#This is how I interpret Sleep to look like

[eowynstwin]

professor price

professor price x reader. age gap. older man/younger woman. pining. pre-relationship. jealousy. angst. guilt. voyeurism. mvp alejandro. lightly explicit. - A Christmas gift to my friend @guyfieriii, centered around her own Professor Price au from all the way back in early 2023. I have linked each fic of hers that I reference in this work—highly recommend you check them out.

The first day of class you’re in the front row—center seat.

Old instincts never really retire even if the body leaves the field; a moment’s evaluation opens you like a book. Pencil pouch on your desk, set parallel to the edge. Syllabus in the middle, creased at the stapled corner but otherwise pristine. Water bottle at the corner, solid blue.

You: hair neat. Wearing clean slacks and a knitted sweater like a uniform, ankles crossed, buckled straps of your Mary-Janes intersecting in an obtuse V. Like a flock of birds in formation, flying southwards for the winter. There’s a curated look to you, a careful arrangement of details meant to declare the essence of who you are and what you’re about.

It’s clear immediately; from only a glance.

You’re a good girl.

The eager-to-please kind. The five A-levels kind. The kind who does her bonus assignments because they’re available, not because she needs them. Prim, polished, ironed at the creases.

Straight from a 90s teen drama, or porn of an equal vintage.

You meet his eyes—

And Price knows how it goes.

Boredom and professional stagnancy are the bane of active men. Men with egos. Men who long to fix things. Men who have reached the heights of every achievement now looking for the next peak to summit.

It’s the curse of middle age’s collision with machismo. How does a man prove his masculinity when there’s no proving left to be done? When the panopticon has finally turned its eyes away, satisfied at his self-regulation enough not to constantly surveil it?

Suddenly the performance can end, if he wants it to. Only, if it ends, how does the actor not disappear, when the role is the only identity he’s ever had?

In academia, the answer is—of course—simple:

Fuck a student.

And oh. It’s right there, in those wide, sweet eyes, looking up at him with the reflexive veneration of a star student.

You’re begging to be fucked.

Fucked right. Fucked by someone who knows what he’s doing. Fucked so good that it upends every clean line of you, like breaking furniture, like smashing crystal. Fucked crying, whimpering, groaning beyond recognizable language, sweaty and gross until it’s impossible to tell whether or not his body and yours have begun to fuse.

Fucked the way no snot-nosed twenty-something twat, the age-appropriate kind that sleeps in the back of his lecture hall and then emails him at the end of every semester begging for extra credit to fix his grade, could possibly fuck you.

He holds your gaze for too long. You smile at him, shyly, and he gives you a brusque nod before distracting himself with the papers on his lectern.

You’re too young for him.

Not that it matters.

Price is all about lines. Stark delineations between will and won’t. Before his untimely retirement, the lines had meant everything. They separated the kind of man he was from the kind of man he did not want to be, and they kept those men separate, even when the distance from one to the other narrowed so sharply that the differences between them were a matter of context rather than consequence.

The important one now is the one that splits his lectern off from the rest of the lecture hall. Students are allowed to cross it, of course, or else he would be neglecting his duty to them as their instructor. But they must inevitably leave, and his feet must remain planted squarely on his side of it.

It’s not even a line he drew himself, although he would have if need be. No—professors, at the beginning of their tenure, are warned. Students will construct feelings of intimacy with their teachers, interpreting their passion for academics as passion for the conduit thereof. Close relationships between mentor and mentee, to be sure, can be deeply beneficial for the young scholar’s development—

But they must remain impersonal. The work must be the lens through which student and teacher look at each other. That barrier must never be lifted.

So it doesn’t matter how old you are or aren’t, or that you’re a second-year grad student, or that every time you walk into the classroom Price wants to drag his desk chair over to yours because you’re the only one who seems like she gives a damn about what he teaches.

He may draw his lines, but he never crosses them.

He’s seen it before. Never done it himself. Phillip Graves has a reputation for it.

Of course, as the Americans like to say, innocent until proven guilty, but it’s hard to argue with the pretty girls Graves always seems to have floating around him every semester. Undergrads, even, though to his credit they seem usually to be the older ones.

Price doesn’t think that even Dean Shepherd’s lapdog could get away with fucking freshly legal coeds—mostly because, if Graves tried to pull something like that, Price might actually take matters into his own hands and kill the bastard himself.

As it is, he can’t actually prove that his colleague is sleeping with anyone he shouldn’t be. He’s not in the army anymore; he has no desire to lose sleep over staking out the man’s house.

The only consolation is that no one besides his students and the Dean seem to like Graves—something the man doesn’t seem concerned to rectify, if he even notices. Though Price can’t imagine that he hasn’t noticed. He’s always sitting alone at staff meetings if Shepherd isn’t present, and if he does try to talk to anyone, it’s usually the adjuncts, young women just beginning their careers in higher academia who know the drill by now and merely humor him.

So it shouldn’t surprise Price when, one day, he catches Graves chatting you up.

“Hey, congrats on the election, kid,” he hears him say to you, referencing your recent appointment as president to the student association of his department. Graves smiles, dimpling, all that American charm amped up to the maximum.

And Price sees red.

“Thank you, Professor Graves,” you say politely. You have your arms crossed over your binder, held to your chest, as if a makeshift shield.

“I’d have voted for you if I could’ve,” the other man says. “And hey, I know you Brits like your formalities, but it’s just Phil with me.”

“Erm…”

“There you are,” Price announces from the other end of the hallway.

You turn, and give look you shoot him is so relieved that, almost immediately, it clears the haze from his eyes, like a cool breeze moving through the hottest part of a summer day. Relief of his own floods him, washing the jealousy he’d barely had time to confront completely away.

“Hello, Professor,” you say, “I was just on my way to your office!”

“Good,” says Price, approaching. “Wanted to talk about your last paper. Had some issues with your secondary sources.”

You blanch, and he immediately feels guilty for the lie.

“Ah, go easy on the kid,” says Graves. “I keep telling you, John, no one likes a hardass.”

For some reason, there are two men in the department that Phillip Graves makes a consistent effort to interact with, and Price has the misfortune of being one of them. He’s not sure why—he thinks he’s made his distaste for the man very clear. It’s probably some dick-measuring contest for him; Price’s standing in the department, even despite Shepherd’s favoritism, is secure.

