#No editing we post like men

[roses-and-grimoires]

Prompt #24: Hunt

Characters: Ivaurault

A small herd of chocobos thunders across the densely packed snow, led at the front by one a deep red beneath it's dark armor. The man atop it is dressed for the weather, in fine furs that make the lance strung across his back a big incongruous. The people on the birds behind him were not dressed quite as finely; his retinue consisted of some of the house's more hardy servants, the ones decent enough on chocobo-back to be able to keep up and the ones less likely to panic upon the sight of a bear or yeti.

Or a wolf, in this case.

It wasn't the same as going after a dragon, of course, but at least some of the thrill of the hunt was the same. And, more importantly, it kept his aim sharp, in a way that jousts just couldn't do. And it was a break from the other sort of hunt he was supposed to be on.

As that thought creeps into his mind, he urges his bird forward. There would be time for that later. But for now, he was fairly sure he had just spotted a sign of their quarry.

[contagious-watermelon]

Why do I keep seeing transmascs and trans men insisting or implying that all trans men are "female socialized," or "understand the female experience," or "navigated the world as a woman." Because yeah, sure, that can be true for some people. especially if you weren't gnc at all as a kid and didn't crack your egg until well into adulthood, it makes sense.

But they don't stop at saying they had that experience. It always comes with an addendum that trans men, as a group, all can relate to this experience. I don't know about the entirety of my demographic, but I never got even a little bit of what some of them talk about. I didn't even believe that women were scared of going out at night until I kept consistently seeing them say it, online or wherever, for years. I never realized catcalling was a thing until I saw some women complaining about it on reddit.

But they posit it as some sort of, you're safer than cis men, right? You know what it's like? Which, on top of being patently, demonstrably false in the case of myself and many other trans men, holds some unpleasant and often outright hostile implications about trans women. And they always deny it, but if you can't even conceptualize someone like me who grew up gnc, and never got the bulk (or any?) of whatever we consider to be 'female socialization,' what does that say about what you think trans girls went through, growing up? I don't want to speak for them, as I've never experienced that firsthand, but I can guarantee that (if you're even a little bit obviously trans) people don't treat you like a cis kid of the opposite gender. By and large, they don't get treated like cis boys.

It just makes me mad that we're taking this inaccurate framework that (ever so conveniently) puts trans people into the box of our assumed birth gender, and trying to fancy it up and use it with a faux-progressive veneer; never mind the way that transphobes use it to bar trans women from being athletes, or using the bathroom, or having access to any gendered resources they need. It would be bad enough to try and dust it off and use it even if it were largely accurate, due to the aforementioned connections to outright transphobia, but it literally is patently false. Not in all cases, obviously, but why are we trying to revamp this untrue, inaccurate generalization and pretend that we can make it 'trans-inclusive?'

[benevolenterrancy]

Swords pining for each other's cultivator is my new favorite type of pining. Love your NieYao content! <3

I don't suppose we could get Baxia or Hensheng throwing a tantrum while Jin Guangyao / Nie Mingjue are away, leaving their owners to deal with the embarrassing aftermath?

Also, do you have any recs you'd recommend with these two?

this is the exact moment Nie Huaisang realised he was going to have to start meddling in his big brother's love life (con't: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Hensheng, on the other hand, doesn't throw tantrums but WILL sulk...

[aestherians]

I can try to explain how my three 'types work?

I have spiritual beliefs around my bison theriotype, and my awakening was pretty abrupt. I was sitting in class, when suddenly an image flashed in my mind of me, as a bison, wading through grass. I can't explain how I knew, but I just knew it was a flashback of some kind, the same way you "just know" things in dreams with no explanation. Best way I can describe it, it's like I'd forgotten I was a bison and had lived as a human until I was reminded of my 'true self'. I can't find much rationale for it beyond 'brain is weird' or 'mystic woowoo' and in this case I prefer the woowoo explanations. I believe I have the soul of a bison because it feels right to believe that, based on my experiences.

My gnoll kintype is psychological. I've felt like some kind of humanoid beast (or beastly humanoid) for as long as I can remember. Throughout my childhood I played at being a horse, a dog, a satyr, a vampire, a werewolf, and everything in-between, but none of them ever really crossed out of play-pretend. In hindsight, I think every new phase was an attempt at defining that inherent beastly feeling I always had. When I found the therian and otherkind communities, after awakening as a bison, I was able to put words to some of my experiences and explore them more in-depth. Feeling out my phantom shifts, envisage shifts, and mental shifts, I gradually Frankensteined the creature I now call a gnoll. The boxy muzzle and claws of all the carnivores I loved to play it. The swishy tail of the unicorns I loved to draw. And of course the not-quite-humanity that I'd always felt. If you're on desktop/browser, you can go back and read my early posts about it here. I feel like I have the mind and body-map of a gnoll, in tandem with the soul of a bison. Like if a gnoll was raised as a human and suddenly realized it was also a bison.

My Ben Tennyson fictotype is harder to explain. I wrote a 4500 word essay on it and still don't feel like I've explained it well enough. But, in short, during a time of intense stress, I was watching the show to unwind. My brain latched onto it hard, one night I dreamed I was him, and when I woke up the feeling just didn't go away. If the bison is my soul and the gnoll is my mind, I guess Ben would be... a regulator? A balancer? My fictotype makes me feel complete in a way I can't really explain. I don't think I can put more words on it than I did in that essay.

My kintypes have an ebb and flow, but I'm also the kind of person who's always had a somewhat unstable identity/self-perception. One psychiatrist described me as 'easily latching onto things' and said I might be on the schizo-spectrum, but that none of my issues were severe enough to warrant a diagnosis. The most stable part of my identity is, funny enough, the bison. No matter how my self-perception changes, since awakening there's always been a bit of bison on there. I don't know if it's because it's my ~true form~ or because it's just been something easy and comfortable for my brain to latch onto. My kintype and fictotype show up in waves of varying intensity, usually combining with my theriotype. I might have the horns of a bison with the claws of a gnoll. Or I might have the bullheadedness of a bison with the savior complex of Ben. Or the instincts of a bison mixed up with the instincts of a gnoll and a human all at once.

