#Now I only need to make them asymmetrical :')

[luck-of-the-drawings]

OH ARTHUR BENNETT.. such a gorgeous and intriguing character. terribly burdened by a GRUESOME set of crimes, his light suffocated by a HEAVY century of GUILT. so tragic, so dark and broody, and yet PAINFULLY awkward in any social setting ever

[cosmicharm]

[foone]

Look if there's one thing, just one thing, that I wish everyone understood about archiving, it's this:

We can always decide later that we don't need something we archived.

Like, if we archive a website that's full of THE WORST STUFF, like it turns out it's borderline illegal bot-made spam art, we can delete it. Gone.

We can also chose not to curate. You can make a list of the 100 Best Fanfic and just quietly not link to or mention the 20,000 RPFs of bigoted youtubers eating each other. No problem!

We can also make things not publicly available. This happens surprisingly often: like, sometimes there'll be a YouTube channel of alt-right bigotry that gets taken down by YouTube, but someone gives a copy to the internet archive, and they don't make it publicly available. Because it might be useful for researchers, and eventually historians, it's kept. But putting it online for everyone to see? That's just be propaganda for their bigotry. So it's hidden, for now. You can ask to see it, but you need a reason.

And we can say all these things, we can chose to delete it later, we can not curate it, we can hide it from public view... But we only have these options BECAUSE we archived it.

If we didn't archive it, we have no options. It is gone. I'm focusing on the negative here, but think about the positive side:

What if it turns out something we thought was junk turns out to be amazing new art?

What if something we thought of as pointless and not worth curating turns out to be influential?

What if something turns out to be of vital historical importance, the key that is used to solve a great mystery, the Rosetta stone for an era?

All of those things are great... If we archived it when we could.

Because this is an asymmetric problem:

If we archived it and it turns out it's not useful, we can delete.

If we didn't archive it and it turns out it is useful, OOPS!

You can't unlose something that's been lost. It's gone. This is a one way trip, it's already fallen off the cliff. Your only hope is that you're wrong about it being lost, and there is actually still a copy somewhere. If it's truly lost, your only option is to build a time machine.

And this has happened! There are things lost, so many of them that we know of, and many more we don't know of. There are BOOKS OF THE BIBLE referenced in the canon that simply do not exist anymore. Like, Paul says to go read his letter to the Laodiceans, and what did that letter say? We don't know. It's gone.

The most celebrated playwright in the English tradition has plays that are just gone. You want to perform or watch Love's Labours Won? TOO FUCKING BAD.

Want to watch Lon Cheyney's London After Midnight, a mystery-horror silent film from 1927? TOO BAD. The MGM vault burnt down in 1965 and the last known copy went up in smoke.

If something still exists, if it still is kept somewhere, there is always an opportunity to decide if it's worthy of being remembered. It can still be recognized for its merits, for its impact, for its importance, or just what it says about the time and culture and people who made it, and what they believed and thought and did. It can still be a useful part of history, even if we decide it's a horrible thing, a bigoted mess, a terrible piece of art. We have the opportunity to do all that.

If it's lost... We are out of options. All we can do is research it from how it affected other things. There's a lot of great books and plays and films and shows that we only know of because other contemporary sources talked about them so much. We're trying to figure out what it was and what it did, from tracing the shadow it cast on the rest of culture.

This is why archivists get anxious whenever people say "this thing is bad and should not be preserved". Because, yeah, maybe they're right. Maybe we'll look back and decide "yeah, that is worthless and we shouldn't waste the hard drive or warehouse space on it".

But if they're wrong, and we listen to them, and don't archive... We don't get a second chance at this. And archivists have been bitten too many times by talk of "we don't need copies, the original studio has the masters!" (it burnt down), or "this isn't worth preserving, it's just some damn silly fad" (the fad turned out to be the first steps of a cultural revolution), or "this media is degenerate/illegal/immoral" (it turns out those saying that were bigots and history doesn't agree with their assessment).

So we archive what we can. We can always decide later if it doesn't need preserving. And being a responsible archivist often means preserving things but not making them publicly available, or being selective in what you archive (I back up a lot of old computer hard drives. Often they have personal photos and emails and banking information! That doesn't get saved).

But it's not really a good idea to be making quality or moral judgements of what you archive. Because maybe you're right, maybe a decade or two later you'll decide this didn't need to be saved. And you'll have the freedom to make that choice. But if you didn't archive it, and decide a decade later you were wrong... It's just gone now. You failed.

Because at the end of the day I'd rather look at an archive and see it includes 10,000 things I think are worthless trash, than look at an archive of on the "best things" and know that there are some things that simply cannot be included. Maybe they were better, but can't be considered as one of the best... Because they're just gone. No one has read them, no one has been able to read them.

We have a long history of losing things. The least we can do going forward is to try and avoid losing more. And leave it up to history to decide if what we saved was worth it.

My dream is for a future where critics can look at stuff made in the present and go "all of this was shit. Useless, badly made, bigoted, horrible. Don't waste your time on it!"

Because that's infinitely better than the future where all they can do is go "we don't know of this was any good... It was probably important? We just don't know. It's gone. And it's never coming back"

[whatswrongwithblue]

Reader does actually try to walk off a cliff and Alastor catches them and gets furious and sexy about it and pounds Vexi... I mean reader into the mattress so hard she can't walk anymore and he ends up laughing saying 'let's see you try to do that again now your legs won't work'

Beta'd by @inuhalfdemon

For my darling @redvexillum, I know you're Overtime Vexi right now; working hard on the Discord server, keeping up with daily Kinktober posts, and also literally working an IRL job. This is a no pressure gift to you. Read when you have time and need a little pick me up. I even based Reader off of your avatar on your blog and used language specifically from my favorite fic of yours . . . you know the one *wink wink*.

TRIGGER WARNINGS!: suicide ideation, suicide attempt, depression, mental illness, dissociation, possesive Alastor, Alastor owns Reader's soul, sex as punishment, angry sex, oral (fem receiving), p/v sex, shadow tendrils/tentacles, bondage, use of a gag, overstimulation, lack of aftercare, begging, dom/sub dynamic.

Falling

The warm night breeze ghosted through your hair; a gentle lover’s caress across the back of your neck. It calmed your nerves as you looked down at the drop below and you closed your eyes, thinking you could almost hear the wind telling you to take that final step.

Just one little step.

A few seconds of falling.

Then darkness. Nothing. Peace.

The wind kicked up a little harder, fanning out your wings, and nearly making you lose your balance. You gasped and flailed your arms, catching your balance before you fell.

A stupid lingering human instinct to save yourself. Your body’s nervous system fighting against what your mind desperately wanted.

You took a deep, steadying breath in, and tucked your wings in. They were tiny; pink and membranous things that seemed more for aesthetic than any kind of purpose. It’s not like you could fly with them. They were no more useful than your asymmetrical horns when it came to that skill only very few Sinners were lucky enough to have. And they weren’t even very demonic looking, as far as demon appendages went. Both your horns and your wings were pink, slightly darker shades than the pastel of your skin and hair. Even your fucking irises were pink.

While you quite loved pink as a human, it just felt insulting down in Hell. Like every other aspect of your demon visage. Useless. Infantile. Boring.

Nearly making you fall to your death by being caught in a sudden gust of hot air was the only favor your wings had ever done for you.

Not that you would permanently die, you lamented. Eventually you would re-spawn somewhere within the city. But re-spawning took hours, sometimes even days. And in that time would be nothing. When you were alive you always joked about wishing that you could just take your brain out of your skull, like a temporary death, just to quiet the awful thoughts and feelings your malfunctioning organ plagued you with day and night.

Here in Hell, you could actually do that. Again and again, if you so chose to.

All you had to do was jump.

Maybe it wasn’t worth it. When you came back, Alastor would certainly hunt you down and find you. And you could just see the disappointment in his face. Hear the disgust in his voice. How lowly he would think of his darling then, that she would perform such an empty and pathetic act.

But then again, he was going to find out who you were at your core eventually. Better to rip the bandage off and make him face just how truly damaged you were before you continued to waste his time further. He was bound to get tired of pulling you out of your depressed funks after enough time had gone by. And what good did you bring to his life anyway?

You were a distraction.

He had snapped that to you earlier that evening when you had interrupted his work at the hotel. Those last stinging words echoed through your mind, branding themselves into your grey matter so that you never forgot them.

Well, you wouldn’t be distracting him anymore after this stunt. He wouldn’t bother with you afterwards.

And if you found you really did enjoy the nothingness that came between death and re-spawning, the extermination wasn’t far away. All you had to do was stand in front of an exorcist and simply not move as they brought their blade down on you. Then it would truly be an eternity of peace and quiet for you.

No more distractions.

The thought came to you bitterly as you considered that Alastor was the one who had been distracting you. All these months of his attention, of him making you his darling, of him making you fall in love with him, had just distracted you for a while. But now the pain was back, worse than ever, with one small argument between you two and you realized if it wasn’t for him, you likely would have jumped off this roof months ago.

You could have let it all go during the last extermination, while everyone else was huddled safely inside the hotel.

What a waste of time. A useless, boring, distracting life.

A deep breath. A single tear sliding down your cheek. A last thought of warmth and safety whispering through your mind . . .

“Alastor.”

His name left your lips like a prayer and an apology.

You took a step over the ledge.

The street below became your entire field of view as you lost your footing entirely.

And then the world glitched.

Colors blended in choppy formation and static screamed in your ears, threatening to burst your ears drums. Everything was fuzzy and going dark and a strange tingling filled your body, like your very blood had turned to static.

And then you were back on your own two feet, standing face to chest with the red and black pinstriped suit you knew so well.

Unnaturally large claws had you by the shoulders and you tilted your head up, taking in the full view of a very angry Radio Demon.

Alastor towered over you, his antlers spread wide, his eyes turning like radio dials, and he lifted you up like you weighed nothing until you were face to face and your feet were dangling several feet in the air.

“What the fuck was that?” he snarled, his voice even more full of static than you were used to.

Your eyes went wide at the use of vulgarity from him. You could count with your two useless wings how many times you had heard him swear before and never had it been directed at you.

When you didn’t answer right away, he shook you, calling you by your real name rather than darling, which he never did. He demanded an answer but all you could manage was a little whimper before you broke.

Your chin quivered and you felt the swell of tears in your eyes as a sob squeezed your chest and erupted out.

“I’m sorry,” you choked out and then slowly, ever so gently, you felt yourself being lowered to the ground and then your face was pressed against the soft fabric of Alastor’s suit. His bow tie tickled the side of your face and his scent, heady with Spanish moss and cypress, and some other uniquely Earthy smell that was entirely him, filled your senses.

“Darling,” he said quietly, “my darling . . . why?”

You could barely breath through your sobs, let alone speak, so it took you a moment to gather the strength to answer. Clutching at the back of his jacket, you pressed your face into him harder, trying to hide your reasoning, bury your shame, pretend like every pathetic part of you didn’t exist.

But he had seen, hadn’t he? He had watched you take that step, had come up here to find you and seen that final microsecond when there was nothing but air between you and the ground below.

And he had altered reality to bring you back to him. To save you.

Half of you hoped that meant he really did love you like you loved him. Like he promised every day that he did, even though you never quite believed it.

The other half of you whispered an insipid little lie that was too tempting to not consider  . . . that this whole stunt of yours was just another distraction.

“I don’t want to be a bother anymore,” you finally whispered, hiccupping and choking as you struggled to speak.

Alastor went stiff around you, and you thought then that he would finally push you away. Agree that you really were just a bother. That if he were to ever shackle himself to another soul, it certainly wouldn’t be to such a weak little wretch as yourself.

Instead, his long, clawed fingers grasped you by your chin, forcing you to look up at him. And though his expression was often hard to read, the strain in his smile showed anger while the burning in his ruby eyes showed pain.

“What gave you the idea that you could do such a thing? That I would allow it?”

“Wha . . . what?”

“You’re mine now, darling.” He pulled on your chin, forcing you on tip toe as he brought your face closer to him. “You belong to me and I don’t let what belongs to me just fly away. It seems you have forgotten that.”

His claws were digging into your cheeks and along your jaw line, stinging and threatening, even as he brought his lips down and gave you the gentlest kiss on the forehead.

 

“Perhaps I need to remind you of that,” he whispered to you, his voice low and tender, crackling with a passion you couldn’t misplace. He was angry, you realized, oh yes he was furious with you. But as the world went fuzzy once again, and you felt the familiar sensation of melting into shadow, and your soul blended with his, you could literally feel that burning rage inside of him being twisted and morphed into more direct emotions. Lust and desire filled what was left of your identity as Alastor transported you through the ceiling and walls of the hotel and into your room.

Now this was flying.

Alastor had sat you at the foot of your bed, making quick work of removing your underwear, lifting your pleated skirt above your hips, and kneeling before you, all before you had come down from the bizarre and disorienting high of being nothing but shadow with him.

Now you were reduced to a shell of a person, thoughtless and detached from your feelings and in the best of ways, as Alastor’s tongue made your nervous system aware of nothing else but the bundle of nerves between your legs.

Your knees were resting on his shoulders and already shaking as his tongue twisted and lapped at your clit, occasionally giving the swollen pearl a hard suck, as two fingers pumped into your core, working to pull a second climax from you.

Distantly you were aware of the flutter of your wings; a helpless reflex, along with the tremble of your legs. Tears streamed down your cheeks, though you paid that no mind either. Even if you had noticed them, you wouldn’t be able to place which emotion was drawing them from your eyes.

You only knew that this feeling; the intense physical sensation of Alastor turning you into a whimpering, wanton mess, allowed you to dissociate in the best of ways and everything that had tormented you to the point of standing on that cliff’s edge was completely forgotten.

The fingers of one of your hands wrapped themselves in a white-knuckled grip around his antler while your other hand found purchase in his red locks and you sobbed out his name as you came again.

Just as your walls began to clench, Alastor pulled himself from your clutches, leaving your cunt to clench needfully onto nothing. The abrupt lack of touch right at the beginning of your orgasm was torture and in his absence you pressed your legs together, searching for any friction that would allow for a fraction of the satisfaction his tongue and fingers should be giving you.  