Whether it’s secure enough to withstand this…thing happening between you and him has yet to be seen.

“I hold my students to a higher standard, Graves,” Price says shortly. Then, to you, “Come along, and we’ll talk about it.”

He turns and leaves, and as he hears you hurry after him, an ugly kind of gratification begins purring behind his sternum. The two of you walk for a ways in silence.

“Was it the interviews?” you finally ask him, sounding genuinely upset. “I thought they would be okay, given that they were original transcriptions…”

“Your sources were fine,” Price soothes, unable to take it. “Just needed to give you a good out, didn’t I?”

You falter beside him, but quickly catch up. “Oh no, was I that obvious?”

He looks to you as he walks, catching the anxious expression on your face, and smiles, amused. “Don’t worry, promise you he couldn’t tell.”

Then you laugh. It enter’s Price’s bloodstream and pumps through his veins, all the way to the arteries in his neck. It fills the lobes of his brain, rapidly bringing the world into sharper focus.

“I’ll hold you to that, professor,” you say, and it’s a tether he welcomes, a sting of pleasure as its hook lodges in his ribs.

Price looks over his shoulder, and finds Graves watching the two of you walk away. He doesn’t like the expression on the other man’s face. It’s…knowing. Understanding, in the way of a man having competed for something and lost to the better opponent.

He catches the Graves’ eye, scowling at him; he means for the expression to be disapproving. For Graves to know that Price knows what he’s about, and has no intention of humoring it.

But he knows how it actually comes across.

Back off. She’s mine.

Price’s colleague and friend Alejandro Vargas is the only other man in the department that Graves cares to know, and, luckily for Price, Alejandro shares his dislike.

“He is too young to be acting the way he does,” he says one evening after work. He and Price share a pint at a pub nearby campus on a regular basis.

“Too young?” Price repeats. “What is he, thirty-five? Forty?”

“Who cares,” Alejandro says. “Anyone chasing after his students the way he does should at least be fifty. That way a midlife crisis can at least be a valid excuse.”

Price’s stomach turns. His forty-sixth birthday has already come and gone.

“So you’re sayin’—”

“Man his age can get his ego boost somewhere else,” Alejandro mutters into his tankard. He has a strange way of looking at things, sometimes; as if he were a much older man himself, and not in his prime at thirty-eight. “Don’t they make apps for that nowadays?”

“No excuse for messing with students,” Price agrees, although he tastes the bitter note of hypocrisy in the back of his throat as he thinks of you, and that rainy afternoon.

Driving you home was a mistake, although he can’t think of anything else he would’ve respected himself for doing. He clings to that excuse like a buoy in the ocean—no matter his feelings for you, leaving you on campus to wait until the storm passed, no umbrella, no coat, would have been unforgivable.

He’d played it off as simply doing a favor for his favorite student. A willingness to go beyond his usual responsibilities to you, since you excel beyond what even his high standards demand of you.

Something the two of you should keep between yourselves, for professionalism’s sake, because he has an obligation to treat every student equally.

I can be discreet, you’d said, the tone of your voice playful and also…not.

The way one says something that they mean, while framing it as a joke, just in case it’s taken the wrong way.

Mitigation.

Something he could’ve brushed off, if your hand hadn’t moved toward his.

Good girl. He’d moved his away. Focused on the line. Accepted your apology with grace, determined not to embarrass you for feelings that are only natural—

That are reciprocated, even though they shouldn’t be.

“That is less the problem to me,” Alejandro muses.

“What?” Price exclaims. “Mate, we have a responsibility to these kids. We can’t go treating classrooms like bloody Love Island.”

“It is about the man,” says his colleague. “If a man shows respect in his relationships, then it is not so important where they happen. Graves, he is not a respectful man.”

“No one his age should be with girls that much younger than him,” Price growls.

Alejandro fixes him with an intense look, a serious expression tightening the sharp lines of his face.

“This is what I mean by respect,” he says evenly. Purposefully. “Knowing who is right and wrong to be with. Girls that young? No. They do not know themselves, and Graves will try to tell them who they are. But not every girl is that young.”

Price shifts uncomfortably on his barstool, remembering one late afternoon—when Alejandro had stopped by his office, to find you sitting on the small couch there, studying, as Price finished grading essays.

Innocent, he’d thought. A mentor and his student, sharing space, making room for scholarship to flow between them.

He realizes now, chagrined, that Alejandro has always been too perceptive to accept what he merely observes.

“Mate,” Price says, measured, “It isn’t like that.”

“No,” Alejandro agrees, “it isn’t. That does not mean it can’t be.”

“Alejandro—”

“You are not your father, hermano,” his colleague says, knowing exactly where to strike. “That is the end of what I will say.”

And he sips his beer while leaving Price to seethe.

You’re seeing one of the twats.

Price convinced himself the first couple of times you walked out with him—Will—that you were taking on a charity case. You’re a student leader, after all. Helping a classmate with their ailing grades falls under your purview. You’ve hosted tutoring sessions before, and the pride of it had nestled glowing in his chest so warmly that he couldn’t help bragging about your academic promise to his colleagues.

Even outside of the ache for you that sits in his gut every time he sees you, Price could not be prouder. The students’ Historical Society’s fundraiser last month had gone off beautifully thanks to you, and everyone who had attended was still talking about it: from the brilliant idea for a fifties dress code, to the truly impressive array of antiques you’d convinced donors to contribute to the silent auction.

You’d looked so beautiful in your little red dress, too. The sharp lines of your burgundy lipstick had made your smile so bright all evening that he’d fallen asleep thinking about it.

His student. His protege, really. Of course you’d notice someone struggling, and make an effort to help.

Except, Price has never been very good at fooling himself. The truth is too valuable an asset for him to disregard.

The first time you leave with Will, he feels it clench around something in his gut. He has to remind himself he has no right to feel anything about it at all.

The second time, it starts burrowing deeper. Gnawing a hole in his stomach. The look on the twat’s face, as he follows you out like a lost puppy, is too smitten to allow Price his illusions.

Then one day, you take that twat’s hand in yours at the end of class, slotting your fingers between his.

It descends again. That film of red over his eyes. He stares at the two of you as you make your way to the door—and you throw Price a look, Price, aimed straight for his center.

You’re his. His.

And what has he done about it?

