#I'm hoping to shift them over

[glass-expanse]

Hm... gonna muse in the tags

[clarionglass]

here we go :) part one of three, updates to be released weekly!

---

sam says 4 (game master cinematic universe, part 3)

Ruby was at her mum's for a family dinner she couldn't miss on pain of death, apparently, and the Doctor was many things, but a family dinner kind of guy wasn't one of them—particularly when Carla had already slapped him once in the short time he'd known her. He thought he'd broken his streak of bad luck with mums, but… well, seemingly not. So he was companionless for a few hours, and while he could wait for her to get back, maybe catch up on his reading—what was the point of waiting when you had a time machine? 

He ran his hands over the TARDIS console, marvelling at her clean lines and metallic flourishes, the way that even now she felt brand new but familiar, and paused. He’d just pop off for a quick adventure, nothing too dangerous, but—where to go?

He could scan for a distress call nearby, and pitch in to help. He could drop in on Donna and Shaun and Rose, beautiful Rose, and see how they were all doing. Or he could just hit the randomiser button, and jump in feet first wherever he ended up.

He remembered a conversation from a long time ago, when he wore a different face, and his gorgeous TARDIS wore a face too, for the first and only time.

“You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.”

“No, but I always took you where you needed to go.”

He grinned. Who could resist an offer like that? He pressed the button and whooped as the time rotor spun into action, ready to see where the universe would take him.

---

Apparently, he was needed pretty close to where he already was. Earth, 2024. Huh. Same planet, same time—within a few months of where he’d left Ruby, even. The main thing that had changed was the location: he was now in the good old US of A. California, to be more specific, and Los Angeles to be more specific still. And to really narrow it down, the Doctor discovered as he poked his head out of the TARDIS doors, he was in… a broom closet. Not bad, as a parking spot—a bit squeezy, but out of the way. And as he poked his head out of that door, he could finally see he was in the backstage corridors of a studio of some kind. Film or TV, if he was to hazard a guess, it was a different vibe from Abbey Road.

With a shrug, he decided to go exploring.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before a young woman wearing the full-black outfit, headset, and permanently stressed expression of a production assistant came running up to him.

“Are you the fill-in Sam organised?” she asked breathlessly, and honestly, seeing the look on her face, the Doctor didn’t have the heart(s) to tell her no. And really, what was the Doctor, if not a professional fill-in? This, this was why he had a randomiser button on the control panel, because whatever he was about to get himself into was going to be fun.

“Sure!”

“Oh, thank god,” sighed the production assistant, relief dawning across her face. “When Ally tested positive this morning, I thought we were sunk for the record, because we called around and we couldn’t get a hold of anyone. But then Sam said he could get someone in, and, you know, here you are, and just in time, so—ah, yeah, if you could follow me this way?”

Smiling all the way, the Doctor followed his guide through to hair and makeup, looking around as they went. The studio seemed to belong to a company called Dropout, according to the branding scattered around, and things seemed, at least on the surface, to be… well. Fine. He couldn't tell why he'd been brought here yet, which meant that when he found the reason, it was going to be particularly tangled. He couldn't wait! 

And then he looked back at his guide, still engulfed in a miasma of anxiety, and realised he'd been too busy looking for clues to notice the person right in front of him. 

“Hey, it's cool, you've found me,” he started with a gentle smile. “You can relax. Hi, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?”

“Oh!” she said, startled. “The Doctor, yeah, of course. Um, hi, I'm Kaylin. Look, sorry, it's just that I've been so busy this morning, I'm so distracted… Shit, and I would've completely forgotten to get your details too. There's paperwork to fill in, but you can do that later. Um, just for now, though, can I get your pronouns?”

The Doctor thought for a moment. “He/him, for now.”

Kaylin nodded, making a note on her phone. “Okay, cool! And do you have any socials?”

“Not me, babes,” he replied. “I'm hardly sitting down long enough to be able to update, you know?”

“On a day like this, I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “That's okay, Lou didn't have socials either for the longest time. Right, so if you go through there, the team will get you sorted, and once you're done, someone will take you up to the greenroom. All good?”

“All great,” the Doctor replied. Kaylin flashed him a quick, relieved smile, then hurried off.

Hair and makeup was a fairly quick process, the sound mixer fitted him with a microphone, and before too long, Kaylin was back to take him upstairs. 

“This is the greenroom,” she said, pushing the door open. “The rest of the cast for the episode are already here—they’re great guys, and they’ve both been on the show a lot, so they’ll be able to help if you’ve got questions. And if you need anything else, just come find me or any of the other PAs, okay?”

The Doctor nodded, beamed at Kaylin, and walked in.

---

The greenroom was small but comfortable, and its occupants, two men around the same age as the Doctor appeared, looked up as he entered.

“Oh, you’re new,” the taller of the pair said, clearly giving him the once-over.

The other sighed with a mixture of fondness and exasperation, just as clearly used to his friend’s antics.

“Hey, I’m Brennan,” he said, levering himself up to standing from his perch on a chair arm, and holding out a hand. “That’s Grant.”

The Doctor took it warmly. “The Doctor. Just passing through, and happy to help.”

Grant’s eyebrows quirked. “Doctor… something?” he prompted.

“Or is it just ‘the Doctor’?” Brennan asked.

“Just ‘the Doctor’,” the Time Lord confirmed cheerfully. “You’ll get used to it, everyone does.”

Grant didn’t look convinced, but—

“Copy that,” Brennan shrugged, and settled back on the arm of the chair, returning his gaze to the door.

Grant, in turn, looked at the Doctor and rolled his eyes in a clear expression of ‘no, I don’t know why he’s like this, either’.

“Okay,” the Doctor said after a moment of watching the watching. “I wasn’t going to ask, but now I think I have to. What’s up with the door?”

Brennan huffed a laugh. “Well, the last time there was one of those up—” he pointed to the Out of Order sign stuck to the bathroom door, “—we got locked in here for the game.”

“He’s paranoid,” Grant interjected.

“Well, yeah, maybe,” Brennan retorted. “Or just cautious. Because Sam’s been acting weird lately, and we’re coming up to the last few records of the season, so he’s probably planning something way out of the box for the finale. And the original cast was you, me and Beardsley, so…”

He shrugged one shoulder meaningfully, and Grant nodded, conceding both the point and the potential for chaos.

“So if Sam comes in to give us the briefing, rather than waiting til we’re on set,” Brennan continued, “or there’s anything else weird going on, I’m gonna know about it right from the beginning.”

He turned to the Doctor. “The only reason I'm not quizzing you is because I know for a fact Beardsley was genuinely scheduled for this, so you can't be a plant by the production team. No offence.”

“None taken,” the Doctor smiled. “That sort of thing happen often, does it?”

Grant and Brennan exchanged a look. 

“More than you'd think,” Grant answered with a grimace. 

“Alright,” the Doctor said slowly, then brightened. “So what is it we're actually doing?”

Grant gave him a disbelieving glance. “You don't know—?”

“Very last minute fill-in,” the Doctor said breezily. “But don't worry, I'm a quick study.”

“Well, you're not that much worse off than the rest of us,” Brennan said encouragingly. “You know about Game Changer, obviously, if you know Sam, and we only find out the rules of the game once we get on set. Hopefully,” he added, with a dark look back at the Out of Order sign. 

The Doctor nodded. No, he didn't know Sam, and he didn't know Game Changer, but he could work out the situation from context clues. This was a game show. And with the Toymaker banished, and Satellite Five not coming into existence for another 198000 years, give or take, he found himself smiling. Maybe third time would be the charm. 

“Mmm, hopefully they aren't going to throw you in the deep end,” Grant said. “Because Brennan might seem lovely now, but as soon as we get out there, he's a whore for points. He'll stab you in the back and won't even blink.”