“Now, now, dear,” Alastor tutted, and you felt your legs forced back apart. “Remember, I’m here to make a point. And that point is . . .” You looked down to see tendrils of shadows spreading your legs farther open, tangling themselves around your thighs and hips. “. . . You’re mine.” He began undoing the top of his trousers. “And  any rash decisions,” he pushed his trousers down below his waist, “like trying to jump off buildings,” he pulled his cock free and you salivated at the sight of its red and swollen tip already weeping pre-cum for you, “or pleasuring yourself without permission,” he leaned over you, his tense and wicked smile inches away from your lips as his took a painful fistful of your hair, “will be met with severe punishments.”

You swallowed, daring to meet his eyes with your own submissive, watery ones, and nodded.

“There’s my darling I know and cherish,” he said sweetly. His fingers left your hair and traced along your jaw until they came to your lips.

“And now that we’re at an understanding,” he snapped his fingers and your clothes vanished, “let’s see how well you can take your punishment.”

His cock thrust into you as black tendrils slithered their way up the rest of your nude body, pinning you in place. They teased and stroked every erogenous zone with lovely tenderness, their touch soothing and affectionate even as they forced you to near absolute stillness. In stark contrast, Alastor pounded into you, stretching you to the point of burning and igniting the still burning embers of your last orgasm that Alastor had left unfinished.

You came within seconds, your walls spasming hard against the fat width of his cock. Alastor drove on as if he hadn’t noticed, deep enough to hit the blind end of your depths with every forward thrust. The bruising combination left a dull cramp in your belly as your climax went on for several more moments, an intense combination of pleasure and pressure.   

After the quaking within your core subsided, you went limp within the clutches of the shadows. Three orgasms as intense as the ones you had just experienced were more than enough to placate your mind and body and your teary eyes now began to droop with sleepiness.

And yet Alastor was clearly not finished with you.

“Alastor,” you pleaded, knowing he still hadn’t come but you intended to beg for him to be a little gentler with you until he had. Instead of letting you speak, however; a tendril that had been near your throat laced itself through your open mouth and synched itself around your head, effectively gagging you.

The only response you got from your lover was an angry red glow of his eyes as they narrowed onto you, before he gripped your thighs with his claws and continued on with his brutal pace.

Too much, too much, too much, you internally screamed, a fresh torrent of hot tears burning down your cheeks. Your teeth sunk into the meat of the tentacle between your lips and you strained against the ones holding your wrists down to the bed.

The brutal pace of your punishment went on for several more minutes; an eternity for your overstimulated sex. Everything between your ribs and your thighs burned and ached from the ceaseless, intrusive rhythm of Alastor’s body against yours. Inside and out, he continued to savagely ravish you, until there was nothing else for you to do but begin to silently cry and take the punishment he was dolling out.

Alastor pulled out of you with a suddenness that both relieved and confused you. Your throbbing cunt ached from what it had just been through but as your eyes met his, you felt an emptiness within you. Still wrapped in tentacles, you glanced down at his glistening cock before you looked back up at the sharp tooth smile on the face of the man that you feared and loved above all else.

He still looked as pissed off as ever but there was a softness at the corner of his eyes that hinted at concern and you knew him well enough to know he was worried he might have taken things to far.

As you felt the shadow tentacles begin to loosen around you, you felt a emotion so long-forgotten you almost didn’t recognize it.

Confidence.

And with that thought, you wordlessly turned yourself around until your lay on your belly, exposing your backside and the tiny pink wings you knew Alastor loved to play with whenever he was angry.

A moment came and went and you were just beginning to wonder if you had misread the owner of your soul. You opened your mouth to speak his name once more but before you could utter a syllable, you felt your arms yanked back by the wrists and a powerful tendril wrap around your throat, holding you face down into the mattress.

The shadows that were still around your hips tightened and forcefully lifted your ass into the air and you braced yourself a second before Alastor’s cock slammed back into you, filling you back up to completion and eviscerating that feeling of emptiness.

Tired and spent as you were, you moaned aloud and squeezed his member with every last bit of strength you had within your spongey walls.  

You felt the long, slow drag of his retreating cock sliding against every sensitive bundle of nerves inside of you before another snap of Alastor’s hips had it rocketing back into you.

“Say it,” he commanded and you shuddered with your whole body, knowing what he wanted to hear.

“I’m your darling,” you replied, breathless and yet moaning again as he rewarded you with another thrust.

“And?”

“I belong to you.” He matched this thrust with a gentle stroke of a shadow across the membrane of one of your wings. “Mmmmmm, more,” you begged, as your wings gave a tiny, involuntary flap at the feather light touch.

But he had stilled behind you, waiting for your needfulness to build until you were begging.

“Please,” you sobbed out, feeling your chin quiver as all the emotions of the night came rushing back to you. “I’m sorry, Al’. I’m so sorry.”

As you spoke, the touching of your wings and the powerful movement of his cock began anew. You blabbered on, afraid if you stopped talking, the pleasant sensation of his touch within you and above you would end.

“I love you. I’ll never leave you. I’ll never even think about leaving you ever again. Not in anyway. Not even when your angry with me. Not even when I hate myself. Because I’m yours and I’ll always be yours. I’m so sorry, Alastor. Please don’t stop. Please, you feel so good. Fill me up, love. Because I’m your darling and I’ll be good from now on, please just fill me up. I’m your good girl and I love you and I want to feel you inside me. Please, please, oh God Al’, you feel so good, I’m – I’m – I-”

With a painful pull on your wrists you felt all the way into your shoulders, you felt him spill his seed within you as his body tense and every shadow of his went impossibly taut around you. The heat of his cum burned your walls and spilled down your inner thighs, coating you and marking you as his, and you came along with him, screaming into the sheets. Every tendril bruised into your skin, leaving marks around your throat, breasts, wings, hips, and thighs, as Alastor lost all control, even as he continued to pound into you with an uneven and desperate pace.

Everything blurred as you came down from the high together. You felt your muscles turn to jelly and give out in the final moments of your climax, just in time to feel Alastor finally still and begin to soften before he pulled out.

After several serene moments had gone by, the sheets beneath you began to move and pull away. As if in a dream, you felt your body being moved up the bed and then Alastor’s weight joined next to you as you were tucked into bed. Without being cleaned and without a word of praise or love, which he usually included in an aftercare routine for you.

But you knew, deep within the fog of your exhausted mind, that you deserved this. You would wake up in the morning marked by the bruises and the sticky mess between your legs, and only then would you be allowed to shower and heal yourself.

“Thank you,” you murmured with closed eyes as he finished tucking you in. “I don’t think I can move after that, let alone walk.”

An amused, deep chuckle came from Alastor before he pinched your cheek hard enough to make your eyes snap back open.

He got up from the bed, now fully dressed, and straightened his bow tie and monocle before marching towards the door with a pleased and arrogant look on his face.

“Good, my darling. That’s good. Let’s see you try to pull that nonsense again now that your legs don’t work. Sweet dreams,” he added as he opened the bedroom door and gave you one last warning smile before he slammed the door behind him, hard enough to knock a few decorations off the walls.

You sighed as you heard a lock clicking into place, knowing his point was made, and that he was still very much angry with you. But the storm had passed, for both of you. You relaxed into the soft pillow and closed your eyes, the first smile in days touching your lips as you drifted off to sleep.

[anim-ttrpgs]

drow rpg thoughts

Yesterday I got excited and did a design outline for another game, this time about drow. Don't worry, the Eureka Patreon updates will keep coming monthly and we are even close to another free public beta release, but i have been under a lot of stress and might need to work on something else for a few weeks after that, even if only because i think it could actually be something i could make fully playable within a short time.

It is based on a particular setting written a while back by me and a close friend, the purpose of which was to reimagine drow with reasonable post-hoc explanations for the way they are portrayed in Forgotten Realms. It would be a very specific game, sharing a few design ideas with Eureka's rules, but not as broad and generalized.

This rpg will certainly come with a bunch of lore, but for right now the only thing you need to know is that in this setting, "Drow" is a title and referrs only to the female warrior-caste of dark elf society.

Many of the mechanics will be asymmetrical. A “party” will consist of one Drow and any number of her servants, with the goal of surviving incredibly dense hierarchical social situations

>problem will come up that could embarrass the Drow, threatening her Reputation (stat)

>Drow has to delegate tasks to servants that will fix the problem

>due to stupidly dense and impossible etiquette, actually delegating these tasks is not very clear or easy. Screwing up tasks and failing etiquette will reduce a servant’s perceived Competence (stat)

>due to high pressure, impossible working conditions, and garbled instructions, these tasks are not easy and are very likely to be screwed up

>the Drow has to contend with and smooth over the screwed up tasks. She can lose Reputation if she doesn’t discipline incompetence, but harsh discipline is only going to make the servants less able to complete the task.

>Failure state for the servants is if their Competence ever reaches 0, and failure state for everyone is if the Drow’s Reputation ever reaches 0.

Half the Game Master’s job will be keeping track of the strict and deliberately impossibly overcomplicated etiquette by which servants have to address Drow, and docking their Competence when they screw up(and possibly docking Drow Reputation if anybody else sees her letting that slide), and keeping track of the strict militaristic code of honor and (evil) morality that all Drow are expected to exemplify whether they actually enjoy being cruel psychopaths or not, and docking Reputation when the Drow fails to uphold the right standard of evilness in front of other Drow.

The servant part of the “party” will either have to humorously manipulate Drow while hiding that anything is wrong, or they and their Drow will all have to all work together to maintain a facade of this brutal hierarchy

Drow lose Reputation and servants lose Competence when they fail to adhere to social etiquette that covers like 15 pages of instructions (designed to be impossible to follow). In that way, it might be considered similar to Paranoia, with a similar sense of humor.

Some of the servants’ etiquette would be like

>don’t speak out loud to a Drow unless told to by that Drow

>at the same time, don’t remain silent when a Drow expects them to answer a question even if she didn’t explicitly say they could speak

And this is why the Drow has to be a PC, because this same servant etiquette is a pitfall for the Drow. if she doesn’t make her expectations explicitly clear, it puts the servants in an impossible situation, where they will embarrass her with their incompetence(even though it’s her fault) and she will be socially obligated to go out of her way to discipline them. Of course in the in-setting society, the fault lies with the servant, because they should have intuited when they were being given permission to speak or not. Some Drow will be self-aware enough to realize that they caused this situation, most won't.

The structure of their society will often incentivize a tactful Drow to "roll with" mistakes made by servants, e.g. "No, my servants did have permission to address me out loud, you just weren't clever enough to catch it."

Each will have to cover for the other, and/or hide things from each other and the Drow's social rivals.

[steviebbboi]

Hi love love your work ❤️ I was wondering if you’d be open for a request on Good For It Ari? Was wondering if there was a chance they get pregnant eventually? 😊 Would love a one shot about that if you’re open to it :)

Hi hi! <3 omg, thank you sm for sending in this ask!! I love this prompt too. Hope I did it justice!~

Pairing: Lumberjack!Recluse!Ari x F!Reader (Good For It)

Word Count: 1k~

Summary: The multitude of ways that Ari continues to care, love and protect you during your pregnancy. 

You could read the original fic here.

Disclaimer: ***I don't give any permission for this to be reposted anywhere! Pls do not steal work, plagiarism isn't demureeee***

Reblogs help writers reach more readers who may also enjoy our work. As you like, kindly reblog~ <3

Warnings/Triggers: reader is pregnant, pregnancy hormones, negative intrusive thoughts surrounding body image.

“Love, what do you think you’re doing?” 

You turned at hearing Ari’s deep baritone voice questioning you by the doorway. A soft, teasing smirk on his handsome face as he leaned against the doorway, just watching you. 

“The light was hitting me in the wrong spot.” You pouted while sitting pathetically down on the floor. 

Ari chuckled, “So you thought that you would try to move the armchair, on your own?” 

Releasing out a huff, “I’m pregnant, Ari. Doesn’t make me weaker or less capable.” Your pout only deepened as your face formed an annoyed frown. Looking at the unwavering soft smile on his face made you harumph, turn away from him to cross your arms childishly across your growing belly.

Ever since you got pregnant, you felt so incapable of doing the things that you wanted to do. You would waddle over to the couch and need to grip Ari’s tree trunk arms for support. Or, if you wanted to reach for a plate on the high shelf, your belly just pressed onto the counter uncomfortably as you would attempt to reach for it until your efforts could be heard by Ari, who would come over to get it for you in a second. 

In other words, it was exhausting to rely on Ari all the time. 

It’s not like you weren’t grateful for his presence, you were! You always love feeling cared for by Ari, and certainly since you told him that you were expecting, he has been so loving. ‘Love’ was his endearment on a daily basis now, and was freely said in every space. No longer was Ari, Mr. Gruntle Grumps (well, -ish. You just got exclusively better at learning how to speak ‘Ari’).

But you also loved the independence that existed in your relationship before getting pregnant. You miss the freedom of going anywhere that you wanted, the ability to get out of bed without assistance, or like now– being able to move your armchair that always seems to be a degree off center and because of that, the sun would annoyingly hit your face.

You moved it back after every use because the room felt so asymmetrical when it wasn’t in a certain position. But when you would sit in your comfy armchair for your daily read, you would either always forget to move it yourself (however greuling the task is to do), or ask Ari to move it forward before you started reading. 

Henceforth, we get situations like now where you try to deep squat (and fail), attempt to pull the chair forward (unsuccessfully) and then flail back to catch yourself and pout on the floor. You used to be able to still pull it forward yourself in the earlier stages of your pregnancy, but it's become increasingly difficult by the day as time goes by.

Nowadays, you still try to do it yourself, but you quickly give up, and eventually just practice sucking it up and suffering in the shine of the sun, less you get caught by Ari trying to lift heavy things. 

So stuck in your frustrated pouting, you finally got caught by Ari today and could almost feel the silent judgment from your position on the floor. 

Feeling tears brim to your eyes, you sniffled silently as you tried to wipe them away before he could see. You felt so irrational and your hormones just went haywire all the time. 

Suddenly, you feel a hand stroke the back of your head affectionately and you look up to see Ari kneeling over you with an empathetic look on his face. 

