#and honestly .. theyre kind of my grounding.

[pomfiores]

when I tell you guys that I am *pinches my fingers* this close to stealing the black cat on didney property. he's around the hotel where I am (he's 8years old!!!), I see him almost every lunch. I told the security guard I'd steal him if I could to which the guard said "do it. take him home" aksjfa bUT MY DILEMMA,, YOU SEE,, I live with my family therefore they have their restrictions on animals. so.

i think... I'll be venturing on my own soon. idk. but I am gonna try. for my boys and potentially mister at the hotel (there's another cat who he hangs out with and i'd feel bad to leave that one out. you see my dilemma?)

[spidermanifested]

heres MY rambly black sails analysis for the day, after watching the show twice in as many months i wholeheartedly believe in the "long john silvers quote unquote missus in treasure island is max, not madi" theory

the most obvious thing, as others have pointed out, is that in treasure island long john silver runs an inn with his wife, a black woman, in bristol, which is absolutely not madi behavior-- i cannot imagine madi would take him back in the first place much less move with him TO ENGLAND-- but IS maxs exact area of expertise. but theres so many other things that cement it for me

as early as episode 2, max tries to convince eleanor to buy out the inn and run it together with her when england takes nassau back. this is her dream-- to share power over her life with a woman she loves, free of the pressures of the outside world. (youll note this also happens to be silvers dream for himself and madi. the parallels)

in season 4 shes faced with the suspiciously similar option to take a husband to be the face of her business, completely on paper, for the sake of the public eye. and she refuses! she doesnt want to give a man that kind of power over her. not only that but she desperately wants to retain some kind of truth in her identity-- she admires anne for her honesty, her courage. these are things she can rarely afford to express. in refusing a marriage of convenience, she asserts her autonomy.

But. black sails tells us over and over again that an oppressive society will always find ways to batter down these private boundaries. there is no island safe from colonial rule. mirandas peaceful house in the interior is burnt to the ground. the maroons are forced to accept a freedom that comes at the price of abandoning those still enslaved and taking part in their continued subjugation. the things it takes to make these spaces are terrible, and unsustainable, and when it comes to being gay in the 1700s there is a tightrope to walk between privilege and privacy, one that destroyed flint and the hamiltons, thats even narrower to max as a self-made woman of color.

given all that, i do not believe she can girlboss her way out of her circumstances no matter how many lessons she took from what happened to eleanor. nor do i think the show believes it. i think the political-marriage-offer plot point is another illustration of that theme-- maxs desire, and silvers desire, to build a warm, happy room in the middle of the imperial machine, without meaningfully striking out against the machine itself, is destined to be futile no matter how strong they are as individuals.

max and silver are mirror images of one another. each of them is essentially the narrator of one half of the story. it is absolutely agonizing how BOTH of them tried to convince their lovers to abandon their ambitions, to settle for a quiet life with them, and in doing so saw that relationship destroyed by their own fear of an uncertain future....

....And its even MORE agonizing to imagine them finally securing the trappings of a domestic life... but without the love. and they know the love was what mattered! theyre always going to know!!!

it bookends PERFECTLY with their alliance at the start of the series. theyre right where they started, trusting no one, pretending to be humble and harmless, planning to steal the EXACT SAME TREASURE, except now theyre 50 years old and jaded and bitter and both pining after their lost loves. silver probably pictures madi whenever he tells people about his wife. when he and max have time to themselves they talk solely about finances and nothing else. its honestly impressive how miserable this is for every single person involved. im losing my mind

[joosthead]

finally // beautiful stranger || j.k. f!reader

WARNING #1: explicit real person fiction ahead, dni if below 18. dni if anti-rpf

WARNING #2: explicit rpf/real person fiction content ahead. read at your own risk. dni if anti rpf, dni or read ahead if you simply don’t like rpf lol

₊˚⊹⋆ part 3/prequel to normal au — this is a standalone fic but here’s part 1 and 2 if you want a little lore down the line : ). or if you’ve already read p1&2–this is how normal au joost and reader meet :3. set in december 2019.

₊˚⊹⋆ reader: f!reader. notfamous!reader. normal au a.k.a. reader has an office job and attends university. reader is not from nl

₊˚⊹⋆ word count: 11k (exactly !! :3)

₊˚⊹⋆ cw: smut (strangers to…lovers?, f&m!receiving oral, eating it through panties, protected piv), smoking, drinking. mentions of violence. reader and joost are kind of dicks to each other + pouty and annoying but dw it's ok bc theyre cute. unironic use of the word yolo. reader is apprehensive about receiving oral—references being self-conscious because it’s been a while. unironic ome robert during sex : ( teehee op does not drink or club sorry for inaccuracy

WARNING #3: rpf ahead—don't like it, don't read it. do not repost this on any other platform, screenshots or text alike. do not click ahead if you don’t want to read rpf. do not interact if you are below 18. how to block tags/words on tumblr.

₊˚⊹⋆ track(s) of the fic: “finally // beautiful stranger” by halsey :'')

₊˚⊹⋆ junote: plushies!!! thank you for your patience and the love on normal au :''') i absolutely adore this au and i'm so glad to know you guys do too!! much more to come ;)))) honestly this isn't extensively edited i was just so excited to drop it : 3 thank you so so much to @howisjoostfanfictionforfree and @killerlookz for hearing me out on my decisions on how to place this in the normal au verse >-< I SO APPRECIATE YOU GUYS!! <3333

₊˚⊹⋆ translation: "Zo mooi, liefje, ik heb zoveel geluk." - "So beautiful, I'm so lucky." / "Je smaakt zo lekker, ik vind het geweldig." - "You taste so good, I love it."

18+ only — explicit rpf content ahead, minors dni, anti rpf dni. 4th and final warning!

You should’ve brought a jacket. 

If you were someone else, you’d have blamed it all on your roommates, their insistence that since your shared townhome was “only a few blocks away” from the club you were going to and “the snow isn’t even that bad” and “see it’s not even that cold” convincing you that an extra layer wasn’t needed. You’re you though, and you’re bearing the entire brunt of your regret as you trudge through the sleet covered footpath, the snow shoveled to the side and yet still not enough to keep the wetness off of your strappy heeled feet.

Why didn’t you bring a jacket? Why is it so cold in the Netherlands? Why did you move here for university? Why did you even sign up for that many courses this term, and why did the weather have to be like this right after you took your last final?

When will it end? Never, you think, but at the very least—tonight you get to party. After trudging through a kilometer of snow, of course, your roommates trudging right in front of you and suffering just the same. The snow that falls melts as soon as it hits the ground, your skin, dampening your hair and chilling you with the wind that whistles past. 

Maybe you shouldn’t have even gone—but you promised that you’d loosen up after how hard you’d been going at work and school. Either way, you wouldn’t pass up the chance to meet your roommate, Ruby’s…Ruby’s boy-thing, an up and coming music producer with big eyes and a soft voice stage-named Tantu; and you wouldn’t pass up seeing Alanis, too, an acquaintance of your other roommate, Marina, turned your own friend. 

It’s okay. Before you even know it (feels like an eternity), you’re through the line and through the threshold of the club (after getting squished and cut in front of and annoyed), and now you stand in front of the bar, trying (and failing) to get the bartender’s attention. 

The club is packed to the gills with people—it is a raucous Friday night, and it’s been months since you’ve been in a place so full of people that wasn’t a library, a lecture hall, or some work event you had to attend. Still, though, it feels natural getting back into the groove of things, holding hands with Ruby as she leads you through the dance floor, checking on Marina behind you before she leaves to find Alanis. 

The cold you were blanketed with outside is no more, not even close now that you’re slipping in between and through grinding bodies and flashing lights, the background music to your night a thumping beat you’ll feel in your bones tomorrow and a fast rapping Dutch voice over it. It’s overstimulating in a good way, you think, much preferred over the overstimulation of your packed schedule—you'll have a few weeks of this before it all starts again, and you're happy to be here at the end of it all. 

Eventually you make it to the bar. Someone stepped on your foot on the way there, you lost sight of Marina, you have to adjust your little black dress constantly—whatever. Ruby’s boy thing is unmistakable, giant blue eyes and typical dad cap, and he stands at the bar with three shots waiting for you both.

“You must be Ruby’s other roommate!” he yells over the music and you nod, smiling at him as Ruby goes to hug him around the waist, giggling as she does. 

You prop your elbow up on the bar for support—god, these shoes suck—and yell back, “You’re Teun? Is this your song?” 

“This is my friend’s song, actually, Joost!” He looks around for a bit before giving Ruby a smile; her excitement is contagious owing to the fact that she’s almost never so animated, like she’s bouncing on her heels with her movement. “He’s supposed to be here tonight, I think he’s late.” 

“Joost?” you yell, and he nods—you nod back in approval. Very pop, very gabber (if you’ve judged the subculture correctly in the 2 years being here), very loud, but you like it. 

“He’s a really cool guy, I promise!” Ruby says, giggling even more and sharing a mischievous look with Tantu that you’re not sure means something. 

“Mmm, sure,” you smile, scrunching your nose. You have a feeling that Joost, whoever he is, will become someone important later on in the night, but you put him on the back of your mind as you pick up your shot glass alongside the two of them and down it—you expect it to burn on the way down, seeming like some kind of vodka, but it’s smooth and sweet, only slightly burning. “Thanks Tantu,” you say, holding your hand up for a high five which he reciprocates, laughing. 

“You’ll like Joost, I think,” he nods, and you cock an eyebrow. 

“Are you trying to set me up with someone?” 

“You need something to distract you from all your work, babe,” Ruby says, taking your hand and squeezing it. “Hopefully expensive vodka will loosen you up a bit.” 

Rolling your eyes, you sigh, “I didn’t ask for a distraction.” Work and school are already difficult enough to juggle as is, let alone your abysmal social life only kept alive by Ruby and Marina’s wide circle of friendly, eccentric creatives. You’d rather just keep your circle small, keep your head down and focus, but your friends always have things up their sleeves. 

Ruby orders 3 Bacardi colas for your small group and turns back to you. “We’re gifting you one, okay?” 

You shake it off, focusing more on the lovely rum and cola once it comes into your possession. Sipping at it, you follow Ruby and Tantu onto the dance floor, the bustling crowd jostling you around as you teeter on your heels, keep your purse close to your body, and try to keep your drink from spilling. 

Truthfully, the purse (the purse!!!) is one of your most prized possessions—you don’t think yourself too materialistic, but scoring a 90s Dior saddlebag for less than a thousand euros, with your first big paycheck… you reason that that’s more than enough to get you to be materialistic. 

You cover it with your arm as best as you can as you try and follow Ruby’s pretty lion’s mane of brown curls, turning to make sure you’re still there every once in a while but mostly just hanging onto Tantu’s hand—you don’t mind third wheeling when Ruby’s being so cute, a side of her you've never seen before. 

The three of you make it to the heart of the crowd, running into Alanis and Marina and picking them up along the way, the thrumming beat of some early 00s song until it transitions to something so hyperpop your eardrums might rupture. 

You mouth the lyrics, bright lights shining into your eyes, your dancing constricted by being way too close for comfort with a bunch of drunk and sweaty strangers, but. You’re trying. That’s for sure. 

Marina’s hands snake around your waist as you sway together to the music, eyes closed and letting the alcohol get to you; you would go back to the bar and get another drink if it wouldn’t be such a damn hassle to do so. 

You’re enjoying every single moment, the time passing by in a blur of dancing people and loud voices and sweaty bodies—you’re almost in a haze, all you’d need is a drunk cigarette to make this night perfect, but then Marina lets go of you, and you get disoriented. So many lights, so many people, not enough of your people. 

You get elbowed in the back by someone and it takes you out of your trance completely. You look back in annoyance, the culprit being a tall blonde guy with douchey sunglasses who’s whooping and hollering with a friend who looks just as rambunctious as he is. Scowling, you turn back to where Ruby and Marina are, speaking/yelling with Tantu and Alanis, somehow several feet away, but then you stumble over your feet, and the guy behind you stumbles into you, and you feel a cold liquid run down your arm, your side, all over your dress. 

Shocked (and frankly, about to cry) you look down at your now dripping arms, your purse and the stains on it obvious even now in the dim club light. A mixture of anger and pure disdain for the guy behind you comes over you as he turns around—what the fuck!!! Almost four months of utter bullshit at work and university and this is what happens to you the night you get back.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, I’ll pay for it, just find me later!” he yells, looking down at you, turning back to his friends and laughing, and you practically gasp in shock with how rude he’s being. Can’t even give you the time to make things right now, what makes him think you’ll trust him enough to leave it later? 

You tap on his shoulder, making him turn his attention back to you. He’s wearing earphones for some reason, and the big sunglasses really are so douchey. You’re normally not so judgmental—but he ruined your night. “Are you fucking serious? Sorry doesn’t cut it—this is vintage,” you shout, pointing at your poor purse. “And you’re a fucking asshole!”

“Oh, it’s vintage?” he scoffs, and you—you want to punch him in his smug face. You can’t even look him in the eye, his stupid sunglasses blocking your vision of him, but you know that you’re glaring holes through him. 

Any night else, you would’ve left it alone, probably. At the very least, get a yell in; at the very least, get his info and give him an angry text the next morning. Tonight, though, you have nothing to lose and a chip on your shoulder. You get up closer to him, in his face as best as you can with the height difference and the close quarters. 

“You wanna take this outside? You can yell where I can actually hear it, my music’s playing too loud!” he smirks, tapping on his stupid earphone, then pointing to the ceiling as the music keeps playing around you, as the people around you still keep dancing and hollering. He starts moving away from you, and you catch a glimpse of all of your friends—the puzzled stares from Ruby, Marina, Alanis, the concerned expression in Tantu’s eyes. You can't pretend to care about what you look like at the moment, except that’s all you care about at the moment. Your once perfect black dress, your mint-condition bag. 

You bring your purse up to your nose—fucking Baco, not even a clear drink that you can get out relatively easily. Maybe if you’d just brought a jacket, you wouldn’t have a Bacardi cola spilled all over everything and ruining your life. You forgot how intense you are when you’re tipsy. 

You follow behind him, practically stomping—you notice that people are parting for you more than they did in the beginning, and it’s likely because of the anger just radiating off of you in waves as you fume. Every once in a while, he turns and sees if you're still following…of course you are. You're not going to let him off the hook that easily. Any of your other friends would handwave it and just go back to partying. You’ve got an agenda, though. 

When you make it out of the club, jostling through what feels like a million people, you're a bit sobered up and it’s so late—it’s so cold. In the lamppost light, you see he’s much taller than you, wearing a heavy jacket and a wrinkled white button-up underneath it, baggy jeans with writing over the crotch. He looks exactly what you’d expect. “I already said I’d pay for your things,” he says, taking a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and offering you one, which you take as you roll your eyes halfway to the back of your head. “You have a stick up your ass.”

You take the cigarette between your fingers, bring it up to your mouth and he cups the end, holding the flame of his lighter to it—it sparks, and you take a long pull before sighing, “It’s gotten me much farther places than you, I know that for sure.” A smile teases on his lips, and you can't help but smile back, your anger already melting away like the snow on the ground. The two of you walk a little ways down, trying to get away from the loud clubbers and failing. It’s peak business right now; you couldn't escape them together even if you tried. 

In your head, you tell yourself that it’s because of the nicotine, the smoke in your lungs, but you have to be real with yourself. Whoever the asshole who ruined your night was, whether he was a friend of a friend or the soundtrack to this club—he has pretty blue eyes and a prettier smile, and you…you are weak. And sobering up and realizing that making a scene was a bit embarrassing. 

“Yeah?” he asks, and you nod, proudly, smugly, because you'd earned the right to after the way your life has been the past few months. “Sure it has.” Mood ruined again. You walked straight into that. 

Again, you roll your eyes. “I'm not here to try and convince you of my accomplishments.” 

“‘Accomplishments’,” he says, lighting up his own cigarette. “So accomplished but you didn’t bring a coat for this weather. Smart.” 