Brennan barked with laughter. “Yeah, and you wouldn't?”

“Excuse you, I'm always a goddamn delight,” Grant replied, the very picture of injured dignity. 

“Oh, absolutely!” agreed a new voice. The Doctor turned to the now-open door to see a bearded man in a pinstriped suit smiling broadly. “That's why we keep inviting you back!”

Grant bowed sarcastically. “Why, thank you, Sam. Good to know I'm appreciated by someone here.”

“Always,” Sam replied, gently but firmly ending that particular path of the conversation. He scanned the room, and his eyes lit up when they landed on the Doctor. 

“Ah, you must be the Doctor!” he said with obvious delight, walking over with his hand outstretched. “I'm Sam—thanks for filling in for us, you've made sure we're going to have a good show. Seriously, it's a pleasure to have you here.”

“Aw, cheers!” the Doctor smiled, shaking the offered hand. “Glad I could help out, I'm really looking forward to this!”

“Well, great!” Sam exclaimed, then took a step back, regarding all three players in turn. “Now, folks, I'm just letting you know that we're just about ready to start the record, so if you can start heading down, that'd be great.”

Grant and Brennan nodded—Brennan, the Doctor noticed, with relief. 

“See you down there,” Sam said, smiling. “Have a great show, and—”

His eyes caught on the Doctor's for a second, twinkling. 

“Good luck.”

---

Backstage, the Doctor, Brennan and Grant were marshalled into podium order and given a final briefing from the crew. And then, with a thumbs-up from Kaylin, that was it.

Showtime.

“Get ready for a Game Changer!” came Sam's voice from onstage. “Tonight’s guests: he can shoot off a monologue with laser accuracy; it’s Brennan Lee Mulligan!”

Brennan, his back to the camera as the curtains opened, spun on his heel and, with a stone-cold expression, pointed finger guns straight down the barrel, before letting the facade crack open. “Hi!” he exclaimed, and walked over to the leftmost podium.

“It’s his first appearance, but he’s already on fire; it’s the Doctor!”

The Doctor leant against the archway to the stage and flashed a broad smile towards the camera, then in a few skipping steps, had bounded over to the next free podium. What the hell, why not make an entrance?

“And even in the toughest of mazes, you’ll always be able to find him; it’s Grant O’Brien!”

Grant dipped his lanky frame into an approximation of a curtsey, spreading his arms wide, then sauntered over to the closest podium with a grin.

“And your host, me!” Sam announced, a ring of manic white showing around his irises as he beamed down the barrel of the camera. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

“This,” he continued, pushing his microphone shut and stowing it in his jacket pocket, “is Game Changer, the only game show where the game changes every show. I am your host, Sam Reich!” 

As he said his name, he looked at his hands, front and back, as if he was pleasantly surprised to be himself, then gestured towards the three podiums.

“I am joined today by these three lovely contestants! Now, you understand how the game works.”

“Of course not,” Grant started. “You know we don't.”

“We can't, Sam, that's the whole point of the theatre you've set up here,” Brennan said over him. 

“Not yet,” was all the Doctor said, anticipation starting to drum a tattoo of excitement against the inside of his ribcage. 

“That’s right!” Sam said brightly, shooting finger guns at the camera. “Our players have no idea what game it is they’re about to play. The only way to learn is by playing. The only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning! So without further ado, let’s begin by giving each of our players fifty points.”

The Doctor, biding his time, watched the reactions of his fellow contestants. Grant looked at the front of his podium, checking the point total, and nodding approvingly when he saw that yes, it was sitting at a round fifty. Brennan, on the other hand, was starting to frown.

“Players, Sam says: touch your nose,” Sam began, and Brennan sighed the sigh of someone who wasn’t happy to be proved right.

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “Oh, you son of a bitch. Wasn’t one this season enough?”

He touched his nose anyway, as did the others, and Sam smiled encouragingly. “Sam says: touch your ear.”

When they all did, Sam nodded. “Touch your other ear.”

Everybody held still, fingers on the ears they had originally touched.

Sam beamed. “Easy, players, right?”

“You say that now,” Brennan said darkly. “Which makes it worse, because all you're doing is setting us up for failure.”

Sam gasped, pretending offence. “Would I do that?”

“Yes,” Brennan and Grant replied in unison, which drew a grin from the Doctor and set Sam off chuckling.

“And I'm not having it,” Brennan continued, leaning his elbows against his podium and pointing at Sam with the hand not touching his ear. “You better watch yourself, because I know how this game works, and you're not going to get one over on me.”

“Strong words, Brennan!” Sam said, clearly delighted by this response. “Okay, then, let's start making things a bit more interesting!”

The game continued as per Sam Says usual, some rounds done as a group and some individual. Points were won, sure, but lost slightly more frequently, and even the Doctor found he was having to concentrate to avoid getting caught in the host's traps. 

It was fun. Genuinely, it was like playing a game with friends, and the Doctor felt himself leaning into it. There wasn't any sign of danger—maybe there wasn't a mystery to solve at all, and the TARDIS just decided he needed a total break. 

Well, probably not. But the way things were going, he was able to let himself hope. 

“Alright, players,” Sam said a good few rounds in, just as pleasantly as he would start any other question, and the screen behind him dinged as a new prompt popped up. “Survive the death beam.”

For a second, everything was frozen perfectly still. 

And then came the crash, the explosive noise of heavy machinery moving relentlessly through a drywall set.

The Doctor was already moving. “Everyone down!”

“Duck!” Brennan yelled at the same time.

The two of them hit the ground within milliseconds of each other, but Grant was still paralysed in the face of the giant, science-fiction type laser cannon that had just ploughed through the wall. 

It whined ominously, screaming its way to fever pitch. And then a sharp pain in Grant’s ankle made him stagger, pitching forwards onto the carpet behind the podiums as the Doctor rolled away to avoid getting pinned.

“Sorry, babes,” the Doctor whispered. “But it was either kick you to get you down, or—”

A hideous metallic screech ripped through the air, and all three of them could feel the crackle of ozone as a beam of energy swept across what had, moments ago, been neck height.

“…Or that,” the Doctor finished with a grimace.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Grant breathed, suddenly very conscious of every inch of his 6’9 frame. “Thanks.”

“Well done, players!” Sam exclaimed delightedly from above them. “But… sorry, I didn’t say ‘Sam says’, so that’s a point off for everyone.”

“What the fuck!” Brennan snapped.

“Are you actually insane?” Grant demanded at the same time, his voice overlapping with Brennan’s.

In response, Sam just wheezed with laughter. “You can come back to your podiums,” he said, cheerfully ignoring them.

Nobody moved.

“Very good!” he acknowledged, and even without seeing his face, the grin was obvious in his voice. “Okay, Sam says: come back to your podiums.”

Although the words were innocuous, and his tone was just as light and breezy as usual, there was nevertheless an edge hiding just underneath the surface. And while the death beam loomed large in the minds of all three players, it was impossible to consider disobedience as an option.

Slowly, they stood, returning to their places. Now they had the time to look at it properly, the death beam was even more sinister, and Brennan and Grant both kept flicking nervous glances its way, ready to move if it looked like it was charging up again.

The Doctor, however, was focused purely on the man standing in front of them. Unbothered, Sam met his gaze like a challenge, a mischievous smile playing about his lips.

“Oh, you’ll love this one,” he said, and the screen changed. “Sam says, starting with Grant: say my name.”

Grant frowned in confusion, but answered quickly nonetheless. “Sam Reich?”

The man himself shrugged tolerantly, moving on. “Brennan?”

Brennan just stared at him coolly. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“Well caught, Brennan!” Sam said happily. “Sam says: say my name.”

“Sam,” Brennan replied, suspicion clear in his voice. “Samuel Dalton Reich.”