Sometimes the mix feels harmonious, like hybrid vigor. Other times it feels like a chimera that shouldn't exist. For me, having multiple 'types is a highly variable experience.

I saw your views on monotherians/kin and just wanted to say I relate a LOT. Of course, I don’t doubt their existence or their identities, I just personally really struggle with the idea of being more than one species/animal. I can’t wrap my head around it. My brain just kinda goes “nope” at the idea, like it’s unfathomable somehow.

I don’t know. Just wanted to say that, and drop by and say hello of course!

Hi!! (yay there's a cat in my askbox!)

Yeah I understand that completely! I'm very interested in the concept though and even made a couple of posts with questions about how polykin expreince themselves. Still didn't help me a lot, unfortunately!

And while I don't need to understand someone's identity in order to respect it, it feels like a weird itch in my brain that I cannot scratch :"D

At the same time, if someone says they're, for example, a shapeshifter with favourite forms of a mouse, a seal and a lion, that settles it for my brain (weird!)

[chronurgy]

Gortash Week Day 6 - Dealer's choice/AU (childhood)

She doesn’t know for sure that the boy living in her house is her son. She birthed him, sure, remembers that as well as anything. But if she hadn’t been there for it, she wouldn’t’ve picked this boy out as hers. He’s not like them. Not like her, not like his father. Not like anyone around the place, really.

When he was a baby, he was always screaming. Shrieking and fussing about some thing or another. And he was ravenous. Always grabbing her breast when he was smaller, never content to leave her be. Once he was old enough to eat solids, he would cram any piece of food he could get his greedy little hands onto into his hungry maw without so much as a by your leave. Like a bottomless pit, he was. And never grateful for any of it, either, the little snot. He stole, too, once he was big enough to reach the counters. How many times had she whacked his wandering hands with a spoon while cooking? Too many to count. And sometimes she’d catch him wolfing down some piece of food out in the alley behind the house she knew he couldn’t have stolen from her kitchen. She’d punish him for it, of course, give him a few good licks and lock him in the house, but he always got back out again eventually.

He was eerie, the boy that was supposed to be her son. Something lurked behind those dark eyes that spooked her. He just watched, watched them all unceasingly. At least when he wasn’t absorbed in one of those books of his. She’d certainly never taught him to read something like that, pages upon pages of dense little text and words near longer than her forearm. She’d taught him proper useful stuff, easy sums and enough reading to get by. He’d taken to it like a fish to water. And he just loved to flaunt it. Doing sums in his head, divisions even, without even counting on his fingers. He’d wait just long enough, long enough for it to be clear that she was struggling, counting on her fingers, before he'd announce the answer in that lackadaisical tone of his. He had no respect, that boy. He’d wormed his way into doing the store’s books and as soon as he had squirmed his way in, he’d started making demands, like he had the right. “Get a different leather supplier, Father” this, and “We haven’t got the money for that this month” that. Insolent boy! What right had he to tell his parents – they who fed him and clothed him and kept a roof over his head – what they ought to do? What would a child even know about money? And no matter how often they told him to shut it, the boy insisted on clinging to the purse strings tight as a miser’s fist.

And he lied, she knew he did. She couldn’t prove it, but she knew. A mother always knows. She’d found some complicated little toy stuffed under his bed, something she knew she certainly hadn’t bought him. She didn’t see the point in such fiddly mechanical bits of junk for children. When she’d confronted him about it, told him he couldn’t be stealing things like that, the boy’d had the very nerve to insist that he’d made it himself. Sometimes a bit of punishment would get him squealing, get him to admitting the nasty things he’d done. But just to spite her, the wretch had refused to admit his lies. He’d curled his stringy body around the thing as though to protect it and not spoken a word, barely even let out a whimper. Even when she’d got her hands on the thing, even then he’d refused to give up the lie. She’d had no choice but to smash it. She couldn’t have something like that in the house where the guard might find it and know it was stolen. Then he’d begged. Then he’d screamed. But even then, he had refused to tell her the truth. He’d had the nerve to fake tears for the dammed piece of junk, as though he’d cared about the damn thing. And when she’d told him to stop with the crocodile tears, he’d had the audacity to pretend to be afraid of her, cowering there with his hands over his head like he’d thought she would beat him. She’d seen the gleam in his eye though. She knew it was all some petty child’s manipulation. The lies never stopped with that whelp.

Her husband has debts, she knows this. She doesn’t trust the boy, not at all, and she checks and double checks every bit of work he does on the books. She knows they’re deep, deep in the hole and only getting deeper with every month that passes. She also knows that there isn’t a way out, not for people like them. And then a woman arrives. She arrives at their shop one day, a day when Enver is out of her hair and off on the streets doing things only the gods know about. She’s short, with long, beautiful dark hair, hair like she’d had before her husband and that boy had turned her grey before her time. “I bring the solution to all your problems,” the woman had said without prompting.

And oh, she had. She really, really had.

[whump-in-the-closet]

A Healer's Hands

poll results came in: team whump, medic is broken down to be made an example of

cw: gore, medic whump, creepy whumper, team dynamics, captivity, torture

The Medic's crew stumbled through the cell door, one after the other.

Captain, with a black eye and a limp, lifted two fingers to their temple in a mock solute. Their clothes were torn and there was blood on their uniform's collar.

Youngest trembled as one of the henchmen shoved them inside the gated door. They looked around, eyes brighter than a deer's in headlights. "H-hey Medic." They wrapped their arms around themself.

"Hey," Medic swallowed down the twisting feeling that rose up. He forced his voice to soften, to not carry any of the sharp panic he felt. "Where are you hurt?"

"We're fine," Captain cut in, gesturing behind Medic's shoulder. "It's--"

Medic had already whirled around.

Lieutenant.

The Lieutenant held onto the cell wall with a shaking grip. Where he touched it, blood trickled down the stones in a steady faucet run.

Drip.

Drip.

"Lieutenant?"

He glanced up. His nose was gushing red. It stained his uniform, bright and electric in the dull light.

"Turns out those fuckers can throw a punch after all," said Lieutenant with a hoarse laugh. Still unceremoniously reckless.

