that was your phone. was wondering why it wasn’t liked yet. i could've sworn i did already...”

his words set loose butterflies in your stomach, knowing despite his limited time spent online, he still does everything to let you know he loves you, even if it takes making a small heart icon light up on a video you post. but soon that warm feeling goes away, as your concern quickly overcomes it given the current situation at hand.

“omi," you coo, an attempt to not let on in your voice how you were slightly freaking out as to not disturb his peaceful state, "did you repost it? my video?”

“of course i did,” he replied in a heartbeat. you could feel his breathing start to slow down, him on the brink of slipping back into continuing his slumber.

you also felt he didn't quite realize the implications of what he did.

“you looked nice in it,” you hear him drawl out, after being met with your contemplative silence.

you hummed as you asked a follow up question, “did you do it with your personal account?”

“mhmm,” he sounds so content when he hums back in reply, bliss apparent as he spoke being tangled up with you as sunlight peeked in through the bedroom windows.

one of your hands paused the tiktok from playing and departed from where it clutched your phone to comb through sakusa's hair–partly to calm your nerves and partly in adoration at the realization he was so eager to show you his affection, that he didn’t check which account he was on before he reposted your video.

you tried your best to say your next words carefully and gently, “well i don’t think you did, babe."

"hm?"

trying to act nonchalant about it, you continue, "i gained, like, a thousand followers while we were sleeping.”

"hm?!!"

you no longer feel his curls under your fingertips as he retreats from his little hiding spot, now confronting your phone screen where surely enough, he caught a glimpse of the numbers your video was doing, as well as the little tag that, yes, it does look like he reposted your video using his official msby account.

he was wide awake now as one of his hands go to rake through his locks, and he starts rambling despite how his voice definitely wasn't caught up from his sleep yet, “y/n, angel, i'm so sorry. i didn't even check, i should've. i should've been more careful. now everyone know's about it, and it's all my fault. is anyone being mean to you about it? i can say something, or post something, right now, or—“

you cut his running mouth off with a kiss, dropping your phone in your lap to cup the sides of his face before you pull away.

"you're not... you're not mad at me?" he asks softly, eyes searching yours nervously.

a moment ago you were feeling a little more than uneasy at the thought that you weren't going to be just an ordinary person anymore. but now, seeing how much sakusa cared and doted over you, you realize you'll be fine. because you won't be dealing with it alone. you had someone extraordinary to be by your side each step of the way.

“no, omi. i'm not mad," you tell him through a warm smile, "at least we don't have to hide it anymore."

you feel him slightly nod in your hands, still on edge as he intently listens and hangs onto your every word. you could never get mad at that face. you can't resist the urge to brush your nose against his because of how cute you thought your boyfriend was.

"and besides, it still wasn’t a hard launch. we don't have to confirm anything just yet. so by social media rules... i can still post some more soft launches before we do that, no?" you say with a hint of mischief in your tone, making sakusa break out into a smile as he chuckles and places his hands over yours at the sides of his face.

"y'know what we always say," you continue with a more genuine voice, barely above a whisper, "we won’t let them get to us. we don't owe them anything–let them figure it out. what’s done is done, so let’s just have fun with it, okay?”

you're blessed with the sight of sakusa's dimpled smile growing even wider and before you know it he's all over you, on top of you smothering you with kisses, making you laugh as you try to pry him off of you.

he finally pauses to hover over you, his eyes with the slightest creases at their corners because of how he was smiling down at you, “thanks for bearing with me. not just my social media incompetence, but–for dealing with my… everything, i guess. i love you.”

the sheets ruffle around you as you gingergly wrap your arms up and around his neck, “i love you too omi. always will.”

you reach to grab your phone, buried somewhere in the blanket draped over the two of you, and sakusa rolls off of you as he finds it first and hands it to you. now it was your turn to ramble on, “how about we do the one where you stand behind me and hold the phone really high? or the one where you pick me up and spin me around in a random parking lot? or maybe i should make a video wearing your jersey–? oh my god that'd be diabolical, don't you think omi?"

he laughs into your shoulder at your eagerness as you spend the rest of the morning scrolling through soft launch videos online that you can save to copy later.

“i’ll do anything," he tells you, "i want to show you off–because now i can properly do it the way you've always deserved, love.”

       ⇩  ⇩  ⇩ 𝘽𝙊𝙉𝙐𝙎 ::

a few weeks (and a few more soft-launch tiktoks you both had fun with) later, although you and sakusa never publicly confirmed anything yet, his fans practically accepted that you and him were an item.

you even had the pleasure of seeing some fan-made edits of you come across your feed and appreciatively dropping a few likes on them yourself. but there was one in particular when you peeked into the comments of the video.

the original poster had commented on their own edit: "GUYS SAKUSA GAVE MY EDIT A LIKE WTF???"

you laughed out loud at the comment, considering as how your dear and darling boyfriend had never mentioned his apparent viewing and liking of these edits of you online as of late.

your boyfriend may have learned his lesson about public reposts, but it looks like his attempts at covering up what he hits "like" on needed a bit of work, too.

[pimosworld]

Never have I ever

Kinktober Prompt-Voyeurism,Squirting,Polyamory

Pairing -Will Miller x f!reader x Tf boys x f!reader

Summary-You and the boys play a game and things take an interesting turn.

CW-18+,MDNI,NSFW, Voyuerism, Smut, Fluff, Rough sex, Dom Will, mentions of anal, mentions of MM dynamics, restraints, mentions of safe word but no use, established poly relationship, Unprotected PIV, cream pie, squirting, aftercare. Appropriate discussion of past relationships.

WC-4K

A/N- Set in the story of us verse but can be read as a stand alone. Reader is not race coded, no use of Y/N. This is my current WIP procrastination, when lightning strikes you must write. My first kinktober prompt. I just reached 400 followers and this is 4000 words so I’m gonna take this as my follower celebration as well.

[Series Masterlist][Main Masterlist]

“Ben, are we seriously playing this?” The five of you are situated comfortably in your usual spots in the living room and somehow the younger Miller has convinced you all to ‘make things more interesting’ in his words. 

  “I’m too old for this.” Frankie mumbles into his beer as he downs the rest. 

  “We know…that doesn’t mean you’re getting out of it.” You chuckle briefly as Santi’s hand skirts higher up your thigh under the blanket. He’s been slowly torturing you as you relaxed on the couch, all of you decompressing and going over your week. It was a new ritual to discuss the ins and outs of your time apart but it seemed Ben was growing tired of the normal mostly mundane conversation.

  “Hands up let’s go.” The impatient Miller barks from his spot on the floor, too big to fit anywhere else and you're always unsure of why Will won’t just get a bigger couch. You suggested a few months ago that it would be nice for all of you to be able to relax together. He agreed but evidently it takes time to find the perfect one. 

  Everyone reluctantly puts their hands up, Santiago opting for one hand because he can’t pry his other from the warmth of you under the blanket. The other part of you knows he’ll probably lose this game and he doesn’t feel like putting too much effort into revealing how much of a slut he was before he pulled his head out of his ass and finally told you how he felt. 

  “Both hands, Pope.” Frankie chides from beside you and Santi squeezes your thigh before drawing his hand out and flipping him off. 

  This game was an odd choice, almost completely out of left field. The five of you knew almost everything there was to know about each other. Although you’re sure the boys know a lot more about their respective sexual escapades than they know about yours. Nothing among these men is ever done by accident, you’re just waiting to see the angle that’s being played so you don’t end up trapped. The confused and amused looks on the others' faces has you a little at ease since it seems this is a solo mission for Ben and those didn’t always go as planned. 

  “I’ll start since it was my idea.” Will sends you a look from across the room as to say of course and you’re acutely aware that he hasn’t let out one protest or sign of stopping this game. You’re almost positive it’ll come down to you both in the end and he knows it judging by the smug look on his face. 

  “Never have I ever faked an orgasm.” You roll your eyes as you put one finger down. Maybe you were going to lose after all. The chuckles from the others don’t help your embarrassment, even though you should hardly blame yourself. It doesn’t need to be clarified that since you’d been with all of them there was no need to fake it anymore, but it was definitely known by all that you had to in the past an ungodly amount of times. 

  You brave a look up from the carpet that you’d all but memorized as you see Ben's wide tooth grinning at Frankie beside you. You look over just in time to see Frankie put his finger down as the redness creeps up his neck. He’s staring daggers at the younger Miller and Santi’s chuckles send vibrations through your body as you lean into him. 

  “How did she not know?” You ask him in the sweetest tone, no judgment behind it, just genuine curiosity. 

  He scrubbed his hand over his jaw, his calloused fingers digging into the patchy part of his beard. No doubt thinking how long this night will be if we have to explain each finger down,but of course that’s always Ben’s plan. He wants to draw this out for as long as he can. 

  “I pulled out and spit on her back.” He says it so sheepishly you almost feel bad for him. An image flashes in your mind and you make the mistake of looking over at Will who is doing his best to not completely lose it. You cup your mouth trying to suppress the giggle but it’s far too late. 

  “Laugh it up honey.” The funniest part is how could anyone not be thoroughly enjoying themselves when Francisco Morales is behind the wheel, but you figure it’s their loss. 

  You wrack your brain for something you’ve never done that they may have.Blowjob,one night stand,sent a nude photo,had sex in public…those are all out. 

  Will interrupts your thoughts as he speaks from the loveseat. “Never have I ever had a threesome.” He just saved you in more ways than one as you see Benny and Frankie glance at each other as they put a finger down. Santi tsks beside you and you don’t even have to look over to see he did as well. 

  You miss the look Santi shoots Frankie above your head as he makes a mental note. Ben may have been a thorn in his side at times but right now he could kiss the ground he walked on. Unbeknownst to you this has turned into a silent competition of memorizing everything you’ve never done,each time you don’t put a finger down he clocks one of them. He doesn’t even care that he’s about to lose as the room thrums with sexual tension. 

  As you predicted you and Will have the most fingers left. You have three,Will has two and Benny has one that he’s been holding onto for dear life. Santi and Frankie had long been out, Santi rejoins the group after refreshing your drinks. He knew he hasn't missed anything since it was getting harder to think of things as the game went on. 

  You need to get Ben out and you were sure this next question would. If it also took one down for Will then you would just be getting lucky you guessed. 

  “Never have I ever done anal.” Santi stifles a moan next you as Frankie not so subtly adjusts the growing bulge in his jeans. You were so focused on winning that you have no idea how thin of a thread they were holding onto. Frankie’s been fighting the mental image of checking each thing off your list one by one. Santiago isn’t faring much better not having realized how much innocence was still lying dormant in you. 

  Ben concedes as he grabs the pillow he was using on the floor, your brace for the moment that he decides to toss it at you only for him to place it gingerly in his lap. 

  “Welcome to the club.” Frankie mutters under his breath as you stare down Will who now has one finger up…interesting. 

  “Never have I ever been tied up.” Fuck

  You put a finger down and wait for the responses that eventually never come. Will was playing dirty, he knows for a fact you’ve been tied up. It had only been a week since he asked you if you wanted to try it. 

  This was it,you had to go for the kill…but how bad did you want to win? You know there’s only one way but it will certainly come at a cost. In the end the cost may be worth it. 

  You raise up on the couch sitting back on your heels,proudly displaying the two fingers you have left. You can’t chance a look at anyone besides Will or you might chicken out. Frankie’s fingers grip nervously at the blanket that’s fallen next to you. He wants to reach out and touch you, the only sound over your beating heart is the rustling of the couch cushions as Santi leans forward just into your peripheral vision. Breath in…Breathe out 3,2,1. 

  “Never have I ever made someone squirt.” You say it so fast they almost don’t catch it…almost.

  “Ha…he’s never made anyone…” Ben is silenced mid sentence as Will closes his fist and leans back into the seat. He doesn’t really care that he’s lost, in reality he’s actually won this game. Judging by the shocked looks on their faces or Ben’s mouth hanging agape. You didn’t fully think this through, your brain was clouded with the thrill of winning. 

  He almost feels bad for you as he says the momentary look of triumph quickly turns into one of defeat. It’s written all over your face as the realization sets in that you’ve completely fucked yourself, you would be a horrible poker player because you just revealed all your cards. If this were a lion's den you were a fresh piece of meat. 

  A drop of sweat trickles down your back as you lower your hand slowly to place it on your thigh. The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. 

  “Prove it.” Santi’s voice is so close to your ear you nearly jump out of your skin. 

  Will tilts his head at you as if to challenge you. This game was far from over and you’d be damned if you were going to lose. You stand from the couch and walk over to him. Four sets of eyes watching your every move as you grab his hand and pull him to stand. You raise your eyebrows as an acceptance to his challenge and he starts to lead you away from them toward the hallway. You sense no movement behind you as you make your way to his bedroom. 

  “You boys coming or not?”  A small stampede sounds behind you and you chuckle picturing them trying not to trample each other as their bodies catch up with their feet, no doubt all thought having left their brains. 

  ****

  Santi’s lost count, has it been five or six times Will has brought you to the edge only to pull away and deny you what you so desperately want and need. He’s no stranger to this game but he doesn’t think he’s ever been this turned on by it. Watching from a whole different viewpoint. Being a spectator is thrilling and watching you writhe and chase his touch after each denial makes his cock achingly hard in his jeans. 

  Frankie’s not doing much better as he tries to follow Will's rules he laid out before starting. If you want me to show you then you don’t touch her unless I tell you to. The captain in him didn’t come out often anymore but when it did he commanded respect. 

  Ben stares on with excitement and curiosity written all over his face. He watches as you grip the sheets, your chest heaving as sweat beads down your forehead. Will told you not to touch yourself and Ben didn’t know you could be so obedient. 

  Wills got you so on edge you can’t be shy anymore about the way you beg for him and plead for him to let you come. A far cry from when you first entered the bedroom. 

  He had slowly undressed you and instructed you to lay flat on the bed. He crawled over your body kissing and biting his way up your thighs and your stomach. His hand caressed your breast as his tongue laved over the other. It was too much and not enough as your eyes met the others standing in the room. They’d all seen you in this position before but something about them watching suddenly has you feeling vulnerable. 

  “Look at me.” He leaned in and kissed you, deep and passionate as his hand gripped your waist and his tongue prodded your mouth. An expert distraction to bring you back to the moment. 

  “It’s just me and you.” It was the last thing he said to you before he methodically took you apart right before their eyes. You knew he was taking his time, putting on a show. He wasn’t simply going to make you squirt and move on like some conquest. He wanted to draw this out, show them what he was capable of. 

  He started with his mouth as his breath ghosted over your slick folds. He looked up at you through hooded lids one more time to give you a chance to back out, when you gave no indication of wanting to stop he dragged his tongue expertly through your slit. Parting it with his thumb as he dove in circling your clit. You were a goner from the beginning as he brought you to the first cliff only to leave you hanging. You cried out his name in desperation as he dipped two fingers in, pumping in and out as he bit down on your thigh. The pleasure and pain mixed in with you on display had your nerves alight. 

  With each denied release you can feel the pressure building in your core, it’s so close you can taste it on the tip of your tongue. You can taste yourself as he leans over you again kissing you through your whimpers as your body shakes beneath him. 

  “Will please…” Your sweet voice begging is like music to their ears. Frankie would give you whatever you want if you asked him but Will doesn’t budge. 

  “Please what sweetheart…I can’t read your mind.” 

  Son of a bitch he’s trying to kill you. 

  For all his resolve Santiago can’t help but be impressed. Even if this sudden burst of confidence is all a show for them he has to admit he would’ve caved by now and just went straight for the finale. 

  You’re not even sure when Ben and Frankie sat on the bed leaning against the headboard beside you, or when Santi sat at the end to have a perfect view of your pussy clenching around nothing as your arousal drips onto the sheets below. 

  “Please Will, I need you inside me…I need to come please.” You’re practically crying as he shushes you, his cock leaking precum on your stomach as it twitches in anticipation. He’s not going to be able to last much longer at this rate either. 

  He leans back on his heels as he grips the base of his cock, slapping your clit and dragging it through your slick as he slowly prods your entrance. The noise you make almost has him buckling as you sigh into it finally having what you want. 

  He starts at a slow pace as he wraps your legs around his waist, he can see the way your face contorts with every slap of his hips against yours. You can feel every vein and ridge as the lude sounds of your sweat and slick echo in the room. 

  You can’t see it from where you are but Frankie’s itching to touch you, desperately wanting to break the rule as he watches you try not to touch yourself. 

  Ben is mesmerized as he watches your breasts bounce with every thrust of Will's hips, he wants to latch onto you and bite down until you're screaming his name, but he knows his brother would do more than scold him if he so much as tried to touch you right now. 

  Santi’s waiting…waiting for any sign or movement as to how he does it. He’s thoroughly enjoying himself but he’s seen nothing new, nothing he hasn’t done to you a dozen times over. Any indication as to what Will has managed to do before the rest of them. It’s driving him a little mad as he watches you beg for it like you’ve never had it before. 

  You can feel the tension building as Will picks up his pace, he shifts your legs to either side of his head as he punches the air out of your lungs with every thrust. He brings his thumb down rubbing fast circles on your clit as you try to grab his wrist. That all too familiar feeling has you keen and arch your back. “Grab her hands.” Frankie moves before you can think, your wrists gripped tightly in one of his palms above your head. 

  “Wait…please.” He chuckles under his breath as his chest heaves with the sharp movements. Not mere seconds ago you were begging to come and now you’re begging him to stop. 

  You crane your head back and lock eyes with Ben, his eyes are etched with worry as he lays there helpless to your pleas. “Will!” 

  “She’s fine…aren’t you sweetheart?” You can’t think, he’s fucked you so dumb you cant remember your own name let alone formulate a sentence. “Yes.” Is all you can manage. 

  “She knows what to say if she wants to stop.” He grits through his teeth as his orgasm steadily approaches, his thighs burn and he’s surely bruised your calves as he grips tightly to them. 

  You’ve never safe worded with him and you don’t plan on it now. It feels so good as the searing hot sensation creeps up your spine threatening to take purchase in your brain. “Please don’t stop.” 