The accusation is in your eyes. It’s honed by everything he’s done—and hasn’t. The late-night chips after fundraiser planning. The cigars between classes, and the scotch in his office he pours every time you stop by to discuss your thesis.

The cufflinks he wears for every single class you’re in, and the box you wrapped them in sitting open on his beside table. Like a conduit for bringing the warmth of your touch into his home.

The same warmth, in his weakest moments, that he imagines wrapped around his cock. As his fingers find the soft give of your cleft. As his tongue meets yours, and tastes the liquor he now only drinks in your company.

Imagines, but never pursues.

Why had he believed you wouldn’t search for the same elsewhere?

The anniversary comes up faster than Price would have liked, despite the fact that the calendar isn’t missing any days.

He goes to the cemetery alone. Bouquet of English roses clutched in the vice of one hand. It feels like a day it should be raining, but the sky betrays him, the gray covering of clouds thin enough to let the dyed sunlight through.

He buried his mother in the plot she’d bought for herself and his father, Price the elder, according to her wishes. He’d buried his father beside her against Price the younger’s own.

It had happened within a year of each other. The chemotherapy hadn’t worked, after years of fighting it, and the last months of Mrs. Price’s life happened far sooner than it was fair. She hadn’t left any regrets behind, she promised in her will, but young John Price knew it for a lie.

He remembers sitting with her in the mornings as a boy, flipping through old issues of National Geographic. His mum would ooh and aah over exotic pictures of the American west—the Russian steppe—colorful bird’s eye shots of the Taj Mahal or Burj Khalifa.

“We’re gonna go there someday,”she would enthuse, squeezing him around his toddler-belly with one arm as he perched in her lap.

Even then he’d known it was a dream, and not a goal. All he had to do was look around at the yellow tint of their kitchen with its laminate countertops, the scuffs on the corners of its scratch-and-dent fridge, the mismatch of cookware hanging on a smoke-stained wall. Peeling wallpaper they didn’t have the right to tear off, because they needed their deposit back very badly when they moved out.

His father was a tradesman—they could barely afford to visit Wales.

And his mother, at the elder Price’s insistence, did not work.

It’s in a nice place, the grave. Far back away from the entrance, where it can’t be trivialized by passing cars or dog walkers. Price can stand at the end of it and reckon with death without having to think of life going inexorably on right behind him.

Except, it’s the years to the right of the dash that he stares at, not the left. Even as a boy, he’d always noticed the disparity between his mother and father. How, before the younger even turned fourteen, grey streaked Price the elder’s temples, scars of age furrowing deep from the corners of his nostrils— while the decades his mum still had left to face radiated from her so brightly that sometimes people took her for his father’s eldest, and not the baby she bounced on her hip.

Decades she never even got to see.

Price rounds to his mother’s side and lays the bouquet beneath her epitaph—Loving Wife and Mother. He’s almost as old now as she was, in her last year, and he feels the epicenter of it sit somewhere between his heart and lungs. It burns, furious, indignant.

“Got tenured this year, Mum,” he murmurs to her. “Probably pay off the house next.”

He hears birdsong in the tree line beyond the border fence. Tries to feel her fingers running through his hair in the breeze, and fails. It’s just wind.

His father—who he sees in the mirror too often lately—he does not address.

He makes the mistake all men eventually do—

He calls his ex.

“Hallo?” Ada says, after picking up on the second ring. She’s one of the few people he knows to keep a house phone these days. She’d explained she enjoys the novelty, and the surprise on the rare occasions it actually rings.

“Hi, darlin,’” says Price.

“John, hi! How you doin’?”

“I’m alright. How’s the new place?”

He hears a shift in the background, like she’s thrown herself at a haphazard angle into a chair. She’s always been like that; she moves through any space she occupies unafraid of what she might bump into.

“Tidy!” she enthuses. “Got a view of the sea down the hill. And there’s a market on Saturdays! I got the loveliest Gruyère from one of the stalls, says he ages it himself. Can’t wait to put it in a sauce.”

“Sounds nice,” Price says, meaning it.

“Yeah, it is,” Ada replies. He pictures her twirling the cord between her fingers. “Heard about your promotion, by the way, congratulations—you earned it, John.”

“Thank you,” he says. “Have you settled in okay there? Students giving you trouble?”

“Not at all! Bit touch and go at the start of the semester, but you know me,” she laughs. “That’s how I thrive.”

“I know.”

A pause. Long enough for Price’s regret over dialing her to make itself a part of the conversation.

She sounds good. She sounds better than good—she sounds great. Happy with where she is in life, and where she’s going.

Nothing like she did when she lived with him.

“So…” Ada trails. “I know you didn’t just call to chat, John. Not that I don’t appreciate it.”

“That obvious, am I?”

He can hear the sympathetic smile in her voice when she replies, “I can look at a calendar too.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I just—just wanted to hear your voice. Hope that’s alright.”

“Yeah, it’s alright,” she says. “Didn’t stop caring just because I left, you know.”

He hears the unsaid: just because you didn’t follow.

“I know,” he replies. He leaves the me neither unsaid as well. “Ada, do you—do you regret it, at all?”

“Regret…what?” The tone of her voice edges toward the defensive.

“Being with me.”

“What? John, of course not!” She laughs, tension evaporating. “We had some bad times, sure, but we had some good ones too. I’m grateful for all of them.”

“Even the bad times?” he asks, frowning.

“Yeah, John, even those. They showed me who you were. And I liked that person, a lot. If you had—”

She cuts herself off from the what if John knows had been coming. The speculation about what their relationship might have looked like, if he’d made a different decision. It would only hurt both of them more to think about it.

“If you’d been a worse man I’d have left a lot sooner,” she amends. “But like I said. No regrets. It’s over now, and I’m sad about that. But I’m glad it happened.”

Something happens behind Price’s ribs—something hard, trying to claw its way upward, that he has to draw his lips between his teeth and sniff hard to foil its escape.

“Thanks, darlin,’” he says, hearing the tremor in his own voice, and, for once, not hating himself for it with her listening. “I feel the same way too.”

He catches you with the twat in the library. It doesn’t surprise him—he hadn’t expected anything else. You hadn’t even looked at him this time as you’d pulled Will out of the lecture hall, nor had you noticed him following at a remove behind.

So when he opens the door to the sound of smacking flesh, it doesn’t shock him in the slightest.

