#and it has its own issues that must be worked out

[aestrologist]

PICK A CARD: liminal style

you know how it goes! starting from the snowyscape, left to right: 1, 2, 3, 4.

♡ use your intuition & feel for the energy of whichever picture that jumps out at you. below you'll see a tarot interpretation for each picture below the cut. there is no specific theme, just what spirit tells me. ♡

remember, this is a collective PAC & not everything will resonate-- though take what does and leave what doesn't. ☆

★ PILE 1: ten of wands, temperance, the fool ★

It’s easy to say to move on from things that don’t serve its purpose, though the action and will power it takes is another puzzle piece to factor in. It can be scary to move onwards from something that you hold so dear or that you’re familiar with. Like, who wants to uproot their life over a hunch?

Except for the fact, that you actually do. You’re starting over, leaving the chaos in  the dust, as you hunker down and think of your game plan. Where do you go from here? Oftentimes lonely, you’re not accepting of new people into your life. You’ve gotta learn to open up and allow people to bring change and childlike wander. 

Your friends may not know the reasons you have behind your plan, but it’s not up to them to decide what’s right for you in this life. Sometimes it takes responsibility to know the differences between what you know, want, and what you need. It’s important to not be so hard on yourself as you approach the edge of the new world. 

When you’re feeling lonelier than usual, keep in mind that we as humans create our own suffering and the longer you hold onto the idea that you’ve assumed, the longer it will stay attached to you. Learning to balance the rush of emotions that flood our minds with self deprecating behavior and thoughts is vital to your survival. 

☆ PILE 2: the high priestess, seven of pentacles, the star ☆

It’s time for you to engage with your higher self more often. Stop the pity, and trust in yourself and your intuition. The universe has big plans for you, if you choose to become receptive towards the cosmic language. Leave the worries and doubt behind, the spiteful words you may have heard. They don’t mean anything, and your responses only give it power. 

Now, you must know that spirituality is important in this life and the gifts and synchronicities it brings only flourish upon further belief.  Spend your time wisely and gracious, as you will soon reap the rewards of your efforts all season. There is hope, so please stop backtracking. 

You may be a risky individual, often seeking adrenaline rushes or monetary gains in one way or another. Sometimes it’s the smarter choice to leap off the precipice with blind faith that you will succeed. Boundaries are not always meant to be tested, but yours are. Push yourself to the limit, and see what you’re made out of.

How do you trust without a notion? By assuming it works in your benefit every time. You do not fail, you do not flounder, because you actively engage in the mindset of someone who has it all. Like boiling water, you think nothing is happening until it starts to spill over.

That’s you, with your abundance and desires throughout your life. Trust yourself and the power of your mind.

★ PILE 3: the lovers, ten of pentacles, the tower ★

You’re left with a bruised hard and a shattered ego, as what you once thought was love crumbled in the blink of an eye. A safety net, pulled from you like a dirty rug, after being told everything was fine. It was not, and it’s valid that you’re not so trusting afterwards. 

When things were good, they were SO good. Almost too good to be true, and at the end of the road you got to see the illusion of cupid’s arrow snapping which each blow to the heart. It wasn’t real, just sugar coated lies. I’m sensing a cheater in this scenario that let the temptation in.

The story will still continue, though it’s advised to find someone new. Second chances bring nothing but issue, and if you choose to stay or keep this person in mind the rest of the house will come barreling down when time gets cut short. Perhaps this person will make you lose a sense of yourself, or already has. 

These cards are asking you to take time to self soothe and heal your heart before trying again or reaching out. Seeing things through lilac lenses will never mend the crushing of your heart or soul. Choose to see things for what they are, and never for what you wish them to be. 

Not everyone has your best interest in mind, and it’s important that you realize that. You can only ever depend on yourself when the world comes crashing. 

☆ PILE 4: the devil, the empress, justice ☆

A restriction of some sort seems to have been placed on you, perhaps you are walking on egg shells to avoid discontentment. There is a larger picture here, one that you aren’t well aware of. Obliviously, you walk along the path as serpents hide under the very leaves you step on, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Under the guise of false admiration, it can be very telling to see where your self concept is as of late. Have a treat and engage in positive mindset shifts. Allow yourself to be you, without feeling like you have to adhere to high expectations. 

Soak the glue in acetone, let it dissolve from you like cotton candy on your tongue. Your mindset is the most important thing, being as it quite literally reflects your perception of your reality.  

Advocating for yourself may be something you’ve struggled with, though with a new sense of empowerment you strive to break the cycle. Spend some time in nature, and think of all the things you may be grateful for: the very air you breathe, the fact that you’re alive at the moment, when so many didn’t get the chance to live to this day. 

Mindfulness goes a long way, and it’s recommended that you saturate your mind with the gentleness you treat others with. Start easy, small comments throughout your day to day. “I am enough,” is one. Learn how to be kind to yourself in uncontrollable matters, as working against yourself leaves room for no one to grow. 

thank you for reading and if you enjoyed this PAC, please reblog and consider checking out my ko-fi to book your own personalized & in-depth tarot reading! ♡

[lvmimis]

Katsuki’s right arm still trembles sometimes. 

Rarely, usually so imperceptibly that no one would even notice, but today you do notice, as he reaches for a glass of water set on the coffee table before you, and knocks it over, simple millimeters off its trajectory. 

It’s a silly, inconsequential mistake, not anything you haven’t done once or twice even this very week, but as the water spills to the ground and you, too comfortable in the arms of your lover as you lay on the couch, move a little too slowly to catch the glass from rolling off the table and shattering on the ground, you can tell that this has become more of an issue than it should be. 

A pause hangs in the air with the crash, then a heavy silence over the next split second, enough that you can feel even your heartbeat slow to a stop with the aggrandized gravity of the situation.

Then, without a word, Katsuki moves you gently out of your cuddle and disappears into the kitchen. As his figure disappears, you can see him holding onto his right arm, bent at an angle, with his left hand. In some ways, he almost looks like he’s accosting a criminal, not a part of his own body. 

You know better not to move in closer to the glass, lest he find you and start to complain about not taking your safety seriously, yet you find yourself practically on your knees, quickly picking up small pieces of glass from the carpet. You are, of course, careful, and nothing cuts into your skin more than the pain you can tell he must be feeling does in your chest.

