#all that's left is cleanup/details

[bleaksqueak]

Soli will update like normal tomorrow! I'll also be Less Quiet soon since I've been toiling away at Things. Things for You.

[irawhiti]

while everyone's rightfully talking about oppenheimer and its flaws regarding the erasure of japanese and native american voices regarding nuclear testing and detonations, i'd like to bring up the fact that pacific islanders have also been severely impacted by nuclear testing under the pacific proving grounds, a name given by the US to a number of sites in the pacific that were designated for testing nuclear weapons after the second world war, at least 318 of which were dropped on our ancestral homes and people. i would like if more people talked about this.

important sections are bolded for ease of reading. i would appreciate this being reblogged since it's a bit alarming how few people know about this.

--

in 1946, the indigenous peoples of pikinni (the bikini atoll) were forcibly relocated off of their islands so that nuclear tests could be run on the atoll. at least 23 nuclear bombs were detonated on this inhabited island chain, including 20 hydrogen bombs. many pasifika were irreversibly irradiated, all of them were starved during multiple forced relocations, and the island chain is still unsafe to live on despite multiple cleanup attempts. there are several craters visible from space that were left on the atoll from nuclear testing.

the forced relocation was to several different small and previously uninhabited islands over several decades, none of which were able to sustain traditional lifestyles which directly lead to further starvation and loss of culture and identity. there is a reason that pacific islanders choose specific islands to inhabit including access to fresh water, food, shelter, cloth and fibre, climate, etc. and obviously none of these reasons were taken into account during the displacements.

200 pikinni were eventually moved back to the atoll in the 1970s but dangerous levels of strontium-90 were found in drinking water in 1978 and the inhabitants were found to have abnormally high levels of caesium-137 in their bodies.

--

i'm going to put the rest of this post under a readmore to improve the chances of this being reblogged by the general public. i would recommend you read the entirety of the post since it really isn't long and goes into detail about, say, entire islands being fully, utterly destroyed. like, wiped off of the map. without exaggeration, entire islands were disintegrated.

--

as i just mentioned, ānewetak (the eniwetok atoll) was bombed so violently that an entire island, āllokļap, was permanently and completely destroyed. an entire island. it's just GONE. the world's first hydrogen bomb was tested on this island. the crater is visibly larger than any of the islands next to it, more than a mile in diameter and roughly fifteen storeys deep. the hydrogen bomb released roughly 700 times the energy released during the bombing of hiroshima. this would, of course, be later outdone by other hydrogen bombs dropped on the pacific, reaching over 1000 times the energy released.

one attempt to clean up the waste on ānewetak was the construction of a large ~380ft dome, colloquially known as the tomb, on runit island. the island has been essentially turned into a nuclear waste dump where several other islands of ānewetak have moved irradiated soil to and, due to climate change, rising seawater is beginning to seep into the dome, causing nuclear waste to leak out. along with this, if a large typhoon were to hit the dome, there would be a catastrophic failure followed by a leak of nuclear waste into the surrounding land, drinking water, and ocean. the tomb was built haphazardly and quickly to cut costs.

hey, though, there's a plus side! the water in the lagoon and the soil surrounding the tomb is far more radioactive than the currently contained radioactive waste. a typhoon wouldn't cause (much) worse irradiation than the locals and ocean already currently experience, anyway! it's already gone to shit! and who cares, right, the only ""concern"" is that it will just further poison the drinking water of the locals with radioactive materials. this can just be handwaved off as a nonissue, i guess. /s

--

at least 36 bombs were detonated in the general vicinity of kiritimati (christmas island) and johnson atoll. while johnson atoll has seemingly never been inhabited by polynesians, kiritimati was used intermittently by polynesians (and later on, micronesians) for several hundred years. many islands in the pacific were inhabited seasonally and likewise many pacific islanders should be classified as nomadic but it has always been convenient for the goal of white supremacy and imperalism to claim that semi-inhabited areas are completely uninhabited, claimable pieces of terra nullius.

regardless of the current lack of inhabitants on these islands, the nuclear detonations have caused widespread ecological damage to otherwise delicate island ecosystems and have further spread nuclear fallout across the entirety of the pacific ocean.

--

while the marshall islands, micronesia, and the surrounding areas of melanesia and polynesia were (and still are) by far the worst affected by these atrocities, the entirety of the pacific has been irradiated to some extent due to ocean/wind currents freely spreading nuclear fallout through the water and air. all in all, at least 318 nuclear bombs were detonated across the pacific. i say "at least" because these are just the events that have been declassified and frankly? i wouldn't be shocked to find out they didn't stop there.

please don't leave the atomic destruction of the pacific out of this conversation. we've been displaced, irradiated, murdered, poisoned, and otherwise mass exterminated by nuclear testing on purpose and we are still suffering because of it. many of us have radiation poisoning, many of us have no safe ancestral home anymore. i cannot fucking state this enough, ISLANDS WERE DISINTEGRATED INTO NONEXISTENCE.

look, this isn't blaming people for not talking about us or knowing the extent of these issues, but it's... insidiously ironic that i haven't seen a single post that even mentions pacific islanders in a conversation about indigenous voices/voices of colour being ignored when it comes to nuclear tests and the devastation they've caused.

[technofeudalism]

Residents of Jersey have been recommended bloodletting to reduce high concentrations of “forever chemicals” in their blood after tests showed some islanders have levels that can lead to health problems. Private drinking water supplies in Jersey were polluted by the use of firefighting foams containing PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) at the island’s airport, which were manufactured by the US multinational 3M. PFAS, a family of more than 10,000 chemicals, can build up in the body and are linked to conditions such as kidney and bladder cancer, thyroid disease and immune deficiency.

you read that correctly. bloodletting. like leeches.

before you freak out, if you are an American, this is the island of Jersey in the United Kingdom. i wanted to get that out of the way first so i can address this fucking travesty.

since the 1950s, 3M and Dupont have concealed information about the harmful effects of PFAS. the movie Dark Waters with Mark Ruffalo is specifically about Dupont and it's rampant pollution. 3M has been dumping PFAS in rivers and waterways not just in the United States, but across the globe for decades despite knowing with full detail the risks involved to the public. they even managed to intimidate a 3M scientist into staying quiet and pulled her off research into the toxicity of their products when she made the discovery.

at the same time, Jersey authorities were aware of this problem as early as the 1990s but didn’t switch the water source for the affected areas until 2006. they continued using contaminated storage tanks for foam until 2022 despite knowing the risks. this is blatant criminal negligence all around.

this part of the article in particular is so disgusting:

Despite the growing evidence of health effects, compensation remains unlikely. Jersey’s government signed a confidential deal with 3M in 2005, agreeing not to pursue legal claims for £2.6m towards cleanup. Jersey must also assist 3M in defending any future claims. A source who asked not to be identified said Jersey needed 3M’s permission to proceed with blood tests to avoid corporate backlash. “The state got an agreement to do individual blood tests, but not screening, as that could be the first step towards a possible class action lawsuit.”

3M’s gross profits in 2023 totaled over $14 billion and they can’t spend $3 million to clean up a mess that is quite literally responsible for killing people because by doing so, it opens them up to litigation involving every other mess around the globe where they’ve directly poisoned people with PFAS (or continue to poison).

but by far the most prescient part of this is the fact that Jersey's government had to obtain permission from 3M, a US corporation and the suspected perpetrator of a crime that has left at least one of their citizens terminally ill, if they could even do blood tests to check if they were responsible. the oligarchy truly knows nothing of borders.

[speakergame]

Progress Update - 3/4/24

Hello and happy March!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? 😅 Well, I finally have some good news for you this time: I have some actual news!

I'm happy to be able to announce at last that an update is on its way! I’ve still got some assets to make and code cleanup and testing to finish, but I should finally have something to show you soon.

I’ll put a cut at the end of this and go into more detail about the what and why of what I’ve been working on during this long and unintended hiatus, but the tl;dr is that I hope to have an update out by the end of the month, and that said update will break any saves made in Chapter 4. Unfortunate, but unavoidable, since Chapter 4 had to be recoded from the beginning 😞

I just want to thank all of you once again for sticking with me through my extended silence! Especially to my patrons who’ve put up with me putting everything on pause month after month while I dealt with my real life shit, and to everyone who’s sent me kind and supportive messages to let me know Speaker hasn’t been forgotten. It really means a lot to me.

Okay, enough of that sappy shit! I’m gonna get back to work finishing this up 😁 I’ll put out another update later this month once I have a more definite release date.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you’re having a fantastic 2024 so far, and that the rest of the week treats you kindly. See y’all soon! 💙💙💙

(For those who want a more detailed breakdown on what’s been happening and what to expect, hit the readmore)

I won’t go into the personal life stuff I’ve been dealing with this past year that has slowed down my work, but as far as the actual game goes: 

To put it simply, I just wasn’t happy with it. Some of it could be because of how many times I had to reread the same section while I was coding the scenes that would’ve taken place after the last update, but no matter how much I edited or rearranged it, I didn’t like how that scene turned out. There was something… formulaic that had been happening with the way I always laid out scenes, and a bit of stagnation in the story, character, and relationship development that bothered me.

So I rewrote it. And when I still didn’t like it, I rewrote it again. And I still didn’t like it. I thought about scrapping the whole thing on more than one occasion as I struggled to get out of the corner I’d written myself into.

Inspiration finally struck at the beginning of this year, thanks in part to another interactive novel I follow, and I really like the direction I’ve taken it now. 

Instead of the RO split scenes happening where the last one left off, Speaker, Seer, and Gavin are gonna have a chat about Things™ to move the next story arc forward. Then Speaker will get some downtime, by themself at first and then in an extended scene split with the RO of their choosing. 

All the Big Plot Things that were going to happen in Chapter 4 will be moved to Chapter 5 instead, and 4 will be a bit more of a filler episode. A deep breath before the plunge, as it were.

This split won’t just be a quick conversation/reaction from the RO, but a full on different direction for the rest of the chapter based on who you choose. Most of them will involve leaving the house; all of them will involve actual one-on-one time (or one-on-two time, as the case may be) away from the others. And though romance isn’t required, all of them will have the potential to really move the romance forward if you so choose. One or two might even have a lock-in choice (maybe. I’m not 100 percent on that, so don’t hold me to it) 

These scenes won’t be in the next update, because they’re all very complex, but the update will definitely have the Seer chat and at least some of the by-yourself stuff. The update after will have the rest of the alone time stuff (including the clothes/body CC you’ve all been waiting for), and then the one after will start the RO scenes. I think.

I may actually split the RO scenes into separate updates, and let my darlings over at Patreon vote for the order they’re released. That way I can focus on one at a time instead of trying to split my attention six ways at once.

Okay, that’s enough rambling for me today. Time to get back to work! Still got a lot to get done before this is ready, but it’s so close now.

[giglio-nero-e-bianco]

COTL Deathmaid AU

The Lamb's cult has grown to be it's own kingdom, the cult is known by everyone on land and the knowledge that the former Bishops are not only part of it but they're also the most loyal members has angered quite a few heretics.

There's many families that dedicated their whole existence and generations to serving the Bishops, so they have a deep hatred towards the Lamb, they think that they did something to their Bishops to make them so loyal and if they destroy the cult then everything will go back to the way it was before.

So there's many heretic attacks to the cult whenever the Lamb is out on crusades, what they don't count in is the fact that there's someone in charge on the cult when the leader's out: The high priest and the Lamb's husband... Dressed as a maid.

This throws heretics for a loop, they think less of him and attack confidently.

But you see, Narinder is the cult's maid, he's in charge of cleanup, housekeeping, he has to clean the grounds from the disasters the cultists make, from caught spies and from heretics that attack his home, I mean, who else but the maid is going to scrub the blood on the floor left by the heretics before the Lamb comes back?

Here's a few details of the AU:

While it was the Lamb's idea for Nari to wear the maid dress, Narinder is the one who modified it and made it shorter, he says it's to make it more practical, but deep down he knows he just felt bonita in the dress.

The Lamb also gifts a lot of gold to Narinder, but he only uses it on special occasions, wearing only his earrings on a daily basis.

