#actually ill tag a few other characters important here too

[adoreispunk]

Out of Reach (joel miller au)

summary: Olivia, a 22-year-old senior at UT Austin, is struggling to find her path. Despite her passion for photography, her father insists she pursue a more traditional career. When he suggests Olivia intern for Joel Miller, an old family friend who owns a successful contracting business. Even though Joel tries to ignore the growing attraction between them, the chemistry is clear, creating a tension they both can't avoid as they reconnect both at work and outside of it.

tags: joelmillerau, age gap, dbf!joel, joelmillerfanfic, pedropascal, mature

an: hiiii. My obsession became too strong I had to write about this man.

This is my first time writing anything like this so please be kind:) This is gonna be an AU with no outbreak and no Sarah death *yayyy*. Age gap, dbf!joel, filthy smut and fluff, and a good slow burn;)

The first 2 chapters are just to establish the story and characters relationship! The juicy stuff will start soon , trust. There's no specific descriptions for the main female character besides her name so feel free to imagine whoever you would like:)

ill also be uploading and updating on wattpad @adoreispunk

muah💋

One

"Maybe I should just run away and become a stripper" I sigh to myself.

I sat by the window of my cramped dorm room, the quiet hum of the air conditioner doing little to drown out the sound of music coming from other dorms as people get ready to go out . It was early March, and everyone else seemed to be gearing up for spring break in a few weeks. Trips, internships, adventures—plans that made it seem like they had it all figured out. For me, though,this break felt like a looming weight.

Im 22 and a senior at UT Austin. After taking a year off to seemingly figure out what the hell I wanted to do for the rest of my life, I landed on Marketing. I've always loved photography and would've started something of my own if my dad wasn't so set on me getting an actual business degree.

"You'll have a better future, Olivia. You can't get nowhere nowadays without a degree."

I could still hear him saying it in that steady, resolute tone of his. I wasn't sure if it was the words themselves that haunted me or the weight behind them—his regret. My dad grew up in a traditional household, where the values of hard work, discipline, and family were instilled in him from an early age. He was taught that education was the key to a better life, something he never had the chance to fully pursue. He always emphasized the importance of securing a steady, reliable future. That's why, when it came to me, he pushed for a path that was clear and pragmatic—a college degree, something he had always wished he could have had. To him, college wasn't just a choice; it was the opportunity he never got.

I tried to argue, once. I remember it clearly-sitting at the kitchen table, showing him my portfolio from my gap year. All the photos I'd taken of nature, friends laughing, quiet moments that captured something real. "This is what I want to do." I told him. But he just shook his head, his brow furrowed in concern, and said, "That's not a career, Liv. That's a hobby. Its beautiful but you need a degree. You need to be realistic."

And so, here I was. Senior year, taking classes I didn't care about, searching for internships I was dreading. My mind kept circling back to that word: "realistic". It wasn't that I didn't appreciate the opportunities that came with a parent who paid or pushed me to go to school, it was just that I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more I was supposed to be doing. Something that actually felt like me

I had been looking for anywhere accepting interns that I could push any limit of creativity. Every single listing I came across just felt too unrealistic or too cookie cutter. With a deep sigh, I shut my laptop, throwing it on top of any flat surface I could find on my already cluttered bedside table. The clock ticked on the wall, reminding me of how little time I had left. I wasn't even sure what I was waiting for anymore.

My dad was coming to pick me up in the morning to stay home for the weekend. He wanted to catch up on how the search was going and fill me in on some good news. I never had the nerve to tell him on the phone or over text about the search or my feelings on my stupid ass classes. As far as he knows, I'm happy and I have a plan.

The next morning, I waited for the text that my dad had arrived. I was scrambling to throw the last of my things into my overstuffed weekender bag when I heard the sound of my phone go off somewhere in my sheets. Adjusting my sweatshirt and the straps of my camera bag, which was slung over my other shoulder. I was trying to look like I had everything together, but it was clear I was in a rush—my bag was bursting at the seams. Seems metaphorical. I have the tendency to overpack.

When I stepped outside, I saw him waiting by the truck, his face breaking into a warm smile. Behind his stern persona, I like to think my dad is a softie. He helps me load my stuff into the truck and we get in. My parents separated when I was really young, and my mom hasn't been in the picture for as long as I can remember. It doesn't bother me much anymore since my dad took on both roles to the best of his ability as I was growing up. But I can't help but feel bad for my dad sometimes. He's been on his own for so long, and I think that's why he talks so much when I'm back home. When I'm around, he's always eager to fill every quiet moment with stories, questions, and advice to keep the conversation going. Which is exactly what happens the whole car ride home.

I know it's because he's lonely, and I feel for him. It's not that I mind it, it's just that sometimes I wish I could be more present for him, give him the attention he's looking for without it feeling like a never-ending monologue. I understand why he does it, though. He's been alone for so long, and I know he just wants to feel heard, to have someone around to share things with. Something I think we all yearn for.

Most of the car ride home, I zone out while my dad tells stories about work or new things he's learned online. But suddenly, my mind sharpens when I hear a name.

"...Joel Miller."

"Wait, sorry, say that again?"

"Yeah, you remember Joel Miller and his daughter Sarah? The contractor who worked with me at the company and his daughter, the curly-haired girl you spent that whole summer with?"

Holy shit, I haven't thought about Joel fucking Miller in forever.

He was my dad's old coworker, and I had a crush on him as a teenager. Nothing serious—just one of many stupid innocent crushes you get when you're growing up. Still, back then, I'd catch myself daydreaming about what it would be like if I were older and could actually have a shot with him. Joel has a daughter, Sarah, who is two years younger than me. In my freshman year of high school, we started hanging out a lot. She was sweet, and we'd gossip about school, boys, and drama. Our age gap never felt like an issue; we always seemed to get each other. Joel was also a single dad which is why I like to think dad and him were so close too. But when Joel and Sarah moved a couple of towns over during my junior year, and Joel started a new job, we saw less and less of them.

"Yeah, I remember them," I reply.

"He called me a couple weeks ago and I invited him over for a beer. We caught up quite a bit. Says when they moved, he started at a new company, but quit almost immediately. Claims the owner was a jackass. Ended up starting his own company, and it's grown a lot in the last few years. He's getting some big jobs all over the state."

I notice my body shift, leaning forward, listening intently for the first time this whole car ride. Then, I catch myself and pull back.

"Oh, wow, that's really nice to hear," I try to sound casual.

"Yeah, he was looking for a couple of new additions to the company. Asked if I'd be interested in joining him."

"Did you say yes?" I ask, almost too quickly.

"Nah, I'm too old to start over again. He understood, though. Just thought he'd extend the offer to an old friend." He pauses for a second to look over to me

"I did ask if he had any marketing positions open, though."

My head snaps to him, suddenly embarrassed. I'm not sure if I'm more uncomfortable that he's basically had to ask for a favor for me, or that the conversation I've been avoiding is about to unfold.

"Dad, what the hell!" I finally blurt. "I told you I already have everything figured out!"

"Oh yeah? Then where are you going in a couple of weeks? Tell me about it." he says, his tone teasing. If there's one thing my dad knows about me, it's that I'm terrible at lying.

I stutter, trying to recall the lie I rehearsed earlier.

"Look, I know I can be a bit of a pushover sometimes, but you know it's because I love you. And you can't graduate without some sort of internship. You're cutting it too close Liv. I'm not trying to control your decisions, but this could be a great opportunity to start a solid career with a growing business. Sure he's a bit of a hardass with a special personality but I trust 'em. "

I take a moment to think, but he gives me the space to respond. The truth is, I don't have anything lined up for spring break, I don't know what the fuck i'm doing, and I don't know if I'll find anything in time. Something about my dad backing Joel makes me feel a little safer about the whole idea. Maybe it is a good opportunity.

Before I can speak up, my dad adds, "I already told him all about you—only good things. I even showed him pictures from my Facebook and your photography. He says you've really grown up."

I whip my head toward him, horrified. My dad's Facebook is full of the most unflattering, off-guard pictures of me. I can't help but think back to my innocent crush on Joel and how mortified I'd be if he saw those photos back then.

"Why would you show him that!?" I finally managed.

He looks at me, confused. "Why would it matter?"

I don't have an answer, so I decide to change the subject instead of admitting my teenage crush on a guy almost twice my age.

"Can I at least talk to him before I commit to anything? I don't even know anything about him anymore or his company."

He grins and pats me on the shoulder. "Atta girl."

[bark-ing]

@iamthedamndonutdrawcat @trstalks @queermoons tagging u my dears cuz ik how important this is to u. happy sunday + i hope this is what u guys imagine this post would be!

This is an invitation for ppl to either add more ideas to this or to send asks with pairings and however many points from here and ill write u a little smutty story <3

-

A (noncomprehensive) list of the fucked up shit remus would get insanely horny over:

Remus loves to get dirty. Its one of his more disgusting fantasies, to go into the woods with someone and fuck nasty. He wants to get onto the ground and the mud, he wants to be forced into it or force someone down, to get dirtied hands on each other, inside each others pants. (And i could go on and on but i will save that for writing an actual thing)

Losing consciousness is a huge turn on for him. He loves how he loses control, how he gets so pliant and agreeable, how his partner could do absolutely anything to him when he's passed out. He fantasises about hands on his neck pressing him down into the bed, a hand pressed over his mouth and nose stopping any oxygen. He's even done research on chloroform after he cant stop thinking about yet another scene in some movie where a character gets knocked out with a rag pressed to their mouth.

This ones huge in my mind because of whoa omo's beautiful beautiful fic about Remus' love of piss. Please if ure open to it read it it's incredible. He loves the desperation of it yeah but actually getting dirty with it is what he loves the most.

Rope bunny Remus Lupin!!! This is tame considering but just please i cant not imagine him in any kind of binds. He loves being upside down he loves being uncomfortable, he loves how he aches after in the best way. This and this lives in my mind i swear i think of him like at least once a day. I also think no matter if he's being more submissive or dominant he always prefers to be tied up while he isnt too big on tying his partner up.

He likes dressing up, likes to be called a good girl but it ends up being less of a sex thing and more of a Remus Lupin is a genderfuck thing. So anyways he likes having his cock locked in a cage and his cunt fucked until it's loose and sore and filled with his lovers cum. He likes having the cute panties he wears pushed roughly to the side, likes to complain that they're going to get dirty or torn up and if he's lucky they get stuffed into his mouth to shut him up. The mascara he wore running down his face with the tears as he wails and moans like a whore.

He is huge on worship, whether hes being dominant or submissive, he's all over his partner, kissing and praising and rubbing his face up into their skin. Which leads me to conclude that Remus lupin is a feet man. Cant tell me he wouldnt whine and beg to have his loves foot pressing up against his leaking cunt, or his hard cock. He'd go fucking feral for it.

He usually loves prioritising his lovers pleasure, often to the point of overstimulating them. He loves how they start to push at his face or at this chest yet cant help but move their hips into his touch. (imagining this with reg, where Remus fucks him and eats him out and makes him squirt so many times that neither are sure if its squirt or piss anymore teeheehee)

He loves spanking and he loves getting spanked. He loves how it feels when his dick aches, when it leaks precum, when it's all red and sensitive and he swears he could cum just from being spanked. Now if we imagine trans Remus for a moment: he gets so wet after a few spanks on his ass that he just cant keep still anymore, not because it hurts too much but because he needs to rub his cunt up against something, he's leaking everywhere, whiney and racking up more spanks for how he's behaving and he's happy about it. He loves how sore and red his ass and thighs get, how his legs are forced apart and how it hurts in such a different way when its his cunt getting the hits. Once again he swears he could cum just from this.

Very specific now but i think he'd be into suits and like proper clothes and them getting ruined. He'd be all dressed up whether thats in a well tailored suit or a pretty dress saved for special occasions and he'd be complaining the loudest about how its getting ruined even though he loves it

He's a huge pain slut, aside from ur typical spanking and other pain play ure thinking of, he almost likes a fight. Maybe when he gets into a mood, closer to a full moon perhaps when he gets more irritated and pent up and cant help but talk back and be a bitch to his partner during sex, goading them into physically putting him into place. Hmmmm imagine the shock and silence when he gets smacked across the face as if he wasnt hoping for exactly that to happen.

He's really into just bodily fluids. Spit tears cum all of it he needs it. He loves being gagged and having spit pool in his mouth that spills down his chin and dries on his skin, he loves having his lover in his mouth, loves when they spit in his mouth or on him, loves how dirty it makes him feel!

He loves being forced to do things. Loves being convinced that he can take more, loves saying no and being ignored, loves being pushed past his limits (because he does it often in his everyday life with his disability but this is not what this is about). He finds peace and relief in the pain, the overstimulation, the feeling when too much becomes just enough. The satisfaction of taking another blow, another orgasm, of choking on a cock for the fourth 'last time'. There's a moment when the fight in him turns to peace and acceptance because he is such a good pup taking it so well. He genuinely loses his mind.

In the same vein as above, he loves the whole "dumb pup" thing. He loves scenes where he purposefully gets tripped up by his dom, and he cant do anything about it. He cant get upset that he was technically forced to drop the stick from his mouth that he was meant to hold like a good mutt. He fucked up the one thing he was meant to do well, it's not his doms fault that he's so dumb and can't even do the one thing. The aftercare goes so hard after scenes like this cuz remus gets soooo worked up and cries so hard with frustration, how its unfair that he's getting punished for something he didn't do on purpose. But its ok he really does love being shown his place this way.

This one is for the big dick remus lupin truthers: he would try to do the incredibly flexible feat of sucking his own dick at least once. And he would probably consider fucking himself (and it kind of worked.)

[ask-misconduct]

Hello!

This is the one and only!!! official ask blog!!! for Misconduct sans! (and this post will be edited as time goes on)

Yippie yay and everything, but who is Misconduct?

(it's this guy ^)

He's a Sci sans variant that was kidnapped by Nightmare and now lives with the bad sanses in the castle. He does all kinds of things for Nightmare and the most important task he's given to Mis is to find a way to travel between AUs without a natural ability to do so. (as an example Nightmare or Error can naturally travel between AUs but someone like Killer can't)

Asks are probably open, if they're not just wait a day or two

As for reading the posts themselves, they should all have "previous", "next" and "first" buttons, so they're all connected (if they're not tell me and ill fix it). The first ask is here.

Also, if there's green text under the image, that's also part of the answer for an ask, just not on a drawing! (As more characters come into play, some other colors miight appear too maybe)

Does this blog have a plot?

it does actually, but it's pretty loose and nothing happened so far lol

Any specific tags?

if an ask isn't canon to whatever im trying to create i'll tag it as #notcanon4blog, or something among those lines

if it's not an ask, it probably has the #not an ask tag, but i might've missed out on a few... these posts include my own doodles and drawings related to this guy and fanart!

Okay okay, whatever, but what can I ask?

Anything, more or less! Of course there are limits but they should be obvious. (don't be an asshole basically)

preferably don't rp? i know i have done a few asks with rps but i actually have a kind of plot for this guy and these aren't making it easy. thanks

Also no nsfw asks!!

later on i will be also doing asks from other characters, but i need to do a few things beforehand lol ill be editing this post as the ask blog changes nd stuff

Can I draw Misconduct?