Katsuki returns with a dustpan, a small brush, and a rag draped over his forearm, and stops, standing a few feet away from you. The majority of the broken glass pieces are collected into a small pile next to you by that time, you working ever so quickly, and when you look up at him, he’s scowling, but no longer at himself.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Moving into the space quickly, he kneels and cleans up your collected mess. Setting the glass aside, safely collected, he murmurs,

“Show me your hands.”

Obediently, you offer them up, and he checks every one of your ten fingers, twice, then sighs.

“Stop cleaning up my messes. I’m not a child.”

You nod.  “But you’re the man I love.”

Katsuki looks at you for a moment then quickly forces his glance elsewhere. The sweetness in your eyes is too mollifying; he can practically feel his entire spine turn to jelly when it comes to you.

But still you place your hand on his treacherous right arm, rubbing your palm gently over scars, calloused bone and roughened skin.

“It’s fine. Just an accident.”

You don’t need to say anything more. He sucks in a deep breath, pauses, then kisses your lips.

“Yeah. Just an accident.”

[fangharel]

we need to talk about The Silence and The Song

[PLEASE READ] edit to add: i realise that this post has been reblogged far and wide and that there is not a lot i can do about it now, but this is me trying anyway.

posting examples from the fic about my issues with its repetitive structure was careless of me, and i apologise to those of you who read it and became insecure about your own writing style. as someone who has worked with ai in academic settings, it's incredibly difficult for me to explain to you how the tone and structure of ai-generated fiction works and how, after reading enough of it, you can simply just tell. i do also realise that this is an incredibly weak argument, which is why i didn't include it when i originally wrote this post.

all that to say: there is an enormous difference between "beginner's writing" and ai writing. being repetitive as a new writer (or a seasoned one who just likes using repetition) is so normal. as is flowery/purple language. i've read hundreds of books and fics and the difference between these traits in ai-text and actual works is starkly clear. please don't feel anxious over the examples i've used in this post.

again, i apologise for any distress i have caused.

as per my last post, i have received a lot of encouragement to go public with this, and the more disappointed people i have in my dms, the angrier i get. so i will.

the silence and the song is an ancient arlathan au DA fic on ao3 by luxannaslut, and it is partly, if not entirely, written by an ai. i have no wish to be involved in any kind of fandom drama or witch hunting or bullying, but as a writer myself there are few things that piss me off more than watching people steal the work of others because they can't be fucked to write. it's disrespectful to your fellow writers, it's disrespectful to your readers, and it's disrespectful to the authors of the works the ai is stealing from.

ai is a plague that has no business being in creative spaces and you must do better.

the writing pattern

there was something very odd and monotone about the sentence structure of tsats that i couldn't quite place, so i fed chatgpt a prompt along the lines of "two people in a fantasy novel hate each other, but they secretly desire one another, and they kiss", and the screenshots above are the results. the third one is an excerpt from chapter 40 of tsats. the writing pattern is identical and it doesn't seem like the "writer" has even bothered to pretend they wrote it. if you're going to use ai, at least be sneaky about it. you know, paraphrase a little.

nonsense descriptions

"her nimble fingers worked with quiet precision" (ct. 1), "his grip firm but tender" (ct. 33), "her gown pooling around her like embers" (ct. 1).

fingers don't make sound, so what does quiet precision mean? as opposed to what? her joints cracking with every movement? how is a grip firm but tender? what does that mean? since when do embers pool?

the entire fic is littered with these adjectives that contradict each other or just straight up do not make sense, because all an ai does is generate descriptive language with no understanding of what the words it's spitting out actually mean. i could spend hours picking out examples from the seven billion pages worth of text, but i quite frankly have better things to do and would simply challenge you to try getting through a chapter or two without noticing the pattern.

repetition at structure-level

all the scenes in this fic are described in pretty much the same way. they open with purple prose vomit of the surroundings; solas is standing somewhere looking "unreadable as ever"; ellana's fiery golden molten fire copper ember ginger red hair is flowing this and that way; there's some dialogue with whoever is present and it leaves ellana feeling different variations of "something she couldn't name". this is, once again, a blatantly obvious sign of ai. below is the result of me feeding chatgpt the line "write me a scene from a fantasy novel where a woman with red hair is sitting on the ground in a magical garden at night", and side by side with that is the opening scene of the fic. make your own judgement.

repetition at word-level

this one speaks for itself. we fucking get it. her dress is orange, her hair is red, mythal's presence is heavy in the room, solas looks unreadable, compassion is sitting on her head like a crown, solas' ears are betraying him and ellana's move with every thought she thinks. we get it. the issue here is that an ai remembers the info you feed it, but not necessarily the info it shits out. if it's being told to write scene after scene of an elven woman with a gown that looks like fire doing xyz, it's going to do so with no regard for how many times the reader has already been informed of these details.

lastly: the breakneck speed

359,6k words in four weeks by a person who allegedly is employed and married and hasn't pre-written anything? no. any writer will tell you that this simply isn't possible. it absolutely infuriates me to see how much praise this "writer" gets for posting up to three full chapters in a day without anyone calling bullshit. i am pulling out my hair, you guys.

why i'm not going to live and let live this one

perhaps i would be less angry if the fic was some silly bullshit court intrigue Y/A stuff, but this is a text that handles very heavy and triggering topics such as SA, coercion, domestic abuse, and other things of the same vein. to sit back and put your feet up while having a robot write these extremely sensitive and very real human experiences with words it has stolen from texts written by actual persons is fucking heinous. the "writer" should be deeply ashamed of themselves and i'm sick and tired of watching people eat up their bs.

and on that note: the amount of people in my dm's telling me that they feel stupid and naive for not clocking this has infuriated me more than anything else. you're not foolish for this. being fed ai-generated bullshit is not what is supposed to happen on any creative platform and much less a fandom-centred one, so of course no one approaches a fic through that lens. fandom and fic writing is supposed to be about passion and the only person in this situation who needs to do better and change their behaviour is luxannaslut. polluting our creative spaces, wasting the time of your readers, and minimising the effort of actual writers who are working hard to provide content for us all to share and enjoy is vile and so, so lazy. i beg of you: do better.