But he let Medic hold a makeshift bandage--ripped from Medic's shirt-- to his nose.

As Lieutenant sat down, Medic crouched beside him, correcting how he was holding the bandage. "Don't tilt your head up."

Lieutenant winced when Medic readjusted the bandage.

Medic drew away and reevaluated the situation. "It's broken," he said.

"It’s just a new look I’m trying out – call it avant-garde." Lieutenant tried to laugh but ended up grimacing. He waved Medic away. "I'll survive."

Medic shook his head. "Wiseass." But he smiled. Then. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Lieutenant tilted his head against the wall, pieces of choppy hair falling away to reveal a swollen eye and pulsing bruises. He closed his eyes. Through a clenched jaw, he managed, "I think they broke my ribs."

Medic swallowed down a wave of helplessness. "Just stay still."

Lieutenant kept his eyes closed, breathing shallowly. "My pleasure."

Medic turned to Captain and Youngest. "So, you and you, where are you injured?" He only asked to make conversation. He had already identified that Youngest's arm was dislocated, hanging loosely at their side. And on Captain's right thigh was a raw-edged wound, seeping and damaged.

Medic took off his jacket, ready to tear it into makeshift bandages and a sling.

But neither looked at him.

Youngest was staring at something over Medic's shoulder. They pressed back into the wall, shaking.

"No," they whispered. "No. Not again."

Captain put a comforting hand on their shoulder, mouth set in a thin line.

Electric fear whispered a spider-like path down Medic's spine. They turned just as the cell door opened.

Whumper entered with two henchmen strolling behind them. Whumper grinned, teeth canine-sharp. His blood-red hair was tied back, accentuating fox-like features. He didn't look quite human-- too tall, too much of a bounce in his walk.

And he wouldn't stop smiling.

He swung a crowbar.

Even Lieutenant flinched.

Oh.

Oh.

Whumper arched an eyebrow when Medic stood his ground. "You're Medic?"

Medic glanced at Lieutenant-- saw panic and web-woven fear-- then back at Whumper. "Yes."

Whumper flicked the crowbar side to side. He kept talking, a paper mache smile at the corner of his mouth. "I don't appreciate you wrecking what I'm trying to build here."

Medic failed to understand. "I'm a medic. I have to provide care," he said automatically.

His head buzzed. He couldn't-- couldn't think clearly.

Whumper appeared to consider this. He tilted his head to the side. "I see. Well, I have to do things too, I get it."

"Yeah. Wait. No, what?"

The henchmen grabbed Medic. One kicked him in the back of the knees, forcing him to kneel.

Medic struggled, lashing out like a trapped animal.

A henchman brought the edge of their gun over Medic's head and Medic slumped forward.

His vision suddenly doubled.

The short-wired tension burst into flame.

Captain lunged forward. "Leave him alone!"

It took two henchmen to restrain Captain, pinning their arms behind them, and another to kick Lieutenant in the ribs, so he doubled over coughing. Incapacitated.

Whumper leaned over Medic, tilting his chin up to look him in the eye. "You should have left well enough alone," he whispered.

Medic snarled something unintelligible. A curse. A plea. He didn't know.

Whumpr straightened. To the others, he said, "You all break as easily as his hands will. And if you don't believe me? Watch."

There was a sharp intake of breath. Realization hit with a dull, sick thud. "No!" Lieutenant cried out, "No! No-- don't!"

But the henchmen had dragged Medic's hand out and splayed it on the tiles, kicking him when he tried to pull it away.

Whumper lifted the crowbar.

Medic's eyes widened in horror.

"No-- no, nonono! Please--" His voice arched into a desperate cry, more animal than human.

Crack.

A splintering sound.

All Medic could see was white. Electric pain filled every nerve, spilled into every bone, coating his teeth and burning-- burning, burning, burning.

A terrible sound ripped itself out of his throat.

And then again--

Crack.

His left hand.

Medic screamed.

Maybe he had screamed before.

Had always screamed.

Maybe he would scream forever.

Darkness filled the corners of his vision, blurring the sharp flashes of red of white--

Electric, pulsing red.

Burning, vicious white.

Blood trickled down his arms, bright and throbbing with a cinching pain.

Whumper wiped the gory crowbar on Medic's shirt.

His henchmen let the unconscious medic slump to the floor, little more than a bundle of clothes. They released Captain, who sank to the cell floor, unable to look away from Medic.

Whumper bent down by Lieutenant, whose breaths were coming in sharp drags. He wiped a tear off of Liutenant's face. "Crying?"

"No." His voice shook.

Whumper smiled generously. "Oh, no." He stood. "Tomorrow, one of you will offer up the information on your base. I do not make idle threats."

The door locked on the blood-soaked cell.

Lieutenant muffled a sob.

"We...we can't," said Captain. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry.

They didn't know if they were apologizing to the unconscious Medic or to what remained of his hands.

tagging the people who interacted with the poll: @acer-gaysimpstuff, @yet-another-heathen, @another-whump-sideblog

[ladystoneboobs]

House of the Dragon s01e05 We Light the Way // Game of Thrones s02e06 The Old Gods and the New // House of the Dragon s01e05 We Light the Way // A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, Chapter LVI, Theon V // House of the Dragon s01e07 Driftmark // Game of Thrones s02e03 What Is Dead May Never Die // House of the Dragon s01e07 Driftmark // Game of Thrones s02e07 A Man Without Honor // House of the Dragon s01e07 Driftmark // A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, Chapter LVI, Theon V // House of the Dragon s01e07 Driftmark // A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, Chapter XXXVII, Theon III // A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, Chapter LVI, Theon V // House of the Dragon s01e07 Driftmark // Game of Thrones s02e06 The Old Gods and the New // House of the Dragon s01e09 The Green Council // Game of Thrones s01e04 Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things // House of the Dragon s01e09 The Green Council // A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, Chapter LXVI, Theon VI // House of the Dragon s01e09 The Green Council // A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin, Chapter XLVI, Bran VI // House of the Dragon s01e09 The Green Council // Game of Thrones s02e03 What Is Dead May Never Die //

[mixtapedoh]

vernon as highschool crush pls for lonely boy 🧍‍♀️

vernon my bestie beloved bastard ♡ you really are requesting for the people, lindsay.