Yes! Absolutely! 100000%! Just make sure to credit me - you can either use this blog (@ask-misconduct) or my primary blog (@sigsams) for credit

also mention me or tell me.in some way i wanna seeeee

Feel free to ask!

[ereyies]

i love your of mice and men oc. let me tell you i was scrolling thru the omam tag after reading that book for class because GOSH that ending destroyed me. bronwyn is so cute!!! and i love the ideas you have for her character and how she’d add onto the book. is there any more of your character that u thought of?? i’d love it hear it! ur art is stunning btw!!!

artists and writers are the backbone of dead fandoms. but i dont know if you could even call this fandom dead cuz i dont think it even had a life 💀

THANK YOU SO INCREDIBLY MUCH!!

this means the entire world to me you have no idea just how touched i am that you love my oc 💖 💖!! be VERY careful going through the of mice and men tag because unfortunately there are a LOT of nsfw bots!!

as for anything else relating to Bronwyn and her character, I don't have much else written/in mind other than that I have already shared other than maybe two things (copied and pasted from a document i made just to keep track of her lore):

Candy and Bronwyn probably wouldn't be close despite Candy having worked at the ranch for years. Not because of anything bad that happened between them, however I imagine that Candy was initially the main contributor to all the gossip said about her on the ranch and later on he learned she wasn't a bad person at all and just a lonely ill child, but by that point he had both immortalised her as a legend but condemned her from ever making real connections with people again. Knowing what he started and how he unintentionally isolated her and prevented her from being easily able to make friends with people on the ranch, the guilt would probably prevent him from forming any close connections with her.

I feel like if she were actually a character within the novel, her presence within the story would be similar to Andrey Bolkonsky in the musical Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 (brilliant but strange musical btw, if you're interested in musicals it's definitely worth a listen!!). She is this looming presence amongst all the characters, always being mentioned in passing during conversation, this figure that everyone is aware of yet never sees, never actually being present in person up until the very end.

Candy would probably be the reader's introduction to Bronwyn, since Candy is a known gossiper. She'd be this influence in the story but is never truly there. I'm not too sure how she'd be important if that were the case though? Perhaps she'd be a figure symbolic of a 'point of no return' for all the characters. They all have a dream that isn't totally impossible which they come very close to achieving, and could very well leave their situation, but Bronwyn never had a chance and can never truly escape, locked up just to be forgotten about. Maybe she'd be a warning of the terrible fate which Lennie would have faced if he had lived and been institutionalised.

ANYWAYS moving past all of that; i have only made very few drawings of Bronwyn since my last post talking about her (admittedly due to extreme art block). But I’ve mostly been brainstorming about Curley and Bronwyn, the similarities and differences between them, mostly differences. Here is some of my recent art:

I always love experimenting and playing around with my style, trying out new brushes, techniques and colours <33 The last isn’t exactly my favourite mostly because i was just getting a feel for how to draw Curley and had little to no references for the pose and so it looks a little stiff. But!! I made many notes for my ideas while I was doing the sketch:

Thank you once more for your ask!! It means the world to me <33 I was so embarrassed when I first made her and feared being called ‘cringe’ or that people wouldn’t like her or something else along those lines, but the reception so far has been nothing but positive and encouraging!! I definitely plan to make more art and potentially even write some short fanfics including her in the future!!

oh one final thing, i also made a spotify playlist for her!! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qrBhwqopc6KrC7RouFxOZ?si=GPudTv12S92QwBBXqxw0Bg&pi=khdpmOzjTfeQP

Thank you once more for being so kind <33 I hope you have the most wonderful day/evening/night!!

[blue-tearss]

Welcome To The World Of POKéMON!

“ What is this ? ”

if not obvious, this is a rp/askblog for the pokepasta Blue Tears , based on the original story and the remake & ROM hack.

this blog will not be art based, but it will contain art if i have time for it. it will be mostly textbox based/ replied will be given in textbox form, and most of the art will likely be official game freak art that was slightly edited if at all. there will also probably be a good deal of narrative replies/writing if i don't have time.

CWS:

on top of the original cws for the original pokepasta ( implied pokemon death, gore, violence/blood, suicide ), this blog will likely also contain mentions of neglect, strong language, and a llloot of nihilism.

INTERP INFO

while sticking as close to canon as i can, in order to make the blog, well, make sense, ill be adding a few details.

similar to @/pokemon-monochrome, the players ( askers ) have found an abandoned gameboy. and, well..you'll figure out the rest in the starter post.

So far, we know that

Blue is self aware

There seems to be some kind of vague difference between "BLUE" , your rival, and "TEARS", the one who kills RED over and over.

At some point, BLUE was forced to face Missingno, which correlated with his gaining awareness.

According to OAK, his parents died in a vicious Pokemon attack. He blames BLUE for this, as his parents had left the young boy at his lab out of worry that he'd get hurt, and had therefore felt more confident in taking a more dangerous trip.

OAK harbors guilt related to aforementioned incident. And on the topic of OAK, he is also self aware—he was from the start.

tba im too lazy to write everything hhrhfksk

GENERAL RULES:

eh. the typical: no nsfw, don't be weird. if i don't get to an ask right away don't freak out. rp/chain replies (?) are allowed, too, but tag the blog in a separate post as to prevent clogging [ optional ]

OTHER MUSES

-are perfectly fine, and encouraged! don't try to force relationships, and be aware that BLUE is very abrasive. anything he says obviously doesn't reflect the way mod thinks. blahblahblah.

DMS/SUBMISSIONS

cool! no clue if either of those are even on actually but if you prefer to dm a roleplay starter im fine w that, as long as you're aware reply times will not be very consistent on some days.

"I WANNA SEE OTHER CHARACTERS"

there's a 70% chance you will! ill likely make other askblogs, and certain characters will appear on this one if they're relevant to the lore. so be patient :x

TAGS

( pokepasta askblog/answered asks ) - typical tags.

( ooc | not event ) - for when there's an event going on, and smth is unrelated. obviously

( not event ) - same as above, but in character.

( EVENT : ) event tag!! yay!! these are usually time-limited and will either end after a certain number of days or after certain information is obtained, depending on the popularity of the event.

( ENCOUNTER : ) - typically nocanon but not always, this is my special tag for interactions w other askblogs.

you can read my Blue Tears rewrite here

you can see an important post here

what's this a sideblog -> here

[splatcat64]

the same goes to you for getting excited LOL !! that was a very endearing talk about the both of them (all four of them) it was super interesting :) i love hearing other ppls thoughts on characters. honestly i see all ur points and agree with everything. :P one of the few ppl in the current blands tag (or overall, i know this place has been a nightmare) mentioning jack being a genocidal fascist so im like I Respect You . im a bit shy to babble on my thoughts but theres SOOOO MUCH. idk what u use for music so ill just tell u text so u can look it up - its on my general borderlands playlist but it was such a fiona song to me but the hand that feeds by the crane wives.. i know the lyrics are about not caring about money but the symbolism is important to me . i have parts that make me go nuts but you know . hehe

I am SO glad we’re on the same page lmao thank you!!! This really warms my heart :}

I totally understand being shy to spit out your thoughts, often, if I’m not having trouble just getting the words out in general, I’m too damn scared to say anything. Just recently I worked up the courage to actually speak what I think here. And I am GLAD I can be of service in that way oh my god. I respect u too it’s been. A huge honor, I stalk literally all the tags and it can be like a minefield. Like, It’s okay to like Jack as a character, he’s a compelling villain and I think he’s really well written. But he’s genocidal and a fascist… that can’t be ignored bl2 literally yells it at you. However an analysis of him is definitely not for this post and definitely not my strongest suit, we’ll see about that on my side.

And I use Spotify! Seeing you mention crane wives made my brain EXPLODE because not only are they a reaaaally Fiona like band, it gives real Sasha vibes, and just tales/borderlands in general. I’m definitely biased because of stuff with me and my friends own stories and headcanons and ocs, but even with a grain of salt if you or anyone wants to check more songs out pleaaase do. I definitely agree that I can see how the hand that feeds is soooo Fiona but I’m gonna go run and listen to it in the context of her now.

BUT I do have some Crane wives songs that I one, just recommend in general, and two, can fit the tales cast really well. High Horse, Curses [it’s popular I know but trust me I have a vision], and Arcturus Beaming.

High horse just reminds me of Fiona and Sasha a lot, it’s been influenced by stuff me and my best friend come up with so. Again. Biased, but it’s a GOOD song. Arcturus Beaming is new, and it’s not some people’s fav but because it reminded me so much of the tales cast I have a very good opinion of it. For lack of better words that shit was so good I immediately slapped that shit on my tales’ oc’s playlist cause holy shit. Good song. AND THE SYMBOLISM GOD. Anyways those are my recs if you wanna check them out, otherwise, Tysm and Ty for the song rec I appreciate it so so so much!!!!

[mip-dev-center]

Hello! This blog exists to archive art related to the Mobile Iterator Project AU. The Mobile Iterator Project AU is a Rain World OC AU that I (mewguca) made with Jade (fauxbia). You can read the website I linked for more information and some character Logs!

Here's the in-universe mission statement:

The “Mobile Iterator Project” (MIP) is a project created and directed by a Benefactor named "No Cost Too Great" (NCTG) with the stated goal of supporting Iterators in their productivity, maintenance, and longevity, so that they can operate at maximum efficiency, even after the inevitable mass ascension. ‘MIP Units—Iterators created under the project—are created puppet-first in the "MIP Development Center" and later assigned to Local Groups, where their structures are built to support the Iterators around them. Uniquely, their personalities are heavily based around singular, specific Architects (Benefactors) who donate their memories and qualia. The exception to this is TWR, who features a more traditional personality module. In total, there are 99 MIP Units, with IDs ranging from 01 to 99.

If you have questions, feel free to ask @mewguca .

Blog Admins: @mewguca (main), @fauxbia , @cloverlady , @charlottenanachi Other people that own MIP Unit OCs: Corvus, Charlie, Yuuno, Viridi, Mael, Azure (?)

[TAG GUIDE] [TAG GUIDE (2)]- This helps with blog navigation; I recommend looking at it. [MIP INTERACTIVES MASTERPOST] - For "Interactive Scenarios" I've archived here.

Progress: Aug 2024 ✅, Sep 2024 WIP

MIP Discord: [Here] (17+)

⚠️ Content Warnings

Please read these!! You can find them on the site, too.

Frequent Depictions of Trauma and Mental Illness, Frequent Depictions of Manipulation and Emotional Abuse (including depictions similar to abusive parenting), and Memory Manipulation, Frequent Themes of Dehumanization, Identity Struggles, and Dissociation

Frequent allusions to passive suicidal ideation and occasional depictions of or allusions to self harm (THESE WILL BE TAGGED)

Depictions of Unhealthy Interpersonal Relationships (platonic and romantic)

Medical Malpractice/Abuse, Genetic Experimentation (mostly pertain to a few specific characters)

Depictions of Distorted Perceptions of Reality / Breaks from Reality, and some Horror related to overwhelmed perceptions or inability to perceive concepts beyond one's natural state of being (Psychological Horror?)

Child Endangerment/Harm to Children, Child Neglect or Abuse, Medical Abuse to Children, Child Experimentation (again I will tag these; I will specify that most of these are alluded to rather than shown directly and pertain to a few specific characters)

Cult-like Manipulation tactics, Violence and Physical Abuse, Infrequent Body Horror (eyes, wings, implied and actual blood, implied gore)

There's a good deal of sensitive content. I don't make anything sexual, but I do like to explore heavier subject matter. I will try to give warnings on specific posts and use tags. please let me know if I'm missing something important. ^^

[jupitercl0uds]

hi! i'm ash

they/them/xe/xem • panromantic • asexual • non binary • autistic (with suspicions of having adhd) • english • atheist quaker • a tad bit silly

been on the tumbler since 2021 so i know my way around here but i dont get every little reference (i get most and for the ones i dont i just nod and smile along). i am still a teenager so some Classic Posts are older than me and most are from when i was in primary school.

i dont really have a sophisticated tagging system, but if it helps, spouting to the void is my text post tag. i dont even strictly use it for text posts tbf

blogs i run:

this one (obviously)

@blues-amazing-blog - oc blog (currently on hiatus)

@wswe-autism-fic - fanfic blog (for waluigi says 'wa' everyday until dekuyama is popular). i also treat this as an alt account for fandom stuff sometimes

@knuckles-with-a-keyboard - silly little blog where i pretend to be boom!knuckles (i really really love this blog its so fun)

@jupitercl0uds-art - my art blog (shock horror)

@nonbinary-sticks-the-badger - my sonic blog

external links (whoops forgot to add this)

maybe one day ill set up a linktree idk

ao3

letterboxd

twitter (i only use this for posting from my switch now)

spotify profile

email me - jupitercl0uds.burner@gmail.com

dm me on discord: jupitercl0uds

i think thats it

click this link for more external links including some of the above ones but specifically how to contact me if i cant use tumblr

interests:

omg i love so many things its not even funny. a few important ones are waluigi (special interest), sonic the hedgehog (special interest AND hyperfixation (omg please kill me)), art (like, as a general thing, but particularly visual) and you WILL find me randomly posting oh-so-passionately about something ive never even mentioned before.

i do animation and illustration but that's over on my art blog. also all my animations are WIPs. you probably won't find anything other than a few weird lip syncs from when i was like 11 (i got into animation because of gacha life and animation memes). most of my art is sonic atm lol.

i also read and write fanfic! my wattpad and ao3 is jupitercl0uds :D

wattpad is mostly old stuff, crack and occasional reposts of my ao3 stuff. ao3 is mostly whatever is on my mind at the moment and WSWE.

misc

occasionally i get all heated up about actually important stuff. that's usually sandwiched inbetween my regular goofy goober behaviour. for the basic gist of it: very left wing, the tories are cunts, vote green, free palestine. you also need to understand the weight of that sentence because i hate swearing.

i have other socials too but i dont really use them that much. got bored of twitter and i forget about all my other accounts. only ones i use now are whatsapp (lmao), tumblr and i guess ao3 and wattpad. theres no real point in linking something i havent used in months

anyway, have a nice day and please go to bed on time!

faves (non-exhaustive)

AUTISM BOY!!!! ANXIETY GUY!!!! MILES 'TAILS' PROWER!!!! he's been my favourite sonic character since i was little!!!! except for that brief period where it was amy because i found out tails was a boy and i, as a 7-year-old girl who had just learned about misoginy, decided amy was better because she was a girl. and that briefer period where it was cream because she had confetti in sonic dash.

my favourite iterations of him are scu tails, classic tails and sonic boom tails!!! i h/c him as autistic, having anxiety, low self-esteem but also being really cheerful and nonchalant about a lot of stuff. i enjoy trans tails of all kinds, but i believe in cis gnc tails.