This makes you realize just how freezing you are, one of your arms hugged close to your body for what little warmth you can muster from it—your dress is quite short, not to mention damp from this guy’s Bacardi cola spilled all over it, and you’re feeling the consequences. Goosebumps line your skin all over, the breath that leaves your mouth is not only smoke but the cold condensation in the chilly air, and you shake your head. 

“I didn’t think I’d have to come out here and yell at you, but here we are.” 

“How much is your dress? Your purse? I'll send you the money and more for your trouble.” 

“I can't just replace vintage,” you fuss, looking down at your outfit. Your purse was once pink and white and Dior-monogrammed—now it is a muddy brown. Still Dior-monogrammed, but uglier. You never thought yourself a fusser—maybe this season of your life has changed you more than you thought. “I got this at a thrift in Berlin, you know how hard that is these days?”

A heavy weight gets put upon your shoulders; his jacket that he places around them wafts the smell of expensive men’s cologne and smoke. You look at him, incredulous; he gives you a quick glance, then averts his gaze. “You're shaking like a dog,” he says, taking a puff from his cig. “You need it more than I do.”

“Thanks,” you nod, and he gives you an acknowledging hum. “You don't have to. I was an asshole to you and you give me your jacket.” 

“Don't apologize for something that was my fault.” 

“It was both our fault.” 

The night is silent as it can be—not silent at all with clubbers streaming in and out, the music and the talking leaking to the outside. The two of you are a bit farther away from all the people—everyone is walking the other way to another club or bar to continue their outings. 

“Do you want to sit down? We can exchange info and stuff here. Your shoes look uncomfortable.” 

Now that you’re warm, you realize another thing: your feet are aching tired from the dancing, the minutes of stomping after him. The curb in front of you is damp from the snow, but his jacket is so big on you that it can cover your ass—it’s not like you have much else to lose with this outfit, anyways. You sit and he settles down next to you. The sky is a deep purple canvas marred by light pollution, yet you can still see a few stars. Same stars here, same stars back home. 

Another realization: you’re sitting in a foreign country, in almost silence next to some stranger, smoking a cigarette, wearing his jacket after calling him a dickhead and after he’s implied that you’re some airhead. 

Maybe you're just boring (you're not), but life has never taken you to a place like this before. 

To the side, he stubs out his cigarette, and you take a better look at him. Pink creeps up his neck, and when he turns back, you see how vibrantly rosy his cheeks are. If you're seeing it right, his eyes are a little heavy lidded, probably as a result from all of the alcohol. He has a beauty mark underneath his lip, and his lips are just as pink as his cheeks as he brings another cigarette to his mouth. “Do you want another? Or do you just want to keep staring?” His voice is playful, enough so that you bite your tongue for the quip back. 

“I shouldn't. I’m trying to quit, anyway,” you say, still breathing yours in. He nods and you notice that you can actually see his eyes now—no douchey sunglasses, or whatever you called them in your head back there. “Why aren't you wearing your glasses anymore? The ones you wore inside?”

“I don't need to wear them now that the lights aren’t crazy. It gets very overstimulating in there, the glasses help.” 

“I assume your earphones are for the same reason?” You point at his dangling white earphone, and he nods. “I should try that. Maybe it’ll stop me from yelling at strangers.” 

“Maybe it will help you, too. Want to listen?” 

He offers it to you, tonight’s symbolic olive branch, and you take it. “Sure,” but you take it out of your ear almost as soon as you put it in, the music extremely loud and blaring. “How do you not lose your hearing?” 

“I’ll lose it anyway—YOLO,” he says, shrugging, and amuses you how serious he seems saying it. “YOLO” is a fitting mantra for him. “I'm a performer, anyway, so—YOLO! Accelerate the process.” The music turns down considerably; if you're hearing it right, it sounds like Flemish dad rock, something you'd hear on the radio if you grew up here. 

“YOLO, I guess,” you laugh, and he nods like he’s proud of you, laughing himself. It sounds more like a bark, voice now raspy because of the cigarettes, because of the cold, but it sounds nice. “You’re a performer? What have I seen you in, then?” His appearance is so distinctive—hair so bright it almost glows, eyes reflecting an icy grey from the dark of the footpath in front of you. His style is even more distinctive, all Supreme and Bathing Ape and hype beast brands you’ve never heard of. 

But it is Amsterdam. Curly blonde haired, blue eyed hype beasts are a dime a dozen here. You’ve probably seen him around somewhere, it seems like even your roommates know him pretty well through their scene of creatives—but you can’t seem to connect him to anyone you’ve ever watched or heard before. 

“Let me pull up my music for you.” 

“Soundcloud rapper?” you tease. 

“Adjacent.” 

He takes his phone out of his jeans pocket, and you peer over his shoulder, watching as he scrolls through a different playlist. He looks back at you, smiles, looks at your lips then back up at your eyes—it takes a little out of you to keep from rolling your eyes, it takes a lot out of you to keep your composure when he does it. Ugh. “I don’t know what to play you,” he admits, turning back to his phone. “Feels like you’re just going to mess with me when I do.” 

“I'll try not to. Can't promise anything, though.” 

You put your hand on his shoulder—he feels warm, sturdy, and he’s taking way too long to pick a song out of the apparently many he has under his name. 

Finally, he clicks on a title and it begins playing; 1 second in, you say, “Skip,” just to fuck with him, and it works well—he looks back at you, mouth agape and eyes wide, expression so earnestly incredulous you have to laugh. Your faces are closer than they have been the entire night, but you can't even focus on that as you laugh. “Skip?!” he exclaims, getting closer to you, all up in your face. 

“Yeah, skip,” you giggle, nodding exaggeratedly as you lean into him like he just did to you. He’s so close, and he grins at you as your noses come close to brushing. 

“This is the first song of mine I’ve played the entire time, and you want to skip it.”

Obviously, it isn't actually a skip for you—”Ome Robert,” a really fun song about…sucking dick? Being a god? Either way, it’s incredibly catchy and well produced, but you don’t want to let him know that just yet. “Yeah, I wanna skip it. You’ve gotta have better than this.” 

“I work hard on this song, I release it myself, it goes platinum in the Netherlands, I make it to impress beautiful strangers at the club just like you—and you want to skip it. All that work, what did it even get me?” 

Beautiful. This counts as a win. “I admire your work ethic and I think it’s so commendable that you set up a record label for you and your friends—but it’s a skip, I’m sorry to say.” You shrug, putting your hands in the coat pockets once you stub your cig out. The air is so cold—honestly, you worry for him, his disheveled white button-up the only thing shielding him from the weather now that he’s given you his coat. 

“Tell that to everyone in the club, you saw it back there. You probably even danced to it, too.” 

“Did you have to pay the DJ to get him to play your song?” 

“No, we’ve been friends for years.” 

“Ah, so it’s nepotism. I see,” you state proudly, and he groans.

“Nepotism? I will let you know, I established a record label myself. Fully independent, no nepotism.” 

Though Joost’s tone is annoyed, there’s nothing but an amused grin on his face; you smile back, “Is he signed to your label?” He nods, and there, just as easy, you have another piece of ammo. “Ah, so he’s kissing up to the boss.”

“You—“ he starts, eyebrows furrowing, then stops, shaking his head at you. “I've been talking to you for an hour and I don’t even know your name.”

“We’ve been busy.” 

You offer your name and he repeats it, question mark at the end. You nod and he smiles bigger, if that’s even possible. In the streetlight, his eyes shine, long blonde eyelashes almost covering them. “We’re supposed to meet, did you know that?” 

“Really?” 

“I’m Joost. Friend of Tantu and Alanis. They said they wanted me to meet…their friend’s friend? If you are that. Friend’s roommate?” 

“What a way to meet.” You didn’t think this would be the Joost that Tantu was talking about at the bar, fiery yet sweet making loud and proud music you’d never heard before. 

“We made great first impressions on each other, I think. You are unforgettable.” 

“Mine worse than yours,” you sigh, and Joost hands you his cigarette to smoke the final few puffs. You take it even though you should quit, even though you told him you’re quitting, your lipstick staining the butt. 

“We can put it behind us, yeah?” he says, holding his hand out for you to shake. “Friends?” 

“Acquaintances, for now,” you tease, but shake his hand anyway. “Fuck, dude, your hand is so cold.” Your brows furrow in concern as you squeeze his hand, surprisingly freezing, surprisingly soft save for a few callouses.

Joost laughs smaller than you’ve heard him all night, your hands practically in his lap; his cheeks are glowing pink with how long you’ve been out here—your cheeks are warm, but likely not for the same reason.  

“Acquaintances? Don’t play hard to get.” On instinct, you wrap your other hand around Joost’s in an attempt to warm it. “Your hands are so warm, I appreciate you for trying,” Joost remarks. “Very small, too, Christ.” 

“Oldest trick in the book, Joost, my god,” you laugh, exasperated, yet still, you let him move your hands so they're flat against each other, palms touching. He holds your wrist gently so he can line your hands up; his fingers are much longer and thicker than yours, and the sight brings warmth to your cheeks—it shouldn’t have the effect it does on you, but it does. 

“It’s working, isn’t it?” 

You bring his hand into the coat pocket with yours—it worked enough for you to now willingly share this tiny pocket, that’s for sure. “It’s working,” you say softly, averting your gaze now that you both know that whatever it is is something that’s felt mutually. “Do you do this with every pretty stranger you meet in the club?”

If Joost is a performer like he says he is, a big time independent record label owner like he says he is—there’s sure to be a line of people out the door, or at least a few groupies or someone. Someone in that club who recognized those songs, recognized the mop of blonde hair sitting in front of you now. Over several failed situationships and romps with people this side of Europe, you learned: there is always someone. Someone who’s less busy, less distracted, more interested. 

You know you fit the bill for the interested part, at least—less busy is something you’ll be for a short time, less distracted…well, you have your full attention on him right now, don’t you? It’s been so long since you’ve done something like this, maybe you’re just feening for an excuse to check your own boxes for him, maybe you want to do this for the sake of the line out the door or the groupies. 

Or maybe he’s just Joost. Whoever Joost is, considering you just met him. And maybe you just want him to keep holding your hand, or talk to you more, show you more of his music or go back home with you, slip into your bed, stay until the morning. 

“I can't say I have. I’ve never had a conversation like this with anyone, really, so it wouldn’t even be worth it if I did,” Joost says. Your faces are close again—you would bridge the gap if you just let yourself, but you can’t; you can only muster the courage to let your noses brush against each other, only the courage to smile. “Can I kiss you?”

It seems, he’s checked your boxes for you. 

“Are you fucking crazy?” you scoff, though you lean in at the same time. Joost leans back when you do, teasing grin upon his lips, and you furrow your brows, shaking your head. “Don’t play hard to get,” you mumble as he untangles your fingers in your coat pocket, takes your face in his cold and gentle hands and presses his lips to yours. 

He tastes like cigarette smoke; his Bacardi cola on your dress and your shoes, and now the taste on your tongue; he tastes like smiling into a kiss with a pretty stranger, the way you both do now. 

Joost kisses like he’s scared to broach you, like it’s the first time he’s been delicate in a while—you kiss like you’re hungry for him, because you are, not a single care about your lipstick on his face or the people walking past or the fact that he’s a stranger. His hand slips under your coat, gripping your hip as you pull him closer by the lapel; you beckon him to kiss you harder when you let him lick into your mouth and you lick back. 

It’s your turn to pull back, come up for air; Joost chases you when you leave, hand running down your body as you go to stand up, a soft little, “what no” leaving his mouth when you do. The look on his face—his face!!! Fuck.—is so cute, big wide eyes and hand on the back of your thigh. You cup his face (is this too tender?), rub your thumb at the edge of his lips where your lipstick has smudged in an attempt to clean it off. Turning his head, he kisses your palm, and your breath catches in your throat. 

Wordlessly, he gets up, stands next to you. “What the fuckkkk!!!” he whisper yells, gesturing wildly, and the street echoes the sentiment back. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know,” you say, laughing, and then stumbling because he’s gotten you in his arms again, kissing you, stumbling with you back against the brick wall of the building behind you as he laughs into your mouth to your whining between giggles about how he almost made you trip. 

Caged between his arms, you wrap yours around his neck so you can get up higher to kiss him—“I don’t regret spilling my drink on you at all,” Joost mumbles when you kiss his chin, nip at his jaw, go down to suck at his pulse point and nip at it too. “Can I touch you like this?” he whispers, and you nod as he brings his hands down to your ass, presses you harder against the wall, grinds against you as you kiss him breathless again. 

When Joost pulls away, you know—you’ve got him wrapped around your finger. Breathing almost heavy, pink lips dropped open, face more serious than he’s been the entire night and scanning your features in a way that is truly disarming—you don't want to admit it, but Joost has got you wrapped around his finger, too. 

A group of people from the club pass behind—you hear a few whispers of, “Is dat Joost?” and a few wolf whistles. Someone gives him a few congratulatory claps on the shoulder which he cringes at, giving you an apologetic smile. “Don’t listen to them.” Once more, he kisses you.

“Your place?” he breathes, and you sputter for a response. This is going a bit too well. Your silence seems to speak for you, but really, you're just thinking about if your room is clean, if your everything shower was enough, if you’re ready to do this with him. “Too much?” he winces, giving you a weak smile, and you shake your head. 

“No, no, my place is fine—my roommates might be home, though.”

“I can be quiet.” 

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s true.” 

“It’s a half-truth.” 

“I’ll take that.” 

—

After a kilometre walk the direction of your house chock full of giggles and pauses to keep kissing against brick walls, dark store fronts, alley entrances, you finally make it back to your house. 

You hurry up the icy steps to your townhome, taking Joost by the hand as he trips his way up the flight. “Schat,” he breathes, and the pet name makes your heart skip a beat, “My house was closer the other direction.”  

“You suggested my place, Joost,” you laugh as you unlock your door and step in your warm foyer—you wave him in, kicking your heels off and stepping onto the cold wood floor as he does the same with his shoes. 

Closing the door behind you, you listen for a beat…voices. The walls are so thin here, you’re unsure if the sounds come from your next door neighbours or your potentially home roommates. Either way, you bring a finger to your lips, telling him to be quiet. In his normal voice, he says, “I’ll be quiet,” and you laugh together at his volume—neither of your roommates would care, but the teasing you'll receive tomorrow if they knew it was Joost you were bringing home…endless. 

“Come, now,” you say, taking Joost’s hand and leading him up your steps, down the hallway to your room.

Your home is tiny and cozy and lived in—the three of you have worked very hard to make this feel like a household instead of just a shared living situation, frames lining the walls of your antics and travels together, baby pictures from home, posters of music artists and movies that one or all of you like. Joost lags behind you trying to look at them, but you just pull him along. Waiting any longer feels like a travesty. 

Once you get down the hallway, open and close your door, you push him up against your door and kiss him again to his surprise, your teeth clacking together from his smile and your enthusiasm. “You want me that bad, huh?” he teases, and you roll your eyes. 

The answer is yes, but you’re not going to let him know that yet. 

You room is as tiny as the rest of the house, a queen bed in the middle with off-white sheets, a desk on the far side, a dresser with a mirror when you walk in. 

“I don’t do things like this very often,” you mumble, fumbling with his angular belt buckle between your fingers, the cold metal of it and the jagged edges of the plate spelling “ALBINO” in a stylized font. 

“Me neither,” Joost breathes as he tries to help you, but ends up fumbling with it, too. “Holy fuck, if I knew this would be so hard to take off, I wouldn’t have worn it.” 

“Cool belt, nonetheless,” you say, and he kisses you thanks. 

“It’s the name of my album,” Joost beams as he finally gets it unclasped, pulling it through his belt loops. You undo his button, unzip the zipper, he does the rest, clumsily pulling down his pants slightly. “We should listen to it.” 

“Later.” From here, as you palm him over his underwear, feel his length through it, you can tell—he’s big. “You should’ve told me you were hiding this back there, maybe I wouldn’t have argued with you as much.”

“I was afraid you would’ve clutched your pearls if I did, schat, the way you yelled at me.” 

“You would be right,” you agree, knowing you would’ve probably thrown a drink in his face if he made some remark about his dick size to you in the midst of your argument. “But if you told me, we probably wouldn’t have sat out there for so long.”

“I wouldn’t have given up that conversation for the world.” 