Narinder fell in love when he was still a god, and while angry at the Lamb's betrayal, he still said yes to the marriage proposal given to him the second he appeared in the cult.

The night their daughter Luci's egg was conceived, it was Nari who laid the egg... Even tho he wasn't the bottom that night. But you'll catch the Lamb dead before them going through labor, lol (something something god power so we'll do it like seahorses)

Also, they want to try for another baby in the future, maybe the next time they'll get a little kitten or a baby lamb, but don't get them wrong, they love their daughter with all their soul.

The crown is just a tsundere tbh

They're the one who wanted Narinder and Lamb together in the first place, they actually finds them adorable and loves their little shitten (no one touch her, that's their niece, back off), but they find it funnier to make them angry.

The crown loves to mess with both, third wheels when they start to get all romantic in front of them and often interrupts them to ruin the moment, but when they feel like it, they'll just stand back and see the lovely couple in front of them, maybe they deserve it from time to time.

The Goat basically lives with them, they destroyed their own universe seeking for revenge, only to find out after killing everything that that wasn't gonna bring their kin back, so they went to find what they were missing, traveling to another universe to find this answer.

Only to find their alter version making out with their own version of TOWW.

They lived in the cult for a while, living the results of what their life would've been like if they had taken other choices... And before they knew, they found comfort, familiarity, calmness, they even found love in this version of Shamura, can you believe that? Shamura! That spider was the Goat's TOWW, but here? They were a far kinder version of his own Shamura, just as stunning, a bit easier for their mind to get lost in memories, but they found out that they didn't mind holding their hand while helping them remember.

Shamura is just a silly little guy / gn.

They love to tease their siblings, they always win on board games, they love to read to the kids on the nursery, they show their love to the Goat by trapping them in spider web.

But if you see them acting weird, don't follow them, they may be trapped in a memory of their Bishop days, just let their siblings handle it.

All it took for Leshy to fall in love was a flower, Theon was new to the cult, so Leshy being down bad offered to be the one show him around the place. He was the one who offered Theon to be part of the gardeners and taught him everything he knows about plants. Leshy fell first, Theon fell harder. You'll have a better chance to find Leshy not making a mess than to find the cat not following him around everywhere.

Also, Leshy's flower is indicative of his mood and health.

They have their own abomination baby (Put that Transmasc Leshy drug in my veins)

Heket's been dating Forneus since she was still a Bishop, but hid this from her siblings because she knew they were going to try and embarrass her in front of her wife at any given chance. However they had to take a break when Shamura took Aym and Baal away, Forneus didn't blame Heket for it, but it was hard to look at her.

After the Lamb resurrected the kittens, they dragged her to Forneus to make up and make out, and so they gave it another chance. Heket is a good step-mom to Aym and Baal, she's the parent that stepped up frfr.

Heket rules the kitchen, that's her domain, not even the Lamb has a say there, don't test her or you'll be tomorrow's dinner.

Kallamar, dear Kallamar, a total diva, he loves his jewelry and putting some make-up on when the day looks like it'll be a chill one. Has 6 spouses and he makes sure to give love to every single one of them, he doesn't even have a favorite! I mean, just because Witness Astaroth gets more time and gifts than the rest of spouses doesn't mean they're the favorite, of course not!

Refuses to date cats because he's special, unique and out of the mold that his younger siblings are.

Also, Ratau and Red Fox are ex-boyfriends because I can't live without some toxic yaoi, even less if it's old men yaoi.

[deepdreamnights]

Vidu and the Quest to Make More Toons

So, a ways back I talked about Minmax, but I've been trying out basically all the video generators looking for the tools I need, and low and behold this week I find out I've been accepted into the Vidu Artists program now, wherein I get credits and access to access their cooler features in in exchange for... talking about the tech and how I use it.

Well twist my arm. I shall endeavor to be objective and informative despite free stuff (a challenge my spirit needs practice withstanding if anyone else wishes to test me)

So let's talk Vidu.

(outside of being converted to gif, no animations in this post have been cut or edited)

Also, everyone say hi to Maureen the Lizard Queen, every hero needs an evil queen that really wants in his pteruges, and she's that for TyrannoMax.

Vidu's got a bit more oomph under the hood than MinMax (no shade to MinMax, they're brand new and very promising) and it's way too early to be picking winners when it comes to video.

Anyhow, basic features that are nice include the options to upload start and end frames, options for a 4 or 8 second duration (more about that later), and a cleanup/upscale. Credits line up more or less with seconds. 4 credits for a 4 second clip, 8 for an 8 second, and again at upscale. It's straightforward in a way a lot of services aren't.

Apetomic Pyle, done on the fast settings. (not to shabby still, and it gave him monkey legs which a lot of systems balk at)

If you're on the $30/mo tier, you can choose to do a double-cost "quality" over "speed" option. Thankfully, the artist program gets me access. Since there's not yet a seed option it's hard to do a direct comparison, but the quality is going to be a must if you're doing anything that looks like cel. Much cleaner, much smoother.

(4 and 8 second quality gens)

One of the nicest features is the character reference feature. Basically it's like Midjourney's --cref, but with a very strict adherence to character details.

The above images used reference shots of Maureen and Dr. Underfang, and it got the stripes on Underfang's tie right in basically every gen. That's a ridiculous level of character model adherence and, for my purposes, all but essential.

It did misinterpret Maureen's undertail coloration for a sort of fin or drape, but the shot I used was oddly cropped, and sometimes stuff like that happens with gen AI. Given my measuring stick for errors is the era of animation I'm emulating, whatever does slip through is only going to make it more authentic.

There is a limitation in that character-reference and text-only prompts default to 16:9 presently with no options to adjust, but some room to pan is always handy and most people are going to be outputting for phone and not outdated CRT televisions, so, it's understandable it'd be a lower priority feature for the devs.

Walk cycles! By Saint Eniac it's a miracle!

On the left we have one prompted with TyrannoMax's control art, and on the right we have one using that art as the starting frame (4 and 8 seconds, respectively).

Way More details under the fold.

Vidu likes a hefty prompt.

A lot of detail and evocative language helps, and older prompting tricks like mojo-jojoing important concepts are back. For the Max walk cycles above I used:

1986 vintage cel-shaded cartoon character walk cycle. The orange dinosaur-anthro wearing blue gladiator armor walks toward screen right, the camera tracks him, holding him in center-frame. He completes a full, brisk walk cycles from the side view. He walks boldly, back straight, head high, heroic. His tail sways behind him as he moves. The whole clip has the look and feel of vintage 1986 action adventure cel-animated cartoons. The animation quality is high, with flawless motion and anatomy. animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, studio Ghibli, don bluth. BluRay remaster. flat chroma-key green screen background

The potential for use with my Filmation-inspired technique is readily apparent. Both versions are on-model as much as any two shots in a 1980s action-figure shilling cartoon would be, some minor blurring to clean up in post but nothing serious. It should be pretty easy to extract the needed frames for looping and compositing.

Some Extra Points

There are the usual issues with hands, though more often than not it corrects my four-fingered anthros to having a human five-fingered hand. Buzby Spurlock animation was known for those kinds of inconsistencies, though. So an opening credits video is much less far off than it was at the last post.

It's also generally impressive how well it does with my dinosaur characters. Non-humanoid dinosaurs are difficult for most image generators, much less anthrosaurs in a vintage aesthetic. Vidu has yet to override the character art to give Underfang or Max the Jurassic Park style t-rex jaw, which is something both MJ and Dall-E 3 have trouble with.

Human characters like Kitty Concolor here, much more stable.

As always, clips are curated. I didn't choose my absolute best ones (gotta have something for the videos), and I'm working on a fun series of jank reels across all the generators.

[the-raven-lady]

(Not) The Savior You Long For [Part 1]

[Masterlist] [My Ko-Fi]

Pairing: Night Lord (OC: Elias Rushorik) x serf!Reader [fem]

Song Inspiration: Fear Inoculum - TOOL [YouTube] [Spotify] “Enumerate all that I'm to do / Calculating steps away from you / My own mitosis / Growing through delusion from mania / Exhale, expel / Recast my tale / Weave my allegorical elegy.”

Warnings: Violence, explicit and detailed blood and gore, disgusting and disturbing imagery, terror and dread, fear of death, all of the warnings you should expect hearing the words ‘Night Lord’ bestie this is the “I love murder” legion.

Word Count: 2.8k

Author’s Note: The long awaited Night Lord claiming + womb tattoo series. This part is primarily exposition and setting the scene. Also new dividers? Raven Lady's getting fancy.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Tag List: @egrets-not-regrets @sleepyfan-blog @kit-williams @bleedingichorhearts @bispecsual

@lemon-russ @moodymisty @dedios-of-the-word @pickpocketing-your-gender

The slosh of brown water on the floor splashes away from your washcloth, and you overextend your shoulder trying to catch it before it runs too far. Hissing at the sudden spasm, you sit back on your heels, rolling it out to soothe the ache. You’ve been on your hands and knees for what feels like far too long now, and your joints are starting to protest. It seems the other serf helping you isn’t faring much better. A glance in her direction reveals her sitting like a child, knees bent and feet flat on the floor, using the full weight of her body to scrub between the seams of the floor panels. You shake your head and return to pushing around the rusty water, struggling to remove the grime from the floor. 

The act was pointless. Everyone knew that it wouldn’t be another week before the armory would be so rancid with dried bodily fluids that a cleanup crew would have to scrub it down again, but you knew better than to make a comment on it.

The racket of raucous laughter nearby shoots ice through your veins. You and the other serf instinctually freeze at the sound, and it doesn’t even cross your mind to check on her before abandoning your post, scrambling off of the wet floor in a flash to hide behind a large crate. The cold metal at your back would shield you from view, you know, but the hammering in your chest and shuddering of your breath would be beacons for a bored astartes. Silently, you will yourself to calm down at any cost, holding your breath for so long your lungs begin to burn from the effort.

Their heavy footfalls eventually fade into the distance, off to another area of the ship. Still, you remain in place for another few minutes until you’re as certain as you’ll ever be that they’re gone. You dare not risk yourself getting caught by a group of Night Lords, if experience has taught you anything.

You’ve become jaded to the rags of tanned hide displayed proudly on their armor and the grotesque corpse art that lines the walls of Nightfall. The smell doesn’t even get to you anymore, having been surrounded by abundant death and decay for so long. Everything reeks of it. Even if you did take the time to think on the dreadful feelings that stir when you see them, your body wouldn’t be able to afford losing any more meals with how sparingly you’ve been fed.

What has never left you are the screams. The gush of blood pouring from a weeping laceration. The crack of breaking bones. Desperate cries from the poor targets of the Night Lord’s insatiable appetite for ‘entertainment’, sobs and begs for their lives— No, no, no, please! I’ll do anything, please, just let me go–!— eventually turning into pleas to be put out of their misery, shown mercy, as their captors only laugh and croon. No mercy flowed through them; they were never quick with their kills. It was all a sadistic game to feed off of the tears and terror for as long as they could. The Night Lords wouldn’t stop their fun until their playthings had been bled dry– literally or figuratively.

You peek out from around the crate, surveying the dim armory. Empty. 

The serf you had been working with was missing as well, likely sequestered off somewhere for safety. The utter silence of the room causes your gut to tremble with anxiety. It was a dangerous game to be alone: lone serfs were prime prey, and you by no means wanted to make yourself an easy target. 

With no small amount of horror, you realize it’s outside of your power to do anything about it. Your lungs deflate, and you give yourself a false reassurance before returning to your station on the floor, taking up the soiled wash rag and wringing it out into the water bucket. Pieces of slimy rehydrated skin pass over your fingers. You return to your efforts with the intent to finish as quickly as possible. The desire to flee to your cot is all-encompassing, driving you to redouble your efforts and get the job done just passably enough that you won’t be killed for it. 

A thought stops you, though. Where had your companion gone? It’s not that you particularly cared for her safety (you didn’t know her and caring is a luxury you could not afford), but to be gone without a trace was peculiar. You don’t remember hearing her footsteps, but you had also been preoccupied with yourself at the time.