You’re on a reading table with your skirt flipped upward, underwear dangling from one ankle as you curl your legs around the twat’s hips. The boy’s arse quivers and clenches as he jackhammers into you with neither art nor precision.

The look on your face is one of concentration. Focus. Like whatever pleasure you could derive from this is something you must actively keep hold of, otherwise you’ll lose it.

Your eyes land on him then, and for a split second—a fraction of a heartbeat—you seem relieved. Pleasure radiates from you, and you begin to roll your hips as you hold him in your gaze—and then, suddenly, horror overtakes it. Your eyes widen. You raise a hand to grab Will—

Price shakes his head.

You freeze. Your chest heaves. (The twat is oblivious.)

He stares you down. Leans against the bookshelf with his hands in his pockets, unblinking.

His.

His.

The thing about lines is that they can be redrawn.

You run your tongue along your parted lips, hands coming up to rest on the twat’s back. Price looks down at the place Will’s body hides yours from his gaze, then back up.

He inclines his head. Go on, then.

And again, you move. Right as his command. Pull the body between your legs closer, brows creasing together, undulating into each thrust as you let Price’s eyes cage yours. You draw up higher and higher, the pitch of your breath thinning as your climax stretches taut inside you—you beg him with your eyes—

He nods.

You seize on the desk, throwing your head back, jaw dropping open. No sound escapes you—he sees the muscles in your throat work to contain it.

What will you sound like when he gets his hands on you?

By the look on the twat’s face next class, you’ve ended it. Price hardly cares. His phone is hot in his pocket, a grenade with its pin nearly out.

In case your memory fails when you find yourself thinking of me.

And, in the center of the photo, the exact thing the twat’s hips had been hiding away.

You’re there, in the front row. Every time his gaze falls on you, you shiver. The same skirt from before leaves the soft expanses of your thighs bare, for him, this time.

His. You know it now, too. It intersects the line, perfect in its perpendicularity.

You have lessons to learn. You’re already a good student; the despondent expression on Will’s face, even now, as he gazes at you like a lovelorn puppy from the back of the hall, proves it.

But you’re not there yet. You’re only just now catching up, after all. And only Price has the duty—the right—to teach you.

You’re too young for him—

Not that it matters.

a/n: If this seems disjointed or missing context, it's because a few things I reference are no longer available on the internet. Ash, I mourn daily what you have withdrawn from us.

Thank you for reading!

[willowedspirits]

Thought I should detail the nails these guys all use.

Some of the nails from my original post changed slightly. I didn't have a very solid idea of what I wanted their nails to look like at the time, but I got them all down now!

Notes below:

I separated the nails into basic categories. Mainly for me to be able to keep track of them all. These aren't really canon to Hollow Knight, more my interpretation of how they would refer to their nails.

Time

The nail he used in the Sleeping Gods comic is what he used when he first entered Hallownest

Using a new nail was his way of coming to terms with his injuries

Twilight

He prefers using his claws, so he does not use a nail

His claws are even more powerful as a Shade

Warriors

Uses a standard Needle that's commonly used in The Hive

Four

Has a talent for smithing nails himself and created his own

The split nail was an accident, but something he further developed and was able to perfect

He also helps the Mosskin with their nail related issues

Wind

His nail is from the Colosseum of Fools, he got it after he started going there regularly

Tetra taught him how to take care of it

Wild

He has a standard nail, but it technically counts more as a needle

He has multiple. Many. Lots. Too many to count (but I have no idea where he puts them)

He prefers to use his nails as ranged weapons than close combat

Legend

Has 2 short range nails (dual wield) and his staff

He prefers to use his nails but is getting used to using his Soul as a weapon (he's having fun with it)

Is not afraid to just hit someone with the staff if he needs to. It worked out for him before using Soul, it'll work for him just fine now

Hyrule

Doesn't use a nail, he perfers using spells

Can use Legend staff if needed (he only really uses it to demonstrate spells for Legend)

Sky

The Master nail and Dream nail are one in the same

Is hesitant to let anyone else handle it (he gets better at this)

The Dream nail is the only known "cure" for the infection

Dark Link

They're nail is a replica of the standard nail Time used when he first fought Radiance

They can summon this nail, as well as projectile nails (they all look the same)

They're also able to replicate the nails used by the other bugs, but Time's nail is their primary weapon

[jollmaster]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by the statements that "the concept of aristocracy" is too "down-to-Earth" for the Ars Goetia, "makes the world of hell seem not as impressive as it could be" and explain how Vivziepop doesn't show/know how aristocracy works/the Goetia in HB don't act like real aristocrats?

overall my take is that Hell is a great concept, some demons are believed to be literally deities and this would be a great opportunity to show a world where everyone exists not in classism, but in myth; in Viv's interpretation it looks like a Los Angeles/Texas/Las Vegas with rare random mindfuck and tries to show nobles, who feel like mean teenagers, and okay, but it's boring

oh yes about concept of aristocracy, will try to explain

if we compare them with our mortal nobles, they would have had more servants and court at least; Octavia literally would have had a dozen of teachers and governesses, and she would have been socialized from a very young age (the final Octavia is just a misunderstood emo child from an average family); Stolas and Stella (who dislike each other) didn't need to sleep in the same bedroom like they have only one bed, etc

anyway, it's Vivs right to write things, but I also have a right to say that with big opportunities it turned out more boring than it could have been

and why sectants calls out Stolas if he's so young, when he became popular, I dunno

and I hate stolitz drama and babifying characters lmao

[writingdevil]

Now that the fic Tongues and Teeth is over, I’m wondering what kind of talk Smitten had with Skeptic and Hero to make him stand back up on his feet (I suppose this is a request for a fanfic? Yep)

Also, Grey Brothers content will always be welcomed. Just these two interacting more in general 👀

(Yeah,it would definitely be a heavy and emotional talk.Also,I tried to keep all the relationships in the story between the voices vague so that you could interpret them however,but I think I subconsciously knew that they had to be brothers and they definitely came off that way!Anyways,enjoy!)

'Our hearts beat for someone who will never return to us!'

That was the last thing Smitten remembered screaming at the flock,before being gently guided back to his abode by Skeptic,with a silent Hero in tow.Now they were all standing around his home,all three with a dark,melancholic aura about them all.

One thing tied the three of them together.One thing kept dragging them down further into their sullen minds,and refusing them the joy they wanted to live with.

Longing.It was longing.