  He gestures to Frankie to grab the pillow, who moves with lightning speed as he situates it under your back. Santi looks at your face then, and he finally sees it. The look of panic and bliss as you succumb to the inevitable. He’s seen this look before but he ran from it afraid that he might hurt you. Will punches something deep inside you as he lifts your hips, the sound you make bordering on pornography while your arousal coats his stomach almost forcing him out of you completely. 

  He thrusts once and twice before nearly collapsing his weight onto you as he comes through your high. He releases your legs as he leans in to give you a kiss. Will was nothing if thorough and he always made sure you were okay. It’s in this moment that you truly feel like it’s just the two of you and not aware of the blissed out expressions of the other men. 

  “You did so good for me.” He pants out against your mouth as he desperately tries to catch his breath. 

  You highly doubt this is what Ben had in mind when he suggested this game but it ended much better than any of you would have anticipated. 

  Moments pass and you’ve just barely recovered. You’re in need of a shower and some water as you try to move slightly, the grip on your wrists tighten as you look back at Frankie. 

  Do it again. 

Comments and reblogs are much appreciated

Tagging a few who might be interested

@csarab615 @syrupsstuff @ghostslillady @uudelally @onefinnedwonder-fm @thedreadandthefugitivemind @romanarose @scarletthefierce

[estapa-edwards]

PROM - R. LEONARD

paring: Ryan Leonard x reader

word count: 4.2k

requested? no

warnings: use of y/n.

*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨* ≈☆≈ *¨¨*:·..·:*¨¨*

The sound of my alarm blaring at 6:30 AM dragged me out of a restless sleep. Prom was just around the corner, and the pressure was mounting. All my friends had dates, and I was the odd one out. Desperation was starting to set in, and the idea of going alone was unbearable.

As I got ready for school, I couldn't help but think about Ryan Leonard. Ryan was a big deal at Boston College, playing hockey and living out his dream. We had grown up together, shared countless memories, and yet, I hadn’t seen much of him since he went off to college. Could I ask him to prom? Would he even agree? The thought made my heart race.

"Y/N, you're going to be late!" my mom's voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

"Coming!" I grabbed my bag and headed out, trying to shove my anxiety aside.

School was the usual mix of boring classes and the buzzing excitement of prom. My friends, if I could really call them that, were chattering about their dresses, dates, and after-parties. I felt like an outsider looking in.

"Hey, Y/N, who are you going with to prom?" Sarah, one of the self-proclaimed leaders of our group, asked with a smirk.

I hesitated. "I... I haven't decided yet."

She laughed. "Better hurry up. You don’t want to be the only one without a date."

The bell rang, and I practically ran to my first class, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. As the day dragged on, I kept thinking about Ryan. Maybe this was crazy, but he was my last hope.

---- --- --- 

Back home, I paced my room, working up the nerve to call Ryan. My mind was racing with a hundred different thoughts, each one more anxious than the last. Finally, I grabbed my phone and dialed his number, my heart pounding with each ring.

"Hello?"

"Ryan? Hey, it's Y/N," I said, my voice trembling slightly.

"Y/N! Wow, it's been a while. How's it going?"

"Good, good. Listen, I need a favor," I blurted out, already feeling the nerves creeping in.

"Sure, what’s up?" he asked, his tone warm and friendly.

I took a deep breath. "Would you... um, would you go to prom with me?" The words tumbled out faster than I intended. I immediately started overexplaining. "I know it's short notice, and you're probably really busy with hockey and school and everything. I just—well, you know how it is, all my friends have dates, and I didn't want to go alone, and I thought maybe since we grew up together and always had fun, it wouldn't be too weird, but if you can't, I totally understand..."

"Y/N," he interrupted gently, a smile evident in his voice. "Calm down. I'd love to go to prom with you."

Relief flooded through me, but I still felt the need to clarify. "Really? I mean, it's next Saturday, and you probably have a lot going on. I wouldn't want to impose or mess up your schedule."

"Next Saturday is perfect," he reassured me. "I'd be honored to go with you. It's no imposition at all."

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Thank you, Ryan. Seriously, this means a lot to me."

"Anything for you, Y/N," he said softly. "I’m looking forward to it."

His calm, steady response eased my anxiety, and for the first time in days, I felt a genuine smile spread across my face. "Me too. Thanks again, Ryan."

"Anytime," he replied. "See you next Saturday."

After we hung up, I collapsed onto my bed, feeling a mix of excitement and gratitude. Ryan Leonard, my childhood friend, and now my prom date. Maybe this prom wouldn't be so bad after all.

--- --- --- 

The news that I was going to prom with Ryan Leonard spread through the school like wildfire. No one believed me. My so-called friends laughed it off, convinced I was making it up to save face.

"Yeah right, like Ryan Leonard is going to show up here," Sarah scoffed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Stop trying to get attention, Y/N."

I tried to brush it off, but the disbelief and mockery didn't stop there. In the cafeteria, I overheard them talking about me while I was in line for lunch.

"Did you hear Y/N’s story about bringing Ryan Leonard to prom?" Emily giggled. "What a joke."

"I know, right?" Jessica chimed in. "It's so obvious she’s lying. Probably doesn’t want to admit she couldn’t get a date."

During gym class, they continued their taunts. As we were warming up, Sarah walked past me and smirked. "So, Y/N, how's your 'boyfriend' Ryan doing? Is he flying in on his private jet to take you to prom?"

Her friends laughed, and I felt my face flush with embarrassment. I clenched my fists, forcing myself to stay calm.

The worst was in English class. Mrs. Thompson asked us to discuss our plans for the weekend, and when it was my turn, I hesitated. I didn’t want to give them more ammunition, but I couldn't lie.

"I'm going to prom," I said simply.

"With Ryan Leonard," Sarah interjected loudly, rolling her eyes. "Isn't that right, Y/N?"

The class erupted into laughter, and Mrs. Thompson had to call for order. I sank lower into my seat, wishing I could disappear.

Even in the hallways, the whispers followed me. "There goes Y/N, the girl who thinks she's going to prom with a college hockey star," I overheard one girl say to her friend.

"She must be delusional," her friend replied. "No way he’d come back for a high school prom."

I tried to ignore them, focusing instead on getting everything ready for the big night. I bought a dress, arranged for hair and makeup, and counted down the days until Saturday. Despite the constant doubt and ridicule, I held onto the hope that Ryan would come through for me.

As the day approached, the tension only grew. My so-called friends couldn't resist one last dig during lunch on Friday.

"So, Y/N," Sarah said loudly enough for the whole table to hear, "ready for your big date with Mr. Imaginary?"

"Yeah, Y/N," Emily added with a smirk. "I hope he doesn't stand you up. That would be so embarrassing."

I took a deep breath and looked them straight in the eyes. "You'll see," I said quietly but firmly. "He’s coming."

They all laughed again, but I could see a flicker of uncertainty in their eyes. Maybe, just maybe, they were starting to wonder if I was telling the truth.

I spent Friday night in a flurry of preparation, my excitement mingling with nerves. As I lay in bed, I couldn't help but replay the events of the past week in my mind. All the doubts, the mocking, the disbelief—I just hoped that when Ryan showed up, it would be enough to prove them all wrong.

--- --- ---

The night of prom arrived, and I stood in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection. My dress was perfect, a deep blue that complemented my eyes, and my hair was styled in loose curls. I looked... different. More confident, maybe. But inside, I was a bundle of nerves. My heart was pounding, and my stomach felt like it was filled with butterflies. I couldn't shake the anxiety that had been building all week.

"Y/N, are you ready?" my mom called from downstairs.

"Almost!" I called back, taking a deep breath and smoothing down my dress for what felt like the hundredth time. I glanced at my phone, checking the time and wondering if Ryan would actually show up. What if something had come up last minute? What if he forgot?

I shook my head, trying to banish the negative thoughts. Ryan wasn't like that. He said he'd be here, and I had to trust him. I grabbed my clutch and headed downstairs, my heart racing with each step.

As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard a car pull up outside. My heart skipped a beat, and I rushed to the window. Ryan was there, leaning against his car, looking as handsome as ever in a classic black tuxedo. Relief and excitement washed over me, and I took a deep breath to steady myself.

"Coming!" I called out to my mom, my voice shaky. I opened the door and stepped outside, my heart pounding in my chest.

Ryan's face lit up when he saw me, and he smiled that charming smile that had always made me feel special. "Wow, Y/N. You look amazing."

"Thanks, Ryan," I replied, feeling my cheeks flush. "You clean up pretty well yourself."

He opened the car door for me, and as I slid into the passenger seat, I couldn't help but start babbling. "I can't believe you're actually here. I mean, I knew you would be, but still, I was so nervous all week. Everyone at school kept saying you wouldn't show up, and I started to doubt myself. But you're here, and it means so much to me. I know you're really busy with hockey and college and everything, so I really appreciate you taking the time to do this. It's just... thank you, Ryan."

He chuckled softly as he got into the driver's seat. "Y/N, it's really no big deal. I’m happy to be here with you. And besides, prom is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I wouldn’t miss it for the world."

His calm, reassuring tone helped soothe my nerves, and I smiled, feeling a little more at ease. As we drove to the venue, my mind was racing with a mix of excitement and anxiety. Would my friends believe me now?

--- --- ---

When we arrived at the venue, the parking lot was already filled with students dressed in their finest. The school had transformed the gymnasium into a glittering wonderland of lights and decorations. Ryan parked the car and came around to open my door, offering his hand to help me out.

As we walked toward the entrance, my heart was pounding again. I could already see some of my classmates milling around outside, and I knew they were watching us. The whispers started almost immediately.

"Is that really Ryan Leonard?"

"I can't believe he actually came."

I held my head high, gripping Ryan's arm for support. As we entered the gym, the room fell silent for a moment, heads turning to stare at us. The music continued to play, but all eyes were on us.

Sarah and her friends were clustered near the punch bowl, and I saw her eyes widen in disbelief when she spotted us. She quickly composed herself and walked over, her expression a mix of skepticism and forced friendliness.

"Well, well, Y/N. Looks like you weren't lying after all," she said, trying to sound casual but failing to hide the surprise in her voice.

"Why would I lie about something like this?" I shot back, my voice steadier than I felt.

She narrowed her eyes, clearly annoyed that her predictions had been wrong. "Whatever. Have fun, I guess."

Ryan squeezed my hand, and we moved to the dance floor. The music was loud, the lights were bright, and for a moment, everything felt perfect. I glanced around, seeing the looks of shock and envy on the faces of my classmates. It was a small victory, but it felt good.

--- --- --- 

As we swayed to the slow, melodic rhythm of the music, the world seemed to fade away, leaving just Ryan and me on the dance floor. The soft glow of the fairy lights above us cast a warm, ethereal glow, and I found myself relaxing into the moment. Ryan's hand was steady on my waist, his other hand gently holding mine.

I looked up at him, feeling a mixture of gratitude and nostalgia. "Thank you for coming tonight, Ryan," I said softly. "You have no idea how much this means to me."

He smiled down at me, his eyes warm and sincere. "I'm happy to be here, Y/N. It's been a long time since we’ve had a chance to catch up."

I nodded, feeling a lump form in my throat. "I missed you. Things just aren’t the same without you around."

"I missed you too," he admitted, his gaze never leaving mine. "Life's been so busy with college and hockey, but I always think about the times we spent together growing up."

I bit my lip, trying to find the right words. "It feels like everything changed so quickly. One minute we were kids, and the next, you were off chasing your dreams. I guess I felt a little left behind."

Ryan's expression softened, and he pulled me a little closer. "I'm sorry if it ever felt that way. You were never left behind, Y/N. You've always been important to me."

His words sent a warm feeling through my chest, and I found myself smiling despite the tears that threatened to spill. "It’s just been tough, you know? With everyone at school and feeling like I don’t quite fit in. Having you here tonight... it makes everything better."

He squeezed my hand gently. "You deserve to feel special, Y/N. Don’t let anyone make you think otherwise. Tonight is about having fun and celebrating you. I'm just glad I get to be here with you."

We danced in silence for a few moments, the music surrounding us like a comforting embrace. I felt safe and cherished in Ryan’s arms, a stark contrast to the way I usually felt at school. It was as if all the doubts and insecurities melted away, replaced by a sense of belonging.

"Do you ever miss it?" I asked, breaking the silence. "Being home, I mean."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I do. Boston College is amazing, and I love playing hockey, but there's something about being home that you can't replace. The familiarity, the memories... and people like you."

I blushed at his words, feeling a warmth spread through me. "I’m really proud of you, you know. Seeing you live your dream is inspiring."

"Thanks, Y/N," he said, his smile genuine. "And you? What about your dreams? What do you want to do after graduation?"

I hesitated, the question feeling both exciting and daunting. "I’m not entirely sure yet. I have some ideas, but it’s hard to know for certain. I just want to find something that makes me happy."

"You will," he said confidently. "Whatever you choose, you’ll be amazing at it. I know you will."

The song began to wind down, and I realized that for the first time in a long while, I felt hopeful about the future. As the last notes played, Ryan leaned down, his forehead resting gently against mine.

"Thank you for this dance," he whispered, his breath warm against my skin.

"Thank you for making it unforgettable," I whispered back, feeling a sense of connection that words couldn't fully capture.

--- --- --- 

As the night went on, I started to relax, enjoying Ryan's company and the magic of the evening. We danced, laughed, and talked, just like old times. But, of course, it didn’t last. My so-called friends couldn’t resist making snide comments and trying to undermine me.

"Look at Y/N, acting like she's all that just because she has a famous date," one of them whispered loudly enough for me to hear.

"Yeah, it's probably just a pity date," another added.

Ryan stopped dancing and turned to them, his eyes blazing with anger. "You know what? Y/N is amazing, and she's way better than any of you who think it's okay to tear someone down just to feel good about yourselves."

The room went silent again, and I felt my cheeks burn with a mix of embarrassment and gratitude. No one had ever stood up for me like that.

"Let's get out of here," Ryan said softly, taking my hand.

We left the ballroom and walked outside into the cool night air. The stars were bright, and the tension of the evening seemed to melt away.

"Thank you, Ryan. For everything," I said, my voice filled with emotion.

He looked at me, his expression serious. "You deserve better than how they treated you, Y/N. Don't ever let anyone make you feel less than you are."

--- --- ---

The rest of the night was a blur of laughter and conversation. We drove around the city, talking about everything and nothing, just like old times. It felt like we were the only two people in the world.

After leaving the prom, we got into Ryan's car and drove away from the venue, the city lights twinkling like stars around us. The air was filled with a comfortable silence, punctuated only by our sporadic bursts of laughter and the hum of the car engine. Ryan turned on the radio, and we sang along to old songs that brought back a flood of childhood memories.

"Remember when we used to ride our bikes to the old park and play until it got dark?" Ryan asked, glancing over at me with a nostalgic smile.

I laughed, the memory warming my heart. "Yeah, and how we’d always get in trouble for coming home late. Your mom would call my mom, and they’d both be waiting for us at your house with that look."

He chuckled, nodding. "Good times. Simpler times."

We drove past our old elementary school, the playground now empty and quiet. "It's strange how everything looks the same, but feels so different," I mused. "We’ve grown up so much, but these places hold the same memories."

Ryan pulled over near the school, turning off the engine. "Let's take a walk," he suggested.

We got out of the car and strolled down the familiar paths, the cool night air refreshing against my skin. The playground was eerily quiet, a stark contrast to the bustling activity it used to have when we were kids. We walked over to the swings and sat down, gently swaying back and forth.

"Do you ever wish you could go back?" I asked, looking up at the stars.

"Sometimes," Ryan admitted. "But then I think about all the things we’ve experienced and learned. Growing up is hard, but it shapes us into who we are. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything."

I nodded, understanding what he meant. "I just miss the simplicity of it all. No drama, no expectations. Just us, having fun."

He reached over and took my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "We can still have that, you know. It might be different, but the connection is still there. Tonight proves that."

We sat there for a while, lost in our own thoughts, the silence comfortable and familiar. Eventually, we got back into the car and continued our journey through the city. We drove past our favorite ice cream shop, and Ryan impulsively turned into the parking lot.

"Want to get some ice cream?" he asked with a grin.

"Absolutely," I replied, my excitement genuine.

The shop was nearly empty, and we ordered our old favorites—mint chocolate chip for him, strawberry for me. We sat in one of the booths, savoring the sweet, cold treat and reminiscing about the countless times we’d done the same thing as kids.

"Do you remember that summer we tried to make our own ice cream?" Ryan asked between bites. "We made such a mess in your kitchen."

I laughed, almost choking on my ice cream. "My mom was so mad! We got ice cream everywhere except in the bowls."

"It tasted awful, too," he added with a grin. "But it was fun. One of those memories you never forget."

We stayed there until the shop closed, then got back in the car and drove aimlessly, enjoying each other’s company. We talked about our hopes and dreams, our fears and uncertainties. It felt good to open up, to share parts of ourselves that had been hidden away for too long.

Eventually, we found ourselves at the edge of town, near the lake where we used to go fishing with our families. Ryan parked the car, and we got out, walking down to the water's edge. The moon reflected off the surface, creating a serene and almost magical atmosphere.

"I used to come here to think," I said quietly, staring out at the water. "Whenever things got tough, this was my escape."

Ryan nodded, his gaze fixed on the horizon. "I get that. Everyone needs a place like this. A place to find peace."

We sat down on the grass, side by side, the silence speaking volumes. After a while, Ryan turned to me, his expression serious. "Y/N, I’m really sorry about what happened at prom. I didn't mean to cause any trouble."

I shook my head, placing a hand on his arm. "Ryan, you didn’t ruin anything. You made it better. I’m glad you stood up for me. It showed me who my real friends are."

He smiled, relief evident in his eyes. "I’m glad to hear that. I was worried I might have made things worse."

"No," I said firmly. "You made it perfect. Tonight has been everything I could have hoped for and more. Thank you."

We stayed there for a while longer, the peacefulness of the lake surrounding us. Eventually, we knew it was time to head home. Ryan drove me back to my house, the conversation still flowing easily between us.

