#She was mildly questioning what did she birthed

[inky-evergreen]

OMFG MY FUCKING SOCKS PULLED A MARK MAYHEW AND MADE ME FALL DOWN THE STAIRS. Well not fully down the stairs but still I WAS GOING DOWN THE STAIRS TO SEE MARK'S MOTHER

[baronessvonglitter]

The Morning After

Javier Peña x f!Reader

Word count: 2.7K

Summary: after a sex emergency, you call on your neighbor Javier Peña.

WARNINGS: 18+ Only! Mature and Explicit, talk of birth control failing, dom!Javier Peña, uprotected p in v sex, creampie, slut shaming, mildly dubious consent, biting, fingering, rough sex, dirty talk, no specific physical descriptions of reader besides that she's wearing a dress, no use of y/n

Author's Note: I have no shame.

JAVIER PENA MASTERLIST | FULL MASTERLIST

It's early when you knock on Javier Peña's door. He's dressed for work, looking like he's just about to head out, a cigarette already pressed between his lips and he answers your knock with a questioning glance, eyebrow raised.

"I'm sorry to bother you," you say, timid under his gaze. "But you did say I could come to you for help and.. well.. could you do me a huge favor?"

Peña glances at his watch. "A favor? What kind of favor?" There's a glimmer of mischief in his eyes, as if you're offering yourself on a plate to be his breakfast in bed.

You take a deep breath and exhale. "Could you give me a ride to the drugstore? It's kind of a time-sensitive issue."

He takes note of the way your hands flutter towards your stomach and he seems to catch your drift. "All right. C'mon then."

"Thanks," you whisper as he leads you to his car outside.

He's quiet as he drives, which is how you've typically known him to be in the past year as your across-the-hall neighbor. He only took notice of you when your boyfriend moved out a few months back and you exchanged quick good mornings or traded mail that was delivered incorrectly to each other. He saw you were alone and offered small, subtle gestures of kindness like offering to walk you to your car if it was dark out, or to simply keep an eye on your place if you weren't around. He'd tell you to stay safe, that the world is dangerous for pretty young women like you. He even said at one point that he would help with any favor, and now you're counting on him.

"May I ask what you need that's so urgent?" he asks, driving through the morning traffic.

"Medicine," you give him the short answer.

"What kind of medicine?"

"Medicine.. for women." You look out the window so he won't see your face turning red.

"Are you pregnant?"

You look at him, embarrassed. "God, no! But.. something happened last night and I just need to get the morning after pill."

He raises his brow as he keeps his eye on the road, flicks his cigarette out the window. "And what, exactly, did you get up to last night?"

You give him a strange look. "What do you think I got up to last night? Obviously I slept with someone."

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "Who was it? Someone you know? A date? A random hookup?"

It's so odd to see him flustered. It's such a departure from the calm, cool, collected man you usually see. "Why does it matter?"

A few moments pass where it's quiet between you two. Peña seems to be processing what you've said. "Did you use protection?"

You sigh. "Yes, but the condom broke. That's why I need the pill. Happy now?"

"The condom broke? What kind of cheap-ass condoms were you using?"

You scoff. "Are you really going to judge me right now? I've seen you come home with a different woman every night."

"That's entirely different," Peña snaps. "I use protection. I take every precaution when I'm with someone. And don't try to change the subject."

"Honestly, you're upset with me and it's weird.." but a part of you kind of likes his overprotectiveness.. dare you believe he's a bit jealous?

He runs his fingers through his hair, obviously trying to collect himself. "You were careless, bonita. For Christ's sake, I have a lot of things to worry about, but one of them shouldn't be if you're going to get knocked up by some guy you don't even know."

"First of all, he's someone I really like, and we've been out a few times. He's not 'some guy'. Besides, how do you know your own protection hasn't failed at times?"

It's his turn to scoff. "Believe me, mine has never failed. Because unlike you, I'm smart enough to keep an eye on the expiration date before I use it."

"Bullshit! Haven't you ever been so caught up in the moment that you just.. slip it on without thinking?"

He grits his teeth. You are really getting under his skin. "I may get carried away at times, but I've never been careless enough to put on an expired, low-quality condom. Stop pushing this argument."

"You? Carried away? Hell would freeze over." You cross your arms.

The drugstore still isn't in sight. "Carried away as in passionate," he corrects you.

"Define passionate." A playful smirk crosses your features, enjoying how uneasy Peña seems to be.

It's one thing for him to express himself physically and quite another to talk about it, especially with a woman. "I'm just a little more intense.. but I'm careful about it."

"Intense? How? This is the most interesting conversation I've ever had with you."

The fact that you've managed to fluster this man is really distracting you from your current emergency. "Well, I just really feel it.. I like to enjoy myself, but I also like to focus on making someone else feel good when I'm with them. I'm.. a little bit aggressive, a little bit demanding-"

"Holy shit!" you blurt out. "Got it." You turn away, blushing again.

"Is that what you wanted to hear? That I get a bit rough when I fuck?"

That word goes straight to your pussy, and the fucker knows it. He knows it. "I suppose I can see that about you. You look like the rough type."

He breaks into a smile, and damn it if you don't want to fucking straddle him in that seat. "You can imagine all you want, bonita. You haven't had the pleasure."

You do your best to ignore the feelings he's kindling inside you. You'd always found him attractive but until now hadn't thought about him as more than a neighbor. "Make a left up here," you tell him, hoping to put the issue to rest.

With a smirk he pulls into the parking lot and lets the engine idle. "You really can't wait to get your hands on that pill, huh?"

"The sooner the better," you shrug. "Do you need anything while I'm in there? Maybe some more condoms?"

Peña gives a small, amused laugh. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. Get me two boxes while you're at it, just in case." He winks.

You roll your eyes. "Wait for me, okay?"

"Sure thing, and don't rush, bonita. It's just some condoms. I'm sure you could use another pack yourself." He leans back in his seat as he watches you go into the store.

You're out five minutes later. "We have a problem," you tell Peña.

"What's the problem?" A frown appears on his face.

"They won't let me purchase the pill unless my 'husband' is with me."

"What kind of bullshit is that? Where the hell are we? Saudi Arabia?"

"Be nice," you try to calm him, though you're touched by how upset he is over a problem he has nothing to do with. "Just come in with me, okay? I need you."

Without a word he sighs deeply and shuts off the engine, getting out onto the sidewalk with you. You enter the pharmacy. "Just hold my hand," you whisper, and he grabs hold of yours. "You're sweating a lot," you mention.

"I'm fine," he mutters. As you approach the counter, Peña does a total 180 and puts his arm around your waist, giving your hip a gentle squeeze. It's not hard for you to play into it, as his touch sizzles through your clothes. You take a moment to realize how big his hands are, and once again your mind goes to a place you have no control over.

"See? You had me bring my husband in here, taking him away from his very busy and very important job as an agent in the Drug Enforcement Administration, just to help me get medicine that by law you are not legally required to withhold from me," you tell the pharmacist, an older man with an unpleasant face and demeanor.

"My wife and I got a little carried away last night," Peña pipes in, playing his part. With a smirk he presses himself to you, grabbing your ass with both hands and kissing you. You freeze for a moment at the shock of it, but your body reacts so naturally that you kiss him back, arms draped around his neck. His tongue gently pries your lips apart and you can taste cigarettes and whiskey in his kiss. Your panties dampen with unexpected desire and you have the urge to wrap your legs around his waist and let him take you right there against the plastic barrier of the drugstore counter, but a loud harrumph from the elderly pharmacist stops both of you.

"We're newlyweds," you explain, trying to catch your breath as Peña wraps his arms around you from behind. He kisses the side of your neck and nearly all rational thought leaves you. "We're still waiting for his vasectomy to heal." This little white lie earns you a pinch on the ass from him. You yelp. "We'll be purchasing several of these morning after pills."

Satisfied, the pharmacist give you the pill packets and you pay, swatting Peña's hand away when he tries to pay for them with his own cash. "You have 72 hours to take the pill to keep from getting pregnant," the elderly man tells you before you leave. "So you two have plenty of fun before then."

"We're going to have to get back home quickly, bonita," Peña tells you, and you have no doubt he's no longer in character. There's a rush of adrenaline shooting through you and you're both in a completely different headspace than you were before.

"My place or yours?" you ask, a little breathless as you exit the building.

He pulls you in for another scorching kiss. "Mine" he practically growls.

You're barely through his apartment door when he presses you to the nearest wall, lifting your leg and rubbing against you. "Fuck, look at this, you're already so wet," he murmurs, lifting your skirt and pulling your panties roughly down your legs. He stuffs them in his jacket pocket and his fingers go back to press inside you wet, waiting cunt. Two fingers slide in easily. "Jesus Christ, bonita, you're dying for it, aren't you?" You moan into his mouth as he kisses you, roughly pumping his fingers inside of you. Your knees go weak but he's there to hold you up, kneading your ass cheek with one hand while the other gets you ready for him. "Que sucia," he whispers roughly into your ear. "Such a dirty girl, sleeping with a different man each day, letting each of them come inside you. From now on I'm going to be the only one to come inside you, is that understood?" When you don't answer, he grabs your chin with his free hand. "Understood?"

"Ye-yes!" you moan, feeling helpless as he finger fucks you but refuses to let you come. Just when you think you're on that edge he takes it away. "You don't get to come yet, baby. You will only come on my cock, is that understood?" In response you clench around him and he groans. "Ah, fuck, you're tight. Your date last night must have been so small. I'm gonna fix that, and I'm gonna fill you up so you're leaking my cum for days, bonita."

"Turn around," he whispers gruffly, moving you anyway so you're facing away, your palms pressed to the wall. He removes your dress over your head and makes quick work of removing your bra. Cupping your breasts he kisses the nape of your neck and shoulders, leaving small bite marks where no one will see them. Each love bite is like a small fire upon your skin, which he laves with his tongue to soothe it. He can't keep his hands away from your ass: squeezing, rubbing, giving little spanks and smiling when you yelp in both surprise and pleasure. He's muttering things in Spanish that you can't understand, but from his tone you know it's praise. You hear his belt unbuckling, pants sliding down. Your pussy clenches in anticipation. He lifts your ass with one hand and guides himself to you with the other. All you feel is a delicious heat, the girth of him filling you up, stretching you. You gasp. He's gentle with the first few inches, and shoves forward without warning for the last few inches so that it takes your breath away. "Oh look at that.. all pink and stretched out around my cock. I bet your little boyfriend from last night didn't do this. I bet he laid on top of you and pumped for about three seconds before he came and left you having to run to me.." You're barely listening to his words, whimpering, mumbling 'please' and 'oh god!', concentrating on his cock, how it moves, how it fills you so that it's almost painful but Peña would never hurt you. His hands on your hips help him with steady strokes as he gets a feel for you, burrowing inside your channel with fluidity. "God damn, what a view," he mutters. "Your pink little ass and your pussy stretched so wide for me.. Listen to that, bonita," he quiets and lets the sound of your slapping flesh fill the room. You can't hold back, moaning and panting. "It's a fucking symphony," Peña curses, moving his hips faster. The new pace throws you for a loop and you're at his mercy, gasping with each deep, quick thrust. It's impossible to think of anything except what he's doing to you to make you come.

"Oh Javi," you moan, using his given nickname for the first time. "Please please please please!"

He grunts. "Please what, baby?" His hand snakes around to your front and you already know what's going to happen next.

"Please let me come, please let me come, oh god!" You squeeze your eyes shut tight.

"Dirty girl wants to come? Say it. Say you want me to fill you up, dirty girl." His voice is gravelly in your ear. "Say you want my cum inside you for the next three days."

You're barely able to breathe let alone form sentences. "Please... I want your cum inside me!"

"Inside where, baby?"

"In my fucking pussy! Blow your fucking load in me!" You're desperate, feral.

"Jesus Christ," he mutters, taken over by your own dirty talk, smirking because you're exactly the kind of dirty girl he thought you to be. "That's exactly what dirty girls say, baby. But you need to come first. I want to come when you do, and you'll see why." With that he placed his touch on your clit, rubbing in little circles until you're engulfed in tidal waves of pleasure. You're incoherent as you rhythmically clench around his cock, but able to register the way he swells right before he twitches, milked by you, releasing his cum and splashing his warmth deep inside you. God, it's such a primal feeling. And you keep rippling around him, small spasms that take forever to die away. Peña slumps against your back, holding you close with one arm. "Let me see, baby." He disengages, getting a good view of your wrecked pussy, already spilling out his pearlescent seed. He uses his fingers to push it back inside you, like something he's found to play with. He makes you stand, still holding on to the wall, watching his cum fall along your inner thigh and drip to the floor. "Let it all drip out of you, baby. There's more where that came from."