“You miss bein’ able to do stuff, huh.” Ari said compassionately, that soft smile not budging from his face as he continued stroking your hair. Tears fell over as you put a fist to your eyes to wipe it away.

Another thing that you have appreciated about Ari is that he doesn't judge you. Not ever, not once.

It seems like he understood how you were feeling without you having to even say anything. It was unlike you to not communicate, but Ari took the brunt of it effortlessly. He bypassed your own criticisms on his sense of judgment, he merely noticed, and just observed.

Sometimes, you would feel insecure in your body as you would notice a stretch mark blooming here and there. Or looking at how disproportionate your body was as your tummy grew.

It was a beautiful process to go through, and you so wanted this with Ari, but every now and again, your brain would tell you all of these harmful and intrusive thoughts that just seemed to eat at you the further you were along in your pregnancy.

Your brain would criticize and tell you that even Ari is burdened by you, or that he would judge you for your looks or incapabilities– even if you knew that he would never treat you that way.

Though, in a way, Ari seemed to be well-versed in protecting you even from yourself. 

Even now as he waited patiently with you on the floor, just stroking your hair and over your hunched back, he never complained. He only waited for you to sniffle your last sniffle, to look up at him with a pout as he helped you off the floor, and put his large arms around you to form a protective support and embrace. 

The next day, you saw translucent curtains hanging from the windows. That way, the sun wouldn’t hit you as harshly whilst you got to enjoy reading your book that was now comfortably lit by a dimmed, warm glow.

You cried when you realized Ari did that for you too. He kissed you on the forehead and whispered promises of adoration. The clarity of his love was so tender as he simply laid a giant hand on your stomach. 

“I got you, love.” Ari said with the same reverence of love during that time at the bar. He’s shown you time and time again how much he cares and loves you – how your comfort and safety was the intention behind everything that he would do.

He was good for it. 

A/N: lil drabble, lil drabble there 🥹 hope you enjoyed the snippet of their life. thank you again for sending in the ask!

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[dom1re]

Introducing my MC

Thank you @lamieboo for the wonderful prompts! I'm taking advantage of #MCtober to finally make an introduction post. This little guy deserves a proper character sheet but alas I just don't got the time this week 😔😔 Someday!! For now plz enjoy some Sunan facts 👇

He was born in Nov of 1874 in a wizards' quarter near Whitehall. He was the only child and grew up pretty close to both his parents. That was, until he was sent to a Muggle boarding school at 13. He kept in touch with his father, but his mother not so much.

His middle name is Ernest. He never thought it suited him.

While at the boarding school he dyed his hair brown to fit in. Reverted it as soon as he returned to the Wizarding World at 15. He still does sometimes when he needs to evade the Rookwood Gang, but hates it. Reminds him of his time as a squib.

The gray hair runs in the father's side of the family. The asymmetrical dimple is from his mother.

Has a small golden pocket watch with him at all times. He fidgets with it when he's bored or anxious. It was a gift from his mother. He won't admit it but it's one of his most prized possessions.

Another one is his broom. He fell in love with broom-flying the moment he took laps around the castle with Everett. When he's not working on homeworks with Sebastian and Ominis he can be found on his broom trying new techniques, or playing two-a-side Quidditch with Everett, Nellie, and Natty. Secretly enjoys watching them bicker over rules and fouls.

He's active and always hungry. Often carries sandwiches or fruits with him. He will eat anything except slimy foods (and durian). Why is jellied eels a thing anyways?

Has a bossy little owl named Oliang, or Oli for short. The brown hawk owl was his father's gift upon his start at Hogwarts. She will ignore you if you don't have treats. She will peck you if you have them but don't give. She can always tell.

He doesn't know his Patronus yet. Perhaps he'll find out soon.

He's not as mature as he thinks. He believes he's done all the growing up after narrowly avoiding death many times during his first year at Hogwarts. But really he's still got a long way to go.

(feel free to check out my fic and learn more about Sunan 😌)

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Dirty Work 27

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as bullying, familial discord/abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You start a new gig and find one of your clients to be hard to please.

Characters: Loki

Note: we can breathe because the workplace sloth is gone.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

“Right, can’t start the day without something to drink,” Hela struts in with two stemmed glasses of orange juice. “Not that I think we’ll need to work very hard. Darling, you are the perfect canvas.”

You twiddle your fingers as you shift your weight from one foot to the other. Mr. Laufeyson is perched in the armchair, his leg casually swaying side to side as he pinches his thumb to his index finger. You bite the inside of your lip as Hela nears and holds out a glass.

“For you, darling,” she insists, “ahem,” she faces her brother, “I don’t believe we require your presence, brother.”

“Hmm,” he tilts his head, “what do you mean? I have a good eye for colour. Given my line of work–”

“Oh yes, dusty artifacts and tacky antiques, please,” she scoffs, “this is a ladies’ matter. Besides, I didn’t bring enough prosecco for you.”

He squints up at her and retracts his hand to tap his chin. You sniff the orange juice, you smell more than just pulp. You don’t drink, or you never have. You don’t think you’ll like it.

“Always so generous,” he pushes himself to his feet, “I invite you to my home and you cast me out.”

“I won’t be taking manners on hospitality from you,” she retorts, “certainly, your house manager… is that what you call her? Well, she must know how welcoming you truly are.”

“Careful,” Laufeyson warns as their eyes bore into each other.

She cackles and flicks him away with her fingers as she spins on her heel. She smirks at you as she raises her eyebrows and sips from her glass. You peek over at Laufeyson and refrain from tasting your own.

“Don’t make me remove you, Loki,” Hela threatens, “let us not revert to childishness. We’ve enough of that in this family.”

He rolls his eyes and clutches his hands behind his back. He arches a brow at you. A wordless statement. Despite his sister’s orders, you obey him first and foremost. You lower your eyes sheepishly and listen to his soles click out of the room.

Hela startles you as she nudges the bottom of the glass, “go on. Loosen up,” she purrs, “I swear, my brother can be so uptight. This entire place is just as stiff as that rod up his… well, I shouldn’t say that.”

You try to smile and do as she says. You taste the orange juice tenuously. It’s not that bad. A bit sweeter than you expect and bubbly. You always heard alcohol burned. Hm.

“Now, what I would do,” she steps back and holds up a palm, “you could carry a structured shoulder. Oh, or asymmetric. Off-the-shoulder. A cinch here,” she comes closer and touches your waist, “a pencil skirt or cigarette pants.” 

She winks and eyes you up and down. She reaches to place her glass on the round end table near the end of the couch. She puts her hands on your waist and squeezes then drags them down to your hips.

“My, yes, you have a lovely shape under all that,” she praises as you squirm, “what are we looking for? To drive my brother absolutely mad?”

You blink wildly and sip once more, wiggling away to put your glass on the other side of the table lamp. “Just… for work.”

“Work,” she says skeptically, “sure,” she waves you off and goes to the rack of clothes, “come. I don’t mind giving an opinion but this is about you, darling. You choose for yourself. What catches your eye?”

You shyly come forward, rubbing your hands together. You’re not sure what you like better than the next. They’re all so pretty. There are pretty pieces you can only dream of wearing, they just wouldn’t fit you. The tight skirts wouldn’t be practical, how can you walk with your knees bound? And the white. That’s too easy to stain.

After some consideration but not much thought, your hand reaches out to feel a piece of magenta tulle. A sheer layer with polka dots over a satin liner. It’s really cute but maybe too much. You recoil and cross your arms.

“What do you think?” You ask quietly.

She snickers and grabs the magenta skirt, “I think this is gorgeous. A choice. That’ll go in the keep pile.”

“Oh,” you swallow.

“The colour will look marvelous on you, now something to go with it. I think this,” she pulls out a pale pink blouse with white detail on the shoulders, “balances out, but for an evening look,” she turns and retrieves a black camisole, “oh yes, this is lovely.”

You watch her lay each garment over the back of the couch. She pauses and crosses to the end table. She reclaims her drink and hands you yours. She drains hers and bids you finish your own. You do so with tiny sips. You’re still nursing the orange juice as she returns to the wrack.

“How about this?” She pulls out a pair of yellow pleated pants, “very bright but… very you, I’d say.”

“Nice,” you comment, “but… the colour.”

“Oh, I know my brother likes his muted tones but that’s his detriment,” she chides, “I think… oh, there are so many pieces. This,” she takes a strapless bodice with a large bow, “or this,” she chooses a plum satin blouse.

You just nod. You like the clothes, but you just struggle to see yourself wearing them. She turns to the large chest she had Mr. Laufeyson lug in and opens the lid. She presents several pairs of shoes. Flats, heels, booties, everything you could ever need.

“Darling, you must try this,” she holds up a sapphire dress, an off-the-shoulder cut sleeves that drape just off your arms. It’s calf-length and gorgeous. 

“I… that… no, I’d look–”

“Gorgeous,” she insists as she shoves it towards you, “go on, put it on.”

“Um, alright,” you put down your mostly empty glass and take the hanger. 

You feel the material as she picks up the stemmed glasses. “I’ll top us off and you get changed.”

“Oh, okay,” you turn but she stretches her arm out to stop you. 

“Here is fine,” she says, “you needn’t be shy with me.”

“I…” you don’t argue. She’s still Mr. Laufeyson’s sister and that means she’s more important.

You bow your head and turn away. You peer around as she sweeps through to the kitchen. You sling the dress over the couch arm and undress to your underwear. You shimmy up the dress and strain to push the zipper all the way up. 

As you bend your arm back painfully, the gate bell chimes. You flinch. You glance up at the ticking clock and your chest drops. Ronan! You look down at the half-zipped dress.

“Do you require some assistance?” The deep timbre rolls through you.

You squeak and face Mr. Laufeyson. His eyes glimmer as he takes you in. He grins and strides towards you, spinning his finger in the air. You put your back to him, if only to hide your embarrassment. 

He drags his fingertip down the bare skin of your back and sends a shiver along your spine. You press your hands to the fabric as he tugs up the zipper, the fabric drawing taut to your figure. His touch dances along your waist and up to your shoulders.

“Turn, let me see,” he commands.

“The carpenter–”

“Yes, yes, I’ll get to it,” he overrides you. 

You chew on your worries and face him. His eyes scan you head to toe and back again. His lips part slightly as you stand in bated silence. The gate bell buzzes again.

“Ugh, that is a nasty noise,” Hela appears again, “oh, brother, you just can’t help yourself. Go, mind your house, we are not even close to finished.”

“I can look,” he argues.

She scoffs and shoos him, charging at him and kicking out. He backs away, raising his hands defensively. He shakes his head and sneers.

“I’m going,” he sighs, “gods.”

He pivots and strides out. You watch after him, tingling strangely. You can’t tell if you're mortified or something else. You swear, you can still feel his touch along your spine.

“You certainly have your hands full with him,” she tuts, “though I hardly imagined I’d find a creature like you here. Please, don’t mistake my meaning. It is only, you’re not entirely his type. At least, from all I know of him.”

“I… I’m just the house manager,” you utter.

“Certainly,” she drawls and hands you a glass, “because a house manager requires the finest clothing, yes?”

“I…” you look at the glass. You don’t know what to say. You’re a terrible liar. So you won’t talk, you’ll drink and do what you’re told.

✨

You feel wobbly. The world won’t stay still as a giggle tickles in your chest. You don’t know what’s funny. Maybe it’s you. You look at your reflection. You look so silly in the flouncy peach skirt. It’s ridiculous.

“I can’t clean in this,” you hiccup to Hela as she stands behind you, admiring the mirror over your shoulder.

“Clean? Oh, babe, I hope not,” she places her hands on your shoulders, a gesture that reminds you of her brother. She does look and awfully a lot like him. Not Thor though, he’s the odd one out.

“That’s what I do,” you say dumbly, “don’t you know? I’m the maid.”

“Darling,” she hums and brings her hands to the sides of your face, pressing herself to your back, “I don’t think that’s the case anymore.” She caresses your cheeks then your neck, “you’re too pretty to be just the maid.”

“Pretty?” You bat your eyes and tense up.

You pull away from her. You don’t believe that. You can’t. Whatever she’s up to, is just another part of Laufeyson’s tricks. He likes those.

You cross your arms and flop down on the sofa. You stare at the beige heels on your feet. You pout and shake your head. That bubbly feeling bursts and you deflate. 

You bend forward and clutch your head. You feel so heavy, as if you might sink right through the couch and floor. You sense her come near and the cushion beside you dips. You wince as she puts her hand on your back.

“I didn’t mean to upset you. I only meant… well, you really are a pretty girl. If anything, I wonder what you’re doing with him,” she says, “you know, he’s so moody. Especially since the divorce, I don’t know how anyone–”

“What was she like?” You whisper, surprised by your own question, though she doesn’t appear to be.

“His wife? Oh, Sif, yes, she was… her own person. That was likely the problem,” he hums, “you shouldn’t worry about her. Trust me when I tell you, he is well and truly past that.”

You nod and sit up, “I’m sorry. I’m…” you blink, “dizzy.”

“Mmm, babe, you are a lightweight,” she reproaches, “you should’ve told me.”

“I’m— I don’t drink. He does. He drinks and he gets all grouchy and he says things. Confusing things,” you ramble without control. She’s right. You’re drunk and stupid, yet you can’t stop yourself.

“Oh, I’m sure he does,” she chuckles. “He sure does know how to make a mess of things, doesn’t he?”

You shrug. You can’t blame him for the mess. It’s your fault. 

“Who doesn’t like some chaos,” she puts her hand on your leg, “I can see what he does. Such a fragile little thing.”

She pets your leg and you watch her fingers as they move in your fuzzy vision. Her nails tickle you through the skirt. She pushes her shoulder against yours and reaches with her other arm to grasp your chin. She turns your head, leaning in.

“A nice little doll to dress up and play with,” she sings before her lips crash into yours.

You let out a squeak. What is she doing? Your eyes round as her tongue pokes at your lips but you keep them sealed, horrified. She’s beautiful but you don’t expect it. What do you do? Why is she doing this?

She parts, staying close, “you’re delicious,” she pushes her hand between your legs, “come on, let’s have a little girl’s time.”