[julymusings]

love in withdrawal

true that love in withdrawal was the weeping of me, that the sound of the saw must be known by the tree.

or; in the aftermath of that night, you're both wracked with regret, wishing it went differently. [3.3k]

jason todd x fem!reader; warnings from pt1 also apply; typical jason-angst (so ptsd, self-image/hatred, family issues, etc) + virgin!jason YOU ALR KNOW THE VIBESSSS😝😝😝👹👹 previous: you're good to me, baby

Jason Todd has tried very hard to be normal. At least, as normal as he can get. After returning to his home city and settling into his role as the Red Hood, crime lord and resident anti-hero of Gotham, he really did try. He went out with his 'coworkers' to have a good time. He spoke to his neighbors, hoping some friendship would stick. He went to a seedy bar with Roy and stuttered through some flirting with the girl who eye-fucked him from across the bar for fifteen minutes. With Roy’s encouragement (read: peer pressure), he followed her out to the alley behind the bar. He kissed her a little, tried to do what he was supposed to; put his hands on her waist, maintaining a respectable distance from too high or too low. But it felt…off, somehow. His heightened senses made the way she trailed one finger up and down the muscles of his arm feel prickly, the scars under his sleeve sensitive and itching at her touch. Her lips were too sticky with gloss, and its saccharine watermelon flavor lingered on his teeth for days. No matter how hard he scrubbed at them.

Roy hadn’t let him live that down for months. His recounting of Jason leaving her in the bar when she invited him home, looking ‘scared shitless and fumbling hard’ was an exaggeration, but maybe not that far off. Looking back, he wasn’t sure what he expected; he could barely look his own family in the eye. How did he think he’d be able to keep it together around a pretty girl? He was quick to give up any hopes of being ‘normal’ after that.

He lived like that for a while; putting all his energy into keeping the city safe, working himself to the bone as the Red Hood so he wouldn’t have time to reflect on who he was as Jason. He fixed things with his family just enough to have a place to go every other weekend to “upgrade his gear.” When he stuck around long enough that it was ‘only convenient’ to stay for dinner, no one commented on it. He’d accepted that this was his life now.

He never meant for things to go this far with you. Honestly. He was just doing his job when he gave you a ride home after you sprained your ankle trying to fight off that mugger. When he had to hold your weight so you could walk up the stairs to your apartment, he was still just doing his job. And when you, still in shock and heart pumping with adrenaline, put your frantic energy into nervous ramblings and fretting over his bruises— making sure you were okay before he left was part of his job. But one visit to your apartment turned into two, and two turned into three, each under the guise of ‘checking on your ankle’ or ‘being on his route’. Somewhere along the line your arrangement came to be: he stopped by with wounds needing to be treated, you treated them, and then he’d leave. And if you wanted to make some small conversation, getting to know each other a little more with every visit, that was harmless. Seeking you out for the smallest injuries that he was fully capable of dealing with himself was harmless. Holding you in his arms while you clutched onto him for dear life and sobbed into his shirt, neglecting his knife wound for far too long in favor of wiping away your tears—

He never meant for things to go this far.

Two days after that night, Jason is still reeling. In hindsight, letting the slice on his arm sit in the open, stale air for as long as it did was not the best idea. Sewing it closed one-handed so as to relieve the burden from your shoulders, taking no care to sterilize the instruments that fell to the floor in his hurry to follow the alarm bells in his head that screamed go! Get out and go! was a horrible idea. Sure, having you kneeled in his lap, pressed against him for the better part of the thirty minutes he spent at your place wasn’t exactly a regret. But was it worth the round of antibiotics and week-long benching ordered by Bruce after he stumbled into the Batcave an hour ago, hastily stitched up by his own hand and running a fever? He can’t decide. Was it worth the consequence of his siblings taking turns covering the patrol route of his city sector during his absence? Definitely not.

Was it worth the sight of you looking up at him, watery-eyed with flushed cheeks and fluttering eyelashes accentuated by the shine of your tears? The feeling of your hand sliding over his chest?

Maybe.

Maybe he could use the time off, as pointed out by a sneering Timothy, considering he was so stupid as to let his wound fester to the point of infection. He’d be too distracted to give the city his full attention, anyway. He needs time to think. To lie down in his old bed, stare at the ceiling, and think about if he’ll ever see you again.

Tim’s comment earns him a smack to the back of the head from Dick, who promptly kicks Tim out of the room.

“How are you feeling?” Dick stands at Jason’s bedside, arms crossed in concern.

“Same as when you asked me five minutes ago.” Jason wheezes. His pit-enhanced immunity makes the infection symptoms much easier than they could have been, but Bruce still insisted on him staying the whole week for observation. With how much he’s grown since he last used it, his childhood room feels much smaller than he remembers.

“Yeah, but…” Dick narrows his eyes at Jason. His gaze flits to his arm, wrapped in fresh bandages with an ice pack pressed over the stitches. “How…are you?”

“The same as…before,” Jason says, mimicking his brother’s cadence.

Dick sighs, thinking over his next move. He walks to the door, closes it, and pulls Jason’s desk chair to the bedside and sits down.

Jason groans. “Do you really have to—”

“Just humor me,” Dick interrupts. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. He takes Jason’s silence as resignation. “Did something happen?”

Jason rolls his eyes. “I got stabbed, Dick.”

“Is that all?” There’s a lilt in Dick’s voice.

“What are you implying?” Jason shoots back, though his hoarse throat negates his attempt to sound intimidating.

“Nothing! I’m not implying anything!” Dick leans back in his chair, holding his palms up in surrender. “I’m just saying. You seem…bothered. By something.”

“Yeah, the stab wound.”

“Okay. Okay, fine.” Dick clears his throat. “If there’s nothing.” He stands, returning the chair to its place. As he’s leaving, though, his hand settled on the doorknob, he hears a rustle of fabric and turns back to Jason. He’s shifting around in his old bed, awkwardly pulling at the comforter and he moves to sit on the edge, staring hard at the red pattern of the blanket while opening and closing his mouth, battling with himself on whether or not he should speak. Dick waits, giving him the time to work it out.

“I think I…” Jason says finally, not looking up from his lap. “I messed up.” He looks very uncomfortable. If opening up wasn’t such a rare occurrence for him, Dick might have found humor in his brother’s embarrassment.