You stand, trying to catch your breath. His cum turns cold running in tiny rivulets down your thigh, but you like the feeling. It's almost sacred, in a way. And it's freeing. Thanks to your pills you are carefree for the next few days.

"Let's get you in the shower," he says, his voice gentle this time as he gently turns you to kiss your mouth. "Then we'll try out the sofa.."

You chuckle. "Aren't you already late for work because of me?"

"Fuck it. I can be a few hours late.."

dividers by @roseschoices 👑

[ozzgin]

How would the guys react to prehistoric reader fighting pickle (and she wins if that’s akay) Since he angered her. Because he ate her food( or she really loves food or she’s on her period)

(hope it makes sense )

I can never say no to a strong female character so it’s absolutely okay! If you‘d be so kind, I have two more asks regarding the prehistoric reader that I think are somewhat similar, so I’d just combine them under your request.

The first request: prehistoric pregnant reader “adopts” Baki (our affection deprived boy could use some love); her first spoken word is “Pickle”, and finally she gives birth to twins

The second request: prehistoric reader begins understanding modern human language, surprising the fighters, and begins translating for Pickle.

Baki Characters x Prehistoric! Fem Reader (II)

Featuring Pickle and his challengers. The sequel to our prehistoric reader that just gave birth and is slowly cozying up to modern life.

Reader wins against Pickle

You don’t even remember what set you off. Maybe the pregnancy hormones had gotten out of hand, or Pickle’s successive wins had earned him too much audacity. What’s certain is that you weren’t pleased with his attitude and decided to remind him you’re not one of the humans for him to show this insolence.

Hearing the savage, vicious growls that erupted from your chest as you slammed Pickle’s unconscious body into the ground one final time, no one really dared to interrupt you. Retsu, Katsumi and Jack had already received extensive injuries from a Pickle that held back still. They didn’t wish to ponder what you could do to them in your current state. Baki glanced at his father, wondering if he’d be tempted to challenge you during this unique opportunity.

Yuujirou, however, was trying his best to hold back his laughter. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so entertained. If you were moping the floors with Pickle with a massive pregnant belly, how damn strong were you on a regular day? He nearly put his hands together in prayer, hoping you’d stick around once you were done popping kids. He wanted to fight you so badly and felt like a schoolgirl kicking her feet on the mattress the night before a class trip.

Baki finds it amusing that you’re seemingly stronger than Pickle. His only goal is defeating his father. Of course, anyone strong enough could provide him with extra training for the final battle, but at this point, with you as his opponent, he might actually be overreaching. He hopes you won’t decide to fight Yuujirou anytime soon, because he wants to be the one to defeat him first. Jack shares this sentiment but is also a bit deflated knowing how big the gap between him and the ancient humans is.

Reader’s first word

Pickle is curled up in his enclosure’s tree trunk, pouting mildly after the angry defeat he suffered. To add insult to the injury, he can hear Baki’s spoiled chuckles as you feed him some of your T-Rex meat. After his fight with Pickle, the young boy was most open to receive aftercare and attention and you found it utterly adorable that someone as strong as him enjoyed special treatment.

The other men found it rather humiliating to rely on you and would gently let you know that they can manage just fine. But Baki immediately clung onto you and in time you began to wonder about his family. You weren’t entirely sure how to express the question to him. Did he have a mother? Where was she? How would you gesture for “mother” in the first place? If only you could articulate the same noises the other humans used to communicate. It looked very efficient and also very complex.

You glance at Pickle’s hiding spot, lost in thought. You try to replay some of the dialogues you’ve witnessed. In your mind, you closely observe the men discussing things in front of your prehistoric mate. The way their jaw opens and closes at calculated intervals. Why is the tongue contracting so frequently? Is this the tool needed to turn your growls into intentional, obvious messages? You pucker your lips and allow some air to blow out, like a faint whistle. Then, you tighten your lips and release them with pressure, and a “pop” sound comes out. Baki observes your attempts, confused. You press your tongue against the roof of your mouth and exhale. Another flattened whistle is released.

Finally, you flex your vocal chords with just enough force that the growl smoothens out and is replaced by a continuous voice. You repeat the movements that you’ve practiced in your head. So many people have used this word when looking at him. It can only mean one thing, and you want to hear it roll out of your own mouth. “Pi-ku-ru~”

Pickle pokes his head out of the enclosure, perplexed. That was certainly your voice, but the contents delivered by it were nothing he would’ve expected. His eyebrows are raised and he looks at your equally shocked expression. Baki is dumbfounded. He feels like he just witnessed something forbidden, of unspeakable importance. The raw piece of meat hangs in his mouth, yet to be chewed. You turn to the small human, seeking approval. Was this the correct way to do it? Have you made your message clear?

Before a potential answer comes out, you rush to Pickle and grab his face between your hands. Such a bizarre sensation. Within this vast, intricate language that the humans used, this one sequence of contractions and movements was specially designated for him. This one prolonged sound, and his eyes will lock with yours because he knows it’s him you’re calling. You gently kiss Pickle and he clumsily returns the gesture, still unsure of what is happening.

Birth and aftermath

Professor Payne is pacing in front of the hospital room. He doesn’t know what to be more excited about. The fact that two more prehistoric humans will soon walk the modern Earth, or that their mother casually reproduced articulate language just a few days ago. He clenches his fist in his pocket, somewhat resentful of Baki for being the one to retell the story. What unbelievable potential. His nostrils can already pick up the fresh ink of the soon-to-be published newspapers: “Noam Chomsky’s works in linguistics threatened by latest breakthrough - Discovery of Dr. Payne shows that ancient, Jurassic humans posses the skill to acquire spoken language. Implications unknown.”

Meanwhile, the fighters are gathered in the cramped hospital room. As they have proven their friendship to Pickle, it’s only natural to share this intimate moment with him. Pickle is holding one baby in each arm, cooing at them excitedly. Katsumi is pretending to be focused on a sight outside the window in order to hide his glossy eyes; births are always emotional for him. Retsu is standing close to the entrance, arms folded. He, too, is distracted by the knowledge that you may understand them and reproduce their words. He absentmindedly goes back to his encounters with you, hoping he didn’t say anything out of place that you might’ve picked up.

Baki is sitting on the side of your bed, carefully kneading your hand in an attempt to relax you. “You really should try some of the hospital food, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a dish this fancy!” He smiles at you and then nods in the direction of the tray. You follow his gaze and process his words. “Want try?” You manage to croak. Everyone in the room pauses to look at you. They already knew it from Baki, but hearing it firsthand truly is an astonishing experience. There’s a silent enthusiasm shared by the men standing close and Pickle tenses up, a small frown forming on his face. They better not get any ideas.

“What do you think about your new siblings?” Jack questions Baki jokingly. “Given you’ve been adopted by (Y/N) and all.” You follow the conversation with analytical eyes and Jack wants to try his hand at explaining the words to you. Once the meanings start to connect, you laugh and begin gesturing to Pickle, aided by short growls. Everyone assumes you’re translating to him. Pickle glares at Baki and his hold on the babies tightens, perhaps too hesitant to agree to your bond with the little modern human.

Pickle sighs deeply. Not only was he thrown into this strange world, but now there’s a bunch of men that are starting to show too much interest in you. He’ll have to put them in their place very soon if this continues. He’s especially annoyed at your fast learning pace when it comes to conversing with these creatures. He needs to hurry up and catch up to you if he wants to know the intentions of his rival friends.

[deadsetobsessions]

Tim drake triplet au owns my soul I’m not gonna lie

Have some more ✨

——

Moral and ethical crises aside, having three Robins increased the crime fighting rate exponentially. Crooks could not do even a mildly villainous scheme without being cheerfully beaten down (Lionel), robbed blind (Tim), and having their operations permanently crippled (Archy). At this point, the only reason the Rogues were still alive was because Batman insisted on handling them.

“There’s a weird ship coming into Gotham bay~!” Lionel sang, skipping into the room with an armful of papers. Alfred sedately followed behind him, with a plate full of snacks and milk. He had been passive aggressive in feeding them, muttering something about making up for lost time.

“Thanks, Alfred,” Tim mumbled, grabbing a snack. One hand was doing case work, the other (the hand that grabbed a snack) was doing homework. “Yeah, I clocked that. Some pretty interesting people on it.”

“Once again, Bruce’s old flings haunt our doorstep.” Archy crossed the room and plucked some of the papers off of Lionel.

“Ugh, don’t remind me. People are gonna come flocking to his gates with the fake baby traps again at the end of the social season.” Tim grimaced, remembering all the cheek pinches he endured last season as he headed off anyone that would approach Bruce in his Brucie persona.

“Talia al Ghul is a different kind of issue.”

“I’d take fist fighting her over Mrs. Laughfy’s pinching any day.”

“Gee, I kind of want to meet Talia. She seems kind of badass.” Lionel plopped down onto his seat, dumping the rest of the papers onto the table. “Dick hates her though. Oh, Archy, here’s all of the paperwork from that shady chemical plant.”

“Thanks.” Archy went back to the drawing board, drafting up a complicated corporate scheme that ended up with Drake industries acquiring said shady chemical plants. They were planning the reveal of the Drake triplets soon, but their method had much to be planned.

As a matter of fact…

“As expected,” Archy scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Our best bet is to pretend we were always there.”

“Gaslight, gatekeep, girl-boss!”

The triplets nodded and moved on, Archy forging their birth certificates.

Idle conversation started up again, rotating between their upcoming gaslight gatekeep girl boss masterplan, Talia’s arrival, and whether or not they should dye Jason’s hair bright purple.

“I wonder why she came? She got on the ship with a… kid.” Tim stilled, dawning horror and realization settling upon his face. “No way.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s juicy.” Lionel grinned like a bat fresh out of hell.

“We need more information.” Archy set aside his papers, an indication of intense focus from him.

The door clicked open and three heads swung in unison.

“Hey, guys, what are you…” Dick faltered as three sets of piercing blue eyes locked onto him. “Uh. Something wrong?”

Lionel dove at the door, shutting it closed and locking it.

Tim sprung up and clamped a hand onto Dick’s wrist. His smile became eerily polite. “Dick! We had a couple of questions for you!”

Dick glanced down at him, back at Lionel, and then forward at Archy’s widening grin. He shuddered.

“Am I about to die?” He wondered out loud, resigning himself to his fate as his baby-birds dragged him over to their war table.

——

“You didn’t know about me.”

“…No.”

“But we did!” Damian startled, unsheathing his sword in record time and swinging an arc of deadly blades towards the voice.

“Heya! I’m Robin!”

“I am also Robin.” Damian sidled back and looked up, weapon at the ready. Two identical Robins perched on the flickering street lamps, tilting their heads down at him.

“Hey, Damian. I’m Robin.” The one on the left waves.

“Boys,” his father sighed.

“Can it, B. I can’t believe you did the horizontal tango with Talia, of all people.”

Damian bristled. “You would not be worth the ground mother walks upon, you ingrate!”

The three robins looked at each other and simultaneously looked back at Damian. “Oh, we like you. Yes, you’re about to be our new favorite brother.”

Damian didn’t know whether to lunge at them or be flattered.

“C’mon, Wayne junior. We’ll show you around. Pick an alias, one you can use before we train you to be Robin.”

“I… I will fight you! Robin is mine by right! I am father’s blood son!”

One of the Robins perched on top of the lamp post grinned, half feral as he swung down. “We’d like to see you try, little bird.”

“Stop antagonizing him. Damian, you’ll become Robin eventually, but the only way is to get acknowledged by the former Robins. There’s so much more to becoming Robin than being good at combat like you are.”

“We’ll teach you! Robin lesson number one! Annoy B with competence!” The cheery Robin cheered.

“No.”

They ignored Batman. Damian, after checking his father’s face and not finding anything other than exhaustion, followed their example hesitantly.

��Here, take this grapple.” The serious Robin handed him a grapple and a domino mask. “Second lesson, Robins fly through the sky. We can stalk, sure, but we fly better than anyone else.”

Damian glanced at Batman again, before taking the grapple. In unison, the Robins shot up and away.

“Let’s go, Damian. We shouldn’t leave them unsupervised.”

“They are not competent enough to patrol alone?”

Father grimaced. “They are. But if we leave them be, they’ll take over Gotham in a matter of weeks.”

