#a whole bunch of details in them that i had somehow completely missed

[ethereal-writes]

Carving Pumpkins With The Demon Brothers (Ft. GN!MC)

Warning: questionable actions/slight gore if you squint on Lucifer's part, knives

A/N: Happy Halloween everybody! Sorry I'm posting this rather late (depending on where you are), but I figured some nice headcanons to wrap up the holiday wouldn't be too bad. This post is instead of the very dark Halloween fics I had mentioned earlier, because once I started working on them I found myself getting unnerved and didn't want to do my comfort characters like that. I guess I stick to writing fluff for a reason lol. Still though, enjoy the headcanons, please let me know if I missed any warnings, and happy Halloween!

–Ethereal :D

Lucifer:

Manages to keep his area the neatest through the whole ordeal

You guys had spread newspaper on the floor to keep the floor from getting dirty, somehow his doesn't have a single seed on it.

He saves all the pulp and seeds to cook with later.

He also succeeds in cleaning his pumpkin out the best.

He doesn't seem like the crafty type, but somehow every cut he makes is perfect.

He ends up somehow carving the most terrifying thing you've ever seen.

Those guts coming out of its mouth are...a bit too realistic.

You decide not to ask.

Mammon:

Makes the most mess out of everyone.

His newspaper is absolutely covered with pulp and seeds, and so is the floor.

Despite your instructions to save the insides to cook with later, most of his end up in the trash.

He doesn't seem like the crafty type, and he's not.

He doesn't trace out his design whatsoever ahead of time, he just goes in and hopes for the best.

He decides to go with a classic jack-o-lantern.

His ends up being a little bit wonky, with a lot of uneven cuts and very unsymettrical.

But overall, not too bad.

Leviathan:

He also makes a mess, though not anywhere near as bad as Mammon.

Doesn't do the best job of cleaning out his pumpkin, but that's only because he's super duper excited to get to the carving part.

He's the most crafty of the brothers, and has had to use knives before while working on details for his cosplays.

So he's actually very good at getting it to cooperate with him.

Prior to you guys actually sitting down to carve them, he already drew out a bunch of different designs, picked one, and practiced with an exacto knife and some foam ahead of time.

The most prepared, honestly.

He ends up carving a perfect recreation of Ruri-Chan in a witch outfit.

Satan:

Also made very little mess.

Only ends up with a few seeds and bits of pulp on the ground and saves the rest for you.

Unsurprisingly, he ends up carving a cat.

He starts by cutting out the body and head, meaning a large cat-sized hole in the pumpkin.

You assume that means his won't have a face, but he continues carving whiskers, eyes and a nose out of the piece he'd carved out.

Then he enchants the carved pieces to float in place.

His cat turned out a bit wonky, but honestly you're so distracted by him casually using magic for this sort of thing you hardly notice.

Asmodeus:

He was super excited to do this, and managed to cut out the "lid" just fine.

Then he saw you and his brothers begin to scoop out the pulp, and he just...flat out refused.

That part was far too icky for him.

You and Satan had to help him scoop out the pulp and completely replace all his newspaper before he'd even consider participating again.

But once you do, he's all in.

He tries to make one of those very aesthetic ones you see all the time on Devilgram.

He does very well considering how many times he's practiced (which is zero) but he's a little disappointed with how it came out.

Beelzebub:

Is also very excited for this, because once you guys save the pulp and seeds, you guys can make snacks with them later. As a result, he's very careful with scooping it out.

But he's happy to do this activity first.

Good news is, he's super strong! He manages to cut through it without any issues.

Unfortunately he uses so much strength that his cuts become a bit too forceful, and he accidentally smashes the first pumpkin.

On attempt two, he's much more careful.

Still though, he's not the most crafty person. He probably just does something very basic.

Cuts are slightly wonky, but overall turns out pretty well.

Belphegor:

He also hardly made a mess while carving his pumpkin.

Mainly because he didn't do it.

He had cut out the top part, and was about to start on the face when you pointed out he hadn't cleaned out the inside of his pumpkin yet.

He honestly didn't see the point of cleaning out the inside, people were looking at the outside anyways, weren't they?

But Beel immediately offered to clean it out as to not let any of the food go to waste.

So he figured...why not let Beel do all the hard parts?

All he really did was cut out the top part and draw his design. Beel carved it for him.

As a result, his and Beel's look almost identical.

[theplatypusblue]

Okokok dragons rising s2p2 REWATCH thingy it’s mostly me noticing small details and shit I missed the first time. Ramble-y at points lol

Many many big spoilers below (also it’s long)

Ok so like….. first episode it gets established that all the dragon tribes fall under the jurisdiction of each of the source dragons…. Neato. More world building shenanigans

WYLDFYRE PEAK YIPPEE. Nya said Lloyd was helping her with her precision, and there’s this really cute animation moment where’s she’s firing her flames like she’s shooting a gun lol

Ok so like Frak taught Arin how to make Merlopian Berry Crème pie…. Frak is merlopian question mark(?) (I don’t think it makes sense timeline wise lol don’t listen to me)

I like the scene of Zane training it reminds me a little bit of that scene from all the back in s1 where’s he’s just tuning everybody out

So like the tournament thingy takes place at the same spot as that flashback with Wu and Bonzle in season 1 (maybe?) I wonder why Wu was hanging out there so long ago lol. (I mean lily might have been at the last one too but like who knows)

ROBY PEAK!!!! My only issue with him and Bleckt is that I wish the writers would’ve really hammed up the comedy between the two. Made them just completely unserious. Would’ve made Bleckts betrayal a little more impactful maybe. (Imagine a bunch of goofy cartoony gags between the two, only for the eventual reveal that bleckt actually genuinely wants roby dead. Woulda been crazier)

Ok so seven headed source dragon thingy. It’s either symbolism like roby said or we are eventually gonna build up to an ultra-dragon adjacent situation. Somehow. Idk how. But maybe it would be cool

Ok random thought. I think it’s pretty clear at this point that elemental powers come from and are associated w the source dragons. You can extrapolate the connections (fire and heat come from motion, plants is probably from life, etc). I think you can remedy the whole “the new elemental powers are stupid” thing by thinking about them more as the elements of the source they are associated with , rather than elemental powers in the traditional sense of our world (If that distinction makes sense lol idk how to explain it non-stupidly. It’s just a matter of framing)

That being said, I really like zant-tanz lol I think it’s his voice teehee. Silly whimsical snail man. Shame he had to get kicked out but then again…. He had some rock stacking to do at home

Ok ok ok I think some parts of the Jay fight are kinda lame (“and I will always hate you” 🙄) but things make more sense from jays perspective I think. Imagine you’re coming from a place where everyone devalued ur individuality and didn’t care abt you as a person, and then you come to this tournament where ur opponent (who ur literally fighting against in this ~tournament~) suddenly starts telling you you’re the love of their life n stuff (and ur also being manipulated but besides that even). I would also just assume that they’re being weird and try to kick their ass.

“Not sure I can pull it off… it’s arriving too soon” what exactly was Wu trying to pull off lol? crazy theory time 100% NOT real NOT going to happen: Wu is trying to bring someone (I’m betting his dad) back from the dead, cuz like departed realm shenanigans and the merge maybe. But we also don’t really know how departed realm stuff works yet, so there’s not much we can extrapolate from there. Idk.

I’m sorry but I always think it’s really cool when cinder bounces people around like a basketball teehee. He’s a very fun character to watch during fights.

Similar-ish point to my Jay spiel from 2 seconds ago but like. Arin’s convo w Frak abt how shatterspin is super evil actually makes me laugh a little bit. Cuz Arins going on about like “oh dude it ~~shatters your goodness~~ you can’t ever do shatterspin” and internally Frak is like “is this guy actually fr” lmao. On my first watch through I was literally like “Arin stop you sound so fucking brainwashed rn” shfjfjjfkfkgkgla

Ok ok so Ras wanted all the elemental powers so he could get a dragon icon somehow…. Lloyd just got his gifted to him tho. (Might be another matter of force vs harmony — you can either do all the hard work to get all the powers and make ur own icon, or the source dragons will just like. Give you an icon. If ur cool enough or whatever)

Dragon Ivory stores powers, dragon horns can give u power but then they make u angry or smthn… dragon ivory can also be used to communicate w the nether space….... hhhrrrnnngg dragon lore im trying to make it make sense in my brain hrrrnngg

Frak is so nice and respectful he’s such a good guy lol (I have to DRAW HIM. Being COOL. Because he IS. I’ll get to it eventually)

Small nitpick but like. The way the tournament is organized kinda makes no sense….. cuz all the plot relevant fights involving the ninja happen at the beginning, so they’ve been in multiple fights and get multiple powers. Then there’s a montage of them fighting other elemental masters who only have one power. So the whole thing is actually completely unbalanced and unfair. Turns out Roby does suck at organizing tournaments lol

God that one shot of nokt running at the camera hunting the arc dragon is so fucking perfect the colors are just mmmmmmhhhh so good I gotta redraw it I gotta redraw it so baddddddddhhhhhhhhhh

Ohhhhh the final couple of fights the composition and the coreography were sooooo good we are backkkkkk we are soooooooooo backkkkkkkkkkk

TLDR: I remember it being good and then I rewatched it and it was still good. Yayyyyyyyy

[nientedenada]

No One Knows Who Talos Is

I’ve rediscovered lately how many people think it’s canon that Talos is three guys in a trench-coat: Tiber Septim, Wulfharth of Atmora, and Zurin Arctus. 

So time for another reminder. NOWHERE IN THE GAMES OR OFFICIAL LORE TEXTS IS THIS EVER STATED.

“What about the Arcturian Heresy?” you might ask.

To which I say, “Read it.  Talos the god isn’t even mentioned in the text.” (I could add that it’s the Arcturian Heresy which doesn’t mean it’s automatically the truth and that the Greybeards in Skyrim contradict one of its biggest claims, that Tiber Septim never went up to High Hrothgar before his first big battle. But that’s another story for another time.)

“The Arcturian Heresy” is a book about how Tiber Septim managed his public profile by taking credit for two other guys’ stuff. It never says anything about the three becoming a god together afterward.

Now, if you decide to take the Arcturian Heresy as fact, it’s an interesting theory that they got all tangled up together and became a god, and of course, we had devs who endorsed the idea in non-official works. There’s a hint in one corner of Morrowind for it when we meet a guy who may be Talos and he introduces himself as Wulf. But it’s not canon, and there are a whole bunch of other possibilities for Talos’ origins.

Six Alternate Explanations

1. The most suspicious Official Imperial cult one that no one seems to buy in fandom: The gods were happy he did such a great job and said, join us. Yeah I’m suspicious too.

2. Tiber Septim engineered his own cult of worship in his lifetime (canon), and after. Somehow, he fiddled around to give himself power. (Come up with your own theory how he leveraged the people’s worship.)

3.The Book THere Be Dragons implies he ate a bunch of dragon souls to ascend. 4. He’s tapping into the Missing god Lorkhan’s power somehow. The extreme version is he mantled Lorkhan. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence for a link between Talos and Lorkhan, but again nothing official.

5. CHIM. Speaking of mostly out-of-game theories championed by devs. CHIM is mentioned a tiny bit in game, but never explained, so it can be made to do a lot of stuff in your head-canons.. 6. The Thalmor would like to remind you that Talos is not actually a god. Sure, you can get blessings from shrines, but consider that in Morrowind, you can get blessings from saints’ shrines and it’s explicitly stated that the Tribunal priests enchant them to give the blessings. The Imperial cult is completely capable of setting up Talos shrines. (There are some issues with the Thalmor’s stance, particularly involving the DLC Knights of the Nine, but if you’re really in denial, here are your starting points.)

Final Note: This is a jokey round-up of a bunch of theories and headcanons and I’ve left out a lot of the details. But if you want my opinion?

I’m Talos-Agnostic, though I lean towards there being something to do with Lorkhan. Not fully mantling him, though, because then we’d be talking about Lorkhan not Talos, who would no longer be the Missing God. But what do i know? Have fun with all the possibilities. 

[que-de-metal]

Sending you the ball back (seishin)

When I started shipping it if I did:

Day one — well day one of me playing DDC. Since I had a few years (late middle school + high school) where I wasn't following Touhou canon anymore and it came out during those times, I found out about them when I caught up to all the canon I missed circa 2015. But I had managed to not get a single thing about them spoiled somehow so the experience was the same.

