#The other 20% of the time they will tell you something that isn't actually what it's about

[inkskinned]

i think probably magic is real.

the thing is that i was a teacher for a long time and sometimes i come back to this moment in the classroom where a 7 year old asked me are mermaids real? and i stared at her and had no idea how to answer.

for a really long time i just assumed that glow-in-the-dark paint/etc was a result of something made in a lab. i just recently found out that a specific mine in new jersey that just has rocks that do that naturally and it sent me for a loop about stuff.

because first of all - let's be honest, all of us: if there was going to be a naturally-occurring location for uv-activated glow-in-the-dark rocks? it would have to be in New Jersey. that's just the place that makes the most sense for that to happen. probably 10 thousand years ago cavemen were like. "oh this place is gonna be new jersey one day. this has new jersey energy."

the rocks only glow in the presence of uv light and are otherwise just normal rocks. in lord of the rings, there's a special sword that glows in the presence of orcs. it is magic, except that's a real thing that exists (and exists, as we have discussed, in new jersey, of all places). i guess maybe this implies orcs give off uv light.

yeah, okay. magic is just science. i know all the stuff about how ghosts are probably just caused by vibrating pipes. i knew about how there's a reason-for-all-of-this. but what do you mean that there's rocks that give you poison damage if you touch them. what do you mean that we live on the same planet as electric eels. what do you mean that a battery just, like - stores power?

and i don't know. in 20 years maybe they will find a mermaid but they will say something like well she's technically not a mermaid she's this other species, she has whiskers and not hair. and i will have to travel back in time and tell a 7 year old not technically, but there's something that is like a mermaid.

and she will look at me and think that what i am saying is science means magic isn't real and what i am actually saying is science is our word for why magic works. and then i will teach her about uv rocks, and new jersey. i will tell her to be a scientist, which is the same thing as being a wizard. there is probably a reason why sci-fi and fantasy are often grouped together. it is very lucky to be here, i think. if you squint, the improbability of it all - it does kind of feel like spellwork.

[katakaluptastrophy]

I think what's so interesting about Gideon as a narrator at the anniversary dinner is the fact that there's clearly tensions that she's just not picking up on because she's only there to eat a dessert.

But these people are all the immensely powerful leaders of the Houses and consider themselves to be in competition for literal godlike powers and the favour of the emperor.

There's so many little snippets that are potentially intriguing: why is Teacher trying to prime the Ninth to consider the Fifth a threat? Why are the Third and the Sixth "sizing each other up like prizefighters"? The Fifth absolutely knew what they were doing when they sat the teen heads of the opposing cults near each other.

Through Gideon's lens, Magnus' speech is a little awkward jokey thing. But...the seneschal of the House that is known to be actively trying to absorb another House is saying it's such a shame they're all so remote from each other and what do they all have in common (and it's so quiet you "could have heard a hair flutter to the floor") - that had to feel a bit different to people who aren't Gideon.

Palamedes' is dissecting the meaning of "Master Warden" and at one point compares it to a prison warden. 'Dulcinea' asking about whether Magnus and Abigail have children is perhaps less small talk and rather more pointedly political. Harrow's apparently stilted conversation with Protesilaus is clearly her actually probing his limitations like he's a bad Chat GPT-run chatbot.

And then 'Dulcinea' tells Gideon she liked the dinner because it was "useful". In her typical "I never lied to you" way, Cyth wasn't lying when she said Abigail had to die because of her hobby - Abigail Pent let loose on the Facility would have risked blowing Cyth's cover sky high. But what does a Canaan House look like where after the dinner party, the Fifth go down to the facility, get a key, and survive to continue their 'the Houses are going to get along or else' agenda? We've seen Fifth House soft power on a smaller scale in HTN: and it looks like inviting a teenager round for coffee, lulling her into a false sense of security with small talk, and then physically preventing her from leaving the room until she does what you want, while smiling the entire time. A series of little coffee chats could probably have led to a lot of cooperation in Canaan House, one way or another.

Gideon jokes about Silas marrying Ianthe because of their similar colour pallete, but it does raise the fact that there seems to be some tension around the Third, its succession, and the *point* of Ianthe. Why is Silas openly saying Ianthe should have died at birth? Combined with Judith's comments in the Cohort Intelligence Files about succession on the Third, it feels like there's something else being said here that Gideon isn't picking up on.

And of course, Harrow wasn't the only one desperate to become a Lyctor because her con was unsustainable. Presumably at some point Corona and Ianthe would be expected to marry, or at least take on more separate roles as Corona prepared to take over the throne and Ianthe was funneled off elsewhere. At some point, their package deal would have become unsustainable and Corona's cover would have been blown. But much as Harrow wants to become a Lyctor so she can reveal the state of the Ninth without repercussions, Ianthe is probably in part motivated to become a Lyctor for the same reason. Because otherwise, what would Ianthe's expected role have been? Amidst the suggestion of anxiety about the Idan succession, the dinner party also presents the fact that the reason Abigail and Magnus' infertility isn't a succession crisis for the ruling family of the Fifth is that Abigail's younger brother dutifully married in his early 20s and had kids. We know there are branch families in Ida - Babs is from one. He may be a prince, but he's not treated well, and you do get the sense that the stakes to stay in power in Ida are high.

We don't learn anything about the political situation in the Houses themselves during HTN or NTN, but in the wake of Canaan House, you have to suspect there are a number of tensions and concerns.

[pygmi-cygni]

writing tip - research

research is one of the pillars of writing. a poorly researched fic, essay, short story, novel, etc is immediately apparent because of several things:

lack of depth

stagnant plot or development

confusing or inconsistent setting

it doesn't matter what genre you write, if it's original or fiction, whatever. you need to research. depending on the relevance of your writing, the depth of research may vary, but it needs to happen. you do not know everything.

Fantasy

I see a lot of writers and authors use fantasy as an excuse to avoid research. Shut the fuck up. Every good fantasy is based on a real ocurrence or social dilemma. That's why we like it so much.

'but pygmi, fantasy is made up! it isn't real!'

SHUT UP. Even if you don't realize it, your story will have elements that readers are intimately familiar with. If you flub something, it will be noticed.

Besides, just because you make stuff up doesn't mean you can be inconsistent. You'll just have to fill in the cracks with made up stuff, which will even out to being about the same amount of effort. Pick your poison, either way you're gonna feel it.

Research is not everybody's favorite. I like it, personally, I think it's like going on little side quests for knowledge. But I understand if you wanna skip all the business and get to writing your baby. No shame.

Let me give you some pointers to make sure the time you spend researching is relevant and well spend.

Lists! God I love lists. after you have outlined your story and your characters and everything, make a list of all the things you need to have a deeper understanding of. This means determining priorities. - How important is The Thing? Will it majorly affect plot or character development? Is it a focal point of the setting? If the answer is yes to any of those questions, it's important. research.

Big picture, little picture. How important is The Thing (again)?. How much detail do you need to know? Especially when it comes to royalty or a hierarchal system, I see research being misguided. There are so many nuances to royal interactions that I could give a rat's ass. Big picture, general outline. I don't need to know everything, just basic courtesy, terms of address, appropriate convo. done. but if your MC is a coroner? might wanna put more detail into that; you'll be talking about the job a lot. determine how much the element will affect your story and go from there.

Don't fudge it for the plot. You'll have a preconceived notion of a certain job description, and then research it and think 'oh that's actually boring.' Don't muddle up the rules just to fit the aesthetic. It's sloppy, and your readers will notice.

To practice researching, pick your topic and after learning a bit about it, try teaching a powerpoint to your parents or friends. if you feel comfortable enough with that knowledge to do it successfully, I'd say you have a good enough understanding.

Setting

researching location is a big one that often gets overlooked. You don't always need to memorize maps, but get a general idea of the city/country layout so when you say "they drove 20 minutes from A to B" it makes sense, rather than having a reader think "Uh, A to B is closer to four hours, wtf?"

if you are making up your city, make a list of important streets and locations in relation to each other. This will help you keep it straight and organized in your head.

Get a feel for flora and fauna. Palm trees don't grow in Alaska. Don't write an Alaskan city with palm trees.

Weather? what's it like? Let me tell you, Portland doesn't get higher than 102F. rainy, cloudy, all that stuff.

Atmospheric details really add a lot, especially if your audience is from that location. It adds another layer of relatability. Also, use weather/plants/animals to your advantage! symbolism, possible curse, all that stuff.

Eras

Oh my god stop fucking this up. Baroque, Elizabethan, Edwardian, Middle Ages ARE DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER. STOP SLAPPING FANCY CLOTHES ON PEOPLE AND CALLING IT THE OLDEN DAYS.

get an idea of when electricity was widespread in homes. when was the refrigerator invented? did they use the word 'hella' in 1950? this kinda stuff is important for not breaking the illusion of a time difference. If you are writing a period piece and someone is chatting with a neighbor like it's 2015, we'll have some questions.

Unless it's doctor who. you guys can do literally whatever.

Plot and Character Development

If plot and characters are poorly researched, you are limiting the opportunities for growth. In researching your MC's occupation, you may discover a cool side effect that connects to a plot device. Stagnant, stale characters can be spruced up with a more developed backstory.

All in all, research is really important for your story. regardless of how professional it is, tumblr or the new york times. Do your research. As a writer, you are representing the community in your own way. Do us proud.

xox love you

[crookedteethed]

HOW i slept with your father | r.c.

Pairing: (older)Bestfriend's Dad Rafe! x Fem!reader

Summary: In which you tell your best friend how you accidentally slept with her father...oops.

Warnings: 18+ Semi-smut (protected p in v) (smut showed through flashback), age gap (reader is in her early 20s, Rafe is in his early forties), cursing, ocs, unrealistic reactions?, hints at Rafe being a fuckboy, I also can't tell if Rafe preyed on reader (you decide for yourself)

A/N: This story is really just reader telling her best friend about her night with Rafe, lmk if you want an actual smutty fic with bestfriend dad Rafe (heart emoticon)

Word count: 1.6k

Part Two

"Maribella, I had sex with your Father."

There, you said it. Your guilty conscience has been cleared. Your mind has been restored, and you can stop thinking about how much of a terrible friend you are because you're really not. You told the truth.

It's like that old stupid proverb, something about the truth setting you free or you setting the truth free, something like that.

There had been a moment of silence. A moment in which Maribella had slowly turned around from her lowboy vanity, half of her face the color of rose red from the blush powder she'd been frantically beating on her cheeks--you two were going out tonight. 

In that moment of silence, you glanced at the ticking clock up on Maribella's wall. It was 8:50 pm, and the boys-- the ones you and Maribella met on the beach that evening, were supposed to pick you both up in thirty minutes. 