She dives in to kiss you again. You’re too dazed and flustered to fight her. You squeeze your eyes shut, your thighs too as she drags her hand upward. She pushes you down, twisting your body so your back meets the cushion as your legs remain hooked over the edge. You gasp as you free your lips from hers.

“What Loki doesn’t know–”

“Hela!” Her brother snarls as if summoned by his name. 

You exclaim as she hisses and her eyes roll to the ceiling. She pushes herself off and pats her lips with her knuckles. Her dark lipstick is smeared, likely on you too. You stay as you are, paralysed, as she stands to face Mr. Laufeyson.

“We were just getting to know each other,” she says breezily.

“You certainly were,” Laufeyson approaches her staunchly, “you swore–”

“Oh, you know better,” she drawls flippantly.

“And I thought you would, especially–” he stops himself and growls. “Can I not trust anyone in this forsaken family?”

“It’s a bit of fun–”

“For who?” He challenges.

You sit up and touch your forehead. Your lashes flick as you try to see straight. Laufeyson sidesteps his sister and glares at you. You cower. He has to know, you wouldn’t do that.

His eyes search as his forehead furrows. He fixates on the end table then turns on Hela, “how much alcohol did you feed her?”

“She had two mimosas. It’s hardly a lethal dose.”

“Don’t,” he wags his finger at her. “You shouldn’t have given her any.”

“You didn’t say–”

“I shouldn’t have to teach you common sense,” he snaps.

“Now, don’t be vile. I came all the way here–”

Their argument stirs in your chest, roiling hotly. You don’t like fighting or anger. Your hands shake as you wring them and you fight the burning behind your eyes. You stand unsteadily and rock.

“I have to clean,” you say.

The siblings stop and turn to look at you. Hela gives a slanted smirk as Mr. Laufeyson frowns. He sighs and strides forward to grab your wrist.

“No, you need to sober up,” he declares.

“Oh, boo,” Hela sneers.

[rosquinn]

Thoughts on the dr stone petrification scars

Big disclaimer,

This is just my personal thoughts and stuff I put together n noticed, a subjective interpretation, don't take it seriously Im probably wrong

Some of these are very elaborate while others are just me pointing out details I liked. Sorry. I'll start with the longer rants

This post contains characters (currently) exclusive to the manga and main plot spoilers. Maybe I'm looking to much into it but I swear to motherfucking God there's scar symbolism. anyway

Senku and Taiju

Something that always stood out to me is how similar their scars are both in shape and position, except that Taiju's is cut on the right eye and the points are on opposite sides. Now listen to me... Senku and him are opposites; one's big brained but physically a twig and the other one is the strongest most resistant man you'll ever meet but doesn't really understand anything about science. That's why opposite scars and why they need each other to go on... But their marks are in the same direction because they have the same goal and interests + deep down they're both extremely caring people who would do anything for those around them, despite how different and contrasting their personalities are at first glance.

Oh and Senku's marks are completely symmetrical and do NOT go away. Idk logic perseverance etc + Taijus are more coarse and asymmetrical. To contrast their way of thinking I think. They could be similar because they were the first ones to wake up from the petrification too but you know

Francois & the Nanami brothers

Francois' scar looks like explosion or sound waves. (Manga) Ryusui snaps his fingers to call them creating a similar shape, which is really cool I'll admit. Their scar is on their hand, just like Ryusui's.

So, both Ryusui and Sai also have scars on their hands, except Ryusui's may resemble a glove so pirate-like if we don't count the color + it's on the hand he snaps his fingers with. Mark resembling a rich man or a pirate's glove on the same hand he uses to call his butler and ask for service, and it only covers his fingers. Could be something like a symbol of power/status.

On the other hand, Sai's scars completely cover the lower part of his arms and hands, which are what he uses to code. Sai ran away in order to be able to schedule quietly and is completely locked in his work. Tell me you get it please

Yoo

I'm getting into crack theory with this but please do bear with me. His scar makes him look like Alex, the protagonist of A Clockwork Orange. A Clockwork Orange deals a lot with the theme of unscrupulous rebellion, hurting someone because you think you have complete freedom, and police brutality, which are big parts of Yoo's character. As far as I remember the eyelash marks are left on the MC after being forced to watch 484737 movies showing super brute crimes so he understands what he is doing is wrong and redeems himself. Yoo covers his face a lot to hide the mark and only removes the piece of stone that covers it at the end of the manga when he is 100% team Senku.

IN ADDITION, something important in A Clockwork Orange are the vulgar idioms and slang that teenagers invent and are completely unknown to the viewer and curiously the name and surname of Yoo are formed by informal interjections in Japanese. I've only read the book tho, never watched the movie so if I got anything about the eye marks wrong mb

Tsukasa and Stanley

I really like how similar their scars are, considering both were absurdly overpowered antagonists that had to be defeated using much more advanced science + both kill Senku at one point + their eyes are similar to some extent. I love parallels

Dr Xeno

Scar becomes? White? Splits into pieces? After he's revived a second time and decides to help Senku. Something about his ideals splitting/changing maybe. And being no longer evil thus willing to kill teenagers

Gen

Gen's scar seems to resemble a mouth that changes shape depending on whatever emotion he's feeling (or pretending to feel). I don't have anything else to say genuinely peak character design, specially taking into account that facades are a huge part of his arc and relationships with other characters (let's remember that he's the one to suggest everyone paints their scar again in solidarity with Senku. Hm).

Yuzuriha and Mirai

Yuzu's resemble the roots and vines that protected her body while she was petrified, while Mirai's make her look like a baby chicken breaking out of its shell. I think they're both cute details considering their characters:)

Homura

Considering she's a gymnast who uses her legs a lot to move, I find cool that it's on her thigh. It makes her legs look like they're cracking

Hyoga

Very circular and repetitive, something related to his weapon maybe. I find interesting that he covers them. Insert cursed speech jujutsu kaisen joke

Addition: Ukyo has no visible mark which is also cool on its own way, given that one of his abilities is easily perceiving sounds other people don't notice at all

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

One evening, I got possessed and redesigned Captain Marvel. Well, redesigned and rewrote.

Long explanation about it under the cut.

Captain Marvel is the gods' champion, but in canon, his capacities come from a mix of gods, from both the Roman and the Greek pantheon, and heroes, Greek or biblical. In comparison, Black Adam's capacities come only from Egyptian gods, making him their champion. Therefor, let's bring down SHAZAM to just Greek gods, as we need Zeus for the thunder. There's also a period during which Mary Marvel gets her capacities from a mix of goddesses and one god, so let's mix the gender again. Here is the new hexad:

S - the stamina of Selene - Selene is the goddess of the moon, who, like her brother with the sun, drags the moon behind her chariot. But, if the sun disappears each night (in Greece), the moon stays in the sky for weeks, so stamina! There aren't a lot of Greek gods with name in S, so let me have this (also, I love the moon and any moon goddess).

H - the speed of Hermes - Hermes is the messenger of the male gods, who is known for his speed, because of the wings on his ankles. Nothing more complicated.

A - the strength of Atlas - I kept Atlas, but I changed him for strength because holding the world up requires more strength than stamina imo. The representations of Atlas often show a man doing an extreme physical effort, it demonstrates more strength than stamina to me.

Z - the power of Zeus - Didn't change. The king of the gods and the thunder guy.

A - the courage of Ares - Ares is the god of courage, that's in his domain of expertise.

M - the wisdom of Metis - The first goddess of wisdom, eaten by Zeus, and the mother of Athena, the second goddess of wisdom. "But, she's kind of "dead"?" And Black Adam got his power from Aten, who was the only god of the Aten religion of Akhenaton, and so, not with the Egyptian pantheon.

As the champion of the Greek gods, Captain Marvel needs to look the part. I'm a hater of the original latex superhero costume, I want some real fashion. It has served its purpose, it's time to change. Ancient Greece's armors were the principal inspiration, but some other bits of Ancient Greece's fashion were also brought in. Sandals are a bold choice, I admit, but that's what Greeks wore to war and we are talking about an indestructible being. Soldiers also wore what would be considered a skirt now, so I want to include that, and I even thought of a joke: when Billy first transforms, he makes a comment about the "skirt", and the sorcerer goes "Ah yes! When men used to dress like men." (Did you get it? It's a joke about how those bigoted idiots will complain about men wearing anything labelled as "feminine" about how "men don't dress like real men anymore", totally ignorant of how what is "masculine" or "feminine" depends on the time period and culture, and heels were created to make men look powerful and ride horses to war.) However, I'm uncomfortable with skirts in design for flying superheroes, if there's nothing under, so he gets leggings, bringing back some of the original suit. The cape is also asymmetrical.

While researching information about Captain Marvel for this redesign, I learned that DC is evil:

Fawcett Comics created Captain Marvel in the 40s, by taking some inspiration from Superman from Detective Comics, but with a lot of differences still. It was a success, and Captain Marvel became more popular than Superman, selling more than the adventures of Clark Kent. DC didn't like that, and they sued FC for plagiarism, saying Captain Marvel was a copy of Superman. And, for some reason, they won. So, FC had to stop selling Captain Marvel and the Marvel family's comics, and the readers went back to Superman, giving money to DC. Decades goes back, Marvel is born and they create Captain Marvel, the name being free to use. FC, they are not having a good time. There's no money, and so, they are selling. AND WHO BOUGHT THEM? THAT'S RIGHT: DC! And once they own FC, what do DC do? Bring back the cash cow, Captain Marvel! So, it was plagiarism, but only when they couldn't make money from it. They cannot use Captain Marvel anymore because of Marvel, so it's Shazam, but they successfully "stole" the success of a smaller company than them. DC was doing evil capitalism before it was a thing, in the 40s!

Therefore, I can do whatever I want and DC cannot stop me, they don't deserve those characters. And this redesign has now become me rewriting Shazam. So, when Billy transforms into Captain Marvel, he is not another personality (like the current DC's canon), it's still him, but in a young adult body, a body at his peak athletic performance.

Now, Black Adam, which is where I start doing my own story. I will not lie, I knew nothing about Black Adam, apart from the fact that he is a bad guy and he really loves his wife. Well, if he loves his wife, he must be attractive, because that's hot. And Black Adam, born Teth-Adam in Ancient Egypt, is chosen by the sorcerer known as Shazam as his successor. This means two things: 1, Black Adam is an Egyptian, and 2, he is young. In DC's canon, he is Ramesses II' son, but I will just make him from the Ancient Egyptian nobility, but this explains the short/shaved hair, as rich Egyptians would wear wigs and have their hair shaved for hygiene.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room: the absence of a thunderbolt, or more so, it's replacement by an angular sun. Black Adam's power doesn't come for Zeus, a god of thunder, but Aten, a sun god, like Ra. So, Black Adam shouldn't have the abilities to manipulate thunder, but the sun. And not the sun as a ball of burning gaz, the sun as a source of rays of light and heat, like the Egyptians saw it. His power is connected to light, arrows of heat as Egyptians saw it, and the sun is angular to share similarities with the thunderbolt. Like Captain Marvel, he needs to dress like the champion of the gods, Egyptian this time. I took inspiration from Ancient Egypt's armors and fashion: the top being this scaly leather they wore, sandals being back again but Egyptian's style... There are more artistic details in Black Adam's suit to highlight is social class, and there are two kinds of details. The first ones are associated to his power, like his collar, which is a frequent accessory in Ancient Egypt, which has rays to symbolize the rays of the sun, coming from his head, from himself, or his greaves, which also have sunbeams. The second ones are more associated to his culture as an Egyptian and the sun. His forearm armors are imitating the wings added to scarab amulet, which were put over mommies, and these scarabs fly to the sun, aka Ra, with the dead. His cape is also taking the shape of these wings. And his belt displays the eye of Ra, a sun disk with cobras coiled around it, an extension of the god's power, a symbol of his destructive and protective capacities.

To end, this is my rewrite of Shazam's story:

During Ancient Egypt, under Akhenaten so ca 1350 to 1330 before Christ, a sorcerer decided to summon the god Aten with a magic ritual, asking for a champion, a hero to protect humankind. All powerful Aten, impressed to have been summoned by a mere mortal, accepted to fulfill his demand. He called five gods to join him, and each gave a gift, added to his own power of the sun. Aten finally gifted the result to the man, and explained how to summon it: by yelling the gods' names, SHAZAM! Before leaving, the god, moved by the mortal's humility and his care for humankind, gifted him immortality. The sorcerer refused, it's too much. Aten pushed, because a man like this is rare, but he will lower the gift. He will age until a certain age, and then stop, never dying from old age or getting sick. However, he can still get killed. The sorcerer went on to do his mission, why he had called the god, and more as the years went on. Anytime he transformed, he would become the young athletic champion of the Egyptian gods. When he got around 60 years old, he decided to find an heir. He chose Teth-Adam, a young man and member of the Egyptian nobility, who had demonstrated his qualities all around the kingdom. But he, sadly, soon was corrupted by his new power and abused it, trying to take over the throne. The sorcerer had to intervene, but his heir was too strong to kill or to let go of his powers. So, the sorcerer took his soul with the power, and enclosed it in a scarab amulet he buried with the pharaohs. A millennium went by, and the old sorcerer now answered to the name Shazam. With the arrival of Alexander the Great, he went on to travel through the Greek land. But, a new catastrophe was coming, and so, having lost his power, he summoned Zeus like he summoned Aten. Zeus, impressed by the mortal, accepted to redo the gift of the gods. He called five gods and added their gifts to his own power of the thunder. Shazam could save humankind again. Zeus, to applaud his heart, asked him to choose a gift, not for the champion but for himself. Shazam asked to know when he will die, so he could find the perfect heir. The Fates gave him the answer. Shazam, afraid of his last mistake, refused to find an heir for centuries, millennia, and traveled through the world, saving humankind. He had a magic secret temple, on another plane, he could go to. But the date of his death was approaching, and Shazam had yet to find a champion. Everyone he met wasn't good enough for him. His last pick? Billy Batson. And Billy was far from the perfect champion he needed, but not the worst. With no time to waste, Shazam gave his power to Billy, before dying, crushed by a rock. When Billy Batson yells "SHAZAM!", he transforms into an adult version of himself, at his peak athletic performance, and becomes the champion of the Greek gods. The ghost of the sorcerer guides him through his adventures, during which he encounters Teth-Adam, now Black Adam. Teth-Adam's amulet was found by archeologists in the 19th century, and it had strange effects on everyone who landed their eyes on it, people fighting for the small treasure. Finally, one (shitty) archeologist stole the scarab and flew back to the USA with it. As time went on, the amulet's control over him became stronger, and he finally caved into opening it to see what was inside. But, sadly for him, it only contained the powerful soul of once the champion of the Egyptian gods, who took possession of his body and transformed it, killing him in the process. Now, Teth-Adam lives forever as Black Adam.