You look around the empty room for anything out of place. Nothing appears to have moved since you last checked. Her brush and bucket are still on the floor, right where she had left them. You had seen her put them down there, right?

…Hadn’t you?

You dismiss the thought. She was probably still hiding somewhere, and for that, you couldn’t fault her. There was no loyalty amongst serfs of the Eighth, just an understanding that it was safer together than apart. Wanting to determine how much longer you would be here, you observe the areas the other serf had already worked.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The surfaces of the floors, storage units, and walls were visibly much cleaner than the rest, but she had done a horrible job wiping things down as she went. The steady dripping of a poorly dried surface unpleasantly fills your ears, slowly becoming the only thing you can focus on. You frown. It was amazing how you could begin to miss the ever-present dull thrum of the ship’s electrical systems when it was covered by something even slightly more annoying. 

Drip. Drip. Drip.

You shake your head and get back to working around the floor grate at the center of the room. Its placement makes it convenient to push the disgusting wash water into. As expected, the seams around the drain are compacted with hair and dried flesh, and you have to soak the mass to begin to scrape it free. The spongy texture is a nightmare to work with, but it wouldn’t be such a chore if you had some help.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Annoyed, you decide you’ve had enough of it. Water sloshes in the bucket when you wrench your washcloth to go wipe down whatever it is she had left unfinished, rising up to your feet. With some luck, you’d figure out where she had run off to. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if she had abandoned you altogether, leaving you to finish the task and fend for yourself.

A cursory glance over the bench, lockers, and racks reveals nothing out of the ordinary. They were passably clean and– perplexingly– completely dry. You ran a hand along them to be certain and, surely enough, it came away much the same. Odd. You were certain that you would find something. Continuing your search leaves more questions than answers.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Checking around a wall of storage cabinets, you carefully inspect each of the gaps for signs of water or some other liquid that could be leaking. You find nothing. 

At the end of the lockers, a shadow dances in the dim candlelight. Fear grips you for just a moment as you focus in on it, but it is much too small to be an astartes. At the realization, the chill in your blood is replaced with a simmer of frustration, and you stomp down the hall towards the figure.

Your eyes lock with the other serf’s. “Are you just hiding to–?”

You stop. It appears she had been too preoccupied with hanging from a bracket on the wall to come to your aid. The side of her neck is torn open with loose strips of muscle and connective tissue fanning over her shoulder. A glistening metal finial of Nostraman design pokes ornately through her spine and sternum, partially coagulated blood pooling at the tip.

Drip. 

Drip. 

Drip.

“About time,” a voice spits.

You’re suddenly dragged by the back of your robes, hoisted up into the air by an unseen force. The scream that leaves you tears at your vocal cords, but it’s choked off by the fabric of your neckline biting into your throat. Thrashing your head from side to side, you catch sight of a colorless face cackling, bloodied lips curled into a grin. You desperately kick your legs in an attempt to free yourself.

“Feisty little pet, aren’t we?” he asks. The Night Lord turns you around easily as you struggle, splitting red as he talks. “Good. Your friend was far more boring.”

You rake at the fabric around your neck, trying to alleviate the pressure preventing oxygen from getting to your head. The action only makes him laugh harder. “Oh, how precious. Poor little serf can’t breathe?” He tilts his head as he taunts you, and a cruel glint crosses his eye.

“How about I help with that?”

A half turn and your back slams against the wall, knocking the wind out of your lungs. Your gasp of pain ignites a malicious glee within your captor, a row of bloodied yellow teeth peeking from behind his lips. At least like this, pinned to the wall, you have the ability to catch your breath, ragged and shallow. Each rough huff eases the ache in your diaphragm.

A hand roughly snaps your head forward, forcing you to focus on the face at your front. He suffocates you with his presence, leaning in far too close. “You know,” he starts, “I had been just about ready to walk in there and drag you out myself.” Despite the melodic quality of his voice, you only feel discomfort at the astartes’s words as he uningenuously laments. “I could only stare at my masterpiece for so long.” 

Briefly, your eyes linger on the silhouetted corpse of the other chapter serf. You hadn’t even heard her scream. Hadn’t heard the attack. Hadn’t heard the bones crack when she was unceremoniously mounted on the wall. You had managed to miss every detail.

…Or your captor had been skilled enough to mask them. You shiver.

He follows your gaze, scoffing when it lands on the body. “Your buddy is as pretty as she is stupid, trying to run all the way back to the hole you serfs call home.” The image of the other serf running down the hallway and getting caught as you did passes through your mind, and you grimace at the thought of whatever game she may have suffered through to end up where she is. The sing-song cadence of his voice draws your attention back to the Night Lord in front of you, “You humans fall so easily to your emotions. Not the brightest of you lot I’ve had, but certainly the best bait.”

Bait. The word is sour in the air.  

“So unwilling to have fun–” 

She had just been bait. 

“–but you’re eager to play, aren’t you?”

You were the game.

Your blood runs cold, eyes widening as you process everything you had missed or ignored up until now. Black blurs the edges of your vision. “Oh, don’t be like that,” the Night Lord shakes his head, but you know better than to believe it. This is exactly what he wanted. “We can be great friends—” 

Self-preservation takes a hold of you. Your adrenalized brain screams to overcome, persist. In an act of desperation, your hands shoot out before you, and you manage to jab your fingers into his dark eyes and claw. The astartes snarls, ducking away and dragging you with him off of the wall as he stumbles back. With a shake of his head, he regains his senses. He growls.

“You stupid bitch!”

The Night Lord tosses you like a ragdoll, uncaring of how your head impacts the nearby bench before hitting the floor. The world spins around you. “I’ll gut you like a pig for that, you impudent rat!” he roars, ceramite boots stomping closer. His eyes are wild, red around his enlarged pupils from where you’ve managed to burst blood vessels. Uncoordinated, you scramble backwards on the floor, staring up at the approaching astartes in terror. 

This is it. This is where you die: surrounded by filth, hyperventilating on the floor as a pissed off Night Lord tortures you within an inch of your life until you perish from the stress. All for one measly act of courage. Your back hits a wall as he rounds the bench, and you find yourself unable to watch any longer as fate unfolds before you. You curl up in a ball, turning away and protecting your head with your arms, then wait for the inevitable killing strike.

And wait.

…And wait.

But the blow never comes– no white-hot stab of pain, no sting of a kick to the ribs, no blunt ache of broken bones– just a sickeningly sodden crunch of flesh and bone. A wet spray paints your back. Your tattered robes easily soak up the warm liquid, causing you to flinch from the sudden moisture. Even through the rush of confusion and fear, it doesn’t take you long to realize what it is. The scent is unmistakable.

Your heartbeat pounds in your ears as you struggle to catch up with your surroundings. By all means, you should be dead: the newest addition to a Night Lord’s skin cloak, or at the very least in excruciating pain. But you aren’t. 

Tentatively, trembling, you withdraw your head from the cage of your arms, turning just enough to peer behind you. You gasp at the grisly sight. 

Crimson rivulets of blood drip down over massive navy blue gauntlets. A single enucleated eye dangles from the gore between its digits. The terminator, more mountain than man, holds the unmoving body of your persecutor up by what remains of his cranium and neck. It is little more than ribbons of meat now.

Bile rises in your throat. You struggle to force it back down. 

Bolted armor caked in blood– both dried and fresh, sunken deep into the recesses of the ceramite plating– gives off an aura of wrought iron and decay. The metallic tang permeates the air around him, hanging heavy in the poorly ventilated armory. His scarred skin looks sickly pale. Greasy. Dehydrated. Aside from deep black eyes that watch you as a predator observes prey, the most prominent feature on his face is a wicked scar: a tear in his upper lip that exposes maxilla and sharp teeth alike. The shock of black hair on his head still has the impression of his helmet on it.

Without so much as a sound, he had come up from behind and grabbed the smaller Night Lord by the face, yanking them back into the crux of his chestplate and pauldron with enough force to shatter the hardened skull of an astartes. 

The massive marine throws the limp corpse of his former brother aside. The impact of metal on metal causes your ears to ring as a thousand pounds of lifeless ceramite strikes the wall, immediately followed by a disgusting wet slop of pulverized brain matter spilling onto the floor. If you had been on the Nightfall for any less time, you would have screamed. The shock almost prevents you from registering that you’re being spoken to.

“Get up.”

The terminator’s voice is that of rolling thunder and coarse gravel, resonating deep within your chest and leaving your heart fluttering with trepidation. His words had been spoken no louder than conversational, and yet they had you shooting up to your feet as if they had been shouted. Your wobbly legs nearly give out beneath you from how quickly you rise from the floor, croaking a shaky, “Yes, my lord.”

He removes his helmet from where it is magnetized to his belt with a click, placing it down on the bench you had been cowering behind. The tusks on it are as long as your forearm and nearly as thick. A faint decal of a skull is painted around the red lenses, chipped and fading but almost cartoonishly cute in contrast to the rags of flesh and weathered bones decorating the rest of his armor. 

The new Night Lord doesn’t seem to find it nearly as amusing as you do. He pushes the helmet in your direction, and you clamber to catch it before it hits the ground, not wanting to incur his wrath by dropping it so soon after he had just saved your life. The metal is heavy in your arms, tusks dangerously close to puncturing your throat.

“Clean it,” he barks. 

You grab your wash rag from the floor and shake it out. You do not have to be told twice.

[Part 2]

[signedkoko]

Ello there Koko! Welcome back! 💙 I'd like to request Sir Pentious with a reader who's basically his little evil henchman/sidekick. I don't see much writing for the bastard but I honestly love him so I'd love to see more! It could be platonic or romantic, either way is good!

Anything At All [Platonic]

In which you are Pentious' assistant, and hes been requested to help the V's. Genderneutral Reader.

Song - The Party Line by Belle and Sebastian

Everyone could use an assistant, especially the overlords of hell, because they had all kinds of important things to do. Menial tasks requiring trust should be left to someone who can act as the right-hand man. Or at least, that was what Pentious always told himself.

None of the other overlords really had a sidekick, assistant, or whatever you choose to call them; they were all servants.

Loyalty was the first thing you had to achieve when finding an assistant, but who could ever be loyal? Everyone down here had something they'd give it all up for. Thus, Pentious was constantly ridiculed for choosing to trust someone who could easily overthrow him given the right opportunity.

What they didn't consider was that you'd give up everything and anything for him, but they didn't need to know that.

Most of what you did was surveillance. While Pentious much preferred to bury himself in strange inventions with grandiose ideals, you handled all the real work that might actually get him the title he so desired. While he trampled on his own reputation, you fixed it and elevated your own.

Pentious was known, but mostly because it was next to yours. Even so, you hated the spotlight because it took it away from him. Pentious was like a mascot; he was perfect at being in the public eye and had the confidence of a lion, except without claws or teeth. It was all so unlike you, so you would rather support him.

Besides, it was at least a little amusing to watch your friend go all out, despite not having all that much to back him up. He was always especially hostile to Alastor, to the point where you knew not to be anywhere near him since it always ended so badly.

It was another cleanup day, and after being totaled by the radio demon, Pentious was as antsy as ever to restore his ship to its prior glory.

" Pentious? Do you ever think about moving on from him? " You'd always make sure to ask after their scuffles, hoping the answer would change.

" Of courssse not! That would be admitting defeat! " 

You sighed, a small laugh hidden in the veiled disappointment. It was still nice to see that he was so optimistic.

Pentious is extremely smart when it comes to weapons, engineering, and the sciences—he was anything and everything but street smart.

You'd prepared a meal for the two of you to share, asking questions that would help you navigate the next plan, and so you had an idea of what you'd need to round up. You loved hearing his next idea—what the new gun would be, how he figured he could defeat one of the strongest overlords of hell, and so on.

Unfortunately, your lunch was interrupted by your phone ringing, which you pulled up to see—the very face of technology himself. Before you could answer, the call started anyway.

" Tch. "

" Heyyy this is Sir whateveryoucallhim's assistant, right? Yeah, nice to meet you. Listen. I have to talk to Pentious. " You couldn't even get a word in before Pentious lept forward, stealing your phone from you and pushing you away.