They all longed for something that they could never get back again.

Smitten doesn't even remember how his outburst came about.One second,he's cheerfully walking and talking with Stubborn-the next,he has dark tears streaming down his face and he's yelling at Stubborn,furious at him for suggesting that he 'moves on so he stops creeping everyone out.'

Move on?Move on?Like it's that simple?

He heard Skeptic sigh,and Smitten looked up, finding the other bird much more ragged and exhausted than he should be.Skeptic seemed lost in his own head for a second,before his striking eyes steeled in determination,and he said,"We need to fix this.If not for us,then the sake of the flock, because it's dragging everyone else down."

Smitten reached up and began to nervously preen the feathers around his head as he softly said,"I'm mortified at my behaviour today.I shouldn't of yelled at Stubborn that way."

"It's alright,mate,"came Hero's sweet reassurance, standing farthest away from them,leaning against a corner of the wall with his arms crossed defensively.He kept glancing out at the window,as if desperate to get out and away from all this chaos. But Smitten knew this meeting was as much for Hero as it was for him.

"I talked to Para before coming in here.Stubborn doesn't hold it against you or anything."Smitten breathed a sigh of relief,but the pain in his heart was still very much present.

"I just-"Skeptic said,rubbing his eyes roughly with the palm of his hands,"-I just don't understand how to fix this,how to move on from this."

"Maybe we can't move on.Maybe we'll forever mourn for their presence,"Smitten quietly said, looking down at the floor.He heard Skeptic sigh harshly,and when he looked up,he was giving Smitten an exasperated look.

"That can't be the answer.Besides,where would that leave us and the rest of the flock?Even Broken is learning not to let the princess drag him down anymore.You need to do the same,or else you'll never be happy."

"Do not talk to me about being happy when I know you spend days up at night,refusing to sleep until you figure out how to get back to them!"Smitten felt a fire on his tongue as he snapped at Skeptic, something he rarely did.

Skeptic was also surprised by his words,and that was when Hero pushed himself off the wall and stood in between them,spreading his wings out to act as a barrier."Look,there's no need to be harsh to each other.We all need to have a sit down and work this out,before something serious happens."

Skeptic gave him an incredulous look."We?"he said in confusion,then chuckled as if Hero had said some great joke.It went on a second too long before Skeptic suddenly gave Hero a sharp look and said,"No,we're here because you decided to fly off for an entire day without telling anyone,and you had us all worried sick!"

Smitten saw the way Hero curled his fists in frustration,the guilt still evident on his face.Smitten remembers the fear that gripped his heart-the fear that gripped all of their hearts.That Hero had abandoned them to go search for the Long Quiet. Smitten remembers weeping with joy when Hero returned.

Still,Hero had a spark in his eyes,refusing to take his attention off of Skeptic as he said,"No,we're here today because Smitten had a meltdown twenty minutes ago!"

Smitten felt heat spread across his cheeks at the reminder,and it felt almost unnatural to be blushing at something that wasn't a fair maiden.

Smitten couldn't remember much of his conversation with Stubborn,but it had started off friendly enough,even though he knew that Stubborn could be a bit harsh with his words.They must've turned the conversation to be about the princesses.Smitten knew that Stubborn had quite a passionate love for her,in his own way.

'Our hearts beat for someone who will never return to us!'

Smitten stood up.

"No,"he finally said,"we are here because we have all lost a love,and we can't cope without them."He made sure to look Skeptic in the eye."We all have, and we're all hurting."

That's why Hero would fly for hours at night.

That's why Skeptic would shut himself in his room to find some explanations to all this.

That's why Smitten couldn't stand to be alone for more than a few minutes.

Skeptic opened his mouth to protest,but Smitten knew they were just going in circles now,so he wrapped his wings around him,staring down at the ground as he whispered,"I don't know how to get used to this dreadful hole in my heart."

He wanted to.He so badly wanted to feel as happy as the others felt,but there felt like a wall in between that happiness.Smitten couldn't let go of her,no matter how much he knew that she was safe and loved with the Decider.Something inside him just kept screaming and yearning for her love.

"I don't know either,"Hero quietly admitted,getting a look of shock from Skeptic.But the once dashing Hero now appeared to be covered in a veil of gloom and hopelessness.His wings lowered until they were touching the floor as he said,"I just-It's hard to move on,y'know?I see everyone getting better and building the life they each want,and I want to be a part of that-but I can't,because all I know is Him, and without Him,I'm lost."

Tears were welling up in Hero's eyes,and the sight of their Hero breaking down was enough to have Smitten's throat closing up in anguish,so he stepped closer to him,wrapping both an arm and a wing around him.He instantly felt Hero melt against him,leaning in closer to his warmth.

He silently looked up at Skeptic,willing him to put his pride aside and to see how bad they were all hurting.

A softness came over Skeptic's stern face,and he sighed,taking a small step closer to them as he practically whispered,"I don't know what to do,"in a way that made him sound ashamed of himself-but for Skeptic,the inability to figure something out with logic was shameful to him.

Skeptic ran a hand roughly through his feathers."I don't know how to solve this.Any of this.I know that logically,we need to move on from them,but I can't figure out how to do that."

There was a long pause after that,of which Smitten could only hear one thing-'Our hearts beat for someone who will never return to us!'

Maybe it was hopeless for them.

Hero sniffed,then averted his gaze from either of them as he said,"This might just be me,but everything kinda felt-simpler,when we were just voices in a god's head.We could give him advice, and no matter what happened,no matter how brutal the death,we would be there,within him."

Especially Hero.Smitten knew that Hero stuck by the Decider's side throughout every single choice they made,more so than the others.He knew that their grief was almost identical,but they were both hiding it with smiles that everyone could see through.

He could feel Hero trembling in his grip as he took a shaky breath and continued,"But He made that choice for us without asking,and I just wish that I could talk to Him again,to see Him and know that everything is going to be okay."

"He was ours.We were fragments of His mind,and now we're just-we're just-"

"-shattered pieces,"Smitten mumbled,but the other two heard it clear as day.

Smitten knew how that felt.He knew that the princess was in good hands,but it still left a hole in his heart that he didn't know how to fill,and his previous attempts were clearly not working.

"I know,"Skeptic agreed,"I keep trying to figure out what happened,what occurred to give us these bodies.But to be honest,I'm just doing all that for a chance at seeing them again.I feel lost without them."