Damian’s respect towards the Robins went up a couple of notches. He put on the domino and grappled after the Robins.

When they find Joker goons transporting goods, the third Robin (Timothy, he found out later) turned to him and smirked.

“Third lesson? The punishment has to fit the crime. Those are stolen goods. So we rob them blind.”

“Those goods are evidence, Robin,” Father rumbled. Damian tensed, but the Robins remained relaxed.

“Okay, so we don’t touch the evidence, but everything else is fair game. Wallets, keys, lightbulbs.”

“That is incredibly petty,” Damian snapped.

“Well, B said we can’t murder them and maiming someone for stealing is too much. So, petty we must be, to refrain from going off the deep end.”

Damian considered tossing them off the roof, but these infernal fools would probably laugh and return to the roofs like cockroaches.

——

Damian watched the carnage in awe. The Robins were incredibly efficient and effective, drawing terror from their victims even before even commencing a beat down.

“I will accept their guidance,” Damian muttered to himself.

Behind him Batman lowered his head into hands in a moment of weakness. He prayed to allah and his parents for patience… and sanity.

——

“Jaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyysonnnnnnn!”

“Oh, fuck no!” Jason shot out rubber bullets without hesitation. “Fuck off, you demon!”

“But don’t you want to meet our youngest brother?”

Jason lowered his guns, glaring at Lionel’s chirpy face. “What? I’ve already met Tim.”

“Nope! Apparently, Bruce had a kid with, I shit you not, Talia al Ghul!”

Jason holstered his guns, interested in any mockery aimed at Bruce. “No way. You’re lying.”

“Nope! Meet Damian!”

Behind Lionel, Bruce’s mini-me stepped out. “Todd.”

Jason straightened and stepped closer, though noticeably giving Lionel a wide berth. He was never going to let the old man live this down. And from the looks of it, he had allies in the form of the three terrors.

——

Bruce looked down at the cake. He looked back up.

On one hand, his kids were getting along.

On the other hand… he was getting bullied by his kids.

Bruce heard a low chuckle.

Scratch that, he was being unjustly bullied by his kids and Alfred.

In front of the exhausted dad of six (and future dad of so many more), sat a cake with the words “congrats, it’s a boy!” and a picture of Talia.

[7s3ven]

CINDY LOU WHO. cedric diggory

( master list )

IN WHICH… Y/N L/N helps her crush and longtime best friend, Cedric Diggory, get with another girl. Deep down, she knows she’ll never be the bright and bubbly girl Cedric wants. She’ll always be the cunning snake with a knack for starting fights.

“Cindy Lou is bright, bubbly, and extraordinary… she’s everything I’m not.”

A/N: I do take requests so feel free to ask for one :). I mainly write for Maze Runner, Harry Potter, PJO, and Hunger Games

Guess you make him happy like I couldn't do. Cindy Lou Who. With your hair so long, lips so red. Maybe we met once, I forget

Scrolling five years back, I'm obsessed. Breaking my heart, 'tis the season, I guess. The snow's gonna fall and the tree's gonna glisten. And I'm gonna puke at the thought of you kissin'

“The boy who I love who's now in love with you. Cindy Lou Who.”

—

Y/N sighed as she impatiently checked her watch and tapped her foot against the stone floor. It was almost curfew and Cedric was still a no show. The rules were less strict now that school was done, but Y/N had a reputation to live up to. It was the least she could do with all the trouble she had caused this year.

“Y/N.” Cedric jogged towards her, looking out of breath. She arched an eyebrow and her gaze scanned his untidy uniform.

“… Do I even want to ask?” She questioned.

“Ah.” Cedric sheepishly smiled, “My friends and I were playing hide and seek. It was a pretty intense game.” Even during his senior years, Cedric was still the bright-eyed kid Y/N had grown up with.

“Right. Well, why did you want to see me? You know how I don’t like going out before curfew.” Y/N folded her arms over her chest, “Plus, you’re late.” She quickly added.

“I know. I’m sorry about that. I just had to grab this.” Cedric pulled out a black box, smiling. He carefully opened it, showing the necklace to Y/N. “Do you recognize the crystal?” He questioned, making Y/N scoff.

“Of course I do. It’s my birth month crystal. (Insert crystal).”

Cedric grinned. “You still know so much more about gems than me. You should’ve been put in Ravenclaw.”

“Oh, please. If I was put there, I would be sleeping in the hallways. I can’t figure out riddles.”

Cedric playfully nudged her with his elbow. “Don’t say that. You’re smart.”

The pair walked beside each other as the moonlight shone through the cracks of the castle. Cedric had slipped the necklace box back into his pocket and he gently cleared his throat.

“I’m going to give the necklace to Cho.” He suddenly blurted out, causing Y/N to pause. She looked over her shoulder at Cedric, wondering if he was joking. He wasn’t.

“Why? She’s your ex.” Y/N felt mildly disappointed that the necklace wasn’t for her. For the longest time, she had been holding onto her feelings for Cedric. Everybody could see it; the Golden trio, the teachers, even Draco’s posse. And yet Cedric had never caught on. She was starting to wonder if he was just messing with her.

“She helped me through a lot. I owe it to her.” Cedric smiled. Y/N gazed at him before she nodded.

“Okay… I’m guessing you want my help?”

“Yes. Please.” Cedric was ready to get on his knees and beg. Though, he was sure Y/N would find great amusement in that. She had always been a little sadistic.

Y/N briefly looked away, blinking away small tears and recollecting her composure so her voice wouldn’t crack. “What do you want me to do?”

edric had wanted to meet Cho at the black late, which was where he and Y/N usually hung out. That stung.

Y/N tied the last of the heart-shaped balloons before securing them to a nearby tree. Cedric was pacing around, wildly muttering under his breath.

“Will you relax?” The Slytherin girl piped up, rolling her eyes. “You’re making me feel nervous.”

“I can’t help it.” Cedric replied. Of course, nobody could help but feel anxious around Cho Chang. She was beautiful and smart and kind. Y/N had talked to her a few times, and if she were a guy or lesbian, Cho would be her crush too.

“Well, that’s the last of the balloons. Good luck, Ced. I’ll be nearby if you need help. Just don’t expect me to hug you if she rejects you.” Y/N playfully punched her friend’s shoulder. Cedric boyishly grinned and quickly embraced her.

For a moment, Y/N was speechless. She slowly hugged him back and awkwardly patted him. She could smell his expensive cologne and it almost felt Cedric was confessing to her instead.

Y/N was the first to pull away. She wished Cedric luck once more before hurrying off, her heart pounding in her chest. She felt envious of Cho. Y/N had been by Cedric’s side since day one. She had comforted him and supported him and hid her breaking heart when Cedric admitted to liking Cho the first time.

And now it was all happening again.

Y/N hid behind a tree just in time to see Cho walk out of Hogwarts and make a beeline for Cedric. She watched as they conversed and when Cedric showed Cho the necklace, she jumped with joy.

Y/N let out a small sigh. She pressed her lips into a thin line, accepting that she wasn’t the girl Cedric would ever go for. She wondered that if they weren’t childhood friends, would Cedric still be nice to her?

She was a Slytherin. A somewhat mean one with a soft spot for certain people. She started too many fights to count, and the threat of expulsion was always hanging over her head.

She wasn’t Cho Chang, who was pretty like the starry night shining above the calm ocean. Cho Chang was kind, sweet, and loving.

Cho Chang was Cindy Lou and Y/N was the Grinch with no room in her heart to change.

The next time Y/N saw Cedric, he was by Cho’s side. Y/N usually sat at the Hufflepuff table with Cedric, much to some people’s dismay, but today Cho was with him.

Y/N didn’t feel welcomed at that point so she sat with her friends, completely missing the way Cedric gazed over at her in confusion.

“Ah, Cedric Diggory and Cho Chang. Everybody’s favorite couple has finally reunited.” Ivy, a pale-skinned girl with light freckles lining her cheeks and soft silver hair grimaced as she sarcastically spoke.

“It’s a shame you never dated Diggory, Y/N. You guys were perfect together.” Hime sighed as she poured herself a cup of pumpkin juice. She offered to fill Y/N’s glass as well, but the H/C-haired girl declined.

“Boys are always stupid.” Evan, short for Evangeline, piped up. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing. I agree with Hime. He should’ve gone for Y/N.”

Y/N silently ate as she listened to her friends complain about Cedric, probably in an attempt to make her feel better.

“Has anybody noticed how he keeps looking over here?” Hime questioned, whispering quietly. “Chang never seems to have his attention for long.”

“I’m telling you, Diggory secretly likes Y/N but he’s scared she’ll reject him. So he’s playing it safe and going for an ex who he knows he had chemistry with.” Ivy retorted, sparing another glance at Cedric.

Y/N huffed in amusement. “Where did you come up with that?” She spoke for the first time.

“It’s obvious.” Evan backed up Ivy’s theory. “When he wins a Quidditch game, who does he run to? You. When he needs help with homework, who does he find? You. When he wants to go to Hogsmeade, who does he immediately ask?”

Evan arched an eyebrow while Y/N sighed.

“Me.”

“Exactly!”

“It’s a plausible theory.” Hime uttered. “You two have been friends for ages. He’s close friends with Hermione Granger too, but does he hug her and look at her like he does to you?”

“That’s probably because she’s younger and he doesn’t want to end up with a sentence.”

“Good point. What about Floral over there?” Hime nodded over at the Ravenclaw girl who was always arranging flowers or reading about them. Her name wasn’t Floral but everyone called her that and it stuck. “You three are all friends, right?”

“More like I was forced to befriend her, but sure.”

“Diggory doesn’t look at her the way he looks at you.”

“And how does he look at me?”

Ivy slammed her hands on the table, looking like she had been waiting years for this question. “He looks at you like Jack Dawson looks at Rose. He looks at you like Chuck Bass looks at Blair Waldorf. He looks at you like Luke looks at Lorelei. Like Morticia and Gomez, Bella and Edward, uh.. give me another one!”

“Percy and Annabeth?” Evan suggested.

“Yes! That’s how he looks at you. He’s giving you the I wouldn’t want anybody else by my side look. He’s probably just… confused. You’re like his Cindy Lou Who. You make him happy and you bring out the best in him.”

“Cindy Lou is bright, bubbly, and extraordinary… she’s everything I’m not.” Y/N gestured over to Cho, who was giggling with Cedric. “Cho Chang is more like Cindy Lou.”

“Cindy Lou Who has a nice ring to it.” Evan said, off topic.

Y/N nodded in agreement. “It does. The rhyme is satisfying.”

“Enough about language features! You have to get your man back, Y/N.” Ivy intensely stared at Y/N, determined to get Cedric and her together.

“He was never mine to begin with.”

“Then make him yours! Come on, Y/N, you’re beautiful- no. Gorgeous. And sure, you have a bitter side but guys who can’t deal getting a little burnt aren’t worth it. And I know that you burnt Diggory over and over again, with both your anger and literal fire.”

“Just so we’re clear, the fire thing was an accident. And I don’t want to force anything onto Cedric. I’ll just… go with the flow.” Y/N ate the last of her food and stood up, “I need to wrap presents. Don’t you dare try and sneak in to see your’s.”

Y/N was mainly referring to Ivy, who lifted her hands in surrender.

Again, Y/N failed to notice how Cedric’s eyes trailed to her. But Cho saw it.

“Cedric.” The raven-haired beautify tugged on his sleeve, “Can we talk?” She spared Cedric’s friends a look. “Alone?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

The pair walked off, fully aware of how Y/N’s friends were watching them closely.

“What did you want to talk about?” Cedric questioned, tilting his head to the side.

“I don’t want to assume anything, Cedric. But to me, it seems like you only confessed to me again to play it safe. I can tell that your true feelings don’t lie with me.” Cho glanced at Y/N, who exited a nearby bathroom and was too busy drying her hands to notice the couple. “They lie with her.”

Cedric followed Cho’s gaze, softly staring at Y/N with that damned look of adoration.

“I think someone else deserves this necklace.” Cho gently removed the jewellery, handing it over to Cedric. “Face it, you love her. You always have. You can’t try to love me, Cedric, not when Y/N exists.”

“She doesn’t like me back.” Cedric muttered, grasping the necklace.

“Are you sure?” Cho quirked an eyebrow. “Why do you think she stayed by your side for so long? Even when the other Slytherins teased her, even when you two argued, even when you kissed me in front of her. How could you not notice, Cedric? She brings you drinks after quidditch practice and buys you gifts and even stays at Hogwarts so you aren’t lonely. Why do you think she never dated anybody, Cedric? It’s because you were the one she wanted.”