" Its finally happening! Wait outside!! " Pentious urged you to the door, though the moment you were out, you pressed your ear to the door, trying to catch the conversation.

" Yess of course! It was a sssplendid idea speaking to the likes of I! I'll be on it straight away! " You figured the call ended because there was no more speaking.

When he opened the door, you almost fell forward, catching yourself so as not to make it seem like you'd been trying to listen in. Not like it mattered, because in a moment, Pentious was sharing every detail of the conversation with the excitement of a kid who got unlimited candy.

" Infiltrating the Hazbin Hotel? I don't know... It sounds like he just wants you to do his dirty work. Besides, doesn't Alastor work there? Won't he kick you out or catch on? " 

" Come now; we cannot wassste any time! " He hadn't listened to a word you said; he was already on his way to set course for the hotel.

As worried as you were, maybe the hotel would be kind to Pentious. If all went to hell, you could only hope the princess would have mercy on him.

At the very least, you urged him to wait a day so you could prepare to come along with him and suggested he leave his technology on the ship so as not to alert anyone in the hotel that he may be hostile.

While most may not recognize you, Alastor certainly would, so you were sure to leave any and all weapons back at home. Just in case, right?

While you dressed more cleanly in softer and more welcoming clothes, Pentious didn't change a thing despite your protests. He waltzed right up to the door with no care and was immediately greeted by the princess's significant other shoving a spear in his face.

Stepping forward, you caught the edge of her spear and moved it up, just barely missing Pentious's face. You smiled in warning.

" Sorry for him; he is just so excited to stay at your hotel. As am I. " You looked down at Pentious, signaling for him to get up.

Thankfully, Charlie was quick to grab him and drag him on in, which you followed behind, nervously shuffling past the girl who'd just tried to kill Pentious.

Unfortunately, another wall blocked you, as the one and only pornstar Angeldust was quick to shove the wannabe overlord out the door and into you. 

" Wait wait wait, are we really letting the guy who tried to kill us six hours ago in? And who the fuck are you? " The spider was extremely tall and still managed to tower over Pentious by a fraction.

You opted to stay silent, amused at how Pentious managed to pull himself through this one. Even so, the team did seem interested in your appearance; they'd never seen Pentious with anyone before.

For a moment, Charlie turned to look at Vaggie, and seconds later, the woman seemed to slouch in defeat.

" Whatever, not like hes harmless with or without the way machine. " Pentious pouted at her words, and you chuckled.

" Ooooh yes, yes, yes! Thank you so much! Right this way, you two, it is so exciting to have our first official guests!! " She seemed a lot more focused on Pentious as she pulled him through the corridors, showing off every aspect of the hotel. In a way, she reminded you a lot of Pentious.

You could already tell Pentious was going to be easily distracted from his mission, though before you could remind him, a stark static filled the air.

" Oh! Alastor! Our property manager: You've met our newest guests, Sir Pentious, and-- " 

" Ah yes! Hell's best underground assistant, it is such a pleasure. " Alastor took your hand into both of his, shaking it with a tilted glance." Oh! And the one who ruined my coat! I definitely remember you now. "

Still flabbergasted by the radio demons approach to you, you were frozen in place, Pentious anxiously shifting when Alastor's tone shifted between the two of you.

"Best assistant? You flatter me. " You tried to take the attention back, looking to the princess for some kind of relief.

" This seems like a, uhm- perfect opportunity for a lesson on apologizing! "

Author's Note - This is a fic exchange with @sillypenguincats ! You can read their Alastor x Reader here. Thank you for requesting, working with me, and being so kind 🖤

Word Count - 1,243

[aris-has-a-paracosm]

ArisArisArisAris Aris Aris please I'm begging you canwe see wips for Deepfrost drawing

please please please can we be permitted a tiny glance inside the brain of tumblr artist aris-has-a-paracosm?

Yes can do! <3 Here’s a little bit about my art process for the Deepfrost art :)

So here’s a screenshot from the sketch. (It wasn’t completely done at the time, but it’s the only screenshot I still have of that part.)

I sketch in any color other than black so I can more easily see my lineart later, and red is often what I default to. I also had two-point perspective grid lines set up, but I didn’t really adhere to them. As you can see, DF’s face did undergo a little bit of editing before the lineart happened. I opted to go for a toothy grin rather than the open-mouthed smile he originally had here.

Speaking of lineart:

Regardless of what brush I use, I always make sure that my lineart connects neatly to itself for each part of every drawing (separate lineart layers for each component.) There’s no gaps anywhere, so it makes it to where I can easily use an inverse selection to put a base color layer directly beneath. My base layers are always in gray going from lighter in the background to darker in the foreground.

Next up was rendering the background:

This is- … this is definitely a “rest of the heckin’ owl” kinda thing XD. The buildings were in three layers with the windows drawn in vertical lines and then erased in horizontal lines.

Here’s a gif to show that? Please excuse my atrocious Timelapse quality :’)

Once the windows were all on there, I used alpha lock on the layer and then just randomly recolored windows based on reference photos of cities at night. Once the windows were done, I used some airbrushing for ambiance.

Next up was the base colors for the foreground:

Here, I was mainly focused on the outfit and ice detail. All of this was important to get the way I wanted pre-render, and absolutely nothing about lighting was considered here.

Afterwards was DF’s rendering:

I had two separate shadow layers and one light layer, keeping my light source and his three-dimensionality in mind the whole time. Here was where I also did lineart recoloring and cleanup.

And then all I had left was to render the ice, the rooftop, and add the snow! I don’t fully know how to explain this part either, but I primarily used a soft airbrush and a medium nozzle spray paint brush as well as an eraser in both of those settings as well.

So yeah! That’s the basics of my art process! I like to joke that when I draw, my brain lives in my hands so I don’t think too much about the process while drawing. I had a lot of fun with this and hope you liked seeing the process :D

[homoquartz]

okee dokee here's some video game recs!! indie/small studio only

these games are ALL top marks for me. there's none that i'm like, meh about. they do have some issues probably, but it's outshined by how fun and memorable they are. i'm happy to expand on any of them.

exploration games

what remains of edith finch

slime rancher

firewatch

subnautica

paradise killer

journey

strategy/puzzle games

overland

dorfromantik

unpacking

potionomics

the witness (recommended only if you're not a completionist - one of the puzzles is timed to take like 2 irl hours)

grim fandango

portal 1 and 2

farming sims

stardew valley of course

my time at sandrock (early access)

narrative games

disco elysium

i was a teenage exocolonist

little misfortune

tacoma

the stanley parable

other

hades

viscera cleanup detail

psychonauts 1 and 2

night in the woods

soma

undertale

left 4 dead

life is strange (first game only)

bonus (big publisher but old so people forgot it): bully / canis canem edit

[siblingshuffle]

Sibling Shuffle: Roll With The Punches

Hey guys! Sorry for the wait!

Context: this takes place a little bit after Megaman 7. Roll’s home, now, and since Piano at most messed up the organization on their computer and/or toppled a chair (just to appease Bass), they didn’t have to do much in the way of cleanup at the lab.

LORE: Roll, like Rock, doesn’t want to hurt anyone. That said, Roll does threaten Wily at Buster-Point, much like Rock in the original.

To be fair, Roll had had a REALLY rough day. I mean, first Wily attacked the city again, forcing her to fight again. Then, she met someone she thought was her friend, and, while it was a little bit annoying that Blues and Dr. Light didn’t seem to trust her, she could understand their concerns to some extent. Then Piano got hurt, so, because of course she does, Roll sends Piano to Dr. Light - her dad had always fixed her when she needed fixing; he could help Piano! But then, all of a sudden, no one is answering when she calls. Roll returns home in a panic, and while (thankfully) her family is okay, just locked out of the computer room - and Piano turns out to have been a Wilybot with intentions to infiltrate Light Labs, steal some blueprints, and use them to destroy her.

Roll had thought at least she and Rock wouldn’t be fighting alone this time. Instead, it was another trick, and Roll kinda rapid-fire cycled through the stages of grief over her & Piano’s (now former) friendship. With Wily gleefully rubbing salt in that fresh wound, after everything he did - to the city, to her friends, her brothers, her father, and everything and everyone she cared about - she hit her breaking point.

Anger can be pretty dangerous. It can make you want, do, or say things you wouldn’t usually want, do, or say. And in that moment, Roll didn’t just want Wily to stop.

She wanted him to never put anyone through that all again.

Once Roll had calmed down a bit, though, her earlier dark desire to pull the trigger scared her a bit. I mean, she doesn’t want to hurt people. She’s not malicious. Why had she gotten so mad? What if she had pulled the trigger? Was it even possible for her to, under those circumstances?

The other Lights could tell that she was bothered by what happened, but they were letting her come to them. Though Rock started doing things that comforted him in hopes that Roll would receive that feeling, Dr. Light let her know that she could talk to him a few times, and Blues gave her space (because he would want space if something happened that left him that shaken).

When Roll eventually did seek one of them out, it was Blues. His function of just "being himself" implies (at least to him) “make your own choices,” because you can’t be your own person of you’re not making your own choices. For this reason, he is well-versed in loopholes. (He sees them as him fulfilling his purpose by doing what he wants despite what he is told to do). If anyone could reassure her about whether or not she could’ve actually done it, it would probably be him.

————— Additional Trivia (& Details):

I was on Pinterest for some pose references and I saw this cute skirt with a kinda overalls build and heart-shaped pockets. I thought it was adorable and immediately wanted to draw Roll wearing something similar. And, like I said I might, I gave her the scarf to match her brothers!

I looked at the events of game 7 and asked what could’ve possibly driven someone - especially someone like Roll (or Rock) - to the point where they are actively threatening this man’s life when they have never done so before. The TLDR of what I came up with? Roll was trying to scare him, but also wanted to fire because of all the accumulated stress. However, the fact that he wasn’t putting a human in immediate life-threatening danger meant that she couldn’t fire no matter how much she wanted to in that moment.

Blues’s alternate outfit is inspired by his other 2 canon-to-something casual outfits. Mostly the one from Rockman: Yomigaeru Blues, but also a bit the Megamix one. (Not that much of his Megamix one, but kinda.)

Blues isn’t lying. The first law (or, the way they were programmed with it at least) requires the human to be putting another human in active life-threatening danger in order to justify breaking it. It’s the strictest of the 3 laws.

Roll’s nickname. One thing I noticed I kept doing when thinking up scenes was Blues occasionally nicknaming friends & family members. So far, I’ve come up with “Rolly-Poly” for Roll, “Rocky Road” for Rock, and the much-less-creative “Tem/Temp” for Tempo.

(To note is the fact that Rhythm does the same thing when I am thinking of interactions with her, but her nicknames are more poking fun at someone. Like in my head, she calls Rock “Blue” and Blues “Red” just because she is an instigator of chaos and thinks it’s funny.)

You guys have to tell me whether or not you like the alt outfits or not.

[harpersdragons]

New fic!

Terrified of the Weather ('Cause I See You When it Rains)

Words: 2824

Description: Dick has a flashback, and he’s forced to confide in Bruce about something from his past

TW: Mention of past rape, dissociation, panic attacks

The minute Dick jerks awake, shaky, sweating, and still feeling phantom hands crawling over his skin, he knows it’s going to be a bad day.

The thing is, it’s been years. He knows how to cope, knows better than to go out on patrol when this happens. Especially with the rain pounding on his window, he can’t take any chances.

He resigns himself to locking himself away for however long this…episode lasts. It’s not the first time, it won’t be the last.

He can’t exactly remember the details of the dream, but he can guess. There’s only one dream that leaves him feeling like this when he wakes up, whether he remembers it or not.

Right. First thing, he needs a shower. And he needs to not listen to the rain pounding outside.

He forces himself up, and sets music blasting as loud as he dares through his apartment. His neighbors can deal with it.

His breath comes in shaky gasps as he drifts through the apartment. He stops in the kitchen, grabbing two ice cubes and leaning against his counter. He keeps one in his hand and places the other under his tongue.

He loses track of how long he stands there, but the ice has long since melted, and his breathing has finally calmed down.