He nodded, still with a hint of indifference. “And lastly, Doctor.” His smile broadened. “Sam says: say my name.”

It was easy. Too easy. And as the Doctor looked into the eyes of the man calling himself Sam Reich, he felt his hearts stutter in recognition, because something had changed. He wasn’t hiding himself anymore, and while the face was different yet again, the Doctor would know the shape of that soul anywhere. It was impossible. It was inevitable.

“You can’t be,” he breathed. 

Sam smirked, leaning in across his podium. “Oh, but Doctor… I’ve been here the whole time,” he stage-whispered with a wink.

“He said you lost,” the Doctor said, shaking his head, looking wrong-footed for the first time that Brennan and Grant could recall. “You lost, and he trapped you.”

The other two watched, uncomprehending, but Sam just smiled, drumming his fingers against the podium with an audible beat, fast but distinct. Four taps, four taps, four taps. “I’m waiting.”

The Doctor took a slow, deep breath. Set his jaw. 

“Master.”

---

missed an installment of the game master cinematic universe?

original idea by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist: x

art by @northernfireart concept: x scissor sisters sketch: x sam and his doppelganger: x

writing by me (!) part one (escape the greenroom): x part two (deja vu): x part three (sam says 4): you are here!

[angeart]

dropping this hhau mini rp snippet out of context and running—

(screenshot text:)

death loop. that's a phrase grian didn't think will ever again apply to them. because dying was meant to only happen once.

an electric current runs down his spine as the phrase bounces around in his head, with all its held-in possibilities. they can die over and over and over again. and they'd still be here. alive through it all.

grian pauses in his attack, pulls a little higher, supporting his weight with his arms braced by each side of scar's head as he looks down at him. (he just wants to see him.) grian's face is flushed, eyes bright, but his expression shifts, from unbridled joy to something more tamed. tentative and soft and incredibly, irresistibly hopeful.

"we're going to live," he says suddenly, with so much unprecedented clarity in his voice.

[disdaidal]

I wanna thank my irl friends who follow me here and also my beloved mutuals as well as followers who still send me kind messages and try to interact with me and my stuff even if I'm bad at doing it myself.

Honestly, things haven't been that great with me lately, so... it means a lot to me. Honestly. <3

[bistaxx]

I've already made peace with the fact that I am not making it home in time for the event today...

[navree]

How can you humanize Maegor , if you will make a show about him?

It depends on how far back you're willing to go in his life, because really up until he takes the crown, you can do quite a bit to humanize him and make him someone people want to engage with, without woobifying him or trying to excuse the truly heinous things he does. Starting backstory onwards, there are lot of ways to do this. There's a lot of room to play with in his childhood and the interpersonal relationships that should be his strongest tethers to humanity, but aren't: his relationship with his brother, his relationship with his mother, and his relationship with his father.

Aenys and Maegor are a relationship that was doomed to fail since birth. For one, while the age gap isn't huge, five years is still pretty significant in terms of differences in development as children, which definitely got in the way of any bonding. For two, they also appear to have largely grown up separately, with Aenys spending most of his time by Aegon's side in King's Landing, and Maegor being raised on Dragonstone with Visenya, before the two essentially switched places with Aegon at Dragonstone and Visenya overseeing the construction of the Red Keep in King's Landing. For three, there's also the external factors, such as their incredibly different personalities and viewpoints on basically everything, as well as the fact that, when Maegor was born, Aenys was only very recently removed from the complete breakdown he had due to his trauma over his mother's sudden death, and likely still wasn't in a state to be trying to forge new bonds with anyone who wasn't Quicksilver (and Aegon, but Aegon's grandfathered in by being his literal dad). So Maegor, who we know wasn't making friends on Dragonstone and just in general was probably really isolated from kids his own age due to it being Dragonstone (not unlike how we see with Shireen Baratheon) also isn't getting any kind of connection from anyone close to his own age throughout his entire childhood.

Really, the only person Maegor is close to in any capacity is his mother, Visenya. She's the parent he grew up with, his primary caregiver and his closest relationship not just in childhood, but likely throughout his entire life. In the nature vs nurture debate on childrearing, she's the one who was providing the nurture. Nearly everything about Maegor, his personality and his view of the world and his personal philosophies and his love map in his brain, among many other things, all of that was shaped by Visenya and her influence on him and her care and devotion for him. And with no one else really around to provide him any sort of companionship that he might have needed, and with his other parent being incredibly distant and barely a parent, Maegor likely latched onto her incredibly strongly. I think, if asked, Maegor would say that, should he be found capable of love, Visenya would be the person he loved the most in his life (I'm of the opinion that his relationship with Tyanna was him trying to find a significant other that most reminded him of his beloved mother, not entirely dissimilar to the way that Henry VIII felt that an ideal wife would be one who was almost identical to Elizabeth of York). And we know that this is something that persisted long after childhood, into his adulthood Visenya was his strongest supporter and Maegor relied on her a lot early in his reign, and was publicly devastated when he learned that she had died. His mother was the only parent he ever really knew as a parent, certainly the family member he loved most, adored even, especially in such sharp distinction with Aegon as a distant father. And speaking of that distant father...

I love Aegon, he's one of my absolute favorite Targs, but he was practically just a parent in name only to his second son. And that's going to do a number on someone, no matter who they are. Maegor's father doesn't much care for his mother, certainly doesn't seem to care for him at all personally, and despite the fact that Maegor is probably far more like Aegon, and a far worthier successor, than Aenys, Aegon still dotes on his eldest while barely spending any time with Maegor. And it's not because of anything Maegor's done, or even anything Aenys has done: it's entirely because of Aenys's mother. Aenys is Aegon's favorite, his precious son, not because of anything Aenys has done to earn that, but simply because he is the son of Aegon's beloved Rhaenys, and that his very existence is a way of having Rhaenys still with him after her disappearance/death. We know that Aegon was forever incredibly affected by what happened to Rhaenys and that he never stopped loving her, given that he openly wept when he held Rhaena and was informed that she was named after her grandmother. Meanwhile, there's Maegor, whose own mother's relationship with his father was never very good (marriage of duty for them vs the Aegon/Rhaenys marriage of desire) and had become incredibly cold and distant by the time that he was born, and you can very easily see how that might ultimately affect a kid. He's watching his mother be completely ignored by his dad just for being the wrong woman, he's dealing with himself being completely ignored and passed over in love and affection just because he's the son of the wrong woman, because his mother isn't the lost ghost that Aegon loved and won't ever be able to stop loving. How much of Maegor's prowess in fighting, not to mention the unchecked aggression he showed during training, was borne of trying to impress his martially skilled father and being upset when it didn't work? How much of his continued presence in tourneys and melées was to show Aegon that he was a much better son than Aenys, that he deserved the love Aegon was freely giving his brother just as much? Was there ever a time when he resented Visenya for being his mother when that was enough to make Aegon uninterested, and did he ever hate himself for blaming the wrong person, or blaming anyone at all? How much did he internalize his own feelings about it as the relationship never got any warmer? How did he feel when Aegon finally noticed him enough to knight him himself, and make him the youngest knight in the realm at that? Did Maegor ever want to talk to him about it once he was a young man, did he ever want to try and forge a stronger relationship on his own merits as an adult, did he ever even try?