"Gross." Maribella mumbles, returning to her vanity mirror and continuing to powder her cheeks. "You aren't going to be my new stepmother now, are you?" She says. 

You looked at the framed photo on Marbella's vanity--the photo of a smallish Maribella with chubby cheeks and missing baby teeth sandwiched between a very young Mr. Cameron and Maribella's Late mother (She wasn't dead, just not in Maribella's life after the divorce). 

You think to yourself how much of a resemblance your friend shares with her father--the same cerulean-colored eyes and dusky blond hair--you remember thinking this that night in which you fucked Mr. Cameron. 

You remember having to close your eyes shut while his girthy length pile drove into you during missionary, but Rafe had insisted on keeping your eyes open, or he wouldn't have let you cum that time. "Eyes on me, baby." he said, lightly tapping your cheek.

"No, not if you don't want me to." you said.

Maribella hums.

"To make it even, you can sleep with my father." you suggested, which cause Maribella to scrunch up her face in her backwards reflection.

"Your father's gross and old." She says. "and besides, isn't he still with that women?"

"My mother? Yes."

You watch from your spot on Maribella's bed as she gets up from her vanity and enters her walk-in closet.

"At least I get the appeal with my father." She shouts from the other room.

Minutes later, Maribella emerges from her closet, no longer in her silk bathrobe but in a simple white slip dress. 

"How do I look?" she asks you.

"Cute." you tell her.

She hums again, being satisfied with your response. Then, Maribella goes back to her vanity to continue doing her makeup.

"So, tell me." She says. "Tell me how'd you fucked my dad."

You shrug. "It just happened one time." and many other times afterward.

"Y'know." Maribella turns around excitedly. "Out of all the women my dad has slept with, you're the first one I ever gotten to talk to about it, so what was he like?"

Now it was your turn to scrunch up your face in disgust. "Maribella, this is gross. I'm not going to tell you how your dad fucks in bed."

"No fair." she whines. "I tell you about all the guys I've slept with."

You raise your eyebrow, to be fair she had a point.

"Let's just pretend my dad isn't my dad or Mr. Cameron; he's just Rafe, some stupid boy you fucked; now tell me everything."

Rafe was just some stupid guy you had fucked, but he wasn't a boy; he was all man--which is what had you enamored by him--it was either that or he was the first guy actually to tend to the needs of being wanted that had you so enamored by him.

 Unlike other guys you had been with, Rafe was attentive and considerate, making sure to meet your needs and desires. That's what made him stand out and had you so enamored.

This is why you kept coming back.

It was the night of Maribella's 21st birthday party. In your retellings of the story, you failed to mention how Rafe had kept staring at you that night. Every time you encountered each other, his eyes would first wander to your lips and then linger on your breast--which was practically spilling out the top of your corset. And each time you labeled him "Mr. Cameron," he would insist on you calling him "Rafe" because you were no longer a child. 

And it was liberating that Rafe did not see you as a child anymore, now seeing you for who you are: an adult woman. 

You also failed to mention when you spotted Rafe and his then-date, some black-haired women equally his age, arguing on the upstairs deck of Tanny Hill.

You didn't tell Maribella that you overheard Rafe's date yell at him: "Don't call me the next time you're horny, call Mrs. Young Pussy instead." Before storming out.

You kept in how Rafe had called you Beautiful that night, you didn't keep in how much that made you blush, after Maribella had said "Gross."

You exaggerated how much you had drunk that night to make it seem like a blackout drunk story—was it 10 shots? 20? You've forgotten, you told Maribella.

You told Maribella how after you and Rafe carried a shit-fazed Maribella to her bedroom, Rafe told her you didn't have to go home as the rest of the guests did; you could stay.

"You're always welcomed to stay" His exact words.  

You also left out that moment in which you and Rafe shared in the kitchen sharing a bottle of wine, in which you confronted him about his date leaving mad, and in his exact words:

"Women my age are just so uptight."

And though you hadn't quite understood what he meant, you nodded anyway.

He then says: "I'm sure you can understand that, but in reverse, with men your age."

"Men my age are stupid and don't know what they want." you responded.

"That's a shame." Rafe had told you. "Because I know what I want."

And you knew it wasn't the weed you smoked earlier or the few sips of red wine you were having that altered your perception to make you think Rafe was getting closer to you; Rafe was getting closer to you. 

By the end of the conversation, Rafe was no longer on the opposite side of the kitchen island; he was now standing beside you, the skin of his elbow touching yours. 

Your breathing had become uneven as Rafe's gaze remained steadfastly locked with yours, but you deliberately avoided meeting his eyes, for this was your best friend's father.

You felt your heart pounding in your chest as you tried to think of a way to break the silence. You took a deep breath and forced yourself to look into the intense blue of Rafe's eyes.

You didn't tell Maribella when you told Rafe that you weren't uptight, which was a quip to his response about knowing what he wants. And then he kissed you.     

The kiss took both of you by surprise, but it was undeniable that there was a spark between you. As your lips met, time seemed to stand still, and in that moment, you knew that this was the beginning of something extraordinary.

"And then we had sex." you concluded to Maribella.

Sex would be an understatement, you fucked.

Rafe had placed pecks on every inch of your body as he carried you into his bedroom, a room that was always off-limits when you and Maribella used to play with each other growing up. 

You were too enamored by Rafe's bergamot scent and how he kept calling you beautiful with each peck to your flesh to examine his room and hypothesize why this room of all rooms was once off limits. 

You were too overwhelmed when you felt his large muscular hands tear your clothes off your body to notice the picture of Maribella sitting on Rafe's bed side table.

You were too overcome with lust and craving when Rafe requested that you retrieve a condom from his nightstand, where you intentionally dislodged the photograph of Maribella.

Out of sight out of mine.

As Rafe carefully rolled the condom down his reddening shaft, you feigned an air of eager anticipation, so much so that you almost missed when Rafe remarked:

"You have no idea how long I've been longing for this moment."

Right then, without a warning, Rafe plunged himself deep inside of you like no man has ever done before. 

Your eyes widened, and your mouth formed the shape of an 'o' as you felt his thick cock split your cunt open, kiss your cervix, and sheath deep inside your belly. 

You counted the number of times Rafe said your pussy was tight; it was a number of 10.

At this point, Maribella no longer sat at her vanity and was now sitting beside you on her bed. 

"Oh, lame." She says. "So it was just a drunken mistake, a one-night stand kind of thing?"

You hummed. This reminds you that you should cut things off with Rafe since Maribella knows now. 

Right then in the moment Maribella's phone dings.

"The boys are here." She says. "You ready?"

And as you and Maribella walked down the spiral staircase of Tanny Hill, your friend told you:

"Now that I think of it, I'm not that pissed that you slept with my dad; as I said, I get it: he's rich, and he's good-looking for his age; what other qualities do you need in a man?"

In which you hummed again.

"Now if this was a recurring thing, that's a whole other story--Oh! hi Daddy."

As you and Maribelle descended to the base of the stairs, you were greeted by Rafe.

Rafe looked at you first before greeting his daughter.

You made an effort to maintain eye contact with him, despite his patronizing gaze, resisting the temptation to steal glances at him in his form-fitting shirt that accentuated his muscular physique.

You focused on maintaining a calm and composed demeanor, refusing to let his condescension affect you. Instead, you redirected your attention to the conversation at hand.

"Where are you girls headed?" He asks, addressing no one in particular.

"We're going out," Maribella says, sensing the tension and tugging your wrist towards the door.

"Don't wait up for me; we'll be out all night," Maribella said, Rafe's eyes never leaving yours as you and Maribella exited the door.

The boys you'd met earlier—Steven and Conrad, you think their names were—were parked outside Tanny Hill, blasting some obnoxious music from their car speakers.

"Oh wait, I think I forgot something," you tell Maribella as you approach the car. 

You don't wait for Maribella's approval before jogging back inside her house, where her father awaited you behind the front door with a sly smirk on his lips.

"I knew you couldn't resist telling me a goodbye," he remarked, just as the two of you leaned in for a messy, passionate kiss.

Knowing you were pressed for time, you were the one to break the kiss. 

'Same time again tomorrow night?' he asks, his voice filled with a mix of hope and desire as he wipes away the remnants of your shared moment. 

"Same time." you reassured.

[shizucheese]

Hey guys, we need to talk. Because a certain little something in TMAGP 8 is causing what is genuinely the most toxic part of the Magpod fandom at large to once again rear its ugly head. So let's talk about podcast character appearance head canons, shall we?

I'm tagging this with the Magnus Archives, TMA and Magpod tags because I am absolutely calling all of you out, but if you don't want spoilers for The Magnus Protocol episode 8 then stop reading right now.

.

.

. Okay, so, Gerry exists in the TMAGP universe. He's happy (or at least acts cheerful). And some people have headcanoned this to mean that he is no longer goth, or at the very least isn't dying his hair black with bad box color. And other people have decided to get seriously agro over this. I have literally seen with my very own eyeballs someone call "un-gothing" Gerry a "hate crime" and calling the person they were talking to "gothphobic."

Let me make this absolutely clear for all of you: podcasts are a purely audio medium and unless a physical trait of theirs is explicitely stated, everyone's headcanon for how a character appears is valid. Goth TMAGP Gerry is valid. But also

Rainbow Goth TMAGP Gerry is valid. Pastel Goth TMAGP Gerry is valid.

Not Goth At All TMAGP Gerry is valid.

Bald Gerry who has actually gotten his brain cancer diagnosed in time and is getting treated for it is valid. Somebody's headcanon of a character that has no canonical description to them, or whose headcanon matches the few crumbs of canonical description we have but otherwise doesn't look the way you imagine them to, is not going to take away from your own headcanon of what a character looks like. If someone imagining or drawing a character looking a different way from how you imagine them looking somehow takes away from your enjoyment of the fandom or otherwise makes you feel like you need to barge in and tell them that they're Wrong and need to conform to your headcanon or else, that is a reflection on you, not them.

And this problem way predates TMAGP, let alone TMAGP 8. The only description we have of John is that he is in his early 30's and has prematurely greying hair.

If someone thinks he looks like the pastiest motherfucker to ever dwell in a basement, an extra-in-the-Adam's Family or Tim Burtan protagonist of a man, let them.

What's that? You want to tell them that John is BROWN and if they don't headcanon him looking that way they're WRONG and RACIST? Back away from the keyboard and go outside.

(Ironically, as someone who started getting grey hairs in my hair in my 20's myself, I'm pretty sure everyone's headcanon of John, with tiny little whisps of grey in his hair, is wrong, because if he was so grey that people were surprised to learn he was "a child of the 90's," he was probably full on salt-and-pepper when he was in his 20's.)