Attempting to take a shower sends him stumbling straight back to the kitchen to repeat the process.

The second he felt the water sliding over his skin and plastering his hair to head, he lost it. All forward process to calm his racing heart, to get his mind back in his body, gone.

He’s not overly panicky, mentally at least. Physically, he knows he has all the symptoms of a panic attack. Mentally, though, it’s quite the opposite. His thoughts are disjointed, sluggish, and he’s not fully present.

His knees give out before he makes it to the freezer. He braces his back against the cabinets, leans his head against the wall, and drifts.

He’s dragged back to awareness by a shrill ringing sounding through his apartment. The rain is still coming down, but it’s marginally lighter outside.

It takes him a minute, but he recognizes the ringing.

His Justice League communicator.

Guess his plan to isolate himself just crashed and burned.

He groans as he forces himself to stand, muscles stiff and joints aching.

The shrieking only cuts off when he flips the communicator on, displaying the message.

An all hands on deck summoning to Gotham.

Fuck.

If Bruce is calling the whole League to Gotham, he expects the problem to be bad

He can’t avoid his family there, and worse, he doesn’t think he can pretend everything's fine around his coworkers.

Everyone will be there.

His hands grip the device, knuckles white from the tension.

He responds to the message, then drops it on the bed.

He can do this.

He has to do this.

Everything washes away as he slips his suit on, adheres his mask to his face, and tries not to think about what happened on that rooftop, in the rain, in his suit.

It’s not the same suit, but it fits the same, it has roughly the same design. It’s just similar enough to trick his brain.

With a final shaking breath, he secures his belt around his hips, and ducks out his window.

Into the rain.

*********************

Bruce tries to focus on the battle, and not the fact that his son didn’t respond to the emergency summons, but it’s getting increasingly difficult as the battle winds down. They’ve mostly dealt with the problem—a small band of aliens thought they could take over Earth—by now, and it really wasn’t that difficult of a battle. There’s a few stragglers left, and then it’s just cleanup.

By the time Nightwing finally shows up, Bruce has worked himself into a minor panic. Not that anyone else could notice, considering he’s channeling it into punching the invaders.

He switches to a private comm channel with Dick, “Nice of you to finally show up.”

“Sorry, I was dealing with…something.” There’s something off in Dick’s voice, but Bruce can’t quite place it. It sounds shakier than normal.

“Hm. Get to work.”

There’s no response, other than a quiet click showing Dick either turned his comm off or switched to the JL frequency.

Bruce grits his teeth and switches back to the public comm channel. It’s silent for now, as they all wrap up subduing the last couple creatures.

Dick seems fine—at least from afar—flipping around and fighting like normal, but Bruce can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong.

When the battle’s over, Bruce goes to find his son. Something’s wrong, and he needs to find out what.

*********************

Dick lands on a roof when the battle’s over, watching everyone take a breather before starting cleanup.

He probably wasn’t needed, he showed up late and it was practically already over. Bruce is going to have a lecture already planned about his tardiness, and Dick contemplates running back to his apartment before it happens.

Just as he aims his grapple off the roof, the snap of a cape and soft thud of boots stops him in his tracks.

“Going somewhere?” Bruce growls, stalking closer to him.

“Away from whatever trainwreck this conversation is going to be.” Dick aims for a quip, but comes up short. His voice is too shaky, he’s too on edge. The rain is still coming down, sticking his suit to his skin, making him want to run, but there’s nowhere he can run.

“Too bad. What were you ‘dealing’ with earlier that led you to be a whole hour late for a call?”

“It was personal, B. Don’t worry about it.”

Bruce doesn’t need to know he’s spent most of the day dissociated or panicking.

“You were late. That makes it my business. Do you know what could have happened if we needed you and you weren’t here?”

“But you didn’t! You were fine without me.”

“You had no way of knowing that. If you can’t remember the basics of responding to calls promptly, you will come back home where I can make sure you can.”

“I’m an adult! You can’t—”

“Quiet! I’m not—”

Quiet, mi amor callado

Dick jumps as a glimpse of yellow flits past the corner of his eye, breath coming in harsh pants.

He can’t move, he can’t move, he can’t—

Something grabs him, grip harsh on his arm.

Dick jumps, breaking the grip and lashing out.

Whoever it is tugs him closer and wraps their arms around his chest, pinning him in place.

No no no no no no—

“Nightwing…” the voice fades in and out, his body is buzzing, he can’t feel anything—

*********************

Bruce watches as Dick’s breathing gets harsher, and he takes a step back towards the edge of the roof.

Eyes widening, Bruce lunges forward and grabs his elbow, trying to tug him away from the edge. Dick lashes out, breaking Bruce’s grip and lunging at him.

Bruce dodges the hits—they’re sloppy, uncoordinated, and not like Dick’s fighting style at all—and pins his arms, wrapping his own around Dick’s chest. Dick keeps thrashing, muttering “no” under his breath.

“Nightwing, you need to breathe. You’re going to hurt yourself like this.” Bruce spins them both, aiming Dick at the open space of the roof, not the edge, and lets him go. Dick stumbles away until he hits an A/C unit, and collapses to the ground. Bruce follows, kneeling down in front of his son. He makes sure he’s not overcrowding him, then reaching forward and tapping the side of his mask. Dick jerks back as he does, banging his head on the A/C unit.

Bruce winces, but backs off a little more.

Dick’s eyes are crazed, wide and mostly unseeing, gaze focused over Bruce’s shoulder.

“Don’t…don’t touch me.” Dick’s voice is barely audible, and Bruce’s heart breaks a little.

“I’m not, son. No one’s touching you. Can you hear me?” Bruce fights to keep his voice even, to provide a grounding point for his panicking son.

Dick barely nods his head.

“Good, that’s good. Can you follow my pattern? Inhale for six seconds, hold for four, exhale for six. You can do it, I know you can.” Bruce watches as he tries, but doesn’t quite manage to get a full breath. “That’s ok, try again.”

Dick keeps trying until he gets a full breath, and Bruce leads him through the rest of the breathing exercise a few times.

When Dick’s breathing is more even. Bruce turns his talking to more mundane things, what Damian did at school, how he hasn’t seen Tim or Jason in a while, Alfred’s disapproval of Bruce working himself too hard this week.

“Is..is she actually here?” Dick interrupts him quietly, eyes flicking over the rooftop.

Bruce frowns, glancing around him. “No one’s here, chum. It’s just us. You’re safe.”

The tension in Dick’s shoulders releases, and he closes his eyes and rests his head against the A/c unit behind him.

“It’s just us, sweetheart. Just breathe.” Bruce sees a few tears leaking over the edge of the mask, chest constricting at the sight. He wants to hold his son, wants to comfort him, but he won’t move unless Dick says it’s ok.

He just feels useless sitting here and doing nothing.

After several long moments, Dick finally speaks again. “Can I…can I have a hug?”

“Of course.” Bruce opens his arms and moves a bit closer, just as Dick launches himself at him. Bruce’s breath leaves him all at once, but he wraps his arms around his son. Dick buries his face in Bruce’s shoulder, body shaking.

“I can’t get away from it.” Dick’s voice breaks.

“From what, chum?”

His voice is small as he responds. “The rain.”

Bruce is dragging his cape over Dick without a second thought, shielding him from rain as much as possible. Dick relaxes a little more, tucking himself as far under Bruce’s cape as he can.

“You want to go home?”

“Not my apartment.”

“The Batmobile is waiting, come with me.”

Dick nods against his shoulder. “Please.”

Bruce detaches his cape and tucks it more securely around Dick, then stands smoothly and heads to where the Batmobile is waiting.

He sets it to autopilot so he can keep holding Dick. The drive passes quickly, with Dick shivering against him as Bruce runs his hands through his hair. At some point he thinks his son fell asleep, and Bruce doesn’t hesitate to carry him again when they arrive in the cave.

Bruce sets him down on a couch Dick begged to have added to the cave, then rouses him gently.

“Go change, bud, then we can go watch a movie or something.” He gently prods Dick in the direction of the bathrooms, following so he can change himself.

A little later, they both head up to the home theater. Bruce tucks Dick into his side and wraps a weighted blanket around him, and Alfred brings up tea and cookies. His son has been nearly unresponsive since he woke up in the cave, so Bruce just waits. He presses a cup of tea into his hands and turns on the Lion King for background noise.

*********************

Dick comes back to himself slowly. He doesn’t remember the drive back to the manor, or changing out of his suit and drying off. He vaguely remembers being carried, then being guided upstairs and having a weighted blanket wrapped around him.

A movie plays in the background, and he tunes into that first, as the warmth from his cup slowly seeps into his hands. Bruce’s hand brushes through his hair, and he hums and pushes closer to his father. They sit in silence for a while longer, before Bruce finally breaks it.

“Do you want to talk about it now or later?”

“Preferably never.” His voice scratches at his throat, rough from disuse.

Bruce sighs, “I think you need to talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be me, but I can talk to Dinah and see if she could talk to you, or if she has recommendations for someone.”

“I already have a therapist, I don’t need another one. My…episodes…aren’t usually this bad.”

And they’re really not. He’s usually on edge for a day, maybe a little panicky, but he can usually ground himself before they get this bad. Today was worse because he pushed himself too far.

“You have a therapist?” Bruce is surprised, understandably since Dick doesn’t talk about going to therapy with anyone in his family.

“Mhm. Since…” He pauses, and clears his throat. “Since what happened, happened. Wally pushed me towards it. Said how I was coping wasn’t healthy.”

Bruce hums, hand still brushing through Dick’s hair. “I’m glad you have someone to talk to.” The words come out stilted.

“You guys don’t need to be burdened with my problems. I’m handling it.”

“Are you?”

Dick stiffens, pushing away and setting his cup down. “Yes.” Dick forces the word out. “I would have been fine tonight if you hadn’t fucking triggered me again.”

It’s not fair to Bruce, he doesn’t know Dick’s triggers. And honestly, ‘quiet’ isn’t a trigger most of the time. Dick’s been better! But tonight, tonight he couldn’t handle it. And it’s not Bruce’s fault, but the man is so insufferable.

“I can’t avoid triggers if I don’t know what they are!” Bruce huffs, “Besides, it was a genuine question. Are you handling it? Because your head wasn’t in it tonight.”

Dick deflates, leaning against the opposite side of the couch. “Normally, I’m fine. Today was just a bad day and I pushed myself too hard by forcing myself to respond to the call.”

He wraps his arms around his knees. “Remember when I was fighting Blockbuster?”

“Of course, you never told me how it ended.”

He didn’t, but he’s sure Bruce looked into it.

“Cat—” Dick chokes on her name. “She killed him. Told me to back up, and shot him in the head. I still remember the feeling of being covered in his blood and brain matter. It was raining…” He takes a deep breath. “I should have pushed her off, I could have, but I said no, B, I swear I did.” He’s crying by the end of it, words becoming frantic as he avoids Bruce’s gaze. “I—I can’t handle the rain now. I do my best to avoid patrolling when it rains, I couldn’t even put my suit on without panicking for months.”

“Dickie…” Bruce sounds broken. Dick flinches at his voice.

He should shut up, Bruce doesn’t need to deal with it, he doesn’t need Dick’s problems. He shouldn’t have said anything at all. He should—

“I can see you spiraling from here.” Bruce cuts his thoughts off. “Can I hold you?” His voice is watery, but Dick doesn’t look up. He doesn’t want to see the evidence of what his confession is doing to his father.

He nods, and Bruce tugs him back into his arms. His grip is loose enough that Dick could break it if he wants, but strong enough it still feels grounding.

“I’m sorry that ever happened, sweetheart. You’re safe now.”

“I…I see her, sometimes. When it rains, or when I’m especially on edge. She haunts me, even now.”

Bruce presses a kiss to his hair, one hand rubbing up and down his back. “I’ve got you, chum.”

Dick grips the back of Bruce’s shirt, something in him finally breaking and tears stream down his face. “Dad.” He sobs. He babbles on incoherently for a while, rambling about everything that happened, how alone he felt. Bruce just holds him through it all. He doesn’t tell him to be quiet, or to stop crying, or even complain about how Dick is getting his shirt dirty with all the tears and snot.