;༊ — lonely boy

pairing: hansol vernon chwe x gn!reader genre: fluff, high school au word count: ~3.3k warnings: language, mild threats among friends, a lack of originality (but perhaps ameliorated by an understanding of the conventions of trope?)

olive's notes: firstly, hahaha.......... pretend like this wasn't something you sent me actual months ago.... and pretend like i gave the prompt the justice it deserves....... shhhhhh, i answer things in a timely manner and can still be considered a tumblr writer. secondly, this is quite glaringly based off of and colored by my memories of high school, so expect United States education system nonsense <3.

☄. *. ⋆ hansol vernon chwe x high school crush.

— the hardest thing about crushing on this fucker is that he's everywhere

simultaneously the biggest cryptid in the whole student body (if you had a nickel for every time your journalism teacher asked: "has anyone seen hansol this week?" to absolute crickets you'd be able to pay for at least 2 years of college) and also the most social person to ever grace your high school halls, hansol was everywhere all at once, and contradictorily, nowhere when you sought him out.

you wanted to avoid seeing him because of something embarrassing you were sure he had noticed? bam. right there beside you, sitting on the same row of auditorium seats for the assembly.

you wanted to catch a glimpse of him while the both of you were assigned to photograph the basketball game? viola. gone, nowhere to be seen; and yet your friend will tell you later that he was there the whole time, snapping the best photos of boo seungkwan's legendary 3-pointers (which you certainly hadn't missed, so where had he been??).

— yes, having a crush on hansol vernon chwe was exhausting. there was no way to save face — trust hansol to be there at your worst hours (like that chemistry presentation where the color palette you used for your PowerPoint was too light for the old projector screen to show properly, and so you half of your graphics were unreadable, inspiring your professor to dock 10 points, despite that fact that when you pulled it up on a computer screen - or any other device that wasn't an old ass projector at least 15 years out of date - the graphics were just fine and the detail above required). it didn't matter the specifics of the occasion, it was simple fact you'd always somehow manage, in your darkest moment, to look out and see hansol — always a kind smile, with something encouraging in his eye, despite, but still horribly, embarrassingly, and irrevocably present.

— and then, as it if weren't bad enough, hansol vernon chwe had the absolute gall to be unbothered, unfazed, unable to be rattled or shaken in any way, by comparison.

oh sure, you'd seen him cringe before at him friend's (mostly kwon soonyoung's) antics; you were familiar with the way vernon expressed any and all emotion with the whole of him — his every muscle tensing and twisting in a way so visceral and real, you could feel embarrassed, too, by just looking at him — but the envy was this: it was never at his expense that such feelings would arise. vernon was never embarrassed because of something he did or caused or felt. his life was far too chill and unbothered for that. others could be embarrassing around him, but all of his actions flowed so smoothly — rolled over the shoulders of everyone else.

the closest he'd ever get was doing something explicitly stupid just for the enjoyment of others. but, the catch was this: they enjoyed it !!!! it was funny and not cringe worthy !!!!! the net effect was positive.

it was infuriating. sometimes you weren't sure if you wanted to kiss hansol or strangle him with your bare hands.

— but let's take things back to journalism.

— because of course he took journalism.

not exactly the most exalted of the journalism students or anything, hansol was mostly known for his opinion piece articles and, of course, availability and willingness to go to any school event to take pictures and help fill in the blanks of the article anyone was writing.

he had friends in any and all school functions and events. from sports to musicals, science fairs to choir recitals, you could say, "is anyone going to this very obscure and random FBLA presentation?" or "did you know that the coding club is going to be attending an event at another high school this saturday?" and hansol would immediately perk up, pull out one of his headphones and go, "yeah, i'm gonna check it out. did you need a ride?"

— and it was because of that — his being everywhere, inescapable and offhandedly thoughtful, open and so easily warm — that these pesky feelings even started, in the first place.

— just when it happened is perhaps inconsequential (in all actuality, it likely started before your journalism daily exposure, just slowly, more of an itch at the back of your mind than the brash insistence it was, now) but it was definitely the fault of journalism. maybe that band and orchestra festival in 11th grade where you went with hansol to do a write up on all the high schools attending (placing undue emphasis on your high school's multi-talented band leader, lee jihoon, who could play half the instruments in the room), or maybe that series of debate tournaments you both covered in 11th grade, or when the two of you took over the baseball column that same year and when the heatwave spiked early, vernon would attend each game in sleeveless tops, always with an extra ball cap in tow since you would (conveniently, perhaps?) forget one of your own and the sun made it impossible to see what was happening, beyond.

yes, just when it hit was neither here nor there, because at the end of the day, the problem remained: you were hopelessly down bad for one hansol vernon chwe. fuck.

— and you couldn't escape him if you tried.

and trust me, at one point, try, you had.

— after all, at the beginning of your senior year, you somehow ended up being in the same spanish class as him and his friend joshua, and after a whole year (and subsequent summer break, when your journalism teacher found an opportunity to have a section of the city newspaper be dedicated to "the youth of journalism," and weekly, your journalism club was able to publish in the city newspaper) of crushing on hansol with a vehemence perhaps concerning, you knew you couldn't handle having to have embarrassing debates, conversations, and role play scenarios with him.

in perhaps two weeks you were in the counselor's office, exploring alternate class blocks. in the end, you were stuck in a ceramics course instead of your preferred electives, but at least when the unit on "la familia, el amor y todo lo interpersonal" came up, you were role playing as a couple alongside jeon jungkook, who couldn't stop making you wheeze with laughter from his overextention of the r at every available chance, rather than your crush, hansol.

(all it would have taken was one "te extraño" from hansol through your fake hand phones to absolutely floor you. someone call the school nurse, you're fallen and perhaps can never get back up again.)