Ryan walked me to my door, and we stood there, neither of us wanting the night to end.

"I had a great time tonight, Y/N," he said softly.

"Me too. Thank you for coming with me. It really meant a lot."

He smiled, that same smile that had always made me feel special. "Anytime. Let’s not wait so long to see each other again, okay?"

"Okay," I agreed, my heart swelling with a mix of emotions.

He leaned in and kissed my cheek, sending a shiver down my spine. "Goodnight, Y/N."

"Goodnight, Ryan."

I turned to unlock the door, but before I could step inside, I felt his hand gently grab my arm. I turned back, surprised, and saw an intensity in his eyes that took my breath away. Without another word, he leaned in and kissed me, his lips soft and warm against mine. The world seemed to stop in that moment, and all I could feel was the electricity between us, the connection that had always been there but now felt stronger than ever.

When we finally pulled apart, both of us were breathless. I stared up at him, my heart racing. "Ryan," I whispered, my voice barely audible, "would you... would you stay the night? Not like that, I mean. Just stay. I don't want this night to end."

He looked at me, his eyes softening with understanding. "I'd like that," he replied, his voice tender. "I'd like that a lot."

I opened the door wider, letting him in. The house was quiet, my parents long since asleep. We tiptoed upstairs, careful not to make too much noise. Once in my room, I grabbed a spare blanket and pillow, offering them to Ryan for the bed.

"You can take the bed," I said, gesturing toward it. "I'll sleep on the floor."

But Ryan shook his head, a determined look in his eyes. "No, Y/N. You take the bed. I'll be fine on the floor."

I hesitated, feeling a mix of gratitude and guilt. "Are you sure?"

He smiled, his expression gentle. "Positive. I'll be more comfortable down here."

Reluctantly, I accepted his offer, settling onto the bed and pulling the covers up around me. Ryan arranged the blanket and pillow on the floor, making himself as comfortable as possible.

"Thank you, Ryan," I said softly, feeling a warmth spread through me at his selflessness.

He looked up at me, his eyes soft and sincere. "Anytime, Y/N. I'm just glad to be here with you."

I smiled, feeling a sense of contentment wash over me. It felt strange, having Ryan here in my room, but also strangely comforting. We had shared so many memories in this space, and having him here now felt like coming full circle.

"Hey, Ryan?" I said quietly, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Yeah?"

"Would you... would you like to share the bed? Like we used to when we were kids?"

He looked surprised, but a hint of a smile played at the corners of his lips. "Are you sure?"

I nodded, feeling a sudden rush of courage. "Yeah. I mean, if you're comfortable with it."

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded, his smile widening. "I'd like that, Y/N. I’d like that a lot."

We rearranged the blankets and pillows, making room for both of us on the bed. As we settled in, side by side, I felt a sense of closeness that I hadn't felt in a long time. It felt right, having Ryan here beside me, sharing this intimate space.

"Goodnight, Y/N," he said softly, his voice laced with warmth.

"Goodnight, Ryan," I replied, feeling a sense of peace settle over me as I drifted off to sleep, wrapped in his comforting presence. It was a night I would never forget, a night that marked the beginning of something new and beautiful between us.

sorry I haven't been posting. I took a break and it was well needed! but im back should be putting out requests this week.

[td-scenarios]

Request: Confessional about s/o for Cody, Scott, Justin, Heather, and Lindsey? Have a great day!

(I hope u dont mind if it's pre-relationship! u didn't clarify, but i thought them talking abt their crush on reader would be cute :] )

__________________________________________

Scott

He looks slightly disturbed being here. A shifty look in his eye, almost as if he was nervous to look directly at the camera. Every time Scott had been in to make a confessional up until this point was to explain whatever he had been planning for the competition, so this was unsettling for him to say the least.

"So, Y/N, am I right?" He started before the camera fizzed out and came back to him in a different position. "Nevermind this is stupid."

It would take a while until Scott would brave the confessional again. This time, he was gripping his head like a madman. Slowly, his head tilted up until he was holding onto his face with his eyes framed by his fingers.

"I can't take it anymore. They're perfect! My schemes can't touch 'em!" His hands had left his face and he was gesturing wildly. "I don't think I even WANT my schemes to affect them. Woah. I never thought I'd say that."

Scott blinked dumbly at the camera before a scowl took over his expression.

"Y/N I'm comin' for ya."

-

Lindsay

"Oh my gosh!" Lindsay twirled a strand of her hair around her finger as she stared off into the distance past the camera. "Do you guys think that Y/N likes me? 'Cause I toooootally like them. Like, I like-like them." A dreamy smile plastered on her face as she kept talking. "I hope they like me back. Like who wouldn't?"

She thought about what she said for a second, her expression a bit grave as it finally focused on the camera.

"People like me, right? Yeah, they do. That means Y/N has to like me." A pause. "Ooooooh, but what if they don't?" Lindsay tapped her chin in thought at the idea. "Whatever! They're really cute and like smart and amazing!" The blonde finally stopped talking and just sat there with her head resting on her hands as she let out a wistful sigh. This pause continued for about a minute before she finally perked up and tilted her head at the camera.

"Wait, is this still going?"

-

Justin

The model tapped his finger on the vanity as he was thinking about what he should say. He finally looked up and fixed his hair in the mirror as he started talking.

"I never thought I'd meet anyone as gorgeous as me. And I haven't. But Y/N comes pretty close and that's dangerous. They're stunning and their wit is unmatched." His lips puckered in defeat since his hair wasn't falling the way he wanted to. Ultimately, he gave up on it as he kept talking.

"Maybe I should go for an alliance with them. The thought of getting Y/N voted off just...doesn't sit right with me. But I also can't have this sort of competition."

Justin sat there with a frown, not really knowing what his plans would become at this stage. He sighed before he shot a smirk back up at the camera.

"I need to stop with all this thinking, it's making me ugly."

-

Heather

"They're insufferable!" Heather growled, folding her arms across her body while glaring off to the side. "All they do is be stupidly kind and have a dumb face and...and...and well they piss me off!"

"I need Y/N out of this game. Pronto! If I am to keep my game face on then Y/N has to go. They're totally messing everything up!"

Heather huffed and continued stewing in her anger. Eventually, she kept sputtering on some anger fueled words before letting out a frustrated groan.

"I can't believe this is happening..." She grumbled, scrunching in on herself more.

Before the camera fizzed out, a slight smile was seen on Heather's face as she let out a dreamy sigh.

-

Cody

"Wow. Y/N..." Cody sat there, staring at the camera with the most overjoyed look on his face. "They're probably the first person I've ever found attractive that is actually giving me the time of day! This is great!!"

Cody silently cheered, raising his arms in the air with a big smile on his face. Once his tiny little self-contained celebration was over he finally began speaking once more.

"I really really hope they like me back. Wouldn't that be awesome?" He got a bit closer to the camera, a smile on his face.

"I mean, they don't push me away, they're not mean to me, and they actually laugh at my jokes! I think that the Codemeister has finally done it." His ecstatic boy-ish demeanor quickly replaced with a more smug one.

"Or, at least, I hope so."

[emeryhiro]

My thoughts on TBOC 206 script & Caryl canon.

Before I get into my thought I want to clarify a few things, and this may come across as blunt, however, I feel that bluntness is nessary in this instance.

Firstly, I wasn't planning on adressing the leaked script pages, however, after reading some of the positive and negative posts about it, I feel like I should also share my thoughts and clarify some things that may be misunderstood about me as well.

Secondly, (and this may not sound relevant right now but bear with me for a second) I'm an engineer who works in the construction industry, I'm also a post grad architecture student, both of which are roles that require at the very least a competent level of critical thinking as a baseline skill. Why I'm sharing this information is becasue those skills are what I use to develop the thoughts and opinions that I share. I also want to say that I'm in no way familiar with the way things are run in the entertainment industry, whether that's production companies, directors, producers, or actors, I'm just a fan of the arts who loves delving deep into lore-rich stories and sharing my thoughts with others who also love the same things.

So now that you have my cridentials😅 you can come to your own decisions on how you approach and what you take away from the thoughts I share.

Where I stand on Carol and Daryl's relationship.

Over the past few months, I've had several messages saying that my opinion may be biased or that I'm just being overly optimistic because I'm a Caryl fan. So the first thing that i want to say is that this fandom is very dear to me. And even though I have only in the past year begun to be more vocal on these tags, I have been on this platform and a part of the fandom for a very long time.

As someone who had the opportunity to see episode one early, I feel that I have a responsibility to be honest with everyone who's relying on my opinion. I would never want to give false hope to those who (similar to me) love Caryl and are excited about canon, only for them to be even more disappointed in the end.

I respect and understand that everyone has their own reasons for watching/not watching and loving/hating a show. However, I myself will 100% still be watching season 2 and all the seasons to come, even if we never get canon. I love Carol and Daryl as individual characters, and I watched twd because I loved the show and it's premise. Daryl and Carol are a massive part of why I loved the show, they also happen to be my favourite characters in fiction, and Caryl canon is what I've always wanted for them, BUT I'm not, never have, and never will be watching for Caryl canon alone. Will I be disappointed if it never happens? Yes, definitely! But I'll still be watching because of everything else that I love about the show and the characters.

Even if the show was just about Daryl, or just about Carol I'd still be watching every single episode and loving it. So to summarise what I'm trying to say, the thoughts and opinions that I share publicly are not biased (at least not consciously) by my love for the idea of Caryl unless I specifically say that I'm "fangirling" which you may have notice me clarifiying in some of my posts.

SPOILER WARNING - Thoughts on the leaked ep 206 script below the line.

TBOC 206 Script

Implications on Caryl canon:

I don't see anything in these pages that implies whether or not canon has or hasn't happened, the whole scene that it describes can't be more than 5-10 minutes long, which is why there is no point assuming either way.

If canon has happened, I don't expect them to be mentioning it in a scene where they're seperated for the most of it, with one of them getting almost beat/shot to death, the other fighting several walkers and collapsing, and both of them most probably inhaling poisonous gas. Not exactly the type of scene where you can create the perfect romantic Caryl moments. And not so different from the TOWL finale scene between Rick and Michonne as they escape the walkers/gas.

~~~

The Parallel:

One thing I haven't seen anyone talk about is the parrallel of the scene between Daryl and his hallucination of Isabelle, and the scene between Carol and her hallucination of Alpha from S10 EP14.

Firstly, I don't think Isabelle is meant to represent an angel to Daryl in this moment, just like how Alpha didn't represent a demon to Carol. Neither actually represents the characters themselves, and both are just personification of the conflicts that's going on in each of their minds, and perhaps another similarity is that they're both personifications of people who they believe got them to the situation they're in.

Secondly, In both scenes Daryl and Carol seem completely overwhlmed by guilt and ready to let go and give up. The scene from S10EP14 didn't mean that Carol didn't love Daryl, on the contrary a reminder of him was what snapped her out of the physical and mental trap she was in and gave her the motivation and drive to fight again.

I think the same can be said about Daryl in the TBOC EP06 scene, he's "ready to let go" and this isn't becasue he doesn't love Carol but it's becasue he feels as though he's constantly failing everyone who relies on him, including Merle, Beth, Glenn, Isabelle and in his mind Carol could be next. But what gets him to fight again? Isabelle saying:

"Not like him."

refering to his grandfather. In season 1 we learnt exactly what Daryl didn't want to do and in what way's he didn't want to be like his grandfather. The main one being that his granfather left his family behind, which resulted in generational trauma that he couldn't protect his family from, only becasue he went to fight someone else's war.

What I've taken away from this is that in that moment he believes it's too late, he failed the ones he was supposed to protect from the Nest, and now by losing and dying the fight in that moment it would mean that he also failed his real family and won't be able to protect them. Like everything he did was in vain.

This is exactly what "Isabelle" reminds him of, that yes maybe he did fail to protect her and the people from his past, but unlike his grandfather who died "bloody and bullet riddled" Daryl is still breathing and as long as he's alive there's still the possibility and "hope" of protecting his family. He becomes determined and starts to fight back becasue he's reminded to "Bet on hope".

~~~

The fight scenes:

It appears that Carol and Daryl are in a tunnel with Cordon, and two new characters named Angus and Fiona. I want to point out that it looks like the fight between Codron and Daryl is once again becasue Codron blames Daryl for killing his brother, however, I find it hard to believe that we're in episode 206 and that issue hasn't been resolved yet, which leads me to believe that perhaps there's something paticular about the gas in the tunnel that's causing helusination and all at the same time making:

Codron see his dead brother and run after him like he's hipnotised

Carol seeing, speaking and interacting with Sofia

Daryl seeing and speaking with Isabelle

The pages also show that the fight between Angus, Fiona, and Daryl was about gas masks. It sounds to me like Angus and Fiona perhaps used Daryl to help them get the masks and when finding that there's only two masks, they try to knock him out and have to kill him so that they can take the masks for themselves, gas masks that Carol and him need to get through the tunnel to get home.

I can't wait to see how that fight scene plays on screen! I have a weakness for the way Daryl and Carol become so brutal when fighting to protect each other. Because Angus and Fiona don't sound like antagonists when they're speaking with Daryl, and saying:

"Sorry, friend, ain't enough masks for the lot of us." "Got people waiting back home."

They just sounds like two people who, like Carol and Daryl, are trying to get back to the people waiting for them.

This is more of a personal guess than a proper thought: after the fight as Daryl hands one of the masks to Carol he says "It was us or them." and what I think he really meant was "it was you or them" because he was ready to die moments earlier until he was reminded of her, emphasising my earlier points on how they fight for eachother and live for each other.

~~~

The Tunnel:

Lastly, and probably most importantly, these script pages don't tell us how Daryl and Carol ended up in that situation or which part of the episode this is in, without that context there's no way to know what anything really means.

Some of the questions that I think are important and thoughts that I have:

What events lead up to the fight?

We know that Carol is outside the "camp" as described in the script, and that Carol faught at least 3 walkers and collapsed on the ground, but did Daryl know where she was or if she was okay before he saw her after his fight?

Why would his first thought/guess be of Carol when he saw a "blurry figure approaching."

Would they really end the episode like this, leaving Codrons fate as a huge questions mark? (I don't think they would, seems harsh and like they're throwing away such an interesting character)

As seen in the trailer, the tunnel that they're in is the Channel Tunnel which connects France and England, BUT, we also know as it has been offically announced that season 3 is set in Spain not England, so logcially Carol and Daryl aren't gonna be going all the way through the tunnel only to turn all the way back, which leads me to believe that either they don't end up going through, the season ends as they're walking further into the tunnel, and season 3 will explain how/when they turned around, OR, this isn't actually the final scene 🤷‍♀️

LITTLE (hopefully interesting) HINT ABOUT THE OPENING CREDITS: There's a scene that's described in one of these script pages that's also included in the opening credits.

~~~

Some additional thoughts:

The fireflies that appear as Isabelle walks away. I have a few different ideas on what this could mean but it's impossible to tell without the visual context. Also Dary's "wtf?" reaction to the fireflies had me laughing out loud! That right there reads like some good comedic timing.

We're getting another "You okay?" moment!! Those moments are some of my favourite and most tender/affectionate moments between Carol and Daryl. I can't wait to see how they play this one 😭💖

Sorry but I can sense more tension between Codron and Daryl in their fight scene than all the Isabelle and Daryl scenes combined... 🤣

~~~

To Summarise:

These scripts don't cover enough for any level of resonable doubt or concern. How something reads on a script can turn out sooo different on screen, and what I know from all the other season of twd, is that Norman and Melissa can turn something that may come across as basic, misleading or confusing on script into something incredibly magical on screen which also often turns into some of our favourite scenes between the two of them.

I completely trust Norman and Melissa with the story, and if the story never goes to canon and we end up getting something different I know that it's still gonna be an incredible story.

Although, I do still stand by my thoughts that we're heading towards canon. If Carol and Daryl need season 2 to finally heal and then approach canon on more solid ground in season 3 than so be it, because that would make sense and it would be a fair way to begin a canon relationship between the two. However I can also see the beginnings of a conversation about canon, or even actual canon happening in season 2.

It all seems possible to me and it's now all up to how Norman and Melissa want to tell the story, which I'll be anxiously waiting for and respect no matter what.

~~~

Thank you @celtic-crossbow for giving me the push I needed to share my thoughts on these matters🩵🩵

And thank you to all of you who read through this extensive post. I appreciate all of you who read my thoughts, engage with it, share your thoughts in return, ask me questions. I'm sorry for my bluntness in some areas within this post, I think it was important for me to address and clarify some things in order to avoid further confusion.

I'm so excited that we are now only 8 weeks away from the offical premiere of season 2!!! After a long wait we're finally gonna have our favourite characters sharing a frame on our screen again, and if that in itself isn't a reason to celebrate than I don't know what is.

[sebastiancats]

Probably a clue to the cult that kidnapped the twins

Ok, this is my first post here and I don't know much about English so I'll use the translator.I hope that a part of kurofandom can see this and tell me what they think.

A few days ago I started rereading the twin reveal arc manga, and since lately I've been doing research on gothic/medieval architecture, I saw this panel from chapter 135 and thought "this castle seems to be medieval".

then the idea of looking for information on satanic sects during the Victorian era occurred to me, and although in reality there was very little information about it, after searching for a while I finally found a page that told me about what I was looking for.

Well this information is about a man named Sir Francis Dashwood, like many of the young people of Victorian England who prided themselves on being part of blue blood families, he was an inexhaustible traveler. He toured almost all of Europe as part of his training, but he always expressed a very marked passion for Italy. Dashwood was a man of the world, surrounded by powerful friends in politics, banking and the art world. He held important positions in the civil service of England. He was also a notable lover of parties, music, food, drink and women in large quantities, in addition to art and Greco-Roman cultures. Quite a character with notable influences that he had access to practically what he wanted. He lived near the River Thames, in Buckinghamshire, in a huge mansion in West Wycombe, surrounded by luxuries and servants who fulfilled any mandate 24 hours a day. In it he held meetings with notable friends of his and members of Masonic lodges in which his vices surfaced permanently.