NON-BINARY ICON!!!! TOP SURGERY GUY!!!! WALUIGI!!!! call me thomas jefferson cause i have an entire binder on this guy. waluigi is THE blorbo from my spin-off-party-shows. i got into him because 'hahahaha! it is the funny garlic man's funny rose partner!' and that became 'they could marry me and i'd say yes on the basis that we'd get to see each other everyday, even if i only love him as a friend.

im very passionately hateful about 'hot' waluigi. shut up. waluigi is perfect. i hope he can be canon one day <3 i h/c him as autistic, transmasc non binary and really into gothic lolita. i interpret their relationship with wario as romantic partners and waluigi being super super poor. also, wlw mlm solidarity with rosalina!!!!!

anti-faves

dr starline i love a bisexual icon as much as the next person but starline is not it. i want him to Suffer. which is why i then go on to make loads of fanart of him where he's crying over something. in the one shown above, i have just kicked him in the balls (full image). i also would love to be a VA for him because that'd really piss him off. good style tho. you go girl.

manjimutt (sorry but i only have 1 image of him)

hello to the other living yokai watch fan out there. i hate manjimutt. when i was younger i felt sorry for him, cause i was like 'oh, poor guy, always going to jail!!!' no. die. i do not like him. i hate manjimutt. i do like saying his name tho. MAnji-mutt! i think i hate him more than starline, because at least starline has redeeming qualities. the only redeeming qualities manjimutt has is pity because hes not actually committing crimes. thats it. hes not a nice person. hes just a guy. hit him with a wooden plank (har har).

that poor poor poodle though

posts i like

idk posts on my own blog i like a lot. idk if thisll be A Thing because im literally only doing tthis because of the first post on the list

recognising a url and the chaos that followed

stuff about my lgbtq+ identity idk

THIS IS HOW MUCH I KNOW ABOUT SONIC OK!!!!!

can you call me that slur?

[autumnalwalker]

Snippet Share Saturday

Thank you for the tag, @late-to-the-fandom.

Passing the tag to @imbrisvastatio, @blind-the-winds, @silvertalonwritblr, @365runesoftheamalgamations, @cljordan-imperium, and an open tag for anyone else who may want to share a snippet (of any length) from your current WIP.

Here's a bit I wrote today from Empty Names. I had this idea stuck in my head of rapidly giving brief descriptions of a bunch of background characters a means of conveying the feel of a place rather than for the sake of the characters themselves being all that important to the story. Not sure how well that worked out, but it was a fun experiment nonetheless.

Later that evening, after having said goodbye to Sarah for the month, changing back into her usual red tracksuit, and calling to check in on Lacuna and Ashan, Eris is sitting on a barstool at 121813.  

“Twelve eighteen thirteen” is the generally agreed upon pronunciation of the bar’s name, although what the name means is less agreed upon.  The three most popular theories are that it’s either a date (usually speculated as either December of 1813), a scriptural reference (which scripture is a whole other debate), or a leftover address from before one of Crossherd’s major layout shifts.  Lacuna had suggested it might be a tarot thing when Eris told her about it.  The Hanged Man, the Moon, and Death.  An ominous spread, according to Lacuna, but Eris figures it makes as much sense as anything else. 

In any case, Fitzgerald Wilhelm von Harkenstein IV, the establishment’s clockwork owner, proprietor, and bartender always seemed to get too much of a kick out of the speculation to give a solid answer.  Make what jokes you like about a bartender with no taste buds, but Fitzy had drink mixing down to an art.  Then again, he claims to be at least as old as the city of Crossherd itself, so Eris figures he had plenty of time to practice if nothing else. 

For over a century now, 121813 has served as the closest thing to a centralized organization for American monster hunters.  Other parts of the world had holy orders, secret societies, and grand lodges stretching back generations, but in these parts everyone figured that a couple dozen thrill-seeking assholes who all frequent the same bar was good enough to get the job done.  Most hunters usually work solo, but the bar is a good place to brag about kills, show off trophies, swap rumors on potential quarries, and put a band together if you get word on something really nasty.

It’s not peak hours yet and regulars are still trickling in, but there were already a few familiar faces there to greet her when she walked in twenty minutes ago.

Golden-eyed Gretchen who had taught Eris German and how to wield a spear.

Bai of the braided beard who had taken over Eris’s old garbage collecting route when she signed up with Road’s new venture and ever since has been alternating between thanking her for the job referral and complaining that he couldn’t take his axes with him on shift.

Wyatt, whose eyepatch is actually an AR visor to aim assist his crossbow and adjust for weight and aerodynamic differences on specialized bolts.

The green-haired enby twins, Loregahste and Lornega, who favor halberds and hammers respectively but both carry swords as backup sidearms.

Chuck in his ill-fitting trenchcoat, a relative newcomer to the game who’s already earning a reputation for going off on insufferable rants about the superiority of katanas.

The grim-faced Preacher, who never shares his name for fear of theft, never touches a drink that isn’t water, and never hides his disdain for everyone else’s choice of archaic weaponry for the sake of sport when guns were so much more efficient at completing the important work of slaying beasts.

Old Vic, the elven immigrant from off world who’s always down to party like the college kid his face looks the age of.

Plus a handful of others that Eris either isn’t all that close to or doesn’t recognize at a glance.  High turnover rates have always been an unspoken truth amongst the monster hunter community.  It’s been said that there are five fates that await hunters.

One: You die early from a stupid mistake, biting off more than you can chew, or just plain bad luck.

Two: You finally catch up with that one monster that was your reason for taking up the hunt to begin with, and if you survive you walk away, vendetta done.

Three: You have your first near-death experience, confront your mortality, and make the wise decision to get out.

Four: You have your first near-death experience, confront your mortality, and realize you’re hooked on the hunt that will surely kill you one day more than you are on living a long life.

Five: The hunt gradually becomes your whole life and personality until one day you hit a tipping point that causes autogenesis to kick into overdrive, transforming you into a monster yourself in need of putting down by your former comrades.

Everyone at the bar tonight - except maybe Chuck and the other newbies like him who still think they’re invincible - has long since made their peace with the idea that they’ll probably be dead by forty.  Fifty tops.  Other than Old Vic, of course, who’s at least twice that age, but rumors that he’s already secretly met the fifth fate have been flying around since before Eris ever found Crossherd and 121813.  Having been on a funerary hunt with him herself and seen what a hunter consumed looks like, Eris doesn’t put any stock in that speculation.

[another-dra-anew]

So asking what ifs is a thing now? Yamaguchi couldve chosen either Kobashikawa or Mekaru to kill, what if he chose Kobashikawa?

A/N: Whoops. In my defense, I wrote like... thirty incorrect quotes, so this got buried in drafts. Also, it's chapter two- you expect my brain to do anything other than try and forget it exists? Also, fun game; look at how easy it is to see what was written back when I answered the ch1 version of this ask, and what's more recent.

~*~

asking what ifs is totally a thing! being so genuine, it's any question that comes to mind- worst thing that'll happen is i'll go "WOW good work you stumbled onto something i actually can Not elaborate on whatsoever. congratulations. here's a celebratory (song from someones playlist/doodle of a relevant character/etc.) to make up for my silence"

~*~

reason:

feeling sympathetic for mekaru. remember, yamaguchi made his choices based off what he remembered from the motive videos. mekaru was charged with a lot of child-rearing, and yamaguchi isheavily downplaying his role in his household. he could have empathized with her and understand the importance of her role in the orphanage, and would want to leave her alive. kobashikawa does have siblings- but they're both older. yes, killing someone else's little sibling for his own is Hard, but it's easier when he doesn't know the older siblings, and when the youngest is his peer.

"then, why kill mekaru in canon?" few reasons, mostly coming back to her catching ill. first, it makes her easier to kill, and second, it makes her easier to get alone. mekaru was only put onto yamaguchis radar because of that first detail, and for the second, he had no way of knowing kobashikawa would tag along. he was very much so following guidance for his murder plot, so it didn't cross his mind to reevaluate once there was a second potential victim. works out better in his favor, since mekaru is an easier kill (again, sick), so if he had chosen someone else, it would've tipped the class off that something else was driving the blackeneds choices, cuing them into his motive more. Also, if Mekaru's sick... how strong is the argument that she could've struck down Yamaguchi and Kobashikawa?

case:

would've happened largely the same. he whacks them both, makes it look like he got hurt too, then slices kobashikawa up. very specific detail, but i think maeda would've watched kobashikawa die, same as how he watched mekaru die, even though he would've gotten their sooner? mekaru would've been able to scream for help as soon as she was awake- but kobashikawa is thinner, so even though yamaguchis weapon wasn't too long, it could have managed to pierce vital organs. so, he could've died from some sort of blood flow issue, stomach acid getting to the rest of his body... etc etc. mekaru getting him medical attention could help him hold on longer- but not long enough to live. though, seeing as mekaru could call for help asap, i wonder if we wouldn't have seen a different crew of people witnessing the death? ultimately, the only people with medical knowledge were busy treating an injury (maki, tomori) or being injured (tsurugi), so poor luck prevails.

I will confess that I'm currently gently retooling chapter 2. I say gently not because it's light changes, but because it's such a background thought in my mind. I don't think I'll get around to rewriting chapter 2 before I finish BTBB, but I do want to post a detailed outline of how I'd fix it. So, this is a bit hard, because I know I want to change the case so there's more evidence, and we don't ultimately solve the case by just going "oh, the venn diagram of people who could access the storage room, and people who were found in there and are still alive is exactly one person". I have issues with that for so many reasons, but one in particular; if we look at it from that angle, we know exactly who the blackened is before the investigation even starts. I don't know. Maybe I'll find a way to implicate some more kids... Anyways, having Mekaru around means we get more of an active second suspect, since Kobashikawa was out of commission in chapter 2 deadly life. I can see Yamaguchi sticking around more, trying to keep an eye on Mekaru so he can track her arguments, and keep her from swaying people too hard.

trial:

Hmmm. Again, comes back to the issue of "well, second trial sucked". I'd be worried about it getting too long (coughing... don't look at Chapter 3), but it might be fun to have it seem like it was neither Mekaru or Yamaguchi for a moment? It could be a good way of demonstrating Yamaguchis lawyer skills by having him decide to dismantle the argument that it had to have been someone else in the room, and letting him redirect the class around to then suspecting everyone except himself and Mekaru. Except, as he progressively pushes for this, and tries to "help Maeda work it out", I can see him accidentally creating a hole in his argument that doubles back around to pointing him as the suspect. It's hard to do that sort of thing without having a blue tracksuit (THH CH2) moment, but it's definitely do able. All you really have to do is have the blackened provide a certain way of seeing the case, some perspective that makes the most sense for them to have. Sudden insights are suspicious!

Returning to Mekaru being around, I can see her suddenly softening up on Yamaguchi, and being a bit "...wow, maybe it really wasn't him" after he starts to defend them both. I think she'd be... more suspicious of him than she lets on. All she says to the class is that it wasn't her, and she doesn't know who did it; she doesn't even implicitly state that if it wasn't her, it was probably Yamaguchi. Mekaru is so averse to making a stance, she's not doing anything that could lend itself well to debate. She doesn't want to be a crazed emotional frantic accusatory witch hunting bitch! So she just gives her side of things, and lets the trial progress as it does.

...But, Mekaru doesn't want to die. She likes being alive! There's a lot of things that make her pretty happy! So, I can see her going from mentally distrusting Yamaguchi, but chastising herself for thinking that, to having a strong event horizon moment for her characterization. After it starts to look bad for him, I can see him going in on accusing Mekaru, as sort of his last stand? It's such an overt negative framing of her, and it's during such a tumultuous moment, when Mekaru's already reeling from suddenly being one of two suspects again, that she just can't compose herself. No biting her tongue, no kicking herself with her heel to remind herself to be quiet- because, are you serious, Yamaguchi? Throwing her under the bus goes poorly for him; I can see us getting our first strong Mekaru argument moment, where she lays out all the ways the evidence points to him. This could be our blue tracksuit moment, with some detail that Maeda overlooked; when Mekaru incorporates it as part of her argument, he's able to go "wait... go back to that?", and learn the actual right angle of seeing things. Having Mekaru's reasoning skills save her and the class the second she's pushed hard enough to use them would be pretty nice, I think.

losing koba:

Hm. I mean, immediately, there's some clear stuff in Chapter 3 that would go differently... Sorry, this is so out of left field, but to be completely honest, we might be seeing Ōtori committing murder, like... before the rec room event. I still remember someone theorizing that Maeda was in danger of being poisoned at that event, and I can see Ōtori gunning for something like that. I mean coughs. What. Clearly he's being so real and unbiased in trial, and we really can't say for sure that he poisoned anything the night of the murders. His guilt is still unproven!... Anyways, that aside, Maeda and Ōtori would both be hit a good bit by Kobashikawa's death. Maeda would feel guilty, thinking he should've offered to go with Mekaru and Yamaguchi instead of Kobashikawa. On the other hand, Ōtori wouldn't feel guilt, but Kobashikawa's death would be more of a moral event horizon for him. Which is a bit funny because, of the two, Ōtori is the one with more link to Kobashikawa.

Also worth noting, I wonder how Higa would react to Kobashikawa's death. I can see him making a comment about how if Kobashikawa didn't "insist on being mute," he could've stayed alive. Honestly, I should think about making a post talking about how I wish I'd written Higa. He was hard to right early on; it's difficult to make characters that are mean because they're bigoted, and I think the ways he was used often came across as me proselytizing/"see how cool the other kids are!" which led to Higa not being seen as the threat he was, with it seeming like both I and the kids were undermining the weight of what he was saying via not taking him seriously. Back to Kobashikawa though, Higa had moved on to other things by Chapter 3 anyways, so not too much of a difference.

Which, that was definitely a tangent, but it's hard to talk about what Kobashikawa dying would change! Most of what we're seeing of him is his relationship with other students; he isn't a plot pusher the way Tsurugi is, he's more used for tone. Going into Chapter 3, Maeda would be more melancholic, and would have a harder time perking up for events; but things would largely stick the same. Biggest change is that I would be so sad to have lost my little guy. My best boy. My favorite son. The only child I have who has not stabbed me in the spleen and never would. (Talking about him put me in a mood it seems.

gaining mekaru:

I think the trial would serve as a big kick to Mekaru that would spur her into action a bit more. Depending on how long she stuck around after, she can either be somewhat disturbed by what happened, but end up receding into herself more about it, or, we could see genuine growth! Either way, I think the close brush with death would really throw her off. Baby’s first “I could have died. I could have died. That could have been me. I was unconscious, I was right there, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. Someone else made the explicit choice to not snuff out my life.” Sorry baby, that isn’t fun to deal with. I can see her having a harsh spiral immediately after the trial, then, by the time of the next morning meeting, she’s worked herself out a bit more. She probably didn’t sleep much that night.

If I were keeping Mekaru around, I’d definitely want to go the visible growth route for her. With survivor Mekaru, this’d be more gradual, to give her room to continue to change post-game, but if I were keeping her for a bit, but not forever, I’d want her to have made a lot of progress with her. Mekaru’s still very smart, and I think she’d start to pick up on a lot of subtle threads going on in the killing game. If I were killing her off late-game, I’d try to incorporate her getting close to uncovering some stuff in her death. Maybe she’s trying to investigate something, and someone misunderstands what she’s doing, and offs her? I don’t really see Mekaru being a blackened; while I do believe the “accidental murder” trope can be pulled off well, I don’t see myself being able to make it fit with Mekaru. She’d be upset, but would try to face her execution with her head held high, and that isn’t quite the emotional angle that matches up with an accidental murder, it fits better for a… like, canon dra ch3 “the motive outweighed not committing murder” type of kill, where she Made That Choice. So, yeah- late-stage death Mekaru would be a victim Mekaru.