Smitten reached a hand out,and Skeptic smiled sadly as he accepted it,squeezing his hand for either comfort or solidarity,Smitten didn't mind.

There was another heavy pause,one that Smitten wasn't sure was good.He couldn't be certain that hope would be the thing to break this silence.

He gazed up at Skeptic anxiously,before quickly turning his attention to the floor as he softly admitted,"Maybe we deserve to be lost forever."

He saw hurt flash in the bird's eyes,but Smitten couldn't bring himself to take it back or sprinkle in some flowery language to sugarcoat it.This was just who they were now-bodies full of never-ending grief.

But then Skeptic's eyes lit up.Not in the usual,flash of brilliant light he would get when he finally figured something out.No,this light was softer,more uncertain,like it could be snuffed out with a single doubt.

But he still had that tiny light as he said,"Maybe-maybe that's the problem.Maybe we're expecting ourselves to move on like the others,but that isn't the way at all."

"How do you mean?"Hero asked,taking a step forward and out of Smitten's embrace."I mean," Skeptic explained,"every puzzle has their own process.We're the same.The others didn't just suddenly forget about the Long Quiet-they all grieved and got back up in their own time.Ours is just-"Skeptic paused to take a deep breath,"-taking longer."

"I don't understand,my friend,"Smitten confessed, and that light grew bigger as Skeptic spread his arms out and explained,"I mean,we three came in here to deal with our problems,so that we wouldn't worry the flock again,and then walk out completely fine.But that was never going to be the answer.Our pain is too big for that"

"So what's the answer then?"Hero asked,a hint of fear in his voice.

At that,Skeptic sighed,and simply said,"Time.Time is what's right for us.This pain we feel will not be gone when we step foot outside this house.It will not be gone tomorrow,or next week,or even a month from now.But each day may get a little bit easier to deal with,until we barely feel their absence anymore.But the most important thing that we have to do is try."

It wasn't an answer.It wasn't a solution.It was a direction.

Smitten glanced at Hero,and he saw a conflict within his eyes,and if Smitten tried hard enough,he could imagine what the Long Quiet would look like in this moment.He quickly rid himself of those thoughts,knowing that it would only hurt him more in the long run.

Truthfully,he did it to avoid thinking about Skeptic's words.Try?Try to forget about his love?Did he even deserve to do that?

"I guess,"Hero spoke up then,sounding unsure but hopeful,"I guess that could make living-like this-easier."

Then there were two pairs of eyes on him,and it was beginning to feel too much for Smitten,right up until Skeptic squeezed his hand softly and said, "Smitten?Are you okay?"

He stared at Skeptic-before bursting into soft cries and weeps,curling into himself as his wings hit the floor.

"I-I don't deserve to forget this pain,"he admitted, hugging himself tightly as both Hero and Skeptic hovered around him in concern."I failed her.Who would I be if I didn't constantly mourn our love?"

He was ready for this to be his fate,his punishment for not saving his beloved-but then there was Skeptic,quickly stepping up to him,his voice a soothing whisper as he went,"Hey,hey,it's alright, you're gonna be okay."He cupped Smitten's face, wiping away his tears with his thumbs,and Smitten couldn't help but lean in to the sweet embrace,and he was faintly aware that Hero was rubbing his back as well.

Skeptic smiled at him and whispered,"Everything's gonna be okay.You were the smitten voice, remember?Not the voice that was specifically in love with the princess.You're just full of love for everything,and that's why we all love you,Smitten."

He could only cry harder,and even Skeptic's smile began to wobble as he continued,"This pain will pass,for all of us,until it's just a sore memory in the back of our minds-and one day,you are going to love someone or something with your whole heart, and they're going to love you even more for that. But until that day comes,I need you to try,every single day,to live until this becomes bearable.Can you do that for me?"

Smittn wasn't sure if he believed in himself.But he believed that Skeptic deserved to relax every once in a while.He believed that Hero should never feel lonely or abandoned ever again.

So for them,for his love of his beautiful flock-he nodded his head.

Almost a month and a half later,Smitten began gardening,and he cried tears of joy as he watched the first flower bloom,and both Hero and Skeptic were both by his side to witness it.

[majorasnightmare]

i finally did it. character relevant sex lore for the party bicycle YAHOO

this post fucking fought me every step of the way. thats what i get for writing character analysis while violently ill and dosed to the moon on meds. enjoy in detail content on how bhaals favorite gore baby straight out of pottery barn fucks his way through the sword coast

content warnings for below the cut for sexual content and references to past sexual abuse 👇

so dirges relationship with sex is kind of... intense? ironically its at its simplest in his bhaalist years but that baggage gets carried over into experiences post tadpoling

bhaalist!dirge did... NOT have a good relationship with sex. the act itself was to be done for procreation, to seed the world with spawn to help fulfill Bhaal's goals, and to that end Dirge was coerced via duty into having sex with volunteering priestesses to try and conceive. Those efforts never bore fruit, and Dirge unconsciously tried to avoid that particular duty whenever possible, and it contributed greatly to his compulsive need to prove himself fit and worthy as Bhaal's vessel to avoid having to conceive an heir. the pleasure was embodied in the ecstasy of murder, a sensation somewhere between a full body orgasm and an addictive drug high, an instictive kill response triggered by Bhaal's blessing, and a sign that Dirge was the favored child. the desire for sex, for intimacy with another living person, was a sin, a sign of weakness. if you wanted the feeling, all you had to do was kill, and kill well. if you didnt want to kill, then it must be because you desired to spread your seed and incubate another heir to the throne of blood. what else could you possibly be looking for?

so dirge more or less avoided sexual encounters as a whole during his bhaalist years, up until meeting gortash, where gortash was an intimate human connection dirge WASNT going to kill (for the sake of bhaals schemes), and furthermore gortash was a connection that encouraged dirge to view himself as a person with desires outside of bhaal. things snowballed, and dirge fell into a cycle of sleeping with gortash that looked something like this

-be overwhelmed by the crushing weight of being a living religious idol

-feel soul destroying amounts of guilt for not living up to the standards set for you by yourself and everyone you interpret as a voice of authority on the matter

-refuse to go home because you hate yourself and your procrastinating on the inevitable routine of self flagellation and overwork until you feel youve earned the right to exist again

-end up at gortashs because you dont know where else to go

-seriously consider killing gortash and freeing yourself of this final piece of connection tying you to the material plane and potentially keeping you from killing the world. avoid killing gortash for exactly that reason

-let yourself be talked into making use of your time here by working on your schemes and projects together. be completely unable to focus and emotionally distraught

-be convinced into letting gortash relieve your stress. let things get carried away and take your clothes off. finally indulge your desire to be close to another person. >not your fault >banite talked you into it >youll kill him about it later

-you dont want to be responsible for your own desires or actions but you want to be guided by someone who knows how to make this work, so now that youve already shot yourself in the foot, might as well deepthroat the barrel. go completely submissive in bed and give gortash the thrill of a lifetime being the dom for a murderbeast that only tames itself for him

-have a genuinely really nice enjoyable time having sex

-wake up at the crack of dawn before gortash wakes up, feel completely disgusted and ashamed with yourself for succumbing to the weak desire for social connection, use his bathroom to clean yourself up, leave through his window without saying anything.