However, he had in mind the creation of a select secret group in which he could discuss freely about political and philosophical issues exclusively, made up of elegant and influential gentlemen from English high society. This is how he found the ideal place to carry out these meetings: Medmenham Abbey, whose owners were members of the Duffield family, and which was about five kilometers away from his mansion. The Duffields agreed to rent the property, erected around 1200 by a congregation of Cistercian monks. The place was perfect in every way: away from prying eyes and with an atmosphere of mysticism, thanks to its medieval air that enchanted Sir Francis.

He had a good number of statues of pagan gods moved to the property and decorated the walls with mocking phrases such as: Peni tento, non penitenti ("a stiff penis, no penance"). On the reception door he had the following legend engraved: Fay ce que voudras (<< Do what you want »), which would later be adopted by the magician Aleister Crowley as his personal phrase. The place was ready to receive Dashwood's guests and start the meetings of the new Hell-Fire Club. From this moment is where the myths and legends are born around the dark activities of this sinister cult where its members arrive at the abbey aboard small boats, dressed as monks, carrying candles in their hands and singing Gregorian chants.

It should be clarified that in reality the cult called themselves "The Monks of Medmenham". The name "Hell-Fire" club was more of a derogatory nickname.

So reading all this information I realized something, the phrase that this cult used was "fray ce que voudras" which means "Do what you want" or "Do your will" and this same phrase is used by the members of the cult that kidnapped to the twins.

In this part of chapter 135.

here I realized that when they arrive at that castle the receptionist asks "are you a monk?" To which the other responds with "Fay ce que voudras" (Do what you want). The same phrase used by members of the cult The Monks of Medmenham.

So I would assume that this is a hint that Yana left us and I don't see anyone else talking about it. I don't know if so many people from kurofandom follow me but tell me what you think about this, we should investigate further but I think this is a very obvious clue. 😸

[thequietkid-moonie]

Ok but: Estúpido Cupido (written by Celly Campello, don't mistake it for her album although it has really great songs as well) with Loid

Fake dating a unpredictable and carefree reader

[ HEADCANONS ] [ Loid Forger ]

[ Spy x Family ]

› Song that inspired this [ Estúpido Cupido - Celly Campello ]

× In this fic you take Yor's place

I really liked the song, I really loved the rhythm, I almost start dancing 🤭 I read the lyrics before hearing the song and it fits really well the rhythm!!

Well my dear, I hope you like this as much as I did ❤️ (i hope I don't disappoint you with the idea I had)

One day you were just walking down the streets as usual when you end up bumping into a handsome gentleman, he was so kind and polite and you couldn't stop yourself and end up talking to him more than you thought, even getting the opportunity to meet his little daughter, who looks at you curiosily but doesn't leave her father's side

In one moment of the conversation the man asked you if you could be so kind to do him a favor and impersonate his spouse, embarrassed but determinanted explaining that the last wish of his deceased wife was to give the best education to her beloved daughter on Eden Academy but he won't be able to do it if he was all alone, maybe was because of how endearing was his determinantion or maybe it was just pity, but for whatever reason you accepted helping him with this (also, it could help you cover up your terrible love life)

That way you two started living together, playing the role of a beautiful and happy marriage couple, however non of you would guess what it will become your life together. As well, both of you had to get used to each other in little time, at least enough until the interview with the directors of the school came

For you it was funny all the preparation Loid wanted to have for the interview, making a lot of efforts for this to work and you couldn't help but laugh at his plan, he was thinking that you probably weren't taking this seriously and that he will have to carry it from the most part himself but you truly surprised him when in the interview you remember most of the things he had told you and even tried to help Anya when she forgot, he even can see how irritated you were by one of the men that were being specially pushy with you but you tried to keep the facade

After the interview, once in house the atmosphere was very tense but you break the silence finally expressing how disgusting and irritating that bitter man was and started saying that you were sure that Anya would be able to enter on that school even if you have to force it, it was obvious that you were just trying to cheer them up, what started to work, specially with Anya, and Loid can't help but smile at your attitude

From that day his life become a pretty messy caos full of surprises, Loid was used to adapt to all the situation and act conform to them but your carefree and sometimes cheerful attitude was something that always manage to surprised him, it was something that stressed him at first not knowing how to handle it but as the time pass he just started to learn to follow your lead and even trust you more (and yet you always manage to surprise him sometimes)

He get used to you doing what you want or saying what is on your mind without worring much but that doesn't stop him from worring and getting taken aback, like that time when you spent some time looking at him pretty wary, he was troubled thinking if he had done something suspicious or make you doubt him until you finally tell him what was in your mind, out of the blue without any kind of warning you just tell him that he was too perfect like if it was something bad, you were even wondering how the hell he was single before meeting him, he was dumbfounded but before he could say anything you clarified that you weren't complaining with a smile before going away without giving him the chance to say something

Loid is constantly wondering what you will do next, he doesn't really know what to expect when you had suprised him with all kind of things, with compliments out of the blue (ones that related to his person and not like the spy, ones that he isn't used to), with being more perceptive that he thought before or even just taking things like normal and don't make a big deal out of them (even when he had thought on a million of excuses to explain himself), there are some times when you ask him if you two shouldn't being doing things that couples normally do like dates and other times you just become affectionate out of the blue (like taking his hand so casually)

Coming home to see you and Anya becomes almost like a playful what to guess what he would find, some days he find you doing chores or even making dinner, other days he had came home to see you and Anya playing to be spies around the house, others days you are just passing a more calm time with Anya on the couch, and yet not matter what he find he is never disappointed

After a while Loid start to feel expectant of what little adventures he will have with you and Anya, he start to feel excited even over the days the three of you just have time to relax and yet Loid doesn't allow himself to admit it, he always repeat to himself that is for the mission and that he has to be ready to whatever you will do, he can't let himself get surprised by you, but as much as he tries to prepare himself and be ready so you don't surprise him you always manage to find ways to do it, you can easily flustered him or make him feel so comfortable and relaxed that he just forget for a moment about the mission

Loid tried to deny it and tell himself that this is all for the mission but deep down he is always happy to see you, his heart beat faster with amusment every time you surprised him, and he will never accept it out loud but almost every time he smiles at you and Anya his smiles is sincere and full of love

[msfcatlover]

Tim walking into Corruption!Damian's room, and gently placing a weird package down on Damian's desk while Damian watches. Tim giving Damian what Tim probably thinks is a meaningful look, taking in Damian's blank expression, and snorting. Tim rolling his eyes and just saying "You're welcome," before walking out again.

Damian has absolutely no idea what to make of it, until the eggs hatch.

A month later, Tim walks in with a slightly different package and does the exact same thing. Desk, stare, "You're welcome." Damian opens his mouth to ask, but Tim's already gone.

Tim keeps doing it, sometimes when Damian's not even in the room; Damian will just open his bedroom door, and there's a new package on his desk. Which would all be weird enough, if it weren't for the fact that the packages are all different. Different labels, different brands, different logos, even different languages on the labels & instructions.

Damian doesn't know what to do with all these moths. He can't let them loose, this isn't their native environment. He can't send them back, they're too fragile; he's terrified something will happen in transit, killing them all. He'd love to adopt them into his swarm, but Damian is unsure of exactly how that would work—he's never added anything, the moths simply chose him— plus, he doesn't know where the limits of his patron's generosity lie. At this point , Damian has more caterpillars than biomass to potentially hold them, and Damian doesn't want to crowd out the few resilient moths he has left, while also making life worse for the new ones.

(Damian probably shouldn't worry about that, given Jane Prentiss had a literal flood of worms at her command, but then, Damian's relationship with his swarm at this point in time is a hell of a lot healthier than Prentiss's. And the Corruption doesn't really do "healthy" in any way shape or form. So maybe he's right to.)

.

Damian ends up with a new greenhouse. He fills it with plants from around Nanda Parbat, but especially caters to the ailanthus trees he has shipped in. A perfect little Eden for his moths to inhabit.

Tim seems annoyed by this outcome. Damian finally loses patience, demanding to know what Tim thought the outcome would be. (What Tim's intentions were.)

Tim frowns, bemused. "You need more genetic diversity." Damian has no idea what he's talking about. "For your swarm," Tim clarifies.

"My swarm is fine!"

"Dames, you told me you had like 10 moths when you made it to Gotham." Tim raises his eyebrows, like he's stating the obvious. "You have to know that's not a healthy number. Right?"

Damian presses a hand to his chest, a protective tic Dick encouraged despite Damian learning years ago not to give away his feelings (especially not when they might risk his swarm.) "They're strong," he says, voice soft but firm, "they survived Grandfather, the Pit, my—recovery." (Damian doesn't like to think about those months, when his swarm was trapped under his skin, re-burrowing their tunnels, unable to spread their wings. The pain of his flesh being re-molded to its chosen purpose was nothing compared to the weeks Damian had thought the creatures he'd poured his whole being into nurturing, the special moths who changed in order to bond just with him, were extinct.) He glares at Tim. "We don't need your help."

"That's not what you said when I got back," Tim says with a smirk, and Damian looks away. Tim sighs. "I was going to stop soon anyway. Just... consider it, okay? None of us wants to deal with it if it turns out they're weak to the flu."

"They're moths," Damian snaps, more on instinct than anything else, "they can't get the flu."

"Actually, modern studies on transmissible disease—"

Damian scoffs and storms off. (Tim pats himself on the back for definitely winning that argument.)

.

Damian does not add Tim's foreign moths to his swarm. But... he does spend a lot of time in the greenhouse, reading or drawing, and letting his swarm run free. (Damian's their Hive, not their keeper. It's none of his business what his moths get up to when he lets them out to play.)

[androgynousblackbox]

How I Met Your Father. 11 [Appleradio, Radioapple]

AO3 link

How We Got Separated

"Where are you going?" Emily asked, floating behind him.

Alastor did not answer. He kept making his way to the main doors that thankfully were easy to find. The door that he came out from was one of many in an ample circle full of other ones, but he could not care less to find out what was behind them. There were no other angels or winged creatures present. Only Emily that seemed to be more curious to know what he was planning than to stop him.

When Alastor opened up the crystal doors, he had to squint his eyes again. Why did everything in this place had to be so bright? How did anyone could see anything like that? As soon his vision adjusted, his stomach dropped through the floor back to home.

The sky was a clear perfect blue, decorated with fluffy white clouds. All the street were spotless shinny gold reflecting that could reflect anything like a mirror. Not a single trace of vomit, trash or blood as far the eyes could see. Nobody was fighting or yelling. Every creature that was passing by had their own set of wings and halo.

The air he was breathing in was too pure. It smelled vaguely pleasant, like someone was baking cookies everywhere at the same time. So perfectly organized, so immaculate that surely not even a pin would be out of place without getting fixed.

Alastor felt his own soul snearing. How could anything be so vile? How did anyone could live like this and not want to blow their head off to scape it? Where was the chaos? Where was the violence and grossness of the human condition? Where was the power struggle and the heart wrenching failure? Where was the fear that pumped the heart? Why nobody was screaming!?

What kind of monster could set up such a setting for eternity?

Controlling his own nausea, Alastor forced himself to move. He had already seen where he wanted to go. Emily noticed the direction of his eyes and perked up.

"Oh, do you want to see Saint Peter?" asked.

"Yes" said without looking at her.

The creatures that were on his way all moved to let him pass. They weren't doing it out of fear for knowing his reputation. They were just being polite. Some even said "excuse me" as if somehow it was their mistake that Alastor wasn't paying any attention to them.

Hell.

This place had to be the real hell after all. It made sense. He had too much fun back at home and now finally was receiving the punishment he deserved. His own personal hell. And he was called cruel? Oh, whatever he ever did, alive or dead, was child's play compared with the sadistic mind that would make such a horror as this one.

Alastor speed up.

"I can take you with him directly if you want" offered Emily, keeping up easily with him.

"No, thank you" said Alastor, clenching his jaw. "I missed the part where you explain why you are following me."

"Well, you seem… a little upset. And it's my job to spread joy to everyone so, I should probably do something with that. If there is any way in which I help you out to adapt better to Heaven, please let me know."

"Joy?" Alastor laughed, like that was a foreign idea. In this place at least it was and certainly more with this creature that was annoyingly remind him to Charlie. Good grief, that would be just the best way to torture him. To twist the knife on his gut real good. "Are you part of my punishment too?"

"What?" When Alastor didn't clarified any further, she continued, concern layering her voice. "I am… Are you okay? Maybe the travel was too abrupt and left you confused? I assure you, nobody is here to punish you. The punishment is over actually! You don't have to worry about anything anymore."

Alastor stopped on his tracks and turned to her.

"I assure you, my dear. I am very well aware and conscious of my surroundings" said, his smile feeling tense as his eye twitched. "That is not the issue I am facing. If you care about my wellbeing, you can rest easy now and come back to your heavinly duties. I don't need a babysitter."

Emily pouted at that. Clearly, she wasn't used to people rejecting her help. He started walking again and she didn't stay behind.

"I am not trying to babysit you!" she protested, floating at his side. "You are obviously going through something right now and a friendly hand goes a long way! If you let me help you, I am sure you will feel better."

Alastor looked around them, almost expecting mocking faces or people to look weirded out at anyone trying to be caring out of in the open. But everyone just kept walking, trusting that whatever was happening this Emily would know how to handle it already. That also meant that nobody was going to do anything to take this angel off his back if she decided to stick around.

He mentally groaned. Maybe if he played along for a bit she would be convinced to leave him alone.

"I changed my mind. Take me to Saint Peter" said and after a beat, added. "Please."

Emily arched an eyebrow, but she still smiled with a nod.

"Of course. I understand that for new souls it's always difficult to adapt to their wings. Later I can teach you how to handle yours! Lift your arms."

"My what" Alastor lifted his arms, trying to look at his back when suddenly Emily took him by the hands, elevating him on the air.

The travel up to the gold gates he had seen at a distance lasted only a few minutes. Emily let him land softly on the ground and floated to knock on the gate.

"Peter, can you come in for a moment? A new soul that just arrived wants to speak to you."

"Sure!" A perky voice answered on the other side and the gates opened. Alastor saw another road of gold up ahead that got lost in more clouds, no clear beggining or end. If he managed to jump from it, would he be able to get home or would just be a splatter on Earth, only to be brought back again? "What I can help you with?"

Alastor looked up to the saint and something inside recoiled at his too big openly friendly smile, full of good disposition to spare laid out in the open. Was this man ever really a human? Where was his nose? What did Heaven had against noses?

"I wanted to ask if you can see my name" said Alastor, after swallowing. "I believe there must have been a mistake. I shouldn't be here."

"Well, my friend, if you are here it must be because you are supposed to be here! Although it is weird that you didn't appear here directly. I am supposed to be the one to greet the new ones, not you, Emily" commented Saint Peter with a slight frown.

"That is because he is a reformed soul!" intervened Emily enthusiastically. "He appeared right in front of me and Sera at the very center of everything! That must be why he had a different way of entrance."

"Oh, seriously? Reformed from where?" Saint Peter looked at him with a new look of curiosity and Alastor showed his teeth on a too wide smile too, more than willing to bite if he put his hand on him. Saint Peter made a oh sound when understading reached him. "From downstairs. Right. Yeah, I can see that now. He is still a bit… rough around the edges, huh?"

"I am sure a period of adjustment is to be expected" said Emily, conciliatory.

"I will say. But anyway!" Saint Peter shrugged, elevating himself on the air to reach his book. With a flick of his wrist the thick volume floated in front of him, the pages moving from front to back. "I can take a look if that makes you feel any better. Your name, please?"

"Alastor… " Alastor looked down at his hand to see that his wedding ring was gone.

He was expecting something like that, it was only logical, but actually seeing it was still a new kick to the face. To make it even worse, his hands were so different now. The skin of his hands was desaturated brown instead of pure black and the tips of his fingers had lost their intense red color, turning into a muted pink. If Charlie was there, people wouldn't connect them directly as father and daughter even if they did paid attention.

"Alastor… what?" asked Saint Peter.

Alastor frowned. Did that last name even applied to him anymore? They had taken his colors, his family, why not his last name too?

"Try Morningstar" suggested anyway, without noticing the way that Emily's eyes light up. "If that doesn't appear, Abaddon."

"Morningstar?!" repeated Emily, looking him down and up. She gasped, holding her own cheeks. "Are you the father of Charlie Morningstar by any chance? I did heard that one of her parents was a sinner! I knooow…" The eyes of Emily darted for a second to Saint Peter, concentrated on looking in his book. "I mean, I didn't know that you were him! What a coincidence that you would be the first success of her hotel!"

The way she laughed, keeping tabs on Saint Peter, concentrated on his book, made Alastor suddenly a bit more interested on her. He decided to save that as a mental note for later.

"I am" said, relaxing a bit more around her.

Charlie did mentioned a seraphim that was willing to listen and believed on her ideals just as much as she did. This one had to be it. Emily smiled again, taking his hand to pat it gently. Alastor allowed her to.

"She would be so proud of seeing you right now."

He just let the silence fill the space until Saint Peter spoke up again.

"You are here" said, floating close to Alastor. He turned the book around so Alastor could see his name, at the very bottom, written with the same golden ink as any other. "Right there, see? Alastor Morningstar."

A small comfort, but a comfort all the same. Alastor clinged to that feeling as strong as he could. That is right, that was him. He was part of the Morningstar family, ring or not.

"I suppose you don't actually know why, though" said, knowing already that it was useless and useless it was when Saint Peter shrugged.

"Sorry, not my job" said, returning the book to its place. "Is there anything else I can do?"

Alastor looked at the saint and then at the gates.

"Oh no! What is that horrible thing over there?" Alastor pointed at something on the side.

When both angel and saint turned their heads, he made his way to the open gates. The stupidest and oldest tricks on the book sometimes could still work. But even though he was sure that his feet landed on the other side, he felt a pressure around him as if moving through a wave and suddenly found himself in the exact same place where he started.

"What are you doing?" asked Saint Peter, honestly confused.