The only description we have for Martin is that he (man who canonically has the self esteem of a used doormat) describes himself as "not the smallest guy", Not-Sasha called him "roomy", Melanie is skinner than him, and Jonny said he imagined him as a "bigger guy" who would beat Alex in a physical fight. If someone decides to take this information and conclude that it means he's tall, broad and has muscle, rather than that he's overweight, fucking let them. If your first instinct to this is to run to your keyboard and call them "fatphobic" or otherwise bash them for it, I once again urge you to back away from your keyboard and go outside.

Someone headcanons Basira not wearing a headscarf? We have exactly 0 canonical physical description of her and the people who headcanon her as having one are basing that purely off of her name alone. Fucking let them. Someone headcanons Melanie and/ or Georgie as a skin color you don't agree with or a hairstyle you don't like? Fucking let them. As long as someone's headcanon of a character's description doesn't contradict the few canonical descriptions we have of a character, why do you care? Them having a different headcanon from you doesn't take away your right to imagine the characters looking however you like, anymore than it should take away their right to do the same. Someone headcanoning John as white (or Black, or Asian, or Mixed, or whatever) isn't going to make all of the fanart of John as brown with long hair suddenly disappear, nor the fanfiction describing him as such (although I do often wonder if the opposite is not true; is the fact that John looks the same in so much of the fanart I see on here really because of fandom "consensus", or is it because people are absolutely awful to anyone who draws him Different?). Someone headcanoning Martin as not fat isn't going to make the mountains of fanart of him as a fluffy little marshmallow vanish into the void (although I do remember hearing about someone getting bullied off the internet for daring to draw Martin as not fat). And someone headcanoning Gerry in TMAGP as not being goth isn't going to take away your preciouse goth TMAGP Gerry headcanon. That should be part of the fun of it, shouldn't it? Seeing what different images people have conjured in their heads of these characters we only get to experience with our ears, and celebrating the differences as well as the similarities? Why are we bullying people into conforming to one appearance of a character when no actual canonical appearance of them exists?

[homunculus-argument]

I know it would probably be a logistical nightmare to also make this accessible to the actual people represented, but I think it would be cool to have a game where the whole point is that every character has different limitations, that make it impossible or at least incredibly difficult to get past the whole game without switching them every once in a while, and the way you switch is by going to another character and asking their help with something.

Like you start out the game with one character and go "oh huh, the colour sceme of this game is really cool, really interesting use of such a limited palette", play through the puzzles for a while, and then encounter something where you're supposed to arrange some slightly differently coloured puzzle pieces to the right order by shade or something, and it's goddamn impossible. No matter how many methods you try, it's just not clicking, no matter how logical your solutions seem, no matter how clearly they can't be arranged in any other way that'd make more sense.

And maybe you go online to ask people "hey I'm stuck in the colour puzzle, what the hell am I supposed to do to get past this?" and someone tells you to go find one of the other playable characters and ask for their help. Which sounds patronising and stupid but you're stuck so you might as well give it a try. You go to one of the other characters, choosing the dialogue option to go "hey I need a hand with something, I can't do this on my own", and when they go "sure, let's go", your controls now switch to the other character.

And the colour scheme switches immediately. The aesthetic limited palette has changed to a far wider range, there's details in the environment that you hadn't noticed, like the muted faint flowers on the ground are actually bright red, the greyish shirt that your first character was wearing is actually striped with orange and green. The first POV character is colourblind, this whole time you haven't been able to perceive the difference between green and red. Solving the colour arranging puzzle with the other character is a breeze.

And this is the repeating theme of the game - every character has their own limitations, and while none of the puzzles are easy, you learn to think "maybe I should ask someone to help me with this" whenever you've been stuck for an unreasonable amount of time. You need to grab a buddy along for the quests, or you'll need to go back to get one eventually, and the way the game is structured somehow ensures that you can't just tactically dodge the limitation puzzles beforehand. Deaf character's POV doesn't have the audio clues that different pieces of the same puzzle make a different clicking sound, the puzzle with garbled numbers on it stops being garbled when you're not playing the character with dyscalculia.

You slowly get to know the whole cast, and occasionally help them out with things, too. You know which character could probably help with something you're stuck with, but while they'd be glad to come help, they're unfortunately stuck doing some task that could take you 20 minutes but is going to take them all afternoon, and you can offer help. Sometimes the helping-a-buddy-out minigames don't come with any direct transactional reward, you can just help a friend with something just because you can.

And the game's whole goal isn't to just illustrate how different people have different strengths, and sometimes things that are easy for you are hard for someone else, and vice versa, but to condition the player to think "maybe I should just ask someone to help, instead of wasting time struggling on my own."

[lilghostiequinni]

Your Married?

Main Masterlist Lando Masterlist

Pairing: wife!female oc (Izara) x Lando Norris

Warnings: Fluffy, Established relationship, Pregnancy talk

Summary: Lando is one to have everything in the open, but that isn't the case when it comes to his wife, but he also isn't hiding that he's married, but the almost 8 years of marriage and the three, now five, kids, no one knew about.

Requested: NO / yes

Lando wears jewelry outside of driving, but it isn't often that he wears his ring on his finger, mainly because it's just easier to wear it on a chain to not lose it when he inevitably has to take it off to drive.

But over the breaks, he wears it all the time.

So when he comes back from summer break, he hasn't quite moved it to the chain he always wears outside of the car, and a few fans see it.

But what really gets Lando shocked about people not knowing about his family is the number of drivers that actually brought this "rumor" to his attention.

So, for the next race, he walks in on Facetime with his wife.

Carlos is the first to Lando.

"You never answered after I told you about the rumor," Carlos told him, not seeing the phone in his hand.

"Because it's not a rumor. Baby, meet Carlos, Carlos, my wife, Izara," Lando shows Carlos the phone as he says the name of his wife.

From the screen, Carlos can see a woman waving at him from a hospital bed.

"What happened?" Carlos said as he waved back.

"She just gave birth to our fourth and fifth kids," Lando says it so calmly that Carlos almost thinks he's pranking him.

"Oh, Baby, I got to go. The nurse just came in. I'll Facetime you when we're done over here," Izara says as she blows a kiss to Lando, who does the same.

"Make sure our boys are there, please, I want to talk to them." Izara nods at Lando as they both hang up.

Carlos looks at Lando like he's grown seven more heads and is 20 feet tall.

"Why didn't I know about this?" Carlos questions as both start to walk toward the garages.

"I don't know, I've only talked about Izara like she hung the sun for years. Not my words about the sun thing," Lando told him, looking at Carlos.

"I know you've talked about her, but you never said you were dating, let alone married with kids."

They got to McLaren, and Carlos went to say something as Oscar passed to go in but was stopped by the older driver.

"Did you know Lando was married?" Carlos questioned him.

"No, I know he's with Izara," Oscar says, answering the question.

"Did you know he had kids?" Carlos asked.

"He has kids?" Oscar questioned.

"Yes, I have kids, five of them," Lando says to his teammate, looking up from his phone, which he was texting his wife.

"What?" Max questions as he passes to get to Red Bull.

"Yes, I'm married and have been for almost 8 years. Yes, I have kids, five of them. Two of them were born two days ago, so I would much rather be there than here. Anything else?"

Charles had joined as Lando started, and he was just as confused as the others.

George and Lewis came over when they seen the group, just standing around Lando.

Alex follows behind with Logan.

"You have babies? Newborn babies?" Charles questions after a moment of silence.

Lando just nods at his question.

"Yes, I want to get this race over to go them," Lando says.

"What?" George and Alex say at the same time.

"Alex, you knew about my wife and the twins." The other drivers turn to Alex, who smiles a bit nervously.

"Well, I did, but you didn't tell me, I found out through Lily. You know, your wife's best friend, my girlfriend."

"You still knew," George says.

"What do you mean? Carmen knows her, and Oscar's Lily and Alexandra know her. I think Kelly and Rebecca, too." Alex tells the group.

Lewis looks to all of them, then to Lando, "Congrats, man."

Lando nods at the older man in thanks before Lewis leaves, and Lando also leaves when he realizes all the other drivers are looking to Alex for answers about the bomb he dropped about their girlfriends, so he makes an escape to McLaren.

A/N: This one is getting a Part 2, no matter what anyone says.

Tags: @poppyflower-22 @samantha-chicago @barcelonaloverf1life @tallrock35 @ellen3101 @llando4norris @mcmuppet @issi-loves-dannyric @1800-love-me @barcelonaloverf1life @hellothere9597

If you want to be removed from a tag list, let me know so I don't keep tagging you. If you are striked through, I don't know if you want to be tagged, but just let me know if you want me to continue or stop

[mayiluv]

Jealousy meter☆(Hashiras ft. Kamaboko squad)

Masterlist

Kyojuro Rengoku

█░░░░░░░░░ 10%

He isn't jealous at all ! He trust you! But he doesn't trust others just as much.

He often worries whenever he sees someone making you uncomfortable. If the person make it obvious that they are hitting on you, he won't hesitate to hold your hand and get in front of the person to proudly claim you (and to make you feel better).

"Sorry but they're taken!"

Agatsuma Zenitsu

█████░░░░░50%

He is possessive from time to time.

Like he do trusts Tanjiro and most hashiras (surprisingly) but he tends to get pretty jealous at strangers. Whenever he sees you talking to one with a little too much closeness, he run to get next to you and to kiss you. It's like you two are fighting now.

"Sorry [Name] I just wanted to make sure that they got the hint."

"Zenitsu that's my cousin-"

"THEY ARE ?!"

Sanemi Shinazugawa

████████░░ 80%

Man he's jealous...

He would clearly tell anyone that he judges too close to you to fuck off. He doesn't wants to share you. Even if you tell him there is nothing to worry about. He accept when it's the hashiras except Giyuu. I guess he got something against him.

"Get lost, she's already mine fuckface."

Genya Shinazugawa

█████░░░░░ 50%

That's a 50/50. It actually depends.

He's actually more insecure about himself and that's what makes him doubt your love for him. When he sees you with someone else he usually goes full on koala mode and stay gripped to your arm.

"When are we going?"

Kanroji Mitsuri

██░░░░░░░░ 20%

She's not jealous. She's scared.

She's scared you'll find someone better and when she sees you with someone else a part of her always feel like she's not enough. You can easily see when she's feeling down, and you just have to remind her with a hug and she'll feel better.