My thoughts:

I love them so so much but you all know that. But specifically out of all the Touhou ships I feel like this is the one that's the most "contained?" Like they actually have a complete story arc that starts with DDC, then ISC, and "ends" with their conversation in Grimoire of Usami. If I wanted to explain most TH ships to someone who isn't in the fandom, I would have to pull out a diagram and hundreds of small details and worldbuilding bits to get it to make sense, but for these two there's a cohesive "trilogy" that contains a whole love story with onscreen character arcs and a satisfying "epilogue". Because of that I feel like this is a very special ship, it really stands out from the other pairings in that regard…

Things done in fanworks that annoy me:

I think people think I'm joking when I say I'm an unironic Seija apologist, but I genuinely dislike the framing of Shinmyoumaru as a helpless victim. I do think there's no real victim, that they mutually used each other awkwardly, but if it HAS to be a contest of who has it worse… What Seija did to Shin was: invent a bunch of overinflated bullshit to push Shin over the edge of joining a cause that she already half-agreed with without the lies. What Shin did to Seija was: weaponize her weakness to throw her under the bus as the main perpetrator AND not back down from that narrative EVEN AFTER a DEAD OR ALIVE MANHUNT was called on Seija. I feel like out of these two betrayals there is one that is way harder to forgive and it's not Seija's! They're both brilliant manipulators in totally different ways and it's one of the reasons they fit so well in the first place aaaaahhhhhhhhhh. I prefer fanworks that are more morally gray but if I'm to be compeltely honest I also want to see a more villainous Shin to compensate for all the fanworks that smooth her edges so much!

Things I look for in fanworks:

One of the big charm points of this ship for me is the Bonnie & Clyde dynamic, the partner in criming, so I can't get enough of fanworks of them working well together and being in sync. I like fanart where they look kind of cool, serious and competent, I find it very romantic in a way.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

Because of DDC being such a self-contained complete story like I said earlier there's not a lot of material of them interacting with the rest of the world… I love love love Sei/Shin/Reimu and Sei/Shin/Marisa because it has interesting power dynamics but it needs to be a throuple because as soon as you take Seija or Shinmyoumaru out I'm not interested.

Thought I like the idea of Shin going for other women during their time apart. Because I have a loving jealousy tropes too much problem. And I'm interested in Seija having to face insecurities. In that regard I'm into the Shin/Tenshi dynamic in AoCF. Because I think a Tenshi VS Seija rivalry could get very ugly (positive). But once again this is still with a SeiShin lens…

My prefered future/ending for them:

I want them to have big dramatic adventures. I do think they can change some of the unfair things in Gensokyo if they get over themselves first. It's also the kind of ship where I appreciate a tragic ending and a tragic death but I haven't found the fanwork that would hit this the right way for me yet :3

What is their favorite activity together:

Planning adventures. I picture Shin as the kind of person who can spend hours talking about projects, travels, shady businesses, things she wants to try someday. And she enjoys doing SOME of these things but coming up with the ideas counts as part of the fun. And paradoxically to the fact that her whole thing is playing with negatives, I feel like Seija would be a good Yes Man for those situations because the way she always twists and criticizes everything could be pretty stimulating to bounce ideas off. I'm getting frustrated because there's no english equivalent to "faire des plans sur la comète" and "refaire le monde" but I can totally see them spending a night on a high peak in Gensokyo, pointing to locations they want to travel the next day and bantering all night while mapping out the whole itinerary, then waking up in the morning and going the opposite direction of where they had planned.

A fic I’d like to write about them/A sentence from one already in my WIPs: 

(not a prose line cause this fic is in its rough 1st draft state a but a scene placeholder that I like) "Seija goes to sleep holding one of Shin's robes next to her head to make sure she dreams of her."

ship and characters asks 💌

[dailyaudiobiblechronological]

10/29/2023 DAB Chronological Transcription

John 11

Welcome to Daily Audio Bible Chronological I'm Jill. Today is the 29th day of October. I'm Jill. Today we are reading John chapter 11.

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for how it speaks to us. We thank you for how you have spoke to us this past week and how your word is still relatable, still relative to us in our lives. And I pray that we would not just be hearers of your word, but we would also be doers of your word. We would make the necessary changes. We would love people the way that you have asked us to love one another. We let go of all of the things this past week that we could not accomplish. We give them to you and ask you to complete what you have started in our lives and I ask, Lord, that the fruit of your Spirit would be active and evident in our lives. That it would spill out to overflowing peace, love, joy, patience, kindness, self-control, long-suffering, gentleness and meekness. And that your love would permeate through us and spill out to all that we come in contact with. And we thank you for that love that we do not understand, we do not deserve. Oh, but we need it. And we thank you that we have it. We pray this now in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Announcement:

Love one another.

Community Prayer Line:

It's early morning, October 25th. This is Jersey Jane for Jesus, and I'm listening to the DABC. I heard two women call in that I wanted to reach out to and a third woman that had previously called in. And I'm going to reach out to her as well. First was Pamela from Pennsylvania and she was praying also for Wendy from Michigan. Apparently, both their fathers had committed suicide. And they are troubled. They have deep holes. They need the comfort and love from Jesus, from the DABC Family, from their own families to surround them, hug them, give them the love that they were missing. And for Sheila from Cisco Batchewana. We don't know God's intentions. All we can cling to is what Jesus told us to love one another. To believe in Him, to fill ourselves with the Holy Spirit. That will fill you, trust in the Spirit. Trust in Jesus. God bless. Amen.

Salutation, DABC family, says Little Songbird from Alberta, Canada. And I would like to lift up my neighbor and my sister Sheena from Saskatchewan. Heavenly Father, I come before you today, and I lift up Sheena to you, Lord. Things are not good. Lord, you know every detail of what's happening. Lord, I want to lift Sheena up to you today and her family if she has one. Lord, she doesn't say whole bunches. But you know, you know, I don't need to know anything but you. You know it all. So, Father God, I'm asking if you would pour out your peace upon Sheena. Lord, be everything that she needs, Father be a husband. Be a friend. Be a confidant. Be her physician, her financier, her shoulder to cry on whatever it is Lord, that she needs. Father, I'm asking that you would please provide this for her. Ask asking Lord that you would be that light at the end of the dark tunnel for her. So Lord, I wanna thank you so much for loving on her. For always seeing her and for never forgetting about your little girl. So I thank you for everything you're about to do in her life. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. I love you, Sheena. God loves you more.

DABC, this is Carpediem driver seeking prayer and help. And I'm helping me to find ways to honor my mother's life. Today was her birthday, and it's a struggle because it was tough when you see your mom take their last breath. And it's tough because you want to do something, you can't do anything. But I pray that somehow I could honor her life by the way that I choose to live my own and that is my prayer. So I want to do you be community to pray for single mothers that are out there. You know that we're praying for, you know that. We are with you knowing that God can handle it, can help you through these situations. And they got it with you every step away because he is able to do all things, and you were able to do all things to Christ, who strengthens you and created, gives you an effort, gives your children into love of Christ. That's the one thing that's the world can never take away from me is a love of Jesus Christ, because that's the one thing that my mother taught me. That's the one thing she drilled into me and drill that into your children. I'm praying that you do that because it's the one thing that this world can never take away, and that is Jesus Christ, and it's up to you as a mother and parent to teach your children to love Jesus Christ, to love God. To share the blessings of the Holy Spirit and how the Spirit can move through their lives and change their lives. So dedicate your life to Jesus and know that we're praying for you. I'm praying for you and she will make it through. Continue to fight the good fight of faith, knowing that God is with you every step. The way in Jesus name I pray as we dedicated for single mothers today.

[innalheid]

God I cant even create and dream and be creative because if the stupid constant sickening ball of dread in the pit of my stomach over literally everything in life like

[bogleech]

I’ve been watching so many cartoons for free, good ones and bad ones, that here’s a status update on the ones I know some of you (frequently for the right reasons) wouldn’t even watch if they paid you: Family Guy: now owned by Disney, and it’s obvious they were given strict new rules about what they could and couldn’t joke about, Quagmire isn’t even a sex weirdo anymore and some episodes border on somehow kid-friendly with a smattering of kinda funny inoffensive jokes, but it’s still overall poor quality and the best thing you can say is that it stopped being as cruel to Meg. Some episodes are probably the worst ideas they’ve ever had and for “some reason” the Disney buyout did not change the frequency or nature of its scattered Jewish jokes.

South Park: many episodes are the terrible takes and bland running gags you remember, and even when they aren’t that bad on paper, the jokes just don’t land for me. Oftentimes the whole joke is that someone, usually Randy, is dramatically overreacting to something trivial. I will say that after they were criticized for preaching apathetic, lazy centrism to their fans, they’ve increasingly taken blunt sides in controversial topics and almost gone overboard to leave no ambiguity. I had to cut out a detailed example here because a few people skimmed it and thought I was literally saying South Park is good now, which it isn’t.

Rick and Morty: I haven’t watched the new one but I know a lot of people stopped years ago or never even started, though it can have earnestly creative science fiction scenarios and a lot of funny bits that are unfortunately never the ones that go viral. Almost any joke that isn’t tryhard mean tends to be at least okay. For the last season or so, Rick has still been a generally unfunny asshole, but he has generated more entertainment by suffering more satisfying consequences and humiliation for his selfish personality. Morty by this point is even written completely aware that his grandpa sucks and uses everybody and gets the last laugh over Rick in a lot of stories. Overall it’s still trying to be edgier and more cynical than I think anyone really likes these days, and just has really stark ups and downs.

Teen Titans Go: this isn’t one of the shows people blast as cruel or offensive or anything but a lot of people older than its main viewership really really resent it. This is a shame because some of it is still funny regardless of your age or your ambivalence to superheroes (me) while sometimes they just do cute quirky things with their access to WB properties. One episode has them fighting Beetlejuice (though the gags are all lifted 1:1 from the original movie, which is kind of hit or miss) and more recently they did a crossover with Freakazoid. They also have this strange, more serious (but still deeply absurd) sci-fi AU setting with big budget art direction, which did so well in ratings that it’s getting its own spinoff.

American Dad: I made some posts about this ages ago but this series was bought by a different network, got different writers and drifted so far from its original “political family guy” angle that many episodes don’t even have edgy or nasty humor and are instead just obtuse, niche nonsense, as if the writers want to see how many viewers they can alienate. If you’re both bored and curious you can just read the episode summaries on wikipedia from about season 14 and up until you hit one that sounds like an algorithmic shitpost, like that one I think I showed a clip from once in which Santa Claus is excavating the corpse of the giant Humbaba from the Epic of Gilgamesh so he can receive Humbaba’s Seven Radiances. He believes this is how he can finally end his curse, which we call Christmas, and will then be free to do what he really wants, which is kill people.

I edited a bunch of this for clarity but I still don’t know how anybody thought I was actively promoting things like South Park, I think I’m pretty clear here that I just watch a mix of things I like and dislike?

[studiojeon]

troubled outsiders | intro - jjk

| summary | -  how you two end up pining for each other.

warnings: none :) 

content: idol!jungkook x student!oc, friends to lovers (because it’s THE superior trope okurrrt), jungkook is quiet and shy but a social butterfly when needed (and when it comes to oc but you’re not supposed to know that yet), oc is both a badass and a socially akward queen, she has TWO friends and only because one is dating the other (like... same), the Lee Charyeong is her bestie, oc works at bighit and feels like everyone either fears her or hates her, author nim is a crackhead and has no plot planned for this series whatsoever (doesn’t know if she’ll keep this up, we’ll see).

words: 1.93 k

His presence was overwhelming, to say the least. Even if he were surrounded by six hundred other equally handsome men, somehow, to you (and the majority of the female population, at that point) he was as captivating and magnetic as they come. Jeon Jungkook didn't pay no mind to no one, but sure as hell everyone became hyper aware of his existence and essence in time. And that didn’t exclude you.

Yet, as nonchalant and indifferent as the man could be perceived, in reality he was more considerate and friendly than the aura he exuded. You knew this because working in the same company had to teach a thing or two about the people who literally carried said company and the whole industry at some point, still you barely knew four or three people, including your assistant and Jungkook, whom you had met once.

The opportunity of working at the company had come to you out of the blue, quite literally, you were attempting to send one of your assignments in when an email appeared in your notifications during your sailor moon study break. 

HYBE Entertainment

We’re glad to inform you that you’re being recruited for the position of Logistics Manager in one of our sub companies, BIGHIT Entertainment. We’ve thoroughly looked through the CV you’ve submitted and are very interested in your capabilities and what you can contribute to our organization. One of our other managers will gladly meet you on a day you can both agree on. Make sure to answer this email to get more details about your interview.

“Nani!? THE FUCK?” sure as hell that your eyes and cognitive functions were deceiving you (ADHD) you went over the text a little over three times in a row before the message settled in your mind. This was sus. 

Before even considering a reply you made a quick call. “Fucking Lee Chaeryeong” you spat on your end of the line. “You did this, didn’t you?”.

Her silence was more than enough to have you cursing her under your breath. “I don’t know what exactly you’re talking about but it most likely was me. Does it have to do with a sex toy in particular?”

“No” you denied almost monotonously, guessing the pile of boxes in the corner of your room with her names on them was what she referred to. “Does anything come to mind if i mention BIGHIT FUCKING ENTERTAINMENT?”