— so you avoided him there, and even before that, during your junior year, you had mostly eaten off campus on your second schedule days when you and hansol had the same lunch hour and the risk of running into him at a time potentially embarrassing was at an all time high, seeing as nowhere was safe — the social butterfly he was, hansol managed to have business in every hallway of the school. not a single area was risk free.

yeah, junior year really had just been a mess of emotions you hadn't wanted to name, and so instead, elected to pointedly ignore. you were glad to say that while spending your hard earned money to eat out 2-3 times a week was a bit of a low, you had solidly moved out of that phase of your life by spring that year, and could stomach the risk of Being Seen by someone who had captured your attention so strongly.

and yeah, even though you had a bit of a backslide when changing spanish classes senior year (which could be chalked up to self-preservation, truly), you had solidly moved past that whole Avoidance Stage of your Crippling Crush on One Hansol Vernon Chwe.

— so hansol couldn't be avoided. that much was abundantly clear. and you had to interact with him in journalism and (god willing) be normal while doing so, and luckily, while all that exposure didn't exactly desensitize you to his overwhelming charm, admirable confidence, infectious smile, endearing jokes, comfortable aura, and oh so beautiful eyes, it had forced you to just,,,,,,, accept some things.

— accept that you had a raging crush on hansol, but that it could be managed... so long as none of your mutual friends found out.

— you were pretty sure that wonwoo knew, but at least he was ✨subtle✨ and generally checked out of things like that. genuinely, he could not care less, and so he made it no one's problem. you could probably tell him your most rancid, vulgar thoughts, and he would just file it away in his mind as: "nasty shit i can never unhear" and go about his day. compare that to your other mutual acquaintance, seungkwan, and well...

— but for the most part, it seemed that senior year was inching away, another year with a crush on hansol, and another year where you didn't say a damn thing and refused to leave anything close to a hint for him to pick up on.

— but mercy didn't exactly exist for you, now did it.

— the horrible series of Epic Fumblings and Incriminating Moments began in october, when hansol and joshua decided to make a podcast to convince the school that an AV club could be a fun addition to the roster of School Sanctioned Clubs (an idea they really should have had back in august

— the horrible series of Epic Fumblings and Incriminating Moments began in october, when hansol and joshua decided to make a podcast to convince the school that an AV club could be a fun addition to the roster of School Sanctioned Clubs (an idea they really should have had back in august — you know, when clubs were first getting registered and students were accosted in the hallways with club information slapped on astrobrights with strong ~graphic design is my passion~ presentation)

they had needed someone tech savvy enough to get them the podcast equipment and teach them how to use it (and just,,, do all the technical aspects for them 🥺👉👈 pwetty pwease 🥺👉👈 we're just silly boys who want to talk about random shit but are trying to pass it off as being Constructive in Some Sense so that it looks good on college applications) and so obviously their search had sent them in the way of wonwoo, who only seemed to have free time on the exact day and time you two would joint study for your college level government and politics course.

so of course he asked if the two of you could move your study sessions to a different location (he swore he could multitask? okay overacheiver) so that he could both study with you and help the stupidly handsome hansol and joshua with their brilliant podcast idea.

and of course, you'd forget the first time and wonwoo would conveniently not answer his texts for 20 minutes, allowing for the most embarrassing stage of him finally picking up his phone (on speaker?) to you yelling "jeon wonwoo, i will personally castrate you and throw it in the ocean so you can be eaten alive by the creatures birthed from the subsequent sea foam if you don't come to the library to study right now. i have been waiting for 20. minutes. where are you?" and hansol and joshua would hear you. and have the gall to laugh.

and of course wonwoo wouldn't even give you the grace of not having to show up to his house (your new study location) to study for the day. in fact, hansol gave him the brilliant idea of threatening to train an eagle to peck at your liver daily - not eating it fully, just put in it's beak and twist the flesh. since you can't grow another liver overnight, of course. don't you just love mythological punishment.

(and that wouldn't be the end of the embarrassing podcast adventures, either. the time shua cajoled you into being a special guest????? truly, you dodged a bullet not being in spanish with that fool. he's impossible to refuse and the worst of it was that he knew it.)

— or what about the december gift exchange in journalism?? that was certainly not your finest moment, trying to get chaewon to change names with you so that you could gift something to hansol (something lady luck had never granted you despite all the blood, sweat, and tears you sunk into this journalism group of yours), and he heard you, mid-conversation.

seungkwan had told you hansol had been talking about it later, and you quite literally saw him connect the dots in slow-motion as he recounted the story. "y/n, do you have a crush on hansol????" it would have been bad enough that he practically yelled the accusation in the stands of the football field, but then he had the gall to triumphantly gasp and break into hysterical laughter upon your clear embarrassment at being caught. it was during lunch! you're shared lunch break with hansol! who knew where that fucker was! he probably saw the whole exchange!

(in the end, chaewon didn't change names with you (she traded with some other journalism traitor so she could gift to sakura) and even though hansol didn't have your name, he got you something regardless, saying it was thanks for putting up with he and shua stealing wonwoo during your (once peaceful) study sessions. you had decided against getting him a gift regardless, and so you had to awkwardly seek him out during winter break to shove a poorly wrapped box in his hands, with a mumbled apology for your tardiness in gifting, something he pushed away cooly, as expected (but were those red ears of his from just the cold, alone?).)

— and then, well, once everyone came back from winter break and seungkwan knew of your crush on hansol... school became less a Place of Learning and more a Viscous Time Loop of Shutting Seungkwan Up Before He Spilled The Beans.

kicking him under the table. threatening his livelihood. slapping a hand over his mouth on one occasion because seungkwan couldn't take a joke and his retaliation of choice was calling over hansol right there and then and forcing you both to awkwardly sit in the bitter soup of Revelation.

— and then there was february. oh, february. how easy it is to loathe february.