Dick lets go of the doorknob, but doesn’t dare move closer. He knows that Jason’s fight or flight instincts will take hold the second he feels too caged in. “Messed up how?” He asks, keeping his tone even and unemotional.

“With…someone.” Jason forces out the words, cheeks burning as bright as his bedspread. He still refuses to look at Dick, but at the surprised, choked-back sound he makes at the admission, Jason’s face snaps up to his. Dick is disguising his shock as a cough into his fist, but his wide eyes are unmistakable, even behind the curtain of thick hair falling over his eyes.

“That’s…uh…” Dick clears his throat again. Then again. “That’s great, Jason,” he says, at last regaining his composure.

“Is it?” Jason says, squinting at his brother.

“No, I mean—not that you—” Dick sighs, running a hand down his face and deciding to abandon that train of thought altogether. “What happened?”

“I sort of…left. Abruptly.” Jason rubs at the growing stubble on his jaw. “Like— like after…” He trails off, hoping Dick will get the idea.

Dick has to quiet the extremely loud sirens going off in his head when he (albeit incorrectly) has the realization that his baby brother, the one he still sees as four feet tall, swinging his little legs off the kitchen island and covered in cookie crumbs is, in fact, having sex. 

“Is it serious?” He asks through a stiff smile.

Jason, ever oblivious to the silent breakdown his brother is having at the door, is not sure if he’d describe what you two have as serious. He knows you fairly well, knows what you do from the nights you talk about what’s going on at work; what you like from the posters and trinkets you have hung up around your place. And yeah, you talk sometimes. He may not speak that much around you, and it’s usually just frustrated complaints about the other bats, but it’s certainly more than he speaks to most people outside his family. And he sees you more often than he does most people outside his family. And he feels more comfortable with you than—

“Jason,” Dick calls, pulling him from his thoughts. “Is it serious?” He asks again, though there’s a quirk in his brow that suggests he already knows the answer.

“I don’t know,” is what Jason settles on.

“When did this happen?”

“Uh, a few days ago?” Jason says, even though he knows that’s a lie. It was 45 hours and 26 minutes ago, to be precise, but he doesn’t say that. He’s not sure how it would be received.

“You can’t go back? Just try to apologize?”

He wants to see you again, but he can’t. Doing so in the first place only put you in danger, and he was an idiot for ignoring that. If the wrong person had seen the Red Hood making consistent visits to the same window of the same building? His stomach turns at the thought.

Jason can’t imagine you’d be welcoming, either, after the way he left two nights ago. He watched you splash your face with cool water, leaving him with a shaky, watery smile, then listened to you putter around the kitchen with the promise of tea for the both of you. He felt like an asshole, picturing you coming back to the bathroom with his mug in hand, only to be met with an empty room and scattered first aid supplies on the floor. He didn’t even leave through the living room, like he entered, because you were in the kitchen. He climbed out of your bedroom window, like a coward. In his haste, he left those bloodstains he promised he would clean.

“I’m not sure she wants to see me.” Jason says quietly.

Dick answers thoughtfully; “Did she tell you that, or are you just making assumptions?”

Jason sighs. “Shit.”

“But, actually,” Dick winces. “You do have to stay here for the whole week, so…”

Jason lets out a tired groan and drops his face into his palms.

“Maybe call her?” Dick offers. He gathers the conversation is over from the way Jason glares at him, and turns to leave. But when he’s halfway out the door, he turns back. “Hey, Jaybird?”

Jason lifts his chin.

“You’re, uh…using protection, right?”

Jason blinks. It’s now that he realizes what Dick thought he was talking about and it burns him, leaving his skin red-hot.

“Get the fuck out.”

“Look, I’m just trying to—” He cuts himself off with a yelp, leaping out of the doorway to dodge the projectile pillow thrown at his head.

Jason hears a ‘good talk’ from the end of the hall, but is too busy with brand new concerns about his situation with you. If he could call you, he would, but he doesn’t have your number. He could easily find it, but not while he’s confined to this bedroom; he’d need access to his gear at home. And with the entire manor breathing down his neck for the next week, there was no way he’d be able to sneak out. So he’d have to wait an entire week before coming to see you again.

Maybe showing up at your place two days after the ordeal would have you understandably hurt, but nine days? You were going to be pissed. You are pissed.

Not at the Red Hood. You’re mad at yourself for being so stupid as to break down in front of him. It’s no fucking wonder he ran out the first chance he got. You sobbed into his shirt like an idiot for who knows how long. You practically felt him up. You’re an idiot for not thinking that would make him uncomfortable. And now, he’s never coming back, and you can’t even blame him!

There’s a book on your coffee table with a bookmark near the end that’s been staring at you since that night. That night when you, more consumed with confusion than anything else, dumped two mugs of fresh tea in the sink and flopped down on the couch and…waited. For what, you had no idea. The cover art took up your entire field of vision while you lied to yourself, saying you weren’t stealing glances at the window, hoping for a certain body to appear in the frame.

In the days following, the book sat there, practically taunting you until you turned it face-down so the sight of the star-constellated cover would stop making your stomach twist over in nausea. Nausea at the memory of how eager you were to pick it up at the library mere days after he had mentioned it, how you buzzed with excitement, and maybe something deeper, when you came home at night ready to snuggle into the couch with a blanket and your favorite mug to read the next chapter.

I hate you so much, you had murmured into a nasty bruise on the back of his left shoulder one night, though you couldn’t stop the grin that broke through the words.

What did I do? He replied, turning to look at you over his shoulder. 

You never told me that would happen halfway through, you said, forcing a frown when you looked up at him.

He chuckled. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to spoil it for you.

Through the amusement there was a lull in your usual rhythm. He did not need to ask which part of the book you were complaining about. He knows, knows you well enough to understand that you would be angry, reading about a budding, hopeful love that’s marred by the revelation that the boy and the girl will not make it. That their love was doomed from the start because, inevitably, he will have to leave her, and he has known the entire time that he would have to leave. That he loved her with one foot out the door.

You turned him around, ready to focus on the small abrasion at his temple when he asks, forgive me?

Fine, I guess so, you said, standing on your toes to get closer to his head.