It was her. All those conversations during the summer about how badly you wanted to work in the entertainment business as marketing staff of some sort had their effect on your friend, who, despite all your excuses and denials, knew you better than you and your mom combined did, and because of this, was sure as hell you were not making a move towards that goal whatsoever. So, being the boss bitch she was, she took matters into her own hands, was what she explained.

You concluded that was the reason you had reached a point in your life where you had more experience than most recently graduated kids in your field, because Chaeryeong had you moving every summer break. You had been the manager of a coffee franchise and convenience store during you junior and senior years, and also figured a way to improve the marketing management strategy of a fucking restaurant while at it. Not to toot your own horn, but you were kind of cool.

Or not. “I hope this job satisfies your workaholic ass for once, I’m running out of ideas”. Chaeryeong spat before hanging up.

Sure as hell it would. 

On friday afternoon, you made your way to the HYBE INSIGHT building and introduced yourself to your recruiters who promised to give you a call at some point. “It went fine” you told Chaeryeong once you were in your car. And it was the truth, however you weren’t so sure if they would actually hire you at some point since well, you were a girl in a male dominated industry and, in your opinion, there were always better people than you. “Wanna go grab coffee?”

“I want to. But, I have practice today. I’m actually on my way there. Please avoid driving through Hongdae today, this shit’s packed.” You sighed and thanked her for the heads up. You missed your friend, badly. You hadn’t seen each other in three weeks, and you didn’t even live so far away from each other (you did, but it had been worse before). You two had very agitated lives to say the least. Chaeryeong was a kpop group member, and well, you were jumping from job to job and getting your phD in Business Management at the same time. It was hard to find moments to spare together during some periods of the year, but you guess the anticipation made your encounters better.

“Talk about anticipation” you slammed your forehead against your desk, taking a breather after such an anxiety packed situation. Short story: you got the job (for some fucking reason). And you had gone through a whole week of expectancy and anguish. Not getting that job would have broken your heart, and ego at the same time. 

You guessed the law of attraction tactics Chaeryeong had taught you had sorted their effect and were what led you to your current position in life.

“Miss _____, your presentation’s ready” your work assistant gave you a comforting pat in the back as she took a seat somewhere next to you. You were nervous, shitless. It was your fifth week at the job, and being the proactive woman you were, you had collected lots of data in order to come up with a resources management plan.

It was a Thursday afternoon, and more than a hundred people sat in front of you, waiting for your speech. Including him, who you’d once bumped into accidentally during one of your data recollections runs inside the building. 

You hated having the need to impress others yet, hence your anxious behaviour. But this was a decisive moment in regards to your validation in your new job and how you’d continue to be perceived during your work stance (no reason to panic at all)… you needed to get it together.

“I think I just pissed off a bunch of old men right now,” you told your assistant right after you got off stage. “I need a bathroom break”. Linh gave you a reassuring smile, one she always had plastered on her face.

“Take as long as you need to. I’ll give you a call once the rest are done”.

The commute to the bathroom was unnecessarily complicated in your opinion. You had spent a little over a month rushing through the hallways of the building and you swore every single day your spatial orientation got a bit more fucked up. There was no way there wasn’t a single bathroom on the floor you were in, that would just be atrocious. “It’s not completed yet” someone said beside you as you stared at the half empty map the company had projected on a wall next to the elevators. “Where do you need to go?” 

Kim Taehyung of all people in the world was talking to your ugly and unworthy ass. Your breath caught in your throat and after staring for at least five seconds your body finally reacted to your orders. “Oh, um… the bathroom. I’ve been looking for it for a good ten minutes” you explained with a nervous laugh.

“Trust me, I get it. I still get lost over here” he smiled gently. “It’s in the hallway in the middle of the next hallway” 

You laughed at his very ambiguous explanation. “Thank you” you bowed your head and made your way to said destination.

It was in the hallway to your left, not your right, and it took you a while to figure out that new piece of information. Once you were staring at yourself in the mirror, you realized that you looked considerably tired and exhausted from all the social interaction you had undergone throughout the day. You were used to the side stares and whispering you’d get whenever you entered a room at that point, but some days you just wished you could get a break from them. After all, it wasn’t your fault you didn’t look Korean at all, and that you also didn’t fit the stereotype of a foreigner.

You got that from your mom, both the non Korean features and social fatigue. But that wasn’t even the problem most of the time, it was your friendly and smart nature which she had also passed onto you. Some would consider it a blessing, but to you it was a burden, like a clear glass that shielded you from introducing yourself into other people’s realities. You had few friends and people to trust, but in your everyday life you had to deal with the pressure of standing out too much and that came with a lot of negative energy from others. You sigh as you spray your favorite fragrance on yourself. You could be feeling like shit, but no one will ever catch you slipping.

But that excluded him apparently. You hadn’t noticed that on the other side of the hallway was the men’s bathroom and the realization hit you as you were calmly getting some tea from the vending machine. “Good afternoon” the man greeted you as he made his way out the hallway, but stopped in his tracks right after he noticed you. “_____! Hi” he smiled at you and you wanted to die, suddenly forgetting what you were ordering in the first place.

“H-hi Jungkook” You smiled back, poorly attempting to put your wallet back into your backpack. 

“Need help there?” he noticed your agitated state and held your bag for you. He smelled just as heavenly as you had expected, somewhat between big dick energy and flowers. Oh, and he also remained as kind and polite as you remembered him.

Seeming as if he wasn’t planning on continuing his path to wherever he was heading to in the first place, he stood quietly by your side, waiting for you to be done with your deal. “How have you been?” you break the ice for him.

Quickly, you grab your tea and start walking back to the auditorium together, unaware of your surroundings or the suspicions that could arise. “Busy, but very good. How have you been? I saw your presentation earlier… I wish I understood half of what you said but you still sounded amazing”.

And you would never admit it out loud, but you were positive you were blushing (and falling in love too - platonically, of course). “Oh god, you think so? I basically told them they’ve been doing things wrong all along so maybe you’re the only one who’s appreciative of my work” you handed him the second can of iced tea you bought without him noticing. You swear his eyes lit up like stars in the night sky. “Payback for the other day” you smile at him.

The first time you two had crossed paths you didn’t look nearly as glamorous as you did now. In fact, you looked incredibly disturbed and in pain, carrying a huge pile of paperwork in your hands. But as soon as sweet Jungkook noticed your state, he offered you a hand and somehow ended up helping through your multiple data collecting trips that afternoon. It was a nice day.

“Anytime” he took the can in his hands with a shy look on his face. “Unless I’m practicing, you know…” you look down at his feet, with huge black boots engulfing them, and you smile due to their contrast with his personality. “Here, i’ll give you my number so you can call me whenever you need to put all those papers back. Hopefully I’ll be around” he added as he pulled his phone from his back pocket.

Way to get a girl’s number, my god.

[absolutepokemontrash]

The Demon Bros Play DND!

Who’s ready for some Stupid Headcanons?

So, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s claimed that the tabletop RPG known as Dungeons and Dragons had the power to turn your children into satanists and devil worshippers. So of course, the brothers have totally played DND after hearing about all the human world nonsense.

Lucifer the Back-up Back-up DM

He’s too busy to play this game dammit, stop inviting him! What do you mean both Satan and Simeon can’t DM the one-shot? Ugh... fine.

Despite all his UUUUUUUUGGGGHHH, Lucifer is a damn good storyteller, prepare to be immersed as hell.

Also, sorry guys, he’s a rule whore. If something’s against the rules, YOU AREN’T DOING IT.

He’s also a complete sadist who will randomly get everyone to roll perception checks for NO REASON.

Lucifer has definitely stood up and slammed his hands on the table while giving a description for extra effect, Mammon screamed and nearly fell out of his seat which REALLY ruined the mood.

“Everyone, we’re rescheduling, I’m too busy.”

He’s been a player a few times, and he’s NOT good at it. All his characters end up being really generic and boring. He’s better at being the world and everything in it, not the dummy wandering around it.

Human/fighter lookin’ motherfucker

In conclusion, he’s a good DM, but he’s probably too busy to play.

Over-Powered Self Insert (Mammon)

This game is for nerds! He’s not playin’, Levi!

Fine, his character is great and amazin’ and is also him. MC! What do these numbers mean-

Mammon’s the type of player to make his character a self insert and not take it too seriously, then get really REALLY attached as the campaign progresses.

He’s the type not to make a backstory for his character either, so go wild DM MCs!

He also both purposefully and accidentally metagames a whole bunch. Like dude, YOU know this, YOUR CHARACTER DOES NOT.

Shit he forgot his dice, can he borrow some?

“Okay MC, that’s five points of piercing damage.” “I RUN OVER AND HEAL THEM! I’LL SAVE YA MC!”

Mammon goes out of his way to save MC’s character long before it would make sense in-character to do so.

“Well, as your first man it’s my duty to save your character! You’ll probably be a blubberin’ mess if I didn’t...”

He’s not the best role player, but he’s also not the worst at it either. He tends to break character when things get too serious and he doesn’t know what to do.

Notes who? He came in here with one sheet of printer paper and it’s for doodling only.

He and Asmodeus start the tavern brawls. No question about that.

Theft is very common, he’s stealing from everyone, including but not limited to: the party, the royal guards, the dead enemies, the giant fuck-you dragon that Satan dropped in there to deter Mammon from stealing...

“I’m gonna steal that crown from the dragon.” “Roll stealth.” “Nat 20 BITCHES.” “Fuck you.”

If his character dies, may the Demon King have mercy on his greedy little soul because he’s going to mope about it for a damn long time.

Over-Powered Self Insert Again (Leviathan)

His character totally isn’t a self insert, shut up! He just looks and acts like an idealized version of himself!

He’s the one with twenty pages of character info and backstory AND the amazing commissioned art.

Levi has about 40 sets of expensive blue dice that he claims gives him the best rolls but an average session with him usually leads to roughly 10 crit fails.

While his luck with dice isn’t that good, he’s the player who will get as much out of their turn as possible, AKA break out the calculators and notes we’re doing some math.

His turn goes on for at least ten minutes because of all the shit he’s doing. When you finally think it’s over he goes “I still have my movement!”

Takes notes like a madman, every bit of lore and character info is being written down, meaning it’s a headache for everyone involved if there’s a continuity error because Levi WILL point it out.

“So you all head to the east, the great Valley of-” “Hang on, valley? In the second session you said there was a mountainous area to the east.” “Levi, shut up.”

Levi is the self appointed “guys come on let’s get back on track!” player, and whoever’s DMing is grateful to have him.

Levi is kind of the opposite of Mammon in terms of character seriousness, at first he’s taking everything super seriously and then as the campaign goes on he slowly loosens up and has some fun.

Out of curiosity one day he searches up a magical girl DND class and he’s ALL OVER IT. PLEASE LET HIM BE A MAGICAL GIRL NEXT CAMPAIGN-

Damn good at roleplaying, he’s carrying the entire in-character discussion until everyone else gets into it.

The Done With Your Bullshit DM (Satan)

So, this is the game that’s supposedly summoning him all the time despite the fact that he hadn’t been up to the human world since the 50s... what the fuck is everyone on up there?

It was the 80s, probably a lot of drugs.

When Satan DMs, you can only break the rules if it enhances the story... or if it fucks with Lucifer’s really boring character.

He will fudge dice rolls every once and a while, he also gets very attached to the characters everyone has made so he doesn’t want to perma-kill any of them unless they roll a DND quadruple natural 1 sin or something.

As attached as he gets, he isn’t above completely raging, killing everyone’s characters, and ending the session if everyone’s being annoying.

Don’t worry, your characters will be safe and sound next session once everything calms down... just don’t mention how Satan burned your character sheet right in front of you. It’s your fault if you didn’t make a second copy of your character sheet!

He’s pretty decent when it comes to improv when a player stumbles into something he didn’t plan out, but that’s not going to stop him from getting a little annoyed.

Though, if you somehow manage to get to the big bad too soon... yeah sorry, he’s got a way more dramatic fight scene planned, your player’s getting conveniently blasted out of there.

As a player, Satan is pretty decent at the game overall, but he tends to be a little aggressive if there’s an overarching mystery to be solved.

He needs to understand what’s going on! He doesn’t care if it upends the plot or it’s too early to find out! He needs to know!

His character is actually distinct and different from himself, Satan thinks it’s more interesting that way. All the books he’s read have made him a pretty awesome role player!

Satan’s notebook both as a DM and a player is filled to the brim, no detail is too insignificant to be put on the page.

Satan doesn’t fear dungeon puzzles... dungeon puzzles fear Satan.

“Are you all stupid?! This puzzle is so easy a four year old could solve it!”

I ROLL TO SEDUCE- (Asmodeus)

At first he didn’t want to play, he doesn’t play these kinds of games, sweetie. He’s too pretty.

When he’s finally convinced he puts a decent amount of effort into his character, but leaves the backstory pretty open.

Asmo would probably be the bard... right? No. He’s the warlock with the magic sugar daddy patron, and the warlock patron is spoken to as such.