God, tangent. Anyways, alternative option with survivor Mekaru, I’d just give her less plot beats/successes. It’s hard to get into survivor roles without getting into general Chapter 6 going-on’s… so hey, let’s talk more about general Mekaru character arc, if she’d lived longer! I’d definitely have to establish some friendships for her… her strongest relationship in canon btbb was her and Hatano getting into disagreements, and there’s only so much that can happen there. Unlike canon, the reason people don’t want to hang out around Mekaru is because she thinks so poorly about herself, and they can clock that it’s because of a… icky mentality. If she were staying around, I think I’d honestly write in Maki getting closer with her. Both are girls who are struggling with some internalized issues, and while it’s easy to throw on a Tomori-sized bandaid onto that, I think it’d be nice to have Maki and Mekaru be working on things. Mekaru would still be fairly independent, and fairly isolated, so including Tomori wouldn’t work too well, imo… Maki and Mekaru would have a situational friendship, I think. Mekaru would be a bit Maki-averse, and Maki wouldn’t feel too great being around Mekaru, but Mekaru is emotionally strong + intelligent enough to sidestep her misgivings about Maki, and recognize her as a valuable ally to be keeping in the loop. Mekaru would want to work alone, still being unsure of her thoughts on the game, but she’d also be very very very aware of how easy it is for someone to kill her post Ch-2, so she’d tell Maki about what she was noticing to keep her discoveries from potentially dying with her. I can see her trying to step a bit closer to Ōtori, due to being there when Kobashikawa died… but, who really knows. Mekaru is so… her mentality has screwed with her so bad, she needs to have a good amount of growth before she can really connect with the other students. I could get into a funny tangent about how this is true of Higa and Yamaguchi as well, and how I’m actually not the biggest fan of that aspect of how things are written, but I also want to ramble about Maki now, and this isn’t about either of those subjects.

If I were to knock Mekaru off early… hmmm. This is really more about character than anything else- like, I can’t start thinking about how I’d make this work. I also couldn’t do this for the matter of how I’d keep her alive. I don’t have it in me to think about how this would change the death order; for the Chapter 1 what-if, it was so obvious to me, and this is… so not. Literally what change would Mekaru have. Hmmm. Anyways, about what I actually know- to make Mekaru dying in Ch3 satisfying, I think I’d go the potentially-scorned route of having her regress with her faults. She’s not growing! The guilt is getting to her, and this manifests as screwing with her self-esteem. The blow to her self-esteem means she continues to isolate and try to pathologize away her pain into something she deserves, and she doesn’t get anyone who helps her work through her new trauma. She becomes flighty and stressed, while probably getting more sick from the mental wear and tear. The lack of sunlight starts to really bite her; most of her interaction comes from Tsuzuna bringing her a plethora of supplements to try and get her brain and body functional again. Everything is going poorly, and it’s just… not working out for her. I think Yamaguchi’s justification of the case would start to screw with her too. Is that… who she is? She’s… only alive because of the kids. Because she’s a caretaker, a provider. She needs to stay alive, because Kobashikawa is dead, and that could’ve been her, except Yamaguchi wanted the people in her life to not lose her, because they’d be lost without her. The grief and the stress and the nausea (physical and mental) gets to be too much. I know I said I couldn’t think of how the death order would change, but I can actually see Ōtori starting to put a murder plot into play, and Mekaru just… not really resisting. The train is coming, and she doesn’t try to get off the tracks- she didn’t step onto them, but all she can do at this point is close her eyes and brace herself. (This isn’t the most accurate to what Ōtori’s deal is… but again! Not about him!) Mix of exhaustion and learned helplessness would get her.

Conclusion

Taking so long to write this is really biting me. Yamaguchi totally could have chosen to kill Kobashikawa off instead, it just wasn’t what he banked on. So much of his motivation for committing murder was what he heard in his dream, so he was sticking with his plan. Because it wasn’t really his original thought, he didn’t adapt to the changing situation. But, who knows! It’s totally possible that he’d have taken Kobashikawa coming along as a sign that he wasn’t supposed to kill Mekaru; blind faith leads to blind acceptance.

Depending on what I wanted to do with Mekaru, there’s different ways she could’ve been affected by what happened. Either way, we’re seeing a crisis in purpose, as she questions what she’s doing with her life, and what she wants to do now that it nearly got snuffed out. She won’t have a complete abandonment of everything she’s ever known, but just being around is enough to start to foster a change in her. Of course, it’s also feasible that she’d recede instead of growing, and that’s part of why she got killed off in the first place; get moving, or get offed, Mekaru! If she manages to stick around though, she’d definitely start making strides towards contributing to the groups understanding of the game. She’s a valuable asset, so long as she’s willing acknowledge and utilize her skills.

The impact of losing Kobashikawa would be really subtle; everything Kobashikawa’s doing is things that Maeda isn’t seeing. If he wasn’t ever there to hang around Maeda in Chapter 3, we wouldn’t know that he would have hung out with him if he were still alive! Etc, etc. Maeda feels horrible about it, and things will happen… differently with Ōtori’s involvement in the group, but it isn’t as drastic of a loss as losing Tsurugi in the other What-if. Oh my god, every time I talk about Kobashikawa for this ask, I start to feel so sad. I think that’s a sign I should be done with this.

~*~

So, no excerpts to give, but! I scoured Discord to find times I’ve drawn Mekaru/Kobashikawa. These are both… I mean, they were already old when I first found them for this ask, and then I took weeks even after that to actually finish writing this. So, forgive the image quality/the fact that… actually yeah, these were both drawn when I was testing one thing or another. Beggars can’t be choosers, you guys! /t

They both look so stupid i love them both. I hope they get hit by a car… no I don’t I want them to live happily forever. Koba go take her to get a smoothie.

[sk1fanfiction]

the many faces of tom riddle, part 4

-attachment, orphanages, and yet more child psych: time to add yet another voice to the void-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION.

I'm going to be super biased, because my favorite portrayal of Tom Riddle is actually Hero Fiennes-Tiffin as eleven-year-old Tom Riddle, in HBP and I get to chat about child psych in this one, sooo here we go.

First of all, I’m just so impressed that a kid could bring that much depth to such a complex character.

This is the portrayal, I feel, that brings us closest to Tom’s character. Yes, Coulson’s brought us pretty close, but by fifth year, the mask was on.

We don't really get to see Tom looking afraid very often, but it's fear that rules his life, so it's really poignant in our first (chronologically) introduction, he looks absolutely terrified.

The void being the fandom's loud opinions on a certain headmaster. I wouldn't call myself pro-Dumbledore, but I'm certainly not anti-Dumbledore, either. (Agnostic-Dumbledore??)

Since I'm not of the anti-Dumbledore persuasion, I decided to poke around in the tags and see what the arguments were, so I don't make comments out of ignorance.

Most of the tag seems to be more directed towards his treatment of Harry and Sirius, but a few people mentioned that Dumbledore should have treated Tom with ‘exceptional kindness’ and tried to ‘rehabilitate’ him.

As I said in Parts 2 and 3, I am 100% in favor of helping a traumatized kid learn to cope, and I don’t think Tom Riddle was solidly on the Path to Evil (TM) at birth, or even at eleven. Not even at fifteen.

Could unconditional love and kindness have helped Tom Riddle enough for the rise of Lord Voldemort to never happen? Possibly, but...

Yes, I'm about to drag up that Carl Jung quote, again.

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

The problem with this is that if you’re going to blame Dumbledore for this, you also have to blame every other adult in Tom’s life: his headmaster, Dippet, his Head of House, Slughorn, his ‘caretakers’ at the orphanage, Mrs. Cole and Martha, and possibly more. In fact, if we're going to blame any adult, let's blame Merope for r*ping and abusing Tom Riddle Senior, and having a kid she wasn't intending to take care of.

Furthermore, you cannot possibly hold anyone but Tom accountable for the murders he committed. (I should not have to sit here and explain why cold-blooded murder is wrong.) And if you like Tom Riddle's character, insinuating that his actions are completely at the whim of others is just a bit condescending towards him. He's not an automaton or a marionette, he's a very intelligent human being with a functioning brain, and at sixteen is fully capable of moral reasoning and critical analysis.

I've heard the theories about Dumbledore setting the Potters up to die, and I'm not going to discuss their validity right now; but he didn't put a wand in Tom's hand and force him to kill anyone. Tom did it all of his own accord.

And while yes, I have enormous sympathy for what happened to Tom as a child, at some point, he decided to murder Myrtle Warren, and that is where I lose my sympathy. Experiencing trauma does not give you the right to inflict harm on others. Yes, Tom was failed, but then, he spectacularly failed himself.

We also have no idea how Dumbledore treated Tom as a student.

In the movies, it’s Dumbledore who tells Tom he has to go back to the orphanage, but in the books, it’s Dippet. We know that Slughorn spent a lot of time around Tom at Slug Club and such, yet I don’t really see people clamoring for his head.

I regard the sentiment that Dumbledore turned Tom Riddle into Lord Voldemort with a lot of skepticism.

But let's hear from the character himself -- his impression of eleven-year-old Tom Riddle.

“Did I know that I had just met the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time?” said Dumbledore. “No, I had no idea that he was to grow up to be what he is. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others’ sake as much as his."

Now, assuming that Dumbledore's telling the truth, I'm not seeing something glaringly wrong with this. No, he hasn't pigeonholed Tom as evil, yes, I'd be intrigued, too, and it's a very good idea to keep an eye on Tom, for his own sake.

“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, “we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have — inadvertently, I am sure — been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school."

Again, it seems like he's at least somewhat sympathetic towards Tom, and is willing to at least give him a chance.

More evidence (again, assuming Dumbledore is a reliable narrator):

Harry: “Didn’t you tell them [the other professors], sir, what he’d been like when you met him at the orphanage?” Dumbledore: “No, I did not. Though he had shown no hint of remorse, it was possible that he felt sorry for how he had behaved before and was resolved to turn over a fresh leaf. I chose to give him that chance.”

Now, I think Dumbledore is pretty awful with kids, but I don't think that's malicious. Yeah, it's a flaw, but perfect people don't exist, and perfect characters are dead boring. I am not saying that he definitely handled Tom's case well, I'm just saying that there's little evidence that Dumbledore, however shaken and scandalized, wrote him off as 'evil snake boy.'

It's also worth taking into account that it's 1938, and the attitudes towards mental health back then.

Why is Tom looking at Dumbledore like that, anyway? Why is he so scared? What has he possibly been threatened with or heard whispers of?

"'Professor'?" repeated Riddle. He looked wary. "Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"

"I don't believe you," said Riddle. "She wants me looked at, doesn't she? Tell the truth!"

"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course -- well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!

Tom keeps insisting he's not mad until Dumbledore finally manages to calm him down.

I'm really upset this wasn't in the movie, because it's important context. Instead we got these throwaway cutscenes of some knick-knacks relating to the Cave he's got lying around, but I just would have preferred to see him freaking out like he does in the book.

There was extreme stigma and prejudice towards mental illness.

'Lunatic asylums,' as they were called in Tom's time, were terrible places. In the 1930s and 40s, he could look forward to being 'treated' with induced convulsions, via metrazol, insulin, electroshock, and malaria injections. And if he stuck around long enough, he could even look forward to a lobotomy!

So, if you think Dumbledore was judgmental towards Tom, imagine how flat-out prejudiced whatever doctors or 'experts' Mrs. Cole might have gotten in to 'look at him' must have been!

Moving on to the next few shots, he is sitting down and hunched over as if expecting punishment or at least some kind of bad news, Dumbledore is mostly out of the frame. He’s trapped visually, by Dumbledore on one side, and a wall on the other, because he’s still very much afraid. uncomfortable, as he tells Dumbledore a secret that he fears could get him committed to an asylum (which were fucking horrible places, as I said).

It brings to the scene that miserable sense of isolation and loneliness to that has defined Tom’s entire life up to that point (and, partially due to his own bad choices, continues to define it).

And, when Dumbledore accepts it, his posture changes. he becomes more confident and more at ease, as he describes the... utilities of his magical abilities. 

"All sorts," breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it, yet for some reason it did not make him better looking; on the contrary, his finely carved features seemed somehow rougher, his expression almost bestial.

I do think Harry, our narrator, is being a tad bit judgmental here. Magic is probably the only thing that brings Tom happiness in his grey, lonely world, and when I was Tom's age and being bullied, if I had magic powers, you'd better believe that I'd (a) be bloody ecstatic about it (b) use them. And, like Tom, I can't honestly say that I can't imagine getting a bit carried-away with it. Unfortunately, we can't all be as inherently good and kindhearted as Harry.

Reading HBP again, as a 'mature' person, it almost seems like the reader is being prompted to see Tom as evil just because he's got 'weird' facial expressions.

So... uh...

Nope, let's judge Tom on his actions, not looks of 'wild happiness.'

To his great surprise, however, Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at the shabby wardrobe in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick. The wardrobe burst into flames. Riddle jumped to his feet; Harry could hardly blame him for howling in shock and rage; all his worldly possessions must be in there. But even as Riddle rounded on Dumbledore, the flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe completely undamaged.

Okay, one thing I dislike is Tom's lack of emotional affect when Dumbledore burned the wardrobe, in the books, he jumped up and started screaming, instead of looking passively (in shock, perhaps?) at the fire. Incidentally, I can't really tell if he's impressed or in shock, to be honest. I think they really tried to make Tom 'creepier' in the movie.

This is one of the incidents where Dumbledore's inability to deal with children crops up.

I think he was trying to teach Tom that magic can be dangerous, and he wouldn't like it to be used against him, but burning the wardrobe that contains everything he owns was a terrible move on Dumbledore's part. Tom already has very limited trust in other people, and now, he's not going to trust Dumbledore at all -- now, he's put Tom on the defensive/offensive for the rest of their interaction, and perhaps for the rest of their teacher-student relationship.

Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore; then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand. "Where can I get one of them?"

"Where do you buy spellbooks?" interrupted Riddle, who had taken the heavy money bag without thanking Dumbledore, and was now examining a fat gold Galleon.

But I'm not surprised Tom is 'greedy.' He's grown up in an environment where if he wants something, whether that's affection, food, money, toys, he's got to take it. There's no one looking after his needs specifically. I'm not surprised that he's a thief and a hoarder, and I don't think that counts as a moral failing necessarily, and more of a maladaptive way of seeking comfort. It would be bizarre if he came out of Wool's Orphanage a complete saint.

Additionally, I think given that the Gaunt family has a history of 'mental instability,' Tom is a sensitive child, and the trauma of growing up institutionalized and possibly being treated badly due to his magical abilities or personality disorder deeply affected him.

And there are points where it seems that Dumbledore is quick to judge Tom.

"He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control."

"Yes, indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the Dark Arts, although as we know, there are Parselmouths among the great and the good too. In fact, his ability to speak to serpents did not make me nearly as uneasy as his obvious instincts for cruelty, secrecy, and domination."