That night replayed in your mind too often. The way he moved a ghost of an inch closer to lean into your fingers. The smell that was purely him in the grime and sweat in his hair when you pushed it back from his forehead, hoping he wouldn’t notice the extra second you lingered, fingers threaded into those streaks of white. You always wondered if they would feel different than the rest of his hair. They didn’t. They were just as soft. You wondered if anyone else knew that. You hoped not; no one else needed to know him the way you did.

(No one needed to know that you revisited that night with such frequency, either, in the middle of the night hidden under layers of blankets and darkness with nothing but your hands and imagination. You’d take that to the grave.)

Perhaps, deep down, there was a small part of you that wished he would turn up at your window again, this time armed with reasonings and apologies.

There was an emergency.

My team needed me.

I didn’t want to leave.

But after five days of radio silence, there’s not much you can do except take the hint.

You go about your normal routine, trying your hardest to push him out of your mind. Things at work are steady, your position intact and safe from usurping coworkers. You resign yourself to a fate of friends with questionable compassion, grateful to have any at all, and call up your best friend to smooth things over. She accepts, moving on to squeal about her boyfriend’s friend that she’s been dying to set you up with. You reluctantly agree to a double date somewhere down the line, but start preparing excuses and illnesses in the back of your mind.

Ten days after that night, that book is one week past its due date when you muster up the will to take it back to the Gotham Public Library.

(So maybe you still held out a small flicker of hope. What matters now is that you’re here, ready to return it and blow out that flame.)

There’s one person ahead of you when you fall into line at the front desk. He makes easy conversation with the librarian while she scans his library card; judging by the waves he garners from other passing staff, he must be popular around here.

“Thanks again, you’re the best,” he says, taking the book she hands him.

“Oh, of course,” the librarian gushes, a faint rouge coloring her face. “You let me know how you like that one.”

“I will.”

He turns around, halting suddenly to stop himself from walking into you. You mutter out an apology, ready to move past him, but he stares at you, saying nothing. His large hand tightens its grip on an old and worn book. The ends of jet black strands peek out from under a red beanie and he searches you with wide, teal eyes, mouth agape like he wants to speak. He’s looking at you like he’s been looking for you for ages, and he can’t believe you’re here.

“Hi,” he says, sounding a little breathless.

“Hi.” You clutch your book tighter against your chest, not knowing what to make of this man. It draws his eyes lower and he sees the title.

“Hi,” he says again. Then; “I— I was wondering. About that book.” He nods toward it. “I’m, uh, thinking about reading it. What did you think?”

“Oh,” you exhale. “I actually never finished it. Sorry.”

“Oh,” he echoes. His face falls, but only for a moment, before returning to a neutral expression. “Okay, sorry.”

He brushes past, leaving you addled in his wake, but also next in line. The librarian flashes you a glare when the book is scanned in as one week late. Sheepishly, you pay the fine and watch as it gets rolled away on a re-shelf cart, the last of your connections to the Red Hood rolling along with it.

It would be another two months before you saw him again.

remember after the last part when i said "ignore how his open would is just sitting there marinating"? well i figured out how to amend that👍 idk why i feel like this is so short i tried to write more but yk how it is the story goes the way it wants to i am but the messenger. i've been experiencing mad writer's block this past couple of weeks please pray for me🙏🙏🙏

listen to the inspo song!!!

[pineconepie]

Hello! i was wondering if you could do serial killer/slasher yandere parent? Dont know if thats too dark tho 😅

Here it is!! I've gotten a few requests like this, and since a lot of people also want to see more willing readers, I added a little of that to the mix!

TW: Implied/attempted murder, loss of child, implied assault/creeps toward reader (not the yandad), parental yandere, light forced infantilization, violence, reader implied to kind of has issues of their own

You know it wasn't a good idea to walk home alone, especially in this hour of the night, and double-especially when there had already been six murders around the same general area you live in, all clearly by the same person.

But, your phone had died, you couldn't get an Uber, and there wasn't really anybody you could call to come pick you up, even if your phone was working properly.

So, you decide that walking home will have to work tonight.

That probably wasn't the best choice you've ever made.

When you're halfway to your house, you hear a slight rustling around behind you. You spin around, hoping to catch whatever (or whoever) was following you in the act of making the sound. There's nothing there.

Shaking your head, you continue to walk down the street, subconsciously walking faster.

It must be that murder case that's been hanging over everyone's heads lately that's getting you nervous like this, right?

Wrong.

When you start speed-walking, the same noise as before starts up again, but it sounds closer than last time. You don't have much time before someone tries tackling you.

In the corner of your eye, you see a gun pulled out from under their trench coat. Quickly reaching out for the murderer's arm, you grab it, and try to stop them from aiming at you.

You shove them away and run in the only direction you can without getting tackled; the alleyway.

Seeing there's no time to hide, and all the hiding spots are obvious anyway, you succumb to a panic attack and crouch down onto the ground with your head in your knees.

You take out what money you have and chuck it in his direction. "Please, just take my money and leave me alone! That's all I have! If you want my phone too, just take it!"

The man almost cackles. "I don't need any money," he states matter-of-factly. You can hear the grin in his voice. He walks slowly towards you as if to intimidate you more, though it does little to affect your mindset more than it already has. He's still holding the gun. "Don't take it personally. It's nothing against you. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

At this point, you've fully come to terms with your demise, which is clear to the other party.

You look up at him with puffy eyes from sobbing, and tears and snot running down your face. Most of his face is covered, but you can see his eyes.

And much to your surprise, you see them widen.

A few seconds go by, and now you're afraid to break eye contact. You watch as the man before you put his gun back in its holster inside of his trench coat and curse under his breath while looking away.

He clears his throat after a few more dramatic seconds go by. "Go home, kid." You stand up on shaky legs. "Grab your stuff first, then get outta here. I won't chase ya."

Hesitant, you do so anyway, because who would refuse such an offer?

Grabbing your money, you stuff it in your pockets and wipe your face. As soon as you're ready to go, you dash past the stranger, not wanting to spend another minute around the killer.

...

After that incident, you feel as if you're being watched.

Well, obviously you'd think so; you were just almost murdered.

But, when you're going to anywhere, you can feel eyes staring at you wherever you go.