— it was already hard enough getting through the embarrassment of valentine's day themed fundraising — every year, your literature teacher (who oversaw the student body officers — that first exposure to the cruel reality of rigged elections, a popularity win if there ever was one) offered extra credit for students who volunteered time to help the sbo's with their silly little business venture of "roses for $3, sugar cookies with shocking pink frosting for $2, heart suckers for $1, sonnets written by the creative writing and theatre kids for $7.

every year you volunteered for some reason or another - maybe your grade needed it, maybe you were doing sbo president seungcheol a favor because no one signed up, maybe you were following the stupid advice of seokmin and were doing it for the plot (code for: please don't leave me alone at the stand, i will buy you all the sugar cookies you'd like, just don't consign me to spending my lunch break in this particular layer of hell in solitude). this year was no different in you signing up to do time, but seungkwan sure was different, asking you every day if you managed to see if vernon sent anyone something (he had — soonyoung had convinced him to pitch in to send jihoon 16 sonnets, to be read aloud in the middle of class). if he had sent you something (he hadn't).

but when you got an anonymous rose sent to your 2nd class of the day, with a cryptic note attached, your friends wouldn't let you live it down all week. (who had sent it, though? they would have had to be very strategic as to when they placed the order — you had certainly never seen one for yourself in your daily exchange of goods, and seokmin was suspiciously tight lipped about the whole thing (very uncharacteristic of him — who had the ability to buy dk's silence, and better yet, how had they done it???)).

— yes, valentine's day was bad enough. but to add to the mix was always hansol's birthday. last year you'd gotten him a gift since you had worked quite a lot together during that month, and it just felt... normal. comfortable. something kind to do that wasn't weird in anyway. but these days, facing hansol was almost as embarrassing as it had been during junior year when you avoided the mere sight of him like seeing him smile would end in you contracting the plague.

as the day inched ever closer, you were seriously considering missing the day entirely. taking the day off. pretending to be sick. but that wouldn't get you out of seeing him the day after. and the day after that.

perhaps fleeing the country would be a totally normal reaction and solid plan.

— and then joshua invited you to hansol's surprise birthday party.

well. at least that cleared up whether you should get him a gift or not.

— to say that, at that moment and for the subsequent days afterward, were overthinking the whole thing would be to extremely understate reality.

you were about to pop a blood vessel over this shit.

wonwoo was invited, too (how charitable of them. making sure there'd be someone there to scrape you off the floor when you inevitably discovered the power of self combustion) and it was rather comical to see the two of you: cool and calm wonwoo, and you with the internal dialogue of WHATTHEFUCKWHATTHEFUCKWHATTHEFUCKWHATTHEFUCKWHATTHEFUCKWHATTHEFUCKWHA

all holding a cute little gift between you.

— and the surprise birthday party really was a Legitimate, 5-Star, Genuine Quality, Surprise Bona Fide™ - a success by all measures. a shock in more ways than one: a surprise for hansol who had no idea the party was happening in the first place, getting called over for what he expected was a casual videogame night; a surprise for lee chan, somehow, when he saw that shua got you to come 15 minutes before show time to help blow up balloons - a shock so big he started to say something with a wild grin and was immediately dogpiled by mingyu, junhui, and hoshi; a surprise for all the friends amassed when you proved to be quite adept at party games like their incredibly convoluted version of mafia; and a surprise for you, later that night, when hansol offered to take you home

— the two you decided to stop at an empty playground before parting ways and see who could jump farther off of the swings. he won by a wide margin, but you had the skinned knees to prove your effort and the memory of hansol laughing so hard he could barely breathe — his smile so wide it could've filled you completely, banish any longing from your chest for a moment of unique closeness and bliss — and perhaps that was a consolation prize, enough.

but then you and hansol were on the swings again, seeing who could tighten the swing chain the most and spin the longest, and between the motion blur, you heard hansol admit defeat and when the swing stopped, his face was all too close to yours to shrug off as friendly, and his hands were holding the swing chain on either side, and when he spoke soft and low to crown you the victor, you kissed him.

and the biggest surprise of the night was when he kissed you back.

☄. *. ⋆

blog home

[sulky-cabbage]

The sukugo fight can't get animated any sooner I'm craving sukugo tiktok edits

[royal-wren]

In my love for her, I carried an apple from my many trees of such a vivid red like the heart that beats in the chest. Surely, there is no better way to grab the attention of the honey-toned goddess with a face most fair. My heart was captured the moment I saw her walk on the sea, shining more than the waters below her feet. If I can't woo her, I'll be at a loss for another handful of years.

With this, Hermes moved swiftly, quicker than anyone else, but not enough to dishevel. The cultivated fruit was cradled close to his chest while his heart fluttered wildly from excitement and adoration as the wind he commanded had him flying by. All the love, every emotion he felt was literally poured as magic into his work given physical form. One dream that haunted him for so long as the ram god did his best to ignore it before it felt like it was too much. Hermes' thoughts raced like his feet while he saw her come into view, golden and blinding in form. With her vision before him, he slowed without a sign he moved at the speed of sound.

"A gift for you, Queen of Heaven gowned in stars and jewels that you easily outdo. Though this apple falls short of matching your beauty, I hope it pleases you still," his arm outstretched for her to take the gift. A look of shock, as Aphrodite's face started to flushed as her gaze caught herself staring back on the apple's surface, "-How? It isn't every day I see myself reflected in food." Quizzically, she stared as Hermes' lips curled into a playful, teasing smile, "That's a secret." A little mystery was good for everyone, after all, and why share all his workings yet with her. "It holds every heartfelt thought, that's why it reflects the goddess of love and passion," he winked with the lie that came out like truth. What helped it spill out like a truth was the bit of honesty in how he felt, and with it said he stepped back and sat down. The decision of her accepting or rejecting the gift all on her, he could never dare to do more to push her decision, he cared too much about her honesty and freedom for that.

Aphrodite's lips parted ever so slightly in contemplation and his heart seized "I -- what else is there that comes with your physical gift? Tell me before I make up my mind on whether I draw close or flee fast." Endless were the gifts he had prepared with a number currently on him as he stood up and drew closer to her, a ball of light in his hand like a shrunk star. "The constellations and all the stars above that make them, what is old, new, and yet to exist." He affixed many like it like a crown of flowers through her illustrious hair, before slipping precious metals and a myriad of jewels into her hands that still held the apple. "Everything the earth has to give no matter how much you wish for, but most importantly, there is something more precious I can give."

His hand moved to hers, brushing against it, pausing for rejection as his face softened, "A friend in love. A companion to tell you all the honeyed words you long to hear, all the praise and song you deserve. From me and immortalized on the minds and tongues of mortals, sang endlessly and written for future generations to inspire. You will be the greatest Muse, the call of all songs and romantic, beautiful thoughts all others have until the end of time. Those that would be normally resist, untouched by your influence will have a chord struck in them with your inspiration a source of delight with my assistance."