Alastor grunted and ran again. For a second he thought this was working, only to be pushed back.

"Is… is he trying to leave?" Saint Peter looked to Emily to confirm that his eyes weren't deceiving him. Nobody had ever tried to leave.

"Mmm" Emily frowned with concern when Alastor raced a long way back and then throw himself to the open gates, with the expected result of landing on the floor over his side. He couldn't get hurt, but still it wasn't something she liked to see. "Alastor, I don't think that is going to work."

Alastor glared at her. The sudden rage behind his eyes took her aback, but did not scared her and that was even worse for his mood. She had no reason to fear him. Here they were on her home. She had the power and ranking over him, which meant he was at her mercy.

Emily offered him her hand to help stand up and Alastor took it. But instead of lifting himself up, he pulled the angel closer and spoke to her on a low, controlled, voice, just for her ears.

"Get me out of here or I will tell everyone you helped out the king of hell to have an unofficial meeting with a winner. Let's see what the rest of heaven thinks of a seraphim that is supposed to spread joy breaking the rules."

"Everything okay?" asked Saint Peter.

"Yes!" said Emily, quickly, turning around to him. Alastor was relieved to see that he had hit the nail on the head. He wasn't entirely sure she was the same seraphim when he said that. "Everything is perfect! Alastor was just… playing a little prank, right? Right, Alastor? A little joke for Peter?"

That was more like it.

"Yes, a prank" said, returning to his normal charming smile. "A winner trying to escape heaven after finally managing to get out of hell! Tell me if that is not the hilarious thing you have ever heard."

"Ooh, I get it now!" Saint Peter laughed, so hard that his eyes started to tear up. "That is hilarious! You would have to be an idiot to do a thing like that!" He calmed down finally, smiling to Emily. "Heaven could always do with another kidder, right? Makes things more interesting."

"Absolutely, yes" Emily bite her lip. "But, uh, I have to give Alastor the tour now. You know the drill! I will let you get back to work."

"Don't worry, it was a slow day anyway so I needed the distraction" Saint Peter chuckled as he patted the back of Alastor, completely missing the look full of murderous intent that he got as a response as he flew to the other side of the entrance no issue. "Welcome to heaven, Alastor. Feel free to come by anytime!"

"Thanks for your help!" said Emily, waving at the man until the gates were closed. Once she was sure they weren't moving anymore and therefore Saint Peter couldn't hear them, she turned to Alastor with tense fists at her side. "You know, when someone does a favor for you, most people would be grateful instead of holding it over their heads by blackmailing them!"

"I was grateful" said Alastor calmly", right until I got stuck here against my will. I was perfectly content back in hell."

Emily's eyes widened at that.

"Wait, really? I thought the hotel was for redemption. Isn't end up here supposed to be the goal?"

"Mine wasn't. I was only there to support Charlie" Alastor sighed, rubbing his temple. This is what it got him try to be a good father. "I had a daughter, a husband and a life I had built for myself after years of hardwork. Why, and pardon my french, the hell would I want to give up any of that to be here?"

"Oh" Emily looked down, twisting her hands together. "I-I am sorry, I didn't know. I thought this was what you were looking for. If you didn't, then of course you would be upset to being send to an entirely different realm."

Alastor let his shoulder fall. Truly, she wasn't more to blame for his situation than anything else was. At least she was able to actually listen instead of insisting how lucky he should feel for being there.

"I have to get back. My family needs me" Emily nodded, but her eyes still had doubt on them. Alastor crossed his arms. "Surely there must be a precedent to a soul being send back to hell. If my husband managed to get kicked out from here, there is no reason why I shouldn't."

"Your… Oh, right, Lucifer. I don't know, Alastor. Angels and human souls are not really treated the same. I think maybe the rules are a bit more strict for us. Heaven is supposed to be for humans after all."

Alastor thought of Adam. That crude, violent man who took genuine joy of slaughtering people. Besides that last detail, with no redeeming qualities that he could imagine. A human soul given too much power that reveled on it. Maybe that was the real reason why he still was up in Heaven while others had been casted out for doing a lot less. He had been deemed "worthy" already, the decision was final.

"I have no use for a place like this" said, disgusted at the thought. "Find a way to get me back or I will do it after telling everyone what you did. If I have to burn every house I come across and slash every neck that I can get my hands on, then I will. I will show to you and the rest of heaven how right they were sending me to hell."

Alastor wanted to call his magic to give his words more emphasis. But his shadows didn't respond and no tentacles were coming out of him. Did he even had any power left on this new realm? It made him sick just to think of how weak he had to be now. He didn't let any of that show on his face, smiling as usual.

Emily stared at him, not sure of how to respond.

"Okay, so, just so we are clear, we don't want to come to that, right? We both can agree there" asked after a while.

"I don't know, I feel with a particularly arsonist mood every minute I am away home" He sighed. "I am missing the battle too by being here. That doesn't help."

"You mean the… Oh" Emily floated closer and Alastor remembered that the rest of Heaven wasn't supposed to know about the extermination. He could probably use that as more leverage. "Is that how you ended up here?"

"Are you asking me how I died for the second time?" Alastor arched an eyebrow, amused. "Isn't that a morbid topic for an angel to feel curious about? Do you want me to describe how I felt myself drowning on my own blood, my dear? Or how I touched the injury of my neck open? Oh, wait, I could give you a demostration myself! Since Heaven won't let me have pain, I could just…"

"Do you do that a lot?" asked Emily suddenly. "I already accepted to help you out, Alastor. You don't have to try to intimidate me."

Alastor cleared his throat. Old habits died hard. She was more perceptive he gave her credit for.

"You do realize that try to send a winner to hell falls under the breaking rules category, right?" changed the topic easily.

"But if I don't do it, you will tell I already broke the rules before so what is the difference?" Emily frowned. "And just so you know, I would have help you even if you weren't backmailing me. If you genuinely are miserable in Heaven and want to return to your family, that would be the least thing I could do. I don't want anyone to be sad for all eternity."

"My mood is irrelevant. Like I said, they need me down there" clarified Alastor, holding his hands behind his back. "That is a nice sentiment, but I need to be sure we are going to be on the same boat, dear" Alastor smiled wide, petting her head like a little kid that was finally learning to multiply. "That is how we do things back in hell. I can't count on your word alone. If I don't fall, you fall. Or whatever else they decide to do with you, I don't know or care. Understood?"

"You are really mean" Emily pouted slightly, looking to a side.

Alastor did too when he thought of Lucifer calling him out.

"I know" said, before taking a breath. "How are we going to go about this? I already know what method I prefer to go with. The infinitely funnier one. Let's hear yours."

"Maybe the library?" suggested Emily. "It has a record for the most notorious souls that reached Heaven. If there is a soul that was vanished to hell after coming here, their name should come up. Then we can find out how they did it."

With no other alternative, that is where they went. The whole library seemed to be a cathedral by itself, way too big for anyone without wings or that couldn't fly, which was not an issue for Emily. As she was elevating herself to reach at the highest registers of books, Alastor had no other choice but to wait for her on the ground. That obnoxiously clean reflective ground that was returning to him the image of his new body there.

It was awful. Besides the change on his own skin, his hair had become duller like his finger tips. His whole suit had been changed into a soft yellow with some details in pure white, like the cross on top of his chest, the sleeves and the lapel jacket. He hated it, almost as much as the white his antlers had turn into, but none of that was as offensive and disgusting to his mind as the pair of white wings at his back and the halo above his head. Those two things in particular made him want to slam his head against the reflection until somehow he could destroy it or cause enough brain damage that he would die again.

On the time that Emily took to come back, he had at least the chance to learn to conjure his staff. White and gold, again, with a red heart on the center rather than an eye. The same connection was there, but it felt different, warmer than before. He wasn't sure that he liked that.

The only thing he could very well tolerate was his new brown eyes. He knew those were the closest to his when he was alive and that made it all the more alien after years getting used to the red ones.

Alastor gripped his hands together behind his back, elevating his gaze so he could ignore that. He didn't want to get used to any of this.

He was hoping she could have a faster solution at hand. A potion, a crystal, a portal. Anything that he could just eat, grab or jump into directly into the fiery pits that he called home, only to forget he ever saw any of this.

Purely because of habit, his hand reached out for his pocket and, surprisingly, something was actually there. He pulled his pocket watch and stared at it. Why was that still with him, but not his magic or ring?

"What is that?" asked Emily, floating nearby with a book on her hand.

The book in question was thicker than her entire torso. Despite that, she seemed to have no issue at all handling it.

"A present from Lucifer" said Alastor, frowing. "I don't know why it followed me to here."

Emily flied over him, throwing a quick glance to the object. Just that seemed to tell her everything she needed to know.

"It's made of angelic steel, isn't it? Then technically it already belonged to Heaven, so I guess it just came to its origin. With all the more reason if you are the owner" she explained, taking the book to a nearby table to open it up. One of the heavy half of the book slammed against the table, but no dust came because of course it wouldn't. Emily wasted no time going over the written lines, her eyes quickly jumping from one point to another. "It's a beautiful work, by the way! I haven't seen steel used like that in a long while. I guess people consider it old fashion now."

Alastor smirked at that. It was old fashioned in hell too. That is why Lucifer knew it wouldn't be out of place for him to have it. He opened up the cover and the clock was still ticking like normal. If what Vaggie said was true, then his time was still the same as it was on hell. Meaning that there had been already four hours since the battle started and two since he died again.

"Right now the first man must be dead" assumed, shrugging as he put the watch back where it belonged.

Emily shook her head at the casual comment.

"What-what? Why do you say that?"

"He killed the spouse of the devil. In hell" Alastor explained it like it should be obvious enough, relying his weight on the marble table. "A dumb move if I ever saw one. Lucifer doesn't know that I am here either. I will be very surprised if he left any of your little exorcist alive after that. Ah, what I would give to have seen it with my own eyes. It must have been truly glorious. To not witness my husband going all out on some puny angels and stain the ground gold with their blood in a mockery of Heaven might be the biggest tragedy of it all."

Emily stared at his wistful expression. She did not understand hellish beings at all.

"I don't know if to be creeped out or endeared by that" said after a while. Her finger was still moving over the page, following each line. "Your face and the words you say are confusing me."

Alastor chuckled. He took notice that she wasn't saddened by the lost of Adam or the other exorcists, which did earn her a few more points.

"Feel whatever you want, dear, but do keep searching. The sooner I can come back, the sooner I can ask Lucifer all the details."

Emily sighed.

"I don't know how long this could take" recognized, throwing a glance at him. "You know, while I am doing this, you could…"

"No" Alastor alredy knew what she wanted to say.

"You didn't even let me finish."

"I won't go visit my mother."

"Ah." Emily played with the corner of a page for a second, almost shy. She knew she was threading on personal territory and didn't want to overstep his boundaries. Alastor could appreciate that. "Mmm, want to tell me why is that?"

"What is the point? Just so I have to say goodbye again? To tell her sorry, mom, I actually prefer to live in hell for the rest of eternity than live in heaven with you? By the way, we might never see each other again, so let these be my last words to you." He exhaled through his lips, practically a snort but not quite. Luckily for him the entire library was empty with the sole exception of a library angel that was floating on the furthest shelfs, no interested in telling them to shut up. "What mother wants to hear something like that from their only son? What person even?"

Emily pressed her lips together, thoughful.

"She does know Lucifer though. And Charlie" said, as gently as she could. "I am certain that she would understand that you want to be with them. And don't say again that your mood is irrelevant. You are allowed to miss your family."

Alastor's lip twitched as he straighten up again, leaving the table. Emily followed up his movements, not sure if she had screwed up or how badly.

"Keep looking, dear. I need some… disgustingly fresh air. I might see where I can get gasoline."

"You are not going to burn houses, right?" asked Emily. The snickering she could hear from Alastor did nothing to calm her down. "Hey, no cut anything either, okay? If there is anything here that can help I will find it! Just have some patience, alright?"

Alastor dedicated her a high thumbs up, not promising anything. When he heard a little groan from Emily, he draw a bigger smile. She was too easy to pick on.

He thought that a walk would help distract his mind and it did, replacing the thoughts of his mother with more disgust directed at this entire realm that he thought was capable of. Up head he saw someone dropping their purse while talking through the phone, only for a stranger to pick it up and give it back without even trying to see what was inside. The owner of the purse thank them, they shook hands and each of them were their separate ways.

Neither of them tried to knock the other. There was no demand for a reward. There was no second inspection of the purse to see that something gross hasn't been put inside. There was no bomb in the purse to surprise any of them. A perfectly civilized and calm interaction that nobody around them cared about.

How utterly disgusting. How could they live like this? Every day for eternity?

Alastor shook off the shiver that ran through him and continue walking. If Lucifer could find him no matter where he was with his own angelic powers, then no doubt Emily could do the same when she found his way back home.

He didn't had any concrete objective in mind, so his steps somehow end up in what looked to be a commercial area. Except that everything was for free all the time and yet, nobody was trying to take out the products off the shelfs or exhibitors. It was all registered calmly by a cashier and it was done, wishing everyone to have a good day with a genuine smile. Absolute madness.

He was looking for a butcher shop or appliance for the kitchen where he could see the knives, when a reflection in the vitrines made him stop. He turned around and wasn't wrong. An exorcist was just coming out from a ortophedic shop, testing out still the shiny metal arm coming up above where her elbow used to be.

Alastor felt his heart skip a beat. Did Lucifer do that? Did his love ripped an arm clean on his rampage? Oh, he could only imagine the scream of pain that exorcist would make. He hoped it had been a espectacularly high pitched one. The voice of a soprano perhaps whose painful notes could break glass. The only question was why was she alive. The thought of her somehow managing to escape was unlikely, but not entirely impossible, he imagined.

Before he could realize what he was doing, he was already following after her, instinctively knowing to keep a healthy distance to not alert her at first. Did any of them survive too? Was Adam somewhere? But no, that would be actually impossible. Once Lucifer had a reason to want someone dead, they had to be a goner. Of that he had no single doubt.

When the exorcist turned in a corner, Alastor went there too and immediately was knocked against the wall. Her metal arm was pressing against his chest.

"Why the fuck are you following me?" asked the exorcist. Alastor noticed that her eyes looked so very tired and slightly red, like she had been crying not that long ago. That brought him even more joy to think were tears of grief. "If you like me so much, you could be less of a creep about it. But beyond that, I am not interested so you can forget it."

"Goodness gracious, no!" Alastor laughed at the misunderstanding. If he did ever had such intentions, she would have never seen him coming. He had been so curious that he didn't bothered to be as stealth as he could be. "I am a married man, my dear. Trust me, I have zero interest on you in that way."

The exorcist arched an eyebrow, looking down for a second before looking up again.

"I don't see any ring."

Alastor's eyes crinkled.

"My point still stands."

"Why were you following me then?"

"Well, you see, dear" started Alastor, grabbing her arm and twisting it to press it against the exorcist's back, putting her now against the same wall. Even without his powers, he still remembered a thing or two of how to use his body. "I just have a couple of questions and I will let you go. Simple as that. First one, you just came back from the extermination, didn't you?"

The exorcist froze in place, stopping her attempts to get ride of him and looked at him over her shoulder. It took her a couple of seconds, but soon her eyes widened with recognition.

"The red demon on the roof."

Alastor gave her a toothy smile. He had no idea of who she was without her mask. To him she was just any other of the exorcist that used the same dark uniform. It still made him happy that apparently she had been paying attention during the fight with Adam.

"The radio demon to be more exact."

"W-why… what are you…"

"To tell you the truth, I am just as confused as you are, dear. I am trying to rectify this mistake right now. If we are both lucky, I won't be on the same realm as you for long. But that doesn't answer my question, doesn't it?" Alastor let her go when he realized she wasn't going to fight anymore. She turned around, her hand holding onto the start of her mechanical arm as if it was suddenly hurting. Alastor sighed, lifting a finger to press against the metal plaque. "Did my husband do that?"

The exorcist looked creeped out by the tone of his voice. Alastor did not bother to hide the yearning on his voice. Here he didn't had to keep the secret from anyone.

"N-no…" Her eyes darted around, no doubt evaluating the prospect of risking causing a scene. If she did, Alastor would loudly talk about the extermination for anyone to hear. They both knew it. "No, I did it."

"Well, that was stupid and dissapointing. What happened after I was out of commission?"

"Adam…" The exorcist closed her eyes, as if saying that name was already costing her too much. Alastor smiled bigger. Oh, a true loss. How fun. "Adam went for the princess and Lucifer appeared."

"Then what?"

She sighed, her brow wrinkling at the effort of controlling herself. Alastor waited. He could have patience for this.

"I don't really know how, but he took us all out. It all happened so fast. First Adam, then everyone else."

"You are the only survivor?" asked Alastor, imagining alredy the terrifying vision that it must have been to witness.

The sounds of the scream and slaughter as they all succumbed to the king without quartel, learning way too late that they couldn't do anything against his king. More than ever since waking up in Heaven, Alastor so wished to hold Lucifer.

"That is so awful" said Alastor with obvious mirth. "He left you to be his messanger. What message did you had to deliver that it was worth your life, dear?"

The exorcist nodded.

"He said…" She swallowed, looking to a side. "He said I should get to live, knowing I couldn't do anything to save him. He also said that… all of that was the price for his sinner."

Alastor put his forehead against the wall above the head of the exorcist, closing his eyes as he breathed in. His whole body shivered as he bite down on his own fingers. The exorcist's eyes darted around as she took a silent step to the left, away from him. She didn't want to ask or know what was that about.

Alastor wouldn't have tell her even if she did, even if they were close friends instead of strangers meeting in the weirdest cicumstances. He wouldn't be able to describe the pure violent longing that made its home on the pit of his stomach, making him wish he could burn all of Heaven already. Burn them for ever making Lucifer to hurt himself and burn them again for having the audacity of keeping them apart. He wanted to do it now, until there was nothing more than ashes and the gold finally lost its shine, the sky turned grey and their gates was pulverized. The image was so clear on his head that it was already a beautiful painting. It would be his offering, his gift to Lucifer, given in a golden platter before he let the familiar flames consume him.