A car with tinted windows follows each time. It isn't unique by any means, just a black Mitsubishi.

But still, it's there. Every time you leave your house, the same vehicle parks near you until you return to your home. Sometimes you try going on wild goose chases to catch the bastard following you off guard, but when you make your way back, it'll be parked somewhere near your driveway.

For almost two months this becomes a cycle, and it especially starts becoming concerning whenever you get sick, or have a bad day, there's always a basket of goodies on your porch steps the next day.

You don't eat them, and instead just throw them away, but it's clear none of them have been tampered with. The most disturbing part about it all is they have your favorites—your favorite animals now into plushies, your favorite snacks and candies, and other such things.

Is this his way of just messing with you until he inevitably comes to finish the job?

One night, when you're walking home from work, you notice the same vehicle tailing you from your workplace to your house. You walk with speed and reach your porch step, where the driver can see you enter your house, and they pull out, as if reassured you're safe.

Maybe they're trying to make sure you aren't hurt in any way?

Another night, one late, you stay out longer than you should, and much like any other time, you're followed once again.

Unlike normal though, there are three men whistling at you, taunting you. You ignore them as best as you can, walking faster and keeping your head down in hopes you won't seem interesting. Your wishes are not fulfilled.

Your arm is tugged harshly backward, pulling you onto the sidewalk with brute force.

The three guys look at you hungrily. "Where are you going this late at night?" the obvious leader speaks up, a greasy, slimy grin on his face, only worsening when he sees how fearful you've become.

"I...I'm going home."

One of them tries grabbing you, and against your better judgment, you take off in an attempt to escape, though you aren't fast enough to avoid your jacket being grabbed.

In your panic, you somehow end up wriggling yourself away and onto the ground. You try to get up, but one of them holds their foot on your back, pushing you back onto the asphalt.

But, oh-so-conveniently, you can hear a vehicle door open and slam shut, and then the pounding of boots against concrete.

The foot on your back lets up, because the guy goes tumbling backwards onto his back.

Now free, you sit yourself up quickly, rubbing the back of your head, which had hit the sidewalk. You blink the blurriness away, to see the man—the same one who nearly killed you and has been following you—hovering over the main creep.

"Hey, what the hell is your problem?!" said creep yells. He tries standing up, but the killer stomps on his ankle.

A crunch resounds through the air, accompanied by a sharp scream. The other two guys stand frozen, watching in horror.

"Get your little buddy and get outta here," he warns the other two, finally backing away. He has a gun pointed at them threateningly, as to tell them not to try anything else.

They quickly help their leader up and hobble away in fear.

You want to yell at this man, to demand answers or run, but you can't. "Thank you, sir..." you whisper.

Now you can get a good look at him. He looks to be somewhere in his forties, maybe even fifties, and has graying brown hair, along with gray eyes.

There's a scar along his cheekbone that adds a rugged charm to him. He smells like expensive cologne and coffee beans. If he didn't try killing you not too long ago, you might've really put your trust into him, he seems like just a grumpy dad.

"Are you alright?" His voice sounds oddly soft, as if genuinely concerned for your health. He reaches toward you, and you close your eyes, readying yourself to be hurt, but he only examines a bruise forming on your forehead. "Thought you learnt your lesson last time about stayin' out late at night."

"I don't think it'd matter either way. You know where I live, I've seen your car," you mutter. You don't look him in the eyes, hoping to avoid seeing any possible rage held within them. He doesn't say anything after that, so you continue. "Why are you doing this?"

A rough hand grabs yours, lifting you to your feet. "Do what? Save ya from gettin' jumped?"

"No! That's part of it, sure, but the gifts, and protecting me, and—and...you were just gonna kill me all those months ago!"

He sighs. "Yeah, 'were'. Not 'are'. I decided I ain't gonna anymore."

"But why?" you repeat, glaring daggers at the older man.

"I usually go after bad people. I mistook you for someone else, and then when you looked up at me like you did," he says while shifting his stance to a more firm position, "'all scared and hopeless and pathetic and—" he pauses suddenly, shaking his head to recollect himself. "Look, I saw my kid in you."

"You have a kid?"

"Had. Had a kid."

You almost want to apologize for the loss of his kid, when you remember the fact he's literally a serial killer. "And that's why you decided to stalk me for the past two months and give me baskets full of stuff?"

"We both know for a fact you hardly take care of yourself well enough. You're clumsy as shit, always irresponsible, you eat terribly..."

"I'm not being scolded how I live my life by a serial killer!" you interject. "Who even are you, anyway?"

"Dante," he answers.

"And I figure you already know everything about me?" It's less of a question and more of a statement at this point.

He chuckles. "If I didn't, would you still introduce yourself to me?" When he gets no answer from you, he smiles lopsidedly. "Get in the car, I'll drive ya home."

You narrow your eyes at him. "So you can kidnap me, or something?"

Dante puts a hand on your shoulder, his expression becoming cold again. "If I wanted to do that, I could have already done it plenty of times before, kiddo. I'm a lot of things; a liar ain't one of them."

"Fine, okay. I'll let you drive me home." You roll your eyes when you hear him laugh victoriously under his breath and follow him into his car. "How do you have the time all day to stalk me like this?" you ask aloud, climbing into the passenger's seat. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"You call it stalking, I call it watchin' over you like a father should his child. So far, we've seen just how helpful it is having me keep an eye on you," Dante replies. He pauses. "And I'm retired, but I used to be a private investigator."

"Oh joy. My own personal PI." You buckle your seat belt. You're still in disbelief. Someone actually gives enough of a damn about your safety, and it's your local neighborhood serial killer? "You said you only kill bad people." He hums in confirmation. "Does that mean 'petty thief' bad? Or, like, actual bad people?"

"The latter, kid. Not 'cause it makes me feel like a good person, just makes me feel like less of a bad person."

"So you can admit you aren't a good person?" you quip sarcastically, arms folded.

"Course not. But I don't think there really are any inherently good people in the world," he says.

"What about me, then? Why protect me if you think there's nobody who's actually 'good'?"

Dante glances at you. "I don't expect you to be a saint. In my eyes, you're amazing, perfect even. And sure, you got flaws—a lot of 'em—but so does your old man."