There's also the matter of Balerion, which is as much its own relationship as a subset of anything that can be played with as it pertains to Aegon and Maegor. For one, we know that Maegor point blank refused to claim any dragon because he felt that Balerion was the only one worthy of him. And you can take that at face value, but you can also go deeper into it, into the ideas that Maegor might not be consciously aware of. Maybe he wants to try and connect with his father on some level through the dragon bond. Maybe he looks at how Aegon gives Aenys so much, his companionship and his throne and his sword and his love, Hell he even gives Aenys a Valyrian bride (Alyssa Velaryon) but demands that Maegor settle for a simple Westerosi, as if he's lesser than and not the blood of old Valyria. And still he waits to see if maybe Aegon will give him something. Maybe once Aegon is too old for dragonriding, he'll give Maegor Balerion, or at least give Maegor the opportunity to try, to prove himself as Aegon's son, to have that connection. And when Aegon doesn't, when it's still Aenys getting everything Maegor might not even realize he wants, that's just another disappointment for him.

But Maegor does get Balerion anyway, once Aegon dies. He finally gets a connection to Aegon that's his alone, and it's after Aegon is already dead and likely after Maegor was already hardening into the man he would ultimately be remembered as. Not to mention, even on its own, Balerion and Maegor's bond is a good way to show a human element to the man. I've always maintained that, when it comes to Targaryens, the most unconditionally loving and the most openly affection and emotional we should see them should really be with the dragons. With their magic and their Valyrian blood and old world roots and just everything about them, even if you don't subscribe to Targaryen exceptionalism, they are pretty far removed from the place they actually live; culturally and ethnically and socially, they are not Westerosi and certainly in Maegor's time, don't see themselves or are seen by others as Westerosi. The dragons, products of Valyria's heyday, are the closest living beings that Targaryens can relate to, and this is doubly important when it comes to Balerion, who was born during the reign of the Valyrian Freehold, who was alive before the Doom. Balerion is a living cultural heritage, and for someone as isolated as Maegor is (and, as we see in his actions re: his marriages and the Faith, as divorced from Westerosi customs and standards as he is), having that connection is probably the deepest one he'd have, bar maybe his mother, and even then, despite that closeness and love, their mutually cold personalities probably made it hard to be open in any deep affection once Maegor started growing up. Dragons and their riders are practically one being, they feel each other's pains and pleasures and angers and grudges and triumphs, and Maegor having something like that, along with the connection to a father he never really was connected to, adds a human element to the man that he was, despite the fact that he used Balerion to do terrible things.

You can also do a lot with Maegor's actions before his own kingship, specifically the reign of his half-brother Aenys. In spite of their differences and distances, in spite of the shadow of Aegon and the relationships he had with his sisters that affected his relationship with his own sons in turn, Aenys does embrace Maegor with open arms. He gives him Blackfyre, another possession of Aegon's that Maegor must have coveted, and he promises that they'll rule together. They're both adults now, and Aenys seems emotionally sensitive enough to have realized that Maegor probably has some deep rooted issues borne out of things that were set in motion before he was even conceived. And while Visenya might have scoffed at the gestures Aenys made for Maegor, Maegor appears to have taken them really seriously. He personally crushes a rebellion against Aenys in the Vale, and makes huge showings of his loyalty by fighting really hard for his brother against his foes. When Aenys makes him his Hand, Maegor takes that responsibility really seriously and is willing to obey Aenys as his Lord and King, as well as protect him. This seems to have been loyalty that was reciprocated, since it's noted that, when Aenys exiles Maegor for his bigamy, he does it because he felt he had no other option than to be mad at Maegor for what he did, due to the huge public outcry, and even then he still offers Maegor a way out. He only exiles him because Maegor refuses to set Alys aside (another way to humanize Maegor, he takes Alys as a wife despite it being a big taboo for most Westerosi and in spite of her being from a pretty minor noble House, and he refuses to leave her even at the cost of losing his home, he keeps her by his side and he refuses to give her up when there were likely a shitton of better options to deal with his childlessness, to say nothing of women from greater Houses with more potential for him politically, but he CHOSE Alys), since Aenys felt that this was the only choice left to him. And Maegor abides by the exile. Yeah, he takes Blackfyre even though Aenys asked him to leave it, but he still goes into exile, and he stays in exile. Aenys rides Quicksilver and Maegor rides Balerion, the two dragons literally go toe to toe with each other and it's so massively onesided because Quicksilver doesn't stand a chance. If Maegor wanted to, he could have very easily repudiated his exile and decimated Aenys if he tried to enforce it. But Aenys told him to go, so he did, and he stayed gone until Visenya came to fetch him back with the news that Aenys was dead. He respected Aenys's word as king, his sovereign authority as liege lord and as the elder brother, and even if he might not have entirely thought the man worthy of what he had, that does speak to a sort of deference in spite of the complexities of their upbringing, and a willingness to obey Aenys despite everything about their personalities.

So, by the time Maegor comes back from Pentos to usurp the throne, there's a lot that can be used to humanize him and make him a compelling protagonist. A close but somewhat stilted relationship with the only parent to have ever tried with him, an unfulfilled, desperate need for approval and affection from a parent who couldn't give that to him due to circumstances entirely outside his control, a brother he didn't know well in his youth and might not have thought worthy of what he had and certainly been jealous of but that he still respected as king and fought hard to defend and that he deferred to even when he didn't have to, at least one marriage that, in spite of what little it offered him and the clusterfuck it caused, he valued enough that he refused to set aside, and an intense bond with a fearsome dragon that you can make him value more than almost anything or anyone. All of that set up can then be used for an extraordinary fall from grace, to watch the potential and nuance slowly grow darker and darker and darker as Maegor does increasingly horrible things, treats the people in his life increasingly badly, descends further and further into the tyranny and madness that will utlimately kill him. There's bright spots that can be used as well, like the fact that he does have Jaehaerys as his heir and doesn't seem to have had him or Viserys treated that badly, even though they were prisoners, and that he didn't actually set out to kill Aegon the Uncrowned at all until Aegon decided to take back his throne and amass an army. Then, as we've watched Maegor slide further and further down, we can watch with a sinking dread as he annihilates Aegon beneath God's Eye, as he turns on Alys and extinguishes her family, as he has Viserys literally tortured to death to punish Alyssa and Jaehaerys and Alysanne for their escape from Dragonstone. So that, by the time we get to shit like the completion of the Red Keep and the Black Brides, we see that Maegor is incredibly far gone, and we can only watch as all the complexities within him are swept aside by the monster he's become, so foul and loathsome that the eldritch abomination that is the Iron Throne finally kills him to stop the madness.

It's not about woobifying Maegor or excusing him. It's about providing a reason for the audience to look back on who he was as he becomes what he was always going to be, to give explanations for why he does the things that he does (how much of his initial militarism and violence and heavy-handedness, before he went doolally, was borne out of not just his martial prowess as a kid but also watching Aenys's version of ruling not work, for instance), and to get people to understand and feel his initial motivations so that the later stuff also makes sense, and so that you're watching something akin to a doomed fall when he becomes Maegor the Cruel. These are, at least to me, some of the most important and influential ways you can humanize Maegor as a character if you're planning to center him in a proper narrative story, without filing down his edges and keeping him as the kind of person he is. Extrapolate on why he is the way he is, and then show him how he is throughout his lifetime and what he does, along with the how and why of what he does.

[born-to-lose]

FIRST SHIFT AT THE BAR NEXT FRIDAY SHE'S REPORTING ME TO THE ACCOUNTANCY FIRM TOMORROW

[vulturereyy]

THEY'RE DOING FUCKING WHAT FOR A CROWN OF CANDY????

[softquietsteadylove]

Well I saw the post from @eternalowl and I challenge you to do a Modern Thenamesh AU with Gil being the mall Santa!

I specifically ask you because I really love all of your works and your tags :D thank you for everything ❤️

"Okay, kids, Santa has to take a short break," Sersi offered a gentle smile as she closed the gates to the area. There were a few whines and a few glares from parents, but she waved. "I know you all understand how hard he's working. He'll be back in half an hour!"