He just holds him.

Eventually, his tears dry up, his breathing evens out, and he feels more grounded, a weight was lifted from his chest and he feels like he can breathe> again.

“Ready for bed? Or do you want to stay here for a while?” Bruce asks, voice quiet so as to not disturb the peace that settled over them.

“Here.” His voice is scratchy again, for a completely different reason.

“Ok. I’ll get Alfred to bring more tea for your throat.”

“Don’t bother, I’ll probably fall asleep before he gets up here.”

Bruce huffs a laugh. “You could have chosen bed.”

“Don’ wanna move.” His voice is muffled as he buries his face in Bruce’s chest.

“Ok, chum.” Bruce readjusts so they’re laying down, starting a new movie up. Dick doesn’t bother paying attention, he’s already dozing off.

“I love you, sweetheart.”

Dick barely hears Bruce before he falls asleep, attempting to mumble a response, but he’s sure it’s unintelligible.

Oh well. That can be a tomorrow problem.

[sentientgolfball]

Hello! I have a writing request! Can you write a Polyghoul x reader where reader has horrendous eyesight and is night blind? Just something fluffy if you have time. I appreciate you!

And I appreciate YOU anon <3 you can also very much see my Phantom obsession in this

Tags: none! Just so much fluff

My requests are open !

You cursed under your breath when you opened the door to the hallway. You hadn’t realized just how long you had been cleaning, but now that the only thing you could see was a pitch-black void you figured too long. You, of course, didn’t have any source of light on you. You didn’t think you would need it. You’ve never left a shift after the sun went down and all the main lights had been put out. Tonight had been different, though. The kitchen was already a mess when you arrived for the dinner shift. Apparently, something had happened with the originally planned meal and now the head Siblings had to scramble for a replacement. You didn’t pay that close attention to the details of it all as you were put straight to work the moment you crossed the threshold. Dinner ended up being presented late which led to a stern talking to from Sister Imperator, and then after all that you still had to do the dishes and clean any messes. Since you were the least experienced in kitchen duty, you always got stuck with the cleanup. You didn’t mind too much, though, because it got you some alone time. But now you were seriously questioning your choices. 

Okay…it’s not too far to my room. It’s gotta be muscle memory by now right? You take a deep breath and shrug to yourself fuck it. 

You place your hand on the cold stone of the wall and begin to walk to the left. You get the feeling that you’ve been walking far enough and decide to turn the next time the wall gives way to an opening. You walk a bit farther before you feel a wall in front of you. You reach out expecting to feel the doorknob, but when your hand just meets more stone you pause. 

Uh oh. 

You began to frantically feel around hoping a door would magically appear if you just kept looking. The longer you went without a door popping into existence you felt your stomach drop. You were lost. You couldn’t see and you were lost. You tried to keep calm, knowing that if you panicked it would only make things worse. You found the wall again and began retracing your steps to the best of your ability. Maybe it was the fact that your anxiety was rising, but the longer you walked the more you felt like someone was watching you. You tried to ignore it, it wouldn’t be surprising. 

Of course there were other people around. It's a satanic abbey for Lucifer’s sake. 

You tried to rationalize with yourself despite walking just a bit faster now. That’s when you had a second realization. You should’ve passed an opening a few steps ago. Shit. Now you really had no idea where you were. 

The panic had closed in at this point. You leaned heavily against the wall too freaked to continue trying to find your way. You stayed like that for a few minutes trying to will your breathing to even out before you saw it. A faint purple glow illuminated the end of the hallway. When it realized you had noticed it there was a small flash before it was right in front of you. Now that it was near, you were able to tell that the source of it was one of Papa Copia’s ghouls. Phantom. You remember overhearing some older Siblings talking about a newer ghoul with that name. 

“Why are you on the floor? Did you lose your game?” There was no malice in his voice, just genuine curiosity. 

You looked up at him despite only really being able to make out the purple light coming from his eyes.

 “Game? What game?”

“I saw you walk in a circle like three times…are you not playing some strange human game…?” He tilted his head as he spoke

“You watched me walk around lost in the middle of the night and didn’t think to say anything” you snap at the ghoul. There’s a moment of awkward silence before you hear a small whine and a mumbled apology. You sigh heavily feeling a bit guilty about yelling at him. 

“No, it’s fine. I mean it’s not fine I really was…am lost, but I didn’t need to yell at you.” 

“Where you trying to go?” 

“I just want to go back to my room and sleep. I’ve had a long and stressful day and getting lost in this gigantic labyrinth of a place only made it worse.” 

“Let me help!” 

You’re a bit shocked at his immediate willingness. You haven’t had many interactions with ghouls in your short time as a Sibling of Sin, but you assumed demons from Hell wouldn’t be so eager to go out of their way to help. You were honestly half expecting to have to bargain or beg with him.  You don’t dwell on it for too long, though. You reach your hand out in the direction of the purple dots of light and hope he gets the message. He hear a noise you can only assume means happiness as you feel a clawed hand grab yours before you’re rather unceremoniously yanked to your feet. You almost crash into him as you find your footing. 

He keeps your hand in his and his tail wrapped around your arm as you two walk. 

He fills the quiet night by going on and on about what he was doing prior to watching you. He talked a bit too fast and too much for you to totally understand what he was saying despite listening in earnest. The only thing you really got was that he found a bat colony in an old bell tower during his first week on Earth and that he was so fascinated with them that every night he goes to visit them and watch them fly around. Eventually, he comes to a stop. You get a strange feeling as you physically feel his excitement grow. For a moment, the hall is cast in purple light as the Lichtenberg figure scars on the left side of his body pulse with quintessence, confirming your suspicions. 

He coughs “Sorry. Can’t always control it when I get excited.” 

It was only then that you realized you must’ve been making a face. You let your muscles relax.

“No it’s not that I’m just…confused. How did you know where my room is?”

“Oh! Good question! I don’t!”

You blink slowly at him “Then where are we?”

His only response is a laugh as he throws open the door in front of you two. You have to shield your eyes for a moment from the sudden burst of blinding lights. 

“I’m right on time! I hope you guys don’t mind that I brought a guest.”

You rub your eyes and slowly crack them open only to be met with nine pairs of various colored eyes staring right at you. 

The ghoul den. He brought me to the ghoul den.

You felt like you were ready to pass out as he closed the door and guided you to one of the couches where he plopped down right next to you. 

“If you’re going to have sex with your guest at least wait until after the movie. It’s my turn to pick.” A gigantic green ghoul commented from where he was hunched over searching through a box. 

“You don’t have to worry about that big guy, nobody is going to get hard from a nature documentary. Well unless it's about the ocean then maybe Wet Boy will—OW motherfucker.” You watched the water ghoul elbow who you knew to be Dew hard in the ribs before turning towards Phantom. 

“Hey uh, I really don’t mean to intrude. You can just give me a flashlight or a candle or something and I can find my own way back.”

“Aw come on most of us don’t bite.” The ghoulette seated on the other side of Phantom craned her neck to look at you.

“Don’t listen to Sunny she’s one of us who does bite.” The earth ghoul stated as he was putting his pick into the DVD player. The ghoulette just shrugged with a smile and small nod. 

Phantom looked at you with a bit of concern, but mostly amusement “Nope. Not happening. You already got lost once. Besides, I owe it to you for not helping sooner.” 

He curled around you and started to purr and oh that was very comfortable. Any protests you had died the moment he did so. The grin on his face told you he knew exactly what he was doing. It was endearing if you were being honest with yourself. You reached up and scratched his scalp being sure to avoid his horns. You laughed when you heard his tail beat against the couch. 

Everyone got comfortable as the movie began which, as Dew said, ended up being a nature documentary. You were thankful that someone turned the lights off, even with the glow of the TV it was too dark for you to see any of the ghouls. It made you feel a bit more relaxed. As the narrator droned on you began to feel the heaviness from the day seep into every bone in your body. You were half asleep when you heard Phantom again. 

“Pssst hey come here you’ll love this.” 

You didn’t really get the chance to respond before he pulled you from the couch and onto the floor. You were confused. You were even more confused when you suddenly felt multiple bodies. 

“Glad you could join us doll.” You heard a voice say right by your ear. You shifted and were met with a fang-filled grin.

“Swiss don’t be scary.” Phantom whispered as he curled in next to you. 

“Scary?” He sounded genuinely confused. He was going to respond but shut up when a tail smacked him. 

You were a little freaked out, to say the least, but when the purring of multiple ghouls started to pick up you settled into what you can only describe as a ghoul pile. The warmth of the bodies coupled with the dark room lulled you into a very comfortable sleep. 

You were awoken the next morning to the smell of a divine-looking breakfast being prepared by the multi-ghoul who you learned was called Swiss. You offered to help him, feeling a bit awkward being dumped into the ghoul’s daily routine but he just shushed you, slid you one of the prepared plates, and made a sly remark about kissing the cook before turning his attention back to his eggs. You watched as the rest of the pack began to slowly wake up and shuffle to the kitchen area. You anxiously waited for Phantom to join since he was the one who brought you here in the first place. 

“Don’t get your hopes up, he sleeps later than any of us,” Another rather large-looking quintessence ghoul said with a small chuckle “But really, it’s okay that you’re here. Nobody is going to kick you out. We actually enjoy it when the Siblings decide the best stress relief is hanging out with us.” His eyes spark purple for a brief moment. That’s when you remember what you were told about ghouls and elements. Quintessence can sense emotions. 

Wait does that mean?

You look up from your plate and meet the large ghoul’s eyes. He smiles and nods in confirmation as if he could hear your question. You suddenly get a bit embarrassed over the fact Phantom could totally tell you were on the verge of a mental breakdown when he found you. But you were also warmed. He brought you back to the den to make you feel better. You smiled into your mug as you took a sip. 

When Phantom did wake up, the rest of the ghouls had already eaten and properly introduced themselves to you. He sat down in an open chair next to you with a yawn, slowly blinking. He started to stuff his face full of food before he made a choked oh! sound and looked at you. 

“How’d you get lost anyway? I know all the lamps were turned out, but the candles were still lit.” You felt a bit flustered that Phantom just announced to the whole room the events of last night, but you cleared your throat and answered him.

“My eyesight is really bad. It’s even worse in the dark. If there’s not enough light I can’t see a thing, even if it’s dim light.” 

“I thought all humans had shit eyes.” there was no malice in Dew’s voice. He said it more like a fact than anything. 

“Mine is like infinitely worse I can assure you.” 

He made a small hm noise and shrugged before drinking more of his coffee. You smiled when you realized just how little the ghouls must actually understand about humans. 

You helped with the cleanup despite Swiss protesting at least a hundred times before bidding farewell to everyone. You went about your day as normal, smiling and waving whenever you crossed paths with a ghoul. Dinner rolled around and this time, thank Satan, there were no major issues. You were able to finish the clean-up right on time. You put away the last of the dishes and made your way out of the kitchen only to be met with Cumulus. She smiled softly and greeted you with a “Hi baby” and asked you about your day. You were a little confused but you welcomed the company as you walked with her to your room. When you arrived she gave you a hug and a kiss on the cheek before wishing you a good night. You cocked your head at her disappearing form with a smile and laughed to yourself. 

This pattern continued all week. Then all month. And the next one. You would finish a shift and a ghoul or two or three would be waiting for you. They’d talk with you and walk you back to your room, or on rather rough days, invite you to the den. Even on the days, you didn’t work, they’d come to find you just as the sun was setting to see if you needed anything or if you wanted to join them for the night. At first, you felt a little overwhelmed by their near-constant presence, but after a while, it was the highlight of your day to see which ghoul would be randomly showing up no matter where you were in the Ministry.

[littleplasticrat]

Provocation and Planning (Gortash x Tav)

Tav thinks she's charging into Gortash's palace to seduce him, but he's been waiting for her. She still manages to surprise him.

Rating: Explicit

Tags: PIV sex, sex toys, anal fingering, come eating

Thanks to @bearhugsandshrugs for beta reading. You're cool ❤️

-

The first time Tav and Gortash had kissed, she'd bitten his tongue hard enough to draw blood. He'd instantly retaliated, setting the precedent for things to come.