[eveningrainstorm]

my take on teenage raz and lili!

some design notes under the cut:

They're intended to be about 16 here! I didn't go for anything too drastic in terms of changes -- these are largely just what I'd consider natural evolutions of their canon designs

For Raz, my main focus besides just making him look older was to add a bit more resemblance to the other Aquatos in his design, since his relationship with them wouldn't be strained like it is during canon

Raz is shown with very straight hair in canon, but since most of his family's hair is more wavy or curly I tend to imagine he styles it that way on purpose as part of his Sasha Nein cosplay or whatever. He wouldn't still feel the need to do that at this point, though, so for this design I wanted to make it more curly, similar to Augustus or Frazie, while still similar to his canon style. This turned out to be incredibly difficult and I'm still not entirely happy with where I landed, but it's good enough

I didn't think he would still wear the helmet but I didn't want to discard it entirely, so the goggles were a compromise. I meant to give them some visible scratches and wear and tear since they're presumably the same goggles he's been wearing since he was 10, but I forgot. rip

Obviously the most notable change to Raz's outfit is the scarf -- I wanted something that would tie him visually to the other Aquatos while still fitting with his general look. I imagine they gave it to him as a gift, sort of an acknowledgement that even if he doesn't perform with them as an acrobat, doing his Psychonaut work is his own way of being an Aquato

Raz's outfit here is honestly very similar to his PN2 outfit. This is because in my eyes "long coat and turtleneck" is Peak Character Design and cannot be improved on. (Hence why I may not be the best person to redesign Raz.) He has an actual coat rather than just an oversized blazer this time though, so that's an improvement. With the turtleneck I was was vaguely intending for it to be color-wise something of a middle ground between the Sasha-style green striped turtleneck and the Aquato blue/green and white stripes, but it ended up basically just being the PN1 stripes with the PN2 color. which, you know, that works

I went back and forth on what their heights should be -- I thought it would be kind of funny if Raz ended up short and Lili ended up taller than him, but then I decided to just make them more in line with their families, with Raz being tall and lanky and Lili being average verging on short. Except then I accidentally made Lili tall anyway because I was only vaguely considering her height relative to Raz. I guess Lili's probably taller than her dad now? good for her ig

Most of their facial features are just slight variations of how they look in canon -- slightly smaller eyes and so on. the only real specific change is that Lili has a more defined nose now, similar in shape to her father's

Lili's outfit here is more different from either of her canon outfits than Raz's is, but there's still not much that really requires a ton of explanation. The goal was to make her look vaguely cool and fashionable, although as I am neither of those things I cannot guarantee I was successful

I tried a couple different hairstyles for Lili, and I'm still not entirely set on this one -- Originally what I settled on was to give her two braids, which I did like, but I kept doing sketches of her where I just drew the top part of the hair and was like "ngl this kind of works on its own" and so I ended up going with the short hair. I also briefly tried an asymmetrical haircut but I couldn't get it to look right. I think this one suits her though

Lili's tattoo (on her left wrist) was a later addition to the design, and even in the later stages of drawing this I wasn't sure whether to keep it. I like it conceptually I just haven't figured out a consistent design for it yet, only that it has to be of plants

god these notes got way longer than I meant them to be I am so sorry. Uh basically I'm still figuring out the details of these designs but for now here's Raz and Lili, they're teenagers now, thanks for reading

[allwormdiet]

Extermination 8.7

In which nobody is happy and everything is pain

Wuh oh, the worst chapter of Taylor's life has just received a series of footnotes that provide further context, and none of them are making her feel any better

And now things are getting even worse

Hey Colin, looks like you've lost some weight, trying something new with the asymmetrical look?

Also I like how even Taylor's paranoid ass is like "no you know what, they didn't need to know Sophia was a superhero for them to fuck me over"

Really copping it up in here, huh you two?

This is bad for everybody. A supervillain who's taken explicit actions against the PRT and Protectorate has discovered the identity of a Ward, and a teenage girl is being surrounded and lambasted by adults who could make her life Hell with very little effort.

God, Birdcage would be nightmarish, especially with Lung in there probably nursing the mother of all grudges

Also, interesting that Taylor changing her mind translates to Armsmaster as her being a master manipulator and spinner of lies. There's no possible way that she stopped trying to be a hero because he acted like a gigantic asshole the second time they met or something.

Skitter has gotten the absolute worse perspective that the heroes can offer, so she's suffering a biased stance here, but even without that her anti-authority streak is way too strong to tolerate it for long

Don't throw a fucking shitfit, Colin

You're an adult, fucking act like one

Yaaaaaaay, the crew's alright and they're backing Skitter up, there's no way this immediately blows up

Grue is making himself look bigger in this moment, scarier, more authoritative. If I'm understanding right that means he's way on the fucking edge about all of this and feeling tense and a little scared.

Glad Regent got out of it with only some stitches, wonder if that cut is anything noteworthy or if he just got gouged by some glass or shrapnel or something

Bitch is handling things about as well as could be expected

Hey Tattletale, glad you're not dead

Oh boy!

Sophia would fucking lunge across the tent and go for the murder attempt then and there, I'm pretty sure

Also, Legend is technically right, insofar as Taylor has made a lot of situations more difficult by digging her heels in

Unfortunately, he would.

Look at her getting her little debut to the Protectorate leader

The greatest asset and weakness of the Protectorate: image

These people are about to get their shit rocked by a teenager with access to a PA system and I'm not convinced they didn't bring this on themselves

Also, love an ultimatum, very heroic

Tattletale you're so cool and real for this

We love an ultimatum, very villainous

Colin, you dumbfuck

I think the most damning part of this conversation is that Miss Militia literally doesn't have any trouble connecting the dots

There's the setup

And there's the knockdown. Armsmaster has once again been outplayed by a teenager, and now the best thing to do is probably to quit while he's behind

So of course he decides to double and triple down

Let's review facts here

Armsmaster is a grown-ass man who is really upset that a pack of teenagers are beating him

He has admitted, out loud, that he broke truce conditions and got villains killed in order to try and get a moment of glory

He knows full well that at least two of the Undersiders have killed before and may kill again if suitably motivated, such as, I don't know, finding out a teammate tried to betray them

So with everything in consideration

he throws a tantrum that could get a girl killed because of wounded pride

This hurts, a lot

Also hey early hint that Tattletale knows what's up

Panacea like "wow this girl is some kind of disaster, thank god my worldview guarantees that I'm way better than her"

Also Jesus fucking Christ what a way to end the chapter

Current Thoughts

God fucking dammit Colin, you could literally get a teenager killed because you had to throw a fucking tantrum over how you got your kill stolen and your super cool plan to win glory and recover lost pride got foiled by the common fucking sense of "you can't kill an Endbringer"

I know that isn't what happens, but hey guess what he doesn't know Taylor's story goes for another twenty-plus chapters, he's willing to roll those dice because his feewings got huwt

I hope they make him choke on whatever book ends up thrown at him for this

[littlefreya]

Hi

Can you write a smut thingy where the reader has uneven and asymmetrical labias, yet henry loves her pussy, and loves eating her out, almost like a starved man.

Hey dearest, I don't take requests at the moment, but if you want to read stories by me that includes oral sex performed on a female I can suggest these since I wrote quite a lot of them :)

Dirty Henry - Henry x Reader ( 18+, smutty smut, oral sex - female receiving, lewd, descriptive profanities that will make your ears burn,praising, outdoor sex, gentle rough sex, creampie. ) A picnic in the rural forest turns into a steamy game of profanities as Henry decides to demonstrate how he would persuade you to be his.

69 works just fine - Henry x Reader ( oral sex, both ways oral sex, 69, need I say more? Graphic description of sex and bodily fluids, soft daddy kink, light brat/daddy dynamic. ) 🎃 NEW 🎃 You challenge Henry about the infamous 69 Position and he is keen on showing you how very wrong you are.

What I deserve - Henry x Reader (smut. Sex talk, phone sex, mastrubation (both male and female), fingering, mentions of oral sex - female receiving, mentions of sexual intercourse, creampie, MaleDom vibes, slight daddy kink, a hint of angst, sex with the ex)🎃 NEW 🎃 Henry and you might not be together anymore, but it doesn’t mean you don’t miss him…

Lace - Sub!Henry x Reader ( Cunnilingus (Oral performed on a lady), man wearing stockings, SubMale / FemDom, powerplay.)  Henry suggests a little game of switching and you decide to stretch the limits…

Blue - Henry Cavill x Reader (boat sex, slight oral sex (female receiving), vaginal sex, soft sex turns rough, doggy style, a bit of Male!Dom vibes, slight ass smacking and pussy spanking, creampie) You tease Henry for becoming old and… soft

Beard Burns - Henry x Reader (Smut, face riding, oral, slight spanking) Henry makes you ride his beard.   

Let’s make one of our own - Henry x OFC (Sex, breeding, Oral sex, dirty talk, fluff! ) Henry and his wife waited a while for the right time to have a baby and now when he finally finished filming Witcher2 it’s time to breed,

Insta Stories - Henry x Reader (Smut, Oral) Henry giving you a mind blowing oral before doing a story on Instagram

Lilies - Henry Cavill x Reader (Fluff to slight-smut, graphic post-coitus descriptions, loss of virginity, slight coaxing and slight cunnilingus.) Your first time with Henry is rather painful and he tries to comfort you

Captain Syverson

Feral Collision Part Two - Coach!Syverson x Reader (smut, age-gap - reader is over 18, inappropriate relationship, maleDom, manhandling, jealousy, possessive behaviour, public outdoor sex, oral sex (female receiving), some denial, unprotected sex, hyperspermia (I went there), creampie, loads of dirty talk, mentions of alcohol.)  You vowed this could never happen, but the Coach won’t leave your mind. There’s only one way to get rid of an itch…

Captain Cunnilingus - Syverson x Reader (oral sex, oral sex on Sy’s big shoulders while standing up, big dick energy.)  Captain Syverson eats his woman’s pussy 

Home Sweet Home - Syverson x reader (fluff to smut. Oral sex - female receiving, outdoor vaginal sex, unprotected sex, risky creampie, mention of bodily fluids)🎃 NEW 🎃 Syverson returns from a long deployment to reunite with his woman. 

Set me Free - Syverson x Reader ( Explicit Smut, Male Sub / FemDom, bondage, sex toys, oral performed on a male and a female, face-sitting, power play, teasing, unprotected sex, bodily fluids.) Part Two to Let Me In - After a night of being an asshole, getting drunk and then falling asleep when you were just finally getting into the mood. The Captain wakes up finding himself in somewhat of a pickle.

Let Me In - Syverson x Reader (Explicit Smut, semi public oral performed on a woman)  You have your very first fight and he is not inclined on apologizing properly. So he is trying a different trick of winning your heart back.

Salt & Iron - Syverson x OFC (Smut, intercourse, 69, mutual oral) PWP - mindless fucking in the Captain quarter.  Senses challenge - Taste.  

August

Whiskers and Wet Silk - August Walker x Reader (smut to fluff, oral - female receiving, soft possessive August, bodily fluids, August being a bit insecure and jelly.)  August comes home to find his princess watching Shadow and Bone and simping for the General and gets a bit insecure and jealous…

A Perfect Day - August Walker x Reader (smut to heavy fluff. Mentions of oral sex performed on a woman, male masturbation, and bodily fluids.) A perfect day in rural italy with the most dangerous CIA agent on earth

Walter

Bark at the Moon - Werewolf!Walter Marshall x Reader (Smut, lycanthropy, supernatural themes, no strings attached, vaginal fingering, oral performed on female, primal play, cockwarming, slight denial, angst, fluff and romance.) Walter always comes to you when he needs a hard release. Tonight he seems to need it more than ever.

The Kitten and the Bear - Walter x OFC (smut, maleDom vs. Brat) - Collab with @wolvesandhoundshowltogether​   After a night of drinking in town get Walter’s bratty wife ends up with pure chaos and the overprotective grumpy husband is having none of her shenanigans.     | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |

Mike

Ghost Stories - Mike x OFC (Greyish, rather dub-con, supernatural themes, stalking, voyeurism, hinted possessive behavior, female masturbation, oral sex (female receiving), slight somnophilia, sex, sex with a horny ghost ) They said the house was haunted, that long time ago a young man was murdered between these crumbling walls, but she never believed in urban legends and spooky tales….

Gus

Before the Storm -  Major Gustav (Gus) Phillips x Reader ( romance, fluff and smut, oral sex (woman receiving), a bit of fingering, teasing, a sweater, a pinch of angst. ) 🎃 NEW 🎃 Gus finds way to keep you warm as you both sail on his boat during April.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

You mentioned in another post about Dumbledore's "protection" being seriously lacking (for people like James & Lily). Can you expand on this?

I suppose it's time.

What the Fidelius Charm Does

The Fidelius Charm involves three parties: a location to be protected, a secret keeper, and the caster of the charm. Upon completion, a location is perfectly hidden. It can't be accessed physically even if someone knows it must be there (e.g. Grimmauld Place disappearing between numbers 12 and 14 with no explanation of the missing building in between), cannot be plotted by wizards, and can't be accessed magically either.

To enter the location and even be able to access it properly, a person needs access to 'the secret' which is granted by only the secret keeper. Through this person, they then have access to the location on a full-time basis (it is not a one-time ticket and seemingly cannot be revoked).

Those who are not granted 'the secret' cannot enter the location no matter what they might try. This makes it, on the surface, a highly dependable security measure.

Alright, What's the Problem

There's a few problems right away with the spell.