Gil let out a gasping breath as soon as he was inside the little shed that was decorated for him to change inside. Really, all he had to do was pull off the hot-ass Santa pants and coat from over his t-shirt and jeans. And tear off the uncomfortable beard.

"Just one more shift for the day," Sersi promised as she also pulled off her elf ears once away from prying eyes.

"I can't wait until this stall closes," Gil sighed deeply as he aired out his shirt.

"You volunteered," Sersi laughed, although, so had she, and she also couldn't wait until they were off-duty. "And look at all the kids you're making happy with this."

"Yeah, you're right," he sighed as he pulled on his light bomber jacket. "Coast clear?"

Sersi peeked out to make sure no families were loitering around, or at least checking to make sure that those who were wouldn't be pointing out that Santa went into his 'workshop' and some dude was coming out. "We're clear."

Gil stretched as soon as they were out of the cramped little tool shed. "I'm starving."

"I'm sure Thena's already on her way," Sersi laughed to herself, although Gil looked as excited as the kids who had waited in line for them all morning.

"It sure was sweet of her to suggest making cookies while we're working," Gil mused as he took a seat behind the photoshoot area on a normal mall bench.

Yes, it was very sweet, and they hadn't had much choice in the matter. Since Gil had volunteered to cover the weekend mall-Santa shifts, Thena had been there for every break they'd had.

As Makkari recounted, Thena had ordered the making of cookies for their hard working friends, but Thena was the only one with the time to actually bring them every few hours.

"Just 'cause it's you," Sersi murmured as she scrolled through her phone. "If it were anyone else, she wouldn't have cared."

"That's not true," Gil easily waved off in Thena's defense.

It was true, though. She had wished Sersi luck, of course, dealing with all those kids even though her winter break as a teacher was also in effect. But hearing that Gil had volunteered as well?--that had made the blonde spring into action.

Thena hated the mall--too many people, too little space between her and them. And yet...

"Gil!"

"Thena!" he practically jumped to his feet as he saw her, grinning as her blonde ponytail swung side to side with her long legged steps.

"Another round done?" she smiled as she deposited yet another bag into his hands.

"Yep," he mumbled as he tore into her care package. There were cookies, a few more substantial snacks, and a bottle of sports drink to keep his energy up. "One more round to go before we're free."

"I don't know how you're doing it," she shook her head at him, watching as he took a long gulp of his drink. "Are you sure a half hour break for every four is enough?"

"It was one for every three, leading up to today," Sersi smiled in sympathy as Gil started wolfing down his food. She nodded her gratitude as Thena presented her with a bundle of cookies as well. Although, Sersi couldn't help but notice that hers both had fewer in it, and didn't have a ribbon around it. "But today's the last day for it. Then he's off a few hours before the mall closes."

"Don't you get enough of them at your real job?" Thena snarked lightly at Sersi as Gil went to dispose of his litter.

Sersi grinned at Thena, "don't you have better things to do than schedule your whole day around when Gil goes on break?"

Thena crossed her arms at her, "I live one block away--it's not like it's any trouble."

Sersi wasn't intimidated by the Goddess of War, though, bumping their shoulders together affectionately. "He's all yours after tonight."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Thena glared at her, although it melted away when she turned her attention back to Gil upon his return. "Tell me no one else has peed on your leg, at least."

"No, no one after that poor little guy on the first day," Gil sighed, of course being a good sport about something that would have most people quitting on the spot. "And today a few people got pictures of their pets with me, so that was cute."

"Although that cat in a knapsack was utterly terrified of him," Sersi mused as she unwrapped her cookies and took a bite.

Everyone had made different ones. Makkari had chosen gingerbread, Druig making something with dried berries in them. Thena and Ikaris, the much less baking-inclined of them, had both made cookies from instant mix. Sersi had helped Ikaris make his own chocolate chip cookies herself (although she had protested that they weren't in the spirit of the season, which he had ignored).

Thena made the sugar cookies that Gil currently had a full bag of.

"Hey, what're you up to?" Gil asked Thena more softly, taking a bite of the sugary star and then holding up a bite for her. "We've got 20 minutes--grab a coffee with us?"

Sersi watched Thena bite off a point of the star still in Gil's hand and shot to her feet. "Oh, uhm, Ikaris is calling me! You two go and--Gil, I'll meet you back here!"

Gil shrugged, watching Sersi all but sprint off into a crowd of shoppers. He turned back to Thena, who had left him the last star point generously. "Okay, just you and me, then--you in?"

Thena nodded, smiling at him as she chewed her cookie bite.

"These turned out really good," he smiled as he pulled out another one, walking towards the unique hellscape that was the mall starbucks. "You took my advice about making the butter room temperature, didn't you?"

"And what you said about the second round not taking as long because the pan is already hot," she smiled, leaning in as he held out another star for her.

"Thanks," he smiled at her more softly than before, despite the chaos around them. "These really kept me sane between the screaming and the crying and complaining parents."

Thena brushed a few crumbs off his coat, "you love doing this kind of stuff--especially if it's for kids."

"Yeah, that's true," he conceded easily. A few teenagers ran past them, bumping him closer to her. Neither said anything. "But I'd still rather be hanging out with you on my time off."

"Well," Thena pulled out the last cookie she'd packed for him this round, holding it up for him this time. "Three more hours, and then you're free."

"Three more hours," he sighed, leaning in to steal a bite of the cookies she had made just for him. He held her eyes as she brushed a crumb off the corner of his lips, "I can do that."

"Um," the nervous young barista coughed, watching the couple canoodling in the middle of the line, "do you wanna order? Or..."

[siena-sevenwits]

Disclaimer: These thoughts are more emotionally than logically expressed, and reflect my own experience and preference.

[redheadedbrunette]

I know we're all excited to see the new Barbie movie because it looks like a lot of fun, but part of what I'm most interested to see is how the movie affects the doll side of things.

Because, like, for as good as it could be it is going to function on some level as a big toy commercial and I'm wondering what sort of toys it will advertise and how what Mattel is selling might changed based on the reception to the movie

[red-hot-moon]

.

[cactusdodes]

.

[phantomrose96]

If anyone wants to know why every tech company in the world right now is clamoring for AI like drowned rats scrabbling to board a ship, I decided to make a post to explain what's happening.

(Disclaimer to start: I'm a software engineer who's been employed full time since 2018. I am not a historian nor an overconfident Youtube essayist, so this post is my working knowledge of what I see around me and the logical bridges between pieces.)

Okay anyway. The explanation starts further back than what's going on now. I'm gonna start with the year 2000. The Dot Com Bubble just spectacularly burst. The model of "we get the users first, we learn how to profit off them later" went out in a no-money-having bang (remember this, it will be relevant later). A lot of money was lost. A lot of people ended up out of a job. A lot of startup companies went under. Investors left with a sour taste in their mouth and, in general, investment in the internet stayed pretty cooled for that decade. This was, in my opinion, very good for the internet as it was an era not suffocating under the grip of mega-corporation oligarchs and was, instead, filled with Club Penguin and I Can Haz Cheezburger websites.

Then around the 2010-2012 years, a few things happened. Interest rates got low, and then lower. Facebook got huge. The iPhone took off. And suddenly there was a huge new potential market of internet users and phone-havers, and the cheap money was available to start backing new tech startup companies trying to hop on this opportunity. Companies like Uber, Netflix, and Amazon either started in this time, or hit their ramp-up in these years by shifting focus to the internet and apps.

Now, every start-up tech company dreaming of being the next big thing has one thing in common: they need to start off by getting themselves massively in debt. Because before you can turn a profit you need to first spend money on employees and spend money on equipment and spend money on data centers and spend money on advertising and spend money on scale and and and

But also, everyone wants to be on the ship for The Next Big Thing that takes off to the moon.