Cedric shook his head. “No. She doesn’t like me. Y/N is smart and amazing and cunning. I’m not her type. Her type would be someone like…” He paused, thinking, “Matteo Riddle.”

Cho sighed as she shook her head. “You really have no idea, do you? Spend more time with Y/N and hopefully you’ll notice the things the rest of us do.”

She quietly walked off, leaving Cedric standing outside the Great Hall. Cho made an immediate beeline for Ivy, Evan, and Hime and sat in Y/N’s spot.

The trio clad in green glanced at her, confused and a little hostile.

“Cedric likes Y/N.” Cho quickly uttered so the group didn’t explode on her. “I got through to him but he thinks Y/N doesn’t like him back.”

“Thats bullshit. It’s so obvious!” Ivy groaned.

“Exactly.” Evan agreed, “But Y/N doesn’t think Cedric likes her either.”

Cho sighed. “It’s obvious they have mutual feelings but neither of them believe it. So, let’s force them to confess.”

Hime raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you like Cedric? Why are you willing to help us?”

“Despite our dating history, Cedric is still my friend. And I want to help him in any way I can.” Cho smiled.

“Oh, I have an idea!” Ivy exclaimed, “What if we get them under the mistletoe? But instead, they have to fight! We can call it mistlefoe!”

Cho, Hime, and Evan exchanged looks.

“I think we should just stick to mistletoe.” Cho uttered. “We could, uh, surprise them by decorating one of their common rooms? The Slytherin room is never decorated, right?”

“I wish it was.” Evan sighed, “It’s a cute idea. We could surprise Y/N by decorating the common room and then led her in and Cedric can be standing in the middle of the room under the mistletoe.”

“But to pull that off, we’ll need more help.” Hime added, “I don’t think four people can do that. And it’s only us in the Slytherin common room. Not even Matteo is here. So he can’t help.”

Cho glanced past Hime and Ivy, staring at the Golden Trio and their extended group of friends. She smiled. “I have an idea. But it’s going to involve working with Gryffindors.”

The group of Slytherins all glanced at each other before they shrugged in unison.

“Anything for Y/N.”

“Whatever.”

“Do I get to kiss Oliver Wood after Diggory and Y/N kiss?”

Cho, Evan, and Hime stared at Ivy, who only cheekily grinned.

“Um… I’m not sure about that last one. Let’s just start off with asking the Gryffindors first.” Cho sheepishly smiled.

“Ivy and I will get the decorations.” Hime offered, “There’s some extra ones in the basement if Hogwarts too. Evan, Chang, you can get those after you ask the Gryffindors.”

“Call me Cho.” The ravenette smiled before she stood up. “We don’t have much time. Let’s hurry.”

“Wait, we forgot something.” Ivy piped up, “Who’s going to distract Y/N?”

“Evan can distract L/N. I’ll ask the Gryffindors myself and if they accept, they can help me get the decorations from the basement.”

“Okay.” Hime looked around, slowly nodding. She smiled. “Let’s go.”

Cho approached the red table while Hime and Ivy hurried towards Hogsmeade and Evan rushed off to find Y/N.

It took a few hours for everything to be set up, but finally the Slytherin room was decorated and ready.

“I need to get something. I’ll be back.” Evan smiled, lying through her teeth. She watched as Y/N entered the Slytherin common room and rushed off to find her friends.

Y/N squinted her eyes as she walked into the dark room. “Huh? Ivy? Hime? You here? What did you do to the lights?” Nobody answered her. She tilted her head to the side, confused.

The lights suddenly turned on, along with multiple Christmas LED lights. She quietly gasped as she stared at the tinsel covered stairs and brightly decorated tree.

In all her years at Hogwarts, the common room had never been decorated. Slytherins weren’t exactly big on Christmas.

Y/N looked around, realizing she wasn’t alone. “Cedric?” She stared at the brunette boy. “What are you doing here? Have you seen Ivy or Hime? I can’t seem to find them anywhere.”

Cedric silently looked up. Y/N, puzzled, followed his gaze. She lifted her head, staring up at the floating mistletoe above her head. “Oh.” She whispered.

She looked at Cedric again, jumping when he was only a foot away.

“I’m sorry if I ever hurt you, Y/N.” He uttered, “I should’ve noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

Cedric didn’t say anything as he leaned forward to softly kiss her. Y/N froze, her heart almost leaping out of her chest.

“Y/N,” Cedric pulled away and brushed a strand of loose hair aside, “You’ll always be my Cindy Lou.”

[justanotherhh]

something i haven't seen much of so far is analysis of charlie's journey from the perspective of someone who also needs to change how she engages with others (vaggie too, but that feels more obvious as she's an ex-angel/exorcist and a sinner)

when charlie tries to help angel by confronting valentino it's been built to in the other episodes, because it's made very clear that she doesn't respect sex work -- she's got that "we need to save them from themselves" type attitude you see a lot with people who haven't done critical analysis into their own biases from a position of mildly-to-severe privileged disgust and haven't engaged with the perspectives of sex workers as people who can frame and understand their own experiences (whatever work they engage in and why they do sex work to begin with). same for her opinions on addiction

the scene where angel has to do a reenactment with sir pentious frames addiction as

something to be judged

something pitiable

something predatory

which isn't exactly a great way to bring angel onboard with the programme/make him feel less like shit. meanwhile the anti-sex + weirdly heteronormative attitude is also present in that scene by having sir pentious dress up as a virginal young girl in an anime-type school uniform with a big lollipop (the irony of this being practically indistinguishable from a porn setup feels very intentional), who declares that "she" won't be having sex before marriage as the great crescendo (sidenote, monogamy in the afterlife sounds.... like a long time to be monogamous......... yzma voice: "why do we even have marriage??")

angel, up until his duet with husk, is having it made clear again and again that the people seemingly helping him find the essence of his being inherently gross. he likes sex -- yeah there's the performance/face he has to wear to get through the day, but i think the bdsm club was a sincere suggestion and vaggie literally calls it disgusting/shoots it down without thinking about how to do so respectfully (again, she's an ex-angel/exorcist, she has biases of her own to contend with, but also the implications that nobody in heaven is having fun sex or negotiated kink and bdsm... tragic. do they even have a sex club called consent up there?)

charlie is a fairly conservative person at the beginning of the story. yes, she wants to help, but her framing of what "help" looks like doesn't take into account her own biases; presumably she grew up with the idea that "sinners are bad people" as much as anyone else did, if not more considering lucifer gave up on the sinners and that's been her environment from birth -- cut off from the people she's supposedly in charge of, but "hearing stories." (in both the pilot and happy day in hell she clearly has a fondness for the sinners, but it's as an outsider, someone who does not relate to them, and generally there's that overtone of "royalty doesn't know shit about what anyone is going through" which, charlie being a ruler, i wonder if that will be a focal point or just something to accept, it's not a dealbreaker for me, just something i noticed, esp as helluva boss has poked on power dynamics in hell along those same lines). the yearly murdering of demons is, likewise, something that is simply status quo and so even getting to a place of "hey maybe we shouldn't do that" is big and was inevitably going to create more cracks in the logic of black-and-white heaven-or-hell, so it's cool that that's where we the audience get to first meet her -- right as those threads are about to start unravelling

but at the very beginning, in some ways she echoes elements of characters like adam and lute (who are of course far more in-your-face, being villains) in her original assessment of what makes someone "a bad person" -- it causes her to create a system that doesn't actually work, and then of course the hotel is destroyed, but next time they'll build it to be better! (metaphor *jazz hands*)

why is angel in hell, is the question later asked. is it because he was/is an addict? because he drinks? because he does sex work? because he likes sex? (it may be because he's killed people/was in the mafia, but we don't have all the context yet, for now those are the things people know in the story itself) at the beginning charlie isn't asking the right questions, questions that would need her to go into herself and challenge her own biases, but throughout season 1 she goes from merely proclaiming that "everyone" can be saved, to sincerely challenging the idea of "needing to be saved" from things that shouldn't be judged in the first place. "if angels can do whatever and remain in the sky." yeah, how are we stipulating what's allowed and what isn't hmmmmmm? stay tuned for s2

(and youknow, apologises to angel for overstepping his boundaries, so it's not like angel doesn't know that she does care for him, ep4 gives a lot of development for their relationship as well -- it's the tipping point for a lot of what comes next)

interested to see how that challenging will continue in s2. she's gone from "we have to make you into a good person by cutting out things that make me (and others) uncomfortable from a conservative/purity-based judgemental framework" to "why do we have these systems of judgement in the first place?"

tl;dr angel changed a looot in s1 but so did charlie. she understands better now that the work she's doing is going to look very different from what she'd first anticipated, and poking at her own biases in relation to angel helped that journey and brought her closer to actually understanding and relating to the people around her

(there's another element here about charlie and vaggie as queer women in this particular universe, but it's a slight tangent so... different post)

[olderthannetfic]

The nipple talk made me write down my experience where one of my tits exploded in green goo, and when I say 'exploded' I'm only mildly exaggerating.

I'm pregnant for the second time, the birth is two or three months away and I find a lump in my breast. I get an appointment with my gynecologist for the next day and they send me to the hospital saying that the lump is most likely benign but still needs to be checked.

A mammogram is out of the question because I'm pregnant and the breast-expert-doctor says that an MRI wouldn't give any clear results either so we've only done an ultrasound but he is relatively sure that the lump is formed due to some form of mastitis (too much milk, blockage of the milk duct) and there isn't much to be done about it because I also don't have any other symptoms.

Fast forward a few weeks and I go back to the hospital because the lump got bigger and now the doctor (another one) wants to put a needle inside to get the milk out so the breast can have some rest. I don't get any anesthesia for that because what would the point be in getting stuck with a needle only to not feel the next needle getting stuck.

We have a problem though, the needle is too thin and can't suck any milk out of my breast, so while one needle hangs down from my tit she goes to retrieve another one with more width. Now it works somewhat and she gets a discolored version of breastmilk out to be analyzed. The color from that time from what I remember was somewhere between white and yellow (yellow is a normal color for the first breastmilk that flows out after birth) with some blood mixed in and I think some green was there as well.

The lab results showed that the liquid was sterile, meaning there wasn't an infection in the breast. The small wound from the needle also healed up nicely but the milk still formed and the blockage didn't go down. Normally you'd stop breastfeeding at that point but the baby still wasn't born so what was a woman to do? Go back home and come back when it gets even bigger or other problems arise.

Another problem did arise a few weeks later. The skin two to three centimeters to the right of the nipple got redder and harder by the day. That was also the area where the needle had poked me and even though the wound was closed you could see how the skin had thinned out in that entire place.

So one day it happened. I don't quite remember how it happened but suddenly the thin skin around the red and hard area of my breast broke and massive amounts of green liquid flowed out everywhere. I got myself some tissues and went on to squeeze as much of the goo out as possible. If there was already and opening then I could try to remove the blockage by hand

. The viscous green liquid turned more and more yellow and then a liquid white. When some blood started to mix in I stopped, called the hospital, literally said that my breast exploded and they booked me for another appointment the same day.

To make this post shorter: The blockage didn't go away, I got antibiotics that had no discernible effect on me, the exit wound barely closed before it opened again to release more goo, the baby was born.

The hope of the doctors was that normal milk flow would finally open and clean out the milk ducts so this mastitis would finally end. I didn't breastfeed the baby from that breast but I used a milk pump on it until the lab cleared the milk for consumption by infants. And at first it seemed to have worked!

Somewhat. The milk flowed but at the same time the blockage gained in size. Because the wound couldn't close due to the pressure in the breast it started to leak green and yellow everywhere, constantly. I had to put those milk protector things on the wound, not to protect my clothes from leaking milk from my nipples but to protect my clothes from fermented milk out of the side, or as my friend once called it, yoghurt.

It still got everywhere. I had to put towels underneath my breast every time I breastfed from that side. I went back to the hospital and the breast-expert-doctor who mostly specialized in breast cancer told me that at this point I needed to stop breastfeeding completely, from both the sick and the healthy breast, while the gynecologist from the hospital told me that stopping with the sick breast alone was totally doable.

Turns out I didn't need to do anything because the lumps/hardness of the blockage got to so vast that the baby couldn't get the nipple in its mouth anymore. Everything around the nipple got hard and a baby needs to take more than just the tip of a nip to drink from the breast, so that question about stopping from one of both breasts answered itself.