The first is the known one from canon, it relies on a 'secret keeper'. A party has to be trusted to grant access to the location. If this is a third party, they have to be able to reliably white list those seeking entrance and cannot afford to make a mistake. If this party is compromised or is nefarious then the charm is rendered completely void with no warning to those being protected or the caster.

The second is that, upon the secret keeper's death, there's no next in line but the secret instead defaults to being kept by everyone on the whitelist. In canon we see this with the death of Dumbledore (secret keeper for Grimmauld Place). Upon his death, everyone now has the ability to give access to Grimmauld Place. This includes Severus Snape who is a presumed Death Eater, meaning that Grimmauld Place is now completely compromised. This is very very bad.

The third is part of the above, once you're on the whitelist it seems you can't be removed. They discover Severus Snape is a Death Eater, Dumbledore dies and everyone's now secret keeper, they can't seem to revoke both secret keeper status as well as his presence on the whitelist from him. The best they can do is set up a hilariously terrible jinx to protect the building if he tries to enter (it is uh very ineffective).

The fourth is that your status on the whitelist never expires. Once you're in, you're in forever. You don't get just a one-time pass or a session with an expiration date where you have to reapply for access. Now, perhaps this is convenient as it means you don't have to seek out the secret keeper again (and in that sense secures the secret keeper's identity) however it means those who might have flipped sides later have access forever or else people now always have access to the location even in unwanted hours/if they were there for just a meeting.

These are just the weaknesses baked into the spell by nature, it gets worse when we consider how it's implemented for Godric's Hollow.

Alright, What's Wrong with the Godric's Hollow Implementation

This is where things start to look nefarious.

The above, I wouldn't expect wizards to necessarily be thinking about. While at this point asymmetric key encryption is taking off in the Muggle world and has been for decades, it's a recent Muggle invention and not one that even ordinary Muggles pay attention to let alone wizards (who would then have to consider how to implement this in a magical form and what use cases it'd have for them). What the wizards employ, while bad, is not out of line with how ciphers and things worked for much of Muggle history. You have a key you have to protect, if you lose it you're fucked, no way around that. Which means that passing the key to those who need it, making sure you can trust them, is the largest weakness of the system. The Fidelius is very strong in that it seems you have to have the key to break it, which is the case with all encryption, and the issue then is trying to keep the key as safe as possible (which is always a hard task).

Basically, looking at that, I don't think they could have done much better than the fidelius in terms of security in and of itself (there's other options they could have taken but we'll get into that below).

But then we look at Godric's Hollow.

The issue is who do they make secret keeper. They suspect Lupin of being a spy, someone has been leaking information to Voldemort including the Potter's location (which is why they had to go under Fidelius in the first place). At this point, they're already fucked.

They try to get around this by announcing the secret keeper is Sirius but in secret making it Peter, so that everyone will go after Sirius instead. The trouble is that James only has three friends. One he thinks is a spy, that leaves two.

Even had Peter not been a Death Eater, Peter knew who the secret keeper was. If you know who the secret keeper is, that's effectively knowing the secret itself. All Voldemort has to do is find the first person among the Order who will either talk, or slowly pick his way through Potter's associates and friends until he gets the secret or else kills the one who turned out to be the secret keeper.

Not to mention that all Voldemort has to do is imperio those who have access to the secret and send them to murder the Potters in his stead.

Sirius, Peter, and Remus would be the first on Voldemort's list, and everyone knew that.

It would have been a matter of weeks, had Voldemort actively pursued this, before Voldemort gained access to the house.

And here's the thing. We see that Dumbledore can be both the caster and the secret keeper from Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore, reportedly, is the only person Voldemort is scared of and is the strongest wizard by far in the Order. Why didn't Dumbledore offer to be secret keeper? Why didn't he insist on it? Why didn't James and Lily ask him to do it, especially when they suspect Remus of being a spy?

While James might have picked Peter out of a show of loyalty, Dumbledore could have insisted for their protection. Instead, it seems like Dumbledore purposefully let them take this option and never gave an explanation as to why.

Maybe, Godric's Hollow Was a House of Cards

We also have James. James, canonically, snuck out of Godric's Hollow while it was under protection to hang out with Sirius and the gang. Dumbledore confiscated his invisibility cloak for this reason, something Lily notes in her letter to Sirius.

The thing is, while Dumbledore takes the cloak, that's the only thing he does to stop James from sneaking out. Perhaps it's not his place to do more, but on the other hand, this does nothing to stop James from sneaking out and James (having access to the secret) could easily be imperioed and sent back to murder his family.

Instead, he makes it look as if he's doing something, but is taking an item he greatly wanted as it is.

With that prophecy, where Harry or Neville are the only ones capable of defeating Voldemort, it's starting to look like Dumbledore wants James and Lily to be found. He wants to set up just enough protection that, at a glance, it looks very secure and as if they're putting their all into hiding them: except that he doesn't want it to hold.

Godric's Hollow is a trap intended for Tom, to lure him into a confrontation with the child, when he's the only one who knows the full prophecy and the last few lines that Tom doesn't (as it is, I'm not sure even we the readers know exactly what the prophecy says or that Snape learning the prophecy wasn't a set up).

My theory is this: Dumbledore purposefully chose this method of protection (versus sending Lily and James out of the country with Harry), purposefully chose not to be secret keeper, and set up Godric's Hollow as a means to lure Voldemort into a trap and vanquish him with James, Lily, and Harry as unfortunate collateral damage.

[pedroscurls]

Always Been You (Part 1).

Character(s): no-outbreak!Joel Miller x fem!Reader Summary: You and Joel meet for the first time under unusual circumstances. Word count: 5,359 Author's Note: Hope you guys enjoyed the first part! We're in for a ride with this story. It's going to be a no-outbreak, AU story of Joel Miller. We will be starting this story off with Joel still in his late 20s (which makes Sarah about 6). Warning: None. SERIES MASTERLIST

Several of your friends were in your apartment, trying to coax you out of the bathroom with comforting and encouraging words of reassurance. 

“Come on, babe,” one of them said, gently knocking on the door. “Going out and having some fun will get your mind off of everything.”

“Plus!” Someone chimed in. “The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.” 

You smiled at that, slowly opening the door. Your hair was slightly wavy, makeup light and natural, but your dress clung to your curves in the best way possible; a little black dress, stopping just right above your knee with a front thigh high slit on the left side of your dress. It also had an asymmetrical neckline, the thin straps of your dress resting on one shoulder. 

“You are hot,” your friend grinned. “We’re going to find you someone to go home with tonight.”

You let out a sigh. Part of you wanted to stay home, to put on some sweats and an oversized hoodie and just cry yourself to sleep. It had been a couple of weeks since finding out that your long term boyfriend of four years had been cheating on you. To make the situation worse, he had been cheating on you for several months, his excuse of work events and trips turning out to be him seeing the other woman. 

“Come on, get out of that pretty little head of yours.” Your friend said. “You closed your coffee shop for the night. It’s time you take care of yourself for once.”

“And what if I don’t meet anyone?” You answered with a pout.

“Looking like that? I’d be surprised if you don’t. Now, let’s go.” She ushered you and the rest of your friend group out of your apartment. Once you all stepped outside, the warm air engulfed you and you looked around for a moment before following your friends down the street. 

Your coffee shop was in downtown, so it was a walking distance from all the clubs and bars. You were lucky, really, to be able to have a business and an apartment so close to everything that you didn’t need a car, which saved you a lot of expenses. You had been working a lot since finding out that your boyfriend cheated on you; it was a good distraction from the reality that you had to deal with. Still, though, whenever you were alone, the pain and heartbreak always came back with a vengeance. Some nights it felt like you couldn’t even sleep, your mind racing in all sorts of places; while other nights, you cried yourself to sleep with the help of being so exhausted from overworking yourself. 

Tonight was the only night that your friends managed to convince you to go out and have some fun. You didn’t make it easy on them, but once they managed to convince you, it took every ounce in you not to cancel. 

Once you followed them into one of the most popular clubs in downtown, you tried to quiet your mind as the loud music blared in your ears. It was already crowded and you squeezed yourself between groups of people just to get to the bar to order a drink. 

Your group of friends were more outgoing than you, obviously unafraid to start a conversation with a stranger. You, on the other hand, had always been more reserved, more quiet, and more to yourself. It was an equal balance though. They brought you out of your shell and you humbled them. Tonight, though, they had one goal in mind: to help you get over your ex-boyfriend, Robert. 

Quickly, they handed you two shots of tequila back to back, which you downed almost instantly without hesitation. You figured that if you didn’t get to go home with someone, at least you’d be drunk and able to forget (at least temporarily) about the pain and heartbreak you felt every second of the day. Even after two shots of tequila, you ordered a Long Island Iced Tea, already knowing that it would do the trick to get you to loosen up and to get you out of your thoughts. 

“Anyone catch your interest, babe?” Your friend asked, scanning the club for any potential suitors. 

“Nope,” you replied, downing the rest of your drink before ordering another one. “I’m just gonna get drunk, dance, and have fun with you guys!” 

Your group of friends looked between each other, telling the bartender to give you a glass of water instead. “You need to pace yourself. The night just started.”

“You guys said to let loose, so… I’m letting loose.” You replied, but taking the glass of water. You knew that if you drank too much too fast, the night wouldn’t end well. “But since I love y’all, I’m gonna listen.” 

One of your other friends let out a quiet giggle and motioned to one of the booths away from the bar. “We’ll grab you another drink, but let’s head over to that booth.” 

After you all placed another order of drinks, the four of you walked to the booth, bodies swaying to the music as you maneuvered the crowded area. Once seated though, you let out a sigh and leaned back against the plushiness of the seat, running a hand through your hair as you looked around. No one caught your interest yet and while you knew it was a stupid idea to even think about having meaningless sex with a stranger, you couldn’t help but wonder if it would actually help you get over Robert. 

“You doing okay?” Your friend asked, the other two already on the dance floor with two other men. 

You looked over at her and nodded. “I’m fine. That guy has been checking you out since we got here.”

“I know,” she blushed. “I just don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I’ll be fine,” you replied, taking a sip of your water. “Go have fun. This night isn’t just about me.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes,” you smiled. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here.” 

“Okay, if we get lost and separated, meet back at your coffee shop?” 

You nodded. “Always.” 

She leaned in and gave you a hug before standing from the booth to walk towards the man that had been ogling her from afar. You watched her immediately take his hand to bring him to the dance floor; you envied your group of friends. They were so comfortable with their sexuality, so comfortable with taking control, and always so confident. You had to wonder why they hung out with you when you were obviously the complete opposite. 

Deciding to ditch your half-filled glass of water, you reached for your Long Island Iced Tea that you ordered before sitting at the booth. Taking a long swig, you allowed the contents of the different amounts of liquor to sting your throat, going down easily. You bit your lower lip and stood from the booth, holding onto the back of the seat for balance as you used your free hand to flatten out your dress. You looked up and noticed several men with their eyes raking your frame, but none of them caught your interest. It was too obvious and it was too desperate. 

You grabbed your drink and began walking towards the bar, already halfway finished with your Long Island. You noticed that there was no space at the counter of the bar for you to order yourself another drink. With a heavy sigh, you walked past the crowd and squeezed yourself between two men who looked to be in deep conversation. 

“Um, hi, yeah, can I get another refill? Thanks,” you told the bartender, already downing your second Long Island and placing the now empty glass on the bar. 

Once the bartender took your order, you let out a sigh and leaned against the counter, only now realizing that the two men you squeezed yourself between were staring at you. 

“Manners would be nice, y’know,” one man said. 

“Oh, come on, be friendly, Joel.” The other said. 

You looked over at this man named Joel, taking note of his features. His shoulders were broad and he was so much taller than you that you had to tilt your head slightly upwards just to get a good look at him. His eyes were a deep shade of brown and he was staring down at you as if he was waiting for some kind of apology. 

“Yeah, Joel, be friendly,” you teased.

The other man snickered from behind you, gently tapping your shoulder. “My apologies on behalf of my older brother. It’s been a while since he’s been out so it seems like he forgot his manners. I’m Tommy.”

You looked over at Tommy and smiled. He had this boyish look to him; he was also very broad, but a bit shorter than Joel. They both shared the same color of the deep brown eyes, but your attention and interest was focused on Joel. 

“Nice to meet you, Tommy,” you said with a smile, telling him your name. Then, you turned to face Joel, narrowing your eyes at him. Still, he had this look on his face as if he was annoyed by your presence, or rather, annoyed that he was here. “And it’s nice to meet you, Joel.” 

“Uh huh,” he grumbled. 

The bartender handed you another Long Island Iced Tea, which you happily took from him. You bit at the tip of the straw and took a step back from the counter to let your eyes rake over both Tommy and Joel and noticed that both men were doing the same to you. Tommy’s gaze was obvious; it was clear that he found you attractive. Joel, on the other hand, had a dark gaze as he let his eyes run across from your frame from top to bottom. You couldn’t read him like you could the other men in this club. You watched as he brought his bottle of beer to his lips when his eyes met the slit of your dress, eyes focused on the exposure of your thigh. 

But when Joel’s eyes met yours, there was no hint of attraction or desire. It was as if the gaze in his eyes was void of any emotion, almost like he was masking what he was feeling. 

“Are you here alone?” Tommy asked. 

You shook your head and pointed to your group of friends who were gyrating with other men on the dance floor. “Nope, came with friends.”

“And you’re the only one not dancing? You sound like you’re having fun,” Joel quipped.

“Oh, I’m having a blast,” you said, bringing your drink to your lips and downing it almost halfway. Tommy was impressed. But Joel was concerned and momentarily, in a quick second, you saw the concern flash across his features. 

“What the hell you drinkin’ anyway?” Joel asked.

“Long Island,” you grinned.

Tommy laughed. “You lookin’ to get drunk real fast, aren’t ya?” 

“That’s the plan, isn’t it?” you replied, glancing over at Joel before looking over at Tommy. 

“Have you had any water?” Joel asked, causing your attention to turn onto him. “I’m just sayin’... Long Islands are usually–”

“I know,” you interrupted. “Besides, it ain’t my first time.” 