"Sorry! I'm just scared you'll leave me"

Obanai Iguro

███████░░░ 70%

He pretty jealous

Most of the time he'll send Kaburamaru around your neck and people get the hint. But if they don't then...he'll go give them the hint himself. And by that I mean he would roast the shit outta them.

"Back off. Nobody would want to date your dirty goofy no bitches no purpose no friends no standards person."

Tanjiro Kamado

█░░░░░░░░░ 10%

He's never jealous.

If you think Kyojuro is kind then he's another level. He's like a ball of sunshine, he would talk happily not knowing that someone was hitting on you. But he does feels a little insecure when je sees you with someone else. He won't say it but he would cling onto you a little bit more.

"Do you love me?"

Himejima Gyomei

░░░░░░░░░░ 0%

He trusts you 100% and being a man of religion he has no doubt in your love. He does tho wonder if he could satisfy you enough since he's blind. He's just as capable as any men but he gets insecure from time to time due to his past.

"I promise I will try my best to protect you [name]"

Hashibira Inosuke

█████████░ 90%

He is easily jealous.

No matter who he sees with you he'll be growling at them. But he doesn't quite seems to understand love at all so he wouldn't be possessive but he still do get jealous and will NOT be ashamed of yelling at anyone.

"How dare you talk to the great Inosuke Hashibira's partner !"

Kocho Shinobu

█████░░░░░ 50%

She isn't JEALOUS, she's just overprotective.

She's more scared for your health than jealous. She's scared that you get too gullible and will fall for traps and/or get hurts by them. Poor her will try to prevent you from everyone and remind you of stranger danger.

"I do trust you [Name], but I think you're a little too innocent for your own good."

Tsuyuri Kanao

████░░░░░░ 40%

She's not really jealous.

She isn't jealous but she doesn't like seeing people hit on you. There was once you knew she was jealous because she looked at the person talking to you and she was STARING. The person got afraid and quickly apologized and left. She'll deny any accusation.

"I did not do that."

Tokito Muichiro

██████░░░░ 60%

He's easily bothered.

He would see you with someone he judges too close and full on hug your side and fix the person with that one glare. As if to brat about his partner and how lucky he is compared to the guy, he may even bite on your neck while the person's here. As soon as you're gone he would stay and probably roast that person.

"You look like you're a grand grandfather/mother if she/he didn't pass away."

Uzui Tengen

█░░░░░░░░░ 10%

He's chill

He got three wives already so he got used to this feeling. Now he actually feel proud when someone's hitting on you and will full on start talking about how amazing you are and how he's lucky to have you.

"Yes they're flashy ! I totally get why you like them, such a shame they're already taken by me."

Tomioka Giyu

███░░░░░░░ 30%

He can get jealous from time to time.

He doesn't talk a lot, and even less express his emotions. So it's a pain trying to figure out what's going on inside his head. However when he's jealous, he doesn't really tell you he just act like nothing's happening because he judges it negative to tell you about it. If you manage to find out then, congratulations you made a new step in your relationship!

"Oh.... I didn't know, sorry [Name]"

Kamado Nezuko

██░░░░░░░░ 20%

She's protective

Whenever she sees someone making you uncomfortable she'll come by your side to hug you and glare at the person when you're not looking. If the person doesn't get the hint she'll probably start growling at them. But overall, she's adorable and let anyone talk to you.

"Mmhp mhp mmph!" (I love you !)

Talk to me!

[zarnzarn]

i see all these comments talking about this after the new episode, but. i would like to state for the record that stolitz isn't. toxic.

first off, the concept of a toxic and a healthy relationship are such... vague terms. when you're online, drenched in language and tight moral boundaries, trying to put a nuanced story like helluva boss's into boxes is easy to attempt and impossible to do.

a toxic relationship is one where one or both parties is maliciously affecting the other. I'm talking fetid, nasty, rude interactions where there is more hurt than love. they're unhappy more often than not when they're with their partner, there's no respect or give from the other side.

stolitz is nothing like that.

Stolas actively cares about Blitz and actually has no fear or hesitation in ADMITTING IT OUT LOUD TO OZZIE. he has been calling, texting, commenting, laughing and finding ways to spend time with Blitz. he's throwing everything he has to the wind, finding the courage to move forward with the divorce, putting everything he has into trying to keep him. he's been alone in a palace since he was born, on medication, with such less people dear to him that he remembered the circus boy who spent a day with him DECADES ago- so when blitz comes into his life and brings back in laughter and color and sex, he's holding on with everything he's got.

and blitz does care!!! he cares a LOT, the whole series we see him falling in love with stolas through SHOW NOT TELL (his expressions, his choices, his fear, his lashing out) and utterly unable to process that stolas cares about him too when talking to fizz; almost a desperate kind of denial-

cause yknow. the first time he tried to confess something to someone he really liked, he accidentally killed half the people he knew and ruined the lives of the rest?

thats gonna leave just a teensy impact on the will to express your emotions in the future, methinks.

even before that, he clearly felt like on some level that he was unworthy and he's said twice that he despises himself for the accident even though it wasn't actually his fault. being self aware doesn't stop the emotions from emotioning.

he keeps insisting its only sex so urgently to anyone who doesn't ask because he can't even imagine it being anything else. he's both disappointed and relieved when he repeats that stolas sees him as a novelty, because what else can it be?

(there's a whole other spiel of how brave both Stolas and Blitz have to be to say it out loud even when asmodeus can't afford to, considering how publically and completely beaten down both were at the club.)

(there's also another whole spiel about how frustrating it has been for ME to see all these comments over time with such bad takes based on like,, 20 min worth of info of a show that takes months to release an ep. like godDAMN have some patience?? let the story UNFOLD MAYBE? IT WAS ALWAYS GOING TO HAVE AN EXPLANATION WHY WOULD YOU CRITICIZE THINGS THAT ARENT EVEN FINISHED ESPECIALLY AN INDIE ANIMATION- i digress)

mind you, this has NOTHING to do with abuse. an abusive relationship is one where one is actively harming the other with full awareness. Stella is an abuser and their marriage is abusive.

and stolitz isn't that; it isn't even unhealthy or toxic. it's a consensual, transactional fuckbuddy relationship that slid into something more for both of them.

but!!!!! one of the main reasons for the problems that everyone looks over is-

they're in a BDSM relationship.

I can't possibly delve into dynamics without making this a 10k research paper BUT even though we've gotten only hints and costumes and dialogue- they're very clearly and undeniably in a BDSM contract. Behind the scenes of this crazy show is a whole different story, of these two delving into the most hardcore kinks out there- knifeplay, painplay, bondage.

if you've gotten into the community, if you've read a couple dozen particularly good fics by authors who know what they're talking about, hell; even if your only experience is fifty shades or 365 or whatever- you gotta know that BDSM scenes are crazy fucking emotionally heavy. there's so much that has gone down between them during their full moons that helluva can't get into!!

but you know how in so many of these popular medias and fics, the dom in the relationship is also like,, the billionaire/mafia heir/prince, etc, the one with financial and physical power? this isnt that. it has been very clearly stated that stolas is subbing, blitz is domming.

now take a moment and think about how much that fucks up the dynamics.

in stolas' eyes, blitz is a confident, dangerous individual who's an old friend and cherished memory of his, who he's trusted wholly with his safety during sex and he's lucky to have; and he has been in an abusive arranged marriage for the past eighteen Years, he's probably not going to be pushing his luck with his dom that much in the first place. plus, blitz is never cowed by him during their conversations- think back to the first phone call right after he stole the book, completely unafraid.

and for blitz, it's someone trusting him again- but it's also a royal- a blue blood who's nearly untouchable and so much more powerful- who couldn't possibly like a piece of shit like him, apart from the sex he gets out of it. he only flirts once he gets some sort of cue from Stolas; he's desperately trying to view this as only a Goetia trying to get his rocks off, despite all the evidence to the contrary, because anything else is unfathomable to him, no matter how clearly Stolas shows it, because of the ptsd.

both of them thinks the other has the power. both of them aren't expecting the other to keep shut if something's bothering them.

and there's so much conflicting messages from the other too!

stolas calls him a plaything when trying to intimidate the humans; stolas cups his face gently and asks if he's alright

blitz asks him on a date and tells him to get better soon; blitz yells that it's only sex and doesn't reply to his messages

ya see?

bring it to fizzozzie for a second now; even though they do look all good on surface, you can still see fizz's trauma and doubt in all their interactions, they're still forced to keep the relationship secret. do you see his face when Ozzie says in hyperbole that he's never leaving the house again, or when someone accuses him of being a pampered house pet or when he got sexualized in the 7th ep? whatever happened in the interim between the accident with mammon, it fucked him UP. even though oz seems to be well aware of this when he tells him not to apologise and in their general interactions, fizz still visibly has trouble separating plaything/commodity from healthy relationship.

shout the fuck out to Ozzie btw, man knows whats UP. rooting for these two so much omg.

i forgot where I was going with this point, I'll edit it when i remember. but yeah! lovely fucking relationship, but damn what angst filled issues.

anyway, to sum up- stolitz is not a toxic relationship. the relationship is stuck sludging through misunderstandings and careless microaggressions and trauma responses, but it's not unhealthy or toxic because of the simple reason that most of the current hurt comes from... a misunderstanding. stolas didn't realise blitz would need reassurance about what they were and blitz didn't see stolas as someone who could get hurt.

unecessarily calling it toxic, even online, is more impactful than people think too. almost all spindlehorse ARE on all social medias; so MANY YouTube animators i know have found jobs there; they see your words, especially since a lot don't tag posts with "anti hb" correctly to keep them out of the main tag. there are Very few queer medias made BY queer people that haven't gone through heavy corporate revisions- helluva boss is practically a historical landmark in its success. it's very very very fucking easy to forget that not ten years ago some of the only queer videos on YouTube were butter lover (one kiss at the end post credits), dirty paws and welcome to hell (subtext).

the amount of "critical talk" helluva boss gets for what it is is very unprecedented. it's a beautiful show. can't wait for the next episode.

[i-cant-sing]

I can’t get this scenario out of my head with yan!batfamily in which Bruce worms his way into a depressed reader’s life by marrying their mother and slowly taking over the role of parenting reader while dealing with the depression.

No because Bruce would do that. In his head, its just another mission to "save Y/n" and sure, your mother isn't exactly his type, and your depression isn't exactly her fault- the poor woman just works day and night for you both to survive in this outrageous economy, she doesn't have had enough time to see you not doing so well mentally.

Bruce and his sons, by whatever sequence of events, are now infatuated with you. What started as concern for your well being has now turned into obsessive need to control your life to make it better. So, yeah... Bruce decides to marry your mom, who is more than happy to finally find a chivalrous, handsome man... who just happens to also be very rich.