-promise yourself your never going to do this again, find someone to kill on the way out, crawl back home in disgrace to get started on that routine of self flagellation (literally)

-rinse and repeat.

and that cycle more or less stayed stable entirely up until dirges lobotomy. but dirge got to carry alllllll that unexamined guilt and trauma with him into his second go around

Post tadpoling, Dirge doesn't retain the old religious values that punished him for connection seeking, though he DOES retain the effects it left him with. Topping triggers traumatic memories of feeling coerced into trying to conceive at the temple (though he only recalls the intense discomfort, bereft of context or reason), and the years of religious guilt means hes so consciously present in his body that he struggles to finish. He also just takes a long time to climax overall. The discomfort doesnt start fading until a good bit into his relationship with Minthara. Generally this means his preference is to just treat his body as a tool his partner can use to make themselves feel nice, and Dirge derives a LOT of pleasure from watching his partner climax because of him. Its usually enough to satisfy him even if he doesnt cum, just as long as his lover does. This was one of the main sticking points in his relationship with Astarion, and one of the reasons Astarion eventually transitioned their relationship away from sex.

Dirge post tadpoling doesnt project any particular meaning onto sex and mostly sees it as a way to enjoy yourself physically, and is very open to casual and platonic sex. He sleeps with Astarion off and on throughout act 1 very casually when giving Astarion blood, he sleeps with Gale to reaffirm to Gale that he IS desirable and attractive, Dirge just cant reciprocate the exact kind of relationship Gale wants, and Dirge sleeps with Karlach after her engines fixed cuz he told her hed stay open to the idea and shes been pent up for a decade. Its something thats enjoyable to do, and Dirge takes to the role of attentive seducer quite well, lavishing affection on a partner over and over and over again, so he doesnt see a reason to abstain from it when its so fun, and it can do nice things for the people hes sleeping with. dirge very much is the kind of guy you can fuck without changing literally anything about your relationship to him, and he makes that clear before you blow his back out.

while dirge CAN be dominant in bed, he enjoys himself the most when hes being submissive. the dom/sub dynamic has more of an influence on how "into it" he gets than any other particular kink, because for dirge the relationship of power, potential for violence, and the physicality of his body are all intrinsically linked together. dirge is a killing machine that receives pleasure from inflicting death, and finds peace in receiving pain, and he is constantly aware of those facts. if someone isnt making him submit, hes doing the work of taming himself for them, and thats going to contribute to his difficulty losing himself in the experience. its easier and more enjoyable for him to pleasure a partner unwilling or unable to dominate him, because he can divert most of his attention off of himself onto intuiting the noises and motions of their body to pull the strongest reactions out of them.

when it comes to actual sex acts, dirge is a MASSIVE fan of oral. dirge typically seeks to satisfy multiple of his senses at the same time, and burying himself between his partners thighs ticks multiple checkboxes for him. its a reliable way of pleasuring a partner that rewards attention to body language and patience, it brings him close to multiple erogenous zones on his partners body (inner thighs, lower stomach, behind the knees, all within easy reach of his hands or easily manipulatable to bite, kiss, or otherwise mark), it satisfies multiple senses at once (nuzzling against his partners thigh, indulging the taste of them on his tongue, savoring the intensity of their scent so close to their heat, being able to look up and make eye contact), its something he can happily do for hours at a time until his partner wants him to stop, and above all its something one sided he can give to his partner without having to receive anything. dirge is free to take pleasure in the act itself and what it does to his lover without worrying about his bodys own reactions to things his lover might want to do to him, and in a d/s context its a blatant act of fulfilling devotion and worship that is its own reward. dirge is a very worshipful submissive, combining aspects of pet play with religious kink, needing a dominant to domesticate and take charge of him, before he rewards their efforts with service, devotion, and worship as thanks for going through the efforts of taming his more unruly urges. to that end, once minthara and him agree on their romance, she collars him as part of their initial courtship so that she has a means of restraining him on hand at all times.

dirges understanding of interpersonal power, autonomy, and self control are all tied up with his desires in social relationships and intimate connections, so because hes a bhaalspawn, because hes specifically an instinctive killer, the concept of indulgence itself carries inherent risk, and furthermore it carries the burden that he is not an infallible paragon of restraint. if dirge wants to be fully present in a relationship, he needs an external vehicle of control that isnt centered within his own capabilities of restraint, because otherwise he'll betray himself and act out against his own wishes and cause harm when he doesnt want to. dirge NEEDS someone to leash him so he can fully let go, but the responsibilities and risks of something like that are too much to reasonably expect out of most people. so far minthara and gortash have been the only ones willing to step up to be his self control kill switch

anything that plays into or around dirges power dynamics will typically be received well. bondage and restraints are enjoyable for him, alongside most forms of painplay. he has a huge thing for blood, and letting him draw it or drawing blood yourself and letting him catch the scent of it will sharply increase the intensity of the experience

generally dirge enjoys spoiling his lovers, dedicating the entire night to them with barely any focus on himself, lavishing affection on them, and using his own body to pleasure theirs, or letting his partner use his body themselves. intense scenes push dirge into subspace where his tendency to worship a lover gets emphasized, and he has a much easier time finishing like that and is prone to overstimulation. because he usually focuses so much on his lover, dirge tends to be quiet in bed, but gets increasingly vocal the deeper hes pushed into subspace