"I trust that you also noticed that Tom Riddle was already highly self-sufficient, secretive, and, apparently, friendless?..."

And while this is all empirically true, these are (a) a product of Tom's harsh environment, and (b) do not necessarily make him evil. But the point remains that child psych didn't exist as a field of its own, and psychology as a proper science was in its infancy, so I'd be shocked if Dumbledore was insightful about Tom's situation.

But I've gone a ton of paragraphs without citing anything, so I've got to rectify that.

Let's talk about Harry Harlow's monkey experiments in the 1950-70s.

If you're not a fan of animal research, since I know some people are uncomfortable with it, feel free to scroll past.

Here's the TL;DR: Children need to be hugged and shown affection too, not just fed and clothed, please don't leave babies to 'cry out' and ignore their needs because it's backwards and fucking inhumane. HUG AND COMFORT AND CODDLE CHILDREN AND SPOIL THEM WITH AFFECTION!

I will put more red writing when the section is over.

This is still an interesting experiment to have in mind while we explore the whole 'no one taught Tom Riddle how to love' thing and whether or not it's actually a good argument.

Andddd let's go all the way back to the initial 1958 experiment, featured in Harlow's paper, the Nature of Love. (If you're familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, him and Harlow actually collaborated for a time).

To give you an idea of our starting point, until Harlow's experiment, which happened twenty years after Dumbledore meets Tom for the first time, no one in science had really been interested in studying love and affection.

"Psychologists, at least psychologists who write textbooks, not only show no interest in the origin and development of love or affection, but they seem to be unaware of its very existence."

I'm going to link some videos of Harry Harlow showing the actual experiment, which animal rights activists would probably consider 'horrifying.' It's nothing gory or anything, but if you are particularly soft-hearted (and I do not mean that as an insult), be warned. It's mostly just baby monkeys being very upset and Harlow discussing it in a callous manner. Yes, today it would be considered unethical, but it's still incredibly important work and if you think you can handle it, I would recommend watching at least the first one to get an idea of how dramatic this effect is.

Dependency when frightened

The full experiment

The TL;DW:

This experiment was conducted with rhesus macaques; they're still used in psychology/neuroscience research when you want very human-like subjects, because they are very intelligent (unnervingly so, actually). I'd say that adult ones remind me of a three-year old child.

Harlow separated newborn monkeys from their mothers, and cared for their physical needs. They had ample nutrition, bedding, warmth, et cetera. However, the researchers noticed that the monkeys:

(a) were absolutely miserable. And not just that, but although all their physical needs were taken care of, they weren't surviving well past the first few days of life. (This has also been documented in human babies, and it's called failure to thrive and I'll talk about it a bit later).

(b) showed a strong attachment to the gauze pads used to cover the floor, and decided to investigate.

So, they decided to provide a surrogate 'mother.' Two, actually. Mother #1 was basically a heated fuzzy doll that was nice for the monkeys to cuddle with. Mother #2 was the same, but not fuzzy and made of wire. Both provided milk. The result? The monkeys spent all their time cuddling and feeding from the fuzzy 'mother.' Perhaps not surprising.

What Harlow decided next, is that one of the hallmarks being attached to your caregiver is seeking hugs and reassurance from them when frightened. So, when the monkeys were presented with something scary, they'd go straight to the cloth mother and ignore the wire one. Not only that, but when placed in an unfamiliar environment, if the cloth mother was present, the monkeys would be much calmer.

In a follow-up experiment, Harlow decided to see if there was some sort of sensitive period by introducing both 'mothers' to monkeys who had been raised in isolation for 250 days. Guess what?

The initial reaction of the monkeys to the alterations was one of extreme disturbance. All the infants screamed violently and made repeated attempts to escape the cage whenever the door was opened. They kept a maximum distance from the mother surrogates and exhibited a considerable amount of rocking and crouching behavior, indicative of emotionality.

Yikes. So, at first Harlow thought that they'd passed some kind of sensitive period for socialization. But after a day or two they calmed down and started chilling out with the cloth mother like the other monkeys did. But here's a weird thing:

That the control monkeys develop affection or love for the cloth mother when she is introduced into the cage at 250 days of age cannot be questioned. There is every reason to believe, however, that this interval of delay depresses the intensity of the affectional response below that of the infant monkeys that were surrogate-mothered from birth onward

All these things... attachment, affection, love, seeking comfort ... are mostly learned behaviours.

Over.

Orphanages, institutionalized childcare, and why affection is a need, not an extra.

His face is lit the exact same was as Coulson’s was in COS (half-light, half-dark), and I said I was going to talk about this in Part 3. I think perhaps it's intended to make Fiennes-Tiffin look more evil or menacing, but I'm going to quite deliberately misinterpret it.

Now, for some context, Dumbledore has just (kind of) burned his wardrobe, ratted out his stealing habit, and (in the books only, they really took a pair of scissors to this scene) told him he needs to go apologize and return everything and Dumbledore will know if he doesn't, and, well, Tom's not exactly a happy bugger about it.

But interestingly, in the books, this is when we start to see Tom's 'persona,' aka his mask, start to come into play. Whereas before, he was screaming, howling, and generally freaking out, here, he starts to hide his emotions -- in essence, obscure his true self under a shadow. So this scene is really the reverse of Coulson's in COS.

And perhaps I'm reading wayyy too much into this, but I can't help but notice that Coulson's hair is parted opposite to Fiennes-Tiffin's, and the opposite sides of their faces are shadowed, too.

Riddle threw Dumbledore a long, clear, calculating look. "Yes, I suppose so, sir," he said finally, in an expressionless voice.

Riddle did not look remotely abashed; he was still staring coldly and appraisingly at Dumbledore. At last he said in a colorless voice, "Yes, sir."

Here's an article from The Atlantic on Romanian orphanages in the 1980s, when the dictator, Ceausescu, basically forced people to have as many children as possible and funnel them into institutionalized 'childcare', and it's absolutely heartbreaking.

There's not a whole lot of information out there on British orphanages in the 30s' and 40s', but given that people back then thought you just had to keep children on a strict schedule and feed them, it wouldn't have a whole lot better.

The only thing I've found is this, and it's not super promising.

The most important study informing the criteria for contemporary nosologies, was a study by Barbara Tizard and her colleagues of young children being raised in residential nurseries in London (Tizard, 1977). These nurseries had lower child to caregiver ratios than many previous studies of institutionalized children. Also, the children were raised in mixed aged groups and had adequate books and toys available. Nevertheless, caregivers were explicitly discouraged from forming attachments to the children in their care.

Here's a fairly recent paper that I think gives a good summary: Link

Here, they describe the responses to the Strange Situation test (which tests a child's attachment to their caregiver).

We found that 100% of the community sample received a score of “5,” indicating fully formed attachments, whereas only 3% of the infants living in institutions demonstrated fully formed attachments. The remaining 97% showed absent, incomplete, or odd and abnormal attachment behaviors.

Bowlby and Ainsworth, who did the initial study, thought that children would always attach to their caregivers, regardless of neglect or abuse. But some infants don't attach (discussed along with RAD in Part 2).

Here's a really good review paper on attachment disorders in currently or formerly institutionalized children : Link

Core features of RAD in young children include the absence of focused attachment behaviors directed towards a preferred caregiver, failure to seek and respond to comforting when distressed, reduced social and emotional reciprocity, and disturbances of emotion regulation, including reduced positive affect and unexplained fearfulness or irritability.

Which all sounds a lot like Tom in this scene. The paper also discusses neurological effects, like atypical EEG power distribution (aka brain waves), which can correlate with 'indiscriminate' behavior and poor inhibitory control; which makes sense for a kid who, oh, I don't know, hung another kid's rabbit because they were angry.

Furthermore...

...those children with more prolonged institutional rearing showed reduced amygdala discrimination and more indiscriminate behavior.

This again, makes a ton of sense for Tom's psychological profile, because the amygdala (which is part of the limbic system, which regulates emotions) plays a major role in fear, anger, anxiety, and aggression, especially with respect to learning, motivation and memory.

So, I agree completely that Tom needed a lot of help, especially given the fact that he spent eleven years in an orphanage (longer than the Bucharest study I was referring to), and Dumbledore wasn't exactly understanding of his situation, and probably didn't realise what a dramatic effect the orphanage had on Tom, and given the way he talks to Tom, probably treated him as if he were a kid who grew up in a healthy environment.

In case you are still unconvinced that hugging is that important, there's a famous 1944 study conducted on 40 newborn human infants to see what would happen if their physical needs (fed, bathed, diapers changed) were provided for with no affection. The study had to be stopped because half the babies died after four months. Affection leads to the production of hormones and boosts the immune system, which increases survival, and that is why we hug children and babies should not be in orphanages. They are supposed to be hugged, all the time. I can't find the citation right now, I'll add it later if I find it.

But I think it's vastly unrealistic to say that Dumbledore, who grew up during the Victorian Era, would have any grasp of this and I don't think he was actively malicious towards Tom.

Was Tom Riddle failed by institutional childcare? Absolutely.

Were the adults in his life oblivious to his situation? Probably.

Do the shitty things that happened to Tom excuse the murders he committed, and are they anyone's fault but his own? No. At the end of the day, Tom made all the wrong choices.

And, for what it's worth, I think (film) Dumbledore (although he expresses the same sentiment in more words in the books) wishes he could go back in time and have helped Tom.

"Draco. Years ago, I knew a boy, who made all the wrong choices. Please, let me help you."

[widgenstain]

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i do remember the safety rate for condoms being used incorrectly a little higher from when i worked at the abortion and contraception museum

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Well... mark me down as scared and horny!

76 notes - Posted September 30, 2022

#4

See the full post

85 notes - Posted March 27, 2022

#3

I can literally see this Catholic German journalist (well-meaning and open-minded from what I could gather, but you know) googleing "schöner Priester" to make his point about priests being the backbones of the church in this meme. No one tell him that this is a gay Irish actor who has a rather complicated relationship with the faith and the character is about to break his vows!

89 notes - Posted June 26, 2022

#2

I have seen that tiktok on a bunch of different sources now and while I agree with the main point (some “in my Fleabag era” posts really brush over or even glorify mental illness and unhealthy behaviour) and hence won’t link the video here, I am still sure that neither the ill-advised “in my Fleabag era” posters nor the girl in the video have actually watched the show, beyond some clips or gifsets.

Fleabag does not glorify its protagonist nor her bad decisions.

Yes, the media LAUNCHED itself at the promiscuity and the raunchiness and yes, it literally starts with an elaborate and dirty anal joke. But like I’ve never said in the essay I will definitely post one day on how comparing Fleabag to that other brilliant show by the other highly lauded female British show runner makes no sense since they’re fundamentally different in many important aspects and yet people still kept doing it in the tag all the time which led me to block a ton of mofos: The beauty of the first season of Fleabag is that it pretends to be one of those cheeky, funny, troubled-but-nice girl shows for like two minutes, then the cracks start coming in.

Her whole speech on sex while she’s on the toilet? Yes, it’s delivered with a smile and a wink, nudge-nudge haha, look at the funny woman talking about sex so frankly, but actually listen to what she says and tell me that this is meant to be healthy in any way. By the time the big reveal hits at the end of the first episode, it should be clear that this isn’t really a comedy. I’ve been a bit slow on it too, other people figured out what the scenes with Boo were quicker, but at that point the latest it breaks with the typical format.

I’ve been saying this a lot, but Fleabag Season 1 isn’t a comedy, it’s a very funny tragedy. She does a ton of fucked-up things and they eventually catch up to her and ruin her. This may be relatable af, but it’s not something to model your life after nor does the show say it is. Fleabag is deeply flawed and the show never pretends otherwise. Season 2 is about partially fixing these flaws, about building yourself up again and learning to deal with things you cannot change anymore and how life and love goes on.

Quite a few people who joke about being “in their Fleabag era” understood that and their posts are meant to be read this way. Others didn’t and I think it’s fair to point that out, but it’s not the show’s fault. Fleabag’s failures aren’t shown as something you’d want to experience, nor as something light and cool.

100 notes - Posted January 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Andrew at the Harry Styles concert in Wembley June 19th 2022 (via @PUREDEVOTION)

I'm not envious, no I'm not, lalalalalala.

179 notes - Posted June 19, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[sutcliffe-v]

| Admin Info

Blogs

; @poohwhin — personal

; @deux-ombre — art

; @sakamaki-richter — canon

; @deciipula — other oc blog

Admin Aesthetic

Name

; venwhin | whin | literally whatever idgaf SKSK

Age

; 19 ( i have the mental and emotional capacity of a toddler)

Gender/Pronouns

; Nonbinary ( i’m just vibing so perceive me however. or don’t perceive me at all actually ) | They/Them

Occupation

; failing artist | professional screamer | ceo of creating things then abandoning them halfway through

Other Facts

; i am mentally ill and anxious. if that shows through text™️ i apologise SKSK.

; social cues aren’t my strong suit so pls tell me if i say/interpret smth wrong or smth you don’t understand!

; i’m broke™️

; if i say i’m going to do something there’s a chance it won’t be done for a solid year.

; i suck at this art thing but if you’ve been here long enough you might see some improvement.

; i’m actually out of it or delirious during most conversations so i may or may not start spewing shit that doesn’t make sense sksk.

; don’t trust anything i say after 10pm, if you’re flabbergasted that’s on you /j

; i’m a pro at making up words on the spot, some of which may be jarring. (rip to people who talk to me regularly)

Boundaries (pls read!!)

; i’m currently not roleplaying with this character. as much as i would love to keep up with threads, and develop relationships with characters, i simply cannot right now. (wanting to focus more on his canon content.)

; i may sometimes keep up crack threads with friends, or you may see me send in silly starters to others; this is nothing against anyone else, but i’ve likely talked about these scenarios with them in private beforehand, and just felt like seeing the in-character reaction. while this may seem exclusionary, or may ‘picking favourites’, trust that i love each and every admin and character that interacts with me.

↳ to build off this: there is a chance that i will hold up a few threads for the holidays, or at least give one response to people for holidays and events, as a treat for the occasions!

; this is a problem i’ve had in the past with toning down my character for fear that he may have been ‘too boring’ or perhaps ‘too rude’ for some (i suppose its affected how some relationships develop, but i won’t worry about it that much now); however i should say that virek is not a nice character. he isn’t of course the same level of fucked up as the diaboys (at least i don’t think(?) idk they have a few centuries of atrocities on him), but he’s certainly up there in terms of fucked up

; while all of my posts are tagged accordingly in the off chance that those under 18 stumble upon here, i run my blog as if it is 18+ (i’ve really only kept the 17+ tag for the few exceptions) . which means that there will be mature content here; that isn’t exclusive to NSFW, but includes darker content and serious topics as well. (i mean this /is/ a dl blog, so i’d hope you understand what you’re getting into)

; PLS READ THIS ONE ITS VERY IMPORTANT: okay i say very important but it’s just something that happens a lot sksk. for ask games, i try to give people at least two days to send in their ask, before i stop accepting (just to make sure that the game was seen.) i would like to say to pay attention to the tags on each post! i’ve recently started tagging ask games with ‘last one’ or some rendition of that. if you see that tag, i’d like to ask that you don’t send one in. this may seem rude, and limiting, but it honestly just kind of ruins my workflow when i mentally check something off as done, only to receive a few more. but i usually take a while to answer things, so please please please pay attention to tags!!