“Hey baby... how’ve you been? Have I been good~?” “...”

Huh! Who woulda thought that all the bedroom roleplaying would transfer so well to DND!

Simeon is the only DM that doesn’t immediately shut this down, so Asmo will be extra inclined to play if Mr. Nice Shoulders is DMing.

When he gets really into it he buys a bunch of sparkly and very pretty dice, they bring him good luck in every roll!

Asmo has a fictional harem, no question about it. It gets to the point where Satan, Lucifer, and Simeon stop describing NPCs as attractive.

He’s rolling to seduce either way, he’s turned many an antagonist into a lover. To be fair, Asmo’s horniness has gotten everyone out of a lot of jail cells... so they can’t complain.

His notes consist of really random comments about the plot and the other players. It’s also COATED with doodles.

‘Wow, this character is such an asshole, I hope Belphie kills them.’ ‘Shit.’ ‘MC looks so cute when they play their character!!!!!!!! :D’

Poor bab forgets the rules a lot... it’s just too much to remember, okay?! How was he supposed to know that he ran out of spell slots an hour ago?!

Please help him, MC...

*Dice Cronch* (Beel)

Homeboy has been given edible dice, no question. He has also eaten the non-edible dice...

Beel goes to Satan for help with making his character, and he ends up really loving the character! :D

Problem is, he’s not that good at roleplaying... D:

“Can my character eat that person?” “Beel, no- you know what? Let me check what you’d need to roll to do that.”

I’ll save you MC part 2 electric boogaloo, but when it comes to Beel, the entire party is getting protected, no matter how little it makes sense in-character.

While Beel does take notes, a lot of them don’t end up being very important for later events. For example, he’ll jot down stuff about the layout in one room, but it turns out he didn’t take notes for the room that was actually going to be used for a boss fight.

He’s always nice to the NPCs, shame Belphie doesn’t show them the same courtesy.

Murder Hobo (Belphie)

Chaotic evil.

“Belphie, your character’s alignment is neutral good, remember?” “Fuck that, this guy’s annoying me.”

If Belphie doesn’t like an NPC, it’s up to the rest of the party to stop him from derailing the campaign and killing them.

He has space themed dice because cow-man likes space and thought they were pretty.

Notes? NOTES? You think Belphegor, the Avatar of SLOTH, takes notes? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-

He’s drooling all over the notebook... ew. Someone wake him up and tell him it’s his turn.

He puts about 35% effort forth to make a halfway decent character, and approximately 4% effort to actually roleplay.

Belphie sleeps through important plot details so he’s almost always really confused. He’ll turn to MC and ask them to explain what he missed before not learning his lesson and going back to sleep.

Wake him up for the dungeon puzzles though, he and Satan love those.

“Okay, we can’t see what’s in the room because none of the conscious party members have dark vision?” “Nope, what do you do?” “...I shove Mammon inside and shut the door.” “WHAT?!”

Bonus! The Best DM (Simeon)

Our favourite angel has homebrewed this entire campaign and boy fricken howdy are these players going to enjoy it.

Simeon fudges the dice rolls to avoid anything too irreversibly bad happening, buuuuuuut he’s still a total asshole who does the random perception rolls to keep everyone on their toes.

Everyone gets a character arc god dammit, even if they don’t have a backstory, one will be provided!

He’s got a map, he’s got miniatures, he’s got dice and backup dice for the backup dice, he’s got DM notes for days!

Simeon could be a voice actor with the amount of character voices he can do, no one ever gets confused with who’s talking.

Did someone just uncover a massive bit of plot that was meant to be found out later? Good job! No harm done! Simeon’s DM improv is second to none, and the plot will adjust accordingly!

[inthegistoftime]

Jesper Fahey headcanon request: being in a long distance relationship with him since you don’t live in Ketterdam. So maybe the hardships that come with that and what it would be like to be reunited with him after not seeing him for awhile? Major thanks in advance and I really like your writing 🥰🥰

Y'all are fueling my obsession with this man. let's do this 😏 I changed it a little bit, I'm sorry if this is an inconvenience 💕

Being in a long-distance relationship with Jesper hcs

You too had been together for a while now

complete and utterly in love with each other

you'd both gotten used to each others presence

whether it was at night when the two of you would cuddle

or throughout the day when the two of you did your shenanigans

So when Kaz sent you out on a mission that was quite a long distance outta town

for about a month

the two of you weren't exactly happy about it

but and order is an order

and who are you to tell your boss --the man who pays you and gives you a roof over your heads-- that you don't wanna go

Jesper is definitely gonna be salty about it

what is he gonna do without his hugs and kisses?? 🥺

he needs his lil cuddle bug 🥺🥺🥺🥺

The first week you're gone is when everyone else sees grumpy Jesper

no talk, me angy 😤

he just misses you, that's all

but then your first letter arrives

and he is VERY excited about it

he switches up real fast

It smells just like you and it's in your hand writing 🥰

he's gonna store all your letters in a little box under his bed

they're from his baby, shut up 😤

He always gets excited about reading them too?

the way you write them makes him feel like he's there with you

like he's seen what you've seen

adores the little pressed flowers you slip on as well

he doesn't really know what to do with them, but he LOVES them ✋🙄

His letters are a bit basic on the outside

he likes to use wax seals too, sometimes he mixes the colours up

he somehow manages to write a three page long letter

bruh idk how

he goes into detail about what he loves about you

how he wishes he was there with you

to protect you

as well as what he's gonna do to you when you get back 🥰

and then he also writes things like

"Day's in Ketterdam are gloomy without your smile here to brighten it up"

"How I miss counting the freckles on your face as the sun sets on your glowing skin"

You have no idea how he manages to write such romantic things when he's a legit dingus

but he always manages to make you swoon regardless 💖

He wakes up earlier then ever on the day you come back

he cleans up your shared bedroom from top to bottom

he polishes his revolvers and your weapons

he even dresses up all swanky and shi for you

isn't he just 🥺🥺🥺💕💖💖💕💖

He waits for you near the dock

and he bolts up to you as soon as you step off the boat

lifting you off the ground and spinning as you both erupt in giggles

he smothers your hands and face in kisses as you steal his hat and put it on your head

definitely the type to mutter words in between kisses

so expect a whole bunch of "I missed you so much kisses" and "I love you" smooches

he takes you out to your favourite place (and neither of you pay for anything)

and once you get back to the Slat, he runs you a hot bath, insisting on taking care of you after your long trip

where he, once again, litters your skin in kisses and love-bites

Ooo, can't forget the 'I missed you' love-making sesh xx

He missed you more then anything in the world bestie 🥺

Get you a man like Jesper Fahey 🥰🥰🥰

xxx

[dongofthewolf]

A Heart’s a Heavy Burden

Abby Anderson x GN! Reader

After arriving on Catalina Island, Abby is afraid to let her guard down. She lives with this constant crushing weight on her chest that she fears will never leave her. It’s not until she meets the reader that things begin to change.

Warnings: Copious amounts of fluff, swearing, basically just a lot of cute shit lol

Anon requested one where the reader goes on a hike with Abby and Lev, I hope you guys enjoy (especially if you requested it) <3 it’s been really nice getting back into writing and this request was so adorable aaaa.

A/N: I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted and for that I apologize. In the meantime, I hope this will suffice. Also peep the Howl’s Moving Castle quote I used for the title lol

After the death of her father and that night in the theatre, Abby has come to the realization that pain and suffering is nothing if not inevitable. There has never been a point in time in which an instance of joy or peace is not soon followed by the truest forms of human depravity. When Abby and Lev arrived in Santa Barbara she thought things would be different. She was filled with this brand new feeling of optimism that she thought was long forgotten, and for the first time in forever she had hope.

Then—almost as if some higher being was mocking her for finally letting her guard down—the Rattlers happened, and it all came crashing down. As easily as a sandcastle is destroyed by the tide, that newfound happiness was gone in an instant and that feeling of despair returned once again. She had almost become accustomed to the suffering and heartache that accompanied those short increments of happiness. 

So when Abby and Lev arrived on Catalina Island, naturally Abby was incredibly grateful, but she was also fucking terrified. The moment that she stepped onto the shore, Abby vowed to never let her guard down again. She never wanted to see Lev hurt again, especially after everything he’d already been through.

It’s easy to imagine how difficult life can be when every happy moment is squandered by the fear of something inevitably terrible happening. It’s been months on Catalina Island and that normalcy Abby has missed so much was beginning to return, yet she is still afraid. A large part of Abby knows that being captured by the Rattlers isn’t her fault, but nevertheless she still feels this tremendous weight on her chest. Bearing down on her, compressing her into something small. 

There is something different about Catalina Island though. Something that makes Abby feel as though��despite everything that has already happened—things will be different here. It’s you.

You were one of the first faces Abby saw when her and Lev arrived on the shore. She had sustained multiple injuries and was suffering from severe starvation and dehydration, Lev the same. You however were in the infirmary for a fractured ankle, and due to the shortage of space she was placed in the bed next to yours. 

There was something you noticed about Abby the moment she sat down next to you. You couldn’t quite place it at the time but thinking back, it was definitely her eyes. There was so much pain behind them. You didn’t know why or how you knew, but it was there. Maybe it was because you had seen that same pain in the mirror that sits idle in the darkness of your room, the one covered by a tattered white sheet. It didn’t matter though, because all you knew was that the pain was there, and you wanted nothing more than to show her that life can be okay.

You woke up early today, laying in bed and trying to shake the sleep from your body, you counted the dust particles that floated in the small beam of sunlight that peeked through your window. While you lay basking in the warmth and stillness of your bedroom, you heard a quiet knock on your door. A small voice followed, it was Lev.

“Y/N? Are you awake?” 

“Yeah, just give me a sec.” You carefully rolled out of bed before slipping on a hoodie and answering the door. 

When you opened the door Lev had a huge smile on his face. “Hi Y/N!” 

That was something you really admired about him. Even after everything him and Abby had been through, he was just full of this giddy optimism that continued to wonder you every day. 

“Hey Lev, what’s up?” 

“I was wondering if you wanted to come on a hike with Abby and I? Apparently there’s something she wants to show you.” 

“Of course, I’d love to! Just let me get ready and I’ll head down in a bit.” Just as the words slipped out Lev embraced you tightly. You giggled as he leapt into your arms. 

“Awesome! I’ll go let Abby know.” Lev released you from his grip before hurriedly running downstairs.

When you found the two waiting outside your room, you couldn’t help but grin at the sight of Abby and her adorable freckles. She looked so much happier now, having grown her hair out a bit and built up some of the muscle mass she had lost. 

“You ready to go?” Abby had her hands hooked in the straps of her backpack as she took a small step closer to you. 

“You bet your ass I am.” 

As Abby led you and Lev along the shoreline you noticed how her skin was almost glowing. You figured it was most likely a product of all the time she spent helping out in the California sun. 

Rather than resting like any normal person would’ve, as soon as Abby was back on her feet, she was desperate to help out as much as she could. Whether it was patrolling the beaches or running the farms, she didn’t care. She just wanted to help. 

It seemed like it was a way for her to somehow compensate for being rescued off of the coast, and you wished you could tell her that she didn’t owe anyone anything—that after everything she went through to get here, there was nothing to repay. Of course though, it’s difficult to console someone when they haven’t exactly told you what was troubling them.

The shoreline bordered between an abundance of rocky cliffs and the tide, and the area was littered with lush greenery. Lev walked ahead of the two of you, jumping from rock to rock with surprising ease.

“Be careful Lev! There are sharks in that water you know.” Abby yelled at Lev to no avail. It was sweet how protective she was over him, even though she knew he wouldn’t fall.

You lightly nudged Abby’s shoulder with yours, the warmth of her skin against yours was comforting. You gave her a small reassuring smile. “He’ll be fine Abs, you know he can handle himself.” 

Abby sighed, looking down for a brief moment before continuing. “You’re right… I just worry you know.” 

“Yeah, I get it. You know, you’re actually pretty cute when you get all protective.” You said it teasingly, but you’d be lying if there wasn’t a small ounce of truth to the words.

Abby smiled, blushing at the comment, but it was difficult to tell in the sunlight. She was grateful the sun had already made her cheeks a light shade of pink. “Shut up.” 

It was nice with Abby and Lev. You spent the day burying Abby in the sand on the beach and chasing the crabs that hid under the rocks with Lev. Abby had packed a whole bunch of food in her bag, and the three of you quickly devoured it all. 

While Lev was building a shark out of sand, you and Abby laid side by side as you basked in the warm sun. After a bit you felt a shift next to you as Abby rolled on her side, leaning on her arm while she looked down towards you. 

“Hey.” Her voice was quiet, soft, similar to Lev’s when he woke you up this morning.

You opened your eyes and nearly melted at the sight before you. Abby was completely shielding the sun from your face which created a halo effect that outlined her entire head. The small strands of hair that stuck out of her ponytail glowed like threads of gold, and you could see clearly now the freckles that danced across her face all the way down to her arms. 