From anyone else, these words would be hyperbole; strangely, from Joost, they feel true. it feels like you know him already, and he knows you. Perhaps it’s the result of having such a circle of a venn diagram of friends and acquaintances. Perhaps you did know him from a different time and you just forgot.  

“Me neither,” you agree softly, smiling into the kiss you give him as you reach into his boxers and wrap your hand around his hard cock. He’s just as thick as you thought. 

“Fuck,” Joost breathes into your mouth already, and you watch him and his face contort in pleasure as you jerk him lazily in his underwear just for the added sensation of the fabric rubbing against him. Gazing at your lips, eyebrows furrowing, chest moving up and down and breathing heavy, he says softly, “I haven’t done this in…a year? A year and a half? So please, have mercy on me.” 

“Go home with someone? Me too.” You figure that it makes sense—any fling he has is probably on the road, in hotel rooms, anywhere but home. You're not exactly welcoming guests on Friday nights either, but you’re holed up in it 24/7. 

“No, I mean—any of it. I don't do casual often, at all, really.” 

You scoff lightheartedly, “Yeah, sure.” 

“I’m serious,” Joost smiles as you take his length out of his boxers and get on your knees, the plush carpet cushioning you.  

You don’t do one night stands and you certainly don’t do them with self proclaimed “performers,” yet here you are. 

Now in front of you, his cock in your hand, you make complete peace with your decision, and it’s easy to do so. 

He is so pretty—all pale, the tip a delicate rosy pink and leaking wet, a vein running along the underside. It’s nestled in a thicket of lightly trimmed dark blonde hair; you give him a few pumps, running your thumb over the head for some lubrication when you do. 

“Won't listen to my music, but you’ll do this, ridiculous,” Joost says quietly, hand on your cheek as you look up at him through your eyelashes. 

“You’re still on that? Big ego, shocker.”

“Obviously not a shock, you’re holding it.”

In shock at his audacity, you gasp dramatically. “Don’t get cocky, now. You still needed to beg me for streams earlier.”

You give a kiss on the pink tip, salty precum coating your lips. A perfect moment passes when you look back up at him—he rolls his head back in pleasure, a quieted moan slipping past his lips at your tongue finally on him, just one lick to the slit but enough to get him a little louder. 

His cock twitches in your hand, and you grin, kitten licks to his shaft, “Too much?” 

Joost says breathlessly, “I think my knees will buckle sometime tonight, schat,” and you beam up at him. 

“That’s a big compliment,” you purr, taking the head of his cock into your mouth and sucking lightly, which earns a strangled groan for you, a curse under his breath. With every bob of your head, you take a tiny bit more, about half—you're ambitious, but who can blame you when Joost is so pretty? Struggling to keep it together, his stomach muscles jumping and twitching with every hollowing of your cheeks, every drag of your tongue along the underside of his shaft. 

Joost’s hand comes up to the back of your head, just resting there gently as you swallow down his cock, dripping spit on your chin; it hits the back of your throat and you almost gag, having to pull back and pump him a few times, the shiny head now a deeper pink. 

“You like it that much, hm?” he says, moving your hair out of your eyes as you lick a stripe along the underside.

“When you make those sounds—yeah, I do.” You lap at a bead of precum dripping from his slit, and it makes him hiss; it makes him groan even more when you pop the head into your mouth and suck again. 

Involuntarily, he thrusts just a little in your mouth—”Can I do this?” Joost asks, and you nod around him. He’s gentle when he starts, and you prepare to take more of him by breathing through your nose.

He makes these little thrusts into your mouth that make your eyes water, shallow as you suck around him, steady with one hand on your head. With every thrust into your open mouth, he breathes heavier, his pretty lips are dropped open. Spit pools at the sides of your mouth; one long seat into your throat, followed by another, and you gag around him, making him groan loudly. “Holy shit, schat,” Joost breathes, and you feel accomplished. “Enough of that, I think I’ll cum.”

With his hand, Joost wipes your spit from your chin gently; brings you up to meet him for a sloppy kiss, which you smile into as he reaches around to your dress zipper, pulls it down a few inches, rough fingertips against your soft back. You start undoing the buttons of his button-up for him, fumbling just as you did earlier with his belt. For some reason, you can't find it in yourself to slow down around him. 

The zipper catches and you miss a button on the way down, both of you entirely too distracted by kissing like it’s a competition, like you want to eat each other—thankfully, you get all of them undone, and so you run your hands down Joost’s chest covered in hair, his happy trail, back down to his cock again. It makes him falter as he brings down your zipper but he manages to do it, fingers light as a feather running down your spine, nudging your dress down. 

Erratic and wild as the man in front of you, your heart beats a million miles an hour, your hands in his hair as he pulls down your dress completely and it crumples onto the floor. 

Joost pulls back, a string of spit connecting your lips, pupils blown out and wide as he scans your body, your breasts and your pebbling nipples. You move your arms in front of them, avoiding his gaze. “Don’t be shy,” he laughs softly, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed—“ he moves your hand over his heart—it beats as fast as yours, and you give him a small smile. “I’m nervous, too.” A kiss that seems to calm your nerves. “Can’t believe someone pretty as you would take me home.” 

He rubs your back, and already you feel comforted—how is this the same guy who spilled his drink all over you? “Why wouldn’t I?” 

“Do you forget how your dress is still very sticky because of yours truly?” 

You laugh together as he kisses your cheek, the side of your mouth, then kisses your lips slow and achingly gentle, licking into your mouth and rolling your nipple gently between his two fingers, his other hand cupping your cheek. He drags his tattooed knuckles down the curve of your breast, making your breath catch in your throat, a small whine falling from your mouth when he runs them down your stomach, fingertips down over the lacy black fabric of your thong, down more and teasing at your covered clit. 

“Get on the bed,” Joost murmurs, and you practically scramble to it before he stops you with a loose grip around your wrist. “Woah, woah, woah.” With a puzzled expression, you turn back to him. “We can’t have them watching, what?” he says, gesturing at your bed. Staring back at you with gigantic embroidered blue eyes: three of your cat plushies placed upon your pillows from earlier when you made your bed. You weren’t exactly planning on guests tonight. “Blasphemous, no? They can look out the window.” Scooting behind you and to the bed, Joost scoops up the three, climbing over it to your desk facing outside. The moonlight streams in through your curtains as he sits them in a line and turns them around. “Much better.”

“Much better,” you repeat, laughing. On your now clear bed, you lie back and lean over. Opening the lower drawer on your nightstand, you rummage around for the box of condoms you know is somewhere in here but is covered by notepads, extra pens, random pouches filled with indeterminate belongings. Under a folder filled with paperwork and old assignments, you find the box, opened but largely untouched except for one used for a 4th date Hinge guy from months and months ago who didn’t even make you cum. 

You dig the box out and hold it out to him. Settling between your legs, Joost says, “Not yet,” taking it out of your hands and placing it on the nightstand. “I want to taste you, schat, I’ve been wanting to all night.” 

…Eating it already? You’ve declared that Joost is ran through, but you find yourself caring less and less with how enthusiastic he is. Still, though, there’s a part of you that’s apprehensive about letting him see all of you so soon. 

“Joost,” you blush, closing your legs. He moves them so he can see your face, and your cheeks grow hotter as you reason, “We just met.”

“And?” Tilting his head to the side, Joost scoffs. “We’re already naked in your bed, schat.” 

He makes a good point, but still…you’ve never had anyone offer to do it on the first link. “I don’t know…You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“You just put my dick in your mouth, it’s only fair I do something in return.” Just a little, you part your legs for him; slowly, he takes a place between them, gaze disarming as he comes to lie on his stomach and rests his cheek on your thigh, giving it a chaste kiss. So convincing, but you don’t really need to be convinced, do you? “I will make it worth your while, baby.” 

Soft mewls come out of you inadvertently when Joost noses at your inner thigh, sucks at the sensitive skin. “We could just move on—that is perfectly fine, too. But I could give you even more of a good time if we do this.” 

“You talk big game, Joost,” you laugh. With his age and strange tattoos and his bleach-damaged hair and his expensive attire, you expect Joost to be bad at…all of it, really, but he’s only subverted your expectations tonight without having the chance to fully even touch you yet. 

“I wouldn’t do so if I couldn’t prove it to you.” Joost presses a chaste kiss over your panties, over your clit, and somehow, your heart ups gears, beating unsteadily. “And if I didn’t want it so bad,” he adds in a low voice. Completely different from the smiling, pink-nosed boy you saw in him earlier, Joost is hungry for you, the look in his eyes telling you everything you need to know about the veracity of his words. “If you don’t want me to see, I’ll close my eyes—for now, we can just do this.” 

Whoever had him last must have trained him well.

Lathing his tongue over you, Joost spreads his spit over the cloth of your thong, soaking the fabric even more than it already is as he holds your gaze. One arm is hooked around your thigh; the other hand, you’re not entirely sure, but judging from how heavy he’s breathing, how desperate he looks as he eats you out over your panties, the movement of his arm—he’s touching himself, and you wonder if he can feel how much more wet you become at the idea that he is. 

A few hours ago, thought yourself unshakeable in the face of him—now you’re a squirming puddle in his hands. 

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to—but I promise—“ Joost says, big blue eyes shining at you, hands now clasped together as if he’s begging for it—you figure that he is begging for it, technically, and who are you to deny him the opportunity? “Do you really not want it?” Though he’s giving you an out, he sounds so resigned, and it makes you smile a little. 

From the sidewalk, your front steps, the threshold of your room, you wanted Joost badly; wanted him even after considering all the outcomes of this: a waste of a free night, or an hour or two with an overconfident and underperforming boaster before you shoo him away, or a sweet but egotistical rapper in your tidy bedroom putting plushies on top of your university textbooks and leaving his clothing on your floor. 

Despite yourself, you want him. The confirmation that he wants you just as badly, too—the air in your room is charged with electricity, warm and stuffy almost even with the cold outside. You haven’t felt something so strong in forever, too distracted by work and school and life to really care about your body’s needs, even less so what it wanted. 

Joost is exactly what you want. 

“No, no, please,” you breathe, already lowering the side of your thong. “I want you, please, Joost.”

The confidence feels more like giving permission to yourself to be so vulnerable with Joost. No one has seen you this intimately in months (feels like years) and definitely not after such short time together. 

“Okay, schat. Okay,” Joost says, pressing one last kiss over your underwear before helping you pull it off. When you kick it off somewhere on the ground next to the bed, he screws his eyes shut dramatically, and you laugh. 

“You can open your eyes, you know?”

“Hey, I said I would keep them closed for you, I’m not going to break my promise.” He shakes his head, moving forward to kiss…somewhere, you’re not really sure, but it ends up being the junction between your leg and your center, which tickles you. 

“Break it, I don’t care.”

“If you say so.” Joost shrugs, then opens his eyes. Already, it’s as if he’s trying to study you, and it makes you want to hide. Against your better judgment, you open your legs wider for him to have more room, and he gives you a small grin. “Zo mooi, liefje, ik heb zoveel geluk,” Joost says softly, one tentative lick up your seam that makes you shudder. Your cheeks feel warm with how reactive you are to him. Synapses overloaded with his skillful tongue teasing at your clit through your lips, parting them slightly with his fingers—you don't even have it in you to translate what he said to English in your head. “Je smaakt zo lekker, ik vind het geweldig,” he groans, laying his tongue flat against the bud, lapping at it a few times, smacking his lips loudly against you. 

He wraps his lips around your clit, making you moan loudly at how good it feels; you tug at his sweaty blonde hair, and he laughs, he laughs with his mouth on your pussy, and the vibrations of his deep voice make you go crazy. Already, you feel your climax about to approach—in the whirlwind of your busy life, you had no time at all for any self-love, and you guess that your heightened sensitivity is a direct result of that. 

Or maybe Joost is just that good. 

You watch Joost as he devours you slowly, eyes trained on yours and unflinching, arms hooked around your plush thighs and holding you down—even if you wanted to, you couldn’t get away from him. 

When he reaches his right arm up to paw at your breast, you can’t help but notice—“You—is that Crazy Frog?” Crazy Frog tattoo?!?! On his forearm of all places?!?! Who exactly are you sleeping with? You are entirely and endlessly entertained and intrigued by the stranger you’ve picked up tonight. 

“You know Crazy Frog?!” Joost exclaims, pulling back from you with a pop that makes you moan, lips glistening as he sits up a tiny bit. 

“Yes, I know Crazy Frog, Joost.” You laugh, amused if not a little puzzled at the notion that Crazy Frog could be some niche reference for anyone who’s used Youtube in the last 15 years or born before 2003. 

“I thought you would be too fancy to know him, I’m glad you aren’t.” 

“I may have a stick up my ass, but that doesn’t mean I live under a rock.” 

“Great,” Joost smiles, climbing up over you to give you a quick kiss before you gasp at two of his fingers circling your clit. “Then we will get along just fine.” Kiss to your cheek, and he’s back on you again.

The pause in stimulation makes you more sensitive, somehow, and when he immediately sucks your clit hard, it punches the air out of your lungs—you clench your thighs around his ears, but it just makes him suck harder. In the matter of a minute, your orgasm is coaxed out of you by Joost and his wonderful mouth, your moans no longer quiet and subdued; you have to cover your mouth with your hands, but it’s no use when he keeps licking your swollen clit on your comedown, every stroke of his tongue bringing intense waves of pleasure surging through you, making you sob out his name like your neighbours won’t have it memorized by the time tomorrow comes. 

Joost pulls away from your pussy slightly when you finally release all of the tension in your thighs, your body, letting your vice grip on his blonde hair go. Every part of you feels like jelly as you try to catch your breath, sweat on your brow, the pulse between your legs strong and steady as a result of the beautiful man lying between them. 

“You want another?” Joost asks, wiping his mouth, then giving you a wet kiss on your overstimulated clit that makes you curse his name to his raucous laughter. “I can give you another, I could do this forever if you asked.”

“No, no need, that’s very much enough, thank you,” you say, shaking your head. If you could stand not to have him inside you for one more minute, you’d take him up on his offer. “That was too good.” 

“Dank je wel,” he grins, then kisses you, your own flavour on his lips and his on yours. 

“Graag gedaan,” you giggle in your crappy accent and he kisses you again. 

“Wowww, fluent. Very impressive, schat.” Joost nods, giving you a small round of applause, and you roll your eyes but pull him in for another kiss anyway. He moves to sit down so you sit on top of him—his cock is still hard as it was before, a small wet spot on your sheets next to you from where he laid down. 

The feeling he gives you, it’s inexplicable—all those days writing reports and essays, brainstorming and editing, thousands and thousands of words upon paper, and Joost has rendered you speechless in mere hours. No sound between you—no jabs, no complaints or thinly veiled flirty insults, just your shared breaths in your bedroom, just the dull shuffle of your now messed up comforter against your sheets as you reach over and rip off a condom from the sleeve, the box falling over and onto the floor. 

For once, you don’t quite care; you only care about ripping the wrapper, taking it out, pinching the tip of the condom, rolling it down his hard cock as you kiss him open-mouthed and thoughtless.  

“All fours,” Joost whispers, and you let yourself follow his lead after so long having to be in complete control of your life. It feels good being with him, feels good when he places your legs far apart and you settle on your elbows, back arching. You’re so exposed like this—you almost flinch when he dips his fingers into your dripping folds. You turn your head to look back, let him see you and your face as he teases your clit. “Who would have thought?”

“Thought what?” you breathe, wiggling your ass back against his hand. 

“Nothing to say? No teasing?” 

“I’ve done my teasing.” You already knew Joost’s hands were big—but when he wraps them around your hips and pulls you to him gently, the size of them is stark, so warm and gripping you tightly. He comes closer behind you, his thighs behind your ass, dragging the tip of his cock through your slit with a groan. “Joost,” you sigh in a small voice, so overcome by your need for him. “Please, I need you, please fuck me.” 

“Since you asked so nicely.”

With a few more swipes of his cock through your wetness, a few circles of the head against your clit that make arousal pool in your stomach and between your legs, he finally inches it inside of you just a little. 