Meanwhile, you hate him. It's stupid, but you hate how filthy rich he is and even though you know that he donates a lot to charities, you still hate him because Bruce thinks money can solve everything (and in your case, it almost can), but you can't help but feel insulted everytime he offers you a cheque, a wad of cash to pay off your bills and loans, or even a $20 bill to get yourself some snacks. It feels... abnormal. You're not a charity case.

Perhaps your socioeconomic status isn't the only reason you're depressed. Maybe it's just you missing your father (could be dead/murdered/suicide/just moved far far away).

The moment Bruce finds out that your dad is the reason why you're so depressed, oh it's "I WILL FATHER ANOTHER CHILD IN NEED OF PROFESSIONAL HELP" time. He's doubling down on his paternal instincts and he's just mentally smacking himself like "ofc you need a father figure in your life. Who better than me????"

And it just makes your skin crawl at how nonchalant Bruce is about all this- about incorporating himself into your and your mother's life. Treating you both, especially you like you're actually related. Like he's been around with you two his entire life. You lose your appetite when he stays for dinner, but you sit at the table for your mother. You try to make excuses when your mother tells you that you have to go with her at the Wayne Manor because "Bruce wants to spend a day with family". You can't help but look at your mother in wonder at how she is comfortable when you both pull up at the manor. You thought things would be easier if Bruce's sons were also uncomfortable or even hated you and your mother (or thought that your mom was a gold digger), but no, they're just as worse as Bruce. Dick being particularly the worst in the sense that he's more affectionate and his love language is physical touch, so you get squished to his chest everytime he sees you, with a small cry "my baby!" Sometimes, "sis" would be added.

You didn't like either nickname.

Then there's Jason, who is the most normal one of them all, perhaps because he isn't around much and when he is, he just makes small talk.

Tim doesn't talk much either, but he stares a lot. Somehow you feel like he knows something about you, at least more than he's letting on.

And lastly, there's Damian, that pompous little shit. You know he's being amicable for Bruce, but his eyes look at you like he's judging you- thinks you're beneath him. Which is true, in the sense of finance. Despite all of that, Damian still wants to show you off his interests/things around the manor. He's still being arrogant ofc, "Look at this oil painting- it's a Van Gogh original. Van Gogh is a famous painter- he's dead though. I'm sure you aren't familiar with his works. I can take you to the Gotham gallery to show you more paintings. Father owns it, so it can be just us two without other people bothering us." He's nice but also not nice. But at least he's not doing it intentionally.

Then there's Bruce. Who is always looking at you with a small smile, but his eyes are always analysing you, even when he's not looking at you directly, you know that he's watching your every move like a hawk. He tries spending time with you, often he succeeds, only because your mother makes you go. He's a good man, hasn't done anything exactly inappropriate, but... even something as small as making you walk on the inner side of the sidewalk so that you're safe from the cars... it doesn't sit right with you. Why is he being so paternal? You certainly have been rude to him on purpose. Always giving him one word answers when he asks you how your day was.

Then one day your mother returns home with a beaming smile.

"Bruce proposed to me! We're getting married!"

After only 3 months of dating? It's what you wanted to say, but you held it back when you saw how happy she was.

The next day, Bruce held a dinner at the manor to celebrate the engagement. Surprisingly, that was the first time you saw Damian looking mad at you and your mom.

It was a reasonable reaction. Acceptable to you, instead of the overly excited yell of Dick "WE'RE GOING TO BE SIBLINGS! That means we can have slumber parties and pillow fights and-"

Your mother and Bruce were shopping for the wedding, looking at dresses and venues and all the shenanigans while you were at the manor, moving your and your mom's stuff in with the boys. It was the last thing you wanted, but your mother.... she insisted on it. Or at least that's what she says, you know Bruce insisted.

Doesn't matter because by next year, you'd be moving away to college anyways.

You just need to put up with this for a little longer and see your mother finally be happy.

You didn't expect your mother to be dead a week before the wedding.

It was out of the blue. You were sitting in the library at the manor because Dick refused to let you be alone in your room all the time, so he was making you some cookies while you read. Then he and Bruce came together, their faces pale as they looked at you.

"Y/n... your mother, she... she got in an accident."

She was driving to some restaurant, wanted to get you your favourite fried chicken and spend some time with you alone. But on her way, a truck crashed right into her car.

She died on the spot.

Whatever little improvement you had on your mental health went straight down the drain. You locked yourself in your room and just cried quietly. They left you alone the first few days, but then Bruce and Dick tried to persuade you to come out, that they were concerned for you. You did come out the day the funeral was held. And it hurt you... it hurt you so deeply when you found out they were burying her at the Wayne cemetery.

She wasn't a fucking Wayne.

If you had any strength, if you had any energy at all, you would've taken your mother and buried her someplace else.

But you didn't.

When you returned inside the manor, you went straight to your mother's room, which was also Bruce's room but you didn't care if he saw you in there or not. You just started packing all of your mother's stuff, her clothes, her jewellery, her photos, everything she came here with, which wasn't much to begin with but still.

"Y/n?" You stiffened when Bruce called you, but you didn't pause on packing. "What are you doing? Looking for something?"

You sighed. Might as well get this over with.

You turnd around, not looking him in the eye.

"I'm moving out. And I'm taking mom's stuff with me. You can check, I'm not stealing anything that belongs to you."

Bruce looked at you in confusion. "Moving out? Where are you going?"

"College. I'll be going there soon anyways, so I'm moving to an apartment with some friends."

"Oh, but you don't need to move out. You can stay with us. Youre family-" you cut him off.

"Bruce, let's not." You finally look at him. "We're not family. I never was, I never wanted to be. Mom's gone now, and I have no reason or desire to be here. Thank you for letting me stay here for as long as you have, but I will be moving out by tomorrow, if not tonight." You said picking up your mother's bag of stuff and walking out of the room. Bruce followed you to your room.

"But I don't want you to move-"

You dropped the bags. "I don't care what you want!"

Bruce looked at you with his brows furrowed. He didn't get why you were acting like this. Your yelling had gotten the attention of the boys too, all looking in confusion at the bags.

"I don't want to be a part of this family. I never have, and I never will. I never liked you or anyone in this family. And if you're concerned about me speaking to the media about you guys, don't worry. If it helps you, you can make me sign an NDA!"

Damian narrowed his eyes at you. "Dont talk to father like-"

"Shut up!" You yelled harshly. You didn't care who you were hurting. Your mother was gone, you had no reason to be amicable to them anymore.

-

They left you alone that day, and by the next morning, you were ready to leave. At 6 am, you walked down to the main door, with your bags. You weren't expecting them all to be waiting for you, but here they were. You took a step towards the door, but Dick stopped you.

He cleared his throat. "Um, this is the NDA... if you'd just sign it here." He handed you the papers.

Unbelievable. They actually drew up a contract. You took the pen from his hand and signed at the dotted lines.

"Bye." You took another step, except Damian and Tim blocked your path.

"What now?"

"Where are you going?" Tim asked.

"Do we have to go over this again?" You grumbled. "College." You answered.

"You can't." Damian said smugly. What's he smirking for?

"You're gonna break my legs?" You scoffed.

"No, you just signed a document saying that you're a part of this family, and Bruce Wayne is your guardian and has authority over all decisions concerning you like going to college, or even... going out of the house." Damian replied.

You looked at Bruce, because there's no way Damian is being serious. But there were no signs of joking. You looked at Dick, at Jason-

They were all dead serious.

"You cant- you can't be- you can't keep me here." You said.

"You signed the documents. It's your fault for not reading them." Tim said.

"Bruce-"

"I really do believe that it'd be better for you to stay here." Bruce said, taking ahold of your shoulders. "At least until you're doing better mentally."

"I'm fine-"

"I don't think so. And I could even take you to a psychiatrist, they'd agree with me." Bruce cupped your cheek as you flinched away. "You'd be happy here. I promise you that, you'll be safe and happy with us."

You'd try fighting, but you already knew you were outnumbered.

Besides, even if you weren't, even if you were alone with the smallest one of them, you still wouldn't be able to leave. You have no idea what Damian is capable of.

After all, he's the one who had your mother killed.

[ms-demeanor]

So I have vision insurance again which means I was able to go to the optometrist and get glasses through insurance for the first time in 11 years (instead of paying out of pocket and getting glasses from zenni) and here are my notes:

It's *NOT GREAT* that Luxotica is mentioned by name on the insurance card printout

I know everything got more expensive in the last ten years, but frames also got a lot more expensive and for some reason there was a huge gap in prices - my insurance covered $130 for frames and the office had a bunch of frames for $70 and a bunch of frames for $150 but basically no frames between those two price points.

When you say "I can't afford to go over the allowance" on XYZ thing they are not even *considering* the cost of progressive bifocals. So I was like "no coating, cheap frames, no extras" and then they were like "okay so the progressive bifocal is going to be over a hundred dollars more" and I was like "how much is the bifocal with a line" and they were like "oh that's only $15 but we don't consider that appropriate for your age, we recommend this other kind of lens" and it doesn't matter what you consider age appropriate for me, I can't afford that so we're not doing that.

The seventy dollar frames are all kind of trash. Super thin, super bendy, and not in a good "flexible fit" way but more in a "if you fall asleep in these you will wake up with broken glasses" way.

They wrote down my reading prescription wrong? For the last ten years I've been slowly creeping up from +.25 to my current +2.50; they told me it had increased but the printout said +.75 so either my prescription has been wrong for a while or they missed the 2 at the front of that number and my glasses are going to show up with a low magnification. (I noticed after I'd left the office but before the glasses arrived).

Given all of that, with insurance: $25 for a pair of glasses, which included the office copay.

So then of course I went to zenni and ordered glasses anyway because I've been wearing the same frame design for seven years and want another pair that look exactly like that.

Progressive bifocals WERE the most expensive part of the order, and because my prescription is stronger they are getting progressively more expensive - initially the upgrade to bifocal cost something like $30 for a lower magnification, now they're $85 for the stronger prescription.

And that's it, that's the expensive part. Fifteen dollar frames, five dollar anti-reflective coating, total for bifocals was around a hundred dollars; I got a pair of single-vision sunglasses for under $20.

Part of the reason I decided to spend more at zenni than at my optometrist's office was because I was able to get good, sturdy frames that I know fit my face and will survive mosh pits and me falling asleep on them without cracking. In order to get the same thing at the optometrist's office I would have had to pay thirty dollars more for lenses as well as forty more for frames so I would have walked out of there paying more for a pair of glasses with frames that I wasn't super excited about (there was a pair that was *okay* but not great that were similar in construction to my current frames but more bulky and square) than I did for glasses that I know I like and a pair of sunglasses.