So there is a mutual interest between new tech companies, and venture capitalists who are willing to invest $$$ into said new tech companies. Because if the venture capitalists can identify a prize pig and get in early, that money could come back to them 100-fold or 1,000-fold. In fact it hardly matters if they invest in 10 or 20 total bust projects along the way to find that unicorn.

But also, becoming profitable takes time. And that might mean being in debt for a long long time before that rocket ship takes off to make everyone onboard a gazzilionaire.

But luckily, for tech startup bros and venture capitalists, being in debt in the 2010's was cheap, and it only got cheaper between 2010 and 2020. If people could secure loans for ~3% or 4% annual interest, well then a $100,000 loan only really costs $3,000 of interest a year to keep afloat. And if inflation is higher than that or at least similar, you're still beating the system.

So from 2010 through early 2022, times were good for tech companies. Startups could take off with massive growth, showing massive potential for something, and venture capitalists would throw infinite money at them in the hopes of pegging just one winner who will take off. And supporting the struggling investments or the long-haulers remained pretty cheap to keep funding.

You hear constantly about "Such and such app has 10-bazillion users gained over the last 10 years and has never once been profitable", yet the thing keeps chugging along because the investors backing it aren't stressed about the immediate future, and are still banking on that "eventually" when it learns how to really monetize its users and turn that profit.

The pandemic in 2020 took a magnifying-glass-in-the-sun effect to this, as EVERYTHING was forcibly turned online which pumped a ton of money and workers into tech investment. Simultaneously, money got really REALLY cheap, bottoming out with historic lows for interest rates.

Then the tide changed with the massive inflation that struck late 2021. Because this all-gas no-brakes state of things was also contributing to off-the-rails inflation (along with your standard-fare greedflation and price gouging, given the extremely convenient excuses of pandemic hardships and supply chain issues). The federal reserve whipped out interest rate hikes to try to curb this huge inflation, which is like a fire extinguisher dousing and suffocating your really-cool, actively-on-fire party where everyone else is burning but you're in the pool. And then they did this more, and then more. And the financial climate followed suit. And suddenly money was not cheap anymore, and new loans became expensive, because loans that used to compound at 2% a year are now compounding at 7 or 8% which, in the language of compounding, is a HUGE difference. A $100,000 loan at a 2% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, accrues to $121,899. A $100,000 loan at an 8% interest rate, if not repaid a single cent in 10 years, more than doubles to $215,892.

Now it is scary and risky to throw money at "could eventually be profitable" tech companies. Now investors are watching companies burn through their current funding and, when the companies come back asking for more, investors are tightening their coin purses instead. The bill is coming due. The free money is drying up and companies are under compounding pressure to produce a profit for their waiting investors who are now done waiting.

You get enshittification. You get quality going down and price going up. You get "now that you're a captive audience here, we're forcing ads or we're forcing subscriptions on you." Don't get me wrong, the plan was ALWAYS to monetize the users. It's just that it's come earlier than expected, with way more feet-to-the-fire than these companies were expecting. ESPECIALLY with Wall Street as the other factor in funding (public) companies, where Wall Street exhibits roughly the same temperament as a baby screaming crying upset that it's soiled its own diaper (maybe that's too mean a comparison to babies), and now companies are being put through the wringer for anything LESS than infinite growth that Wall Street demands of them.

Internal to the tech industry, you get MASSIVE wide-spread layoffs. You get an industry that used to be easy to land multiple job offers shriveling up and leaving recent graduates in a desperately awful situation where no company is hiring and the market is flooded with laid-off workers trying to get back on their feet.

Because those coin-purse-clutching investors DO love virtue-signaling efforts from companies that say "See! We're not being frivolous with your money! We only spend on the essentials." And this is true even for MASSIVE, PROFITABLE companies, because those companies' value is based on the Rich Person Feeling Graph (their stock) rather than the literal profit money. A company making a genuine gazillion dollars a year still tears through layoffs and freezes hiring and removes the free batteries from the printer room (totally not speaking from experience, surely) because the investors LOVE when you cut costs and take away employee perks. The "beer on tap, ping pong table in the common area" era of tech is drying up. And we're still unionless.

Never mind that last part.

And then in early 2023, AI (more specifically, Chat-GPT which is OpenAI's Large Language Model creation) tears its way into the tech scene with a meteor's amount of momentum. Here's Microsoft's prize pig, which it invested heavily in and is galivanting around the pig-show with, to the desperate jealousy and rapture of every other tech company and investor wishing it had that pig. And for the first time since the interest rate hikes, investors have dollar signs in their eyes, both venture capital and Wall Street alike. They're willing to restart the hose of money (even with the new risk) because this feels big enough for them to take the risk.

Now all these companies, who were in varying stages of sweating as their bill came due, or wringing their hands as their stock prices tanked, see a single glorious gold-plated rocket up out of here, the likes of which haven't been seen since the free money days. It's their ticket to buy time, and buy investors, and say "see THIS is what will wring money forth, finally, we promise, just let us show you."

To be clear, AI is NOT profitable yet. It's a money-sink. Perhaps a money-black-hole. But everyone in the space is so wowed by it that there is a wide-spread and powerful conviction that it will become profitable and earn its keep. (Let's be real, half of that profit "potential" is the promise of automating away jobs of pesky employees who peskily cost money.) It's a tech-space industrial revolution that will automate away skilled jobs, and getting in on the ground floor is the absolute best thing you can do to get your pie slice's worth.

It's the thing that will win investors back. It's the thing that will get the investment money coming in again (or, get it second-hand if the company can be the PROVIDER of something needed for AI, which other companies with venture-back will pay handsomely for). It's the thing companies are terrified of missing out on, lest it leave them utterly irrelevant in a future where not having AI-integration is like not having a mobile phone app for your company or not having a website.

So I guess to reiterate on my earlier point:

Drowned rats. Swimming to the one ship in sight.

[innocencel0st]

Okay. It's after midnight and I am actually pretty sleepy. Plus not only do I have to get up early to take Draven to school, he has an event in the morning that I told him I'd be there for. But I'm off tomorrow, so I'll be here most of the day.

[patrophthia]

mini skirt | theodore nott

pairing: theodore nott x reader

wc: 3.5k

genre: smut (minors DNI), fluff, best friends to lovers, meddling blaise zabini just coz, they’re in love 🤢🤢, self indulgent im so sorry for the person i am

smut tags: dry humping, coming untouched, (very little) oral sex, come eating, unprotected sex (don’t do this!!), fingering, size kink, breeding kink, bulge kink, cream pie, so much dirty talk oml, big dick theo 😞, reader being shorter than theo, reader wearing a mini skirt, lots of cussing

summary: blaise zabini’s idea of how to play matchmaker might be different from the traditional way of doing it but at least you ended up getting dicked down, so you guess his method works too.

Blaise Zabini's idea of playing match maker is whispering to you —in a not so quiet way, that he'd heard 'Nott's got a big dick' and though you swatted him away. Face disgruntled, mumbling about how you did not want to know about your best friend's private parts. You're terrible enough of a person for your eyes to drop to his crotch when he sat down on the couch opposing yours.

There's a call of your name, once, twice. Before Theodore leaned forward, his voice loud enough for your eyes to tear itself from his thighs to his eyes. You gulped, hoping —hoping that he thought you'd blanked out and just happened to be staring at a very unfortunate spot. "Hmm?"

Theodore's held onto your gaze, lazying back onto his coach. "You okay? I asked if you wanted to head back up but you didn't answer."

"Head back up?" You repeated. "Head where?"

He eyes you suspiciously. "To your dorm?" Theodore gets up from his seat and leans down to crouch beneath you, staring up at you. "Or mine?"