After stopping to feed from that breast, this entire mastitis issue finally resolved itself. The hardness went down, the liquid stopped flowing, the wound closed. It just took months after the birth for it to be over. I still breastfeed from the other breast as well.

And that was the story on how my tit exploded.

- Paper-plate Anon

--

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

[devildomwriter]

Reacting to Your First Sonogram | Simeon x Reader

You looked around the light blue waiting room. The walls looked freshly painted and inside the small room were three other women, only one with a partner. They were all here for some fertility reason or another. But you were there because you already knew what was going on. You were pregnant and it was Simeon’s.

Everyone knew just by looking at the two of you what was going on and how you felt about it because beside you Simeon sat smiling brightly, squeezing your hand with intertwined fingers. He held the strap of a bag next to him.

He’d packed a bag as if you were there to give birth not to get a sonogram.

He’d already had you evaluated by a few of his celestial friends but he wanted you to be able to experience a more traditional pregnancy, hoping it would help avoid any stress of all the unknown about carrying an angel’s child.

All you knew about half-angel children you’d read in the Bible. The Bible described them as nephilim or giants, they were large, hard to kill, and had such ravenous appetites they’d eat other humans. Supposedly they were also one of the reasons for the flood—to wipe them out.

That hadn’t entirely worked because you were still here despite your angel DNA.

Simeon had found your research on the matter and quickly assured you since your child was allowed to be conceived and carried, that the Bible wasn’t a good reference for what they’d become. What that meant is you truly knew absolutely nothing about angel children.

You knew Simeon wanted things to feel normal, but you worried about what a nurse would say if the sonogram registered the child as being different—as it was.

The door latch clicked and a nurse dressed in teal entered the room and called yours’ and Simeon’s names.

Simeon got to his feet, smiling brightly. He tugged your hand slightly and you stood up slowly—your back was already giving you issues somehow—and followed him as he trailed after the nurse.

The nurse got you situated in the room and stepped out for a few minutes so you could change into the paper gown.

“It’s made of paper?” Simeon asked trying to determine how the paper in his hands was supposed to be a gown.

“Not always, I guess I get paper.”

Simeon continued to eye the gown disapprovingly.

“I know that this sonogram is mildly invasive but I don’t see why you should wear something that exposes you completely.”

You agreed and the nurse came back in when Simeon stepped out to ask for an exception. You were told it wasn’t necessary just easier and decided to forgo the paper outfit.

Simeon blushed as he tucked the paper gown away.

“What’s wrong, Simmy?”

He blushed again at the nickname and awkwardly confessed “I just felt it showed a little too much. I know the kind woman is a professional doctor but she’s only checking your womb, not the rest of your body.”

You laughed as you thought he was acting cutely. You gestured for him to come closer and hugged him tightly as the doctor walked in and introduced herself.

She didn’t question why you didn’t have a gown on and just instructed you to lie back.

Simeon squeezed your hand and sat next to you as the doctor began explaining the process to you and lifted your shirt up to apply the gel.

“How far along?” She asked and Simeon beamed and answered excitedly.

“Almost seven weeks.”

Simeon did his best to appear calm and collected as he always did but you could tell he was doing cartwheels on the inside.

The two of you had been blessed for your union and procreation to be allowed by the celestial realm—thus allowing Simeon to stay an angel—and now you were getting to experience starting a family.

As an angel, Simeon always saw this as unneeded and out of reach as angels didn’t need to procreate and fall in love, but when that fell through thanks to you, he began to dream of a family and it was finally coming true.

The woman smiled and directed your attention to the screen, pointing at a faint flicker.

“That’s the heartbeat,” she announced.

She shifted the transducer to get a better image of it.

You looked at Simeon and saw his eyes watering. He held your hand now with both of his and raised it to his lips to kiss.

The doctor left the room, the picture of the baby frozen on the monitor.

“Our child….” Simeon said in awe. You were so happy to see his excitement, that the picture of the baby wasn’t what you were staring at, it was his angelic grin.

“You know…as an angel I should know better than anyone and yet…I never knew…not until now,” he said slowly, eyes transfixed on the picture of his child, “just how truly precious the miracle of life is…it really is just that…a miracle…isn’t it?” He looked at you and you nodded, smiling.

You still hadn’t a single clue how birthing and raising an angel would go, but you knew you’d be in good hands no matter what. After all, with an angel as both your partner and child’s father, life was heavenly.

[witchhazelevesque]

While I still think that Esperanza would laugh at the thought of dating a guy like Tristan... there are many ways to take a mortal step siblings Leo & Piper au....

so:

Tia Callida??

How would the addition of another seemingly unimportant demigod impact her dynamic with Leo?

She probably would have wormed her way into their new place, being like, 'damn, now I gotta gaslight TWICE as many mortals?'

Depending on where in his career Tristan was at any given point, they could hire actual babysitters and nannies, in which case, Hera would either need to lay the magic trickery on heavier or get a new disguise.

I think Piper says that his King of Sparta role was like his break out hit, even though he had success before that, and she helped him study up on Greek mythos, so she must not have been super young at that point. 

Then again, it'd been long enough that the McLean’s had fallen into a bad cycle of Piper getting into trouble for attention and Tristan not giving it to her and having Jane deal with her, not to mention the whole 'any three questions' thing.

So let's just assume that Tristan was mildly successful from when Piper was relatively young, like 6 or 7.

Anyway, yeah, so like, Piper would have a LOT of complicated feelings about her dad remarrying and having someone else take his time and attention, even though Esperanza would absolutely be loving and supportive to Piper. 

So like, part of her wants to lean into having a maternal figure, but she's GOT a mom, one that she's desperate to know more about, one that her father will never tell her about. And it feels like Tristan is just replacing this mom Piper's been yearning for, and no matter how great and kind this lady may be, she ISN'T Piper's mom. 

And then there's Leo. I don't think they'd get along at first.  Piper likely thinks he's odd and isn't interested in what he likes. At this point though, Leo doesn't go out of his way to be loud and make people laugh or hide his feelings, because he doesn't yet have anything to run or hide from. 

Leo's got a more healthy view of his birth father, because his mother has always told him that they'll meet one day and that he'll understand more when that happens. Leo sees his father less as part of his mother and he's less curious about him than Piper is about her mom. 

Leo would be pretty uninterested in Tristan as a person at first, but he'd be glad that his mom has more help and more time for herself and that she doesn't have to struggle as much. 

While Esperanza wouldn't let Tristan use his fame to get her a job, he DOES know a lot of rich and influential people who know people and basically, he creates opportunities for the right people to see how intelligent and valuable Esperanza is as an engineer, and gives her some breathing room to develop that screw design she was working on and trying to get patented when she died in canon. 

She eventually DOES get her design patented and sets Leo up for the future.

Both parents seem like they'd be generous with each other and their kids, but both have known struggle and idk, it'd probably be something they have to talk about, I'm not sure what outcome it'd be. 

Either way, they of course DO consider their step children as family and WOULD take care of them if something happened to their spouse.

Which leads us to the Gaea of it all. 

So she sets up Esperanza's death because her employee Madea got a premonition while in the Fields of Punishment that Leo was fated to cause Gaea issues. Gaea couldn't outright kill Leo, but she does say that she can make him suffer. 

Piper being in the picture could go a few ways:

Either, Madea also sees that Piper is a threat, which would be interesting since she and Piper have that whole charmspeak/ magic struggle in TLH and in TBM. 

It could be more personal for Madea that way, she might highlight Piper's role over Leo's which, if it's only one parent to die, might make it Tristan.

But considering that in canon Piper still existed at the time that Leo did, and Gaea decided to set him up to suffer and not Piper? But then that might have been because of Hera paying attention to him and training him to be a hero.

But if Hera was still around when Piper came into the picture...

Idk what Hera and Aphrodite's relationship is like. I'd like to believe that it's one of the more positive ones, since love and marriage go together (ideally) and I don't think Aphrodite ever had an affair with Zeus, so there's a point in her favor to Hera. 

It WOULD be something to have the whole lost trio be coached/ favored by Juno/Hera...

If that's the case, then yes, Piper might have been on both Madea and Gaea's radar, in which case, Gaea might have targeted both Tristan and Esperanza.

Which just leads to a whole other mess:

Things could go a lot of different ways depending on whether or not Leo and Piper considered each other siblings, or if they got along or were friends. 

As much as I like the idea of their friendship, I don't think it was really as strong in canon as it's made out to be by readers. Piper has a selfish streak, and I'm not saying that to be hateful. It's an important and interesting element of her character, and it could be really integral in this situation. 

Piper was like, the first person to have positive feelings about Leo's fire and to praise him for it in canon. 

Can you imagine the reverse of that, if Gaea manipulates him into killing both his mother and Piper's father? 

Piper MIGHT hold on to Leo because he's the only family she has left, and she's terrified to be alone. Or she might lash out and hurt him more deeply than he's ever been hurt.

That also depends on whether Hera trained Piper as well, and if Piper was jealous of the preference that the 'babysitter' showed to Leo over her. 

Also, Piper would have become attached to Esperanza eventually, even if she didn't want to admit it. And that, the loss of another mother, of never getting to show her that she did consider her a mom, that she's gone, and Piper made her think that she didn't want her, that she pushed her away and now doesn't get the chance to fix that?

And that, I think, could get Leo to fight back, because he spent the whole time watching Piper outwardly reject his mother, who he loved so much and now Piper wants to act like her death is about Piper's loss?

They could very well implode. 

And they go their separate ways, Piper to whatever guardian her father had appointed for her, and Leo running from that same guardian, because of course their parents wanted them to stay together. 

So Piper's just trying to live her life but she's always haunted by the knowledge that her brother is somewhere out there, alone and probably in danger and she has no idea what happened to him or where he is or if he's thinking about her. 

Oh, and when they meet up again for the Prophecy of Seven bullshit?? Woooooooo!!

Or maybe she runs off too, but in the opposite direction of Leo, and they go through they're own shit, learning and getting stronger and getting knocked down and getting back up again, but always seem to run into each other over and over again, and it's like, 'ugh, you again' but also 'oh thank god you're okay' but also 'get out of my face i never want to see you again' but 'if you touch my sister/ my brother again you'll be on your way to the Underworld WAY early'.

And maybe one of them gets into a scrape they can't get out of and the other HAS to help, they HAVE to, and that leads to some kind of reconciliation even though there are all these bitter feelings of grief and blame and abandonment, but beneath that, they just miss each other, god, they miss each other. 

Or, Piper might not blame Leo, whether because Hera did train her too and she knew about Leo's abilities already and knew that he wouldn't have hurt their parents and saw that Gaea was manipulating him. 

In that case, then, yay, a little runaway team of two. 

Doubtful that Gaea would let the two of them end up anywhere good, even though Tristan would have had better options for a guardian than Esperanza would have with her judgmental family. 

Or maybe they might have ended up someone fine, but they're both traumatized and terrified and grieving and can't trust anyone but themselves and run from any decent situation to make it on their own. 

And you know, maybe they end up in the Labyrinth, or the Lotus Casino, or get found by the Titan army. Maybe they stumble into the Waystation, maybe a random god takes them under wing and guides them along to camp, lots of stuff could happen. 

Because the world is terrible, they would need to develop their abilities much sooner to keep themselves safe.

They've probably killed some people.

 Like, Piper would scream in blind terror at some man following her to leave her alone and he'd walk out into traffic and calmly get hit by a truck, that kind of thing. 

Well, Piper probably kills people, accidentally and then intentionally when needed, but Leo might not be able to bring himself to repeat what he did to their parents. It's okay, though, Piper understands and takes care of that part.  

Oh, and by the time they get to the giant war, they are just so done.

[genericpuff]

Ok so I have a small question about Rekindled. You have Perse and Apollo dating in it. Will you keep Perse being Zeus daughter from the myths? And also will you keep the SA plot line (that Rachel obviously only put in to create drama and didn't ever expect to finish it)? I hope you don't bc that always crept me out bc Apollo basically SAed his half sister. At least in my mind, that's what he did.

So I don't know if you've read Episode 20 yet, but it mildly explains how familial relationships work. Rather than Demeter becoming pregnant by Zeus, Zeus electrocuted one of her specialty flower gardens (the one she uses for creating nymphs so they're already imbued with her powers) and it triggered a chain reaction which resulted in the birth of Persephone within the flower garden. I figured this was a fun way to rewrite how the gods are born (to make them more of ethereal beings who 'create' one another rather than make them actual blood-related beings) and still reference where Persephone came from without it involving outright sex. We'll be getting more into other gods and how they were created as the comic goes on!