He’s going so slow, and you—you've never been so impatient in your life. You slide back for him, loud moans coming from the two of you at the fast stimulation, his cock dragging against your walls as you  take him deeper. “Oh my god,” you whisper as he eases more of himself into you, then leans over you, chest pressed against your sweat-sheened back and a hand snaking around to knead your tits. 

“‘Ik ben een god,’ I guess,” Joost says into your ear with a laugh, and you can't help but laugh too, even with all the ego dripping from quoting his own song calling him a god while he’s fully inside of you. 

“Don't flatter yourself.”

“I don’t have to flatter myself,” he says, and the grin in his voice is absolutely diabolical; he says it with a hard thrust into you, which you moan at, the way his cock hits your spot so amazingly, your eyes almost roll back into your head. Every nerve in your body is electric, so many months without use, without stimulation, Joost is a shock to your system. “You do it enough for me.” 

You practically hide your face in the sheets as he falls into a rhythm thrusting into you at an angle so deep inside you could cry—you would never let Joost have that satisfaction, though, so you bite your lip and revel in the pleasure. Every steady seat of his cock inside you, every single breathy moan that falls from his mouth, every whispered murmur of your name accompanied by his hands roaming your back. 

The sticky slap of his balls against your clit, the wet sound coming from your pussy so filthy it could take you out of this dizzying haze. Really, it sends you in deeper, burying you in it the way he’s burying himself inside of you. 

“Fuuuck,” you drag out as you grip your sheets for any leverage, eyebrows furrowing with his hands gripping tightly on your hips to bring you back onto his cock. “Joost, like that.” The pace he's set for you both is aggravatingly perfect—you think you might want it forever. 

“You sound so pretty saying my name like that, baby, do it again.”

“Joost,” you mewl, eyebrows scrunching that you’re letting him have what he wants. You start to say it again, but as you do—he sinks into you so quickly, so hard, then starts sliding out of you so slow you let out a strangled sob. You can’t say anything else when he continues fucking into you, only letting out stifled sighs with every movement. 

“So much to say earlier, now look at you. It’s okay, I know it’s good, liefje,” he says softly. 

“So good,” you murmur, the drag of his thick cock in and out of your pussy bringing you almost to the edge as you collapse your torso onto the bed, so exhausted with the endless dopamine hit you’ve managed to score with Joost—almost to the edge until he ceases his movements completely as he’s fully inside you. 

“Schat,” Joost breathes, and you turn around and pout at him, completely (and justifiably) annoyed at the stoppage of his wonderful hips. 

“Fuck you, why'd you stop?” you ask, propping yourself back up on your elbows and shaking your head. 

Joost leans over you, lips on the nape of your neck, so you turn your head. “Fuck you,” he says, and you kiss him as he laughs. He’s so full of it—You’re so full of him, a comfortable pressure inside of you and snug against your spot. “You need me to hold you up? You can lie down if you want, schat, maybe it will feel even better.”

“Yeah, hold me up.” At your wish, he stands you both up on your knees as he supports your stomach; one hand wrapped around your waist and the other snaking down, down between your legs. 

You’re sure that this will collapse you once more—you don’t mind. He resumes thrusting into you, breathing into your neck, kissing your shoulder. The wet slaps of skin against skin, the sighs and the breaths and his raspy voice in your ear when he finally touches your sensitive clit alongside the firm movements of his hips. “Let it out, lieverd, I know,” Joost murmurs into your neck as you sob in pleasure; there isn’t a single second of reprieve he gives you, not even slowing the circles he’s making on your sloppy clit. 

You don't have it in yourself to argue; not against the ego or his wandering hands and his voice you’d deem condescending if you were still arguing on the stoop in front of the bar earlier—Joost is right, it is good, and this angle he has thrusting up into you is mind blowing, even as the rhythm becomes irregular and disjointed as he kisses and bites the side of your neck. 

Your heart beats ever faster, the knot in your stomach tightens and tightens with every languid and messy thrust inside of you. You reach behind yourself to hold onto Joost around his shoulders, gripping his hair as you bring him in for a rough kiss, all teeth and carnality—you were so composed, once upon a time. He’s given you every reason to forget that. 

“Oh, fuck, schatje,” he mumbles into your mouth. You pull back to look at Joost in his glory—he’s even prettier like this, messy and sweaty, patches of pink all along his cheeks and neck, eyes focused and almost stern. “My hand is cramping,” he says, and you laugh when he adds quickly, “And you also feel amazing, but also my hand is cramping.” 

“Keep going, I'm almost there,” you say, and he obeys, still rubbing your clit, your wetness smearing on your pussy and his hand. “Do it for me, Joost, you feel so good,” you breathe, and he nods, kissing you deeply—it hits you before you even register it, takes you off guard when you climax and you have to pull back from him to moan his name, looking him in the eye when you do. 

You’re never this loud—it’s very vulnerable realizing how much he’s coaxed out of you, Joost watching intently, soft smile upon his lips at your clenching pussy around him as the waves of your orgasm come through you, practically leg shaking. 

He kisses you quiet again; kisses you until it’s his turn, thrusting sloppily into you, the overstimulation stinging, but so good still. 

He whimpers your name, and you contemplate asking him to give you another orgasm; he whimpers again into your neck, just a soft vocalization against the still filthy sounds of the final few thrusts he can give you as he cums, the warmth you can feel through the condom flooding your pussy. 

When he stills, Joost places his forehead against yours, and you breathe together in silence—if you didn’t know any better, you’d think the two of you have been with each other for years. 

“I’m really surprised I lasted that long, schat,” Joost breathes, and you laugh, watching his face as he grins at you 

“I’m surprised, too,” you tease, giving him one last kiss and untangling yourself from him; he’s still inside you, softening with every passing moment. When he slips out of you, you hiss—it feels empty, how sad. 

“Hey, mean.” You flop down on your bed, completely spent, sweaty, still wet between your legs and watching as he takes off the condom, ties it off, and throws it in your waste bin. “I showed you a good time, didn’t I?” 

“I’m not sure,” you tease when Joost comes back to sit next to you, putting his underwear back on with an annoyed rolling of eyes. “Maybe you’ll have to show me one next time?”

“Next time, huh?” he smiles, slipping his shirt on from the pile on the floor, starting to button it up. “Ehh, I’ll think about it,” he says, and you slap him lightly on the shoulder. 

“You’re a dick, Joost.” Joost cackles as you barrage him with a bunch of weak punches to his shoulder and back, getting your revenge for the dress and your purse, for him being a rapper and a fuckboy and the giver of the best dicking down of your life. You try not to let it kill your vibe—it likely will later, but for now, you can just be silly about it. 

“Where’s your bathroom?” 

“The door next to mine.” 

Closing your eyes, you lie back on your bed, half expecting him to just dip, hoping he’s not that much of a fuckboy. But a few minutes pass, and there’s a soft knock to your door, and Joost steps gently into your room again with a glass of water and a washcloth in his hands. 

“Did you think I would just leave?” Joost asks, coming around to your side of the bed and handing you the glass. “Glassie water!” he says in a singsong voice, and you look at him puzzled as you thank him. “You’ll understand when you listen to my music more.” 

“‘When…’” you laugh as he gives you an offended look and nudges your legs open. The washcloth is cold when he places it on your skin and you wince, shaking off his apologies about the water’s temperature because it’s sweet that he’d even do this in the first place. 

As Joost cleans you up, delicate and gentle as ever, he says softly, “I will send you whatever money it takes to clean your purse, I will give you my number, and I’ll send you my schedule for the next month. Okay?” 

“Schedule? You sure it’s not filled with other strangers from the club?” 

“It’s not, I swear. You’re going to come to one of my festival shows this month, and you're going to like it.” Joost leans in and you expect a kiss for some reason, but he just takes the glass from your hand and drinks from it himself. A free festival pass doesn't sound so bad. “Ruby and Marina are back. I said hi.” 

“Oh god,” you laugh, covering your face. “What’d they say?” 

“They were surprised you took me home, but apparently they won a bet with Tantu, so—we did something good, I think!” 

“You think?” 

“I know!” You laugh at his…everything, really, sinking down in your comfy bed, realizing how heavy your eyelids are, realizing that you still haven't even exchanged numbers or last names. Does it matter this far in? “I think I should get going, schat. The sun is rising.” 

In the middle of his sentence, you practically drift off into slumber, pulling your covers over your bare body. “It’s cold, stay.” You pat at the spot next to you. “But not for too long.” 

thank you so much for reading! likes, comments, reblogs always so so appreciated <3 : ) askbox hereeee - juno

[the-s1lly-corner]

If it's alright, could I request a Toby, Slenderman, Eyeless Jack, and Jane the Killer x reader (separately), where the reader has no self preservation? Not in a sad way, but more in a "cheerfully confident that they can handle it" kinda way.

Either way, I hope you have a good day!

Crps x overly confident!reader w/ no survival instinct

Points

JANE REQUEST SPOTTED!! Feels like hardly anyone asks for her!!

Side note I could NOT find a good gif LMAO

Characters: Ticci Toby, Eyeless Jack, Slenderman, Jane the Killer

Notes: reader is GN, reader is not suicidal in any way they just think they're built different, reader is written as a human

CWs: injury and blood mentions, canon typical violence and death

SLENDERMAN

hes seen humans die to less, hes not going to let you follow that path... why would have to do any of this when hes right here to do the dirty work for you without complaint? he simply doesnt get it

but still, if he knows you will survive he will let you go- as foolish as he may think you are for throwing yourself into a fight or disaster- he will never fully understand humans so surely you must have a reason for this? stops this when it just leads to you getting hurt over and over, it slowly becomes clear that youre doing it because youre cocky. you truly do think you'd come out the other side unscathed

you dont even get the chance to throw yourself into a fight against a someone wielding a weapon- theyre torn down before you can get too close, leaving behind a mess of gore on the ground. your attitude may have rubbed off on him, he hardly ever displays such strength and violence- but if this is what needs to be done to show that you dont need to fight anymore then so be it

TICCI TOBY

honestly? he might just join you in whatever danger youre about to throw yourself in- he himself doesnt have much survival instinct, though a lot of that hinges off of his inability to feel pain. he minimizes the damage done to his body most of the time

and... that kind of bleeds into how he acts when youre reckless, afterall hes never had to be careful about himself- and you seem to hold the same belief to your own body... its going to take a real nasty injury to snap him out of that and make him realize that youre not invincible- even if the lesson doesnt sink in for you

you still sometimes make light hearted bets on things when stuff gets intense- "oh i bet i can take him-" "oh i can do this with one hand tied behind my back-" and so on and so fourth

youre both a little.... foolish...

EYELESS JACK

painfully aware of human anatomy and what it can and cant take- that comes from being very interested in the topic as well as being able to look inside human bodies first hand

a lot of the time you cant even take a single step towards the danger, hes already got his hand on your shoulder and tugging you into the other direction... and in the case where its dangerous but not deadly? you can feel the look hes giving you under his mask... for someone with no eyes he can give a mean glare

you give him hypotheticals for threats that you can take on and hes just "absolutely not."... he will not spare your ego, your safety is far more important to him- youre the one good thing in his life and hes not going to let you get yourself killed

JANE THE KILLER

it takes her a moment to process what youve said and by then youre already running towards the threat- and shes bolting after you to either back you up or drag you away... preferably drag you away if its something that cannot be stopped or bested

what were you thinking? are you insane? what if you were killed? shes not going to hold anything back, she wants to understand why you would do something like that- especially unprepared... do you have a death wish?

not at all happy or pleased with your little habit of just. running into things head first... she doesnt think its commendable or brave, and shes going to let you know what she thinks as shes trying to stop your wounds from bleeding all over the place

you can tell shes trying to be nice- well, niceish- but her tone does slip out as she speaks

[danteashida]

I'm on episode 40 of season 2 of my MCD rewatch so far.

I can now safely say, it bothers me when people say that Aphmau never showed interest or reciprocation towards Garroth or Laurence because it's just not true. Most of her reciprocation for BOTH of them was displayed in the first quarter of season 2. Of course Laurence has the upper hand here because Garroth is...Well... Well he's fighting for his life in another dimension but my point is. She even accepts a kiss from Laurence and doesn't push him away from it or deny her feelings afterward when he gives her the chance to. Even earlier to this occurrence she goes through this whole crisis of realizing that she has feelings for both of them. And from what I've noticed, there's been a handful of moments where a season 1 Aphmau would normally shut down or deny Laurence, but in season 2 she instead just stays silent and blushes. In my opinion thats definitely showing us her baby steps in coming around to the whole returning the feelings thing but we all know how it goes and she moves on a couple dozen episodes later.

Also, notably -- and i kind of dont even want to bring this up as a point because it honestly seems a little more on the like...weird...side to me almost -- she didn't even need to kiss Laurence at that wedding to get him grounded. Even Laurence points this out immediately after the kiss. Makes me raise an eyebrow even more. The tension between Laurmau is undeniable no matter which way you flip it and even Laurence points out to her (in a serious tone this time! hes not just joking around!) that he KNOWS that Aphmau likes him back now but they're both holding back. Aphmau again, doesn't deny it.

I think Aphmau's problem aside from being painfully oblivious (in most of s1) is that she refuses to sit down and assess her feelings about them and she's always pushing those feelings aside until theyre brought up again for some reason instead of facing this inner turmoil. Understandably she's already going through a lot though.

I understand not being a fan of either ship or how they played out or a million other different related complaints and opinions but saying the attraction was never there feels just factually incorrect.

Tldr is polyamory could've solved a lot of problems just sayinggggg whateverrrr man.

[loudclan-clangen]

HEY so the last ask reminded me that this is set in Alaska! As someone who used to live there it makes me very happy to see, so just for fun I brainstormed lore ideas/questions for a Clan there n I thought id share :) this is Long lmao i apologize

The terrain for one thing. Growing up I remember all the horror stories of people getting stuck in muskeg and not being able to get out before the tide comes in. so that’s always freaky, but i imagine that if theres any in the area then the cats might try and take advantage of it as safely as they can? for prey and such. on that note whats their water situation like anyways? braided rivers?

any specific ideas for what area of mountains the cats are in? are they in the higher ranges, the ones wrapped up in clouds, the rocky kind like the ones around Denali? the greener ones with all the trees? is their territory frequented by hikers and/or tourists or are they relatively untouched wilderness? I think i remember it being said that LoudClan is somewhere more towards the south, is it intended to be generally vague? :0

Predators!!!! The cats can deal with all sorts of unique stuff in a setting like this, bears n lynxes n wolves… eagles… possibly even wolverines since theyre up in the mountains? i’d be curious to see how a clan would react to a wolf pack passing through the area lol. also ive always just loved the concept of a queen finding an abandoned lynx kitten or smth and unknowingly adopting it and it just keeps… getting bigger… whoops… oh well its the clans weird child now

So many fun lil prey animals too, ground squirrels n ptarmigans n such!! I bet ptarmigans would totally harass cats during breeding season and that could be funny. maybe standard apprentice training is to learn the different ground squirrel alarm calls. maybe they even sometimes encounter dalls or caribou or moose on patrols (perhaps moose have even been known to kill before, so theyre considered dangerous).

Also just….. the day-night cycle??? I’d honestly be pretty interested to see how that ties in, like it’s daylight forever in the summer-early autumn and pretty much perpetually nighttime in the winter-early breakup. do the cats have any thoughts or beliefs towards that? do they like to look up at the northern lights, and listen when theyre so clear that they can hear them?

Okok thats all now sorry. I got way too excited lol i miss AK sm, i left when i was little 💔 if any of this has been discussed already in a lore post then ignore me its been a hot minute and i rattled this off on a whim!!!

Love this! Okay, let me try to hit all of these questions in a way that will hopefully be understandable for everyone so if you're the asker please skip past the definitions/backstory.