I did end up paying less out of pocket for the visit than I would have without the insurance, and $15 for a pair of back-up glasses isn't bad. But it was all-in-all a frustrating experience.

However: I've been wearing the same pair of glasses for three years and the anti-reflective coating is worn away in some places and they're so scratched that they're impossible to actually clean in some places and large bastard looked through them last week and was like "OH! No wonder you can't tell when you need to clean your windshield! You don't get to drive at night until those are replaced" so no matter what glasses I'm wearing next week they're going to be an improvement.

[thriftedtchotchkes]

waiting to spill

pairing: mike schmidt x f!reader

summary: mike never thought your week-long trip home would lead to the discovery of a costly new craving

warnings: 18+ MDNI, established relationship, breeding kink, smut, desperate!mike, unprotected piv, creampie, riding, fingering, blue balls, mentions of pregnancy, cum play

word count: 3.9k

(based on this request)

Mike's praying the call goes through this time because if it doesn't, he might just lose his mind. You were supposed to land 20 minutes ago, but it's already half past 4 and your phone's still off.

Will it show how many missed calls you have? God, he hopes not. He's been redialing for the better part of an hour, hoping you landed early, but luck clearly isn't on his side. Every time it goes to voicemail, your voice taunts him. Just another reminder that you're not here—unreachable and untouchable.

Shitty fucking airline. He knew you should've taken an earlier flight, but he didn't want to be that guy. The one who tells you what to do and when, and makes decisions for his own benefit. He's a better guy than that, a better boyfriend than that, it's just—fuck, what is taking so long? 

One more time. He'll try you one more time, and if it doesn't connect, he'll go sit on the couch and distract himself until you call him. He's already waited this long. He can suck it up a little longer. Probably.

He hits redial for the umpteenth time, his forehead thunking against the wall next to the landline, and then something miraculous happens. It rings.

Once, twice, and then you pick up. He doesn't wait for you to answer. Any patience he had left flew out the window hours ago and he doesn't care if you know it.

"Babe?"

You laugh softly on the other end, and it tugs at his heart...and his dick. Seatbelts click open in the background, and sounds of movement and chatter filter through the speaker.

"Hey, you. I actually just landed. I'll call you back once I get through customs, okay?" you reply, bright as ever. 

It sets him off worse than he expected. You're so much more potent in real-time than on voicemail, and it's fucking with his sense of urgency. He doesn't want to rush you, but he needs you. So badly.

"W-wait. Can you come over? After you're done with the airport stuff, I mean," he manages to get out, interjecting cautiously before you can hang up.

"I was gonna stop home to drop off my bags and take a quick shower, but I can come over after that," you reply distractedly, likely dealing with overhead bins and other passengers trying to deplane. 

He shakes his head, gripping the phone a little too tightly as he bites back a frustrated whine. That'll take too long. The airport's about an hour's ride from your apartment, and by the time you're done showering—no. No, just come to him. It's a shorter ride to his house, anyway.

"Just—you can do all of that here. Stay over and I'll drive you back to your place in the morning. Please?" he asks, desperation beginning to bleed into his voice. 

It pulls your attention back to him almost immediately, and he hates how good that feels.

"Is everything okay? Did something happen?" you counter, misreading his plea as an emergency. 

Your phone keeps shifting like it's tucked against your shoulder, and now it sounds like you're moving faster, hurrying like he wants you to, but for the wrong reasons. 

"Everything's fine, I just need to see you," he says, willing you to understand. "Babe, I really need to see you."

He's too ashamed to spell it out. What would he even say? If he doesn't cum inside you soon, he thinks he might die? He's horny, not pathetic.

"Mike, that doesn't sound fine...," you sigh on the other end, your quickening footsteps audible through the receiver. 

"Please."

You pause for a second, and his heart leaps into his throat. Don't say no. Please, don't say no.

"Gimme an hour, okay? I'll catch a cab to your place as soon as I can," you finally agree.

He breathes out a heavy sigh of relief, but it's louder than he realizes and you clock it on the spot.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, all good. I'm just glad you're back. Feels like it's been forever," he mumbles, somehow sated and yet anticipating your arrival more than ever. 

He shifts anxiously from one foot to the other, wincing at the unexpected friction against the growing problem between his legs. The atmosphere around you changes and your responding laugh blends into the bustle of casual conversations and overhead announcements in your terminal. 

"Can't survive one week without me, huh? I guess I'm bringing you and Abby along next time I visit my parents," you joke, but it's getting harder to make out what you're saying. "Look, I'm almost at customs. I'll see you soon, I promise."

The call ends, and he's left with the loneliness of a dial tone and an empty house. He hangs up and plops down on the couch, clutching the TV remote like a lifeline while he desperately tries to ignore the painful tent in his boxers.

An hour. He can handle one more hour.

He can't handle one more hour. It's been 45 minutes and he feels like he's about to burst. The worst part? It's his own damn fault. 

He's the asshole who made the conscious decision not to jerk off the entire time you were gone, but he can't bring himself to regret it. He had his reasons. In about 15 minutes, it'll all be worth it.

Maybe less. 

There's a knock at the door, and he's up and off the couch so fast, he's surprised he doesn't have whiplash. He wrenches it open to find you on the other side, a little stunned by the abrupt greeting, but worth every second of blue balls he put himself through.

"Hey," he breathes out, winded by his mad dash and the relief of you finally being here. 

"Hey, yourself," you smile wryly. Your eyes drop to where he's not even remotely trying to hide his raging boner. "Ah-ha, so that's—"

But that's all you manage to say before he drags you into the house and slams your back against the door, shutting out your luggage and the cab driver still idling in the driveway. His lips crash into yours and you taste so good, it's dizzying. 

Remnants of Sprite and spearmint gum linger on your tongue as it meets his, and he groans, wondering how he went an entire week without this. All that time, deprived of your addictive touch and perfect tits while he tortured himself, waiting for you to come back to him.

He can't decide where to put his hands first, roaming and squeezing from your waist, up your shirt—which he's just realizing is his—to splay across your ribcage. Pressing you harder into the door, he separates from your lips to mouth at the underside of your jaw, mumbling his appreciation between each harsh bruise he sucks into your skin.

"Fuck, I missed you," he pants, shamelessly grinding into your hip for relief. He wants you to feel how hard you're making him, so you'll understand all those missed calls.

"Yeah? I can tell," you laugh breathily, running your hands up his chest, pushing his shirt up as you go. 

Your thumbs brush against his bare skin, sending a heady jolt straight to his cock, and suddenly none of this is moving fast enough. His hands drop to your ass, roughly tugging your hips into his, and you gasp in unison at the friction. Together, you fall into a frantic rhythm, rutting into each other like a pair of horny teenagers.

"Shit, Mike...," you moan his name, and he feels like he's dreaming. He has to be because nothing else in his waking world has ever felt this good.

Contrary to the rest of his body, he kisses you again slowly, savoring every noise he's coaxing from you and devouring them like a man starved. Your fingers thread through his hair, pulling him closer, and he swears he's never letting you leave this house again. 

If by some miracle he does, he's going to make sure you're pumped so full of him, you'll be leaking him the entire time you're gone, unable to think about anything else. And when you come back, he'll do it all over again.

Damnit, he needs you in his bed, now.

He backs away from the door with you still in his arms, leading you further into the house down a path you know by heart. Briefly, he separates from your lips to lift your shirt up and over your head, then discards his own before tugging down the cups of your bra to latch onto a nipple.

You hiss at the contact, trembling as he teases it with his teeth, and immediately reach behind you to unclasp the offending piece of fabric. It drops soundlessly to the floor along with your jeans, underwear, and finally his boxers. Nipping sharply at the sensitive skin one last time, he pulls away to admire you, trailing his fingers down your arms until your hands are in his.

You're fucking beautiful. Your lips are kiss-swollen and glossy, begging to be kissed again, and your thighs are...wet, fucking hell. Fuck, he missed you. His mouth starts to water at the thought of licking into you, fucking you with his tongue while your thighs quake on either side of his head, but the painful throbbing between his legs is starting to overwhelm him.

He's positive, now, that if he's not inside you soon, he'll actually die. He's not just horny, anymore. It's so far beyond that.

Four more agonizing steps backward and he's finally passing the threshold into his room, so close to being on his back with you bouncing on top of him—except he doesn't make it that far. 

The door shuts behind you, and then you're on your knees, wrapping those perfect fingers around his dick and guiding him between your lips. He panics. There's no way he's going to last if you try to blow him right now.

Tenderly, you lick a stray bead of precum off the tip, and his balls immediately draw up so tight, he has to slide your hand down to the base and squeeze to keep from cumming on the spot. He shakes his head, his eyebrows furrowing as he inhales sharply through his nose.

"Babe, I can't...," he grits out, struggling to find the words to explain himself. "I'll cum too fast, you can't."

You grin, leaning forward to press your lips against his white-knuckled fist.

"That's sort of the whole point, isn't it?" you tease, trailing back to his cock, seconds away from giving him the most intense orgasm of his life.

"I need to fuck you," he blurts out. It's short and to the point, but there's no use in pretending he doesn't. At this point, he'll be lucky if he doesn't explode the second he's inside you. "I need to fuck you so bad right now, I feel like I'm going crazy."

You pause to look up at him, your eyes roving over his face, lingering on his angrily ticking jaw. You get it, now.

"Hey, it's okay—you're okay," you murmur, leaning forward to kiss away another drop of precum. He chokes back a groan and reflexively jerks away, and you take the hint to release your grip. "Okay, fuck me. Show me how much you missed me."

But you don't have any idea what you're asking for, do you? He missed you so much. There's so much catching up to do, and he has so little patience left.

He doesn't waste any more time. With every ounce of self-control he's got left, he drags you to your feet and towards the bed, trying his best not to manhandle you up the mattress and onto his lap. He fails epically. The second he's flat on his back with you grinding down on him, his patience becomes a thing of the past.

"You ready for me? Because I'm not gonna be able to stop, and I need you to feel good," he's starting to babble, but he has a feeling nothing he says from now on will make any sense, and he needs you to want it as much as he does.

His hands slide up your thighs to your waist, and when he tugs you closer to notch at your entrance, he can feel you clenching wetly around him.

"Shit—," he breathes out, his biceps tensing as he lifts you and lines himself up. He pushes in just enough for you to stretch around the tip, and you steady yourself on his chest, your palms searingly hot on his skin as you squeeze him a little harder.

"Let me make you feel good," he says again, even though you're already letting him, already yielding to his steady push and pull. Every inch he gives you feels like taking a shot of tequila, and it's making his head spin. If he could hear himself anymore, he'd realize he sounds wasted.