“Hmmm,” Joel replied. “Well, it was nice meeting ya. You take care now and–”

“Do you want to dance?” you interrupted him, biting your lower lip in anticipation. 

Tommy looked between you and Joel, grinning to himself. He winked over at his older brother, giving him a thumbs up. “I think he’d love to.”

“Tommy–”

“But if you don’t want to, that’s okay too.” You replied, bringing your glass to your lips before Joel’s hand reached out gently to rest on your wrist. His touch was electrifying and you looked up at him to see the subtle surprise in his features; he must have felt it too. 

“I’ll dance with ya,” he said. “But only if you don’t finish that drink. Seems like you already had enough.” 

You blushed, clearing your throat and nodding in agreement. This man barely knew you and yet, he sounded so concerned over your wellbeing. Maybe you would be able to get over Robert… At least with the help of Joel. 

“Tommy, I’ll be back and–”

“Don’t worry about me, Joel. You go have fun.” 

“But–”

“But nothin’, hermano. If we split up, I’ll just meet you back at home.” 

Joel cleared his throat, getting the hint of the subtle insinuation that this might lead to something else other than just a dance. “Okay, you be safe. If you need anythin’, you call me. Y’understand?” 

“Yes, sir,” Tommy teased. “Now go, have fun.”

You looked up at him in a gaze that captured Joel almost instantly. He had a very tough exterior, but deep down, Joel yearned for an intimate connection, especially after becoming a dad at such a young age. When you reached for his hand, Joel eagerly allowed you to take his hand in your own.

“Lead the way, darlin’.” 

You felt butterflies in your stomach at his words and when you finally got to the dance floor, you released his hand to face him, resting both of your own instead on his broad chest. Joel bit his lower lip, reaching down to rest his hands on your hips as you stepped closer to him, inches separating both your bodies. 

You both swayed to the music, eyes still staring intently at one another as the lights flashed in the club. It seemed like everyone around you seemed to disappear and the only person that was in focus was Joel. You wondered if it was the alcohol that was making you feel like this, or if you were genuinely interested and attracted to him. 

“You’re a real southern gentleman, aren’t you?” you whispered into his ear, trying to make your voice loud enough so that he could hear it over the music. 

Joel let out a quiet chuckle. “I was always taught to treat a lady with respect, so sure.” 

“Lucky me,” you smiled, pulling back to look up at him. “You don’t have a girlfriend?”

Joel cleared his throat. “Nope, no time for one.” 

“Why’s that?” you asked curiously.

Joel shrugged, not wanting to tell you – a woman he just met – that he was a father to a six year-old girl. It was already tough enough to tell the women he had been interested in before that he had a daughter and being only in his late twenties (twenty-eight to be exact), it was hard to find a woman who wanted to be in a serious relationship with him at this age. 

“Just busy,” he answered instead.

“You’re mysterious,” you replied. “I like it.”

“And you?” Joel asked. “No boyfriend? Kind of hard to believe that you’re single.”

You cleared your throat. “As of two weeks ago, I’m single.” 

“Ah, I’m sorry.” 

“It’s whatever. Wanna grab another drink?” You pulled away from him, not bothering to wait for him as you walked back to the bar to order a shot of tequila instead. Joel sighed to himself and followed you, watching as you downed the shot with ease. His hand rested on the middle of your back, looking down at you with soft eyes. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s not your fault. I’m just trying to forget.” You interrupted, glancing around the club for your group of friends, but not being able to find them. Instead, you looked up at Joel and leaned up to press your lips against his. Joel widened his eyes and moved his hands to rest on your hips, pulling you away before your lips could connect with his. 

“You’re drunk,” he said. 

“So?”

“So, I’m not taking advantage of you or letting you make a stupid decision because you’re drunk. Where are your friends? You should probably get home.” 

“They left,” you said, feeling rejected and embarrassed. You turned around to order yourself another drink before Joel shook his head and gently took your hand, pulling you away from the bar and outside of the club. Once outside and underneath a street light, Joel caught a better glimpse of you, what you looked like, and what you were wearing. 

You were absolutely stunning. 

But deep down, Joel could see the pain in your eyes. 

“I’m gonna take you home, how’s that?” Joel said. 

“I don’t want to go home.” You sighed, beginning to walk away from him and away from the club. 

Joel cursed under his breath and walked over to you, trying to catch up with your strides. “Hey, hey…” he rested a hand on your lower back, now away from the loud music and the crowd of people. “Let me take you home.” 

“I don’t want to go home,” you repeated. You looked up at him, tears stinging your eyes. “I don’t want to be alone.”

Joel bit the inside of his cheek, truly at a loss for words. He didn’t know what to do. You barely knew him and he barely knew you. He wasn’t the type of person to just go home with someone he just met. 

But there was something about you that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Joel found comfort in your presence and even if you both got off on the wrong foot and he was being a bit grumpy when he met you, Joel found the walls he normally put up around new people slowly come down with you around. 

He said your name quietly, watching as you stared up at him with eyes filled with sadness and heartbreak. “How about– How about we get some food then?” 

“I’m not your problem,” you sighed. “I can handle myself. I’ll be fine.”

“I ain’t lettin’ you walk around downtown on a Friday night dressed like that by yourself,” Joel replied. “We’re getting somethin’ to eat.” 

“Dressed like what?” you asked. 

Joel narrowed his eyes. “You know exactly how you look, don’t play coy with me, darlin’.” He moved to rest a hand on your lower back, raising his free hand in the air to flag down a cab. Once the car pulled up to the curb, he opened the door for you and allowed you to slide inside first before he climbed into the car. 

“Cozy Corner diner,” Joel said. “It’s about ten minutes from here.” 

The cab driver nodded and pulled away from the curb, driving towards the diner that Joel mentioned. You sighed quietly to yourself and leaned against Joel’s frame absent-mindedly, your eyes falling shut. Joel bit his lower lip and looked down at you, gently moving an arm to wrap around your shoulders and allowing you to snuggle closer to him. 

“Cozy Corner, huh?” you whispered. 

“They have the best milkshakes,” Joel said. He wanted to tell you that he and his daughter, Sarah, were regulars at the diner; it was something that he and Sarah looked forward to every Sunday morning. He didn’t know what it was about you that made him want to open up and lower the walls he surrounded himself with, but he was yearning to spend more time with you, to get to know more about you.

After about ten minutes, the cab pulled up to the diner and Joel paid the man before climbing out of the car and helping you to your feet. You stumbled out of the cab, your hands bracing on his shoulders as you leaned into his broad frame. Joel looked down at you, hands resting on your hips as inches separated your lips.

“I got you, darlin’,” he whispered. 

You looked up at him and bit your lower lip before trying to lean in to kiss him again before he pulled away. Once more, you reddened with embarrassment and didn’t bother waiting for him as you walked towards the entrance of the diner. 

“Wait up,” Joel called out. He let out a sigh and walked over to you; he was attracted to you, but it was obvious that you were not in the right headspace for anything to happen. “Hold on,” he sighed. 

“Listen, if you’re not attracted to me or whatever, stop being–”

“What?” Joel interrupted. “I told you. I don’t want to take advantage of you and–”

“I’m the one that’s tried to kiss you twice already and both times, you pulled away. It’s fine.” 

You opened the door to the diner before Joel gently took your hand and pulled you into him. He cupped your cheek, running his thumb across your soft skin as he stared at you with clear desire and want in his eyes. 

“You’re absolutely beautiful, darlin’, but you ain’t in the right state for anything to happen between us. Believe it or not, I’m not that type of guy.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” you whispered, leaning into his touch. “I don’t know why you’re being so nice to me.”

“Let’s just say I can relate to the pain you’re feelin’,” he pulled away and opened the door, allowing you to step inside. “How about we get some milkshakes and drown in our feelings?” 

You smiled, tears stinging your eyes. “Milkshakes sound great.” 

“Yeah, let’s get you sobered up, darlin’.” 

You were both immediately seated at a booth and you were already on your second glass of water to help even out the amount of alcohol you had earlier that night. Joel had been so patient with you, which was a complete turnaround from when you first both met. 

You excused yourself to go to the bathroom, the second glass of water hitting your system. Joel was seated at the booth, waiting for you when the waitress came by and flashed him a wink.

“About time you got a date, handsome,” she laughed.

“Oh, it ain’t a date, Penny,” Joel cleared his throat. “I was out with Tommy tonight and–”

“It’s alright, darlin’,” she smiled. “You deserve a night out to yourself.”

“It ain’t like that,” he sighed. “She’s just–”

“Well, whatever it is, she’s beautiful, Joel.” 

“She is, isn’t she?” Joel smiled. “Anyway, can we get two milkshake swirls?” 

“Coming right up, sweetheart.”

After a few minutes, Joel saw you walk back towards the booth. He let his eyes rake over your frame, taking note of the dress that clung to your curves, the thigh high slit that exposed your leg. 

“You okay?” Joel asked, seeing you slide in across from him. He noticed your eyes were slightly red and you were wiping away some fallen tears. 

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” 

Joel sighed, looking around the diner and seeing Penny flash him another wink. He nodded in her direction before turning his attention back onto you. 

“I ordered us some milkshakes. You want anythin’ else?” 

“Maybe a burger and some fries?”

Joel smiled. This was new. The women he went out with were always more conscious with what they were eating in front of him. “Got it.” He raised his hand and Penny walked over to them, flashing you the kindest and welcoming smile you ever seen. Her presence brought a sense of comfort and you looked up at her to return her smile with one of your own.

“Can we get two burgers and an order of large fries, Penny?” 

“Anything for you, handsome.” Penny smiled. 

You looked between the waitress and Joel, taking note of the familiarity between them both. 

“I come here often,” Joel said.

“Every Sunday,” Penny grinned. “One of my favorite customers.”

“Ah,” Joel chuckled. “You’re only sayin’ that because I leave a big tip.” 

“Well, yes,” she smiled. “And also because you and your little girl always brighten up my Sunday morning.” 

Little girl. You arched a brow in his direction and saw Penny leave the table to give your food orders to the kitchen. Joel cleared his throat, looking over at you and noticing the curiosity in your features.

“I have a daughter,” Joel blurted out.

Your brows arched upwards in surprise, tilting your head. “You’re a dad?” 

“Had her young,” he sighed. “Sorry, that’s not somethin’ I usually tell to someone I just met.” 

“Why’s that?” 

Joel shrugged. “I’m a twenty-eight year old single dad with a six year-old daughter. Not plenty of women my age are looking to be in a serious relationship with someone who already has a kid.” 

“Seems like you’re attracting the wrong kind of women then,” you said. “What’s her name? Your daughter, I mean.” 

Joel smiled, feeling an odd sense of relief fill the pit of his stomach. Maybe you were right. Maybe the women he had been with in the last few years were just the wrong kind of people. But here you were, a complete stranger with your own emotional baggage, eager to learn more about him and his daughter. 

“Her name’s Sarah,” he replied. “She’s an amazing kid.” 

You smiled. “Do you have any pictures? I mean, if that’s okay. You don’t have to–”

Joel took his wallet out and pulled out a small polaroid of a photo of Sarah on her most recent birthday. Her brown curls shaped her face and her smile matched Joel’s, with more obvious dimples on both sides of her cheeks. 

“She’s got your eyes,” you pointed out. “And your smile.” 

Joel’s heart filled with pride and he smiled, gently taking the photo and placing it back into his wallet. “Thanks.” 

“And her mom?” You asked.

Joel cleared his throat. “Don’t like talkin’ about it, but let’s say she’s not in the picture.”

You bit your lower lip. “Sorry.” 

“Not your fault, darlin’. What about you?” 

“What about me?” 

“Seems like the person who broke your heart is still lingerin’...” 

“We were together for four years,” you whispered, biting your lower lip as you felt tears begin to pool at your eyes. “Found out he had been cheating on me for several months.” 

“Shit,” Joel whispered. “M’sorry.” 

“Is it something about me?” You asked yourself, looking down at the table. “Was I not enough?” You were mainly talking aloud, not directly asking Joel to answer any of these questions. It had been something that haunted and plagued your thoughts ever since you found out. 

“Oh, darlin’, I–” 

Joel was interrupted when Penny came by to the booth, setting the milkshakes and food on the table. You quickly reached up to wipe at your eyes, clearing your throat. What were you thinking? You barely knew Joel and he didn’t need to hear anything about your failed relationship; he certainly didn’t need to hear you feeling sorry for yourself either. 

“This looks amazing,” you told Penny, looking up at her with a small smile. “Thank you.”

Penny’s eyes softened instantly at the sight of you and she reached over to rest a comforting hand on your shoulder. “Whatever you need, sweetheart, just call my name and I’ll be right over here. You’ve got good company with this one too,” she winked, motioning over to Joel. 

“Thank you, Penny,” you whispered, biting your lower lip. 

Joel let a small smile line his lips before nodding his thanks to Penny. The older woman left the both of you to tend to her other patrons and Joel was about to say something before you interrupted him.

“I’m sorry,” you said with a sigh. “We shouldn’t be talking about what’s wrong with me and what went wrong in my relationship.” 

“The guy has no idea what he’s missing,” Joel shrugged. “You seem like a great girl.” 

“You barely know me.” 

“Very true,” Joel nodded. “But you seem like the type of girl who’d stick by her partner no matter how hard it gets. That’s hard to come by in people these days…” 

You dropped your eyes to the table, reaching over to grab a single fry to lift to your lips. Joel’s assumption about you was correct; you always had been the type of person to stick by your friends or boyfriends, even if it didn’t benefit you, even if the majority of the time, you were taken advantage of. 

“M’sorry…” Joel sighed. “I didn’t mean to overstep. I just–”

“No, it’s okay,” you interrupted. “Guess things happen for a reason, or whatever.” 

Joel snickered. “Things happen for a reason? You really believe that?” He grabbed his burger and lifted it to his lips, taking a large bite as he stared at you. 

You shrugged. “I don’t know,” you answered honestly. “Still trying to figure out why all of this happened.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to figure it out,” Joel proposed. He watched you take a bite of your burger, letting a prideful smile line his lips when he heard you let out a sigh of contentment. 