You replied with a soft smile on your face as you laid there admiring all the little details of her face. “Hey.”

“Can I show you something?” 

You gave her a small nod. “Do you want me to get Lev?” As you began sitting up Abby put her hand on your arm to stop you.

“Actually, I was kind of hoping it could just be us. Is that okay?” There was a small hint of nervousness in her voice and you weren’t sure if it was due to the thought of leaving Lev alone, or if it was from something else. 

“I would love that.” The corner of Abby’s mouth curled into a small smile at your answer. 

The both of you stood up from the sand, brushing the excess off of your pants. Abby jogged over to Lev and whispered something quietly before quickly returning to you. 

When you and Abby began walking away from the beach you heard Lev’s voice in the distance. “Have Y/N back by ten o’clock young man, I have a hunting rifle and I know how to use it!” 

Abby rolled her eyes as she yelled back in response. “Yeah, yeah.”

You looked at Abby with a confused face. “He has a hunting rifle?” 

“Nah, I think he got it from a movie. I need to stop showing him those old rom-coms.” Abby chuckled as she responded and you couldn’t help but let out a small laugh as well. It’s almost annoying how infectious her laughter was.

Eventually, the two of you reached a long stream of rushing water. It wasn’t too deep, but if you were to fall in, the current was definitely strong enough to swiftly sweep you away.

There was a tiny path of rocks that travelled in a crooked line across the stream, and it was obvious it hadn’t been used in a long time. “Please tell me we aren’t going this way.”

“Come on Y/N, I got you. You trust me right?” Abby didn’t wait for a response as she grabbed your hand and led you across the mossy rocks. 

As you reached the last rock, you let out a breath of relief. All you had to do was prop yourself over the log in front of you and you were home free. Carefully, as you reached your arms up to grip onto the ridges of the bark with your fingertips, you somehow lost your footing and slipped. You yelped and nearly fell face first into the jagged rocks below you, but luckily before you could, you felt a strong arm grab your waist. Abby almost on instinct quickly hoisted you up and onto the log just before you fell to your death. 

While you laid your body down on the dirty log in an attempt to calm the adrenaline that was coursing through your veins. Abby nonchalantly stood up next to you with a huge grin, acting as if you didn't just see your life flash before your eyes two seconds ago. “See? I got you. Now let’s go.” 

You groaned. “Can I get a second? I nearly just died back there.” 

“Don’t be so dramatic Y/N, you know I’d never let anything happen to you.” Abby grabbed your hand and dragged you over the log. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

She wasn’t wrong about it not being far (and for that you were extremely grateful). It only took a couple more minutes until you finally reached your destination, and the moment you saw it, you were speechless. 

Before you was a small clearing that had a view of the entire island. There were two large trees with ripe oranges hanging from it’s branches, and an abundance of wildflowers that danced in the wind like small fairies. The sunlight that shone through the leaves on the trees reminded you of the small beam of light that you were admiring this morning, except this was a thousand times more beautiful.

“Holy shit Abs.” It was one of the most beautiful things you had ever seen, and to get to see it with Abby was seriously a dream come true.

“You know, if you don’t like it we can always head back.” Abby teased.

“Oh shut up.” You plopped down onto the soft grass beneath you, breathing in the warm air and letting the blades encompass your body. You noticed Abby was still standing and quickly patted the grass beside you “Lay down with me, you gotta experience it from here.” 

Abby lowered herself tentatively beside you, and although she tried to hide it, you could tell out of the corner of your eye that her gaze was fixed on you. 

Things between you and Abby have always been pretty platonic; sure you guys flirted every once in a while but it never extended beyond that. And as much as you’d like for the two of you to be more, you never wanted to overstep your bounds. You didn’t want to burden Abby with your feelings especially if she didn’t share them, and you definitely didn’t want to ruin your friendship. It was hard sometimes trying to ignore the longing in your heart—trying to ignore the urge to jump into her arms and kiss her whenever she gave you that adorable freckled smile, but you knew it was for the best.

However, with her gaze fixed upon you, and your fingers just inches away, something in you couldn’t help but move your pinkie just slightly in search of hers. It was a small touch. So small it could almost be accidental, but something in both of you knew it wasn’t.

You heard Abby’s breath hitch quietly and nearly pulled your hand back, but then you felt hers move towards yours. Slowly, Abby’s fingertips traced lines against your hand before lacing them together with yours. The gesture was so sweet you nearly melted.

When you turned your head to face her, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes squinted closed like she was waiting for a bomb to go off. It was in that moment that you realized she felt the same longing that you did—that she knew of the ache that occupied your heart, and everything just clicked. 

You tightened your grip on her hand as you brought her fist to your lips, planting a soft kiss on her knuckles. The act softened her expression and she opened her eyes to look at you with that damned smile on her face. 

Abby propped herself up the same way she had at the beach, looking down at you with those beautiful blue eyes. The wind blew loose strands of hair across her face, and you reached up to brush them behind her ear. But instead of retracting your hand, you rested your palm lightly against her cheek, tracing small circles with your thumb. 

Leaning closer, Abby finally broke the silence. “Hey Y/N?”

Your voice was quiet and raspy as you responded with a small. “Yeah?”

She was closer now, her nose against yours and her warm breath fanning across your face. “Can I kiss you?” 

You didn’t respond. Instead you closed the small gap with your lips, kissing Abby tenderly. It was the kind of kiss you couldn’t ever explain to anyone, like a dream you couldn’t quite recall but knew was good. It was perfect.

You could feel her smiling against your mouth as she ran her fingers through your hair and down to your chin.

When Abby pulled away she had this stupid grin on her face, and it was easily the cutest thing you had ever seen. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that for.” Abby laid back down next to you as she let out a sigh of relief.

As you rolled over to rest your head on her chest, Abby’s arm moved to hold you closer. “You’re kidding, right?” She looked at you, urging you to continue. “Abby, I’ve been waiting to do that ever since you gave me that seashell in the infirmary.”

Your heart swelled as you recalled how nervous she was—how she didn’t say a word to you the entire time there, until that day when she shakily introduced herself. It was one of the sweetest gestures anyone had ever done for you, and you’ve adored her ever since.

Abby blushed when you brought up the seashell. She remembers that day clearly; you were leaving the infirmary because your ankle had finally healed, and she saw her opportunity to meet you begin to narrow. Abby initially wasn’t going to go up to you because she was way too afraid, but Lev had seen the way Abby looked at you and forced her to go over and introduce herself. 

He is pretty much the entire reason you and Abby were here in the first place, having given Abby that small purple seashell so she could give it to you.

As you lay there listening to the sound of Abby’s heartbeat you heard a rustle in the bushes nearby and nearly jumped out of your skin. Abby quickly stood up, the both of you backing away from the noise. Reaching for the closest thing to you, you grabbed a stick and pointed it towards the source of the rustling. “Who’s there?”

Relief flooded through you as Lev jumped out with his hands up, screaming sarcastically. “Oh no! Please don’t murder me with that tiny stick.” 

While Lev giggled hysterically, both you and Abby groaned. 

“So did you guys finally kiss or did all my work go to waste?” 

Abby rolled her eyes as she reached out to nudge Lev. “You’re such a goober.” 

Lev looked at the two of you suspiciously as he crossed his arms. “You didn’t answer my question.” 

Abby gave him an amused face as she reached for you without warning, picking you up bridal style. And you couldn’t help but giggle as she leaned in and planted a short kiss on your lips. Abby then pulled away and placed you back on your feet, looking at Lev as she spoke “Did that answer your question?” 

Lev excitedly embraced the both of you with a gigantic smile of his face. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this.” 

You and Abby looked at each other happily as you answered in unison. “Trust me, we know.”

The three of you spent the rest of the evening in that small clearing. Abby held Lev on her shoulders as he picked ripe oranges from the trees, and when the sun began to set you lay in Abby’s arms as you watched the cascading pinks and oranges in the clouds paint the sky.

While you lay in Abby’s arms she looked at you with a sense of contentment that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Time had healed the wounds that decorated Abby’s arms, and though the emotional baggage still weighed heavy on her heart, life was brighter here with the Fireflies—with Y/N.

She knew in that moment that it didn’t matter if things came crashing down as it almost always did. The pain and suffering of life was worth enduring because Abby no longer feared the inevitable. She had found something to fight for here and as long as she had you and she had Lev, Abby would continue to fight regardless of the obstacles that stood in her way.

[sergeantsporks]

Adoption Papers

Rating: Gen, General Audiences

Part 2 of Camila is Hunter’s Mom Now

Camila officially adopts Hunter and Vee

Might be a little hard to explain where they came from, though.

Direct Sequel to “Another Shot at Life”

Ao3

“What’s a social security?”

“What do you mean an ID?”

“Why do we have to do a bunch of paperwork to live here? Luz just lived in Eda’s house for months!”

Camila pinched the bridge of her nose. “Things work differently here than in the Boiling Isles. And if the two of you don’t want me to get arrested for kidnapping, we have to fill out paperwork, and I have to officially adopt you.”

Vee sniffed the papers. “But I’ve already been living here!”

“Yeah, pretending to be me,” Luz reminded her, “Gonna be a liiiiiitle hard to explain why there’s two of us.”

Hunter squinted at the documents. “I used to do paperwork for the coven. But I have no idea what any of this says.” It was all a lot of technical stuff—with a lot of words he didn’t know the meaning of.

Camila sighed. “I’ve filled out most of it, but… we’re going to need to explain where the two of you came from. And ‘wandered in from another dimension’ isn’t something I think we can tell people.”

Luz bounced up. “Ooo! I’ve got it!” She waved a hand. “Vee is my twin sister, separated at birth!”

“Luz, sweetie, the hospital records will say otherwise.”

“Okay, okay, how abooooout… we say that Vee was a home birth, maybe a year younger than me, but Dad took her away with him when he left, and we assumed he’d do all of the registry, but apparently he didn’t? What are they going to do, track him down and ask him? They haven’t managed that yet. We can say that Vee ran away and came home to us.”

“That might work. What about Hunter?”

Luz grinned at him. “We found him living feral in the woods, he was raised by a pack of wolves.”

Hunter stuck his tongue out at her.

“Yeaaah… I don’t think that one’s gonna fly.”

“How about we tell them the truth?” Vee asked, “We say he ran away from a bad situation, and we’ve been taking care of him.”

“What if they start investigating? They’ll ask him questions, definitely, and if they try to figure out who his family is-!”

Luz jumped up and down. “Oooooo, tell them your horrible family chased you, and tried to push you off of a cliff, but they slipped and fell off and died!”

Hunter felt sick. “Pass.”

“Let’s stick to something simple. You and your… uncle… traveled, didn’t have a home, and you slipped away one day. You were camping out in the old abandoned house to hide, Vee found you there and brought you home, and you’ve been living with us ever since.”

“What if they try to figure out who his family is?” Vee asked, “I mean, uncle sounds a lot like he might have just kidnapped him.”

Hunter shrugged. “I’ll tell them my whole family was already dead. Freak boating accident, bodies never found. They were recluses, no one noticed they were missing. I’ll say uhhhhhhhh, I don’t remember their names, because I was a kid, and my uncle never told me our last name.”

Luz squinted at him. “What is your last name?”

“No idea.”

Camila sighed. “This is getting complicated. What if they start trying to figure out where your family lived?”

“Mexico,” Luz said immediately, “But Hunter was born over the border.”

“Does he look Mexican to you?”

“Okay, fine, Canada, whatever!”

“Let’s just… keep it simple, okay, Luz? Hunter, what do you think? This is your story, you have to be able to tell it.”

His story. Okay, who did he want to be? “I think… I think Vee’s idea is good,” he said slowly, “Ran away—I’ll just say he was my uncle. And we were homeless, so there’s nowhere they could track him down to. Even if they DO start looking for my birth family, it’s not like they can actually pull anything up, because I’m not from here. Okay. So, I ran away, made my way to Gravesfield, camped out in the abandoned house for a bit, then Vee found me, uhhhhh…”

“A week ago,” Vee offered.

“Okay, yeah, a week ago.”

“And if they ask for details about your uncle?”

“I’ll just talk about Belos. It’s not like they can find him.”

Camila nodded. “Okay! The closest adoption agency is out of town, but I already scheduled an appointment for tomorrow. First hurdle, guys!”

“First?” Hunter echoed.

“Oh, yeah, we have to get the two of you enrolled in school—”

“School?!”

Luz laughed. “Ohhhhhhh, you’re gonna hate it, Mr. Prodigy.”

“I don’t need school!”

“Yeah? Do you know how to do algebra? How about chemistry? Physics?”

“No?” Hunter looked to Luz. “Those are fake, right?”

She shook her head. “Unfortunately, they’re all very real.”

“I don’t need those.”

“We’ll discuss it later,” Camila interrupted, “For now, let’s just… focus on the adoption, okay?”

She looked… nervous. Which made Hunter nervous.