; something that’s more non-serious i guess, even though i’m not rp-ing, i love love talking about how relationships could potentially develop/sillier and smaller scenarios with characters. and that’s something you’ll see me implement a lot of my blog (through art or writing). a lot of the scenarios you’ll see me portray are likely things that me and other admins have talked and joked about in conversation. so never be afraid to reach out!! (even if i do suck at conversation SKSKS)

Other Other Things to Note

; i’m notoriously all over the place, so i’ll do my best to keep my blog organised.

; i’ll usually try to use ‘(( ))’ on this blog whenever i’m talking in the tags. (i don’t do that on my other blogs though, SKSKSK)

; i yell™️. no speak only yell.

[icequeenbae]

Desert Flower (m) Ch. 2 | BBH

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader x Baëkhyun

Characters: EXO and X-EXO (not all of them mentioned)

EXO vs X-EXO dynamics, complicated relationships, angsty, action, smut (as usual)

Warnings: sorta mingling with your ex’s ‘evil twin’, mentions of blood/ violence (nothing too graphic… I suppose), Y/N gets teary a lot(?), explicit content, rough sex, unprotected sex

Word Count: ~13.5k (full), ~3.4k (Chapter 2)

Summary: Baekhyun, your beloved boyfriend of three years, suddenly breaks up with you and disappears from the city in an attempt to protect you. But leaving you alone and clueless means trouble will surely find you. For it is easy to spot a flower in the desert.

Masterlist   >> One >> Two (m) >> Three (m) >> Four (fin)

Author’s Note: This chapter is going to be a little different! There’s angst, there’s drama, there’s smut... You will find out what I meant by ‘complicated relationships’ 🤭 Don’t forget to share your thoughts^^

Tags: @blahblahblah-boo​ @baeklightsx​ @wooya1224​ @baekklove​

Chapter 2. Get him back

The day he left you it was pouring, and in your mind, it rained ever since. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, and weeks flew by. You did everything on autopilot, without thinking or differentiating between tasks. Everything around you was a grey mess, and you couldn’t maintain a single thought in your head, not one thought that didn’t have something to do with the breakup.

Was it even that? He just left, telling you that it was ‘for your own good’. Asking for no opinions. Frankly, you were angry with him. You would've been furious, but it was hard to tap into your irritation when it hurt so much in your chest. For the first time in your life, you realized that you were gone too far. So far, that you felt like a piece of you was missing now. The one you’d possibly never get back.

You also realized that you belonged fully to that friend circle as well — there wasn’t even anyone for you to talk to anymore, or wallow with, which made your sorry ass feel even more pathetic. Your entire world revolved around your protective boyfriend of three years, and now that he was gone it felt as unsafe as ever. Who knows, maybe it was your sixth sense alerting you as to what was to come.

It happened over a month after your last encounter with Baekhyun.

You were lounging in the campus library, mostly because your weeks of heartbreak caused you to miss a few deadlines, so now you had to take additional assignments to do well at the finals. Having no inspiration, or better yet, no one to hurry to, made you stay there for long hours, barely managing to get one task completed at a time.

The space was almost empty since it was rather late, and looking around you suddenly felt a tinge of nostalgia. Muttering that you should get ahold of your stupid self, you walked slowly towards the tall aisle with your useless book. In the labyrinth, you wandered for a bit, reminiscing of the first interaction with your… now ex? Your first boyfriend? Your first love?

The thought left a bitter taste in your mouth, and you opted for walking further as if surrounded by books you could somehow block your bubbling feelings out.

A strange sound caught your attention.

No idea why, you kept walking towards it, soon stepping around the corner and freezing on the spot.

Only a few feet away there was a couple making out. The girl was pressed harshly into the shelves and grunted, as her partner shoved one hand underneath her shirt to squeeze her breast, and his other one grasped her neck, adding to the obscenity of their misplaced passion. You were ready to flush tomato red and vanish on the spot when you noticed something… familiar.

That side profile.

You would never mistake it for anyone else’s.

Wide-eyed in shock, you almost jumped when the male turned around, dark irises foreign to you. His eyebrow raised slightly as he took in your distress with half-lidded eyes, not even bothering to stop groping the girl.

‘B- Baekhyun?’ You said in such a tiny voice that you barely even heard yourself.

The sound of your book dropping to the floor ripped you out of the stupor, and you turned around. Out of the labyrinth you ran, not even bothering to put your belongings back into your bag neatly. You simply grabbed everything from the table and kept running. The surroundings were blurry, but you could see one thing clearly – his lustful eyes, mocking your naivety.

It hurt too much. Unable to hold your tears till you make it home, you found yourself locked in the stall of the nearest bathroom. The way you cried there was almost physically painful, and you struggled to catch enough air as you did. Nor did you care enough to prevent yourself from making noises. Your whole body was shaking with your sobs, and you weren’t entirely sure you hadn’t gone crazy just then. From seeing what you saw. From reopening the still-hurting wounds and seasoning them richly with salt.

However long it took you to dehydrate yourself with the seeping sorrow, you managed to stop, hiccupping only every now and then. Finally shoving your laptop and notes into your bag, you got out of the stall. Walking up to a mirror on wobbly legs, you gasped at your puffy face and red swollen eyes. Not that you really cared, but it was quite late, so you had good chances of sneaking out and getting home unnoticed.

Unless someone would be purposefully waiting for you to show your face, of course.

You took notice of the dark figure across the hall momentarily after exiting the bathroom. Turning the other way, you increased the pace of your steps, almost breaking into running speed to put some distance between the two of you.

‘Hey,’ a voice called from behind, and you felt a hand grabbing your upper arm to stop you.

The nerve he had.

‘Don’t fucking touch me!’ You barked at him, ripping away from his grasp fiercely.

He blinked, letting go, and you almost hiccupped again at the sight of his hair – even more silvery-white now than when he left you, slightly unkempt (from the prior activities, no less). As he opened his mouth to say something, you beat him to it.

‘Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me. You make me sick!’ You spat, wanting to both claw at his beautifully sculpted face and to snivel pathetically again. Instead, you turned around and took off before he gathered himself enough to try initiating a conversation again.

Because… What the fuck was he thinking?

***

You fell ill. It probably wasn’t unrelated to what happened at the library, but you became so feverish that your roommate was on the verge of driving you to the hospital. Three days later your fever finally broke, however, you felt weak and drained and depressed for another week afterwards.

Staying at home, you kept rewinding back to the ‘event’. How could he? Coming back like that, and not even having the decency to not screw around right under your nose. You were repulsed by what you saw, and it was almost hateful how the heaviness in your chest only worsened. The bitterness of the situation added to it – he lied to you, just to be with someone else weeks, or, perhaps, even days, hours after. Maybe all of it was a lie, you didn’t know anymore.

This Baekhyun… You didn’t think you’d ever known him.

The subsequent week you avoided all of the crowded areas of the campus, dreading that you’d have to face him again. It would be impossible to maintain your calm in that case, so you took all of the possible precautions. But what could you have done if he was looking for you?

Upon your following encounter, you failed your attempt to vanish out of his sight the way you did before. It was essentially you walking into a trap, as you headed home rather late after finally squeezing your last important assignment out on paper. Not giving the outside world a single moment of attention, you stopped at the top of the stairs to put your phone into your bag and zip it up.

‘Aren’t you a mystery woman, Y/N,’ the voice almost made you drop your stuff.

You glanced up, taking notice of the murky figure, leaning onto a nearby tree. As he began walking in your direction, you turned on your heels and took off. It felt stupid to run from him like this, but you absolutely did not want to break down in front of him. You wanted to preserve at least some dignity.

As you flew down the stairs, you stumbled and almost dove headfirst to the ground. Thankfully, a swift limb wrapped around you before you could do that.

‘Are you dumb?’ He exclaimed into your ear.

‘Let go of me!’ You writhed in his hold, trying to free your body from the illusive familiarity of his touch.

‘You’re a danger to yourself! What the fuck,’ he swore under his breath, releasing you at once.

‘I told you to leave me alone. Do whatever you want, just stay out of my freaking life, Baekhyun!’ You yelled in his face, fuming from his shameless behavior. Why was he acting like nothing was even wrong with this?

‘Unbelievable. Your twin screws someone over, and you’re the one held accountable,’ he rolled his eyes.

Twin… what?

‘What are you talking about?’ You asked in bewilderment.

‘I believe, introductions are in order. I’m Baëkhyun, nice to meet you.’

***

That was… embarrassing. So embarrassing.

You had no idea there was, well, a live copy of Baekhyun walking around. And even though your ex-boyfriend was secretive, you couldn’t believe he left something like this out. Were you an actual joke to him?!

Baëkhyun said they weren’t particularly close. He explained to you that he hadn’t seen his twin in years, and his friends helped him obtain the little knowledge of his whereabouts that led him here. Thinking he could find Baekhyun by asking around he… got ‘involved’ with a girl or two. Or a dozen, who knows? But, apparently, your reaction the first time you’d met piqued his curiosity. When you flushed at the memory, apologizing profusely, he only said that he found it odd and strangely cute, the way you got upset with him.

‘I’m not as great of a guy as Baekhyun,’ he shrugged. ‘Not that I’m trying to be, anyways.’

You frowned.

After the way he left you, Baekhyun was not at the top of your ‘greatest people of all times’ list either. You could understand why your new acquaintance mentioned this, you had witnessed enough to gather that he was not at all well-behaved. Also, his ways of extracting information… Not very professional, to say the least. But who were you to judge? Now that you’d learned that he wasn’t your ex, you were genuinely ashamed of the hysteria of the past couple of weeks.

But Baëkhyun was different.

When he got your number and promised to text, you didn’t think much of it. You hummed and rolled your eyes – as if that was going to happen. Yet he surprised you by sending a quick message the following week. And then… you just kept talking. Which went on for a while, whilst you’d grown slightly addicted to it. Somehow, Baëkhyun became the only person who could take your mind off of his twin. So, even when you finally went on the long-awaited summer break, you stayed in touch with him. And not only via text – you’d been seeing each other on a regular basis.

Randomly at first – you’d just bump into him somewhere around the university premises, and he’d then suggest grabbing coffee. But as it progressed, you ended up inviting him over for dinner. Partially because you felt acutely lonely with your roommate gone, and partially because… you missed him. It was hard to put a finger on it – you’d initially thought that it was just misplaced longing for Baekhyun that pushed you towards his twin, and it felt so wrong. Almost like you wanted to use him to soothe the ache in your heart that had been bothering you ever since your ex-boyfriend had left.

Yet Baëkhyun seemed so magnetic. He hypnotized you with his blue eyes, which changed from the icy light color to dark, almost black, and were just as sharp as his twin’s. And his sassy smirk – the one he had plastered across his face almost always. Baëkhyun wasn’t warm like Baekhyun, yet there was still something about him that had you walking willingly into his trap. Maybe it was the mysterious glint in his eyes as he looked down at you or the way he sized you up whenever he caught a glimpse of you, like you were his prey. Being alone with him felt both dangerous and exciting, and you kept fooling yourself, basing your blind trust on nothing but his relation to your ex.

You never noticed how quickly he managed to build trust between you. And how you didn’t even know much about him, yet you did tell him a lot. Like that one time, he asked you where you thought Baekhyun was.

‘Wouldn’t I like to know,’ you chuckled, sadness in your voice. ‘He just left. I don’t think he even kept his phone.’

‘I always said he was the dumb one of the two. And to think that he’s the strategist,’ he snorted, splayed on your couch comfortably.

You looked at your hands in your lap, subconsciously calming yourself by playing with your fingers.

‘Stop,’ you shivered as his palm covered your fidgety hands. ‘Stop thinking about him.’

Eyes traveling to his face, you caught a glimpse of the frown that formed there.

And then he kissed you. Out of the blue, giving you no time to think or pull away.

And you let him. Grabbing at the soft leather of his pants, you allowed him to do as he pleased with you. Baëkhyun tasted familiar, though his kissing was anything but – rough and messy, lots of tongue and teeth, making your head spin with flaming passion. You didn’t resist when he pulled you into his lap, or when he ripped your clothes off, item by item. He was not asking and you were not thinking. It didn’t feel like something you should stop at the time. Rather, you thought you would’ve cried had he paused for longer than a second, so you kept clinging to him in response.

The demanding grip he had on your thighs only made you crave it more, lust seeping into your system as you wrapped your arms around his neck and rolled your hips into his. He emitted a deep sound, helping you grind on him.

‘Good girl,’ he gritted into your lips, landing a slap or two on your ass along the way.

As you kept going, your bare breasts grazed his skin, and your panties became soaked and sticky. You were probably flushed rosy red as you chased the tight feeling in your lower abdomen, his eyes hungrily taking in your frenzy. He slapped you again, a sharp hit resonating through you like electricity.

‘Baëk,’ you half-moaned. ‘Please fuck me-’

You couldn’t even believe that you were begging him like that, out loud. But the desperation grew as your body threw itself at him, demanding release.

He moved your panties out of the way, fingers instantly getting wet with your arousal.

‘Such a needy little slut,’ he murmured, making you shiver.

It was all new. The name-calling, the manhandling, the way he bit harshly into your lower lip and tugged at your hair. And somehow, it was exactly what you needed.

He didn’t waste much time to prep you, opting for taking his already hard length out and running the tip between your folds, making you jolt and cry out, nails digging into the back of his neck.

‘Sink on my cock and take what you want. Like a bad girl would.’ He addressed in a low voice, smearing the remainder of your lipstick over your mouth with his thumb. ‘Wanna be a whore for me?’

‘Yes,’ you muttered, and he smacked you on the ass again, emphasizing that you needed to be louder. ‘Yes!’

He let go of your hips, hands resting on your legs, allowing you to slam down on your own. You whimpered at the slight burn but kept going. Moving this fast wasn’t the way you were used to doing it, but all the more exciting for that. Using his shoulders to steady yourself, you worked your hips hard. A sheen of sweat on your chest glimmered as you increased the pace, wailing as his tip nudged at your cervix. He watched you with his dark blue eyes, hands kneading your ass, and filthy mouth guiding you.

‘Squeeze your tight little hole.’

Meanwhile, you struggled to maintain the tiresome pace, yet held onto the sensation of his girth pressing against your walls as he glided in and out of you.

‘Ah fuck, Baëkhyun!’ You moaned, feeling the tickle of perspiration making its way down your abs.

‘I know you’re close.’ He licked his lips seductively. ‘Want me to help?’

‘Yes, yes, please,’ you keened, leg almost cramping from the uncomfortable position.

‘Leave your begging for another time, baby. Like I said, if you want something, you should take it.’

You whined, head spinning at the suggestion. His eyes, expectant, traced the stubborn crease between your brows while you kept rocking your hips. Then, you did the first thing that came to your blurry mind. Your hands reached up to grasp his hair and pull hard, tilting his head back and leaving the long column of his neck exposed for the attack of your lips. Sucking a bruise on it harshly, you then used your teeth to ensure he’d have a bright mark in a few hours. Creeping up his neck and his jaw, you licked at his lower lip, and then into his mouth – like an animal would.