Aphrodite made no move to turn away from him, to remove his presence from being so close to her, no attempt to escape Hermes' hand resting on hers still holding his gifts. "Let me hear the honeyed tongue that everyone regards and praises, promise me every sweet, adoring thought felt spoken for me no matter where you are. Swear it, be my companion, and only you will be the one to influence the scales of love with me." Her hand moved, unsatisfied by having his hand simply resting over hers and entwining her fingers with his. He kissed her hand, hearts singing between them as she had no intentions of letting go of his gift for now. "My oath upon the Styx to you, all we have promised to each other is now forever as long as you'll have me."

At that moment, Hermes let all the sealed love from the apple escape it, leaving her breathless and reeling as it sank in as he kept his promises between kisses, sweet touches, and the honeyed-tongue speaking words that were music to her ears as days continued to pass.

*Inspired by the PGM spell involving Hermes and Aphrodite, the tradition of wooing the person of your affections with an apple, best shown in the two poems at the bottom of this page. It also includes their cult worship as a couple and their art depictions together as Weighers of Love.

[liminal-storage]

VI-The Lovers

Prompt: Free Write

Characters: Soren Lessard, Auriga and Vincent Marlowe.

Content Warnings: Blood, very mild suggestive themes, death.

Note: This is a direct follow-up to this piece.

"What's the matter, dear hunter? You look as though you've seen a ghost."

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

The first time they met, her hair had been dyed blue. As deep and vibrant as the snowcapped mountains not so far away, such a color drew his attention immediately.

His boots were off, handed over to a goblin tinkerer nearby for a much needed mending. Said tinkerer was taking far longer than necessary because he...she? Soren could never tell the difference, and he'd had the privilege of watching Idyllshire spring up from nothing. Regardless, his tinkerer seemed engrossed in conversation with an identical looking goblin, who in turn looked to be making some sort of deal with the blue haired young woman.

She certainly looked striking. The blue dye made her hair shine in the moonlight, almost as deep and dark as the sea. It made the bright teal of her eyes all the more vibrant. But Soren knew he wouldn't have bothered to notice her at all were it not for a particularly enticing perfume that kept wafting his way.

With notes of sour cherries and vetiver, wine and sleepy poppy, sweet honey and vanilla, it clung to his nostrils. Strangely, it reminded him of the taste of freshly spilled blood, thick and warm. It made the points of his fangs ache, but soon someone joined the blue haired woman and he forgot about her scent.

The second figure was tall, especially for a Hyur. His white-blond hair reflected the light of the evening's full moon, and when he turned Soren could see eyes as vibrant teal as the woman's. The woman looked Soren's way before laughing, standing on tiptoe to whisper into the other man's ear.

The pair of them faced him with bright smiles in identical styles of alluring. A single long scar spanned from the man's left eye down to his chin in a smooth, straight line. It made his smile look ever so slightly lopsided even though it was not.

Soren stared, enthralled.

"What's the matter, dear hunter? You look as though you've seen a ghost."

Startled, his attention snapped to the woman again, since she had so rudely interrupted him by speaking.

"Mm?"

"You are a hunter, are you not?"

"How would you know such a thing?" Soren felt oddly defensive.

"Your clothes." The man spoke. "She...pardon, we are traveling to the outskirts of the Great Gubal Library, and we've been discussing hiring someone to guide us along the way. Ari here seems to think you're a local, judging by your attire."

"Ah."

That explained the whispering, but he couldn't shake the thought that the young woman must be teasing him for staring at her companion.

"Well, she would be correct. Though I don't call Idyllshire my home, I did grow up around here. I know the Hinterlands quite well."

"Then would you be willing? To accompany us, I mean." The man smiled again and Soren hesitated.

He did not treat with mortals unless he had no other choice. Aside from taking his meals as needed, he felt content to keep his existence as separate from theirs as possible. That wasn't to say he despised them. Their existence was simply better off without him getting involved.

So he certainly never served as a guard or guide for any of them. Killing the fell beasts which threatened them was the closest he got to "contributing to society."

Yet the man's vibrant eyes and the woman's intoxicating perfume compelled him to agree. Without meaning to, he found himself nodding.

"Excellent! My name is Vincent, and this nosy little lady is Auriga. We will, of course, pay you for your services. How does a sennight of work sound to you?"

Vincent.

He quite liked how that name rolled off the tongue.

"A sennight is fine. But I have a caveat. We only travel at night."

The sibling pair exchanged glances for a moment, but if they found the request to be odd they didn't have anything to say about it.

"Very well. We travel at dusk then, beginning tomorrow," Vincent agreed.

"I suggest having him lead rather than follow, else our trip take longer than the allotted time because he finds himself too engrossed with staring at you."

The woman winked, her teasing tone doing wonders to soothe what might otherwise become a rising temper. Soren had no idea what he had gotten himself into.

By the end of the first night, it became glaringly obvious that Auriga was trying to set him up with her brother.

By the third, both siblings already knew what he was.

By the fifth night, he'd gone to bed with Vincent twice and drank from him both times.

On the sixth night, he spoke with Auriga until the sun threatened to rise over the mountaintops.

And when the eighth night ended, Soren knew that Vincent had come to the Hinterlands to die, with Auriga his doula of death.

One sennight became two, because the thought of escorting the man to his death made his gut churn. It only delayed the inevitable. He cursed the entity that drove the man to this desperation. He cursed himself too, for falling in such a short amount of time.

Soren did not treat with humans. He loved them too much to subject them to a predator in their midst.

He fulfilled his promise. Guided them to their destination and guarded them from a couple of hungry wayward bears who got a little too close during the trek. He did not beg Vincent to reconsider. Instead kissed the inside of his wrist with his teeth, taking one last taste to remember before looking away.

Afterward, he and Auriga fell into one another in grief.