“What… what happens if they don’t believe me?”

Camila rubbed the back of her head. “I… I don’t know, mijo. If they dig deeper, I… but it will be fine.”

Still, Hunter didn’t sleep that night, his mind running through every possible way that this could go wrong. The next morning, when they loaded up in the car, he could see dark circles under Camila’s eyes, too. It did not make him feel better.

Hunter tossed his palisman gently out the window before they set off, the bird fluttering around his head. “You can’t come with us. Stay here and protect the house, okay?”

The bird chirped in affirmation, flapping back to sit on the roof.

Vee fell back asleep, leaning against him, and he resisted the urge to shake her awake and demand to know how she could possibly not be worried about this.

Hunter hadn’t ever gone outside of Gravesfield, and it was hitting him just now how… huge… the human realm was. He watched countryside flash by outside the car window, and even still, they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

And then buildings loomed in front of him, huge and imposing. Hunter pressed his face against the window. “Is this the capital of the human realm?”

“Ha. No. We’re not even in the capital of Connecticut.”

“Seriously?!”

Hunter watched the streets go by. This world was enormous, and he wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it.

They had the key on this side, and since he was here, Belos was down one coven head—hypothetically, his uncle couldn’t complete his day of unity plans. But if he did, or if he managed to get back through, somehow…

Hunter was almost confident that this world was big enough for him to hide in.

They pulled up to an office building, and Camila took a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes nothing. Come on, kids.”

They all followed behind her into the building, and Camila approached the desk. “Hiiii. I’m Camila Noceda, I have an appointment about a couple of adoptions?”

The desk attendant glanced behind her at the three of them. “Down the hall, first door on the right. Right on time.”

Camila gave the attendant a nod. Hunter and Vee both crowded close to her as they filed into the office. “Hello?”

The woman at the desk looked like she hadn’t slept in a week, a thermos on a table covered in papers. “Hey. Paperwork.”

Camila tentatively handed her the packet, and she disappeared into a back room, coming back out after about ten minutes.

“So, neither of these kids is in the system?”

Camila shook her head. “Neither.”

The woman squinted at Vee. “Certainly looks like your other daughter. Why didn’t you report her father taking her?”

“We… we were separating. We thought he’d already filed everything.”

A grunt. “Alright. You. Other one. Hunter. C’mere.”

Hunter looked to Camila, and she gave him a little nod. He followed the woman into the other room, where she read over his form again. “Tell me about your uncle.”

“What? Why?”

“We need to see if we can find him.”

Hunter’s blood chilled. “I’m not going back!”

“Hey, it’s okay. We need to find him because we just don’t know enough about you—not even your last name. So we need your uncle for more information.”

“You won’t find him.”

“Uh-huh. Let us try, at least. Physical description?”

Hunter sighed. “Tall. Blond but greying, long hair, blue eyes. Old.” Face creeping with slime, occasionally turns into a puddle of goop, can’t miss him.

“His name?”

“Belos.”

“There’s one you don’t hear every day. Last name?”

“Dunno.”

“Right. Of course not. Where was the last place you saw him?”

“I don’t know.”

The woman sighed. “You’ve got to work with me, here.”

“Why?”

“Because this whole adoption will go a lot more smoothly. Where was the last place you saw him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay. Fine. How long ago did you see him?”

Hunter struggled to remember. Kind of hard to tell when he didn’t know how much time he’d lost falling down into a cursed prison of darkness.

But according to Luz, that had only been for a couple of hours, even if it had felt like forever.

“Two weeks,” he said softly.

Two weeks since he’d been rescued. Two weeks since the worst time of his life.

“And you… ran away?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you explain why?”

Hunter shuddered. “Because I was miserable.”

“Specifically?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“We can’t take you away from your uncle if he wasn’t a bad parent, Hunter. If we don’t have any indication he did anything wrong, then he can reclaim you any time he likes, and we are obligated to try to find him and return you to him. I understand that it may be painful to talk about it, but we cannot proceed without information about your past life.”

“Fine,” Hunter snapped, “He hurt me, and he locked me up, and he made me run errands for him and would punish me if I failed, happy?”

A slight pause. “What kind of errands?”

Hunting down palisman so he could drain them of their magic. “Uh… picking up medicine for him.”

“Medicine? What kind?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I just picked it up. I didn’t ask questions, it wasn’t encouraged.”

“But you ran away, ended up in Gravesfield, where Camila found you a week ago?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Wait outside, send Camila in.”

Hunter shuffled out. “She wants you.”

Camila nodded, disappearing into the other room, closing the door behind her. Vee nudged him. “Are you okay?”

“She was asking about Belos.”

“I’m sorry,” Luz said softly.

Hunter paced back and forth. “What do you think they’re talking about?” He crept closer to the door, pressing his ear to the door.

“Hunter,” Vee hissed, “Get away from there, it’s rude!”

“I want to know what they’re saying,” he hissed back, “Shhhh!”

He pressed his ear to the door again. The voices were faint, but he could make out what they were saying.

“Obviously, if Vee is your biological daughter, there isn’t any reason for us to keep her from you. I don’t think there will be any difficulty with the transition. But Hunter… Ms. Noceda, you may be rushing into more than you can handle.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t know him well. We don’t know where he came from, or what he’s done.”

“What he’s done?”

“He’s a liar, ma’am, you wrote that he was homeless, but he claimed his uncle would lock him up. Those two aren’t exactly compatible. He very obviously isn’t telling us everything—and I suspect he may have been part of a drug delivery system without knowledge. If I can believe him that he didn’t know what his uncle’s ‘medicine’ was.”

“Okay, well, let’s just say that I am really, really, really determined to adopt him anyway.”

“I’m really advising you not to. Let us get him into the system, foster him out, see how he does before you go all in on adopting him. He might not even be separated from his uncle—they might be planning to rob or hurt you and your family.”

“Hunter,” Camila thundered, “is not going to hurt us. And I don’t think it’s a good idea to foster him out.”

Hunter pulled back from the door, feeling sick. “Luz, what’s fostering?”

Her face paled. “It’s… it’s when they sort of send you out to different families to take care of you.”

“I don’t want to go to a different family!”

“You won’t,” Luz soothed, “Mom won’t let them take you away. And you can just run away if they do.”

Hunter started to pace, his chest getting tight. “I can’t start running away here, too! That’ll just make all of the adoption stuff harder, right?”

Vee grabbed his hand. “Hunter. Look at me.”

He did, the fingers of his free hand tapping restlessly on the side of his leg.

Vee gave his hand a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay,” she said firmly, “We aren’t going to leave you behind. Promise.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Good. Now sit down, and just think about other stuff. Like school.”

“I don’t want to go to school.”

“I’ll teach you algebra,” Vee promised, “They had a whole course on it at summer camp—it’s not so bad. And I’ll introduce you to my friends, too. You’ll be a couple grades older than us, but that’s okay.”

Luz bounced up. “Speaking of school, Hunter, is there any chance I can borrow Red? I know we’re worried about using the portal, but Eda and Amity and King and Gus and Willow will all be so worried about me!”

“Use your little…” Hunter clicked his fingers in the air. “Your little yellow thing.”

“My—you think that will work between dimensions?”

He shrugged. “Worth a shot. Might as well try before we open the portal and risk Belos getting in.” Hunter tapped his fingers against the chair. “If there’s natural titan’s blood veins in the Boiling Isles, then there’s a place here where it connects, right?”

“Right. That’s how Phillip—he wrote the diary I was using to figure out my portal—got into the demon realm in the first place.”

“So we might not need the key portal if we can find a place on this side where the worlds intersect.” Hunter’s stomach roiled. “Except that if we can do that, that means Belos has another way to get blood.”

“If I can just get in contact with Eda, she might be able to figure out my portal and then we don’t have to—”

The door to the other room burst open. Camila grinned, her hands behind her back. “Okay, Vee, Hunter, close your eyes, and hold out your hands!”

Vee did what she said, and Hunter followed suit, a little more hesitantly. Something paper settled in his hand. “Okay, open your eyes now.”

Hunter blinked at the paper in his hand.

Hunter Noceda.

Vee bounced up and down. “We did it!”

“They’re still finalizing everything—social security, birth certificates, all of that will take a bit more time. But you two are legally part of the family and under my care, now!”

Hunter Noceda.

The words felt… odd, in his head. But a good kind of odd.

Luz slung her arms around Vee and Hunter’s necks. “Whoo! Two new siblings! I didn’t use to have… well, any! I mean, I had you, but legally!” She shook Hunter slightly. “See? Nothing to worry about, I told you Mom could handle it!”

“Hunter Noceda.” He had a last name, now. A family name. “Vee Noceda.” It felt more natural to say her name—but then, she’d already seemed to be part of the family.

Luz cackled with glee. “Aha! You know what that means? Now the two of you have to wear ugly sweaters for family Christmas card pictures!”

“Ugly sweaters?” Vee questioned

“Christ-mas?” Hunter echoed.

“Ehehehe. Welcome to the Noceda family. You two have a lot of family tradition to catch up on.”

[carriagelamp]

Art of Aardman

I found myself a cheap copy of the Shaun the Sheep movie, so I was rewatching a bunch of Aardman films earlier this month and decided to hunt down some books too. For anyone that doesn’t know, Aardman is a British stop-motion studio that does fantastic work like Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run, Early Man… tons of cool stuff. They’re always quirky and funny and warm-hearted. This was just a very nice art book for anyone that’s a fan of Aardman stop motion and wants to see a bit extra; it shows some cool concept art and blows up the neat details in Aardman work, especially in their intricate stuff like The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

Asterix and the Picts (Asterix and the Chariot Race, and How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion)

I decided to try a couple of the new Asterix comics that were done by the new team, just to see if they stand up to the old ones (that and How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion cause I’d never read that one before). They were pretty decent! Asterix and the Picts was my favourite of the two though I wouldn’t say either are going to contest for my favourite Asterix comic... but still! The art looks good and the stories felt like what I would expect, they made for a pleasant couple evenings of reading especially since it’s been so long since I’ve read a new Asterix comic. If you’ve never read Asterix it’s one of the biggest name French comic series in North America, as far as I know and very worth the read. It’s about a single Gaulish village that’s holding out against the invading Romans through sheer force of will, slapstick hijinks, and a magical super-strength potion brewed by their druid. Lots of fantastic visuals and cute wordplay, even in the English translations.

Bear

I found out about this bastion of Canadian literature via tumblr post that was losing its collective mind over the fact that some bizarre bear-based erotica novella somehow won the most prestigious literary prize available in Canada. Since I too found this hilarious and unspeakably bizarre I had to give it a read, obviously. And yes, the flat surface level summary is... a librarian moves out into rural Ontario and falls in love with a literal for-real not-supernatural-not-a-joke bear. And I have to say… it is actually worthy of an award, which I was not expecting given that I was there for a laugh. It has beautiful writing, and the subtextual story is pretty interesting… it kind of makes me think of The Haunting of Hill House actually in terms of themes. (Womanhood, personhood, independence, autonomy partially achieved through escaping the male gaze by claiming non-human lovers... listen if I were still in university I would right a paper comparing the two novels).

I dunno man, it’s fucking weird. Actually a well-written book, but sure is about a woman falling in love with a literal bear. Give it a read if you want something bonkers but like… high-brow bonkers.

Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites

Best book I have read in like… a while. A long while. I am not a fast reader, and I consumed 90% of this book over a weekend. It’s not at all like Terry Pratchett, but at the same time it scratched an itch for me that I haven’t had satisfied since Pratchett’s death. A very clever, hilariously funny poly romance between a disabled werewolf, an anxious vampire lord, and an incredibly powerful woman, with heaps of social satire, political commentary, and sinister undertones. The whole thing reads a bit like fanfiction and I say that in the most flattering way possible -- it is so easy to jump right in and be immediately taken over by the characters and the world and the plot, you never feel like you’re fighting to engage even though the world-building is fascinating and expansive. It welcomes you in right away, it was the book equivalent of a quilt and a hug which is something I sorely needed with all this pandemic bullshit. If you read any of the books on this list, go read that one while I sit here in pain waiting for the sequel.

Kid Paddle

I watched the cartoon of Kid Paddle as a kid and was thinking about it recently, so I decided to hunt down some of the original comics online. They’re fun and weird, with a cute art style and fantastic monsters designs. (My favourites are always about Kid either daydreaming or playing games that involve Midam’s weird warty troll creatures. It’s like a cross between Calvin and Hobbes and Foxtrot with the fun sort of quirks that I love in Belgian comics. Unfortunately, unlike Asterix, I’ve only come across these ones in French, but if you can read French it’s totally worth popping over to The Internet Archive and reading the ones they have available.

The Last Firehawk: The Golden Temple

The lastest Firehawk book. Despite being written for quite young readers, I did enjoy the early books in this series quite a bit. They’re about a young owl and squirrel who found an egg for a magical species that was believed to be extinct. With the newly hatched firehawk, the three of them head off on a mission to find an ancient firehawk magic that could save the entire forest. Very basic adventure story but a good intro to the tropes for children. Unfortunately the quality really feels like it drops with each subsequent book; this will probably be the last one I bother reading.