A 'muskeg' is like a swamp or a bog. I assume that you're referring to the area outside of Anchorage that we always called the 'Mud-Flats", because that's where I heard stories of people getting stuck. (Specifically there's a very famous urban legend of a soldier stationed in Anchorage who went out with his buddies, got stuck up to his waist, ended up tied to a helicopter, and when they tried to pull him out with the helicopter he uh... separated. And his legs can supposedly still be found in the flats. (I WANT TO CLARIFY THAT THIS IS NOT TRUE. THERE WAS A SOLDIER, HE GOT STUCK, HE DROWNED, THE SEPARATION HAPPENED AFTER HE WAS DEAD AND THEY TRIED TO RETRIEVE THE BODY. THEY DID GET HIS LEGS BACK TO MY KNOWLEDGE.)) It's pretty much a long stretch of quicksand (but it's like more mud and silt than sand? idk how to really describe it i haven't been there much cause ya know, hearing stories like that will kinda cure your curiosity as a kid.)

Anyway, Ghostclan's territory used to be Mud-Flats, but long before the cats moved in twolegs came and installed the Rip Rap (big jagged rocks that are placed on the coastline to keep it from erroding) that make up Freezingclan's territory and that kinda took some of the danger out of it. Since the tide no longer comes up so high, while getting stuck is certainly not a good thing, it's not a death sentence as clanmates have time to gather help and dig you out. Though it does make it hard/near impossible to launch an attack on Ghostclan without an insider to lead you around the wet spots. Larger prey can sometimes be found stuck in the mud, having died from exhaustion, but the wetness causes the meat to rot quickly, and what is left draws the attention of larger predators, while also adding the issue of having to avoid getting stuck as you retrieve it, so it's not really a reliable source of food as much as it is a last resort. Ghostclan also contains the territory's braided river, which the cats call the "Friendly River" because it's three smaller streams that meet up into one large one. (I didn't do the best job rendering this on the map but that is what I was trying to represent. I'm not a landscape person, I'm doing my best.) Because the territory is a narrow valley set right on the coast they don't have a ton of room for the rivers to braid, but the thought was there!

It is intented to be generally vague, because I'm not an expert on geography and I live a couple of hours from this exact area, I didn't want to say "yeah it's here" and then have people correct me with minute little things. Plus if it's entirely made up then I can alter things to my liking. But the territory is inspired by the land along the Seward highway, where on one side it's these big mountains and on the other it's just a short sloping coastline. It looks like this in real life:

(You can even see the railroad and layer of rip rap that I included in the territory map) I imagine it's a place where the road veers inland so that the clans can have more space to roam. While the railroad runs through the mountain the highway is just on the other side of it. The mountains here are nowhere as tall as Denali, but they aren't anything to scoff at either. I imagine them being something like this, (which I believe is Exit Glacier?):

The lower areas are densely forested with tall trees and thick shrubs, but the greenery gets thinner and shorter as the elevation rises until you get to the higher ridges and peak which is pretty much just rock. Loudclan camp would be located at the transition point between grass and rock, so that there is no place above them where their enemies might hide and wait to pounce. As for humans, the territory used to belong to a small mining town. They dug the mine, installed the rip rap, built the buildings, and leveled the area of the mountain that Loudclan camp is set on, but over time resources dried up and people left. Now it's nearly untouched save the railroad, which still runs through the mountain regardless of whether there's a stop there anymore. The fact that you have to either cross railroad tracks or mountains to get to it, and its remote nature mean that hikers don't usually put in the energy to venture that way. (My mom grew up in Sutton, a former coal mining town and railway hub that was long past it's glory days by the time she was born and so this fictional town is kind of an omage to that).

The cats absolutely will interact with unique predators! The game has done me the favor of adding in wolverines already (and let me tell you, they cause PROBLEMS), but the cats might also face off against an aggressive little ermine (which are much fiercer than their appearance would have you believe) or even find themselves stumbling upon a blackbear gorging on blueberries early in the fall. They aren't really in the correct area for a wolf pack (and to my knowledge i don't remember writing about any) but who knows what's to come? Okay, now onto Lynx. Up until about 30 seconds ago I was under the impression that domestic cats and lynx could hybridize. Why did I think that? Well because everyone and their mother up her SWEARS that their female cat got out and mated with a lynx at one point or another. That or their big long hair tom cat is part lynx. So who was I to question whether that could even happen? Well apparently it can't but oops, too late, already headcannoned that several characters are part lynx so fuck it. These cats are special. They've speciated. Juneaucliff's dad was a Lynx. What are you gonna do about it? Huh? Regardless, yes, the cats do interact with Lynx, but they speak the same language, so it's a bit of a different situation. It probably won't be mentioned unless people ask about specific characters, but anyone with ear tufts/unusually large stature/big paws may have been descended from a lynx at some point.

The prey animals I think are more dangerous than the predators honestly. So many of them are specifically adapted to the terrain in ways that the cats aren't. Imagine chasing a snowshoe hare across the mountainside, following directly in their tracks only to suddenly feel the snow fall away beneath you, because while their big feet allow them to skid across the crevasse without disturbing the crust of the snow, you're just a little bit too heavy and you sink a bit to far and now you're falling to your death. You're sitting on the edge of the river during a salmon run, watching an eagle dive down to grab a fish. What are the chances it changes it's mind and grabs you? A cat weighs a lot less than a king salmon. And moose would be a danger. 9/10 they won't even glance twice at you but the one time you get unlucky enough to jump down from a tree and land between a cow and her calf? Maybe with no snow a cat could outrun a moose but those long legs mean that there's no feasible escape in the colder months. Even in the warmer months a cat can be trampled by a herd of caribou if they aren't vigilant while walking along the flat lands of the valley. Ptarmagins are easy food, but they're annoying and they spook off every other kind of prey within their designated "territory" and are just generally a nuisance. Some of them are useful, though, Dall sheep wool is is great for insulating nests and shed antlers from moose and caribou can be used to strengthen camp walls and build dens or can be broken into smaller sections to splint broken bones.

The day/night cycle absolutely plays into it! That's why starclan moved into the Black Water Pool. It's the only place where night always exists. In moon 14 Part 2 Twistedtail explains to Wildfirecry that starclan had to move, saying "We couldn't survive there. Not when the sun silenced the stars for seasons at a time". Many cats believe that their ancestors can't see them while the stars are hidden, that the light of the sun blinds them, and therefore are more likely to do devious things in the summer when the sun never leaves the sky in order to avoid punishment. They don't live far north enough to experience perpetual night but even so, only having 6 hours of daylight in the winter does make patrolling and hunting much more difficult. As of right now, the northern lights mean something different to every cat. They each interpret them/were taught to believe something unique about them. Are they the last words of dead cats frozen in the air? Are they the souls of your ancestors dancing across the sky? Maybe they're a sign from starclan, demanding that the lead healer come speak to them at the black water or a sign of good luck for a little born beneath them. No one really knows, except for that they're something important. (I'm not committing to anything cause they could be used in so many interesting ways that i don't wanna limit myself ya know?)

anyway, thank you for the ask, this was so fun to talk about! My apologies for not answering as many asks as I had hoped to over my break, I was on a trip and then had to buckle down on school work and then got sick (just a cold. im fine) but things are looking good for a beginning of July return time still! (Note because I know what tumblr reading comprehension is like: I'm not returned quite yet. I still have to write a paper for school. But soon! Yay!) If you have asked an ask in the past month: I'm so sorry please be patient. There's so many of you. If you were sending me actual, physical mail I would be completely buried in it. I love it, and hope you keep doing it, but... just know it might be a minute... or two... or ten.

[mentallhealthmatters]

Hey didn’t Shubble say that Wilbur would bit her in front of other people and she would “play along”? Aside from the obvious, she admitted that actively hid how she felt about some of the things he did. And she doubles down on that line of thinking, when Wilbur was depressed and couldn’t clean, did she say she tried talking to him or his friends and family for help? No she just stayed silent and cleaned. She claims Wilbur bit down a bit harder after she said the safe word? Well if he was used to biting up to that point wouldn’t he be surprised or shocked when he heard it? She doesn’t tell him off or ask him not to do it anymore, she implies it happened multiple times. That she gave him her permission to keep going. It shows that she would hide things from him that he would need to know, and she has the audacity to complain how he should’ve known?! Like girl if you had a problem with him then it’s up to you to talk to him about it!

Thats what im thinking! She said they talked it out, but it sounds like she was never honest with him and is blaming HIM for HER dishonesty, like girl people arent mind readers and dont gain the ability to read minds when you fucking start dating eachother.

Like if shes lying to him, thats not him being manupltive thats her not advocating for herself and or communicating honestly with her partner.

Shes the source the problem shes complaining about and the fact she has the nerve, my gods undatable. Shes undatable. Shes so neurotypical. Her talking mental health and depression makes it clear, shes very not demure mindful and very neurotypical.

And i dont say that with a funny haha, i mean shes generic white girl with firet world issues number 1097933 looking for excuses and drama. Im pretty sure she had less of an issue back then and then some friends conviencied her it was an issue.

Shes extremely dumb too, she keeps insisting because she never name dropped in her FIRST time talking about the issue that means she cant be sued when she would kater change the accuations and admit its him shes talking about, meaning technically yes, especially than thats hes coming to america, he CAN 100% slap back with a lawsuit of various kinds.

By her changing the story, shes actually giving herself less legal ground to stand out. Where as wilbur actually didnt admit to it, just said "im sorry you felt that way, i had no idea, i wish i knew because i have texts saying the opposite of what your claiming and we could have talked it out" like more or less, but like

Notice how wilbur doesnt bring up the accuations every two weeks, notice how hes not giving himself every other breath to change his story, hes not letting himself do that and by doing so hes giving himself more legal ground by ensuring he can keep his story straight. Hes doubling down on his version of events, but he didnt retell his version of events when hes annoucing hes doubling down, hes just saying that hes not changing his story and thats it.

Shelby even if unintentionally, has changed story and technically harrassed him trying to change the limelight to focus on her every other week, thats in the eyes of court, not the actions of a victim an innocent person. Thats the accuations of someone whos cried wolf and wants attention because she thinks shes pretty and people will gkve her what she wants.

Like her behavoir is text book "how to spot a liar" and im honestly annoyed at how dumb and sheep like her followers and @ranboosaysstuffs is. Like not my fuilt theyre gullible mindless sheep with no personaility and need someone else to tell them what to think or what to believe.

Like 🫠 honestly if you gonna be like that just leave the fandom, im glad Ranboo dropped minecrfat because honestly his old friends were too good for him and they dont deserve them, his old friends, tcehnoblade, philza, tommy deserve better than that spineless coward.

[kiskisur]

Hello! So hm I'd like to request some fluff with Lyney x male/ftm reader👉🏻👈🏻 reader asking Lyney why do he loves them (if ftm reader and you're comfortable with it, because theyre feeling some dysphoria) all of sudden while he's doing some magic tricks, and the magician start being all cute and flirty🫡

ᝰ.ᐟ we fell in love in october.

warnings: male reader, lyney being a cutie patootie :((, reader is referred as [name] and goes by they/them pronouns, slight angst(?)

note: honestly this is so cute!! tysm for the idea! :D atp I was crying over my own story HAHAHA btw I am not french so I do apologize if I made a mistake :( I just used Google Translate huhu. anyways I was born so I decided to do this lolol

Under the moonlit sky, Lyney and [name] found themselves on a tranquil hillside, the soft rustling of leaves and distant chirping of crickets creating a serene atmosphere. They often came here to escape the hustle and bustle of their daily lives, to share quiet moments away from the world.

On this particular evening, Lyney had set up an array of flickering lanterns, their gentle glow painting the surroundings in a warm, inviting light. [name] leaned against a tree, watching as Lyney moved gracefully amidst the lanterns, his movements fluid and mesmerizing.

As the last lantern was lit, Lyney turned to [name], his violet eyes sparkling with excitement. "Tonight, I have a special performance just for you," he announced with a mischievous grin.

[name]'s heart skipped a beat, their curiosity piqued by Lyney's words. They settled onto a cozy blanket spread out on the ground, their eyes fixed on Lyney's every move.

With a flourish of his hand, Lyney conjured a deck of shimmering cards, each one glimmering like stardust. He shuffled them expertly, his fingers dancing across the cards as if they had a life of their own. "You see, [name]," he began, his voice a melodious whisper, "magic isn't just about tricks. It's about creating moments that make your heart race, moments that take you to another world."

As he spoke, he revealed the top card, a queen with a radiant smile. "This queen represents your strength," Lyney continued, his words holding a quiet reverence. "The way you face challenges head-on, never giving up. It's the fire within you that inspires me every day."

With a flick of his wrist, the card transformed into a blooming rose, its petals unfurling to reveal a hidden compartment. From within, Lyney produced a delicate silver necklace, a heart-shaped locket dangling from its chain. He approached [name] with a soft smile, placing the necklace gently in their hands.

"This locket is like the key to my heart," Lyney confessed, his eyes locked onto [name]'s. "Inside, there's a small mirror – a reflection of all the beauty and wonder you bring into my life."

[name]'s fingers traced the contours of the locket, their heart swelling with emotion. It was a gesture so heartfelt, it left them speechless.

But Lyney wasn't done. With another flourish, he waved his hand over the locket, and the necklace began to glow softly, casting a gentle light around them. "And now, [name], it's your turn," he said, his voice a velvety whisper. "Tell me, what's in your heart?"

As [name] met Lyney's gaze, a mix of vulnerability and determination flickered in their eyes. "I... I love you, Lyney," they admitted, their voice steady yet filled with emotion. "But sometimes, I wonder why you would love me."

Lyney's smile never wavered as he knelt beside [name], his hand gently lifting their chin to meet his gaze. "Oh, [name], you are a treasure beyond measure," he replied, his words carrying the weight of his feelings. "I love you for the way you make me laugh, for the kindness that radiates from you. I love the way you see beauty in the simplest things, and the strength you show even when you doubt yourself."

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a small crystal orb that shimmered in the lantern light. "This orb represents the bond between us," Lyney explained. "It's as unique and iridescent as your smile, [name]."

With a gentle touch, he placed the orb in [name]'s hand, their fingers brushing against each other. "You ask why I love you?" Lyney murmured, his breath warm against their skin. "It's because you're the magic that fills my world with wonder. Your flaws and insecurities are part of what makes you so beautifully human, and I cherish every part of you."

As [name] looked into Lyney's eyes, they felt a sense of warmth and acceptance they had never experienced before. In that moment, surrounded by the soft glow of lanterns and the twinkle of stars overhead, they understood that love wasn't about being flawless, but about finding someone who saw their true worth.

With a soft smile, Lyney leaned in, his lips brushing against [name]'s in a tender, lingering kiss. The world around them seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of them and the magic of their love.

Their hearts beat in sync, and [name]'s hand instinctively found its way to the back of Lyney's neck, drawing him closer. The kiss deepened, a gentle exploration of emotions they had both held back for so long. It was a kiss that spoke volumes – of affection, desire, and the unspoken promise of a shared future.

As they finally parted, their breaths mingling, Lyney rested his forehead against [name]'s, his violet eyes locking onto theirs. "You are my greatest enchantment," he whispered, his voice a caress against their skin.

ᝰ.ᐟ that's why I love fall <3

[remusawoooo]

anon here, excited to read the essay! i asked you because i really like your takes and i see people in the more canon-adjacent parts of the marauders fanbase to complain about the extremes of the fanon one, though personally ive never really seen anything Too extreme, tho thats probably just tantamount to how well i curate my spaces i suppose (ive seen people say that fanon makes remus really “alpha” or makes sirius “bimbofied” and while ive seen hints of those extremes here and there, mostly it looks like it varies from person to person. ive just seen remus be more assertive than he probably is in canon, or sirius being more dramatic and “fem” than he probably is in canon). from what i know people like exaggerating events (the prank, etc.) or shifting some personality traits, but i dont really think thats a bad thing - i personally enjoy it. as long as they dont completely turn characters into stereotypes (though its a pitfall of every fandom, i fear), then whatever its just camp.

people are allowed to criticize stuff like that though, not taking that away from anyone, i personally just dont really care enough to be totally accurate esp since this hyperfix is kind of the bottom of the barrel for me LMAO. but i ask mostly bc im just curious to see what other peoples opinions are, and bc i think - especially in a fanbase like this - that its incredibly important to be at least a little critical with your media experience and reflect on it. saying “oh fuck canon we’re just having fun” is fine and all, i dont think anyone is stopping you, i think the personalities people have made up for characters that have zero screen time are super fun and the little ships are not everyones tea but like its fine. but even still, people should be way more aware of what characters theyre dealing with and from what franchise, and like reflect on any biases you may have. if youre making shit up for a random DE character, or retconning some sutff, okay, whatever, but be sure to not defend or like suddenly turn to really weird rhetoric. idk i think its the bare minimum in a fanbase like this

i definitely rambled way too much here, super sorry op! i hope this doesnt bother you, feel free to reply or feel free to not. i just really like hearing peoples thoughts on things, and i like your takes and your blog so i hope i didnt catch you by surprise. i really am just an outsider trying to look in LOL

hello anon, I'm sorry I lost your ask. I was writing on my laptop and saved the draft (but apparently had to press on alt, and didn't do it) so I basically lost your question and half of my initial response. Ty for sending in another ask!! Not a bother at all, i find this very lovely :D 

I was mortified to find that someone who isn't really a part of the fandom was perceiving me while I was complaining about fictional characters ahahaha. still, thank you for validating me and asking my thoughts on the mischaracterization of marauders!! I do talk about it daily, unfortunately, and without any prompt too. I'll try to gather all my thoughts here. I don't necessarily come across fanon as much as I did when I reentered the fandom and honestly, I can not be more with you about curating your space !! at the end of the day, I am just here to have fun, and really, pointing out these issues is not a good time at all! But I do post a lot about these, I can't be bothered to bottle up any thoughts lol.