As for Apollo, the SA plotline is being removed, it's going to be closer to what the pilot version of LO did (there was no SA in the pilot version, Apollo was really just interested in taking Persephone as his wife.)

[kimyoonmiauthor]

What are you writing? Queer joy and Queer rage in white spaces? And other PoC queer musings.

So basically I'm writing Queer rage for one novel, which covers a wide range of subjects besides queerness, such as most of the LGBTQIA things, and racism, ableism, disablism, etc. And what does it exactly mean to be a feminist while doing those things?

That novel, when I describe it gets zero push back. It's issues everyone knows, though I challenge pretty deep on some of the more messy bits that probably won't make straight people happy. Doing call outs and call ins along the way... but I'm sure white feminists will have deep issues with it or whatever.

The novel I have the most pushback on, so far, is the queer joy one. It's not a white setting, but white queers are upset at me on several ways I do it. I said something on the order of, Nuke the European gender binary in an other world planet and be delighted at making cis people question their gender identity, and the white queers were upset at me and then went onto tone policing.

The thread went to hell, when really, I was writing a culture that's approximately East Asian (I studied vastly well for this)? And the European binary shouldn't figure into it, and people got super upset at the idea I would do this? But it's not as if white straight people haven't nuked the gender binary before.

There's Ursula Le Guin and Neil Gaiman for example.

Iunno, I did the due diligence as a NB PoC, and did look at queer history of East Asian countries and pulled from that, which has more Third gender acceptance across the board, and if you look, it's less sanitized.

Japan constantly, constantly plays with gender in ways that make my NB self fall in love. Even the straight authors play around with X-Gender, etc. Watase Yuu also played with it where a character wanted to become female in one of their lesser known manga. I loved that manga, BTW, because probably before I knew, it covered a lot of the feels I had, and some of the weirdness of gender for me.

Have you read Blue Wars? I mean, Sooo good. And a Cis person wrote it.

Besides that, there is also Go Go Princess. Gender squishy bisexual (at least, if not pan) delight it is. The Beauty Inside (I liked the movie more than the drama, but both are good). And a ton of media where there are gender body swaps. (I love those). And I mildly like the cross dressing ones–though we need more men dressing up as women too in non-threatening ways. (which white people also take umbrage to–cishet people dressing up as the opposite sex, how dare you--it's anti-trans. But it's part of the folktales of the countries I cited.) But I like the magical ones better. And no one flags it and goes, you know what this needs, the pain of trans medical surge– and hormones, because that's trans-ness and you're really disrespecting trans people by not including it. But it isn't... often ironically and to my delight of anti-terfness, it's a challenge about what? Sexism. Ha! We got ya!

And after a while, sometimes I feel like the categorization of Nonbinary itself in this confined white definition feels, iunno, limiting. But I also feel like I'm not allowed to say that out loud or something. I'm betraying my NB status. After all, all of the guides about nonbinary-ness are written for a white straight audience in mind, saying things like NBs will really mind if you talk about their assigned birth sex and it's a betrayal to NB status to talk about their assigned sex. And maybe *psst* write about them having *gasp* sex with body parts and how dare you? Oh, but don't forget the NB PoCs out there. But do default to They, even if the NB community doesn't feel evenly about this... because you see, you really, really need the cis audience out there to know this character is NB. Even if there are people out there that use he/him/his and she/her/hers. Mind the cis audience, folks, you need to be consistent.

And I know I'm not all of NB-dom here, but I don't particularly feel this way. I delighted in Ranma 1/2 before I knew I was NB, though it kinda missed out on that gooey part of NBness for me, where you feel like neither or mixed. But I'm not allowed to do this, even if Ranma 1/2 is a romance of sorts...

I'm more like, whatever I could get tomorrow I'd take it, type. I love, love media that challenges cissexism and cisness. But my opinions aren't reflected in the white writing guides about NBs. You have to be super careful and not laissez faire. How dare you want to write NB romance where you talk about sex changes? Don't you know the dysphoria and how disrespectful it is to talk about NB bodies? duhn duhn duhn, you betrayed all of NBdom by giving fuel to the transphobes by talking about *gasp* their assigned sex. What will the straight people think?

But I don't feel that way. Maybe because the rigidity found inherent in European gender systems isn't in East Asia as much. I mean the super strict to the point that people lose their sense of morality type of gender correction. So I kind of feel like I'm floating in this liminal space of needing to bend to some white ideal of what queerness needs to be while lusting really hard to be given the freedom to express what I want to show it to be because my ideas of gender are "wrong" and "anti-queer" when I am queer and am trying to express my ideas of queerness and joy in being queer but being told my version of queerness isn't white enough, and thus anti-queer?

How does that work exactly?

So in order to reorder the gender system to automatically include NBs, I decided to nuke the entire gender system, which meant I had to also rework the sexual orientation section as well because it depends a lot on cis-ness to work in a European model, and thus kicks out NBs, which NBs then complain about. No one remembers that people felt "betrayed" when Elliot Page came out as Trans? I wanted to rework the system so there wasn't anything like that. I wanted a more inclusive system that celebrated trans-ness, NBness and Queerness without this reshuffling effect. And this also upset people. But I'm telling you with the strength of my degree, sexual orientation hasn't worked the same over time either, and me wanting to basically turn this thing around *in a story* and rework the sexual orientation system along with the gender system also gets people really upset.

Neil Gaiman got it. His angels don't have sex organs, so... how can you call them "gay" or "Bi" when their bodies are effectively androgynous?

But PoC NB questioning the shape of things and wanting to remake a world to accept more NBness by reshaping this, in *fiction* somehow is a threat?

So this is where I am at.

I did a hand wave in my fiction world and allowed characters to do consensual changing of their sex. 'cause East Asian fiction, presently and historically doesn't mind that much (though out of the public eye most of the time of international fans.) But I also didn't want to somehow "erase" the transness with it. I wanted to be honest that even if they change their physical sex, that there is still trans-ness inherent in it. And people don't really want to talk about how sometimes transitioning can change your sexuality and sexual orientation, but I wanted to talk about it in a way that wasn't all doom and gloom and about how horrible and how it betrays this sense of sexual orientation and identity to stay one sexual orientation all your life–because you must, or you betray all of queerdom. (What if the straights find out?) Fuck, do I have to think about straight people when writing queer joy? Apparently queer people want to remind you about the straights.

And then I have effectively the equivalent of bi, pan, omni, poly, lesbians, and gays running around in the world, which I suppose people will label the characters as anyway, even if I recategorized the sexual orientation boxes to neatly fit NBs. I wanted to allow for sexual orientation fluidity as well, which often the labels of bi, etc don't allow. 'cause I'm one of those really liberal queers that like talking about how some people have split attractions to different genders and some people are more attracted to one gender over another, which doesn't mean they hate that gender outright, which then the queer community feels iffy about, but I'm like, bring it on. Let's talk about people who are attracted to all genders who are only attracted to other people who are attracted to all genders. Is it wrong? No. Why should it be? It's not fetishization.

I also nuked a lot of the Victorian idealism over sex because in my research, such prudishness to that degree was a later imposition and I wanted to be sex positive (as an ace too) and also not quite historically accurate. 'cause sex positivity isn't automatically anti-ace or anti-queer, though some writing guides seem to make it out to be. And I didn't want to impose European imperialism on a world that effectively has no white people and has more trade cooperatives than imperialism (because there is a bigger threat usually than that). (No gulf stream... and the planet is warmer too, so no really white people, which people really got upset about. Eat it. You get your all white worlds somehow, with an equator and no Gulf Stream which makes no sense, then I get to have a PoC-dominate world with actual astronomy and geography behind it.)

Still Ace, but recognizing Sex workers as valid people and that regulation is better than none is totally something I do. I write frankly about sex too, 'cause ummm... Aces write about sex. Aceness is limited, conditional or no sexual attraction. And some Aces who are sex repulsed, also love to write smut. So... but I'm also told that's not the correct aceness by people who aren't ace?

Am I not allowed to write romance as an aromantic either? Even if I've actually experienced romance before? 'cause guess what? Aros also have romance too.

And yeah, I wrote some aces and aros in. 'cause I can.

But apparently I'm not doing it right. It's too neat, it's too messy, it's too PoC and not white queer enough. What about those Victorian values of never talking about body parts by their correct name in a fit of sex shaming and secrecy? Why can't I write that?

I didn't know Queer joy could be so, so decisive an issue. How dare you take away my label in a fictional world so you can include NBs in that world?

Wait until they see how I nuked the adoption system using historical cases... Ah, then they'll be really upset.

BTW, I'd 100% be down for a Lesbian or a Gay planet. Or a Pan paradise... (hopefully done better than Orville and Star Trek?)

[slocumjoe]

hey uhhh i went thru ur oc post history and u said gus set himself on fire?? pls context

I love this character because whenever someone asks about him I always have to take a deep breath and get comfortable and suck a breath in through my teeth. I treat him so poorly

More Gus lore, because that specific event is actually tied to the very first event that would fuck him up forever, so I can't really talk about it without going in depth.

This is explaining the core tenent of Augustijn's story, which is guilt and its dangers. Basically, where that constant guilt came from, and how it...turned out for him...

It turns out okay. Just...takes 200+ years, an apocalypse, a divorce, and his son dying! 🥳Yay🥳

Tw; Religious trauma, child abuse, suicide, drug use, cannibalism, mental illnesses, and yet another suicide attempt.

So, some background, Gus's mom, Emma, was a fanatic catholic and generally Bat Shit about religion. As you might imagine, this is the Direct Source of both Gus' questionable worldviews, traumas, and his biological inclination to uuuhhh bad Head Times.

Emma was raised mildly religious, but she...took to it too hard? Her family was not the cause of her obsession, Gus's grandparents and uncles/aunts over there actually cut her off at one point, because she was starting to worry them but reaching out led to her lashing out. So, they just...backed off. Emma herself was a simple, homebody woman, who wanted to be at home raising her kids, and tending her garden. She would have been this way even without the religious thing.

But Emma and her side of the family were prone to addiction, see? And religion became her point of fixation and obsession. This could have still been okay, if not for the church she went into. A catholic church in the Hague that was known by all for being kind of fucking out there, even by other hardcore Catholics. This was one she went into, and even her grandchild 240+ years later would feel the ripple of this decision.

Emma goes into church and gets gnarly ideas about how life works. Its a woman's duty to have kids and raise them, to be good to her husband and her house, to listen and obey her men. Sin is inevitable and everyone does it, only those that admit and accept punishment can get another chance at Paradise. God knows every action you take and he does not care for the context, he only cares about the action. There is no "well, but" under the Lord.

Emma has mental illness, some kind of depression and anxiety, so this Big Brother Watching And Judging fucked her up. Especially since her church, in particular, was physically abusive if you did not confess to anything during confession. They thought if you had nothing to confess, you were lying.

At this point, she's met and engaged to Theodore Reinier, a rich heir to a European manufacturing company. He's pretty, a gentleman, and best of all, rich, so she can have as big and luxurious a garden as she wants. She likes him. She does not love him. She's in her twenties and unmarried with no kids, and her poor family needs to be taken care of. So she marries him. Theodore is smart enough to see this for what it is, and kind enough to allow it. He lets his wife do her own thing and treats her as a friend, rather than a lover. She hates this, she wants to be a wife (she doesnt). She wants kids, he gives her one. Augustijn. This birth goes rough, and she's told no more children.

Theodore makes one rule; August goes to a different church, or he does not go at all. Theo really didn't like Emma's church and he certainly wasn't exposing his kid to that shit.

Emma pretends to agree and takes Gus to That Church. Theo doesn't attend, so he doesn't know this is happening until much later. Gus gets all the same nasty shit Emma does. Theo learns of this when he sees Gus covered in bruises from confession beatings. This puts a huge rift between him and Emma, and he pulls all the strings he can to have her church shut down.

Emma grows to resent and hate Theo and Augustijn for not being the perfect husband and child she deserves as a good, God fearing house wife. Augustijn is left to his nannies, Emma hides away in her private garden, fuming. Theodore tries to bond with his son, but Emma's poisoned that well.

Emma tells Augustijn about demons, to fear them. She specifically tells him about church grims, demons that hunt around churches in the form of a dog to drag sinners to hell. She says this as she's admiring her new obsidian dog statues for her garden.