Lumberjanes: The Moon Is Up

I honestly think I enjoy these Lumberjanes novels even more than the comics just because it really gives time to delve into each story and examine how the camper are really thinking and feeling about everything. (Also I’m always weak for novelizations of anything.) The Moon Is Up is a book that focuses more on Jo, and takes place during the camp’s much anticipated Galaxy Wars, a competition between cabins that goes over several days. While the campers prepare for these challenges though, they also run into a strange little creature with a penchant for cheese and theft. Roanoke cabin needs to keep ahead in Galaxy Wars and somehow deal with the fearsome Moon Pirates that a closing in...

Lumberjanes v4 (Out Of Time)

One of the Lumberjanes comics, a cool, girl-focused, queer comic series. Honestly, this is just a fun series that I never got as into as I should have. My advice is honestly to skip book one because it gets better as it continues, and I’ve really been enjoying the later books now that I’ve given it another go. It follows five campers at Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types (Jo, April, Molly, Mal, and Ripley) as they handle all sorts of challenges, from friendship to crushes, camp activities to supernatural horrors, getting badges to not being brutally killed. Great if you liked the vibe of Gravity Falls but want it to be queer-er.

Mooncakes

Another queer graphic novel, but unfortunately not a very good one. It really looked appealing and I had high hopes, but the book itself really didn’t hold up… I actually couldn’t even finish it, the plot was just too… non-existent. The art is fairly mediocre once you actually look at it, especially backgrounds, and it feels very… placid. Not much conflict or excitement or even a very compelling reason to keep reading. If you just want a soft queer supernatural you may get more mileage out of it than me, but it didn’t really do it for me. There’s better queer graphic novels out there.

New Boy In Town

One of the worst books I have ever read. My girlfriend had ordered a very different book online but through a frankly stupendous error was sent this 1980s pulp romance instead. Absolutely nauseating on levels I couldn’t even begin to enumerate here. Naturally we read the whole thing out loud. Probably took us 10 times longer to finish than it warranted because I had to stop every two sentences to lose my mind. If you like bad decisions, baffling hetero courting rituals, built-in cultural Christianity without actually calling it that, and gold panning then boy howdy is this the book for you.

(seriously, you better have patience for gold-panning if you attempt this one, because I sure learn that I don’t)

Piggies

This was a picture book I enjoyed as a kid and had a reason to reread recently. Honestly it’s just very cute and simple, and the art is completely mesmerizing. Wonderful if you know a young child that would enjoy a simple goofy boardbook.

Shaun the Sheep: Tales From Mossy Bottom

Related to my Aardman fascination earlier this month. I tried reading a varieties of Shaun the Sheep books — most of which are mediocre at best — but the Tales From Mossy Bottom Farm series is genuinely good. Just chapter books, of course, but the illustrations match the series’ concept art and each story feels like it could have jumped directly out of an episode. They’re just cute and feel-good! Kinda like Footrot Flats but more for kids, and from the sheep’s perspective moreso than the dog’s.

[littlemisspascal]

Death and an Angel part 3

Death!Din and Cupid F!Reader

Summary: You and Din have an unexpected heart-to-heart about what it means to be Death and a Cupid on route to a planet where Din’s potential soulmate lives.

Rating: G

Word Count: 1,500

Warnings: Pining, smidge of angst, more plot development, Razor Crest (RIP I miss you darling!), a made-up home world for the reader (yes, yes, there’s like a million I could have picked but my brain said NOPE)

Author Note: Ahhhh, the comments are so amazing from you all! Thank you everyone out there sparing time to check out my little universe, it makes me sooo happy you have no idea! As always, I hope you enjoy this new segment as I try to plot this story out and get these two idiots to acknowledge there just might be something between them. 

Also special thanks to @codenamewitcher​​ for including the first two parts on Weekly Fanfic Recs. Be sure to go check out the list for a whole bunch of fantastic stories!

Links to Part 1, Part 2 and Part 4

Photo Inspiration: (What I imagine is beneath the armor in this scene...*dreamy sigh*)

There is a distinct silence that can only be found in hyperspace when the stars outside resemble sparkling streaks of silver tinsel and your breath is trapped within your lungs as you’re awestruck by the sheer beauty of it all. You experience this silence aboard the Razor Crest, sitting in the cockpit behind Din as he pilots his beloved gunship. It isn’t the first time you’ve been a passenger, having traveled with Din on two previous ventures where your Cupid services were required on planets far away from your home on Umbriel.

Off-world assignments for you were generally rare since your bosses were more inclined to choose Cupids of higher ranking to handle those clients, but sometimes you were the only available option left. Which, come to think of it, is exactly how you became the one roped into meeting with Death every full moon. Your bosses decided someone needed to check up on him to make sure he wasn’t reaping anyone before their fated time and thus messing with the natural order of things. You privately have reached the conclusion it was a decision made during a fit of paranoia as you had yet to find any evidence suggesting Din ever broke a single one of the universe’s rules, let alone even considered the mere possibility.

When you did travel for assignments, you never stopped feeling like a goldfish being dumped out of your familiar little bowl and into a massive ocean full of strange oddities. You would often find yourself wasting time trying to successfully navigate the unknown world when you should have been focused on tracking down your client’s soulmate.

That’s why Din had offered to start traveling with you. Actually, in his own words it was because, “You think about love so much you don’t see trouble until it’s an inch in front of you. Someone’s got to be there to look after you.”

You’d tried to argue, told him you had never experienced trouble and that if you did then you could handle it with your bow. All Cupid’s were required to master archery for self-defense purposes, though Din’s responding snort of derision made you suspect he wasn’t convinced of your skills. You wondered if he thought, just as humans incorrectly did, a Cupid only used their bow to spread love and lust. Or maybe he just thought you weren’t capable of such finesse. It was an insulting assumption, fueling you with the burning desire to prove him wrong. One day, you keep telling yourself, a repetitive chant. One day you’ll show him just how capable you are with your weapon and you imagine his look of shock, whether worn openly on his face or hidden beneath the visor of his helmet, will be utterly priceless.

But in the meantime, you’re in no hurry to encounter trouble. Finding enjoyment in taking these trips with him on his ship instead.

The Razor Crest had actually been a complete surprise to you when Din first welcomed you on it; primarily because the notion of him using such a primitive form of transportation despite the powers he possessed as Death was too outrageous to wrap your head around. However, it took less than ten minutes soaring through space for you to discover just how many details of the universe you were missing by relying on your Cupid abilities to teleport yourself between locations. Never would you have imagined Death to be the one to teach you to love the slowness of travel, to let your eyes linger on all the beautiful wonders along the way. But that’s exactly what happened.

You turn your head away from the window to look at Din. From your angle, all you glimpse is the back of his helmet, reflecting the passing starlight. Soon you’ll be introducing Din to the first immortal on your list of potential soulmates.

Death, you quickly correct yourself. He’s only Din when he’s around you.

You initially thought he elected to wear his armor because you told him he could to ease his comfort, but now you think it’s because this is him meeting his potential soulmate as himself. It is easy to forget sometimes this is the image of Death—a warrior enshrouded in beskar, cunning and ruthless—that is recognized throughout the universe. And feared.

If the handsome face he concealed was known instead, you wonder if mortals would readily choose to embrace the ending of their lifetime, rather than foolishly seek to run from its inevitability.

“What is it?” Din’s baritone voice startles you as it shatters the quietness. The modulator within his helmet gives his tone a low raspiness that never fails to send a chill down your spine when you hear it.

“Huh?” You respond ineloquently.

“You’ve been staring at the back of my head for the last five minutes, angel. I figured you had something worth saying.”

“Oh, no. I was just thinking about you.”

Immediately you wish a meteor would collide with the ship, providing you with the necessary distraction to escape and find somewhere you can hide until the end of time.

“...What about me were you thinking?” Din wonders after a solid thirty seconds of pure silence, voice somehow conveying an equally blended mixture of intrigue and wariness. He flips on the ship’s autopilot and turns in his seat to pin you with his gaze, apparently unwilling to let you try and weasel yourself out of the conversation.

You roll the question around in your mind, wanting to give an answer that satisfies him without it also embarrassing yourself further.

“I was thinking how much of an enigma you are,” you murmur at last, leaning back in the chair with your arms crossing over your stomach. “You wield such incredible powers and yet you choose to wear a human face, to call this man-made ship your home and to also spend your spare time living amongst those you will eventually reap. Why are these your choices?”

He tilts his head, and you just know there is a little crease of bewilderment appearing between his eyebrows right now even if you can’t see it. For as much as he is a puzzle you can’t put together, he is also at times an open book that you will never tire of reading.

“I would think you, more than most beings, would understand the discomfort that stems from loneliness and the lengths one will go to ease it,” he says, not unkindly. He mirrors your position, maneuvering himself until he’s comfortable in his seat and totally oblivious to the dilating of your pupils as you observe every subtle shift of his armor-clad body. “Isn’t that the true purpose of Cupids? To spare individuals the ache of living a life of solitude by introducing them to someone to love so they no longer feel it.”

“That’s a poetic way of putting it,” you answer, smiling softly and shrugging your shoulders. “My superiors would just quote our mantra back at me when I used to ask. Amor vincit omnia.”

“Love conquers all.”

You shouldn’t be surprised he’s able to translate such an ancient and obscure language, but your eyes widen regardless. “That’s right.”

His voice is unusually soft when he asks, “Do you like being a Cupid?”

You stare at him, caught off guard by how easily he’s changed the topic of the conversation from himself to you. You’re used to taking orders and being thanked for your services, but no one has ever asked you if you liked doing any of it.

“I’m good at it,” you finally say, even though it’s not really an answer.

He nods his head still, as if he understands. A part of you thinks he actually does.

You lick your lips, eyeing him hesitantly. “Do you...like being Death?”

“I’m good at it,” he echoes, but your words sound somber coming from his lips.

The cockpit fills with hushed silence again, but there’s a unique tenderness unlike ever before. Minutes seem to stretch on for entire seasons as you watch one another, content to simply coexist and revel in each other’s presences.

It would be so easy to slip off his helmet and kiss him right now.

You stiffen, stunned at your own thought, but you aren’t given the chance to analyze it further as an alarm on the ship’s control panel announces with a resounding beep you’ve reached your destination.

Din spins in his seat, reclaiming control of the steering to begin the ship’s landing process. You look out the front window at the large green-blue planet drawing nearer with every anxious tick of your heartbeat.

“We’re here,” you say needlessly, forcing excitement into your voice. Fake it till you make it, isn’t that the human expression?

“Who is it we’re meeting on this backwater skug hole?” Din asks, pressing a series of buttons above his head.

You kick the back of his seat. “Be nice,” you scold when he shoots you a look. He mutters something unintelligible under his breath as he turns back around, prompting you to roll your eyes. “She’s a goddess of springtime and motherhood. The locals call her Omera.”