You blink. Mind running in all kind of ideas —save for the ones you knew he meant when he asked you this question. You shift slightly in your side, scanning the Slytherin's common room as the party rage on; it's nothing too big, a get together between all seventh year supplied with alcohol —that Draco definitely did not buy just to impress the golden boy, not at all.

"I'm pretty sure I saw Draco take Harry up to your dorm, and neither of them look like they're exhibitionists." You say off handedly, looking down at him. "Besides, I'm actually enjoying myself here."

And to prove yourself, you get up from your seat; pulling your mini skirt low enough to cover your ass. Theodore, despite having every chance to peer underneath it, remains respectful as he plays with the hem of your skirt. "You are?"

"You aren't?" You ask back, trying not to squirm from the way his finger brushes against your thigh. Salazar this was your best friend for shit's sake, knowing that he could hypothetically have a big dick should not turn you on as much as it was.

Theodore shakes his head, slowly, almost as if he was in a haze as he quietly tells you. "Not really."

"Let's head up then," you tell him, and though both of your voices are low —barely even audible considering how loud Mattheo decided to play his music. Theodore was able to understand you perfectly, picking himself up as he used your waist as his guide. "Come on."

His pinkie finger catches onto yours as he gets onto his feet, him towering over you the slightest bit. And though, Theodore and you leaving a party early to turn in for the night was a sight your friends were used to by now —knowing that nothing ever did came out of leaving the two of you alone to your own devices. Something about how Theodore was looking at you makes them think that that might just change tonight.

But, they regress and bid the two of you goodnight with a few sporting playful frowns on how you never stay with them until the party actually ends.

You only smile, leading Theodore up the stairs to your dorm like every other night. Once in the comfort of your room, you sit yourself down on your bed, patting the spot for besides you for Theodore to take. He did as told, melting into your touch as you brush his hair back. "How much did you drink?"

His eyes are shut, face leaning into the palm of your hand as his own grips onto your skirt, tugging you closer to him. "Just those two shots we took when we first went down."

You hum, letting him pull you to him. "Did you smoke?" Theodore shakes his head slightly, before opening his eyes back up at you. You laugh lightly. "Then what's up with you tonight? I'm always the one dragging us back."

"Just tired, I guess." He murmurs.

"You guess?" You ask him, standing up —letting his hands fall where it'd been trailing up your skirt back to his lap, lingering slightly on what sits above it. "When are you ever not tired?"

Theodore laughs at your words, eyes crinkling as he did so. "When I watch you play quidditch," he says, pushing himself up to press his back against the head of your bed. Watching as you shuffle towards your wardrobe, picking out a pair of sweats along with two shirts he'd left at your room. "Or when you're drunk out of your mind and I'd to have to play pretend as your boyfriend and take care of you."

You snort at his words, picking out a pair of shorts for yourself. "You don't have to pretend to be my boyfriend to take care of me."

"Mhmm," he hums from his spot, lounging lazily as you walk up to his side, the change of clothes in hand. "But it's more affective that way." His hand finds its way to your hips, pulling you closer to him. "And I like it. I like pretending to be yours."

There's a split second where his eyes falters, looking at you almost nervously as he waits for you to respond. "You do?"

"Mhmm," he hums, pushing himself up to sit straight. "More than anything."

It's nauseating to see him look at you —eyes lacking their usual stoic and disinterest to instead be replaced by lust and adoration.

Without thinking twice, you leaned down meeting his lips halfway as your eyes flutters shut. And though seated, Theodore was still tall enough to kiss you back with ease. Letting you melt into the feeling of his soft lips moving slowly and desperately against yours.

"Fuck," Theodore mutters breathlessly, he pushes against your hand; dropping your (mostly his) clothes to the floor. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

"What?" You giggle, letting him pull you onto his lap. "Kiss me?"

"To kiss you again," He murmurs, attaching his lips back onto yours; a soft whimper slipping out of his lips when his clothed cock brushes against your core through his swift movements.

Fuck, Blaise was not lying.

In between your legs, underneath beige slacks, Theo's giant cock ruts up to you. You gasp into his mouth. "Ah—" you try to catch your breath. "—fuck, Theo. You've been wanting to kiss me since we were thirteen?"

"Mhmm," he hums, long slender hands gripping onto your waist before he slides one underneath your shirt and lays it flat against your tummy. His free hand, resting on your thigh, guiding you down onto him. "You're the only girl I ever want to kiss."

It's silly, you know it is —especially when his cock was pressing into your cunt, only separated by a thin layer of clothing— and yet you can't help but smile up at him, almost giggling when you ask him. " 's that why you asked me to be your first kiss?"

"Mhmm." He's smiling when he kisses you. "Can you blame me?" His tongue licks at your top lips, quick and gentle, trying to gauge on what you tasted like. "Prettiest girl at Hogswart and she was willing to be my first kiss."

His hand moves grips onto your waist, his touch blazing hot. "... Flatterer," you say, a playful pout prominent on your lips.

He chuckles, pressing his lips back onto yours, hand moving from your thigh to tug at your shirt. When you nod, Theodore pulls away just enough for him to take your shirt off and toss it Salazar knows where.

He doesn't even try to hide his staring, canting his hips upwards as he held you down. "Can you feel that?" He asks breathlessly, almost whining as he humps against you. "Can you feel how hard you make me?"

You could only moan, nodding dumbly as you rolled your hips. "Fuck—" he says against your lips, "—how'd you get even prettier, baby?"

And despite how hot —how nauseating it is to feel his boner pressing onto your wet cunt, you can't help but giggle at his words, at how turned on he got just at the sight of your tits. "It's just boobs."

"It's your boobs." He hand goes up behind you, making quick work at the clasps before kissing your chest, licking at your nipples; his hips not halting in its movement. "So so pretty."

His hand slips down, going underneath your skirt to knees at you thigh. "Shirt—" you roll onto him, breathless each time you feel just how hard he was. "—shirt, Theo."

Though incoherent, Theodore still understood you enough to pull his shirt off of himself before attaching his lips back onto you. His tongue glides against yours, swallowing your moans up when he bucks particularly hard.

It’s humiliating how the simple act of humping, combined with Theo’s hand playing with your tits, pinching and rolling your nipple between his long fingers with his tongue exploring your mouth has you writhing on top of him.

"Theo, ah—" you whine, hands gripping onto his shoulders to steady yourself, a familiar warmth building in your stomach. "— wait, fuck!"

Theodore's hips coming to a halt, as he watch you cum on top of him —in awe, without him even having touched you. "Did you just… ?"

You whine, pressing your face against his bare shoulder to hide just how embarrass you were. Theodore pulls you back, looking at you with what you could only assume was love. "Did you just come, baby?"

You nod bashfully, hands going to cover your face just for him to pin both of them down. "So cute, so so pretty." He kisses you roughly, rutting up to you. "Gonna fuck you nice and full, how’s that sound?"

Theodore only frowns when you nod, always having been the talkative one in your relationship. “Words, baby. That sound good to you?”

“Ah!” Your panties stick to your cunt uncomfortably, feeling all too messy when he grinds his cock onto you. “Good,” you whine, “ ‘s good.”

Theodore smiles, pressing a quick kiss onto your lips as a reward. His hand trails down to your thighs, flipping your skirt up before groaning at the sight of his beige slacks soiled by your slick and cum. "Look at the mess you made, didn’t even have to touch you.”

Sliding your panties to the side, Theodore runs two fingers down your slit. "Even your cunt's pretty," he murmurs, bringing his finger up to his mouth to licks at your juices. "You taste even better."

You're pouting as you watch him play with your pussy, fingers pressed onto your clit, going back in for another taste before you finally move down his crotch, just enough for you to palm at his cock.

"Fuck—" he whimpers, hips bucking onto your hand.