‘Oh,’ he smirked, hands seizing you and holding you down, with him snug inside you. ‘So, my good girl is not as innocent as she seemed?’ He teased, the lustful glint in his eyes boosting your confidence to the level of insolence.

‘Shut up,’ you replied firmly, sliding off of him and flopping backwards to finally get some circulation in your legs. ‘Stop slacking off and make me come, you asshole.’

His eyes flashed at your brazen words. Shoving you roughly until you were flat on your back, he grabbed onto your thighs, dragging you closer to him. Instantly you cried out as he landed two consecutive slaps on your pussy, holding his heavy hard-on at the base. Pleased with your reaction, he did it again, not saying another word before he bottomed out inside you. A new wave of arousal washed over you, and you clenched around him, eyes fluttering shut. He didn’t even think to spare you the morning soreness as he nailed you like an actual whore.

‘Ah right there, right there- oh fuck, Baëkhyun,’ you sobbed, clawing at his flexed arm, when he placed one of your legs over his shoulder and leaned forward, basically stretching you open for himself.

This position made you feel vulnerable, like you had no choice but to take everything he was giving you, but it was what you needed. His every thrust resonated inside, making your muscles clench, and ripping more curses and moans out of you. Even though his pace was rather brutal, there wasn’t too much pain along with it – Baëkhyun knew all the right spots.

Mouth agape, you arched your back in silent agony, and a few more hits of his thighs later came so hard that it almost made you pass out on the spot. The hand over your mouth muffled your scream, and he let your leg slide off of his shoulder, pressing his palm against it to keep you in place and prevent you from closing your knees.

Muscles contracting uncontrollably, you whimpered at his continued thrusts as you became too sensitive from the drawn-out pleasure, tears soaking your lashes by the time he finally pulled out.

Baëkhyun grunted lowly, and you opened your eyes to witness him jerk himself off at the sight of your swollen, fucked out pussy, not even blinking until thick ropes of his semen painted your lower belly.

Despite having just performed a thorough fucking, he lowered himself on his elbow slowly and brushed the rogue strands of hair away out of your eyes.

‘You’re a naughty one. I love it,’ he murmured, positioning one of his hands on your neck as he kissed you deeply. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to be in control.’

And so, you let yourself fall down the rabbit hole. And there was no telling what you’d gotten yourself into.

>> Chapter 3

A/N: Whooo, Baёk is here, stirring some kind of trouble, isn’t he? 🤭 Our poor Y/N-ie is walking on thin ice. What do you think of their relationship? Feels a little bit like cheating, right? Technically it isn’t. But still, the darkness is always pretty seductive...

[ruiniel]

Fandom: Castlevania Series (2017-2021)

Rating: Mature

Relationships: Alucard/Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades

Characters: Alucard, Trevor Belmont, Sypha Belnades (for now)

Additional Tags: Post-Castlevania (Cartoon) Season 2, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Trephacard, Grief/Mourning, Mental Anguish, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Other Tags to Be Added

V.

“Hold on to me, Belmont, not my shirt.”

Trevor does, or tries, grunting with his arm slung around Alucard’s neck as he stands to his wobbling feet. He can’t even feel irked by Alucard’s tone, eager to be moving and, if he’s being honest, too grateful to complain. “I really could try this on my own, you know,” Trevor says anyway, receiving no reply.

Alucard’s support never falters, his arm steady around Trevor’s ribs. “I appreciate the care for my time,” he says as they take a few steps together, “but I do have an inordinate supply of it.”

Well, he’s right about that. Again, Trevor lets it slide. Maybe he’s getting soft here, or maybe he’s become more used to Alucard’s cold-shoulder retorts. He’s warm against Trevor’s side, and the hunter is absolutely not focused on that more than the important task of putting one foot in front of the other.

This is not awkward.

He recalls Alucard’s words to Sypha, to them, the honesty in his voice with the admission that he wanted them here and despite Trevor’s own previous misgivings, those moments stayed with the hunter ever since and now live free in his head to mull over.

This is not awkward.

They pass through a tall entrance to an adjoined chamber, and from there onto a long terrace overlooking the wooded pathlands. It is here Alucard eases the hunter down on a padded, upholstered bench, set in the shade and heaped with cushions.

Trevor squints, uses his hand as a shield until his eyes stop hurting from the sudden change. He blinks as the wilderness appears in tints of green and fading blue the farther it spreads, climbing up the knees of solemn mountains rising jagged in the distance. Getting some fresh air was the goal here, and the hunter takes full breaths of it.

Alucard busies himself with some bottles and flasks, then sits beside Trevor on the bench. It’s quiet up here, comes the thought, but not as silent as the stifling four walls of a chamber, and days passed since Trevor was reacquainted with lucidity — a state he’s apparently taken shamelessly for granted before the onset of his illness. It’s strange to him to be left so weakened as to need help in this manner, stranger still to actually receive it; something Trevor remembers happening but once before in his life, a kindness he clung to through the latter years when his defaced hope in humanity was finally about to give. “Thanks,” he says, shaking off the memory, because not everything must be ghosts and regret.

Alucard looks his way, an eyebrow raised; waiting patiently.

“For this,” Trevor sighs, pointing at himself. “For helping me heal.” He rubs the back of his head, furrows his brows.

Alucard picks a tome with a dusted blue cover from a sheltered table in the corner. He looks down at the damn thing, and there is that fucking sadness again; it's on his face, in the way he moves, in everything he does.

This is awkward.

But he’s Trevor fucking Belmont, afraid of no man or beast et cetera, et cetera, and if he was unhinged enough to punch Dracula in the face he won’t quail before talking about his feelings to his son.

“Neither Sypha nor I could have done any different,” Alucard says, meeting his eyes and he’s… he’s smiling. Brief and pale, but it’s there, like it was those first moments of clarity when Alucard was leaning over him, looking like something priceless had just dropped in his lap. A silly comparison, maybe, but Trevor’s never been a poet, and it’s Alucard’s expression he still sees in those states between wakefulness and sleep.

“Still,” Trevor looks back ahead, sliding lower against the bench, “I’m not dead, probably would be if it weren’t for you, again, and… and, yeah.” He sighs, “What I’m trying to say is,” he throws Alucard a brief glance to see him staring at his feet, elbows propped on his knees, “I’ve lived on lucky chances for the latter half of my life. I’m surprised I’m still alive, to be frank.”

“Agreed.”

“Shut up and let me say this. I was used to being treated like shit by people, and after a while, it’s easy to become what everyone makes of you.” He feels Alucard's gaze on him, finds it easier to stare at the clouds smeared like white pastry across the sky. “From the beginning — ever since your weird entrance into our lives you both always treated me like I’m worth something, and that’s… I’m thankful for that. Yeah? Wanted to get this out of the way. Wanted you to know.” He falls silent, observing two eagles as they circle each other in strong, graceful sweeps against a backdrop of blue.

Alucard rests with his head on the backrest, hands clasped together over his chest, finally looking like he’s got no stake up his arse. But he understands, he must. After all, his own life did a complete flip, making way for… for whatever this is. Maybe Alucard isn’t sure either. But he no longer avoids their company for most of the time, no longer slinks away at night to hunt until he returns bloody and worn. Instead, he stood by Trevor and Sypha since that morning, kept feeding Trevor that horrible tasting medicine and if he left, many times they would wake late into the night and find him there, either reading or dozing in an armchair close to the bed.

And that, too, is what Trevor is grateful for — all of them taking a direly needed breath together. No heavy topics. No talk of sieges. No questions apart from practical matters of the present. He rubs at his chest where it still hurts to breathe and a persistent fatigue renders him incapable of doing much, for most of the time, but the air is clean, they’re not running for their lives, and Alucard is here.

“So, we’re staying for a while,” Trevor speaks gruffly against his own fear. For how long? They haven’t discussed that, either. And how much does it really matter now, anyway? “You’ll need a lot of help with this place, by the looks of it.”

Alucard reaches for the water pitcher, pours and offers out a glass. His hand is pale and bony beneath the brush of Trevor’s fingers, his eyes sunken in, and he still looks like something heavy and nasty constantly drags him down by the shoulders. Trevor makes an effort and doesn’t comment. Nobody likes having their pain called out at every turn; they know it’s there, after all.

“First, regain your strength. Then we’ll see to the rest.”

Trevor can't argue with that, and a few steps forward are usually better than none.

Above them, the eagles cry.

~

“There is… so much more preserved food here than I thought!” comes Sypha’s voice, a little muffled, from the other side of the door leading to the pantries from the kitchen.

“All right.” Trevor looks back at the list of quantities he’s been writing, seated at the long kitchen table. He feels better with each passing day, and now can even help with some tasks without running out of breath in the first thirty minutes. Still, he wouldn’t mind it if things sped up a little, either.

“Oh! And there’s a room here for cold storage!” Sypha dutifully notifies him.

“So, what am I adding here?”

“At least another twenty pieces of dried meat,” comes Alucard’s voice, “and another ten sacks of flour.”

“Christ,” mutters Trevor, “was he feeding an army in there?”

Alucard’s tall figure slips through the door, with a look on his face that says ‘have you lived under a rock’ and with his dark coat flecked with flour at the lapels and chest. There’s some in his hair, too, and Trevor bites the inside of his cheek because it’s a shit move to tease someone who looks like they might drop dead at any moment, but he also has a hard time associating the sight with the memory of Alucard’s edgy, dramatic appearance in that Keep under Greșit.

Different sides to everyone, aren’t there. He wonders idly what else there is to discover about each of them, and how well or poorly they will handle it. Together, together for now.

Alucard glides over and peeks down at the list over Trevor’s shoulder. “Goodness, your handwriting is atrocious. I can barely discern parts of this.”

“Next time you do it,” mutters Trevor, but he leans back in his chair, glad for the proximity because he is that kind of fool. “My foremost skills, as you know, lie in other areas.”

Alucard tuts — another thing that throws Trevor off balance. “This is a long list,” he states as Sypha emerges from the pantries, arms full of bags with spices.

“Where on earth did you get cinnamon? It’s so difficult to find, and—”

“We traveled the world quite a bit with the castle,” Alucard answers, eyes still on the list as Sypha sniffs at one bag, a brief, elated smile on her face. “I think between all of this and whatever foraging we’ll need to do, we should be fine for a while.”

“Good, that’s settled,” Trevor adds as Sypha reaches them, leaning over Trevor’s other shoulder to glance at the notes. She smells of mint and sage, and that odd spicy-sweet scent of that cin-uh-mun that has her so pleased.

“Trevor, is this a P or an R?”

“Ugh, you know what…”

Sypha giggles — how he missed it — and sets a placating hand on his shoulder. Having them both at his back in a situation that doesn’t boil down to live-or-die dwindles the hunter’s annoyance to nothing. He thinks of how siloed they were, each struggling with their own thoughts and feelings only a week ago. It’s not a sudden change but a subtle one, and it’s enough to matter, for now.

A breath together, indeed.

~

Trevor scratches his head as the three of them stand before the once-entrance-now-gaping hole leading to the Hold. It’s the first time they’re returning to assess the damage and get an idea of what can be done in the short term to protect the knowledge and artifacts in the Vault. Sypha knows quite a few warding spells to help in that direction, but the fighting left the place in shambles and thus in need of their attention, not to mention proper isolation from humidity and other environmental wear.

“Hm,” Trevor points at the remains of staircases hanging off the walls, “We can’t go down there the usual way, that’s one. Sypha, could you make up some… ice stairs, or something?”

“That won’t be necessary,” says Alucard, turning to look at both of them. He extends a hand which Sypha takes without hesitation, realizing what he’s offering.

Trevor blinks. “No way. I am not being carried down like some—”

He doesn’t get to finish as Alucard takes a plunge with Sypha held securely to him, and Trevor hears a brief sigh, sees her robes fluttering like the wings of a great blue bird before she and Alucard land gracefully in front of the door to the Vault. He looks back up at Trevor, and it’s too far for the hunter to make out his expression, but hell, he reckons this wouldn’t be the first time Alucard had to haul him around like a sack of onions, anyway. He’s also decidedly not fond of falling from great heights no matter the support, but they don’t need to know that. Trevor sighs and makes a gesture that concedes defeat, calling Alucard back up.

~

“Sypha, a little light please.”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Sypha rubs her palms together, then spreads her arms out wide. The lamps of the vault come alive, revealing levels upon levels of shelves and chasing away the shadows in the immense hall.

Everything is as they left it, including the damage incurred by Trevor fighting the intruding creatures. Sypha makes her way towards a lectern, followed by Alucard.

“I’ll do a quick round,” Trevor tells them, a hand on the whip curled neatly at his belt as he disappears among the rows of ancient furniture.

“Look at that!” Sypha points at the giant skeleton of a creature hanging in chains from the ceiling. “Have you ever seen anything like it?” she asks Alucard, who’s regarding the bones in silence; the enormous jaws, the huge teeth like spikes — the stuff of nightmares.

“I doubt it’s the supernatural, in this case. To me, it looks like one of many creatures which apparently walked the Earth eons before humankind took over.” He looks back at the large, dusty book Sypha’s opened. “This place may have an index but it’s…” he turns to a shelf, retrieving a wooden object made of pipes of various lengths and frowning as he stares at it, “... nonetheless a mess.”

“You’ve already so helpfully pointed that out before, thank you very much,” they hear Trevor’s voice from far away.

“That looks like a pan flute,” comes Sypha’s observation, and Alucard lifts the object he’s holding for a closer inspection.

“A nai, to be more exact,” adds Trevor, emerging from a row of shelves and nearing them.

He takes the pan flute from Alucard, thoughtfully running his fingers over the wooden tubes of varying diameters. They’re fit in a curved array, arranged by order of length from right to left. “You’d hear these at special occasions, during celebrations or on bonfire nights, what have you. The pitch of each pipe is adjusted with beeswax.” He turns the instrument over in his hands, speaking as though he’s reciting a forgotten lesson.

“I’ve heard it played before. It sounds beautiful, haunting even, if the musician is skilled enough for it,” Sypha tells Alucard. “Not something one would find in a collection of monster hunting resources, though. Unless… ” She seeks Trevor’s gaze, “you know how to play this, Trevor?”

Trevor inspects the nai, blows some dust off the polished wood. He shrugs. “I used to. We all learned something or other to pass the time between studies and training,” he says, then tucks the thing inside a pack he brought down, avoiding her eyes.

Sypha smiles. “I see,” she murmurs, throwing Alucard an indulgent, knowing look as the hunter turns away.

“So, are we done here?” asks Trevor. “I think we know what we want to plan next. First, we need the ability to get down here without resorting to either of you, so…”

He freezes at the clang of objects falling from their place, striking the floors and sending loud, lonesome echoes through the cavernous enclosure. They all exchange looks of silent understanding, and Alucard’s already tensed, his claws halfway out. His eyes close as he listens. “Wait... it’s nothing, it’s—”

Trevor’s already walking towards the source of the sound, hand on his whip at the ready. “... just a cat,” the hunter says, mild disbelief on his face at the movement of something dark beneath one of the stacked shelves.