After the ragtag group had clawed their way onto the docks from the Chionthar, Tav had looked at the archduke and really seen him for the first time. He was bloody and victorious, encased in his golden mechanical armour that did nothing to obscure the length of his limbs. He slicked his wet hair back out of his face and began unbuckling his breastplate when he noticed her looking, and gave her a slow, suggestive smile. His shirt hung open to reveal his hairy chest; he was steaming like a racehorse in the morning sun. Tav knew that she was going to have to fuck him as soon as possible . He must have seen it in her face, and pulled her into a kiss, first sucking her lower lip and then pressing his tongue into her mouth. That was when she'd bitten him.

Whatever it was - the adrenaline, the relief, or the strangely warm memory of the shin kick he'd delivered after she'd punched him in the morphic pool - the effect had been immediate. Gortash had inhaled sharply, then pulled back to dropping butterfly kisses on her mouth. Tav felt the curve of his smile, and then suddenly his quick hands had found a tear in her leather armour and he'd pinched her nipple through her undershirt, hard enough that she let out a strangled moan. Gale, who'd been standing next to them on the dock with a polite if strained smile, had gone bright red and practically sprinted off to Wyll and Karlach.

Read more below the cut or on Ao3. Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear from you.

Under normal circumstances, if a man kissed Tav like that, she knew she was likely about to get dragged away and fucked shortly thereafter. However, as the heroes slowly made their way back to the city centre, Gortash had withdrawn to his palace to launch the cleanup campaign. It became clear to Tav over the course of the day that the emergency measures for Baldur's Gate had been made in meticulous detail and were set up to be ready to implement at a moment's notice. Case in point: as she made her way to the Elfsong Tavern that evening for the celebrations, she saw Steel Watchers with rescue tools instead of their usual heavy weaponry digging through rubble alongside the Fists. Gortash must have been manufacturing the extra parts in secret. She wondered what else he'd prepared.

In anticipation of seeing him, she'd left her underwear in her pack and applied a few dabs of rosemary oil where her blood ran close to the skin. At the tavern, it didn't escape her that gazes lingered upon her, the light touches of her companions' hands guiding her through the smoke and the crowds. When Halsin lent past her to pick up a round of drinks from the bar, she felt him inhale a deep breath of her as his muscles flexed against her back. One huge hand had covered her hip briefly. She thought it might have been the case that the druid, a little drunk and made giddy by all the people, was just trying to steady himself against a reliable friend. But then his hand squeezed and Tav nearly pushed her ass back against him, stopping herself just in time. Later, she went out onto a balcony with Rugan to smoke and laugh with him. The Zhentarim stole glances at her nipples peaking against her blouse when he thought she wasn't paying attention, which made goosebumps ripple across her skin. When she looked back to his face, he would rest his lip against the rim of his tankard and give her a look that was half-innocent, half-debauched. I wonder if being a hero is going to be like this all the time? she thought to herself. It seemed exhausting.

Adding to the slow decline of her mood was the fact that the one smug, handsome bastard she wanted, that she spent the evening scanning the crowds for, did not appear. Hadn’t he felt the sparks of that kiss shoot through his body the way they shot through hers? Or, perhaps, was his duty to the city keeping him in the office? That seemed strangely absurd. As it neared midnight, it became obvious that Lord Gortash definitely wasn't coming. Tav slipped away from the party and made her way to the Palace with efficiency, weaving through the crowds of revellers. At the gates, she'd been expecting to have to explain who she was, or perhaps even break in, but every set of guards let her pass without comment. The ones outside Gortash's chambers even saluted her.

When she entered, she saw a lavish bedroom through double doors which lay ajar at the end of the corridor. The bed was very neat. On either side of the hallway leading to it were a small library, a bathroom, and a combined workshop and office. Gortash was sunk in a battered armchair at a small circular table in the latter room. Looking around the room, Tav saw that his desk, placed so that he could sit with his back to a corner, was piled high with paperwork. Occupying the centre of the freshly-swept floor was a thick, expensive-looking rug. There was a whole wall of drawers and shelves of various sizes, with each labelled in his precise handwriting. On that side of the office were two large workbenches; one was a tidy wooden trestle and one had seemingly been improvised from a sheet of metal and stacks of old documentation. Half-hidden beneath a pile of clothes and rubbish in the corner was a low camp bed, the kind that military recruits would start their careers in. The whole place smelled like pine, with an undertone of male musk, milled steel and oil. Through a nearby window, she could see the city stretching into the distance, half-ruined but surviving another day. Sounds of revelry were carried into the room on the wind. 

When Tav came to the door they made eye contact immediately and he showed no surprise; she knew then that he'd been waiting for her. With a lazy hand, Gortash plucked a grape from the dish in front of him and slowly slipped it into his mouth. Tav's eyes followed the movement of his fingers and she had to try hard to keep her face blank as a tingle flitted down her neck. As he leaned back, she noticed he was wearing a raw silk shirt and tight leather trousers, but the lacing on both was slovenly, as usual.

They stared at each other, and Tav felt herself start to blush under the archduke's open gaze. To hide her reaction, she stepped over to his table and picked up the bunch of grapes. She saw Gortash's strong fingers twitch as she swiped the fruit, but he did nothing.

"You missed the party at the Elfsong," Tav said, moving across the room to lean against the windowsill. "Didn't fancy being celebrated with the other heroes of Baldur's Gate? I'm surprised you'd pass on a chance to be fawned over."

Gortash scoffed and crossed his long legs.

"Yes, I had reports you were carousing in that rat hole with your little friends - and I can smell it on you now,” he said, inhaling. “I'll be holding my own celebration here in my palace . You should join me. See how it feels to wield power against the nobility of this city rather than its enemies." He looked her up and down, his eyes half-lidded. "I've been thinking about jewellery designs for you. Something to show off how magnificent you are."

It was Tav's turn to snort. "What about me has given you the impression I want to become some bejewelled whore on your arm?"

"Bejewelled whore… Ha. My dear, no one is immune to the pleasure of being draped in gold and gemstones," Gortash told her as he stood. "Especially not those of us who started life clad in rags." He approached Tav with slow steps and she reclined further against the window frame, holding the grapes out of his reach. "As for the second part... That wasn't a one-sided kiss this morning. Maybe I just want you by my side to keep an eye on you now the city is safe. A woman of your talents - What's the saying?" he asked, maintaining eye contact as he moved into her space, pressing his broad chest against her breasts to reach for the fruit. "Ah, yes. Devils make work for idle hands." She felt his fingers slip the grapes out of her loose grasp. "And-" Gortash's steady, sonorous voice suddenly wobbled off into a groan, and he snaked his other arm around her waist to crush her body against his. "Sweltering hells, Tav, have you come into my office without undergarments?"

She gasped and he rested his forehead against hers, their gazes meeting. She nodded, a blush creeping into her cheeks. The raw lust that pooled in his dark eyes in response made her back prickle with sweat as her nipples hardened against his chest.

"What are you doing to me, Tav? Gods, I need to see you. Take off your clothes. Let me see your body."

Gortash was almost snarling with arousal as he commanded her. Tav sighed at the slow melt of wetness in her cunt and pushed him gently backwards to give herself more space. Expression hungry, he watched her as she slowly undressed. She thought he might seize her when she bared her breasts to the moonlight, but he just swayed, eyes roving over her eagerly. His breathing stopped when she unlaced her trousers and let them slide down; something about his boyish thirst gave her a sudden vision of herself as a noblewoman being seduced by a young Gortash, grateful lordling and ardent worshipper of the powerful. But - there was nothing for him to gain from this, was there? All she had to give him was her body, which was now nearly bare under his glittering eyes. Kicking off her boots completed her strip, and then she was nude, standing there expectantly as she took in his reaction. She could see that there was a bulge in his leathers. Gortash was trying hard to modulate his breathing.

"I'm glad you came here tonight," he said. His voice was gravelly and low. "Tell me, Tav. What do you want?"

Tav felt another knot of insecurity inside her as she recognised her desire for him. What if he just saw this as a minor distraction? She decided to fall back and hide behind her old tricks. "I think you know," she replied in her best sultry tone, trailing a hand down between her breasts. “I want you to have sex with me.”

He moved into her space again, leaning one hand against the window frame above her. “If you wanted to fuck, you could have stayed in Elfsong Tavern. I saw the way some of them were looking at you this morning. And I’ve had several grateful and eager members of the aristocracy calling on me throughout the day, but I’ll be damned: all I could think about was you.” With the other hand, he lifted the bunch of grapes to his face and nuzzled his nose amongst the sweet, purple beads of the fruit. "So, I’ll ask again. What do you want?" Eyes boring into hers, he plucked a grape from its stalk with his teeth.

It was ridiculous, but also the horniest thing Tav had ever seen. Something about his confession and the boldness of his flirting opened something within her heart: In a breathy voice, almost a moan and nothing like the falsely seductive tone she’d just used, she said, "I want to have you and I want you to know me. I want to teach you what it sounds like when I come wrapped around your cock." Gortash pressed his eyes shut at this, and she heard a squelch as he crushed the entire bunch of grapes in his broad fist, their juices weeping to the floor. And then his lips were on hers.

They were both soon gasping into each other's mouths, their kisses wet and lavish. Gortash was clasping her face in his hands, pulling her hair, digging his fingers into her hips and squeezing her ass, almost in a frenzy. Under his onslaught, she was barely able to pull his shirt laces open. He broke their kiss to bite her neck and take fistfuls of her tits and inhale deeply from her cleavage, groaning as he did so.

"I thought - ah! I thought I stunk of carousing and revelry?" Tav said, trying to strike a mocking tone in her voice as her head fell back; Gortash had just begun to swirl her nipple in his mouth, his tongue firm and hot.

In response, he picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Carrying her over to his wooden workbench, he perched her on the pitted but clean surface. "While you do smell like a tavern whore, I never said I didn't like it," he groaned, then slowly licked a stripe up her neck and to the side of her face. He finished the trail with a kiss that was almost affectionate, punctuating this with a thrust of his hips so the bulge in his trousers pressed against her clit.

They looked at each other in open admiration. But the moment was cut short when he reached past her and picked up a small metal cylinder, about the width of his thumb, from the bench. Holding it up, she could see a small piece of leather attached to it – a strap. Gortash used it to slip the strange device onto her index finger.

"I made this for you today," he said softly.

She tried to hide her confusion then. Was he - was he proposing to her? With a weird leather ring?

She was soon proven wrong when, with one hand, Gortash pushed one of her thighs to the side to expose her folds. With the other, he took her hand and guided it downwards, placing her finger so it rested on her clit. His hand flowered briefly with magic and he muttered something. Tav yelped as the item began vibrating against her, a noise which morphed into a moan.

Gortash dropped kisses to her lips and whispered encouragement as he pushed against her hand, pressing the vibrator further into her folds. The sensations were unusual at first, but it began to feel incredible. She felt her cunt throb, get more slick.

Tav whimpered when he stepped out of her arms, giving her one more kiss before pulling out a chair so he was sitting in front of her. His eyes lingered on her face, although he observed the movements of her hand against her clit with a mixture of hunger and cold calculation.

In between gasps, Tav said, "I think it's... It's only fair that you show - me how you find your own pleasure."

Gortash smirked at her and began unlacing his trousers. His cock jumped free quickly - it seemed she hadn't been the only one to skip putting on underwear that evening - and he began stroking himself, leaning back in the chair. His cock curved enough to arch against his stomach and Tav couldn't help but admire the girth of it. She propped one foot up on the workbench to expose herself further. The sensation of dipping the vibrator into her slickness and bringing it back to her clit drew a new sound of pleasure from her that had Gortash moaning in response and speeding his hand up. She felt her juices begin to dribble down to her asshole. The archduke noticed too.

"I knew you were going to act like a slut for me," he told her, his voice hoarse. "But you've got the wettest cunt I've ever seen. Are you going to come on my desk? If you do, I'll make you lick it clean."