Eventually, Emma goes yellow wallpaper and loses her mind, and is sent to therapy and put on medications. Augustijn loathes his father for his mother's state. Theodore just wants his friend and son okay. But Emma, as she's out in town, coming back from therapy, she stops at a friend's house while the friend isn't there, and hooks up with the woman's husband. Friend's husband was stern, strict with his wife, God fearing, and generally an obnoxious 50s ideal shithead husband. Everything Emma wanted. This wasn't out of nowhere, it was brewing in the background. She knew both of them from her old church.

Emma goes home, and finally having a reason for the guilt that's always plagued her, elects to acknowledge her sin. She drowns herself in the pond of her garden, stared down by three dark, ruby-eyed dogs, overseeing her passage into the afterlife. Her young son comes into the garden to meet his mother, after she's been gone all day, only to find her in a red pool. He looks up into the eyes of the dogs. He remembers nothing of this incident, blocking it out and having been too young to understand.

Years pass, and Augustijn turns to drugs as well, though his come from the darkest parts of the Hague, rather than a doctor. He turns to sex, to crime, to anything he thinks will either corrupt him so much he doesn't care, or will finally make his guilt feel justified. He wears his mother's cross necklace through it all, and sees her beloved dog with every sin.

Augustijn goes to America for college, to Harvard, studying to become a pastor himself. (This is maybe the most terrifying part of him, the fact that he almost got it). But he doesn't feel satisfied with it, has a moment of clarity and realizes he isn't fit to preach anything. The grim certainly doesn't think so. He instead follows his only friend, Isadora, into the military. The US government allowing their soldiers to do chems means his failed drug tests don't matter.

Augustijn becomes a sniper. He has always hurt people, excelled in it, but taking life frightens him, because he knows he has no right to decide who lives or dies, not like this. But he's in China, and he's told to kill. He does, and he's very good at it. His teammates marvel at just how scrappy and determined he is, like a weed, a mold.

The Biandukou Pass Incident occurs. He eats his entire team, trapped in a Chinese mountain range during a blizzard.

Delirious from almost two months of surviving on nothing but psycho and human flesh, Augustijn is let loose back into Boston, honorably discharged. His lingering hallucinations from his Daytripper addiction, mixed with psycho withdrawal, trauma, guilt, shame, the fear of God—everything culminates. He looks up and sees the figure that has haunted him since that one, awful day; the church grim, staring expectantly.

His mother drowned herself, so he thought it fitting if he set himself ablaze.

[four2andnew]

The Not-Twins

A follow up to my fic, Time.

Harry & Ginny go for a 4th child and get a little surprise.

Read on AO3 or below

Malcolm was approaching his second birthday when Ginny started dropping hints about wanting a fourth child. It started with her response to George and Angelina’s request to mind Freddie for their anniversary - “We’re already outnumbered, what’s one more?” - and continued with an uptick in memories of poor Percy, always the odd one out when the Weasley children would pair off. Harry grinned to himself as he listened to his wife make her case for another baby without asking out right. He wasn’t even sure she was aware she wanted another herself, she wasn’t normally one to dance around an issue. He had learned over the nine or so years of living with her that Ginny needed to talk out her thoughts aloud rather than parse them out quietly in her head like he did.

The thought of another baby didn’t scare him like it did when they were debating on having a second child way back when. Back then they had barely survived being teen parents and he had been approaching his twenty-first birthday - the same age his parents had been when they died, a thought that haunted him all that year - but Ginny had been adamant that if they were going to have more children she didn’t want huge age gaps and Elaine was almost two. So they went for it and Harry hadn’t regretted it a single minute. Elaine and Edmund, then eventually Malcolm, had been the best things to come out of his love for Ginny - physical representations of their love, wonderful and chaotic mixtures of them two, three shining lights growing brighter every day.

So when he found her in their bathroom wrapped in nothing but a towel, finger stroking the glass rim of that month’s vial of contraception potion and a faraway look in her eyes, Harry wrapped his hand over hers and forced the vial down to the counter. Her eyes snapped to his in the mirror, a question unasked lingering in the steam leftover from her shower. He uncurled their fingers from the vial and laced them together, bringing them up his lips to press a soft kiss to her wrist before moving to her exposed shoulder. His eyes found hers in the mirror again, lips still brushing over her freckled skin as he used her own words.

“We’re already outnumbered, what’s one more?”

They both blinked dumbly at the midwitch, lips parted in shock and brains grinding to a halt.

“I’m sorry, did you say babies ? As in, more than one? Two babies ,” Ginny finally asked.

The midwitch had the grace to look only mildly amused rather than laugh out right in their faces as she twirled her wand over Ginny’s abdomen to bring up the grainy image again and pointed to two very distinct peanut shaped blobs.

“Twins do run in your family, yes?”

It’s all they can do to not burst into tears at that comment and Harry could only be grateful that it was them this was happening to and not George.

There wasn’t much to discuss after that and the appointment quickly wrapped up. They already have three children after all, and there weren’t many questions they could think of with their brains stalled as they were. The midwitch left them with a whole slew of prenatal potions and the promise to return next month with some literature on twin births.

Ginny sat mutely on their bed, socked feet swinging as her toes barely skimmed the floor. Harry waved his wand at the hearth in the parlor to lock the floo after the midwitch stepped through and returned to his wife, kneeling on the floor before her and grasping her hands tightly. He looked up at her when she snorted.

“What’s one more?”

Her giggle was contagious and soon they were both bent over, clutching at their stomachs as they laughed out loud. Ginny’s laughter soon turned to tears and Harry swept her up into his arms, laying them both back into the pillows as he curled around her.

“How are we going to tell George, Harry? He’ll hate me.”

“No, Love, he won’t. He’ll understand.”

They managed to keep it a secret until they found out the twins were both girls. Somehow that made it easier for Ginny to share with her family, though the moment was still bittersweet. No one could stop their eyes from sweeping over to George as they told the Weasleys they were expecting not one, but two daughters that summer. The blood had drained from George’s face at the news, but he managed a smile and a hug before spending the rest of the evening in silence.

The twins came early, though the midwitch told them it wasn’t really that early for twins. Ginny started having weak contractions at 36 weeks and managed to rest enough to last four days before her waters broke. Harry had already taken leave from the Auror Office when Ginny first told him she was having contractions, so he didn’t miss the startled wide eyes staring back at him across the dinner table that night.

“Alright there, Gin?”

She shifted then grimaced when a squelching sound echoed in the silence left by his question. Malcolm giggled from his seat beside Ginny, “Mummy wee-weed!”

There was a flurry of activity after that, Harry sent one patronus to the midwitch and one to Arthur, who was coming to collect the children for the night. Ginny flicked her wand at the dishes, sending them to wash themselves, and then at the basket of laundry in the hallway, sending folded clothes rocketing through the air to the appropriate rooms. Harry was trying to herd her to their bedroom, but Ginny was marching through the house, determinedly cleaning everything in sight.

“Ginny, please! The cleaning can wait. You are in labor.”

“I can’t concentrate with this house a mess, Harry!”

“There’s nothing to concentrate on, Gin. Just lay there and push the kids out. It’s easy.”

He knew as soon as the words left his mouth it was the wrong thing to say. He should have known better, he had been through this three times already. Ginny always had one last burst of anxious energy while she was in labor and she spent it all cleaning everything in sight. And his words had just directed all of that energy onto himself. He had never felt as if he deserved Ginny’s barely controlled “Scourgify!” to his mouth as he did in that moment.

And so it was with the lingering aftertaste of soap in his mouth and exhaustion in his bones when he finally laid eyes on his fourth child and second daughter, born 11:53 at night on the 31st of May. The midwitch had barely taken the time to place the tiny girl in his arms before turning back to Ginny to catch their third daughter, born 12:02 in the morning on the 1st of June.

They had been planning on using their grandmothers’ nicknames as middle names for the girls, but when Ginny was told the girls had technically been born in different months, she gleefully renamed them. Harry rolled his eyes as Edith Drella became Edith May and Louisa Mia became Louisa June, but was secretly pleased. He would never admit to Ginny that he thought Drella was an awful name.

The big kids got first dibs on meeting their new siblings, though only Elaine was particularly interested. Edmund, at six years old, was old enough to remember the newborn days from Malcolm and was thoroughly disappointed with having two more sisters. So while he held the girls when the wrinkly little creatures were handed to him, he was happy to hand them back. Malcolm, at two-and-half years, was too young to really understand how much his life was about to be disrupted, but since he worshiped his older brother, he behaved similarly. Elaine was beside herself, however, at finally having sisters. The soon-to-be nine year old was determined to be the favorite sibling and was making her campaign through efforts including picking out frilly outfits and never letting the girls lay alone for more than two minutes.

A parade of Weasleys descended upon the Potter home for the following day, aunts, uncles, and cousins bearing fluffy blankets and ultra-soft lovies for the infants and candies and new toys for the older siblings. Ron had appointed himself gatekeeper of their bedroom door, ushering people in and out so as to keep Ginny and the girls from becoming overwhelmed while Harry managed hosting duties and entertaining the older kids.

George came stomping down the hall into the front parlor where the rest of the family had gathered, his face bright and his smile wide. He marched over to Harry and cuffed the younger man’s shoulder before grabbing him about the face and planting a loud kiss on Harry’s lips.

“You pranked me!” he guffawed. “You said you were having twins!”

Harry, fully bewildered by George’s kiss, blinked rapidly as he processed the words.

“Er, George…we did have twins.”

“Not-Twins. You had Not-Twins. They’re born on different days! Entirely different months! This has been the best prank you’ve pulled off you sly dog!”

Deciding it was better to just agree with him, Harry chuckled nervously and raised his beer, “You caught me.”

The evening continued with much cheer and loud laughter. Harry was exhausted but beyond happy by the time Ron and Hermione finally stepped through the floo and the kids were all bathed and tucked into bed. He wearily made his way down the hall, his feet dragging and his eyes heavy after reading no less than five bedtime stories to Malcolm. He was stopped in his tracks at the door of his bedroom, Ginny’s head bowed gently toward the baby nursing in her arms, her copper hair reflecting the dying light from the fireplace in their room. Harry felt his breath catch at the sight.

Ginny was singing softly to the baby currently nursing, Harry was going to have to work hard to tell the girls apart while they still resembled raisins. Peeking into the occupied cot at the foot of their bed, Harry was pleased to see the tiny babe wide awake and waiting, little lips smacking impatiently for her coming meal. He lifted her and unwrapped her blankets to reveal a purple sleeper, so this was Louisa.

“We’re going to have to color-code their blankets as well, Gin.”

Her soft laughter sounded through the room as Harry moved to the little makeshift changing table they had created atop Ginny’s bureau. Wispy auburn fuzz peaked out from the little bonnet on Louisa as Harry shifted her around the padded mattress. He cradled her and turned back to the bed in time to hear the wet pop of Edith unlatching. Ginny looked up lovingly at him as they traded babies and Harry felt his breath catch for the second time that night.

As he cleaned up Edith, firmly swaddling her in a sunrise orange blanket, he called softly over his shoulder, “Did you perchance hear George’s new term for our girls?”

“The Not-Twins? Yeah, he was absolutely beside himself when I told him. I think he might have pissed himself from laughing so hard. Startled the poor darlings and Ron came barging in to kick him out of the room when he heard them crying.”

Harry smiled at the image of his best mate with his fierce over-protectiveness.

“Bit of an over-reaction, though, isn’t it?” Harry asked as he settled Edith in the cot and crawled up the bed to snuggle in beside his wife.

She hummed non committedly, focused on correcting Louisa’s latch and wincing when the tiny girl’s lips slipped off instead. Harry wrapped his arm around Ginny’s shoulders and cupped his daughter’s head. Ginny leaned into him, both of their eyes drooping with exhaustion as they watched their daughter feed.

“It’s bound to open a few wounds for him. He’s coping as best as he can,” Ginny whispered sleepily, almost too softly for Harry to hear. “He does love them though. You should have seen the way he looked at them before I told him they have different birthdays.”

Harry pressed a kiss to her hair and brushed his thumb over her shoulder. When Louisa dozed off mid-curse, Harry shifted to take the infant from Ginny and repeated his actions with Edith. Once he was settled back into the bed, Ginny wasted no time cuddling into his side, her arm automatically wrapping around his chest and her head burrowing into the hollow created where his arm and shoulder met. He waved his wand at the hearth, dousing the fire completely and plunging the room into total darkness. Just before they drifted off to sleep, a thought popped into his head.

“Do you think George would think we were pitying him if we asked him to be their Godfather?”

“No, Love, he won’t. He’ll understand.”

[equinoxts2]

15 Questions from Mutuals

@withlovefromayre​ tagged me and although I feel awkward singling anyone else out to tag, I’m happy to answer these questions. Ramble incoming!