After a definitely uncomfortably long amount of time, Alastor woke up from his trance. He cleared his throat, regaining his composure as if nothing had happened.

"I am okay" said Alastor, fixing his suit. "Thank you for being so cooperative, dear. I have no use for you anymore so you can continue your merry way. I will keep my mouth shut too" added when she glared at him.

She had no reason to trust him, but for now the need of putting distance between the two of them was bigger than her reason. Right before she ran, her eyes fixated above Alastor and straighten up with a salute.

"Maam!"

Alastor had heard the delicate flapping of the wings already. When he turned around, though, it wasn't Emily that was standing behind him. That other, what was her name? The older one smiled pleasantly.

"You can go, Lute. I was intending to talk to our new resident. You earned yourself a rest."

Lute nodded emphatically, throwing a glance to Alastor before she put her legs to good use. Alastor likewise, hiting the floor with his staff.

"I don't believe we have been properly introduced, my dear! I am…"

"Alastor Morningstar" said Sera, tilting her head lightly. "Of course, Saint Peter told me already."

Was Saint Peter the gossiper of this place? Had he made a mistake already? No, they were going to find out his name sooner or later.

"Well, that is no fun!" declared Alistor with a lightheated chuckle. "I wanted to keep some sense of mystery for a while longer, but alas! Let me return the favor then. You are Sera, isn't it? I think Emily might have mentioned it when we first met."

The seraphim nodded. She was beautiful, he had to give her that, but she lacked the open arms aura of his husband. This angel kept her arms in front, where she could maintain at a distance what she didn't need.

"I am sorry I wasn't able to welcome you before. I had to have a talk with the elders about your… situation. You probably understand already how peculiar it is."

"No doubt about it!" laughed Alastor, wondering where the hell was Emily. "Emily has been a delight showing me around already! I don't think I will need any further assistance navigating this place. I appreciate the concern anyway."

"Oh, no, I wasn't trying to offer you another tour" Sera put a graceful hand on his shoulder. "Would you mind coming with me so we can have a talk?"

This seraphim was older than Emily. Bigger and probably a lot stronger. Worse than that, he had nothing to hold against her. He had no choice but to follow, for now.

"Lead the way, dear."

[starlightswordfight]

headcanon posting for the million trillionth time while I wait for student aid stuff to finalize over the weekend

also not fully hc some of it is me either rambling a little or crying for help. do not even worry about it

this one is CASTAWAY focused omg !!!! (not all of them) (not even close) (oh my god I would die)

– dalmo does not feel fear and you cannot kill him in a way that matters

– no I'm being serious. his experience of more intense emotions, especially fear, is more muted, with the exception of his love for creatures!! he went to pnf-404 no hesitation after seeing a distress call for a REASON and that reason was he DID NOT CARE

– the delayed or nonexistent fear response is joined by slowed reaction time to pain, or an occasional lack of it altogether!! uh oh!! he VERY commonly discovers bruises and the like with absolutely zero recollection of what could possibly have done that. is he autistic

– he has eczema in my heart. I also picture him to wear animal handling gloves a lot!! this both Hides and Irritates it!! I also gave this trait to an oc but listen listen if I have to have it everybody else does too

– patch also does not get scared that easy but he isn't ND in any way he's just patch

– do you think he might be a criminal in some places on technicality because of the gambling. definitely not his HOME planet if it's on his ID BADGE but that's just one place. I think he's gotten into trouble before w this and was absolutely flabbergasted about it. he had no idea this would even be an issue. what the hell

– santi (SCREAMS OF THE DAMNED)

– sorry I'm keeping that in it was a placeholder and I thought it was funny. anyway her eyesight is GOD awful. she has farsightedness and needs glasses for that specifically, head hurts so bad all the time, someone save her

– TO CLARIFY i did not initially come up with this and I'm not sure who did but the transfem santi headcanon is so perfect to me

– have you guys heard "and if I did you deserved it" because that song REALLY reminds me of santi in very specific ways and I'm including it here because it's how I picture some of her inner monologue. (“if looks could kill, I'd be staring in the mirror” / “and god, i wish they could, 'cause man, i'm looking good!”)

I'm actually writing something right now or Trying To inspired by that song for her. Uh. Anyway

– chet has a LOT of siblings, and is the oldest out of all of them. he has a big family! whom he cherishes dearly!! and as such is already very good at looking after others and being The Glue of a given group

– mika's experiences in school were ... not the greatest!! her motivation to become a teacher was to provide a more welcoming space for whichever students got her, a space that she wasn't provided. we NEED more positivity in this world

– really really really bad impostor syndrome. I'm talking god awful. this woman has an anxiety disorder. please help her get out

– not a headcanon but I adore mika with everything I have

– transmasculine sammy. does not transition medically because he does not feel the need to, people believe him and that is enough (start sfuckfign bawling hysterically)

– not a headcanon but if anything happened to sammy I'd start mauling people

– pitunia is autistic. pitunia in particular. look me in my eyes and tell me that she isn't

– her and sammy, both being on the research task force, have a sibling relationship!! the task force reads to me as found family just in general but I am specifically looking at these two right now. they dye their hair to match each other

– speaking of pitunia. her and sy have a fundamentally different way each of looking at the onion, and probably also everything else!! so they're constantly debating each other, if only to further understand the other viewpoint and make their own resolutions stronger. it's very respectful always but you will NEVER hear one of them talk without the other teleporting in and going "I ALSO think that maybe the --"

– sy ALSO uses they/them because I fucking SAID SO

– i think komo and twyla have something

– claustrophobic boris trust me on this

– comes up with all of his ideas for writing either in the shower or when he's fucking asleep so he scrambles to get it down on paper or in a notes app or something and when he wakes up the next morning he's met with literary gems like “he Roled he's eye” and “whu do yhey call itlven when you of in The cold.food and out of hot eat th . e”

– get that man some noise cancelling headphones NOW. the idea machine is running out of FUEL and he needs PEACE so he can WORK

– or even just any headphones, he might be the kind of writer that visualizes really intricate animatics to whatever songs come on until the roadblock works itself out

– he drinks coffee flavored energy drinks. the amount of caffeine that man needs to keep going would kill his editor

– jin neopronoun user. they/xe actually

– was absolutely NOT always that level headed, OR that good with planning and visualization and the like. that shit took YEARS of active practice, and they were far less patient before

– inattentive/combined adhd haver maybe. this is why xe puts such an emphasis on how you are allowed to fail at dandori challenges, more than once, and how it is OKAY to. even now, it does not come fully naturally, but they're doing their best and that's all you really can sometimes and that's okay

– do ANY OF YOU know what the fuck is going on with grace because I DON'T I TRIED this is a CRY FOR HELP

– it might be because of the shared name but I could easily picture her sometimes talking like the grace in npmd does. (this wasn't murder!! and it wasn't an accident!!! it was An Act Of God)

– What The Hell Did She Do For Her Badge To Discuss The Space Police On It. I imagine it is a long list. gambling is on the list. her and patch go WAY back (lie) (they interacted once) (probably to get away from the space police that one time) ("i thought gambling was LEGAL on sozor HONEST" "I didn't")

[downspirals]

okay, here it is. the big kimiko post. this isn't going to be 100% perfect or anything i'm sure, but this is going to at least cover the basic information to get familiar with kimiko and start interactions. this information is all based on her canon, so stuff can be changed and tweaked for aus. down at the bottom, i will include some notes about things i will not change, no matter the au.

and one more thing about kimiko before we get started. there are some triggering subject matters that come up with her character. she grew up a child soldier, has killed people before (and will kill more), lost her parents and her brother, and is just dealing with a lot of trauma. so general trigger warning for that stuff, along with probably mentions of abuse.

OKAY. if there's anything you want to ask about or have me clarify, pls reach out! i obviously love to talk abt her.

BASIC OVERVIEW

okay, going to start with a simple, basic overview of kimiko's story. this is just gonna be up to the point where she appears in the first season. i'll get into the actual stuff she goes through in the show later.

kimiko is originally from japan. she lived with her parents and her younger brother, kenji. we do not know a ton about her life prior to the murder of her parents, but it's implied to be very peaceful and normal. then, one night when she and kenji are young, her parents are murdered in front of them, and they are kidnapped by a group known as the shining light liberation army.

shining light is known for doing things like this, and both kenji and kimiko are enlisted as child soldiers and are used to kidnap other children against their will. they are forced to fight and kill not only those outside of the group, but inside the group as well, to prove their worth. despite this, kimiko does everything that she can to take care of her brother.

from the moment her parents die, kimiko loses the ability to speak. she doesn't realize it at first, but this is mutism due to trauma. it is not just that she doesn't want to speak, but that she literally cannot. this does not matter at all to anyone in the army, but it makes talking with her brother hard.

at this point, kimiko and kenji come up with their own version of sign language to communicate with each other. while kimiko can still understand everyone around her, the only one that she can actually talk to (without a resource like pen and paper) is her brother.

years pass, and eventually, kimiko is smuggled by the group to the united states.

gonna do my best to explain this, but basically, in this universe, superheroes are just cops with superpowers. there is a group of them that want to be allowed into the military, and they decide to get that to happen, they have to prove that there are issues that only superheroes can deal with. so they give compound v, a substance that will give those injected with it superpowers, to criminal groups. this is in hopes they will create "supervillains", only defeated by superheroes, and prove that they deserve power.

kimiko has no idea about this plot, but it doesn't matter. she is chosen as someone to be injected, and so she is. she gains superpowers, and is about to be let loose in the united states by shining light. except, she decides instead to kill the people holding her using her newfound abilities, and (hopefully) find her brother and finally get out.

HER POWERS

kimiko's powers, when you get down to it, are very, very simple. she is incredibly, incredibly strong, and incredibly, incredibly tough. she is way stronger than a normal human, and can take a lot bigger hit.

while things may not hurt her as badly as they would a typical person, things still do hurt. she has a high level of pain tolerance, but it's kind of unclear what amount of that is powers or just the amount of shit she has been through in the past.

we don't really know if kimiko can die. she has had her neck snapped, has been shot in the head, limbs ripped off, and every single time, she comes back from it. she is out for a few seconds, but her body will heal and regenerate. the only way (we know of) to kill her would be to somehow get rid of her powers.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS

for now, read this post.

she is fluent in english and in japanese, with japanese being her first language.

she cannot speak due to her mutism, and her preferred method of communication is the sign language she and her brother came up with. she is in the process of learning asl and can use some of that, but typically defaults to writing and texting.

she is much better at understanding english than she is at actually writing it. she has heard it spoken for years and obviously understood pieces even in s1 of the boys, but she has still only been writing it for a year or two by the timeline of the show.

WHAT HAPPENS TO HER IN THE SHOW?

okay guys i do not feel like giving a full rundown of the show rn so i'm just gonna do a quick paragraph for each season

"the boys" is a group trying to kill corrupt superheroes because the government won't do anything. while searching for dirt on superheroes, they find out about the creating supervillain things, and stumble upon kimiko. while they want to just kill her at first (she seems like she is simply a cold blooded killer) one of the boys, frenchie, sees something in her. he begins to communicate with her, and brings her into the fold. this group becomes her family, and kimiko begins to settle in and help them.

kimiko runs into her brother kenji for the first time since being sent to the usa. he has also been given powers and is being used like she was as a "supervillain" to make heroes look good. her brother ends up killed, and kimiko becomes determined to kill his killer (she does) and make sure heroes cannot hurt anyone else. this is when she begins learning to write in english, and primarily begins communicating through text/writing. also teaches frenchie her brother's sign language.

uhhh season three is kimiko dealing with the fact that everyone sees her as a monster, and she was never able to have a "normal" life. for a short period of time, kimiko loses her abilities and almost dies, but decides to take back her abilities by her own decision. this is her deciding to take charge of her own destiny, and deciding she wants to protect those she loves. also (in my head) this is when the rest of "the boys" decide to start learning asl along with kimiko to communicate with her better.

season four. im not ready to talk abt it yet get back to me. but for the most part she is working through her trauma and is in therapy. until the horrors.

basically, kimiko goes back and forth between being a fugitive and not being one. she personally does not care about what is legally correct, but rather, what she considers morally ethical. she has a big heart, and though she will kill without a second thought, she has a reason behind what she does. she is not simply "evil". she is considered to be one of the more caring members of the boys.

STUFF I WON'T CHANGE

kimiko is always gonna have her powers unless we plot something rlly specific. u can hate me for this but :)

she's pretty much always going to be mute. i say pretty much, because there is a chance the show will have her stop being mute or will work with her getting over her trauma. i'm not going to do much with it until i see how they handle it, and even if i do, i'm going to be rlly selective abt it. kimiko has been mute most of her life, and that isn't going to be magically fixed.

while her backstory will change, her family will likely be dead in most aus. kenji may live, but it depends. and she will likely be fairly traumatized and fucked up, no matter the au. she does some murder, it's ok.

[charmac]

Heyo! I'd be interested to hear your theories on the macdennis writer's room situation!

IMO it's not as simple as 'Rob is pro and Glenn is anti' (and we always ignore Charlie in these conversations even though he's quite into it in the dvd commentary and pod), so your suggestion that the subtlety (lol it's really not subtle, but yeah r/iasip ig) in the writing of their relationship might be glenn's idea is quite intriguing to me, and I wonder how this all relates to the opposing views on whether Dennis is a serial killer amongst rcg. So much of the writing of Dennis comes from Charlie and also Rob, but it's definitely influenced by them observing Glenn (like the cereal story) and by Glenn's performance. And ofc we know Glenn pushes back if Dennis is written as too heartless because he maintains that he does have feelings and is quite sensitive in a way. Not sure where I'm going with this... I don't have a full theory fleshed out in my head yet, so I'd really like to hear your thoughts!

(not trying to stir anything with this ask btw: in fact, iirc there were some posts about this subject a few months ago and I didn't engage then because it pissed me off when the conversation turned into a "who supports the quuer fans more" kind of competition, as if macden is something so basic between rob and glenn, when we really have no evidence about what happens fr bts, beyond some fun speculation. just enjoy theorizing in drought times.)

Hey, thanks for the ask! To address your final point first, I don't want to talk publicly about what may or may not be the motivations of Glenn and Rob as "queer allies" or how they think this may affect their careers or whatnot. These kinds of discussions I don't believe are ever effective publicly when you don't know the truth. I'm not speculating on their motivations as people but as writers who care about the story they're telling and, more importantly, their characters.

When my message was "anti" and "pro" it was really just from the discussion that someone had to be pushing back against what I believe is Rob pushing forward (This was a black and white, who wants Macden now and who is saying no, wait. I truly do and always have believed Macden will happen. The nuanced discussion came after, in messages I'd rather not share since they are not just my personal thoughts but a conversation with another user.) I

t's not necessarily that Glenn is anti-Macdennis (and I think you understand that) and I want to clarify first off that I definitely don't think it's as simple as that, so here we go:

For Glenn pushing the subtlety, I think we agree completely that it likely links to how Glenn wants the audience to perceive his character (and how I love perceiving him): Dennis talks a big game that to the untrained eye makes him seem like this cold-blooded psychopath, but it's all a complete front you can easily see through. He gets a thrill out of these terrible things but would never act on them. It's interesting to hear of the live show "Dennis is a serial killer" talk brought up right along side all of this, because it's a perfect example of how Rob and Glenn clearly have opposing views on Dennis' character, and how that definitely plays into why they don't agree on canonising Macdennis. (As I understand, Dennis gets a thrill out of the idea of murder or harming people, but he could never act on it. Reddit (and to some lesser degree, Rob), don't get this, and think he probably does act on it and it's just not shown in canon (despite the mountains of evidence that Dennis is much too weak and feeble to ever do anything).

If you think about their current dynamic (actually, ignore 15, we'll get there), they've completely flipped from early seasons, and I don't think that's accidental or a fault of bad writing, I think it 1. is a result of Mac labelling himself as gay, finally, in S12 and 2. is a result of Glenn continuing to fight for Dennis' character staying consistent.

From point 1: Dennis was always the more effeminate, more coded to like men one, more touchy with Mac, a little obviously in love with him, until Mac outwardly expressed those feelings back. As early as M&DBU you can see how terrified Dennis is of being seen as gay, and in a relationship with Mac. For Dennis, as gay as it got, it was okay until it was labelled. Now that Mac is labelling himself as gay, now there's a hard stop for Dennis. Being with Mac is something Dennis could act on, and then be labelled as. (gay, bi, likes men, fucking Mac, boyfriend *shutters*) This is something that would happen if he didn't keep full, hard control against it.

To point 2: I think this was a bit of a divide in the writers room that Glenn couldn't control. S12 he bowed out, clearly he was feeling lost in Dennis and the writers room. When he left for S13 and 14, and you can see how Rob's want for Mac to be out, canon, very gay, in love with Dennis, comes through full-speed in these seasons, because Glenn wasn't writing (mostly). Rob wanting this directly conflicts with Glenn's writing for Dennis. Dennis is opposing Mac in every way, he has this exterior he has to put on, anti-Mac, anti-whatever they were, he's completely thrown off by Mac, hates their old dynamic.

Rob wants canon Macden, but he perceives Dennis differently than Glenn does, and likes this opposing path of the two of them, and that's obviously creating an issue. Clearly I don't know Rob's intentions, and maybe I'm talking out of my ass, but I don't think I'd be far off to say that he'd enjoy putting Macdennis through some desperation-hell (ala, Dennis gives in and gets with Mac because he's horny, uses him, DENNIS systems him, the result is Mac has always been the long-con for Dennis, which I admit, I wouldn't hate hate).

I think Glenn is against it, because there's always been something there for Dennis and there's a reason he came back, there's a reason he's always stayed around, always supported Mac. He is in love with Mac. It's not a system or a game, but a fucking fight for his life to oppose his true feelings and hide his identity, not be labelled. Dennis is stuck, and there's nothing pushing him to do anything about it. He'll get off with his systems and his kinks and he's okay.