The filth of Gortash's idle threat made Tav flutter against her fingers. She was nearing the edge. Instead of pursuing her climax, she stretched her leg out to push Gortash's cock out of his hand with her foot. He gave her a grin as she pressed his shaft against his stomach.

"C'mere," she said. "I want to come on your mouth."

He closed his eyes delightedly and slid off the chair to kneel in front of her. She started moving her finger again as he parted her folds and thrust his tongue into her body. One of Gortash's hands was busy out of sight; he was touching himself as he ate her out. Tav felt the heat creep up then, her body tensing, quivering, vision going white or- or-

Her orgasm rippled through her and she cried out. Gortash dug his fingers into her thighs and pushed his face against her center. She felt him shuddering and he groaned into her cunt as his climax followed hers.

They stayed like that for a peaceful moment as their heart rates returned to normal. Tav had lifted the vibrator away from herself and Gortash uttered the word that made it stop running. She removed it from her hand and then stroked his hair as he nuzzled at her folds slowly, still enjoying the wetness her body had made for him. After some time, Tav pulled the man off her and stood up on shaky legs.

On the floor beneath where the archduke had been kneeling, she saw a wet gleam. Had she done that? Bending over to look closer, she saw that it was Gortash's spend. She turned to him and saw the heat still roiling behind his eyes as he looked back at her.

"My Lord," she said sweetly. "It appears one of us did make a mess. It wasn't me, though, was it?"

He shook his head.

"And what did you say should happen if I came on your desk?"

Gortash remained silent. Tav slid her fingers into his hair and gripped gently. "Say it."

"I said I would make you lick it clean."

Tav smiled then, and leaned closer. "When we first met, you said we would be equals, my Lord. My understanding was that if I joined you in an alliance, we would have parity in all things... Including what we're expected to follow through on. L ick ."

With that, she pushed his head towards the floor. He gave her a furtive look of adoration as he went down, filling her with a new flush of nameless excitement. His face neared the paving stone beneath the bench and she watched, her heart flickering with shock, as he used the tip of his tongue to daintily taste his mess. Her fingers remained in his thick hair as he bent lower to take a bolder lick, leaving a trail of spit on the stone. His eyes slid to hers, and he cleaned another stripe of cum off the floor. Something about his expression told her that she was in trouble, but it was too late; he'd already surged up and driven her to her knees. Squeezing her chin in one hand, he gave her a brief, searching look. He must have seen the excitement fizzling within her, because he nodded briefly, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards, and straightened. His cock, soft but slowly hardening, was at her eye level. 

"Here's a lesson I'd like to share about co-leadership then. It's all about coming to an agreement. I put it to you that you've been trying to provoke me to fuck you like a whore." As he spoke, Gortash was wrapping Tav's hair around his fist. "Tonight, I would have made love to you so tenderly - until you swooned. But I think we can both agree that that's not what you want, is it? Is it, you slut?" With his last question, he gave her a little shake.

"It's not what I want, my Lord."

"Do you want the privilege of coming on my cock?"

The thrill, the sheer smuttiness of him, left Tav gasping. She had to swallow hard and get control of herself before she could reply, "Yes, my Lord."

With that, he pulled her by her hair to the centre of the room and threw her down on the extravagant rug. She moaned as she hit the floor. His cock bobbed hard as he stripped off his clothes, revealing a lean, muscular body, dark hair foresting his chest and his taut stomach.

"On your hands and knees," he ordered, and Tav scrambled to comply. She felt him kneel behind her, then slowly begin to rub the head of his cock between her folds. She wiggled her hips in frustration, trying to tempt him into taking her.

"You're still so wet," Gortash muttered, pressing the end of the tip in, then pulling it back out before it brought Tav any stimulation.

She looked over her shoulder at him. "I'm so turned on for you. Please - "

His smirk caught her gaze before he pushed her down roughly, her face turned flat against the rug.

"Touch yourself, but don't come until I tell you to."

She sighed as he began to bully his thick cock inside her, the press of it against her walls driving her to moan and then howl as he pushed himself in to the hilt. It was so deep . In this position, with his size - 

Any marvelling thought she had was cut off by the electric snap of her nerves as he pulled out and thrust in again. She heard her name on his lips as he reached down and gathered a fistful of her hair. It was amazing how he groaned for her. He began fucking into her in a steady rhythm, her hips rolling back to meet him as they both made unabandoned noises of pleasure, losing themselves in it. Tav's nipples grazed the rug every time his thrusts pushed her forwards, making the nerve endings in her upper body sing. Her fingers rubbed her clit in a frantic motion that made her whole cunt quiver.

"Your ass - It's perfect," she heard Gortash gasp. "In fact-"

Tav was in no state to understand. She felt Gortash's thumb against the seam between his cock and her cunt as he ran it through her folds, gathering up the juices of their sex. Then, the pad of his thumb was rubbing against her asshole and then slipping in. The blunt pleasurepain of her ring being breached made her moan loudly, her core beginning to tense. With one hand on her hip and the other splayed across her flank, he pumped his thumb in and out of her. The steady roll of his cock drove her to hoarse cries; feeling her cunt tighten as she neared her climax, Gortash gave a triumphant laugh that turned into a moan of his own ecstasy.

"Come for me," he commanded. Tav bucked beneath him, pressing her face into the carpet to muffle her scream as she rode the waves of wet pleasure that seared through her, white-hot lightning wrapped in the velvet of her veins, turning her inside out from the soles of her feet to her scalp. She felt Gortash's cock throbbing inside her as he followed.

As she tried to slow down her breathing, Tav felt a strong arm wrap around her waist. Gortash pulled her upwards so her back was against his chest, then rolled them both onto their sides on the rug - which Tav distantly realised was spotless and smelled freshly cleaned. In her blissed out state, she decided not to worry about it. The archduke tucked his other arm under her head. His cock lingered inside her, and lying on her side squeezed it within her, making her twitch slowly. Her fires were calm for now, but the sensation of this intimacy would surely start to heat her up again. The evening wasn't finished, of course - and who said she had to go back to the Elfsong the moment the sun rose?

They lay still for a while. Tav enjoyed the sound of Gortash breathing steadily against her neck. Eventually, her leg twitched and she realised she'd been falling asleep. Nuzzling her, he brought his lips to her ear.

"Shall we move to the bedroom, my dear?"

She nodded and they helped each other stand up. Taking her by the hand, he led her into the lavish bedroom she'd seen when she'd entered. He pulled the bedsheets back for her and tucked her in; a gesture that was surprisingly sweet - or was it really that surprising? Beginning to drift, she counted the ways he’d prepared for her arrival that evening. The guards had even saluted her...

"What do you want to eat for breakfast?" he asked, stroking her sweaty hair off her forehead.

"Your cock," she mumbled. Gortash chuckled and Tav smiled sleepily.

"That's a deal."

Tav was already drifting off again as Gortash climbed into bed next to her and pulled her to his chest.

[spookyscarydemonbabe]

🩹 😘 💖

Congrats on 1500!

thank you my love 🥹🫶🥰 and thank you for sticking around so long 😘 i adore always seeing your requests in my inbox and getting your messages 🖤🖤🖤

(tbh i really didn’t think i’d even get to this point 😂)

“There baby, you can barely even notice it.” You said as you gently applied the bandage to Eddie’s forehead. He groaned, looking in the mirror and seeing not only a decently sized red bump, but a bruise right on his forehead.

He didn’t mean for those shelves to break, especially not right on his head, and definitely not under the circumstances he thought. It was rare when Eddie wasn’t being at least a little rough when you were making love, he always got a little more into it than he thought.

His hands were on your hips, guiding your body back into him as the thrusted into you from behind, your pretty hair sprawled across one of his pillows as you were biting into it to not bother the neighbors anymore than his headboard banging into the wall was. Even then he could see the little screws starting to give in his wall, but all he could focus on was you and how amazing he was making you feel.

Getting you off was much more important to him than getting himself off. What a gentleman.

With a few final thrusts into you he stayed still, keeping you full for another few moments and leaning down to gently kiss a trail down your spine before slowly pulling out of you. He wanted you to miss having him inside you even if it was just for a few moments switching positions.

“Sit up baby girl,” His arms reached down to help you up, gently petting out the little tangles from your hair as his bare chest was against your back, “you’re on top now. Is that alright? Think those sore little legs can handle it?” He said with a smirk.

No words left your lips. Just a gentle nod and a quiet ‘mm-hmm’ as you moved back onto his mattress, giving him enough room to lay back and watch as you straddled him.

He smiled at his work. Watching how slowly you crawled over him, your body dragging along his, your soft hands moving up his chest and into his hair, gently combing your fingers through the ends and twirling them around your fingers. His curls always looked so pretty when he was laid back underneath you.

He places his hands onto your hips and as he slowly guided you down onto him, he made the mistake of adjusting himself on the bed, the headboard banging against the wall one final time before the nails holding up that shelf finally gave in.

SMACK! Right onto his forehead.

It left behind a pretty nasty gash on his forehead, not to mention a few decently sized holes in the wall from being nearly ripped out. He was thankful his little trinkets and figures were unharmed.

After a little bit of cleanup, and a hasty change into your pajamas, you could see that it was just a little cut. Nothing a kiss and a bandaid couldn’t fix. And maybe a few days of applying Neosporin.

Eddie groaned as you leaned over him, placing a very gentle kiss on top of the bandaid.

“You’ll be alright Eddie, your hair covers up most of it so i don’t think anyone will notice much more than the bandaid.��

He sighed as he sat there, looking in the mirror at himself, his eyes moving back and forth from himself to you again before a slight smirk came to his lips.

“Everything alright?” You asked him, placing your hand onto his shoulder.

Eddie laughed before turning to look at you,

“Wayne’s gonna be so fucking pissed when he sees that wall…”

if you’d like to participate in the event just check out the details here 🥰

[a-sad-mage]

Is there any sort of fannon (or even better, cannon) timescale for slugterra? Everyone in the 99 seems to have genuinely forgotten what the surface is like, which would take a while. There are irl stories that use constellations that mention stars that don’t exist anymore, stars have died before we forgot. Not to mention the weirdly accurate visuals Gar had of surface cities. So does anyone know when the 99 caverns officially got “cut off” from the surface?

Was it a really really ancient separation that’s only been blurred once the Shane’s went down (or came up??? Idk) hence Gar’s accurate poster visuals? Like the “first Shane” just blabbed cause they didn’t realise that mixing the two worlds could be harmful? And their ancestors have just been eternally doing PR cleanup? Or was it a recent cut off that people have forgotten super fast somehow??

Trixie mentions in 'A Distant Shore' that her mom used to tell her stories about the 'Burning World'

ive always been under the impression that all myths and stories hold some truth to them, but over time the details get exaggerated, lost or changed to fit a given narrative the story teller wants to tell.

so while im not 100% sure about cannon info on the timeline of the Caverns and Surface being separated, I would bet it had something to do with the Terra Portals, Shadow Clan and the Dark Bane.

If the Surface and Slugterra interacted, there would be old text's, but because it's in an old language no one speaks and the art left over would be vague as hell, and there have probably been hundreds of artistic interoperations of what the Burning World might look like over the years, so the illustrations Gar has are probably his, and where most likely influenced by the pictures in Jimmo's journal depending on when he got it.

As for the Shane's, I think there one of a handful of people who know the full truth, and shared the story in full for generations.

this is a personal HC, but-

I think there was a war of some kind involving the people of Slugterra/Surface, the Shadow Clan and Dark Bane, hundreds of years ago, one that separated the Eastern and Western Caverns(Possibly a Northern and Southern Caverns as well), and caused the Terra Portals to become largely inactive for the most part, and in the aftermath the Surface and Caverns where left separated, but before contact was fully cut the Shadow Clan entrusted seiten people with the knowledge of how to get back underground because of what they did during the war to protect Slugterra, the Shane's being one of those families. over the years, more and more families forgot, or died out, leaving the Shane's one of the very few and possibly only ones that take the drop and still protect the Caverns all theses' hundreds of years later

again, pure headcannon with no real evidence

its a crazy rabbit whole to go down, and I would like to hear others thoughts on it from the community!