Are you named after anyone? This is very embarrassing, but in 2014 I changed my name to one of the regions of a world where a then-favourite game site was set. Five years later, when I couldn’t take the high-tension, high-drama events that site did at least twice a year or the way the site’s staff encouraged the greedy, heartless attitude of most of the other community members, I turned my back on the fandom and have regretted picking that particular name ever since. Either way, I just couldn’t live with my birth name any longer - that never felt like me, to put it mildly.

When was the last time you cried? Last week, when I had two major emotional crises in two days. Sometimes I feel so out of place on 21st century Earth that I want to sue the universe for misincarnation or something.

The second time it happened last week, my mum took me for a walk round the park across the street to help me calm down. Nothing could lift me out of the depths of despair though - until we were nearly home and she picked a dandelion and gave it to me to blow the seeds off. Getting to be a kid again for a couple of seconds helped me to smile again, and pulled me back from the brink. I’m going to buy myself a piece of jewellery with a dandelion on it, so I can remember how much it helped me.

Do you have kids? No, I acknowledge that I’m not cut out to be a parent or a partner. I do consider all nine generations of sims I’ve raised so far to be my babies, though.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Sometimes, when I’m with someone I know won’t take it personally, like my mum. If I’m being completely honest, I can dish it out but I can’t take it.

What sports do you play/have you played? Truth be told, I’m a couch potato. Sixteen years of depression can do that to a person, though I am trying to get more active and healthy. However, I was very active as a child and I did once win a skipping rope race at my primary school sports day.

What is the first thing you notice about other people? Whether I feel comfortable around them or not. I’m autistic and I find it difficult meeting new people, but there are some people - including my regular support workers - who I’ve clicked with almost instantly. Others, I just get... spiky vibes or something from them.

Scary movies or happy endings? Definitely happy endings. I love musicals and Disney movies - and whatever I watch, it always helps for me to have a box of tissues handy. 

Any special talents? I’ve been told I’m very insightful. I’m good at language creation, wordplay, worldbuilding and writing, with a particular flair for comic verse. I can also create and edit mods for Sims 2. One day I’d like to publish fantasy novels for children and young adults who might be going through rough times, to offer comfort and escapism and not hit too close to home by setting them in our world.

Where were you born? Whipps Cross Hospital in Walthamstowe, London. Apparently David Beckham was also born there. *shrugs* Whatever.

What are your hobbies? Mostly it’s Sims 2, reading about and creating various fantasy worlds, solo roleplaying, Plants vs. Zombies 2, and my mum and I are currently hyperfixating on another game app, Two Dots, which I discovered by accident. I also love being out in nature and have planted some wildflower seeds around the park near my home.

Do you have any pets? At the time of writing, I have an aquarium with six fish - one male and three female platies, one rummy nose tetra and one silvertip tetra who is easily the boss of the aquarium - and there’s an indeterminate number of amano shrimp in there too. It’s been nearly 18 months since we had to say goodbye to our elderly dog, Charlie, and I still miss him, it doesn’t feel right without a clueless lump of fur around.

How tall are you? 5′4″.

Fave subject in school? School was a living nightmare for me, but I did enjoy writing and art. I used to cry myself to sleep on nights before geography lessons though, because although I love learning about other cultures, I couldn’t bear hearing about wars and natural disasters.

Eye Colour: Dark brown.

[void-botanist]

Okay I wanna ask you Blorbo wrapped questions back lmao. I'm also curious about who you thought was coolest, who you rotated in your head the most and who was most fun to write. But also, did you have anyone that was kinda driving you up a wall but then something clicked and you really figured out how to write them? If not, who's still driving you up a wall?

Kendrick! I think you saw that I got too excited and answered my own questions over here but who has been driving me up a wall is an excellent question, lol. There are a few who aren't actively driving me up a wall (what's up with Aza huh) but the people who I still haven't got a hold on are Declan, Horatio, and Sid.

I'm almost hesitant to say Declan because I don't think I have a hard time writing him but I also feel like I haven't fully keyed into the fact that he's an autism creature of a man (and also making it clear that the way the rest of the crew does things behind his back is not them infantilizing him because of it but more complicated than that. They do think he's fragile but that's because of how he's handled his grief). Also like. He literally trusts his crew with his life. But he is so so bad at talking to them and I haven't totally figured out how that all works out.

Oops this got long so here's a cut

Horatio got a character lift in this version. He's always been a sweetheart but that evolved out of him having A Sense Of Justice while also being generally pathetic and wet and soft. Now he has the Standing family deviousness that goes along with it and I don't know how to write that. Because also he looks completely different to Sid, who knows him very well and who he's open with, than he does to Avis, who hates him somewhat for the circumstances of his birth (she tries not to because it's not his fault) but extremely much for being sun-coded in the "cheerful" and "unavoidable and intense" ways. So like, what is he plotting (especially about getting Sorian and Avis back together) and how is he plotting it and how does this dovetail with the happy-go-lucky florist which is equally as much who he is?

Sid on the other hand is challenging in the sense that writing him feels fine. He's a real everyman if you will. Except I don't get his character and I think that's a major stumbling block for AOM as a whole. Yeah, on some level he has to be the sad traumatized guy but like. How does he handle his parents trying to run his life once he takes a massive step outside of their frame of reference? How does this work with Avis's story? (Can I successfully shove these two stories into one thing that is a whole? They have so many themes in common help) In his earliest iterations he was the devil-may-care I'm-doing-my-best guy who mildly tormented Horatio Sense Of Justice and I guess they've sort of flipped? Except Sid is always the Doing My Best guy.

Also when it comes to Anni and Zel, Anni is so easy to write with all the technical stuff and much more challenging with the romance stuff and I don't want it to be that way aaaaaaa

As for who did click, I think I'm getting there with Patience (even though I haven't worked on TFA in a while), Rodney worked better when I just let him be soft, working out Fay's whole divorce history helped make her easier to write (she's not pretending to be the good suburban mom. she just is sometimes and other times she sucks), the fact that Wylie hates himself cracked his whole character wide open, and lately I've realized that a critical part of post-divorce Sorian is that he's tired. He's tired of Avis needling him, always being there but never being there for him. He's not even sure he deserves for her to be. But he kinda wishes she would just leave and move on so he can too.

[nyxlaufeyson]

The Devil's Apprentice

Main Masterlist

POV: Third

Ship: None, focuses on Original Female Character & The Avengers

Type: Character building??? Idk what to tag this is. Ig fluff?

Wordcount: 1144

TW: None

Synopsis: Matt Murdock has to go out of country for a mission, so he leaves his apprentice with the Avengers.

A/N: So I decided to participate in AU-gust, but no strings attached so I'm only going to do what I feel like doing because I don't want to stress myself out.

This is an idea that floated in for Day 1: "Sightless," and I enjoyed toying around with it a bit. I might do something with this OC in the future, but we'll see. I didn't want to write too much, so here's a shorter version of what was floating around in my mind.

This isn't my best work, but still putting it out here for those who will enjoy it <3

“Is she just going to sit there and stare at us like that?” Tony whispered to Matt, causing the girl on the couch across from them to roll her eyes. 

“Just because I cannot see does not mean I can’t hear, Stark.” She stated, crossing her arms as she continued to ‘stare.’ 

“Serafina, why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself to them.” Matt said with a sigh, setting his stick down beside the couch.

Serafina didn’t change her posture, but she did begin to introduce herself. “I’m Serafina. Yes, I was blind at birth. Yet do not mistake me for weak, as I could easily kick any of your asses.”

Tony scratched his head before turning towards Matt. “And why are you two here again?” Tony asked, flicking his eyes from Matt to Serafina. 

“Serafina has been my apprentice for several years now, and she’s exceeded at training.” Matt said, before pausing for a moment. “I need to go across the world for something, and I cannot take her with me.” 

Steve raises an eyebrow, seeing where the conversation was headed. “So you want her to stay with us?” He asked, and Matt nodded. 

“Why can’t she go with you again?” Tony inquired and Matt hesitated before answering. “Due to the nature of where I’m headed and why I’m going there, I do not feel that she is ready for this sort of mission.” Serafina scoffed at his words, but didn’t say anything.

“Where is it that you are going?” Clint asked, curious as to why he was traveling so far. “I’m afraid I can’t disclose that information right now.” Matt said, and Tony rolled his eyes.

Steve stepped forward in the room towards Matt and his apprentice. “Is she up for missions?” He asked, and Serafina smirked. “I’m always up for a mission, Captain.”

Matt nodded, confirming Steve’s question. “Yes, she should do fine.” He said, before hesitating. “Although, she isn’t too fond of teamwork.” 

“Well, we’re a team, so that might be a bit of a problem.” Tony said, pointing out the obvious. Serafina leaned back into the couch, not making a comment. 

Steve looked between Matt and Serafina. “Do you think you can work with us if need be?” He asked, and Serafina appeared to consider the question. “I suppose I can.” She finally said. 

“Perfect.” Matt said, patting Serafina on the back, making her mildly annoyed. “Then I need to get going.” He said, grabbing his stick and bringing it to his side. Matt turned to Serafina, giving her a small smile. “If you need anything, call Foggy, because you won’t be able to get in touch with me.” 

He began to leave, but then he turned back around. “And, Serafina?” Matt said, prompting her to turn towards him. “Behave.” 

Serafina rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever.” She huffed, turning back to the group of superheroes in front of her. “Could one of you show me to where I’ll be staying?” She asked, and she heard one of them stand up.

Natasha walked towards her, grabbing one of her bags to help carry. “Sure, It’s near my own room.” She said, and Serafina followed her over to the elevator. 

As the elevator began to ascend, Natasha tried to strike up a conversation. “So, you have heightened senses like Matt?” She asked, and Serafina nodded. “Yeah.” She answered, scratching her head. “Matty’s are a bit better than mine, but we’re working on it.”

“So did you train your senses? You mentioned you were blind at birth, so were you already born with these capabilities, or…” Natasha asked, letting her curiosity get the best of her. 

Se rafina tilted her head downwards. “To be honest, I think it’s a bit of both. I definitely already had better senses than most, except for, you know, my sight, but it was definitely something I had to train to get to where I am now.”

Natasha nodded at the explanation, still slightly confused. “Could it be the result of something supernatural?” She asked, and Serafina shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t know, and I don’t really care.”

The elevator made a dinging sound and opened, prompting Natasha to lead Serafina towards her new room. Once Natasha opened the door, she handed Serafina a keycard and set her bag down. “If you need anything, I’m in the room to the left. Also, don’t hesitate to ask JARVIS, the tower’s AI system, for directions or anything else you might need.”

Serafina nodded and thanked Natasha for the help, setting her other things down as she got a feel for the room. She wasn’t ecstatic about her stay at the Avenger’s Tower, but she could only attempt to make the most of it. 

~~~Several months later, because I ain’t writing a whole long ass fic sorry~~~

“Loki, catch!” Serafina yelled, throwing the briefcase towards where she could hear his feet hit the ground as he ran. He grabbed the briefcase as Serafina turned around to attack the people chasing her, now with two free hands. 

She heard Natasha over her earpiece, checking in. “Loki, Sera, how far off are you from the jet?” She inquired, and Loki replied for them. “We ran into some more agents, I’m headed towards you with the package right now while Sera is covering me.” 

“Serafina, do you need help? I can head your way.” Bucky offered, but Serafina declined. “No thanks, Buck, I’ve got this one.” She said, elbowing her last assailant in the forehead.

She made her way to the quinjet, pulling off the black silk from over her eyes before collapsing into the seat. “You good?” Natasha asked, and Serafina just nodded. Loki grabbed two water bottles, passing one to her as she muttered a ‘thanks.’

It had been several months since Matt had left her with the Avengers, and Serafina had only gotten one phone call from him saying he was alright, and just to put up with the team for a bit longer. She kept contact with Foggy, but he didn’t tell her much other than the fact that Matt was okay. 

Serafina didn’t mind her stay as much as she imagined she would have, and actually began to bond with some of the team members. She even began to dread the thought of leaving them. 

She was unsure what she would do in the event that Matt came back and offered to continue training with her, but she knew that he would support her if she were to stay at the tower. That was, if the team was okay with it. 

She was fairly sure they wouldn’t mind, though, because most of the team had grown to like Serafina. 

“I’d say that was some pretty kickass teamwork, team.” Tony said, and Steve sighed. “Language.” He muttered, but gave the team a smile. “But yeah, great work team.”