I think the major issue I have with current interpretations is the underlying bigotry that comes along with it. There is a lot of unchecked problematic content that doesn't sit right with me.

Flanderizing characters in fandom interpretations is not limited to marauders fandom obviously. any popular media will face this because so many of us want to interact with one character so their traits are simplified for easier consumption and to find a common ground. this is also not limited to new marauders fandom. even in the older era, leather jacket-wearing, motorbike-driving quintessential bad boy siruis was a thing. so I won't nitpick on silly simplifications.

I just want to say that this isn't about me wanting everyone to have the same interpretations as I do about the canon. I follow so many lovely people and I don't agree with all of their posts. But, we all just simply share the love for these characters in the text and form an imaginary community. So, if we were to remove all the issues I will mention, it is still very well possible to have different personal takes.

Here are some of my issues:

Queerness, Gender roles, and misogyny:

My biggest problem is the representations of queer relationships. the fandom packages these couples in a strange and obvious heteronormative mold where the individuals fit into male and female gender roles. mlm and wlw are now an “f/m”* stereotype and characterization gets affected by the ships. Heterosexual relationships shouldn't have these limitations either, anyway. There is no one way to be a woman or a man. With queer relationships in particular, we have reclaimed the word queer now but it was used to describe the unconventional weirdness in the relationship. We didn't fit into the normal portrayal of a loving relationship. So, it really bothers me, even in fiction, that queer ships are popularly consumed in a way that represents a traditional template. (*this is not about gender itself but the gender roles! f/m can very well be queer!). 

Let's take the biggest victim in this fandom: sirius.

Sirius’ portrayal concerning his gender and sexuality has heavily changed his characterization in the fanon. We have a character who is popularly headcanonned as trans and is it a coincidence that all their traits have changed from the og material? Sirius is suddenly vain, whiny, and dumb. Canon doesn't suggest this interpretation, it has to have stemmed from somewhere. It's the implicit bias. Sirius becomes a caricature of what a woman “should be”. When we focus on sexuality, there is the suddenly short twink sirius who has the same new traits- proving the point of fulfilling gender roles. These characteristics are a stand-in for the “female” role of the traditional relationship and it becomes more clear in the example of new age wolfstar. Remus is now the big alpha stoic manly man- the obvious stand-in for the “male” role. I could go on, it is apparent in the way you can see remus becomes a caretaker and sirius is taken care of.

The point I am trying to make is not to discourage gender/sexuality hc. I love them, keep them coming. But, why is female sirius not tall suddenly? It is not inherently bad at all to have a feminine and masculine pairing! But why do we need to change the constitutions of these characters to consume their relationship?

I'll keep dropping disclaimers because I hate being misinterpreted: I don't obviously mean every single person is doing this or that doing one of the things means doing the other too. 

Race:

It is related to the point above. I was personally so excited to see the popular desi james hc. Even in fanon, I have never seen such a prevalent and encouraged brown rep, it was quite sweet to come back to that. But the problem is the change of characteristics that comes with race hc. Desi james is also a manly dude who is big and buff as opposed to the white petite and delicate regulus within jegulus ship. The melanin is directly proportional to the manliness here. 

This is a propagation of race stereotypes. Maybe jegulus was a bad example because usually there are seen as blank templates. I will raise the argument that this can't be all we can come up with for blank canvases then. Either way, my point about race still stands when you repeatedly design interracial queer relationships so they fall into heteronormative roles. Anyway, same issue with wolfstar when there is a brown remus.

Canon, JKR, and hypocrisy:

Refusing to engage with source material is funny when we are picking characters out of it. the interpretations of the characters will be from their book. otherwise, they are just original characters with the same name. you can add onto the traits and a lot of the time fandom comes to a consensus regarding a few things! This is common in every fandom but I don't think I have seen such reluctance to not only critically engage with media but also shame others who do. We are surely in special circumstances with this fandom but I really do think jkr and how we navigate the fanon should be two different things.

Most of us don't condone jkr or even remotely agree with any nonsense she spews on the daily. Most of us can see the problematic nature of even consuming this media and staying in this fandom. It is one of the reasons I even left the fandom. Most of us are simply doing our best to engage carefully while distancing ourselves from her. So, it is quite laughable when some love to take the moral high ground for rejecting canon while still engaging with the same characters. (the rejection of canon in question being sirius’ height, lol)

(Sirius' height is quite a polarising fact apparently. Unfortunately, the point about height is also discussed so disingenuously. When I talk about sirius’ height, it is not really about him being 6 or 7 feet. It will not really impact my life. It is about what it represents. He is bimbofied as he becomes short. It's an issue of "WHY" again.)

Of course, this isn't an accusation of intentional bigotry from everyone here. The problem with this fandom is that the people in it tell themselves that it is progressive and to run away from the problematic creator as much as possible. We are not progressive if all we do is co-opt queer and racially diverse identities on such a superficial level. The bias manifests in subtle forms. I just wish we check ourselves from time to time, that's all. 

There is a lot of hostility when we try to discuss issues in the fanon. Things are interpreted in the most misguided way to just win the argument. Like I said in the beginning, we all just want to have a good time. That also means creating a welcoming space for vulnerable groups (especially when the same identities are used to pat yourselves on the backs for inclusivity points). I didn't even cover everything btw, I just wrote about the issues that concern me. queer and poc also partake in biased representations, I also probably have some biases that I didn't identify yet. I just think it would be super neat if everyone tried to make an effort to unlearn and engage with media without hurting anyone. 

I have other issues but they are all just super subjective opinions and smth I can ignore when others do. ex: I really don't like giving tragic backstories to bigots in the story. Not every supremacist loser has a trauma that forced them into oppressing people! There is also "tropeyfication" of all major ships. Just an overall issue in the reading world I think, though.

Anon, I didn't mean to make it preachy in any way btw. You probably asked for a silly little rant and I went full lecture mode, so I apologize for the tone shift!! I mentioned these because every other issue can be brought down to these imo. Like you said, I also don't have any fixation on everything being canon-compliant. I only complain by asking about the thought process behind certain kinds of changes, if that makes sense! I hope this wasn't a drag really and you can see where I am coming from. If I misspoke anywhere, pls lmk. Thanks for sharing your opinions too!!

This is a long long rant, anyone who read everything, you are wonderful and patient. Thank you for taking the time. This huge post and the content can make you think, “who cares this much?” or “it's not that serious” and yaa it really isn't that serious. The characters aren't real but we all are. the identities projected are real. so, it does matter to talk about this.

Everything said this is a fun place to be once you find your own corner in the playground.

[eternadreeblissa]

I was in the middle of brainstorming with Madra (nickname i have for @gliphyartfan ) and as I was rambling with her I just had a thought.

How many years would pass before they meet Ava?

Cuz like, if you're gonna look at canon, they're just ACQUAINTANCES so far. They all met slowly by pairs, and as they go along together, they slowly met the rest, until eventually the start of the LU comic finally happens.

But even then, even with the unknown amount of time they all spent with their partners before they met the rest of the group we know them by now, none of them know what had happened to the other during their journeys. I'm talking about very intimate and personal stuff. They could joke some references about it but the full deets? Zipped, locked in a chest buried to the ground 12 feet under.

They're still trying to adjust as they all go on this quest they have. Theyre treading carefully about pasts and secrets and doing their best to be all buddy buddy without risking accidentally setting off sensitive things within the group. Heck, they'd rather not reveal any of them at all.

Why am I mentioning this? Cuz in fanon, we write the chain as if they're very, very close. It's like a lot of time has passed and they all went through a lot of stuff together that theyre all brotherly bonding and everything. Altho ofc this could vary between AUs and stories, the general, majority of what ive seen is that the chain are much closer already than they supposedly are in canon. And this extends to the (yandere) LU x reader community (i think).

I will admit I myself have gotten used to the chain being really close, that theyre like a family and share each other's burdens. So sometimes reading the comic gives me a raincheck cuz theyre still at the acquaintance stages IHSRIUGFRTH That said it's not bad if theyre closer in fanon. I like them when theyre closer. And honestly it's preferrable if they are closer and not acquaintances. Cuz my content will eventually go on some yandere harem themes, one heavily inspired by @gliphyartfan and @yanderelinkeduniverse kind of yandere harem as the chain. Where basically the chain would be united to protect and love darling and put aside their rivalries and whatnot for her sake. If I followed canon and theyre just acquaintances, theyre less likely to eventually unite cuz they dont know these people that well yet, and worse it may destroy any possible future family brotherly bonds they would have. So yeah to make this yandere harem work they gotta at least be closer than canon.

So since I made my decision, it begs the question I just asked earlier, but maybe I should word it better: how much time would have to pass enough for the chain to get close enough before they reach Ava?

It MAYBE would sound like a stretch, but I'm GUESSING it'll be 2-3 or 4-5 years.

Bcs think about it; in canon theyre only acquaintances so far and they JUST learned about Twilight being Wolfie. Legend being a bunny, Four being able to split, those were revealed to only one individual. Theres still secrets not revealed yet and especially big revelations like Sky possibly blaming himself for being the reason the heroes, like him, will be living forever to save Hyrule but suffer a life of loneliness and loss and possibly trauma, or that Time also caused another timeline where he failed to save Hyrule.

Do you think all of the secrets, all of the trenches that every hero has went through, would all of that happen in one year? With how well guarded they are and how theyd rather not talk about their secrets almost forever? No soul to reveal it to?? Well some probs wants to share a lil but the fact of the matter is, is that theyre gonna be vulnerable and theyre gonna open up. But its gonna be a while so really, they cant know each other well enough in one year. In one year, at most, it would be the times during the start of LU Comic and so far and it's not enough I think that they would be sharing burdens and pain and whatnot. Theyre comfy with each other, they cant rlly be that intimate or close about trauma or deep personal secrets just yet. They throw little references of secrets here and there, but the full details are locked in.

So If theyre gonna know each other, like how fanon interprets them in majority of the fanfics, or in the PROCESS of getting to know each other, itll take at least 2-3 years. But it could also possibly more than that. They have a whole package of secrets and things they went through they carry around individually, and there might be some secrets that will never get to be revealed in the end. 2-3 years are the LEAST amount of years that gives them the time to know enough secrets like Legend being a bunny, Sky blaming himself and so on. Not all of the revelations or secrets will be revealed, heck said secrets I used as examples may not BE the kind of secrets that will be revealed during those times or, maybe even AFTER several years have passed they still randomly learn things about the other heroes, but at least in 2-3 years its enough for them to know or have some chunks of ideas of what some or most the rest went through in their adventure. If 2-3 is not enough it could go 4-5 years depending on how much I want to be already revealed KHSIUHKUSUHFK

SO, basically, what's gonna happen is that, the chain will be going for about 2-3 years before they meet Ava. Meaning, they're gonna be aged up.

Which would mean everyone would be in their early twenties or mid twenties, and Wind.. might reach tweens??? I forgot the term IUDHGIUSGHFISF

Hold on lemme do the subject that i dont rlly like: math.

Im just gonna google search their INITIAL ages during the start or end of their adventures: starting of with: Wars!

Wars is 17 in Hyrule warriors, roughly at least.

Now here's the thing: Jojo had a Q&A, and the one of the questions she answered she revealed that there was some time that had passed after their adventure BEFORE they went onto their quest with the rest of the chain. And she said Wars finished his adventure 6-7 years ago. So 17 + 6 or 7, hes about 23 to 24 in canon

Then we add the years in the reboot or Ava's story in LU, AKA: the time he spent w the chain before meeting Ava, which is lets say plus 3: my calcu says he'll be 26 or 27

Twilight is also roughly 17 but finished his adventure 4-5 years ago, so he should be about: 21 or 22 in LU Canon.

Plus 3 in reboot: he'll be 24 or 25

Sky is seemingly the same. Idk if he started 17 and then became 18 at the end of his adventure, but he's basically said to be in similar age to Twilight. He finished his adventure 1-2 years ago, so hes either 18 or 19 Plus 3 reboot: 21 or 22

Wild is... Oh boi: 17. But now 117 technically cuz of the sleep thing. He finished his adventure less than a year ago so nothing's changed. But plus 3 reboot has him in: 120, or 20

And then.. Oh blobs.

Legend is gonna be a HEADACHE 😭😭😭😭

Im gonna make a guesstimate 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

Ok so he had about 4 or 5 adventures

A Link to the Past, Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages, KOHOLINT 😭 (Link's Awakening), A link Between Worlds, Idek if I'm gonna include Hytopia

ALTTP def took a year (I heard smth about a year passing when he finished?... Or there was a year break before Leg went off to OOS.) He was 16 or 17 in ALTTP so during that break or right AFTER he finished he would be about 17 or 18 in OOS.

OOS and OOA i'll hc to have taken under one year at most. So he'll be 19 to 20. And then... There was LA, and ALBW, and if were including it, Hytopia too. Those 2 (or 3 w Hytopia), happened within a year from the looks of things. So Leg will be about 20 to 21.

He finished ALL OF THAT, and had a lil mini break from his adventures for about 1 year Jojo said so plus 1 equals to him being 21 to 22 in Canon LU

Plus 3 in the reboot: 24 or 25 🧍‍♀️

And then.. Hyrule, OHSDFH

Help I searched at google and his first adventure it was said he started at 10 years old TT Then he started his 2nd adventure at 16.. Huh he had a long break before he went on a new one.

Rulie finished his adventure 2 years ago so he should be about 18 in LU canon. Then 3 plus reboot: 21

Next is Four. He's ROUGHLY about 12-15 in the start of his adventure, which his first being in Minish Cap. EDIT: In LU Canon, one of the earlier comics of Jojo, Four said he isn't a child. Implying he's of legal age. So he must be AT LEAST 18. For him to reach that age, he has to be 15 in minish Cap, then four swords must take a year, which makes him 16. So that, and then add what Jojo said he had a break after finishing his adventures for 2 years, that will FINALLY make him 18.

Then finally, plus 3 in the reboot: he would be 21 or 22

And lastly Wind: he is one of the only, or the only honestly, to have canonically dropped an age in the comic and I believe he said he was 12 when he set out. In Jojo's Q&A she said he finished his adventure 1 year ago. That means he's 13 in LU canon, and its further solidified when he said to Malon "I'm almost 14." THEN we add 3 in the reboot: he's simply 16 by then.

No we can't do much with Time. Malon was laughing when the guys guessed he was 60 years old. It's gotta be more than that IGSIUDFGISFG Regardless,.. ugh. He finished his adventure PHYSICIALLY 20 years ago, plus 3 in the reboot... there's 23+ years added to his belt.

Be reminded that the sources I got are from google and the people who stated these ages were also guesstimating everything. So you don't have to take these seriously or just take it with a grain of salt. But regardless, I'll be using these ages in Ava's story/ Ava LU Reboot... I might also apply these ages in my other stories Ava has with the chain-

Okay but with all their ages settled (mostly), do you know what all this realization means to me.