It’s fully grown from the looks of it, tail swishing and eyes gleaming. Its coat is black all over, and it looks rather shaggy, but from what Trevor can tell, the animal isn’t wounded. It’s also decidedly not shy or afraid as it languidly advances towards them.

Sypha’s snickering behind him. “Our intruder! My, what a shiny coat you have there!”

The cat mews, and Alucard watches it padding closer, inspecting them with intelligent eyes. “Considering the superstitions alive and well in the area, I doubt finding a household was an option for him.”

“How can you already know it’s a ‘he’?” asks Trevor, but Alucard’s right, which is weird. Maybe to do with his shapeshifting-creature-sensing abilities or whatnot. He really should read up more on dhampir, or there's a thought, actually speak to Alucard about it, maybe. Either way, his own curiosity can wait now.

“We can safely assume there’s no shortage of nourishment for him here,” Alucard glances at the vastness of the Vault.

“Do we… leave him down here?” asks Sypha, picking up a few tomes that caught her interest in the meantime.

“Well, you can’t really force a cat to do anything, so, I don’t know,” Trevor drops down, balanced on the balls of his feet. “Hey, you. Want a ride out of here with the three big lugs?” he asks the cat over Sypha’s amused expression, and they all watch as the animal saunters over when Trevor rises to stand, fluidly wandering between his ankles, purring loudly with its tail curled upward.

“I think that’s a ‘yes’?” Alucard ventures as he picks up their pack and Sypha wraps an arm around his neck, preparing to rise back to the surface.

Trevor takes a leap of trust and lifts the cat up, who settles with zero fuss on his arm. Seems like a deal. He looks down at the stray animal, “A word of warning though: we might be more trouble than it’s worth.”

~~

Chapter VI

A/N:

This just in, Trevor talks about (some of) his feelings.

The Țepeș family went on many trips around the world with the castle [HC activated in this part].

Trio being catfinders is the result of the author's obsession with the ol’ Trevor Belmont vs cats HC. Trevor likes cats. Cats like Trevor. They look at him and they see catnip. I just think it's neat.

The nai is a traditional pan flute used in the region.

[amispnrewatch]

SPN 1x06 “Skin”

Okay, I’m gonna try to type while I watch this time instead of forgetting this blog exists until the episode is almost over.

You can tell the footage for the previously on segment was saved on a VHS copy instead of the original film that the show was shot with because even in the HD iTunes version I have it looks low quality as fuck. And jumpy in the way that brings me back to my teens watching the WB all the damn time.

I love this song. WTF is this song. Shazam says “Good Deal” by Mommy and Daddy. I… have no comment, except that it sounds like everything I was listening to in college at the time this shit was airing.

Aaaaand not!Dean turns around to face the SWAT team after obviously torturing some woman. THAT is a cold open.

I wanna know what that car is in the background. It’s pretty. Maybe a convertible Impala? They have similar grills. This is not at all important.

Also, I love that with these higher definition versions of the episodes you can see that Sam’s email is lawboy and whatever dot com and that people in the fandom have started calling him Law Boy. It’s hilarious.

DEAN: Well, what exactly do you tell ‘em? You know, about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doin’?

SAM: I tell ‘em I’m on a road trip with my big brother. I tell ‘em I needed some time off after Jess.

DEAN: Oh, so you lie to ‘em.

SAM: No. I just don’t tell ‘em….everything.

DEAN: Yeah, that’s called lying. I mean, hey, man, I get it, tellin’ the truth is far worse.

SAM: So, what am I supposed to do, just cut everybody out of my life? (DEAN shrugs.) You’re serious?

DEAN: Look, it sucks, but in a job like this, you can’t get close to people, period.

Aaaaand now I have Dean and Cassie feelings again and we haven’t even gotten to her episode yet.

SAM: No, man, I know Zack. He’s no killer.

DEAN: Well, maybe you know Zack as well as he knows you.

Aaaaaand now I have Dean and Lee feelings and we’re nowhere near Lee’s episode in season 15.

YOU JUST BLEW THROUGH A STOP SIGN DEAN WTF.

Little Becky. Oi with the reusing of names.

Of course Sam made friends with a bunch of rich kids while he was at college in a desperate attempt to try to be normal.

SAM: You know, maybe we could see the crime scene. Zack’s house.

DEAN: We could.

REBECCA: Why? I mean, what could you do?

SAM: Well, me, not much. But Dean’s a cop. (DEAN laughs.)

DEAN: Detective, actually.

I love that Dean was like “how dare you call me that.”

Okay, after a bit of research, I totally want to take a day trip to Bisbee, Arizona, but it’s already in the 90s here in the desert and it’s not even May so that trip is going to have to wait until… winter or something. There is no way in hell I’m going deeper into the desert when the weather gets hotter.

It’s a historic mining town tourist trap looking place now which is exactly the kind of shit I love.

SAM: Bec, look, I know Zack didn’t do this. Now, we have to find a way to prove that he’s innocent.

I mean, not technically, technically you would 1) NOT FUCK WITH A MURDER INVESTIGATION YOU’RE NOT LEGALLY INVOLVED IN BECAUSE ANYTHING YOU FIND WOULD BE INADMISSABLE IN COURT 2) find evidence to provide a reasonable doubt for the jury that he did commit the crime. You know, like a lawyer would need to do, Law Boy.

DEAN: I just don’t think this is our kind of problem.

When I made my husband watch this show with me (he’s seen it all at least once now over the years) this is the recurring thing that drove him crazy.

You guys can’t even go in through the back door? Or shut the front door behind you? Really?

REBECCA: (tearfully) Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. They say that Emily let her attacker in.

Yeah, that doesn’t even really mean that she knew her attacker. Just that it was someone she let her guard down around or got in some other way. See: The Son of Sam and Nightstalker, etc.

Love the pinup magnet on the fridge. I’d throw shade at that, but I have a pinup magnet on my fridge too so… pot kettle and all that.

Okay, both people in the next couple are gorgeous.

And oh wow those special effects changing eyes… wow.

This poor couple. I feel so bad for them in this episode.

How… how are the police gonna explain the way he was able to beat himself over the head with a bat??? I…

I love that 5:30 in the morning on TV is clearly like… 10 AM.

Okay, this is a really unrelated point, but the graffiti on the dumpster here reminds me of the Teen Wolf fandoms use of the name Void!Stiles when Stiles Stilinski was possessed by a Nogitsune… I just spent way too long digging through YouTube and my Tumblr tags from back when those episodes were airing looking for a few specific videos and couldn’t find them. The TL;DR reason I bring it up here is goofball, bi-coded main character guy getting possessed by an entity set on destroying the people he loves. SOUNDS LIKE THIS EPISODE AND A WHOLE LOT OF SPN RIGHT. I love that all these monster hunting shows call out to each other.

This scene haunts me years later and I don’t even WATCH Teen Wolf. I just watched the fandom on Tumblr collectively lose it’s shit then tripped down a Hale Pack fanfiction rabbit hole.

ANYWAY

Back to Supernatural, a show that also treated its fan base, cast, and characters like garbage! Huzzah!

DEAN: Well, there’s another way to go—down. (They look down and notice a manhole.)

I’m gonna be mature and ignore the double entendre there…

But I love that Dean thinks of the world in 3D. Which sounds like a dumb statement to make, but this is honestly a good example of that in action.

SAM: I bet this runs right by Zack’s house, too.

Really Sam, sewers run by houses? SO WEIRD. I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED.

DEAN: You know, I just had a sick thought. When the shapeshifter changes shape—maybe it sheds.

SAM: That is sick. (DEAN puts the bloody pile back on the ground.)

Guys, there is a WHOLE ASS EAR in that pile of yuck you’re looking at. I think it’s pretty safe to assume the shapeshifter indeed sheds its skin like a snake. A much… gooier snake.

Sam’s friend is rightfully pissed at him for fucking with the crime scene.

This is before the pearl gripped guns?! Wow. I never noticed that before.

Also, this whole episode gives me feelings.

++++

Cool. Tumblr mobile ate a whole section of my notes on this when it crashed for NO APPARENT REASON. Love that.

It always boggles my mind that actors can trust the people they’re working with enough to let people “tie” ropes around their neck or put them in actually dangerous positions in a scene.

SHAPESHIFTER: He’s sure got issues with you. You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me. Where the hell were you?

SAM: Where is my brother? (The shapeshifter leans in close to SAM.)

SHAPESHIFTER: I am your brother. See, deep down, I’m just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I’m a freak. And sooner or later, everybody’s gonna leave me. (He backs away.)

SAM: What are you talkin’ about?

SHAPESHIFTER: You left. Hell, I did everything Dad asked me to, and he ditched me, too. No explanation, nothin’, just poof. Left me with your sorry ass. But, still, this life? It’s not without its perks. (He laughs.) I meet the nicest people. Like little Becky. You know, Dean would bang her if he had the chance. Let’s see what happens. (He smiles and covers SAM with a sheet.)

This exchange is just… so much. So many feelings. And I will forever (unless we magically get a fix-it fic mini season someday…) be SO MAD that none of this got resolved in that pointless, trash heap of a finale.

REBECCA: Okay, so, this thing—it can make itself look like anybody?

SHAPESHIFTER: That’s right. (She chuckles.)

REBECCA: Well, what is it, like a genetic freak? (The shapeshifter laughs.)

SHAPESHIFTER: Maybe. Evolution is about mutation, right? So, maybe this thing was born human but was different. Hideous and hated. Until he learned to become someone else. (REBECCA looks around, uncomfortable. The shapeshifter’s eyes glint silver, and he smiles.)

It always amazes me how much of this show is a pile of accidental queer allegories parading around in an ill-fitting toxic masculinity suit.

Vulcan mind meld! I love nerd!Dean. Also, I’m rewatching Star Trek: TOS with my husband, because that is what my life amounts to these days, rewatching comfort TV and flailing over the bits I love.

This post does a better job than I can do of pairing up screen caps with the dialogue of this next scene. SIX EPISODES IN. They’re dumping all of this character depth SIX EPISODES IN. FUCK THIS SHOW FOR NOT EMBRACING ITSELF.

Okay, I love that he screams back in her face after he threw the phone. It’s not something to laugh at because the situation is horrifying, but I can’t help laughing at it every time.

AND THE WAY THEY CUT THESE SCENES. Going from him winding his hand back to backslap her directly to him dropping the chains on the table to show how hard he must have hit her without actually making the actors hit each other. Good job editing department!

I… don’t understand the shifter’s motivation for killing people. If he can take over people’s identities without killing them, why kill them? Is it just because he’s a homicidal, rapist piece of shit? Cause that’s all it seems like.

How did the SWAT team even know she was being attacked? Why can the snipers aim no better than Storm Troopers?

Ugh, these kind of transformation body horror scenes are exactly why werewolf stories have never really appealed to me much. Like, I could do without watching your ribs move and teeth fall out, dude.

BUT.

THIS FUCKING SCENE.

I looked up the song that’s playing over shapeshifter!Dean being caught by the SWAT team and then going through the grotesque transformation. (And as far as I know, the iTunes version has the original music from the episodes.)

It’s a song called “Mary” by The Death Riders

Who's your mother, who's your mother here boy // Who's your mother, whos your mommy dear // Who's your father, who's your father here boy // Who's your father, who's your daddy dear

Silently screaming // Where everyone knows // Daddy's always watchin' // Where everywhere - everywhere I go

I don't wanna be a freak show pretty boy anymore // I don't wanna be a full time slave // I don't wanna be your midnight cowboy anymore // I just want to be Mary

This is… a fascinating choice. Here are the rest of the lyrics. The song as a whole has a weird incesty kinda vibe to it? Kinda like when SPN tries to straight-wash itself and misses the mark wildly. (Like Dean’s male siren episode.)

The midnight cowboy line reminded me of 12x11 and the bull riding scene with “Broomstick Cowboy” by Bobby Goldsboro playing over it

Dream on, little Broomstick Cowboy, // Dream while you can; // Of big green frogs, // And puppy dogs, // And castles in the sand.

For, all too soon you'll awaken; // Your toys will all be gone. // Your broomstick horse will ride away, // To find another home. // And you'll have grown into a man, // With cowboys of your own. // And then you'll have to go to war, // To try and save your home.

And then you'll have to learn to hate; // You'll have to learn to kill. // It's always been that way, my son; // I guess it always will.

Because, you know, why not add tons of feelings into the lyrics, right?

Props to the people who can embrace their rewatches and reclamations of the show with ease. Because every episode seems to remind me of how hollow and tragic Dean’s ending was and I just… struggle all over again.

Anyway, back to the episode so I can move on with my day.

REPORTER: An anonymous tip led police to a home in the Central West End, where a S.W.A.T team discovered a local woman bound and gagged. Her attacker, a white male, approximately twenty-four to thirty years of age, was discovered hiding in her home. (A sketch of DEAN appears on the screen.)

DEAN: Man! That’s not even a good picture. (SAM looks around cautiously.)

SAM: It’s good enough. (He walks away.)

DEAN: Man! (He follows SAM.)

(CUT TO: Alley. DEAN and SAM are walking. DEAN steps into a puddle.)

DEAN: Ugh, come on.

I love that we get two tiny little back-to-back vanity moments for Dean here. One commenting on the sketch artist rendition of him being broadcasted on the news and the other tripping in the puddle. There is literally someone running around the city trying to kill people while wearing Dean’s face, but Dean is still concerned with how he looks appears to others. He’s still concerned with keeping up his own performance. The shifter left him with just a t-shirt, so he doesn’t even have his usual comfort layers on and at any moment someone could spot him and call the police or try to kill him for assaulting Sam’s friend. His life is wildly out of control in that moment and the only thing he can try to focus on is his appearance (something semi-controllable) and finding the shifter before any of that other shit can happen.

One day I want to put together a like top 10 episodes focusing on / explaining each TFW character from the series. Like the kind of list you could show someone who’s never seen the show, but has OPINIONS about the characters (or who hasn’t seen the whole show and seen the growth they went through… you know, like the people responsible for the travesty of 15x20). This episode would be on that list. I’m not sure how I could manage to make a list of only 10 episodes to understand Dean Winchester by, but eh.

SAM: What are you gonna do to me?

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, I’m not gonna do anything. Dean will, though.

SAM: They’ll never catch him.

SHAPESHIFTER: Oh, doesn’t matter. Murder in the first of his own brother? He’ll be hunted the rest of his life. (He picks up a sharp knife and examines it.)

Speaking of season 15 in general, this right here. This was Chuck’s villain story arc thesis statement. AND THEY DROPPED THE GODDAMN BALL WITH IT. I think that’s the thing that honestly pisses me off the most these days (about 5 1/2 months from when the finale aired) is that they tried making the whole thing a tragedy but did such an awful job with it that it just ended up like a deflating condom balloon at a dive bar concert. Disappointing and gross. The finale for season 14 set them up SO FUCKING WELL and it just… didn’t get there.

Becky’s parents are gonna be pissed at how torn up their house is after all this shit…

And you’re not shooting him when you first see him strangling Sam because…?????

I like that he took the necklace back. Also, is this kinda Dean death number .5 of the show? Like it wasn’t him but it was also kinda him. Eh.

At least they left the windshield on Baby this time. Reflections are better than tearing her apart.