Now we move to S15 and look, they aren't...all that opposing...during Lockdown, they...got along. And then, here goes Dennis, yelling and screaming about Mac obsessing over his own labels and identity so he can ignore his internal struggle. It's clear, he needs something to push him.

How do they go about it? Dennis jealousy arc seems like the perfect fucking beautiful compromise. Rob gets something raw, a little insane from Dennis, and Glenn gets to show that Dennis really is in fucking love with Mac.

TL;DR: Rob wants Macden now in some kind of dirty, get on with it, Dennis is using Mac kind of way. Glenn doesn't want it canon until they reach the conclusion of this arc that shows Dennis really does have big feelings (good and bad), and those feelings really kinda have a lot to do with Mac.

--

AGAIN THESE ARE JUST MY THOUGHTS AND I OFTEN WATCH THIS SHOW WHILE HIGH OR CROSS FADED SO IF YOU DISAGREE THATS TOTALLY 100% OKAY I DO NOT CARE IF YOU READ ALL THIS AND THINK IM STUPID OR WAY TOO INSANE ABOUT THIS ALL THATS TOTALLY VALID FOR YOU TO SAY! IF THERES NO JEALOUSY ARC IN s16 I AM A CLOWNNNNN!!!

[liminalpebble]

Blood in the Cut (Eddie Munson, One Shot)

MINORS DNI

A/N: Sorry y'all I've been going through some things so this is a big, fat, 4000 world, smutty cathartic scream of a one shot. Older Eddie Munson x POC she/her reader. Title is based on a song by K. Flay that's been bouncing around my head lately.

CW: Rough unprotected sex (consentual), violence (bar fight), racial slur towards reader from a bigot, allusions of past suicide attempt, mental illness, trauma, and wounds, blood play (sort of?)

Summary: For years now Eddie's put the traumatic year of 1986 behind him by living an uneventful life and running The Hideout. Now a gruff but good-hearted middle-aged Munson has hired you (a young lady with a sad past of your own) as a bartender. One night a brawl breaks out and you become collateral damage in the violence. Only then does the prickly Eddie open up all the way to comfort you.

Blood in the Cut

The place was a shithole, but goddamit, it had become your shithole. It was a godsend when you rolled into the little town of Hawkins. You felt crusty, cramped and drowsy from hours on the Greyhound, but you made it. 1000 miles from your hometown, from the overbearing family who branded you a failure early on for being born with the wrong genitalia but expected perfection nonetheless. 1000 miles from the psych ward you ended up in when the pressure became too much. You tried not to think about the past anymore. Scars are easy enough to cover with make up or long sleeves, and nobody cares about the career you broke yourself trying to get when you just wind up opening beer bottles and mopping floors for a living.

Well, Eddie cared, but he hid it well. If he didn't care, he wouldn't have given you a chance that day. You had walked right into his bar and gestured to the shabby “help wanted” sign, shyly offering him a dog-eared resume. He gave you a long, unnerving, inscrutable stare from those big dark eyes.

You fidgeted as he nonchalantly scanned the paper over the haze of his cigarette. As the silence became too awkward for you, you piped up. “Uh...sorry it's...um...crinkled. I didn't have anywhere to print new ones.”

His face cracked into an amused grin suddenly, and it shocked you how quickly the grizzled guy could go from intimidating to disarming once his dimples came out to play.

“You...um...you do realized that this isn't exactly a place requiring a resume, right?”, he said, a cocky, teasing tone to his lazy voice.

You finally let out an exhale, “Yeah...yeah. I mean. I figured. But I already had it with me so you know...It's a little quicker than chatting to tell you my credentials. And as you can probably already tell, small talk isn't something I'm great at.”

He raised his eyebrows and nodded thoughtfully, “ Well, bartenders do have to chit chat a little generally, but you're in luck, because not many customers come around here to talk.” He gestured a lanky tattooed arm to the tattered, dark, dive bar, the drunks having their liquid breakfast, and the ramshackle stage, as if to sarcastically say, behold, my kingdom.

“But anyway...impressive degree. Ivy League shit. Guess you're a long way from home. So, if you don't mind me asking, what is a young bright-eyed bushy-tailed little scholar like you doing in a shit town like this?” As he asked, his perceptive eyes darted down to your long sleeves; a bit unexpected in the warm spring air. He had an idea of what your answer would be, and it softened his heart more than usual.

You shrugged. Any attempt at pretense just dissolved in his presence. This man possessed a perfect radar for bullshit. You could tell. And besides, you'd relinquished any pride you had left at the hospital. There was no face left to save. “Well...Mr...”

“Munson...and just call me Eddie. Everyone does,” he clarified, grinding his spent filter in the ashtray.

“Eddie...Well, Eddie, I'm $70,000 deep in student loan debt from this impressive and apparently useless degree, and another $10,000 as the cherry on top for landing in the psych ward because of how I almost killed myself making sure I got it. Or rather, I tried to save my parents from their sunk investment in me, because the co-signer doesn't have to repay loans when the borrower kicks the bucket...or so I've been told. I'm 1000 miles away from it because I can't deal with my family reminding me that I'm an expensive disappointment every day of my life. But mom still calls me to shame me about how much it cost them to keep me alive...so there's that. And uh...these are more words than I've spoken in the last 5 months to anyone...so...sorry if I'm rusty at saying anything nicely.

Finally, you took a breath. Eddie just stared for a moment (that same inscrutable evaluation), nodded pensively then stood up from the bar stool. He simply reached out a calloused hand full of rings to shake yours. With a little grin he said, “Welcome to The Hideout.”

And that was that. You were here for 40 hours and 5 days a week. You tried to get overtime but Eddie always refused to let you, explaining, “you're a recovering workaholic and I don't want a relapse on my hands.” He always said it matter-of-factly with a flat expression until he turned his head just slightly from you to relieve himself of the smirk crawling across his plush lips.

Working side-by-side with him so much meant you got to observe him. You got the idea that in his youth he was probably rebellious, squirrely and bombastic, but he was taciturn and guarded now. Something had clearly pummeled that youthful anarchy out of him. The thought of it broke your heart a little. These days he kept his head down and hid under that mop of wild brown-sugar-colored curls. When he slid by you in the small space of the bar you noticed the little silver coils running through the strands, here and there. Your boss was still squirrely though; always tapping his fingers or feet in time with the soundtrack. He always seemed primed to run.

When you got a chance to look at him (really look at him) you couldn't help but wonder if Eddie knew he was a damn fine-looking man. He lived above the bar, but never once had you seen him take anyone home with him, or leave with anyone. Running this place seemed to be his life. What a waste, you thought, considering that nobody got to see that beautiful, tattooed, body without any clothes.

On slow days you'd usually hang out quietly behind the bar; both reading, and occasionally breaking the silence to talk about your books, or about the music Eddie had chosen, or about art or movies or languages or history or science. He was a bright guy and you treasured those chances to flex your academic muscles. In fact, you wondered if he hired you just to have someone to talk to like this. Hawkins wasn't exactly crawling with intellectuals and forward thinkers. Most of the local truckers, factory workers, farmers, and deputies who stopped by the Hideout would narrow their eyes in suspicion or confusion when they clocked your dark hair and tan skin. If they seemed about to say something stupid, Eddie would always nip it in the bud, giving them a warning glare that told them in no uncertain terms, not to fuck with you. Eddie felt a slowly building swell of protective impulse for you. You seemed so young and small and soft, even thought he knew you were tougher than you seemed...in some ways, tougher than him.

Once, only once, did some pea-brained idiot dare to snap at you and call you a “camel jockey”. That was the day Eddie broke a beer bottle on the counter, pointed it to the guy's beefy neck and hauled him outside, muttering quietly that if he ever showed his face here again he would end up in an ambulance. After that, word spread quickly that no one talked shit about Eddie's mysterious new bartender if they valued their lives. That was the day you began to realize you were becoming truly smitten with this man; his humble decency and thoughtful nature and even the pain behind those big brown eyes...but...he was your boss. So you weeded the idea out as soon as it began to sprout. You settled on simply saying, “Thank you,” and giving a relieved exhale.

He nodded and said, “Don't mention it. Fucking idiots. My friend Lucas and his family had the same problems. It wasn't easy for them, being the only black family in this hick town. Jesus Christ. I hoped it had gotten a lot better than this. That's a shame...they should be ashamed. Shit. I'm ashamed!” You chuckled and assured him he had nothing to be ashamed of, but he was embarrassed by proxy anyway. It was so scorching hot when he defended you like that, getting rough around the edges with righteous anger and a willingness to fight dirty. It didn't make the crush any easier to kill.

Much like dandelions, crushes have a way of popping back up, but you stayed removed and kept your interpersonal walls at a height matching his, though you would occasionally enjoy a chat from open windows in warm lamplight. You really treasured those chats and glimpses, when both of you reached out carefully from your barricades. You couldn't know that Eddie lived for those moments just as much. He'd been alone for so long, and now this fascinating young lady walked right through his door like a godsend. He was grateful for this friendship, and he would never dare to hope for it to become more. What use would an incredible young lady like you have for grumpy old Eddie Munson?, he thought.

-------

It was a Saturday night, rowdy as hell. Some shitty local band had just closed their set and packed their van, and the audience was worked up. You and Eddie and taken turns hauling keg after keg of cheap beer from the basement as they were swiftly emptied. It was an annoying crowd, but Eddie was proud of how well you kept up and you were happy for how well business was booming for him tonight.

You two were in the homestretch, but your nerves were fraying after a long night of drunken idiots. Eddie put a little ditty on the sound system called “The Closing Time Song” with the charming refrain of “get the fuck out” as he did every night to playfully alert the clients that it was time to leave. Everyone was gone aside from two knuckleheads who began screaming at each other for no apparent reason while you had begun sweeping.

You both knew the drill for this; get them outside to mitigate property damage and make their little scuffle the concern of Hawkins' finest rather than yours. Eddie was afraid to let you handle this at first, but after a few times he realized you're a lot stronger and tougher than you looked. At this point you manhandled jerks out the door with ease as often as he did. You huffed and set your broom aside. Eddie was in the back counting out the till, so you stepped up, walking swiftly towards them, grateful that it was still just verbal.

As you moved to shove the big galoots out the door, they suddenly began throwing punches, not seeing you underfoot, you got an elbow and a smack right in the face. You yelled every expletive in every language you knew as you kicked them out the door and slammed it shut, locking it behind behind them. As you turned around and strode back to the bar, you realized the noise had summoned Eddie from the back. He looked at you wide-eyed and concerned.

Through the buzz of adrenaline you didn't realize how badly you were hurt until you held your sleeve to your face and it came away soaked with blood. “Fuck,” you hissed, grabbing a bar rag and holding it to your face. Suddenly, you felt like crying. You hadn't been able to cry in months, even though you wished you could let it out. It was like the physical hit, the blood, the adrenaline, the anger, unraveled the dissociation choke-holding your emotions. You were horrified and decided Eddie would not see you cry. He'd mostly seen you being smart and tough and you'd be damned if you let him see you weep like a child.

You muttered, “I'll gonna go clean this up and grab another vodka for the speed rack. I'll be right back.” You heard him call your name after you as you flew down the hallway and down into the basement storage room. You closed the door behind you, found the janitor sink between the stock shelves. You bled and sobbed into the stained square basin, wondering what the fuck your life had come to. You prayed to a god you didn't believe in that Eddie would keep his distance. When the minutes passed without interruption, you heaved a sigh of relief, bending more deeply at the waist and resting your arms on the ledge.

You didn't hear him coming. All you saw was big hand holding out a clean bar towel neatly wrapped around ice cubes as he said in a quiet deadpan, “We don't need another vodka in the speed rack.”

“Thanks,” you huffed, wiping away the tears and blood with the old towel then pressing the ice pack to your face.

Deflect. You thought, picking up one of the bottles of Ketel One and grimacing to your boss. “Well, really, nobody need this shit, Eddie. Jesus, can't even spring for one that doesn't come in a plastic bottle?”

Eddie shrugged. He was standing with his arms crossed, leaning beside the sink. “We obviously don't have the most discerning clientele. Come here. You're doing that wrong,” he snipped, pulling out two folding chairs to face each other and ordering, “Sit. Lean forward, not back. And let me check it.”

You gingerly took the pack off of your face and he touched it, feather-lightly, to inspect it. “Huh, well, it doesn't seem broken. Just a hell of a nosebleed and probably a nasty bruise for a few days.”

You nodded, returning the pack to your aching skin. “Sounds like your know your way around getting hit in the face.”

“Oh yeah,” he said with a chuckle as he prepped another fresh towel for you. “I was bully target number 1 most of my youth. 'Hunt the freak,' they called it. My punishment for being a weird loud ugly little gremlin who played DnD.”

You shook your head, too rattled to watch your words “Idiots. Ugly little gremlin! What the fuck. Eddie, you're gorgeous. Don't pretend you don't know that.”

Eddie smiled wider than you'd ever seen him smile. His cheeks turned bright pink. His dark eyes sparkled. “What? Do you have a concussion or something?”

Oh god. I shouldn't have said that...uh deflect. “Well shit...I hope not. My insurance is shit.”

“Hey!” Eddie whined in mock-offense, “it's the same insurance I have.”

“Yeah, and I can't help but notice you never go to the doctor either.”

They both chuckled awkwardly, and an even more pregnant silence settled until Eddie said, “you know, you're lucky. When I would cry after being beat up, you could see it all over my face, my eyes would be red and puffy and my face and neck would be all red like I just ran a marathon. You don't even look like you've been crying.”

You shrugged, “One up-side of darker skin...I don't get red. Blushing, bruises, crying...scars...none of it shows up as much. I can hide my feelings pretty well.”

Eddie gazed at you, eyes full of bittersweet compassion. “I wish you wouldn't though.” He reached his hands out to yours.

You looked down and noticed your sleeves were pushed up from your attempt to clean up the blood. Now the ruddy splotches decorated your arms and cuffs, and beneath them, the scars on your wrist were clearly exposed in the florescent lights. You rushed to pull the sleeves over your scars, but Eddies calloused fingers stopped you, as he ran them gently up and down the slightly darker, rougher skin running up your forearms. “Please. Please don't hide it. Not with me at least. I know the story, after all, and I don't judge you.”

Deflect. God, his face is so close. His pretty pretty face. “Ah...well...you can judge me for being an idiot tonight.”

Eddie averted his eyes, sat back and then stood up. He was hoping for a more intimate moment, but you just made it clear that he shouldn't, so he played along. “Yeah....totally. What the fuck were you thinking, huh?...All 5'2 of you gonna take on a couple of meat slabs like that?”

“Hey I'm 5'4, and don't tease me about being short. The hobbits saved Middle Earth, remember?”

He turned so suddenly that you almost ran directly into his chest and you dropped the ice pack. He caught it between you. You, once again, found you were close...so very close.

You forced out a chuckle, “Nice reflexes.”

He shrugged and said absentmindedly, “well...you know...guitarist.” But he hardly knew what he was saying. He was staring at your lips.

“Yeah,” you sighed out then pointed to the ice pack. “ I don't think I need that now. The bleeding stopped.”

Eddie said quietly, “Okay, just let me check.” He gently held your face in his hands again, looking around it for any cuts or swelling. There were a few small splotches, but none serious. Before long he realized he was no longer noticing the wounds, too wrapped up in the feeling of his hands cradling your soft tawny skin as his fingertips fanned teasingly into your dark hair. He swallowed hard, Adam's apple bobbing, as he tentatively stroked down the side of your face. “Does...does it hurt there?”

“No,” you said in a whisper.

“What about here?” he asked, quietly brushing hair from your temples.

“No,” you repeated.

His pointer finger ran lightly over the curve of your lips. The bottom one had a tiny cut where your teeth had grazed it. His eyes followed his finger as he asked even more quietly, “What about here?”. He took a step closer.

“No,” you repeated, mirroring his step in with your own.

“Good,” he said as he leaned in, closing the distance. Eddie kissed you with those plush delicious lips you wanted to taste for so long. He was shy at first, still cradling your face like you were made of fine china, but when you opened your mouth inviting him in, he pushed harder into you, smelling and tasting the coppery blood on your skin. Eddie's warm wet tongue met yours and explored, thirsty for you. When you pulled away you bit lightly on his lower lip before releasing him and he groaned in delight.

You looked up to meet his big sweet eyes with yours. With desperation in your voice, you confessed, “Eddie...I want you to touch me. I want it to hurt. I want to cry. I just want to feel something...let something, anything out.”

Eddie was breathing deeply. He was already growing hard and hot against you. Groaning, he said, “God, sweetheart, you don't know what you're asking for. Fuck...I want it. I want you.”

“Fight me,” you growled. And he grunted back as he lifted you onto a shelf, slotting his skinny hips between your plush thighs. He grabbed one of your wrists and licked up your inner forearm where your old scars and new blood mingled together under his hot, wet, tongue. You'd never let anyone touch you there before, and it was so intimate, so arousing, it made you limp in his arms. If this was a fight, he was already winning, and you couldn't have that.

You gripped your greedy hands into those gorgeous curls and tugged to see how he liked it. Judging by how loudly he groaned and the way his thick erection twitched against his jeans, he loved it.

You giggled. “Oh Eddie, you moan like a whore.”

He muttered, “Come on, you love it.” from where his mouth was now latched to your jugular vein, no doubt raising blossoms of blood under the tender skin. His harsh sucking and the light scratch of his teeth set off dynamite in your bloodstream

You whimpered and confessed, “Mmmm! I do. I fucking love it.”

He gripped your ass and growled into your ear, “Open wider for me, sweetheart...atta girl”. You obeyed. His arm snaked around you waist as he pulled you tight against his chest. He rubbed the cleft of your cunt over the seam of your jeans. You whimpered and melted, head lolling on his shoulder as you panted.

“These gotta go,” he said, hooking his fingers in your belt loops and grazing the button of your fly. “That okay, honey?”

You begged, “Yes...yes, Eddie. Jesus fucking Christ, yes. Do whatever you want with me.”

Eddie let out a surprised breathy chuckle and you felt it reverberate against you. “Fuck, baby, now who's moaning like a whore?” he teased, with a shit-eating grin.