Tag List: @leilei-draws​, @theocatkov​, @becauseican2, @vintagesaph​, @stardust-and-starlight​, @kay2304, @odelia-d32, @adrieunor​, @remmyswritings​, @gallowsjoker​, @rhiannon-russo​, @randomness501​, @eleine-t1d​, @nicotinebirds, @sylphene​, @softly-sad​, @maytheglitter​, @melobee​

[nuclearnerves]

INCOMING VAMPIRE AU THOUGHTS

Don't mind me I'm finally getting the ideas I had on this shit out so I can actually go forward with developing it as an AU. It's my usual mixup of fps protags, Gordon Guy and John, but I'm starting with Gordon as the Vampire and Guy as the Vampire Hunter.

absolute beast of a wall of text under the cut

What If Being A Vampire Literally Sucks All The Time Forever like chronic pain sucks. like THAT level of sucks. Like Here's what I was thinking of. Being a vampire isn't just "being alive forever but you need to drink human blood" It's like Oh man I have some lore you look at vampires and their main thing is that they're blood suckers right so lets start with a corpse dead body. cadaver. no longer with us. just some rotting meat. The brain needs oxygen as fuel. The blood supplies the oxygen through blood. The blood is pumped through the heart. The blood is made by your bone marrow. You die. Your heart stops beating Blood stops pumping Brain no longer has oxygen to think marrow stops making blood thats standard! Now, becoming undead, as a vampire, is a little more complicated. The long and short of it is: your body is FIGHTING ACTIVELY to be alive against all odds and wins every time (immortality), but it hurts the whole way

I have the gist of it. It's like. Your heart stops. By all means, you should be dead. but the magic kicks in, and you're still thinking. Your brain is still sending signals to your muscles to move. But using what oxygen to move? whats burning in you? You don't know but you know it's just enough to get to your next meal. So you ferociously eat something, and then find you can't swallow. You can't make saliva. You barely have the energy to chew, and once you DO get something in your stomach, it immediately comes back up. Why can't you feel your pulse? What's going on? You're out of options so you figure you might as well just lie down and die. You're too tired to keep going anyway. So you do, you lie down, and you close your eyes, and you quietly hope that death is as peaceful as sleep. You realize you've actually been moving around without breathing, which makes sense because you can barely flex your diaphragm for more than a shaky wheeze. How are you thinking with such little oxygen? But as you fade from consciousness, you can feel something in you, and it's so upset, it's crying, it's filled with grief, and you instantly can tell it's your skeleton. It's your bones. You're distraught down to your marrow. You're dying. You're dying! Your heart stopped and you have no more blood! You need blood! You need blood to move! To breathe! To think! You try to breath deep again for the voices in your bones, trying to comfort them, to sooth them with the repetitive motion in your lungs, trying to fill yourself with anything but grief, but they keep wailing. We make the blood, our creation, our child, what we put all of our work into is gone! gone! gone! We need it back! Anything! All of it! Find it! Bring it back to us! We're hungry! WE'RE HUNGRY!

and once you find yourself too exhausted to listen, to think, how badly you wish just to die already to cease hearing this wailing, you find your body moving without you. And it's hungry and it's searching and it's crawling on all fours and it misses its beautiful red life that made it feel so full before and it needs it back, and the next thing you know you're desperately grabbing anything with blood in it and shoving it in your mouth in a desperate attempt to sooth this cry for life, you don't want to die, you don't want to die, you worked so hard to keep up this body and craft it and LIVE with it and you're not going to go, and even when you try, even when you try to lay down and die, your body refuses, it takes the reigns, and it keeps up the work itself with or without your help. And it's not until your stomach is full and your teeth are stained and you feel a pulsating burning in your bones that you snap back awake, completely conscious, just fine. You're lucid, you don't feel any more pain. Everything around you is dead and drained and messy and your heart still isn't beating. but you can breathe now and holy shit you guess you literally need to kill to survive and the less you eat and the more you starve yourself the worse it gets when your body finally decides to take recourse.

my idea was like. "the vampires curse is actually stored in the bones, thats why the teeth get so sharp and also theres a connection between blood and bones with the creation via bone marrow" its literally like i was sitting there thinking "no no no, whats it like to be a vampire. what neurosis would you develop. How would you panic? What are common mistakes beginner vampires make" which, by the way, gordon is a beginner vampire

so now you gotta factor, what blood lasts for how long? how long can you go between meals? not only that, but what creatures satisfy the urge? How long can you go avoiding human blood? Does it work like drugs where you develop a resistance to the high, or is it like food where it will keep you moving until you eat again? How the fuck are you gonna get your hands on blood? Can you just eat raw meat? Does that count? and thats where im at lol

OKAY now. now thoughts on beginning scenes of vampire au

So my idea was this Doomguy is a vampire hunter independent and one of his buds says that some freak scared and almost attacked his daughter when she got too close to his old abandoned laboratory up the hill and hes like “he might be… you know… a problem. if you needed a lead” and guys like yeah i fuckin hate the undead ill kill this dude so he busts into old lab space and sees so many dead animals its actually mostly Bones and pelt that hes seeing piles of feathers etc so hes like yeah this is all telltale signs of vampire uhhh hes introduced to gordon SOMEHOW im not totally sure of the details but the working idea i have is guy falls into a trap gordon devised that restrains him suspended in wire or something and gordon like. limps/stumbles into the room and this dude looks haggard he’s breathing heavy, his cheeks are hollow, he’s bug-eyed and shaking while looking at this massive wall of meat in his trap and he bares a bunch of hideous teeth and grits them and looks like hes really struggling with somethin... Like if these dudes don't know each other then Gordon might give in and try to drain Guy, and Guy would absolutely do anything in his power to turn this new vampire into ash, im thinking the inclusion if g-man as a coven leader can fix both issues.

i like the idea of guy falling into gordons trap and gordon thinking about what to do with him before gman shows up and whisks gordon away for a “meeting” while complimenting him on his good work catching the most feared vampire hunter in the country and gman just leaving guy suspended in wires that he has to fight his way out of. Instant situation defuser.

Guy ends up needing to take care of other monsters before going back to Gordon, and he DOES plan to go back to gordon, because no vampire is a good one, especially not one associated with the fucking head of a coven, but next time he sees Gordon, Gordon helps him out of a scrape by attacking and draining a combine who was going to take Guy out or something and escaping before Guy can catch him, or otherwise seeing Gordon do something good with his insane undead powers and like, the third time he meets up with him is when they can actually talk, and Gordons fuckin SO haggard, he’s not even fighting back and he’s even going as far as to say “just make sure theres nothing of me left when you’re done, I don’t want anyone else getting hurt”

Side Note: Guy has a bunch of scarring on his body from dealing with vampires, cops, ghosts, werewolves, anything violent that kills people. I'm playing with the inkling of an idea that he has Divine Blood in him, so that any time something undead bites him or tries to drink his blood, it burns. We'll see.

Side Note 2: now i really like the idea of the combine actually being an organized faction of vampire hunters that are WICKED crooked and exploit people for all their worth in exchange for their “safety” when they kill a vampire They’re essentially loansharks and Guy fucking hates them and hates the name theyve given to vampire hunting

Side Note 3: You've probably noticed that I haven't said anything about John yet! He's in this too. His species is a surprise but I need to get to him later I have an idea for where he came from (Cortana too)

I still need a good reason for Guy to not instantly kill this vampire, if not it's just gonna be "Gordon Freeman escapes the countrys best vampire hunter like a seventh time" every time they meet and they end up being rivals. And it gives Guy enough time to look past the whole "undead monster" thing and start looking at the "Oh this dude figured out how to fight his ridiculous craving for blood in a way more humane than most and is actually staying out of peoples way and keeping to himself. Guess he's not that big of a threat but I still need to keep an eye on him in case he loses it. Turns out he's got a family (Probably Alyx, Eli, Issac and Barney) who's been lookin for him and cares about him as well, don't wanna hurt them". I like the idea of them ending up needing to team up to take out undead together.

And that's what I got so far!!!

[chaos-mybeloved]

S.H.I.E.L.D Business

Hello! I'm now fully on Summer vacation and I forgot how fun it is to write things without an academic purpose so I decided to try something new. I wanted to write my first ever fanfic but then didn't know where to start and this happened instead. I hope someone enjoys it! Its a reader insert, first time writing one of these. Also, I'm black so I had black reader in mind when writing but I didn't really describe anything in detail.

Word count: 1500 (ish)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x female agent!reader

Warnings: There's some smut in there, not overly explicit but its there 18+ content

Agent Y/LN is one of SHIELD's best agents

She and her team are SHIELD's elite, even more so than the STRIKE team. She works directly with Fury and Agent Hill

Steve Rogers knows all of this. He's read her mission reports, watched her training footage, he even has every word in her SHIELD file memorized. He's a little obsessed

When Bucky turns up and with that the threat that Hydra might still exist within SHIELD, she is called into work with the Avengers; all of Fury's most trusted agents working together

Steve is more than excited to work with her, he's been dreaming of an opportunity like this since he's heard of her

However, things aren't working out quite in Steve's favour when it turns out that she has taken a liking to Bucky more than Steve. She laughs with him and brings him out of his shell better than even Steve has been able to since his return. Something about kindred spirits.

Steve shuts down a little, sinking into his pit of despair and self-loathing, so much so that he makes a bad call on a mission and nearly gets everyone killed

Y/LN takes over and gets the mission back on track, saving everyone's ass in the process

When they get back to the base she seeks Steve out to ask what has gotten into him. The conversation gets heated and Steve gets angry enough to tell her that she's the problem

She sees that Steve needs the release so she lets him when he reaches out and kisses her. She lets him stick his tongue in her mouth and taste everything she has to give

She lets him run his big, smooth hands from her face, down her neck and over her breasts to finally slip under the tank top she’s wearing. She feels him moan into her mouth and she swallows it down, knowing how bad he needs this. He almost got everyone killed because of how bad he needs this so she lets him

The first touch of skin to skin seems to break some of the restraint he had left because suddenly his hands aren't just exploring anymore, they're demanding. He grips the flesh on her tummy hard enough to bruise and she lets him do it simply flicking her own tongue over the roof of his mouth, giving back just as much as she's getting.

Her hands haven't left the confines of his hair. The golden strands slipping and sliding through her fingers like silk. She's in no rush to move any time soon, content to let Steve rush enough for the both of them. He seems to be in a fever now; his hands are hot and searing as they knead and squeeze every inch of skin they can reach.

When he finally makes his way back to her breasts, his finger immediately finds her nipples and pinch. The little sigh she lets out cracks him open even further. He wrenches his mouth away from hers and trails it down her jaw and neck instead. He bites and sucks and she knows he wants to leave marks, reminders that he was here, that he got to have this if even for a short time. The marks will stay for a while, she knows, and she lets him anyway.

When he starts mumbling incoherently into the junction between her neck and shoulder she knows he's too far gone to think about this anymore. She huffs internally thinking about how he's probably thought about this enough to fill a lifetime. She hopes her reality won't disappoint.

He bunches the material of her top up under her armpits and his mouth moves down to her fully exposed breasts. His sucking and biting continue there now too. His tongue feels just as hot as his hands did as it flicks over a nipple and then the other one as if he can't decide where to place his attention. His hands, however, seem to have an idea of their own. With his mouth now covering where his hands used to be, his hands move down, down, down, until he's teasing at the button of her tac pants.

He hesitates. He doesn't want to stop but somewhere in his desperation-filled brain, he can register that this might be too far. He was moving out of sheer desperation before but he finds that he needs the verbal confirmation that she wants this just as bad. Without removing his mouth, he opens his eyes and looks up into her own. The deep blue of his eyes has been swallowed almost entirely by black. He looks consumed and neither of them are even fully naked yet.

"Tell me you want it. Tell me you want me."

It's the most coherent thing he's said since he kissed her even if he did mumble it around her nipple. She looks down at him fully taking in his trembling fingers poised to strike the moment she says so. She's used to having power, she's even used to people giving up theirs to her but this feels different. This is almost intoxicating, and alarm bells start going off in her head because it feels just a little bit addicting too. It feels as if he stopped right now she might also, not fall apart, but definitely splinter somehow as if something is missing. Something will be missing. Goddamn you, Steve Rogers.

"Go on, soldier," she smirks down at him, "do your worst."

He nearly rips her pants straight down the middle with the force he uses to pry the button open. She chuckles but it quickly turns into a moan when he dives straight for her pussy. His fingers feel a lot bigger down there than they had on her chest. They're nimble though; artist fingers no matter how much of a soldier he is now. He rubs at her eager but slow, sensual. She's about to lose her damn mind.

She can't decide what she wants out of this. She knows his strength, he can give it to her hard and dirty if she asks but the pace he's set now is good. Slow and dirty and rough might be the way to go tonight. They don't really have the time but that all seems irrelevant as he slips one of those long fingers into her.

He's started mumbling nonsense into her skin again. He seems content with the work he's done on her breasts for now. The brown nipples are puffy and shiny with spit. Her entire chest really is covered in Steve's spit. It's a subtle claim but a claim nonetheless.

"What am I allowed to do?"

It takes her a second to register the question; his fingers haven’t stopped their slow attack on her pussy.

"Whatever you want, Captain," her breath rushes out of her as his thumb gently massages her clit. "You're the one who started it and I'm trusting you to finish it."

And finishes he does. She had caught him in an empty board room and so the large desk in the middle of the room will have to do. He removes his hand and her pants and then picks her up without any warning, almost in one complete motion. Before she even realizes what's happening she's on her back with her legs over his shoulders and a face in her pussy eating like it's his last meal.

She lets go after that. She doesn't keep track of her first orgasm of the night, nor the next one, nor the one after that leaves her clenching around the thick length of him. She doesn't keep track of the praises he whispers into her skin like prayers, words she realizes he's been saying the whole time. She doesn't actively process the feeling of his lips back on hers but she thinks she kisses him back. She must because he's moaning again, right into her mouth like the sound is only for her. It is only for her she realizes much, much later. When everything is over, when the heat has cooled between them and those dark blue eyes are no longer peering into her soul, and her body has stopped shaking with leftover pleasure that's when she realizes what just happened between them.

She drags herself off the table and back onto her two feet. It's a lot harder than she thought it would be. She slips back into her pants and top as Steve sits there watching her. She lets him do that too.

"What happens now." Million-dollar question Steve. She looks at him, really, really looks at him. The golden boy sitting at the edge of the desk naked as the day he was born. He's huge. All bulging biceps and tight abs. Tree trunk thighs and hulking frame. With all of that though he's still just a man. His shoulders are pulled up towards his ears, his arms are tucked against his torso, his head is ducked, and he's looking up at her through his golden lashes. He's huge but he seems so small.

She thinks she's going to ruin him. He's going to let her.