“You know, my friends told me that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”

Joel was mid-bite, almost choking on his food as he looked at you with wide eyes. “And that’s… Is that why you–”

“Calm down, Joel,” you giggled. “I’m not that type of girl.”

“Yet, you tried to kiss me twice.”

“And you rejected me. Twice.” 

Joel narrowed his eyes, his gaze lowering to your lips briefly. “Like I said, you were drunk.”

“Exactly,” you quipped. “Drunk, heartbroken me is not really me.” 

Joel furrowed his brows in confusion. “That makes no sense at all.” 

“Makes sense to me.” 

You smiled at him and continued to eat. Joel was completely taken aback by you and how easy it was to just talk to you. At the beginning of the night, Tommy had to practically drag Joel out of the house after the babysitter stopped by to look after Sarah. The entire drive to the club, Joel was grumpy. He didn’t want to be out when he could have spent it with Sarah, but Tommy was right. Joel needed a break and while the night started out rough, he was glad that he came out because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have met you. 

A couple of hours pass and you and Joel finish your food and milkshakes, sharing stories from your lives. It was well past midnight and Joel’s phone started to ring. He excused himself for a moment and stood from the booth, walking outside to take the call. 

You leaned back against the booth, obviously very full and now completely sober. The more you talked with Joel, the better you felt. Since coming to the diner and spending more time with Joel, you realized that Robert hadn’t crossed your mind. It felt nice to gain back control over your life. It also helped that you were attracted to Joel and the fact that he was a father just made him more endearing; you were tired of dating men that were too immature for you. You were only a few years younger than Joel, but he had been more mature than most of the guys you had ever been with.

After a few minutes, Joel stepped back inside the diner and slid back into the booth across from you. 

“Sorry about that,” he said. “It was just Tommy checking in to make sure I was okay.” 

“Gotta head home?” you asked.

Joel shook his head. “He’s looking after Sarah, so…” 

“Do you want to come back home with me?” you asked hesitantly. “I’m sober and I promise that I won’t try to kiss you again.”

Joel bit his lower lip. Now that you were sober, it was all that Joel could think about. How your lips would feel against his own, your body pressed into his. But aside from the desire he felt for you, he found your presence to be even more comforting and he certainly didn’t want this night to end either. 

“Will that be okay?” He asked. “I don’t want to impose and–”

“Do you like coffee?” you interrupted him.

Joel nodded. “Can’t leave the house without it every morning.”

You smiled, standing from the booth. Joel followed your movements, setting down enough money (plus a big tip for Penny) on the table. 

“Come on then.” 

“Where we goin’?” 

“You’ll see.”

---

next.

[cockdestroyer32]

it's rotten work.

peter b. parker x fem!reader

word count: 2615

summary: Peter's been a wreck after his divorce with MJ. Thankfully, you're there to look after him.

aka me just fantasizing about taking care of peter b. parker when he needed it and giving him the love he so very deserves.

a/n: yeah I write abt this loser now

Two months. That’s how long it’s been since Peter and MJ’s divorce. Two months of countless pizza orders and late-night fast food trips. You tried your best, of course, most days making lunch and dinner for Peter, but it still wouldn’t help his insurmountable need to shove oily fries drenched in high amounts of salt down his throat. Though he would gladly take them. His hand finding yours on the table, giving you a knowing look with his sad, tired eyes that you’d gotten used to seeing so damn often on him. His own way of a thank you. Two months of coming home to Peter’s place to find him sprawled out on his couch, his head lying on his own arm and still wearing shoes. The TV would be on playing the most random channel. He’d be staring at it, but if you turned it off he wouldn’t even blink. Two months of trying your best to be there for him.

You were still getting used to the new apartment. For as long as you could remember, Peter and MJ lived in the same house for the past 15 years. You’d gotten used to it. It was nice. Two stories, wooden floors, big dining room. They’d have Thanksgivings there, it was almost a tradition. The turkey was served and everyone gathered around, talking and laughing about nothing. Peter was happy then, at least most of the time.

This apartment was none of that. It was way smaller, one small cube covering kitchen, living room and bedroom, with a room to the left including the tiny bathroom- which has a bathtub? You never quite understood that, what is it with Americans and putting bathtubs in their already tiny bathrooms?- not to mention it was unkept. The dishes practically overflowing, two pizza boxes, one awkwardly thrown to the counter, not even closed, its gaping mouth allowing you to spy the damp spots the hot pizza left on the cardboard box, and the other shoved inside the trash, which was also nearly overflowing. A barely-eaten cereal bowl rested on the sad excuse of a dining table, some colorful circles creeping out of the white liquid. It was more milk than cereal. And both ingredients also stood there, not put back on their respective places. 

Peter does not have enough money to just waste perfectly good milk. 

You grab the carton and open the refrigerator, the light illuminating the kitchen/living room/bedroom area. God, even the refrigerator was sad. An already open can of soda standing lonely to the side, feeling unsafe on the grids of the shelf, a container of cheese at the top, four eggs to the side, and untouched lettuce to the middle. You place the milk inside, now making company to the lonely soda, and shut the refrigerator door, making your way back to the couch. As you do you pass by the wall of the apartment that includes Peter’s attempt at decorating, one only possible after much pleading by you that the place might feel more like home if he did so. 

They were pictures. Pictures on the wall. Four to be specific. All taped to the wall with double-sided tape. They were all scattered like corn and asymmetrical. How and why did he manage to do that? You don’t know. Was it awful? Yes. 

But you were still excited when you’d shown up to his place and found them there. 

This was only a fraction of the pictures he had back in his place with MJ. Their old living room had once been full of pictures of them and the memories they made together. But these were the ones he took and remained. The middle picture was one of you and Peter, back when you traveled to Barbados. You stood behind him, hugging him with one arm from behind, your chin resting on his shoulder as you both smiled at the camera. The one to the side was a picture he took of you on your birthday, you wore one of those birthday headbands, a huge smile spreading across your face as you saw one of your other friends bringing you your cake. It was slightly blurry, not one you’d usually have on your wall but beautiful regardless. When you’d seen that picture, your finger reached out to touch it, surprised it was there, and you turned around to look at Peter, who refused to look at you, clearly embarrassed. The third one is a picture of May, 2 years before she died, her grey hair perfectly framing her smiling face, and the fourth one of Peter and May, sitting on her couch, his arm wrapped around her shoulder and his head on hers.

Peter sits on the couch, his ankles extended out, looking like he wanted to trip someone. He wore the same grey sweatpants he always wore, and his sweatshirt was stained. The bags under his eyes were prominent, and his eyebrows were furrowed. His gaze was fixated on the TV, but he actually seemed to be paying attention this time, so that’s progress…right?

You threw your body on the couch beside his, letting out a sigh and looking at the screen. He was watching a documentary on…pandas? You don’t comment on it. Or on his stained shirt. Or on the cereal bowl. Or on the milk. You just stare at the TV.

“I’m fine,” He says, his voice raspy.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

You don’t reply. He’s used to you asking the same question, and you’re used to hearing the same answer. You both know he’s not fine, that he hasn’t been fine in a while, but that there’s not much you can do but let time pass, to let the wound heal as best as it can, leaving only a scar, that at least won’t sting as much anymore. You know Peter. You’ve known him for years. You know his moods, you know what makes him laugh, what makes him angry, his mannerisms and what they mean, his favorite foods, his favorite flavor of cake…you know when he needs love. 

Except for on days like this. On days where he’s grumpy and barely speaks at all. Days where his arms are crossed and he’s always tapping his foot. Sometimes he just wants to be left alone, sometimes he wants as much physical affection as possible. You don’t know. 

So, you leave a hint.

You place your hand next to his on the couch- they have always been so rough, so calloused, yet always felt nice- and you lift your pinky, it grazing across the back of his hand. Up, and down. You do that once before stopping it at the bottom of his hand, just next to his pinky. If he wants to take it, he can take it, if not, he doesn’t have do anything. 

You feel the back of his hand being taken away from the tip of your finger, before his palm finds yours and he entwines your fingers together, giving your hand a light squeeze. Yours is smaller than his, and certainly softer. You don’t look at each other, you don’t have to. You keep your eyes on the panda eating bamboo and feel his thumb caress the side of your hand. 

If that wasn’t clear, it’s been a rough two months. And you’ve been there for rough months. You were there for when Peter and MJ would have tough arguments, for when being Spider-Man started being just a little too much for him, for when he couldn’t save everyone, for when Aunt May died. But this? This was bad. Almost as much as May’s death. He just…fell into a hole. And you don’t blame him either. He’d been married to Mary Jane for fifteen years. Fifteen years. Having to separate from someone you spent more than a decade with must be one of the hardest things ever, and you couldn’t exactly say you understood.

It wasn’t all bad though. One time, you decided to watch a movie together. You let Peter choose the movie. Horror. You were never quite used to it, but were you gonna say no to him? No, and he knew it. About 40 minutes in, there was a scene where the main character was inspecting his house after having heard a strange noise. He walks around for a while, letting the tension build until suddenly the monster rises behind him. It’d been about 11pm at that point and you let out a loud yelp, followed by your hand slapping over your mouth as you realize what you did. You did a slow turn towards Peter, finding his eyebrows raised and his mouth slightly agape, before he burst out into laughter. The sound rang through your ears like your favorite song. God, it’d been so long since you heard that laugh. If you knew it’d happen you’d grabbed your phone and started recording it immediately. But at that point it’d been enough, and you couldn’t help but start laughing too.

Now, you feel Peter’s grip slowly loosening on yours and you turn your head towards him. His eyes are closed, and his eyebrows are more relaxed now, though he’s not asleep just yet. From this angle you could perfectly see his roman nose, the bridge sticking out in all of its wonder, and the little bend to the side, where he’d broken it so many times his healing factors had just given up. He hated it. You always loved it, and he knew it. You leaned in slightly.

“Pete…” You whisper, “Pete, let’s get you to bed.”

He murmured some nonsense. A chuckle leaves your lips and you reach for his arm.

“Pete, if you wanna sleep we gotta get you to bed, come on.”

“O…kay…” You get up from the couch and place both hands on his arms, motioning for him to get up. When he does he rests his head on yours, and you drape your arm over his shoulder, leading him to his bed. He drops his body on it and oh he looks adorable. His arms curved in front of him almost in a praying motion, and his knees slightly bent. You notice his shoes are still on and reach to take them off, he doesn’t even move as you do so, and you set them down neatly on the floor. You know what’s next, you’ve gotten used to it: you crawl on the bed beside him, and wrap an arm around him from behind, the other creeping from under his body so you can hug him properly. You bury your face on his shoulder and squeeze him tight, your legs lying just behind his. 

Peter likes being the little spoon. You wonder if he’s always been like this or if it was born out of an extreme need to receive the physical affection he lost after his divorce. Those thoughts are quickly brushed off but everlasting, you probably shouldn’t be thinking about that. This happens every night now, to the point Peter doesn’t sleep without you anymore. If you take too long to crawl into bed, he tells you in a groggy voice, “Come hereeeee…”

One time you got up in the middle of the night to drink some water, and in comes Peter, wearing his grey pajama shirt, rubbing his eyes as he sleepily asks you, “Why'd you go?”

The first time you fell asleep cuddled together was a little over a month ago. Peter’d been quiet that entire day and you left him alone, figuring he just wanted time for his thoughts, until eventually you lifted a gentle hand, resting it against his shoulder as you asked, “You alright? Wanna talk?” And a few minutes later you found yourself holding a sobbing Peter, his hands desperately clutching to your back as you rubbed his, his face pressed against your chest as his own heaved. Wet trailings ran down your body and made your shirt damp, trailings that’d grow salty and sticky on your skin, but that’d you pay no attention to. 

You don’t even know how long that lasted, you just held him for as long as he needed, until his weeping subsided and the sobs were replaced only by the shuddering breaths one gets after crying so desperately. Then even those went away, Peter’s breath completely evened out and calm. You noticed he was heavier in your arms, and whispered his name as you leaned your head down, looking for his face, only to be met with one of a sleeping Peter. His lashes were wet and eyes were shut and relaxed, as if he hadn’t just had a full breakdown in your arms. You stayed like this for a moment, wondering if he’d wake up, and knowing you didn’t have the heart to do it. Eventually you leaned back on the couch, your back resting against it as your head was placed awkwardly on its stiff arm. He slid down on your body a bit as you did, his face now at your stomach, and he tightened his grip and pressed his nose into your skin. You still don’t know if he remembered he did that.

And now Peter has you climbing into bed beside him every night, trying your best to envelop his body with yours even though your frame is much tinier.

You turn your head to him as you feel him shift and take a breath.

“I wanna…be big spoon…” You can barely make out the words due to his raspy mumbling, and before you could even process them, Peter was turning around and grabbing your arm, flipping you on your side as he wrapped his arms tightly around you. Tight as if to ensure you wouldn’t try to escape his grip.

Woah. Is this what MJ felt every night when she was with Peter? Again, probably not something you should be thinking about, but still. This? This comfortable? 

If you were MJ you would have never given up on this. Ever. No matter what.

God, he’s strong. I mean, you knew he was strong, he’s Spider-Man for crying out loud. But you’d never thought about how that came into play in moments like this, where he could wrap his arms around you with such a firm yet tender grip that it felt like absolutely nothing could tear you two apart.

Though you were still quite a bit frozen. Peter had never done that before. This was new and sudden. And slowly you could feel that information seep back into Peter’s presumably more awake mind as well, with the way he turned his head slowly to the left, and his body straightened and stiffened on your back.

“Uhh, is this okay?” He asked.

“Yeah, it’s alright,” You replied. He was probably awake right now, mortified by his own actions but too comfortable and scared to pull away. And so were you. So you placed your hand on his arm, and gently ran it back and forth, telling him you really were okay with this, and if anything you wanted him to keep it up. His body remained frozen for at least 3 seconds until he lifted his arm from under your hand, and placed his palm over it, enlacing your fingers together. He pressed your arm in the front of your body and buried his nose in your neck. It sent a few shivers down your spine, you won’t lie. But you just took a deep breath and toughed it out, closing your eyes as well and relaxing. His breath on your neck slowly lulled you to sleep.

Hopefully, this is your new night routine.