You had no words, you were too rapt watching his clever hands easily undo your pants; hastily tearing away anything keeping his mouth from immediately tasting your pussy.

You shrieked at the sensation of his long tongue dancing around your wet velvety folds. After a few unhurried laps he came up for air with a gasp of awe. “God, you have the prettiest pussy,” he said, slowly teasing his fingertips along where your brown skin became a deeper, more saturated hue, like the center of a flower; rich and lovely and soft, like fine dark silk. Eddie slid a finger on either side of your clit, pinching and coaxing the little jewel to the surface. The rough callous against your most sensitive skin scratched a little, hurt a little, and the ache felt so good. He stared at where his fingers moved as if it were the eighth wonder of the world, then continued worshiping at it, like a shrine, saying his devoted prayers in mumbles as he consumed.

He sucked your clit, nestling it between his full lips, while two rough fingers moved in and out of you. You panted as he found a rhythm, demanding, “More....more please. Harder...”

Suddenly he withdrew his fingers and watched your confusion with amusement. He stared menacingly and stepped back, making a show of taking off his layers. His chains clattered against the concrete floor as he stripped for you until he was completely naked; unguarded. Despite the confident posture, his puppy eyes pleaded for approval in his vulnerability, and you were only too happy to give it to him.

You gasped out, “Jesus Eddie, you're incredible...you're so pretty. I've wanted you like this for so long.”

He came closer again and pressed an unexpectedly gentle kiss to your temple as his hands worked at your shirt and bra. He noticed your hands shaking; how nervous you were to be bare with him.

He kissed you under your ear then whispered into it. “I know you're scared, sweetheart, but you don't need to be. I want to see all of you. Let me see all of you, huh? You're so pretty.”

He stroked your now-bare shoulder. Eddie loved the hue of his pale skin against yours, the different flesh tones winding together, perfectly complimenting...meant to be.

You bit Eddie's earlobe and buried your greedy hand into his hair as you said, “I need it rough, Eddie, please. Don't be gentle.”

“Anything you want, baby. Anything,” he groaned out as he pushed into you, in one hard thrust.

Your breath caught for a moment as the ache volleyed through your body. You felt yourself crack open..shatter, finally shatter, finally release. You felt hot tears and hot arousal pulse through you in a cascade. Eddie met your eyes, concerned.

You nodded and smiled through the blood and tears “I'm fine. Eddie, I'm fine. I need this. I love this.”

Eddie loved it too. He felt a little guilty about how much he loved it, but that just made him even harder. He felt like a hungry animal gorging himself on your sweet broken body, licking at your tears and cuts as your tangled weight hit the shelf again and again. The clanging tempo built until you both came in a crescendo of shuttering, gripping, biting and grunting.

As you both caught your breath, slumped against each other, Eddie rubbed sweet little circles on your back and kissed your forehead. He pulled out gently and his eyes grew wide with shock and fear as he noticed blood mingled with his cum and your wetness.

He gasped in surprise and concern, “Oh, sweetheart...fuck...I...I didn't know or I would have been more careful with you....would...would have made it special. Shit..I...I'm so sorry.”

You grabbed his face, smiling broadly, drunk with afterglow and shaking your head, “Shhh shhh. No, no please don't apologize. I wanted it like this. Needed it like this. I had to let it all out. Thank you, Eddie....thank you.

You nuzzled into his chest and he held you tightly, kissing the top of your head protectively. He said quietly, “Okay, honey. But for now, we're gonna go upstairs and take a nice hot bath and curl up in bed together...that alright with you? I...I liked it like that too, but I want to take care of you after something like that. No hiding, got it?”

“Yeah...yeah I got it.”

“Good,” he said, smiling and kissing you. You noticed you'd left a little collection of bruises on Eddie, just as he left some wounds on you. Noticing your worried look, he held your face and met your eyes with a satisfied smile. “Hey...don't worry. I loved it. Now let's go play hospital.”

@hellfirenacht @fairyysoup @take-everything-you-can @sweetsigyn @elegantkoalapaper @veemoon @slutty-thevampireslayer @little-wormwood @leelei1980 @ladyofthestayingpower

[wisteria-lodge]

burnt lion primary (badger model) + snake secondary? (bird model) (badger performance)

Intro

Hi! First of all, I want to thank you for your numerous indispensable contributions to the SHC system. I really appreciate and admire your work here, and would love to have your insight on my own sorting, because I’ve been struggling with it (if you have the time and energy, of course :) ).

For my primary, I have considered everything: first I thought Bird

… I mean, you did include section headings in your submission.

then Badger for a long time, then I briefly considered Snake and then a thing happened in my life that I’ll explain later and that made me reconsider Loyalism as a whole, so I took the test and it gave me Lion. So, basically, I have no idea.

For my secondary, the only thing I know for certain is that it’s not Lion (or at least I don’t think so) and that there’s Bird somewhere, either as a model, a performance, or as my actual secondary. Other than that, there’s evidence for both Snake and Badger, so I’m lost.

Also, I just want to start by saying that English is not my first language, so if some parts of this sound kind of wonky, that’s why. Oh, and I’ll be using some of the questions you posted recently as a “SortMe submissions wish list”.

So far, your English is wonderful. :)

Basic information

To start, I think I need to clarify that I’m a huge perfectionist. I constantly feel like I have to be perfect all the time, and struggle with being vulnerable

I will say - I don’t think these things (while they do show up a lot) are tied to any particular sorting. They’re symptoms, and they can come from a lot of different places. 

and also struggle with showing “unclean” emotions (such as rage, sadness or fear) and accepting failure as a result. 

Okay, interesting. So this is either a rejection of Lion… perhaps by an intense Bird or Badger primary… or a Burned Lion that doesn’t trust itself. But Lion is going to be involved somewhere. 

It’s also quite important to me to be liked (or, at the very least, not disliked) by everyone I interact with, so I try to be polite and go out of my way to be nice and do people favors. This is probably important to understand a lot of the rest of this text.

This is sounding very Badger. And there’s some Badger secondary presentation, but the focus on ‘help the group’ is very Badger primary. 

I’m also very big on doing things fairly. 

Another classic Badger primary hallmark. 

I almost never cheat, and when I do, it’s always in situations where cheating does not give me an unfair advantage, basically if everyone else is / can easily be cheating in the exact same way and it’s not a true competition anyways (such as if an exam gets leaked to the whole class the day before we take it). In almost every other scenario, I always play by the rules, both because I value fairness a lot 

Still sounding very Badger primary. I like how your example of an acceptable cheating scenario is “if the whole group cheats, then obviously it’s fine.” :) 

and because I’m arrogant enough to believe I can get to wherever I want to get without cheating. 

Hm. ‘Arrogant’ is a very negative word, kind of out of nowhere. I’ll keep an eye on it, but it’s also possible you meant ‘confident.’ 

In cases where life “makes me” cheat (such as if a professor giving me a higher grade than I deserve on the exam because I’m a good student), it feels dirty and unfair, and I don’t like it (even if I’m generally pragmatic enough to take the grade because I want to keep my average up).

I wonder if this is a conflict between your primary and your secondary. Like for example, maybe a Badger primary who says “this is unfair” and a Snake primary who says “hey, things worked out in my favor, what’s wrong with that?”

Finally, freedom and autonomy are the most important values to me. My worst nightmare would be to have to physically depend on another person in order to survive. 

… I mean, I think that’s a human thing. There’s a reason ‘teeth falling out’ is one of the classic nightmares. I could see basically every primary (and secondary) being freaked out by this, for different reasons. But “Autonomy and Freedom” is the Lion primary Thing.

I like knowing that I can do things on my own, and making my own decisions is capital to me. I choose where to be, I choose who to love, etc. If I didn’t choose something myself, then I don’t want it, even if it’s beneficial to me (for instance, I would hate it if someone were to pick me up at the airport after I told them not to, even if getting home by myself would take way longer).

Oh I am so on board with this. The INTENSE ‘oh hell no’ of someone SURPRISING you by picking you up at the airport.

But I’m starting to think… a major disconnect between Badger and Lion primaries is that Badgers *will* surprise you with extra help, which will feel like coddling, control, or distrust to a Lion. So I wonder if that might not be the case for you. A Burned Lion who modeled Badger until recently… or maybe a Lion with very Badger-looking values who until recently *thought* they were a Badger? A Badger paired with a Lion (or otherwise very independent) secondary? 

Me as a kid

I was the kind of kid who always got the best grades in the whole class but was a bit socially awkward and just really shy. I liked being regarded as “the smart one” and always tried to live up to that expectation of knowing things. I loved storytelling and playing make-believe, and was really good at making up fantasy scenarios or cool horror stories on the spot, and loved being able to share that with other kids and being that person in the group. I was also kind of a compulsive liar, to be honest.

Interesting. Leaning me in the direction of an Improvisational secondary, who likes being the “smart one” - which probably lead into you building a Bird secondary model. 

Low-stakes story about solving a problem

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the premise is that you’re the leader of an organization tasked with defeating a genocidal maniac with delusions of godhood. Your organization is new, and therefore kinda weak, and you’re trying to make it into something big. For that, you have the help of various friends an allies, one of which is a warrior named Blackwall. At some point, you [SPOILERS] find out that Blackwall has been lying to you, and is in a fact a criminal on the run from the law for murder. He finds out one of his former friends is going to be hanged in his stead, so he turns himself in, and is set to be executed. With your political ties, you can get him out of jail and “judge” him yourself, or otherwise he gets killed [END SPOILERS].

We love a good Valjean moment, or a… main character from Tale of Two Cities moment.

This decision was really hard to make for me, because on the one hand he was my friend an I really cared about him (and also needed him in my team for practical reasons), but on the other hand, using my power to go against the law, particularly in a case where the law is being applied fairly, felt wrong. It felt like abusing my power, which made me feel dirty, and like something that would make both me and my organization look (and technically be) corrupt, which felt selfish and wrong. In the end I went with the pragmatic gaming decision of not sacrificing my only tank, but if it were real life I really don’t think I would have saved Blackwall, even if I would have felt terrible about not saving a friend when I could have.

Hmm. You’re really taking into account that you’re building an organization here, and the decisions you make now will effect the kind of organization it turns out to be… and THAT is worth sacrificing this guy for. And that, I think. Is more of a Badger primary answer. 

Although this is the second time you’ve brought up a “practicality” that you’re kind of guilty about. You think you ought not to take the higher grade... but it’s practical, and so you do. Even here, even though it’s a game and you think you would have acted differently in real life... I can’t help but notice that you actually did save him. For practical reasons. 

My fantasies

A lot of my fantasies relate to being loved, I suppose. I have friends, even good friends who I love and who love me back, but I don’t really have deep ride-or-die connections, and I’m terrible about showing actual vulnerability. I’ve never been in love (or had someone be in love with me) and I’m not sure I’m capable of either (in a “not emotionally equipped for this” way, not in an aromantic way, or at least I don’t think).

Love is funny. The ancient greeks knew what they were talking about, when they compared it to being hit by an arrow. 

So when you look at my wild fantasies, you get a lot of typical adventure stories where I get to help a lot of people and make the world a better place due to skills or powers that I definitely don’t have in real life while also having many friends (and the occasional romantic partner) who love me kind of unconditionally (I say kind of because I don’t believe in unconditional love, and also because in the fantasy I obviously don’t have many of the flaws that I have in real life). 

I promise you, people love you when you’re flawed. People love you because you’re flawed. Think of the people you love, or your favorite characters. Perfection is cold, and inhuman, and static. Leonard Cohen is one of my favorite songwriters, and I think he knows what the hell he’s talking about when he talks about love. And he says - “there is a crack, a crack in everything/that's how the light gets in.” 

And like... you can love someone unconditionally. But you cannot live with someone, unconditionally. That’s where the practicality comes in. 

I guess a big part of the fantasy is having a community of people who know me, who love me and to whom I matter both because of my actual skills and what I can bring to the table (like, I’m someone worth respecting and even admiring) and because of my actual personhood.

In short, I think my ultimate fantasy is being part of a heroic found family.

So this is a fantasy about community. The focus here is not on a romantic partner, or a ride-or-die friend, it’s all about group and found family. That’s a very Badger primary fantasy. But it’s also a fantasy about being *known.* And while that’s IS human thing that kind of identity angst... tends to hit idealists especially hard. 

Family dynamics

I’m pretty sure my father is a Double Bird. During his life, he has tried many different ideologies and “codes”, but ended up discarding them once he discovered parts of them that didn’t really work. Nowadays, he’s a pretty open-minded and curious man who always tried to foster my own intellectual curiosity (he literally bought me an Encyclopaedia when I was seven. I loved it).

On the secondary side, it’s a running gag in my family that he has a literal tool for everything (belt too big for you? He has a thingy that can punch holes into leather. Dirty car headlights? He has a product for that that he’s never used before today, but it’s still there). He’s also the kind of person who could hold a conversation about anything because he has baseline knowledge of almost every subject.

My guess is this is where your Bird secondary model comes from ( it’s possible you’ve got a Rapid-fire bird secondary that looks improvisational... but I’m leaning model. I honestly think that in such a Bird secondary environment, if you were actually just a Bird secondary... you’d feel a lot more comfortable problem solving than you do.) 

He’s also someone really chill who almost never gets worked up. The good part of this is that he’s a calming presence and someone you can always joke around. The bad part is that it’s hard to have deep emotional conversations with him, and that he’s non-confrontational to the point of never standing up for anyone and opting to tell people what they want to hear instead of what he actually thinks.

As for my mother, I have no idea what her primary is, but I’m pretty sure she’s a Lion Secondary with some sort of Badger Model. She’s very tough, larger-than-life, impulsive and perfectionistic. Hard work is (or used to be, anyway) almost a religion for her (mostly because she grew up seeing her own mother working her ass off to keep the family afloat while her father was kind of a lazy bum) and she always tried to make sure that I would never be lazy. When I was a kid I remember her always telling me that I could be whatever I wanted, as long as I was the best / worked really really hard for it. That kind of messed me up lmao. She’s also this really honest and sort of blunt person; she may be tough in her criticisms, but if she praises you, you know you deserve it.

To be fair, she is also an incredibly loving and inspiring woman who always tried her damndest to be a good mother, even if she wasn’t the best at it and was also dealing with really tough mental health issues for most of my childhood. She’s an inspiration for me in her toughness and ability to keep fighting no matter the odds. 

And her flaws make her lovable and human, right?

But here’s what I’m hearing. You’ve got a very intense mom who has a way of saying ‘this way is the way it has to be.” She just also seems to have... really committed to Badger, and maybe that’s coming from a primary or a secondary model, but the culture in your house sounds Badger. And your Dad is chill, and a Double Bird who built his system around that, so it works for him okay. But reading between the lines... (and also with an aside like “that kind of messed me up”) ... it works a lot less well for you. 

My current feeling that fits all the facts is that you’re a Burned Lion primary, with a *really* loud Badger model. Because here’s the thing... your angst is not the Badger angst of vanishing, having no boundaries, working yourself into the ground. It’s the Lion angst of being disconnected from your emotions... and not being okay with that. You talk multiple times about your struggles with being “vulnerable,” your struggle with showing “unclean” emotions, you get pretty fiery about making your own decisions - even if the other person is trying to help, even if they are helping, and now that I know you have this intensely Badger mom, that makes a lot of sense. “Selfish” and “arrogant” are two words Badgers often use to describe Lions, and they’re words you use to describe yourself. 

And well, you do talk about the extreme importance of freedom, autonomy, personal choice “I didn’t choose something myself, then I don’t want it, even if it’s beneficial.” I think you’re a Lion.

An anecdote

The “probably-not-a-loyalist-after-this” event I alluded to earlier happened after a string of thefts in my college. Essentially, there’s this guy in my class who is kind of “weird” (and by that I mean probably neurodivergent and not all that friendly, which means he’s not really liked by most people). Since he’s often seen pacing in random places and he’s “weird”, people began to suspect *him* of the thefts.

This enraged me a fair amount, and when an accusation was made in my program’s group chat (about 15 people total who I want to like me because we are going to spend a lot of time together these next few years), I snapped. I was upset and disappointed people who were studying Law of all things would make such baseless accusations. I wrote out this whole rant chewing them out, which I sent after toning it down a bit so as not to seem too preachy.

Boom. There it is. You don’t know this guy, but you care about what he *represents.* Heck you’re studying Law, this is what you DO. Protect the the weird, the unfriendly, uncharming... but harmless. That’s what you’re FOR. No wonder you snapped, and went against an entire community that you were part of. 

This was an action that in retrospect was kind of puzzling, as I’m usually much less confrontational than that. From a logical standpoint, it makes no sense to defend someone I’m not even friends with and who wasn’t even in the group chat, especially when that could make the actual people in the group chat dislike me for being a wet blanket goodie-two-shoes or something.  I know why I did it: I was furious because they were objectively being assholes, and also I related to the guy because I used to be kind of weird as a kid and at some point even got baselessly accused of theft. But it still felt weird in a “yes, this may be the person I want to be but not necessarily the person I’ve been in the past” way. But it felt good, righteous even; in a way, I made myself proud. I don’t know if this is relevant, but yeah.

Couldn’t be more relevant. Sometimes a Lion primary hits you like that, and it feels *good.* And it’s necessary. 

Goodbye

I would like to thank you one last time for taking the time to read this very long submission, and sorting me. I understand that you have a lot of these and that you also work full-time and have a private life, and it really does mean a lot to me that you would put in the effort to help other people in the SHC community like this. Truly, I thank you.

(Also, sorry for the length of this submission, I’m known to be overly verbose in writing lmao).

I wish I couldn’t have been more helpful with your secondary. I suspect Improvisational secondary, Bird model... and of the two... hm. On one hand, if you’re a Lion that would explain why you sort of seem to *get* your mother. But on the other hand... Lion secondaries don’t really focus on /practicality./ And you do, and that’s more a Snake thing. You also seem perfectly happy performing politeness... I don’t have much to go on, but I guess I’m picking Snake secondary as the most likely