"Let me fill you up, please," he begs, rolling his hips up to lengthen his thrusts. They’re so much easier now that you’re dribbling down him—so much wetter—but you're so damn tight, he has to force himself to look away from where you're joined and gripping the hell out of him. "You know, I-I waited for you—waited to cum, I didn't cum at all."

"Mike...fuck. That's good. That's so good, baby," you tell him shakily. "Give it to me. Nice and deep, you deserve it."

He keens at the praise—he couldn't have stopped himself if he'd tried—and your nails bite into his skin in response, nose scrunching adorably as you gush around him. He knew you'd like that. He knew you'd want it. 

Look at his girl, so pretty on top of him, just waiting for him to bust inside you. Fleetingly, he wonders if you're still on birth control. Possessively, he doesn't care. Rationally, he knows he can't afford to knock you up, but shit—right now, he really fucking wants to. He imagines you in the same position you're in, horny and round with his baby, and suddenly he's never wanted anything so badly in his life.

He doesn't stop to think about whether or not he should. He doesn't stop at all, just like he warned you, not even when he's buried to the hilt and you're both struggling to adjust. 

He just buries himself in you again and again and again until the sound of your skin colliding with his becomes a wet thock-thock-thock that bounces off the walls of his bedroom. The springs beneath him squeak dangerously as he pushes his bedframe to its absolute limits, but he can’t hear any of that, either.

His senses are in overdrive, and all he can focus on is how you feel around him. And he’s not nearly as deep as he needs to be. Rougher than he means to, he grabs your ass with both hands and starts to force you up and down his cock, gripping hard enough to bruise. He’ll hate how much he likes the idea of that later. 

"S-so fucking pretty...gonna make me cum so hard. So much. Need you to take all of it," he pants with the exertion of lifting and dropping your full weight onto himself.

He can feel himself slamming into your cervix and desperately tries to think about anything else but emptying right into it, but the sight of you taking him like you were made for it makes it ten times worse.

Just looking at you makes him want to cum—your tits bouncing as you ride him, your pussy creaming down his cock and balls, and seeping into his sheets. Those pouty lips of yours moaning around pleas of harder and right there and don't stop, I'm cumming.

"Baby...babe—," your shattered voice cuts through the fog, and then he feels it. "M'cumming. I'm...Mike, keep going there, there. Don't stop, please don't stop."

Fucking hell, you're really cumming. Tight and wet, and clamping down on him like a vice. Somehow, he always forgets it's like this with you. That you cum this hard for him, that he's able to make you cum this hard for him. For a second, he feels overwhelmingly grateful. Then, he's planting his feet on the bed and fucking you so hard, you stop moaning and start screaming.

It's there. It's right there, so close he can feel it building everywhere. Sweat trickles down his temples, matting his curls to his forehead, and you brush them away, one hand braced on the mattress next to his head and the other buried in his hair as you ride out your high.  

His balls draw up so tight, it's painful, and he thinks he might start yelling too, but he's too focused on the chase. He's too busy watching, dumbfounded by the perfect body coming apart on top of him. 

The girl he waited for. 

He tries to tell you. He tries to open his mouth and tell you that you’re everything he thought he’d never have, and that he wants to keep you forever. That he wants to be part of you, that being inside you is one of the rare places he’s ever felt wanted. But that’s not what comes out. 

He’s too far gone now, and all he can manage is an incomprehensible stream of moans and sighs as he forces you flush against his pelvis, grinding into you as deep as he can reach. His eyes struggle not to close, nearly crossing as that familiar heat permeates his limbs and pools at the base of his cock. But it’s so much more intense than he can ever remember it being.

He lifts his gaze to your lips to find them moving, repeatedly forming a single word he can barely make out. But by the time he figures it out, he’s already giving you what you asked for. 

Please. You’re saying please. He repeats it back, begging you to take it, thanking you for letting him have this.

His orgasm rocks him. As it peaks, he feels numb like he’s suspended in time, and then it slams into him so hard, he folds in on himself. He buries his face in your tits, his breath hitching sharply in time with the visible throbbing of his cock, and he’s immediately flooded with relief. But it won’t fucking stop. It lasts so much longer than either of you expect it to, pulse after endless pulse, and he holds you in place through it all.

When it finally subsides and sensitivity sets in, your nails scratching lightly across his back are what bring him back to the present. He lifts his head from where it's still pillowed on your tits, and you lean down to kiss his forehead.

Maybe he’s imagining it, or maybe he’s just been dreaming this entire time, but he swears you’re glowing. The final rays of late summer sun illuminate your dewy skin and soft curves, and as you move lower to kiss his lips, he unconsciously rests a hand over your stomach. It feels right—but only briefly. His head starts to clear the longer he licks into your mouth, and when you part, reality finally hits.

"Shit, I think I just got you pregnant," he breathes out, sliding his hand off your stomach to your waist before collapsing onto the mattress. "Shit."

He looks up at you in concern, his mind racing a mile a minute. What did he just do? He can’t—you can't get pregnant. Not with Abby, and your jobs, and his shitty finances. It just isn't an option. 

And yet you’re still perched on top of him, snug around his softening dick, and he can’t bring himself to pull out. You don’t even seem remotely worried.

You're actually smiling. No, you're laughing, and he's still panicking and confused as hell. It gets infinitely worse when you accidentally push him out and his gut reaction is to plug you back up with his fingers, keeping his release from leaking out. This is so fucked up. He’s so fucked up.

"I mean—were you trying to?" you ask, raising an eyebrow. "Kinda seems like it."

Your eyes drop between your legs to where his hand is cupping your heat, irrefutable proof that you’re not wrong. So, why doesn’t that bother you? 

"Babe, breathe," you smile softly, brushing a few stray hairs from his face. "I'm like, 98.8 percent positive you can't knock me up. Give or take, but we can check the box if it'll make you feel better."

It actually might, but the last thing he's going to do is admit it. He can't believe he didn't double-check something like that—but then again, he feels like he's been in a fugue state for hours, if not the entire week you were gone.

"You're still on birth control?" he asks cautiously, almost afraid to get his hopes up. He takes a deep breath like you told him to and it helps ease some of his lingering panic. Not all of it, but at least he's starting to think rationally and not with his dick.

"Mike. There isn't a single condom in this entire house. Yes, I'm on birth control," you laugh again, and even just the sound of it is soothing. It helps, too.

"And it definitely works? Because that was...a lot," he mumbles. He already knows he sounds like a total idiot, but he has to be sure. There's still a week's worth of his release plugged up inside you, and as much as it turns him on, he needs to know if he has to run out to the pharmacy or if he's free to do it again. And again.

"Have you ever fucked me with a condom on?" you counter. He scoffs at the question, and you clench around his fingers in retaliation.

"Of course, I have. Maybe not in a while, but early on, for sure," he replies confidently, even though he's not confident in his answer at all. Sure, he can't give you a specific example, but that doesn't mean it never happened.

"You literally came inside me the day we met," you deadpan. 

His cock stirs at the memory, hardening distractingly against your inner thigh. That, he definitely remembers. He's pretty sure that's the night he fell in love with you, but he's hard-pressed to admit that, either.

"There's no way."

"And every time since then," you continue, looking way too amused at his misfortune. Can't get anything past you, can he?

Okay, so maybe it wasn't just your trip that triggered what happened tonight. Maybe it's always been a thing. His thing. You just look so goddamn good—filled with it, covered in it. Shit, he really shouldn't be hard already.

"Babe, come on. I do...it other places, too,” he reasons, sliding his hand up to tweak a nipple. But it becomes a moot point the second your breath hitches. So much for rational thinking. “I just—"

"You just really like cumming inside me," you finish for him, taking his cock in your hand and stroking him until he's as desperate as he was earlier.

He pulls his fingers free from your pussy and tries not to lament the immediate rush of cum that leaks out. It's okay. He's got plenty more to give you.

"Yeah, I really do."

thanks for reading!

(and so much love to @joelsgreys, @tinycozycomfort & @psychedelic-ink for your help & support, and for listening to me go on and on about this man <3)

[tofixtheshadows]

Hot take: Laios wouldn't actually mind an arranged marriage. Obviously "reluctant royal being pressured into marriage" is very fun for shipping purposes. But I have harlequin blood, so bear with me. Join me on this journey of character theorizing/shipping nonsense that makes it abundantly clear I have a Scrivener document I'm neglecting.

Laios was promised to someone from a young age. He and Falin both were; it's probably how their parents ended up together. They both broke it off by leaving their village, but it didn't seem to be a factor in Laios's own decision. And when Marcille, presumably, asks about his hypothetical love life (bicorn chapter), he not only brings it up readily, but actually seems kind of flattered? lmao

I love when smug Laios comes out. Underrated factor of Laios's personality for me is how much he enjoys being seen as cool. I think you'd expect Laios to be embarrassed or uneasy over this line of questioning, and the fact that he isn't is fun to me.

So when Yaad and his other old advisors bring up his need for a wife, Laios is ready to go along with it. Not necessarily thrilled by the prospect, but he was raised to think of marriage as a business arrangement you do because it's beneficial for your household/bloodline (as was often the case historically). He's already made the big step to claim a throne, and the idea of becoming village chief after his father seemed to have been vaguely in the back of his head all his life. Besides, if he has to do it anyway, I think he'd take comfort that there was a formalized process for an otherwise socially messy undertaking.

This dovetails neatly with my personal headcanon that Laios is gay but unaware of it. He comes from kind of a repressed culture- or at least I can imagine he does based on context clues- and has spent most of his life being ostracized in one way or another, feeling like he's on the outside of humanity. So he doesn't realize that his lack of attraction to women is unusual- he assumes that nobody really enjoys romance that much. It's not like his own parents married for love. It's just something people play up for stories, right?

It's all tangled up with his fraught desire for human connection and platonic companionship anyway. Meanwhile he's blithely unaware that the things he says about Toshiro are not normal bro things. Oh you'd totally marry Toshiro, Laios? Tell me more.

I see this in Marcille too. Firstly due to her unstable development, which has only recently allowed her to reach maturity (I headcanon her as somewhere between 20-22) and secondly due to her being a half-elf (infertile+a too-long lifespan), I think she has the expectation that she's simply not destined for love. The half-elf character she relates to in her favorite books says as much. So she, too, confuses a genuine lack of heterosexual attraction with the belief that this is just because of her half-elf status distancing her from it. Plus, she spent over a decade as a student/researcher in a nice little sheltered academic bubble, at an all-girls academy populated by adolescents. She's the most sheltered of all the characters: she's only spent the past year in the "real world", and she still focuses all her romantic attention on living vicariously through her favorite characters or her friends (except for Falin, conveniently!).