You cringe at the statement. "You mentioned me reminding you of your kid. What happened?" you pry further. "All I know is they died, right?" You rub the bruise on your forehead.

"They were out with some friends one night. And a few hours later I'm gettin' phone calls about how my baby's in critical condition. I get there, but there wasn't anything I could've done to save 'em. All I could do was sit beside them 'til..." He trails off. "They died holding my hand. But," he adds, looking at you sternly, "that shit ain't happenin' to you. That's why I'm keeping you safe."

After he stops at a red light, you stare up at him, deep in thought. "Is that why you kill...?"

"Because someone killed my kid?"

"Yeah, exactly."

Dante nods his head after a moment of hesitation. "It started with that, yeah. I killed the bastards that put them in that hospital bed. But that wasn't enough. I guess with monsters like that, I get a little trigger-happy."

It's quiet for a while.

"...how do you know I won't come forward about this information?" you question once your home is in sight. "Or try leaving, for that matter?"

Dante laughs. "You wouldn't get far without me knowing."

That shuts you up quick. Your house pulls up soon afterwards.

"Well, uh, thanks for driving me home," you mumble, opening the car door.

"No problem. Oh, wait—" he takes your wrist gently to keep you from getting out yet. He digs in the compartment below your armrest. Eventually he finds a pen and pad. He writes something down, ripping it off and handing it to you. "—call me whenever you need it. Even if ya just need help studying, or whatever." Dante shrugs nonchalantly.

"Or I'll just knock on the window of the car outside my place?" You weakly smile. Despite the oddity of the situation, this whole scenario is strangely hilarious.

At least, it feels that way because you might've hit your head a little too hard.

...

Those people who were harassing you went missing. You know for a fact it was Dante, and while you don't wish for their deaths, it still leaves a sour taste in your mouth when you see them on the news, with their parents crying about how sweet and kind they were.

You don't even know how to feel about Dante anymore. Maybe he is a good person, who really is doing the world a favor, but it's just not worth the risk to associate with him.

Except he isn't going to leave you alone.

Still though, you decide that ignoring him until he just leaves you alone.

Which proves difficult because sometimes he comes around and knocks on your door every so often, to drop off food, and just check in on you and how you're doing.

Some days you wonder what might happen if you answer, or send a text. He did give you his phone number after all.

You fight the curious urge, until one day, when tiredly trudging home after a particularly awful day.

For some reason, you look around the streets for a black car following you, but find nothing of the sort.

You decide to go against your better judgment and decide to call Dante. You don't know why you're doing this, every instinct in your body is telling you to not do it.

The phone rings a few times, until an annoyed voice picks up. "What? I'm busy," he snaps.

"Oh, uh, sorry," you stutter. "I shouldn't have called, that was stupid of me—"

"Wait, no, I didn't—" Silence hangs in the air. "Sorry," Dante says softer this time. "Didn't know it was you at first. Is everything alright?"

Your fingers tap against the wood of the table nervously, trying to make up some sort of excuse to cover for the real reason you're calling him.

"Nothing, just... didn't have a good day." You feel so pathetic right now, too caught up in your own emotions to hear the muffled cries in the background on Dante's side of the call. "But that doesn't concern you, does it? Why am I saying this?"

"It's alright, kiddie. Whatever happened to make you upset is important to me." Dante is definitely smiling right now. "Well, listen. I was busy right now, but it can wait, so how's about I swing by wherever you are and you and I can spend some time together? Get somethin' to eat, maybe? Your choice."

You find it hard to decline him. "...okay. I'm not home right now though. Can I just call an Uber and meet you somewhere?" you suggest.

He snorts. "My driving so bad that you'd rather waste money than spend thirty minutes in the same vehicle as me?"

"No, it's not that. I just feel like I'll be intruding since you're busy, or something."

"Don't be silly. Just tell me where you are and I'll be there soon. Alright? Don't get into any suspicious vans or anything like that while I'm not there." He ends the call with that.

The next ten minutes or so you stand around awkwardly, watching as pedestrians pass by. Eventually though, Dante arrives, driving up beside you. He gestures for you to open the passenger door, which you oblige.

You climb inside, buckle your seatbelt, and turn toward Dante. "So...where are we going?"

He stares back at you for a brief second. "Depends. Where would you like to go?"

After some hesitation, you give your favorite restaurant, which he nods in acknowledgement to and begins to drive.

"Why was your day bad?" he asks. "Did something happen? Someone hurt you?" At the red light, he turns to give you a quick glance-over, searching for any bruises or cuts, most likely. You're not injured, though the concerned look on his face stays.

"No, I just haven't slept much lately," you mutter.

"Have you eaten today?" You look away from Dante as an answer, making him curse under his breath. "The biggest hazard to you is yourself, it seems." He shakes his head disapprovingly. "I'm glad you finally called me, by the way. Why'd you decide to do it now?"

You hesitate. "I was feeling lonely, I guess."

"Really? Is that all?" The light flicks to green again, and Dante continues to drive.

"...I didn't see you stalking me today. Normally I see your car following me everywhere."

His breath hitches. "And...that worried you?" Dante looks at you from the corner of his eyes.

You don't reply.

Soon the conversation dies out, and neither of you bother to start another one up.

He focuses on driving, while you distract yourself with counting the amount of trees along the sidewalk on the way to the destination.

When you two pull up in the parking lot, you expect there to be tension, but surprisingly enough, the silence between you two feels comfortable, safe almost. It's a nice change from the usual uneasiness.

Dante gets out first, and you follow. The bell of the restaurant dings when you both enter.

"How many?" the hostess asks politely.

"Two. Thank you," Dante says with a charming smile. To you, it's an obvious fake persona, but she buys it hook, line, and sinker. You roll your eyes discreetly as she leads you two to the booth. You sit on opposite ends, taking your menus from her before she heads off to take care of other customers.

You think about it, then settle for the cheapest thing on the menu, trying to avoid taking advantage of Dante's kindness.

He notices anyway. "I know I don't dress fancy, or anything, but I've got the cash, kiddo. If you want to order the whole menu, you could, and I'd still be able to afford it tenfold. Nothin' is too expensive for you."

"I..." Your face burns out of embarrassment. You flip through the menu once more. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I am." Dante scans through his own menu, although half-heartedly, considering his focus is still mostly on you.