the only thing dirge possibly enjoys more than having sex with someone, is the aftercare afterwards. dirge gets incredibly soft and sweet after sex, and is a very big cuddler. aftercare is another oppurtunity to spoil his lover, to service and attend to them, and he enjoys the feeling of winding around them in the afterglow of it all. typically, the night has gone on long enough to thoroughly work through most of his visceral cravings for intense sensation, pain and blood, and with the Urge cowed through dominance and satisfied through intensity, whats left is shameless affection. hes very much an acts of service+physical contact love language kind of guy

it probably goes without saying but there isnt much that dirge wont experiment with, as long as it turns his partner on. hes also very openly a monster fucker, and the potential for dramatic violence holds deep erotic appeal for him. chimeric hybrids of monster and man scratch an itch meant to be soothed by the rejected slayer form for him, and his "hear me out" cake features bloodbornes ebrietas, daughter of the cosmos and the moon presence, and would almost certainly include several of MtG's phyrexians if i knew more about them. hed happily solve the lament configuration to fuck a cenobyte ala hellraiser, and he almost definitely found several of the necromorph transformations in dead space remastered viscerally satisfying

overall dirge is a submissive bottom who prefers being able to focus almost the entirety of his attention to servicing his lover, as his own pursuit of pleasure requires a lot of time investment and intensity that has to be increased either physically through stimulation or emotionally through domination, but finds plenty of satisfaction and enjoyment through his effects on his lover. the act of sex is very casual for dirge, with the d/s dynamic being more emotionally charged and the relationship standard for dirge. hes very open to polyamory, but wont seek out another dom if hes already leashed to one, but will happily share a partner so long as everyone is satisfied with the arrangement. he has a very high stamina, owing to his particular collection of cult traumas and bhaalspawn traits and how they more or less ensure he takes a while to satisfactorily finish, and he will gladly suck the strap like his life depends on it and eat out his lover like a starving man graced with his last meal. he adores all the attention aftercare provides, and it means that if anyone plans on actually making a night of sleeping with dirge thats more than a quick roll in the hay, it WILL be a multi hour affair so dirge can propely indulge in all the physical stimuli their body can offer. he is, also, super big on terms of endearment and if you dont give him something to call you, hes going to invent his own and itll probably be something morbidly sweet.

all in all, probably a rewarding lay for anyone who can make it past all the cult trauma spike traps and dark urge murder scares! or at least the post coital snuggles would be

[renard-dartigue]

Vessel calling upon Sleep to grant him power.

[the-girl-with-too-many-ideas]

So i'm in the middle of playing the Silent Hill Remake, and it's the one and only Silent Hill game I've ever played. What I knew before was very minimal, so what I've gathered is that Silent Hill is a town that's basically aggressive therapy that takes the aggression extremely literal. Thinking about it that way, I had a thought.

What if the Ling Xi caves were more like Silent Hill. Psychological horrors and everything. It doesn't let you go until you've conquered your heart demons, and if you don't, then you Qi deviate and die.

I have not finished the game at this point, so if my interpretation is wrong, feel free to correct me.

[majouartings]

PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE ZELDA *inhale* PLAYABLE ZELDA PLAYABLE Z

[windor-truffle]

"he's a ten but he doesn't know how to do his own laundry"

[sunset-bridge]

..........the beauty and the beast.........

id in alt

[stillthesunkenstars]

I thought the wake is so ass but after reading like… two eroges my opinion changed into that Simon guerrier was actually unintentionally spitting fire with *That* scene

[cuteiemonster]

hi there I absolutely love your pony (and 1 goat) designs they are all amazing

I’m just curious, why did you decide to draw Grian as an Earth Pony, rather than a Pegasus when he’s often associated with flight?

Was it a thing where the fanon stuff was an after thought or was your drawing not cooperating with you at all? (As fellow artist I do understand that occurrence)

or just something else entirely?

it originally stemmed from me not usually drawing grian as an avian most of the time that quickly devolved into " hehe the irony of one of his parents being a unicorn, the other being a pegasus, and he just got the short end of the stick " was too funny for me to pass up

[apatheticlexicographer]

HI UM

DO PEOPLE STILL GIVE A SHIT ABOUT LONGFORM ANALYSIS / CHARACTER DECONSTRUCTIONS???

because it's very messy (when i'm tired and my meds run out my Neurodivergent Powers kick in like the galaxy brain meme but I end up writing my Revelations as stream of consciousness) but i just wrote the mother of all mike analyses and i really, genuinely, balls to the wall and hand to the cross think i've got him nailed. i understand it all, i understand the meaning behind all of his weird awkward behaviours since the start of season 3 and i understand what led up to them. i can see the exact arc his and el's relationship has been following. i finally get why most sexuality analyses i've read on him fell a little flat for me. all i see are red string and shrimp colours but they are beautiful and fruity-ful.

he's NOT an oblivious idiot. internalized homophobia is NOT his primary motivation. he was NOT lying in the monologue.

he was NOT lying in the cabin scene in s3.

he was NOT leading el on, he was NOT using her as a beard, and he was NOT half-assing their relationship.

he's NOT going to have his "Oh" moment in s5, about his sexuality or about will.

and the great part is. it's a full and complete explanation and it doesn't require his exact sexuality to be confirmed. unlabelled mike girlies stay winning!!!

so like would anybody be interested at all in reading this damn post or should i just roblox oof myself

[dandyshucks]

once again trying to decide if i should show counselor/therapist my selfship art bc she asks to see any art I've made that i want to show her each session fjfkdl ,,,, i probably won't because I'm still terrified of being judged for it but mannnnn that rly has been almost all I've made these past two months ( ╥ω╥ )

[hazellight11]

You ever think about describing a concept and think of a comparison and it goes from a kinda weird metaphor to "oh wait these are actually pretty similar" to "hold on. This is literally just this thing in a context i wouldn't necessarily think about it normally" the more you think about it

[propaganda101]

It's so funny that the ultra intellectuals on this site are always so bitchy about ppl just having fun with stuff and not really caring about literary criticism or hyper analyzing themes bc "everything and anything means something if youre smart", but then when ppl do look into themes and motifs they're instantly like: hey actually that media is just objectively bad :/ like it's kinda awful and youre making things up to justify you liking the thing :// no it's not bad morally it's just a bit shit and cringe ://// have you considered watching something actually intellectually stimulating? :)

like dude, youre just a film bro at this point get off your high horse