...I might be redesigning the chain...

Wish me luck guys. 🥹

[maluspumilaa]

word ramble about the southerngothic farcille au bc im too tired to draw rn + i want to get better at talking about my fandom stuff on here !! below the cut since im still a bit shackled by cringe

so i had an entire whiteboard but its gone now because i am Not paying for premium but thats okay

this is pretty unstructured but i really like chewing on this au brainstyle

i think that imogen and laudna met on the island after separately being adventurers for a little bit (personally i think laudna wouldnt have had the best luck getting jobs, with the whole scary/off-putting thing about her, but still would be scraping by) – no magic academy, sorry farcille lovers

in terms of the bells hells: im honestly not sure !! i think that it would be cool to have them just be an adventuring party and all have ventured down to save laudna but i dont know how that would work, since it gets dangerous to adventure with a party larger than six or so... maybe someone joins after laudna dies, senshi style? i dont know how much meshi will be in the dungeon meshi au tbh

a lot of this au is me building around the fact i went "what if lesbians from one fandom were the lesbians from the other one" tbh

the treant that laudna is chimaeraed up with is definitely meant to do the same job as the red dragon from dunmeshi . im thinking about a crazy large treant btw. like a hulking monstrous mass of gnarled branches that shambles with alarming speed. bark so thick it seems like fire doesnt do anything except anger it. all that

also !! @/sharkodactyl 's comments on my first art post about this au made me insane (/pos), i def think that the imagery of replacing some of laudnas bones with parts of the treant is awesome... something something it ground up some of her bones to use like bone meal for itself and its not like they can just fix that damage

so they use parts from the treant in the ritual hoping that the absorbed bone will be okay to use . and it turns out fine (no it doesnt) !

ABOUT THE RESURRECTION: i think mashing the dnd and dungeon meshi resurrection scenes would be beautiful to me. i deeply enjoy laudnas resurrection in c3, maybe with the ancient magic ritual there has to be some calling of the spirit to beckon it forth or something?? i just want imogen to talk to laudna before the ritual . feels like it raises the stakes or something

also!! if you look at my au art youll see that laudna still has her ear cuff things. that is because i gave her different trauma for this au ♡

until there was some event like what happened in falins backstory, but after laudna was an adult, leading to worse, more direct treatment from her village/city – i was thinking that due to the general anti-elf/anti-magic attitude in her village, individuals deemed especially "dangerous" or suspected of practicing dark magic would have their ears cut to resemble elves (similar to the canaries but. worse i think)

from what ive gathered, a lot of tallman communities in dungeon meshi (specifically what ive seen of laios and falins northern village) are to some degree intolerant of magic, not super open minded, and to me laudna hails from a village or city around there (or somewhere similar to there) and ended up leaving because, like falin, she had an affinity towards seeing ghosts and performing magic and suffered for it

generally, she was a little bit of an outcast even as a child because she was just kind of scary? she had that weird girl swag but nothing that made her stick out all that much

SO BASICALLY thats why she has those ear covers. she doesnt like looking at the scars . maybe they also tried to hang her ? i dont know

also alsoo imogen in this au does have her lightning markies. frequently i forget those. i think theyre more subtle generally (to the point of looking like really pronounced veins) and restricted to mostly her wrists/hand area but they do glow when she uses magic (not a lot ! maybe a lot during the resurrection scene but thats for my enjoyment more than anything)

her lighning markies + hair color is still from her being ruidus-born. it has some sway over ley lines/mana in some way but the attitude in this au is very much the same as in exandria in cr (represents negative things to people, not seen as a good omen, and generally isnt focused on). it still flares and such, but the flares affect stuff with magic – something something it makes magic more volatile/is linked in some way to ancient magic

i think imogen (+ her mother) would have been fairly ostracized by the small village she grew up in (but not as severely as laudna) due to their unique appearances as a result of being ruidus-born. liliana still leaves relvin and a young imogen but not before introducing lifespan angst into her daughters mind

i think. ruidus flares fuck with peoples lifespan. generally elongates them by a good bit? since it has that connection with ancient magic which is from a time of longer lifespans and such

anyways. imogen ventured out from home to find out where her mother went + learn more about her ruidus-born status and such. she came to melini (or. the exandrian equivalent to it?) for research reasons, maybe to make money before setting off on her travels once again or something

and then met laudna and was charmed a normal amount by her on first meeting and decided to stay dungeon diving with her (and bells hells? for a little while after)

also dont ask about pate i dont know either. maybe he is just a little inanimate puppet made out of dead things or maybe hes a regular rat that wears a bird skull sometimes . maybe he has wings . hes a familiar he can do what he wants

if you made it this far, thank you for reading !! i would love interaction about this au :3 sorry if any of this got really long or ramble-y i have many thoughts LOL

[apriciticreveries]

[ do not look at me . ]

——————————————————————————————————

introducing my sona, airin ! ( pronounced I - rin ! nickname is simply, ai, or rin ! ) ( guys guys IM SORRY I COULDNT RESIST ( drops to the ground )

theyre . a bit complicated . i have so many notes for them help me— unlike my other characters i was struggling a lot with their appearance design at first but like . i kind of just copied what i want to look like and how i look like now ? kind of .

but here’s some additional information for them ! :

platoniromantic ( and quoiromantic kind of ) and greyromantic ( also greysexual i think . . ) also experiences alterous attraction . basically arospec in general . - ( i some people probably don’t know what some of these are . . platoniromantic — platoniromantic is a romantic orientation on the aromantic spectrum . it describes the feeling of not being able to distinguish between platonic and romantic feelings, that the two feel as if they must be the same feeling even though they are not . quoiromantic — the feeling of not being able to distinguish romantic from platonic attraction and therefore being unsure if one has experienced it . alterous attraction — the desire to have a special emotional connection or emotional relationship but is neither completely platonic or romantic . ) —————————————————————————————————

doesn’t mind what pronouns others refer to them as . - he, she, they, they dont really care . but they most often use he and they .

im going to jump though, and say that they’re biologically male ! ( they started as female like me but like . i changed my mind )

guardian would be guardian jiji ! he’s similar to both shine and unsha, in a way .

branding would be on the back of the neck !

so far, their only established relationship would be that they’re close friends with august : D ! ( @junebluues sona ) ( i think ) because of their talent, they were both bumped up to the same class . - airin actually clings onto him a lot, at first, at least, but they eventually become more independent . partly because they don’t want to get in their way of making new friends, even if it would hurt for them . - anyone is free to contact me if you’d like to be friends with ai too !

they look so much like aurien, because aurien was also based off me too . and i also kind of stole the hairstyle of zhuli’s redesign but shh . . my hair is a bit longer in real life, ( id like to cut it again but my mom wont let me . . ) but i shortened it to a style id prefer .

id imagine they get a general b or even c grade from anakt in how they do ? - they excel in a lot of their subjects, ( jiji has them keeping their grades up at all times ) but when it comes to performative arts— when youd actually need to practice the skills needed for the competition— airin, in short . . well, isn’t that great . they’ve been ruled insufficient in their results of these kinds of practices almost every time .

they’re nearsighted, but hope to get it fixed in the future with permanent treatment .

they honestly had a lot more likes and dislikes, i just couldn’t include them all . .

so . yea . their profile file was corrupted in a certain way .

ok, that’s all for now ! again, if anyone would like to contact me about friendships or relationships, im open : D !

[superemeralds]

slides in which of your ocs is your favorite to draw? Or if you can't pick favorites what about an oc you're particularly proud of, like a color combination in their design you got Just Right? What about favorite oc to write? This is absolutely an invitation to go nuts with the details, I love hearing about conceptual stuff and visual design

ok so. my favourite to draw is zyx (previously known as jellybean) but also they're the one i just can't settle on what their outfit should look like so i just change it every single time. maybe thats why theyre so fun tbh...? bc i jsut experiment every single time instead of working towards an already established design.....

though I'm particularly proud of serena's design. though i must admit. I made a sims for her in ts4 and after not finding the hairstyle i designed for her i used a different one and its growing on me oughogooudhhah i almost prefer it now. maybe ill draw that newer design sometime.. i love her. demon of gluttony ♥ sometimes she craves burger, sometimes it's soda cans and sometimes it's instagram likes..

Though honestly im proud of most characters bc i always put love and effort into them how could i not guhhuadhughu..... i don't have any recent "finished" art of a lot of heavy force characters bc i usually doodle them in my sketchbook...... but eventually i'll share more abt them T_T im just super picky with when a character is "designed enough" to be percieved visually...

Right now I'm writing a lot of heavy force stuff so those characters just feel most fun rn. I have not written much actual story yet, mostly just doing the outline rn, but the trio of sera, arch and zenox is super fun. I've already mentioned before how they are kind of two opposing fronts where zenox is caught between; while the two opposing parties also have some stuff they admire abt the other, and a common ground opinion of "zenox is annoying and always gets me in trouble for never taking anything seriously" so the dynamic is interesting.

i also love working on jupiter bc hes so fucking extra. theatrics just go hard. the same kind of goes for angel, she's very extreme in a lot of the things she does, says, thinks.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Ookay this one is really really tooth rotting fluff level

Tadc x reader who just realized christmas is coming, and is freaking out with absolute glee and childlike wonder

TADC cast x reader who loves christmas!

AAAAAA im so so sorry i could have sworn i answered this but i guess i didnt??? i promise i didnt mean to leave this in the inbox this long on purpose i think i must have lost track of stuff </3 regardless, i hope you enjoy! admin must admit, asides from presents and the christmas tree, he doesnt do many holiday activities so... admin is underqualified for this but hes still gonna try! a lot of the character segments intertwine in this btw! like not in a "similar idea" thing but in a "they are actually overlapping and interacting with one another" way so !! side note unrelated to the post eheheheh the second batch of macarons have been piped! theyre now on the counter set out to dry, and ive got my ganaches out to get to room temperature so i can whip em up into a frosting :3

CAINE:

oh i just know that caine would lean hard into holiday stuff, plus i think he has the best sense of time in the digital world out of everyone.. plus he just seems like the kind of guy to celebrate all sorts of holidays, not just christmas! year round stuff, you know? not just winter... so you guys would likely team up and totally deck out the grounds to match the holiday spirit! sure caine on his own already puts in way too much effort decorating everything, he even makes it snow! but with you around he cranks it up to 11! lets just hope there arent any scrooges around, though.... also prepare yourself because he would definitely find a way to have christmas music play on loop in the background... somewhere... ambient music but its festive songs... i think caine is also the one responsible for most of the presents, since he can basically get most things with just a flick of his wrist! ooooo perhaps a date (platonic or romantic! up to you!) where you guys wrap the gifts together!

POMNI:

funny enough, while i usually think pomni would SUCK at cooking, i think she can make a mean hot coco. granted, hot coco and/or hot chocolate arent the hardest things to make, but... i dont know, its just different when she makes it... (recommendation from the admin, add a bit of cinnamon or nutmeg to your hot coco its a game changer frfr, this goes for a lot of chocolate stuff, actually. its like the chocolate-coffee effect but like. makes a different flavor profile. add a bit of nutmeg to your chocolate chip goodies. rn.)

anyways! pomni always keeps you supplied with hot coco, and honestly it benefits you both! keeps you nice and warm, plus its delicious; and it gives pomni something to do... i mean, its christmas... surely she can take it easy from trying to find the exit... just for the season... helps with her anxiety about the whole situation, you know? making digital food sure is weird, though...

RAGATHA:

as mentioned in gangles part, she joins you and gangle in helping making a skirt for the tree! keeping up with the idea of sewing things, i think she would also make stockings for everyone; leaving most of them blank so everyone can customize them however they like... but you and her get together to decorate your own together and just !! i just think thats sweet! depending on how soon caine starts putting the christmas stuff around, you and her might be able to make some ugly sweaters for yourselves! thats a christmas thing, right? oooo and they match.... OOOO YOU GUYS MAKE AN EXTRA LONG SCARF FOR YOU GUYS TO SHARE!!!! rolls around... she makes you mittens so you can go mess around in the snow caine put all over the grounds

JAX:

snowball fight. and i mean really intense once. in fact it wouldnt be too much of a stress to call it a snowball WAR! honestly jax might just be the type to put rocks in his snowballs.... but because this is meant to be nice and sweet, he wont... just this once, and because he feels TOO mean crushing your holiday spirit (even if your digital body would quickly recover from the possible injury...)

you guys make forts and go absolutely ham. the stuff ragatha had made for the two of you! i mean sure you guys cant succumb to hypothermia, buuuuuuuuuut being really painfully cold still sucks... but the sweaters help you guys stay out for longer to play! and you can perhaps ask pomni to make some hot coco

oh yes its all coming together

ooo perhaps you convince jax to make snow angels and snowmen with you... though, i think jax would make the snowmen purposefully unappealing... but maybe you think hes actually trying his best... oh you jolly little thing..

KINGER:

okay so i admit this one might be a stretch and its mostly because his robe already has the fur and he gives off grandpa energy (even though hes only 48 but hey some grandpas become grandpas young) but imagine somehow someway he dresses up as santa (and i say that loosely, his robe turns red and the fur turns a plain white), bonus if he wears a hat to tie in the entire look. while caine is the one getting the gifts and wrapping them, i like to think kinger would ask to be the one to put them under the tree at an ungodly hour. sweet man. chews

as for an interaction with the reader... hmm.. hes the last character im writing, everyone else already has their parts done... the one christmas activity i can think of that hasnt been taken yet is baking! honestly i can see him being a decent chef! maybe its the dad/granddad energy speaking to me again... perhaps its the admin projecting... buuuut imagine you two make shaped cookies togehter; stars, candy canes, trees, bells, ect... and you ice them together! sure they may not be the prettiest or look the most professional; but does that really matter when youre having fun? they still taste delicious!

ZOOBLE:

ok i get it, i tend to lean hard into the zooble being negative and/or unimpressed with things a liiiiiiiiittle too often, but again zooble doesnt strike me as the type to enjoy most holidays. they seem more of a halloween person to me, you know? though, i think that they would switch out their antennae for ones that resemble antlers more... or if they dont have those, they string lights up on them! all for you, just because they know how excited the holiday makes you. they dont care about many things, but they care about you... and if it means doing (harmless) things they normally wouldnt do, then so be it! dont expect them to get in on many holiday activities, though...

GANGLE:

you and her make decorations for the grounds and the giant digital tree caine put in the main common area! handmade ornaments, paper stars and snowflakes, things like that! you and gangle stay up take cutting each thing, applying the colors and the glitter and any small details.... dozens of times.... because caine chose a tree that was way too big than it needed to be.... oh you might have to have gangle on your shoulders so she can reach the higher points of the tree! sits and thinks.... ooouuuuuuuuugh you guys make a skirt for the tree together with the help of ragatha... little group activity... sobs...