-----------

Soren stared up at Auriga and her still-dripping fingertips. He searched her face and found her smiling in that tender, sort-of heartbroken way that an old friend who you shared a loss with tends to do. He tried to smile back, only serving to bare his fangs. Auriga laughed and reached to brush his hair out of his face, and only then did he realize he'd sunken to his knees in front of her.

"Hey, there. It's been too long. You aren't looking so good, you know."

"I don't feel it, either," he agreed.

The smell of her blood and perfume made him sick with grief and hunger, and she did not stop him when his tongue darted out to lick up the spilled drops. He followed their trail all the way up to the crook of her arm where his tongue caressed the little puncture wound she'd made with a fingernail.

Her free hand moved to stroke the back of his head and his eyes drifted shut. He bit down and her blood flooded his mouth and she did not stop him. It was not lost on him that such a gift was being freely given. There, in the half-dark room swirling with perfume and candle smoke, Soren reflected on that which they'd lost.

And he steeped in the thought that perhaps he'd always loved them both.

[roses-and-grimoires]

Prompt #23: Suit

Characters: Ivaurault

Ivaurault stands in front of the mirror, eyes lingering upon his own reflection as his manservant went about the business of putting the finishing touches on the suit he was wearing. It was a fine one, deep red, it's shape complementing the muscle that lurked beneath. And yet he doesn't seem overly enthusiastic about the matter.

Another ball. Another chance to be paraded about. And another chance for disappointment.

Most of the ladies around his age had already found their suitors, and the ones that hadn't... well. None of them so far had managed to appeal in any fashion. And while he is prepared to do his duty to his house, he would prefer to do so with someone he could actually stand for the rest of his life.

In some ways, he almost wishes he were wearing his suit of drachen mail instead.

[lovethytendytenderly]

Wilson (Expensive Mistakes) by Fall Out Boy // an edit a day til penguins hockey, a countdown (day 32)

x

[walkingstackofbooks]

(part 1 here)

The truth was, that Julian had collapsed in the infirmary due to his own damned stupidity. He hadn't been neglecting himself on purpose, but he'd known that he'd been struggling with eating and sleeping recently, and he really should have been keeping better track of when he'd had meals, of when he'd managed to catch a few hours of rest. But no, that had apparently been too difficult a task for him, and as a result he was now sat here, in Sisko's office, unable to provide a good explanation to his captain.

Sisko had given him his time -- hell, Julian had been given an entire day's reprieve to come up with a suitable lie -- and his captain was now sitting opposite him patiently, but expectantly. And there were half a dozen plausible lies that Julian could tell Sisko, if he wanted to.

Julian didn't really want to, though. Ignoring the one, big exception that had been concealing his enhancements, he wasn't all that great at deception, and lying had always left a gnawing, nauseous pit in his stomach -- that one, big exception included.

And some part of him -- a treacherous, reckless part -- genuinely wanted Sisko to know the truth. Yearned for it, in fact. It would be such a relief to finally confess that he wasn't doing well at all, he was really struggling, actually, and everything was just far too much and even eating was hard, and while he wasn't having nightmares he would wake up with such a sense of dread and loneliness and fear that he'd really rather not sleep at all sometimes and that yes, he was probably suffering from depression and needed help, or at least a hug and an affirmation that it was okay, he was doing a good job...

Quickly, he swatted that thought away before he could be tempted to act on it. Admitting to anything like that would only cause trouble, and besides, that insidious voice was far too eager to exaggerate his problems. He was fine, he continued to insist to himself sternly, there's a war on, everyone's depressed right now, and it was just a minor, stupid lapse in judgement... But it would be a major, terrible lapse in judgement if he didn't come up with something to say to Sisko soon.

Because if he told Sisko the truth -- he'd forgotten a few meals, he hadn't slept much for a few nights, but really, Captain, it's not a big deal -- the captain would almost certainly make as big a deal out of it as he secretly hoped for. But it wouldn't end up the way his fantasies always did, being inundated with invitations from his friends to spend time with them, to stay for dinner, to stay the night... No. He'd be sent away from DS9, off to some recovery centre that actually had a counsellor who wasn't just the young-CMO-with-shaky-mental-health-himself.

And in an ideal world, that would allow him the chance to start healing.... but he simply couldn't imagine any happy outcome resulting from leaving DS9. Besides the matter of how selfish it would be to leave everyone now, in the middle of the war, just because he was feeling a bit off, he was also all-too-aware that Starfleet's eyes had been on him ever since his genetic status had been revealed. Any indication of mental instability could well be pounced upon as an excuse to cashier him from the service, to finally get rid of that augment, allowing the enhanced-Starfleet-Officer-experiment to be written off as a failure once and for all.

With such a lot riding on this one lie -- why hadn't he taken better care of himself, why had he insisted in doing that surgery when he should have known better?! -- Julian would count himself lucky if he managed to leave the office without breaking down into a panic attack. Which would be about the worst thing possible for him to do right now.

"Julian, what is it?" Sisko asked. Julian's time was up. He shook his head to clear it -- why couldn't he just lie, dammit, he'd always managed to before when the stakes were this high!

"You're starting to worry me," Sisko said, leaning forward across the desk. "Come on, whatever it is, you can tell me."

"I can't," whispered Julian. "I'm sorry, sir, I know that's not what you want to hear... but I can't. I can't tell you why and I-- I need to go. I'm sorry."

Anxiety bubbled within him as he pushed his chair away and made a hasty retreat for the door, knowing full well that his answer had hardly been any better than telling the truth would have been. At this point, he could only hope that something urgent came up to distract the captain, or else he could certainly expect another visit to his quarters later that day.

"I'm fine, I promise," he added as he reached the door, feeling the need to stick to the line as much for himself as for Sisko. Something stirred in his stomach, a horrible, sick feeling. "Thank you for your concern, sir, but I'm okay."

[widowshill]

— But it's almost midnight. — Oh, that's the point! At the stroke of twelve, he turns into Dracula. C'mon, Vicki – he won't bite.

pose ref.

[jupiterlandings]

“Growing through the creature here,

I'm trying to see when it's unclear,

Hidden in the space between

Hero and the enemy.

Early days and sleepless nights,

Death and resurrection, life;

My body is a sacred note

Sung between the flesh and hope”

Dannymay Day 11: Mutation