Feeling proud you pulled such a reaction out of him, you reach for his belt, lifting yourself up off of him as he helps rid himself of his slacks. Pulling back his boxers, you will yourself not to drool over the sight of his long and thick cock, milky from the precum leaking from its tip.

Your hand moves on its own, wrapping around the base of his hard cock only to find that your hand was too small to wrap all the way around him. "Why didn't you tell me your dick was huge?."

"You want me to —fuck—" Theodore whines, cock twitching in your hand as it begged for you to move. "You want me to tell my best friend about the size of my cock?"

"Yeah?" You move your hands up, thumb running along his tip. "Biggest dick I've ever seen."

"You never told me you had —fuck, baby— never told me you had a perfect cunt either." Theodore moans, the sight in front of him feels like it came straight out of a porno. His best friend and her small hands playing with his cock, tits out with only her tiny skirt stopping him from fucking her into the mattress.

You giggle softly before leaning down to take him inside your mouth. "Fuck!" Theodore choked out, hips roughly thrusting into your mouth. He's too big for you to fit in entirely in your throat and he knows it. And he's too close to cumming in your mouth to keep you were you are.

His hand pulling your head up and away from his cock swiftly. His eyes are shut, head leaning back against your headboard as he breathes heavily.

Your eyes are teary when he opens his eyes back up, and he wills himself not to think about how it's the result of him fucking your face. Theodore brings you up to sit between his legs, kissing you desperately, groaning when he tastes himself on your lips.

Your hand goes back to grab at his length and he whines, pressing his face into your neck and squirms underneath your touch. "Wait, fuck—" his hand goes to stop you, brain going dead as you pumped his cock. "—fuck, fuck wait."

Theodore moves away from your touch, pressing your hand down onto your mattress as he heaves heavily. "Shit— Next time," he whines, "we can do all that next time," he murmurs against your neck, pulling his head away to look at you, he adds: "but I need to fuck you. Please, just let me fuck you. I'll do anything to feel your cunt and fill you up nice and full, please baby."

And when he pleads for you so nicely, who were you to deny him anything? He kisses you again, laying you down on your back, whispering soft thank you’s as he presses open mouth kisses down your body. Slender hands roaming around as he tries to map you out. It's only when Theodore flips your skirt up, ripping away your panties to give himself a full view of your throbbing pussy did you realize what he's about to do.

"Hey, I liked those!"

"I'll buy you more, baby." You're dripping in front of him and he think he might be losing his mind. "Need to eat you out first."

"Thought you wanted to fuck me," you whine, gasping softly when he slides his fingers over your pussy, "why can you play with —fuck."

You pout at him, not expecting him to slide his finger inside you while you talked. "Why can you— ah! —play with me when I can't play with you."

"Not playing baby, just stretching you out," he tells you with a soft smile, leaning over to kiss your pout away. "Not gonna fit unless we stretch you out."

" 's fine," you whimper, feeling him slip another finger in, fucking into you slowly. "it'll fit just fine."

"You sure?" He picks up his pace, long fingers reaching places your own never could. "Don't wanna hurt you."

" 's fine," you moan when he slips a third finger into your cunt, "don't care if it hurts, just wanna feel you."

Theodore pulls out, bringing his fingers to his lips to taste you once more. Moving back up, Theodore grabs at a pillow, placing it beneath your lower back to elevate your cunt. Slowly, he guides his dick into you, gasping at the feeling of his thick head stretching you open.

"Fuck—" Theodore pushes in deeper, pausing when he feels you clenching impossibly tight around him "—your cunt's sucking me in so good."

The burn is delicious, his cock tearing you open from within, stretching you out to take him into you. "So full," you whine, pressing your head into your sheets as he slides in even deeper into you. " 's too much."

"I know, baby," he murmurs, rubbing slow circles onto your thighs, "just a little more, I know you can take it."

You whine pathetically, feeling him fuck the last few inches snuggly into you. "Ah!" He hasn't even moved and you're already breathless, feeling him in your stomach. “Fuck me, Theo. Fuck me nice and full.”

“You want me to fuck your small cunt nice and full?” Theodore pulls out entirely, leaving just his tip in your cunt before roughly thrusting back in, hands on your hips as he pounds into you. "I’ll fuck it nice and full for you, maybe even put a baby in you."

And when your pussy grips his cock at his words, Theodore drives into you even harder. “Put a baby in me, please.”

“Yeah? You want that?” He watches as your tits bounce with each harsh thrust. “You want to carry my baby? Have your pretty tits grow bigger? You want that?”

“Yes,” you cry out, eyes screwed shut, the pain of his cock splitting you open mixing with pleasure. “Yes, ah— want it.”

“Fuck—” Having just about enough, Theodore pushes your mini skirt up your stomach giving him a full view of how well he's fucking his thick cock into you. The mound of your pussy bulging as it makes room for his dick to spear into your cunt.

"See that baby? See how good your cunt’s at taking my cock?" He asks, his hand grabbing yours to press down below your navel. "See how good I'm fucking you?"

You can only moan, crying out his name when he presses your hand down onto the bulge in your stomach, pushing his own dick out of your pussy. "Feel how deep my cock is inside of you?"

“Gonna be so easy for me to breed you,” he murmurs, wrapping your legs around his waist to fuck himself even deeper into you. “Want me to breed you, baby? Hmm?”

You nod desperately, too cock drunk to speak. Jolting when Theodore presses a harsh finger to your clit, circling it as he fucked deeper into you. "Theo, I'm gonna—"

"I know baby," he says, his cock getting impossibly harder inside of you. He presses another finger onto your clit, rubbing tight circles as you squirm underneath him. "Fuck— you're pussy's so good. Need you to come on my cock."

Theodore leans down to kiss you, pushing his length even deeper into you. You moan into his mouth, fucking you through your orgasm, your legs trembling as you try to squeeze him in.

Theodore fucks your cum back into you harder and faster, chasing his own high. One quick glance at his cock coated with your cum, followed by the bulge in your tummy was sends has him rutting into your tight cunt, spilling his warm seed inside you.

Theodore thrusts a few more time just to savor the sight of you spread on his cock before finally pulling out of you. "Fuck Theo," you whined, his cum leaking out of you, making a mess all over your bedsheet. "Were you just never going to tell me your dick is huge?"

Theodore only smiles bashfully, pressing a kiss onto your forehead. "We're still on this?"

"You expect me to not be on this?" You say with a slight pout, Theodore only half paying attention to you as he grabbed a random shirt from the floor to wipe at you thighs. "It's almost like you don't even think of me as you best friend."

"Pretty sure best friends don't go around telling each other about how big their dick is, baby," he replies.

"Blaise can know about your dick size but I can't?" You murmur. "Talk about double standards."

Theodore pauses his movements, hand hovering over your spent pussy. "That fucker."

"Hmm?" You're curious now, confused as to why he was suddenly cursing out your friend. Never having been one to use curse words unless —well, unless he's fucking you.

"He told me that you liked guys who begged," he says with a slight front, going back to cleaning you up nonetheless.

"Is that why you begged to fuck me?"

"No, that was all me," he answers truthfully, ears tinging red in embarrassment,"just wanted to fuck you."

"And they say romance is dead," you say playfully before your eye zeroes into what's in Theodore's hand. "What about the whole breeding thing? And ‘s that my shirt?"

Theodore, freezes with his hands between your thighs, feeling you stare him down as he did so. Slowly, he unravels the shirt he'd use to wipe you clean only to realize that yes, that is your shirt.

"You ripped up my panties, messed up my skirt, tried to put a baby in me, and used my shirt to wipe up your cum," you say, frowning, "I'm never having sex with you again."

Theodore's quick to apologize, peppering your face with kisses, mumbling sorry over and over again. "I'll sneak you out of Oxford street, take my black card with you, how's that sound?"

— from bee: this is my first time writing smut be nice to me 😡