[calmingpi]

Happy anniversary to calmingpi, i made a calming pie again (this time with more lavender)

Good news is that it tastes pretty good. Bad news is that i believe i messed up my starch amount, so it's a lot more runny than it was the last time i made this. Its all a process, i suppose. It SHOULD come out not exactly firm, but not liquid either. Kind of pull-apart jammy, i guess

Anyway

Im afraid im not very good at precise cooking, but its about time i recorded my findings better. So heres my best attempt to write down the calming pie recipe. You know, for science (note: calming properties of said pie are still largely untested)

Ingredients:*

Bag of frozen blueberries (size big)

Lemon or lime juice (at least 2 shot glasses)

Honey (1/4 of a cup) (for any extra sweetener, use more honey, or white sugar)

Tapioca starch (I used the incorrect amount this time. Learn from my mistake and use about 4 or 5 tablespoons) (you can also use corn or potato starch. Maybe even rice starch. I used potato last time and it worked quite well)

Chamomile tea (2 bags) (get one thats only chamomile. Maybe sleepy time would work? Never tried that one. But i try to keep it just chamomile)

Dried or fresh lavender (I dont know. Eyeball it)

Ground cinnamon (????) (Eyeball it i guess. I put in a puff)

*blueberries, honey, chamomile, and lavender supposedly have calming properties. Starch is to thicken it, juice is for taste, and cinnamon is because blueberry pie apparently has cinnamon usually. And im sure the blueberry pie sparks have a good idea of what theyre doing

Instructions:

Make a pie crust (I used Bob's Red Mill gluten free pie crust mix. It comes with instructions)

Dump all of this into a pot and cook it on the stove at high heat. The blueberries will turn liquid and everything will just come together. Stir frequently. The most important thing is to constantly taste test the mixture to make sure its the right amount of sweet and tangy

I usually only use 1/4th of a cup of honey, which takes a little while to melt, because im of the opinion that blueberries are actually very sweet. The lemon or lime juice should also balance that out, so use less juice and more honey/sugar if you want it sweeter, or the other way around if you want it more tangy

Eventually itll start bubbling like some sort of witch's brew. Leave it like that for a few minutes and stir sometimes. When its been a few minutes, transfer it to a big mixing bowl, and let it cool. Make sure you take the chamomile bags out! They are funny to poke at but not so great to eat

Transfer pie to pie tin (which should already have crust in it), and add more crust to the top. Add an eggwash on it if you want (its just half egg/half water, and honestly it kind of wastes an egg but it does come out a little nicer looking)

Cook at 425°F for roughly an hour. I highly recommend putting a baking pan underneath the pie as its in the oven, because it tends to spill over the top as its cooking

Let it cool, and then eat the thang ding

[trainingdummyrabbit]

oooooooobhhhh...... would it be alright if you talked abt ur ocs......... if it's not a bother.......

stands here like some sort of beast . this took me two days. im so sorry. inhales

i can absolutely talk abt my ocs yeah :D never ever a bother!!

this is rose and wolfe! theyre two of my lobcorp ocs whom i love very dearly :] they (and the rest of their group) have their own lil story going on, but i say that very loosely bc im just having fun honestly ^_^ and they sure do love making decisions that make that Rather Difficult For Me. but alas, anyhow,

this is inevitably going to get Pretty Fucking Long! (post-post edit. ~35 paragraphs.) so if youre prepared for that. 👍 yippy!! anyway hope you like fucked up little lesbians bc here we go

im probably going to be retreading ground here a bit bc im gonna try and take it from the top, but also because i dont remember what ive said and what i havent so ill just say whatever i remember ^_^

the basic gist of th storyline is that its kind of a pseudo-murdermystery but instead of dying u get turned into some sort of beastie ! ^_^ aka 'nobody knows what the distortion phenomenon is yet and are kinda too busy freaking out about it to notice headquarters exploded last week'. dont worry about that.

slaps notes on the table. this is gonna be really messy and maybe kinda incomprehensible but its ok bc this is just how its going to be. hope this helps.

OK LISTEN. they started out as one thing and then slowly kinda turned into something else and theyve been haunting me for months but they make talking about them Literally Impossible because of how much they just. fucking cling to each other, narratively. its impossible. they make everything so fucking difficult.

wolfe is some offshoot of a take on those Edgy Playground Wolf Ocs that you see a lot in middle school-- or well, thats the root of it. she was always going to be played fully seriously, but everyone was kinda written more silly-like towards the beginning anyhow. yknow, one of those 'orphan lab experiment who pretty much had to take care of themself and really hates people, with Cool Mysterious Powers theyre really conflicted about' type characters. and honestly a lot of that still sticks, really.

she presents herself in a kind of over-the-top way to try and get people to take her seriously and leave her alone, but honestly its just kind of . offputting.. in a way, shes kind of a stand-in for what its like to be a teenager (neurodivergence notwithstanding). sometimes the only thing you can do to get people to listen to you is to make a scene and yell really loud! and everyone will always discredit it as just something that happens while growing up, being "disobedient" because you want attention or want to be rebellious and contrary, but everything you feel IS real and it DOES hurt and nobody BELIEVES you so all you can do is yell LOUDER. its all theyll respond to. (and all it does is make people double down on what they think of you.)

wolfe is a character that is honestly kind of genuinely a bit extra, a little bit embarrassing, but very genuine. a lot of her life was spent not being able to decide what happened to her physically; just kinda pulled and prodded around whether she liked it or not; (again, the whole orphan lab experiment thing was never a lie.) and thrashing around is really all she can do about it. be inconvenient, irritating, hard to deal with; any small victory, any little foothold would do. unfortunately, most of what that's ever done is make things harder for herself. (she hates being expected to be something convenient to others, yet in her attempts to cast it away, forms her worldview to the dichotomy they set up around her. curious !)

so you have this fucked up lil thing and drop her into an lcorp facility. great superb fantastic. n then you give her some ego gear and it messes her up Big Time because guess what, her body is all sorts of fucked up and is Not reacting well with this whole thing, causing it to quite literally Stick and all those 'mild' side effects are now 'major' side effects and everyones Fussing over you again because youre an Anomaly and you Dont get any rest and youre still getting used to a body and mind that isnt Quite what it was before and you Cant leave since they need to figure out whats going on here and Oh God Fucking Damn It Its Again.

so its pretty fair that shes being Like That about the whole thing all things considered.

at this point shes just trying to make it through day by day without someone prodding her about something or another, just stop Staring at her already, fuck off. just one foot in front of the other and try not to think about it too hard. thumbsup 👍 more often than not she works alone; not just because of her own decisions, but also did you know cobalt scar gets a boost on low hp for the exchange of activating friendly fire? pretty crazy. shes kinda reckless and bound to get herself hurt anyway, so it doesnt really Change anything to just kinda.. send her out there without backup. not like she works well with others anyway, right? itd be pretty dangerous to pair her up with someone n all. yknow.

it kinda sucks, yknow? at this point shes so fucking tired of The Everything that honestly she just wants to get in and get out as quickly as possible without having to deal with any nonsense. shes still really pissed off about the entire Situation, still trying to keep any small bit of autonomy she gets to have, but like. well. sometimes it really is easier to just Do Your Job And Leave. finish your tasks and not think about it and not bother with anyone and fuck off until you have to do it again. thats how it always wouldve been anyway, right? easy. annoying. so, so annoying. god she fucking hates it here.

so anyway, rose. she sucks. she doesnt, but i have to say it every time i talk about her Or Else. shes the reason i have such a hard time talking about The Everything. and also why i had to rewrite this and take Two Days getting to it. she is just. So Much. shes an idiot. shes too smart for her own good. she would fit right in as a YA novel protagonist. this is all stalling on trying to explain what the hell is wrong with her.

honestly on a surface level shes pretty chill all things considered. mostly stays in her lane, gets along with people pretty easily, just kinda goes here, pretty good at small talk. she loves listening to people. she Loves listening to people. the problem. she isnt lying, per se, about her entire Presentation and general manner of being, but she isnt really honest either. shes disingenuous. kind of.

rose as a character is Very aware of how people act, and why they choose what they do in what situations. as such, she has gotten very good at Acting A Part rather than actually Living It. she loves listening to people because she wants to know who they are. not in a "i want to get to know my coworkers ^_^" type of way but in a "writing down all your character traits and quirks to record your habits" type of way. a weird sort of genre-awareness. she is very Very easily able to track exactly what type of person someone is and adjust the way she acts around them to... any sort of effect she wants to, honestly. mostly its just quelling dumb spats and getting people to stop being stupid like people tend to do, but every so often she isnt exactly averse to just kinda... messing with people. only a little! but she Could, if she Wanted to. which she doesnt. because shes nice.

rose sees interpersonal interaction as a complex 'game'. not by that name, but by that function. everyone always Expects something, in engaging with another, and all it really is at its core is getting what you want without giving too much ground. to figure out who the Other is without them figuring out who You are. its a competition. to understand what another person Is is what gives you the advantage. to know is to win, to be known is to lose. keep your cards as close to your chest as you can, and they cant control you. easy. its something everyone Does, but only a few acknowledge. she was just good enough to learn.

but like, admittedly, shes very chill. shes literally nice? like yeah all that but she is literally nice. shes fine. shes like... fine? shes all right. like Yeah it sounds bad when you put it like that but she is literally nice.

rose plays a lot with the idea of Symbol. shes a fully realized person, yeah, but she was never Expected to be. she exists mostly as a formality, and she knows thats all that was really expected of her. she was there to Fulfill An Ideal and little else; so she reaches for what she can when she can. be Sweet and Simple and Pretty-- that's all. and she isnt, she knows this, but it sure does make things simple when thats all people know of you. (impossible for people to dig for information people dont think exists.)

a flower in a broken vase unsure if its defined by the petals or the holes. shes someone intrinsically frustrated by the rules that define her, but is unable to comprehend a self without it. clinging to it because its the sole point of control she feels she can Have over things, but wishing to cast it aside to self realize and prove that shes worth the time of day to acknowledge. (she doesnt care what her caretakers thought of her, but still she defines her actions based on their idea of her. curious !)

so you have these two in the general vicinity of one another right.

rose initially interacts with wolfe as almost a game. a test, even. just to see if she could get anything out of the weird one that sulks in a corner by themself, refusing to interact with anyone. shes just curious, yknow? and wolfe, obviously, takes this about as well as you think she would. dont you have better things to do?? stop asking about my fucking hobbies. ..rose could always count on her for a reaction.

wolfe was very, Very resistant to playing along much at all. she thought that giving just simple brush-off responses would get her to get the hint that it wasnt worth bothering, but then rose would come back with more questions building off of whatever they'd talked about, just... idly talking at her. a frequent annoyance turning into just. consistent background noise. yeah this might as well be happening. but even still, the amount of things that rose remembered and considered and genuinely seemed to listen to kind of caught her off guard. it was... weird. it was really really weird.

it wasnt really all that hard to read what wolfe was feeling at any given moment. it was kind of funny, honestly, especially with how she tended to present herself. (honestly, how did everyone else just Miss all of this?) but after some time, rose was surprised to find that she started to just... speak to her frankly. it was stark, only every so often, almost as if she didnt realize the shift in her own tone. its around then that rose started piecing things together herself and... oh. ohh. (how did everyone just miss all of this?)

Bad News Motherfuckers! Its Fucking Over For Both Of You! wolfe finds someone who is genuinely willing to listen to her on the sole drive of simply Understanding Her, rather than wanting something in exchange, wanting something From her; and rose. god. she finds a reflection of exactly what she wishes she couldve been, things she couldve done, were she not shaped into what she Is. an understanding of something she'd never acknowledged, never knew was there, but was there with her the entire time. someone with a clear understanding of what they are, willing to fight tooth and nail to keep it, regardless of what anyone or anything else tries to do with them. things that the narrative constantly tries to take from them; things that rose wants so desperately to let wolfe keep.

so yknow, girl things. THIS is where things get really annoying.

rose seemed to enjoy messing with wolfe just for fun, but honestly shes just kinda taken by her honesty. she doesnt ever seem to have any ulterior motives when shes around her, she just… is. and does. because she wants to. rose honestly isnt really sure how to handle someone who isnt just… mildly bluffing at all times, especially about connection. that level of vulnerability is scary to her. so she teases her. she expects her being flustered-- and she is-- but still, she finds herself caught off guard by wolfe's earnestness.

even so, rose catches herself being far more open than she intends to be-- accidentally, at first, against her better judgement, but then tentatively, almost as if to test the waters. just how much could she show of herself and still uphold that trust? how many red flags can she put up before wolfe notices? no, that was unfair. before it becomes unforgivable. before it recontextualizes her. she cares, yes, genuinely and deeply so. (but what does that mean, coming from her?) she wants wolfe to be safe. (im asking you to leave.)

wolfe and rose both trust each other to a degree that they dont trust many others. its the passive understanding that theyre very much alike, and the even more silent knowledge that they want better for each other; in a roundabout way of knowing that they themselves deserved better, no matter how much they insist otherwise.

theyre very genuine with each other in a way that kind of surprises themselves. neither of them quite know what theyre doing, nor do they want to put a name to something so fleeting, but… its there.

wolfe desperately wants to be closer to rose, but hates that she desires that vulnerability. (it was always rather dangerous, showing your hand like that.) its an annoying fondness, constantly prickling at the back of her head any time rose is even remotely relevant. even when she isnt. shes kind of haunted. shes very defensive of her in a way she honestly doesnt realize until someone points it out. it just comes naturally to her. (whats the difference between a guard dog and an attack dog again..? (is she really ready to deal with the implications of this? is this not just having another will enacted on you? how does she really feel about that?))

rose, meanwhile, is… actually also conflicted. she likes wolfe. this is obvious. it wasnt intended, and she can roll with it, but it's… complicated. she handles it a lot more analytically. she notices when wolfe takes a step forward, and matches it in turn. equivalent exchange, and all. show that youve noticed, that you care, that youre paying attention. (i think she may be afraid. despite her presentation, she's afraid.)

she acknowledges the feeling of desire in this bond-- she wants wolfe to be able to live outside of others' influence. desperately. (if she cant, then…) she refuses to acknowledge what this says of Herself, though. but most importantly, she knows how easy it would be to simply take the role of someone who controls her. (isnt that just what she's always done to others?) she hates the idea of becoming that. (it would be so easy.) goes out of her way to avoid influencing her in that way-- but somehow, this just makes her more distant. hesitant to touch.

and with that fear, she tends to react, again, logically. tries to solve it like a puzzle, like she always has. finds the shortest distance to a perceived goal. this makes her rather distant, disconnected-- shes trying to control her own feelings by controlling what is around it.

what this means, most importantly, is that she is unable to trust wolfe the way She trusts her. she isnt strong enough to push back against what she sees of herself, or that which she uses to protect herself. giving in to those well-walked patterns instead of being able to brave uncertainty in something that new. she hides herself because she isnt sure what will become of her-- and is too afraid to risk what may come of losing the person she suddenly deeply cares about. setting herself up to crash harder should the worst happen. because she would simply blame herself. proving herself right.

meanwhile wolfe is dealing with Actually Trusting Someone for the first time in longer than she can remember, whether she likes it or not. maybe she was being stupid. maybe this was just a foolish foray into trusting people like she’d always told herself not to do. but… but. rose just brought this sense of comfort wherever she went, this feeling of certainty.

it was never good to let your guard down, but… but just this once, she so badly wanted to. once you let these things go, it becomes harder to get them back. she knew this. and yet, all the parts of her that protested were overruled by a deep desire to simply lie down and fall asleep in that comforting feeling. how frustrating. how annoying. how dangerous. now she had someone she could not argue against. and yet, she held this advantage as if she did not know it was one she wielded, a dangerous thing held without intent. was this trust? …did she want it to be?

and so, foolishly perhaps, she decided to trust. it was a tenuous thing, unbeknownst to anyone but herself. …probably. rose did have a way of seeing right through people. but even through all that, through the Everything… it felt nice to have someone to look out for. someone to worry about, someone on your mind when there used to be nobody else but you. she’d spent so long worrying about the repercussions of leaving your back to someone, yet she’d never known the comfort of having someone do the same to you. she’d never realized how hard it was to do much of anything with fangs bared the entire way. the ache of worry was dull compared to the weight of silence. (she would give her Everything to her. all or nothing, with her. maybe this was simply part of the inevitable problem.)

hey remember the whole turning-into-creatures thing? yeah thats still happening. crazy right? anyway. The Problem.

so you have people turning into things not quite unlike abnormalities, expressions of deep fears and desires running away with what used to be a human. and youve got some fucked up little guy with a Lot of barely repressed issues thats deceptively easy to mess with and actively averse to anybody really reaching out to them whatsoever.

and then rose is trying her best to figure out whats causing all this bullshit going on, but also her . coworker. is suddenly acting Really snappy and distant and its kinda starting to make her worried and she doesnt want to push her but shes looking really rough lately and fuck. wait. god. wait. shit.

long inhale. so you have two stupid motherfuckers 100% willing to drop everything and kill everyone in this facility and then themselves if anything so much as happens to the other (but theyre super normal about it, its fine, the other doesnt have to know.) theyre so good at this interpersonal interaction thing guys they swear (dont look too close though ok haha.) theyre sooo unknowable guys theyre really pulling a fast one on everyone here. they Definitely know what to do to fix the problem forever its fine they totally get it. dont stop them.

anyway heres a bunch of images for no reason