And Marcille would absolutely want to live vicariously through Laios and his future wife. She would not want him to go through a dispassionate formalized process: she wants her bestie to have a fairytale romance! What is the point of being a heroic king in a mythic castle if you can't even get a love story for the ages out of it?

This would result in a lot of Laios meeting with eligible bachelorettes at Marcille's urging, looking to Kabru for help the entire time and being grilled by Marcille afterwards about what he liked best about each girl. "She had nice, um, teeth?" They're both so close to getting it.

Kabru, meanwhile, is agitating for Yaad and the other advisors not lock the country into a hereditary monarchy, they have the chance to do something radical here, to break away from the systems that the elves and dwarves uphold. At the very least, let Laios marry for love, or formally adopt an heir and name them his successor if he wants, he's already sacrificed enough for the sake of Melini. Don't make him jump through these circus hoops for the chance of some trade agreements, we can get those without a royal marriage. And even if Laios was willing to go along with it, he does look at Kabru like he's his hero for sticking up for him.

The vague unhappiness Kabru feels at the idea of Laios being married off is easy for him to ignore. Kabru didn't actually get better at honoring or even recognizing his own wants just because he's moved past the dungeon. And Laios hasn't gotten the hint about his crush on Toshiro and is still 50/50 on saying casually shocking things, so when he remarks that he doesn't need a wife anyway when he has Kabru, he has no idea why that gets him the looks it does. After all, where he's from, men marry women to run their households, but Laios has castle staff for that, and Kabru is handling the rest?

That comment alone ticks one month off their collective gay awakening countdown.

Anyway. How many repressed gays in their twenties does it take to run a country?

Answer: Yaad can tell you.

[shaylene-the-praline]

‼️ PSA - Creators, Beware‼️

It's taken a lot for me to come out and do this, but after this situation escalating to a point of manipulation that's flat out disgusting, I have to.

There's a person within this community (goes by at least 5 or more different accounts...I've only been able to weed those out because I've been messaged with them) that's been disrespecting my boundaries and is now traveling into the realm of harassment. I've blocked him an amount of times I can't even count at this point, but he just deletes the account and comes back. The ones below are his two main ones.

ACCOUNT LINK

I'm going to give a little bit of background. He started out dming me from these. I would respond occasionally. He would tell me how he wanted to get to know me and how he wasn't like all the other "nasty guys on tumblr"...yadda yadda. I made it clear that I have trust issues and I'm not just opening up to anyone, and that I wouldn't mind being friends with time. He then goes on to accept this, claiming that he didn't want anything sexual. Well...my trust issues proved me right, because a little while after that, I noticed a pattern.

So I confronted him one day about what I noticed, and you see what he said. After that, I went back and forth mentally about what to do, and stupidly made the decision to give him another chance to not lie again. I feel like an idiot for doing it because he did end up lying again, but the part of me that believes people can change from a weird mistake took over.

So fast forward. I caught him in another similar lie, and that's when I blocked his two main accounts. This is when the random account making started; he would spam me with apologies that were half the time guilt trips. (Painting me as the villain for blocking him and not wanting to hear out his apology.)

The apology in the middle was the one I somewhat believed. But when I made the decision a few weeks ago to continue to block him, he kept creating accounts up to 20+ times to keep spamming me and trying to force interaction from me. Now, see on the left how he offered to get me something off my wishlist? This was a normal comment in every other message...but today, it's escalated because he actually has bought me something and is trying to use it against me.

This has been weighing on me mentally and making my tumblr experience stressful. I haven't shut off my dms because it isn't fair to people I actually speak with, but it also isn't fair to me that my blocks aren't respected, and I'm being made to feel like being lied to and mistreated is my fault. So other creators in this community, please be aware of this person. I don't doubt he's done this to others, I don't want it to happen to you.

My safety isn't in danger, but my mental health is rattled. Tumblr is fun for me, but not when someone won't back off and let me make decisions in my own time. He likes to say I've agreed to working it through...but that was only me saying I'd TRY. After witnessing this behavior, it sent me to blocking because I realized how stressed I felt.

Again..I hate that it had to come to this, but now that I'm being made to feel uneasy because he's using gifts to try and force me to interact, it's gone too far.

[yuri-is-online]

Now I wanna know how Grim ranks the second years. Also I'm in pain from wisdom teeth removal

oh dear I have heard that really hurts, I hope you are ok!

The Great Grim's OFFICIAL Tier List: Take 2 (do not steal)

Riddle- 3/10. Grim likes Riddle a lot, but not in a "hench human should date him" sort of way. If Grim had the ability to understand dating beyond thinking it's cringe he would tell you he is concerned about how Riddle handles conflict and what that would mean for your relationship. He wants you to be with someone who will give you space to relax, and Rampaging Riddle isn't the best at that. Unfortunately, Grim isn't that articulate so he just says he thinks he's too short.

Ruggie- 6.5/10. Ruggie isn't someone Grim hates exactly? Sure you dating someone rich would be nice because then he could get better tuna, but the rich guys on this campus are kind of scary... the real problem with Ruggie is that he expects Grim to do his share of the work. And he isn't shy about how cute he thinks Grim's insistence that he is the one in charge, that stupid laugh will start haunting his dreams. At least the cooking is worth it.

Azul- 7/10. Grim knows he shouldn't trust Azul but he does sort of... look he likes what the sleazy Tako is selling alright? And once that sell starts turning towards a romantic relationship with you he will absolutely be a little shit trying to wing man for him with you. It's sort of pathetic watching how they interact, both of them are convinced they are outsmarting the other but really the only person who is winning here is you.

Jade- I am so happy for your ugly ass boyfriend/10. Grim would be very happy if Jade tripped and fell into a ditch somewhere. Unfortunately Jade is an eel so he would probably just swim out of it right back into your arms and fake cry about it. If he wasn't so scary he'd be a 0.

Floyd- 9/10. Grim and Floyd sort of get along? Or at least I think so, Floyd likes Grim and likes hanging out with him and Yuu. He's the most likely out of the octotrio to actually bribe Grim without some sort of trick or gimmick because he finds it funny to see just how many things the baby seal will eat. He misses a point because Grim doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of being perfect but that's ok, Floyd knows the truth c: (he's delulu)

Kalim- 9.5/10. Grim thinks Kalim is kind of stupid and keeps trying to feed him crackers, so he is a half point away from perfect but! Kalim has no problems spoiling Grim which is good enough for him. Most of the time, if he didn't have money Grim would have so many questions.

Jamil- 20/10. Jamil is cringey but he can cook. I think Grim probably would be happiest in the long run with the more "normal" guys and Jamil would probably end up being his favorite. He gets to eat good food, and while Jamil would still want him to work... work isn't something Jamil wants to govern his entire life so Grimmy would be very happy with Yuu's choice.

Silver- meh/10. I don't think Grim understands the appeal of someone like Silver tbh. If anything I think his blunt kuudere swagger scares the hoes, which includes Grim. Sure, Silver is pretty, but he also says some pretty fucking dumb things that make Grim wonder if he needs to be the smart one. Normally he'd love that but ah. He is starting to feel rather unqualified all of a sudden for some reason, are you sure you like this guy? What standard is he meeting exactly and can you maybe reconsider...

[lxvvie]

More goofball shit featuring your faves. This time it revolves around this scenario: your lover is away, you're winding down for the day, and it's that time of the week when you do your face mask. They FaceTime you (or you them, depending), you answer with the mask on, and... reactions may vary. Or something like that.

Capt. John Price - The old man is actually nonplussed about it, if only because you got him the first time he talked to you with your mask on and he damn near had a heart attack. Dropped his cigar in his lap and everything.

Gaz - "Hey, love—oh, shit—!" The call disconnects and you're laughing your ass off. You got him back for pranking you and made damn well sure you were in the dark before you answered him.

Alex Keller - He was tired and wanted to send his love before he got some shut-eye for a bit. Then he saw you and was jolted back awake. Kinda. What really happened was that he spent the next couple of seconds looking crazy as shit and wondering if that was really you. Got his confirmation when he heard your voice. Hell yeah, his ass needs some sleep.

Soap - Kinda sulks in Golden Retriever because he would really like to partake in the goodness that is skincare with you because he really needs to de-stress, his skin isn't doing too good this time around, and you're wearing one of his shirts—how could you tease him like that?! Sulks even more when he finds out you're using the Aloe Vera mask this time, too.

Ghost - You know that one person who you FaceTime and y'all just spend a few minutes looking at each other? That's you and Ghost. His mask is up past his lips so you see the stubble—god, you miss the way it brushes against your inner thigh—and he's just... staring at you. Placidly. And you're staring at his lips him. Not-so-placidly. "Nice mask, lovie," Ghost breaks the silence, and you: "Better than yours, Simon?" He snorts good-naturedly, "Not even close." Cheeky bastard.

Alejandro - Has one of the most anti-climatic reactions ever. Doesn't even miss a beat with whatever it is he's doing and tells you to get some much-needed rest. Also mentally makes a note to take you up on your offer of getting a face mask once he gets home.

Rudy - Stops himself mid-laughter. Tries to hold it in. Busts out laughing. This was after he was startled because how else was he supposed to deal with the nervous energy? "What's so funny, Rodolfo?" Oh, shit, he knows that tone—

König - König.exe is in overdrive because you're using the sheet mask he bought for you. You can't see the goofy smile but you see the way his eyes crinkle. He'll be riding this high for a couple days, give or take. You'd give a smile in return but with the way the mask is practically plastered to your face...

Horangi - He's the one who bets that you'll fall asleep with it on. Bullshit. You were just resting your eyes because you had to keep it on for 20-30 minutes.

Graves - Doesn't even bother to react because he's seen you with a face mask on more often than not. Does pull this stunt though: "Say hey to the guys, darlin'. Wish 'em luck." And there you are in all of your skin-care glory for them to see. You awkwardly say hey and one sweet soul awkwardly waves back. Go to hell, Phillip.

Valeria - Turns out she loves her some face masks as well and y'all could be twinning, babes. And then she finds out which one you're using. "Huh. Sounds familiar. That wouldn't happen to be one of the ones I purchased, would it?" Oh, look at the time, gotta run—

Roach - Hits you with the thumbs up. Until you tell him you got one just for him, too. Uh...

Keegan - Spends the better part of your conversation wondering if you're okay (if the way he keeps staring intensely is any indication) because there can only be one masked mess in this relationship and it sure as hell shouldn't be you. You then had to give him a crash course in skin care.