Once your orders are made, you both try making small-talk, which proves ineffective. Then your orders arrive, and that too, becomes awkward when he insists on helping you cut up your meal into smaller pieces.

You make a show out of being mad, though truthfully it isn't bothersome as you try letting on it is.

After dinner (which he pays for completely) he looks like he's contemplating on something in the car. "Would you like to come to my place, kiddo?"

"Like, your house?" you clarify.

Dante nods. "It's only fair. I know where you live, I figure it'd be polite showing you the same courtesy."

"Sure, but it depends if I'll leave alive," you joke, but part of you is still concerned about that.

"With the way you take care of yourself, I think staying with me might actually help increase your lifespan a little bit."

A few moments pass by, the two of you basking in the company of one another. It's...nice.

The drive to Dante's home is around thirty minutes long, and barely in the city, surprisingly enough. His house isn't anything super impressive, but it doesn't look bad either.

A very average, middle-class home. It's comforting to see Dante likes simple things, makes it easier to think of him as a normal person than the murderer you know he is.

He steps outside of the car and opens your door for you. You give him a questioning glance, but decide to ignore it for now, unbuckling and heading over to the porch with Dante trailing behind you.

"This is it," he states, pulling his keys out to unlock the door, beckoning you to go in before him.

The interior of his home isn't anything special either, which you enjoy seeing. It makes Dante seem more human. On top of that, it feels safe here, even if this is the last place it should feel this way. It does have a slightly annoying (and worrying) scent of bleach permeating throughout the house.

You bite the inside of your cheek. "Can I ask something? It might be a little weird or triggering, so..."

"You can ask me anything. Doesn't bother me," Dante says.

"Okay... are you so interested in me because I simply look like or act like your kid? I'm worried you expect me to act like them or something similar..."

Dante sighs heavily, sitting down on his couch, and motioning for you to join him. Hesitantly, you do so, staying silent while you wait for him to gather his thoughts.

"I know you're not them. Sure, you remind me a bit of them, but you're your own person, too. It's fine if you don't want to pretend you're anyone but yourself, y'know? That ain't what I'm looking for, and forcing someone to do that wouldn't make anyone happy." He mulls over his words for a moment. "I guess I just want to be a dad again. I felt useless after my kid died, so you gave me that opportunity again."

You look at the ground awkwardly. "Why couldn't you just adopt a kid?"

"A lot of money," Dante answers. "Not to mention not working anymore and not being married anymore makes adoption agencies wary. Plus, you looked like you needed protecting, so I wanted to do so. Now, my turn. Why'd you invite me out? Wanted to spend some time with your old man?" Dante laughs lightly, but his eyes show clear hopefulness.

"If you insist on acting like my father," you pause, taking in a breath, "then yes. I suppose that means I wanted to spend time with you. Is that okay?"

Dante looks almost ready to cry. His hands twitch at his sides. "'course it is," he mutters softly, barely containing himself from getting overly emotional.

You scoot closer to Dante, hesitating for only a few moments before wrapping your arms around him. "Thank you for inviting me into your home."

He reciprocates quickly, holding onto you like a lifeline, face buried in your hair. "I missed this so much..." His voice is choked-up as he holds you tighter to him. "My baby," Dante whispers.

You don't know why you're letting this happen, but you don't want to dwell on that. His embrace is more comforting than it should be, especially considering what he is. But if he wants to play pretend, to imagine he has a child again, you may as well let him.

Even if that means ignoring the faint noises from the basement, and pretending it's just someone next-door.

"I love you so much," he mutters. He almost sounds hysterical, even if his tone is quiet, almost a whisper. "Never leave me. I can't take that, kid. I can't."

You pretend to be asleep, just so you won't have to answer that. He sighs and only holds you tighter.

[markleessodalite]

NCT Dream as Girl Dads

Headcanon: what would nct dream be like as girl dads?

content warnings: none that i can think of, its literally just how i think the members would behave if they had daughters so it should be fine unless you've got daddy issues (which is valid because so do i lol)

word count: 840

Mark:

Mark is completely enamored with anything his daughter does, whether it be big or small. Mark thinks that any little thing she does is a sign of who she’s going to be in life. She giggled at him when she was an infant? She must have a great sense of humor! She made him a fake lunch with her kitchen playset? She’s got the mind of a chef! She gets excited for the ride to visit grandma? She’s gonna travel the world one day! Mark as a dad can be summed up in one word– enthusiastic. His train of thought may be a bit idealistic (just because she likes playing on the swingset doesn’t mean she’ll be a pilot) but at least you know he will happily support her in whatever she does.

Renjun:

Gifts, gifts, and more gifts. Renjun’s daughter will always be dressed to the nines, even before she’s old enough to eat on her own– he’s got designer bibs at the ready. If she wants a dollhouse that’s 4 feet tall and takes up more space than her bed, she knows dad will get it for her (you told him to at least save it until her birthday, but he couldn’t wait). Renjun doesn’t see the harm in spoiling his little girl. Why would you not want to treat your daughter like a princess? However, Renjun is certainly not a pushover; his number one rule is bad attitude = no gifts, and he doesn’t tolerate brats.

Jeno:

Jeno is his daughter’s number one protector. No one is going to hurt his little girl on his watch. If any playground bullies push her out of the sandbox, it takes everything Jeno has to not lose it on the kid’s parents. In fact, he’s already… unpopular with the neighborhood parents, after he glared at a kid a little too hard for catching an attitude with his baby. It’ll get annoying when she’s a teenager and every boy at school is terrified to ask her on a date, but Jeno will say its good to be selective– because there’s nothing that would break his heart more than seeing his little girl in pain. 

Haechan:

Haechan is his daughter’s best friend. As soon as she was old enough to walk, he was planning all sorts of fun father-daughter activities. He’s gonna take her to the carnival, and the water park, and the mud flats, and the fairgrounds, and anywhere else that his daughter might want to go. Of course he’s going to raise her on good music too, and one of her favorite memories will be going to her very first concert with her dad. As she gets older it might take him time to understand that teenagers need privacy– she’s not so little anymore, and he can’t expect her to tell him everything she thought and felt like she used to. But that doesn’t mean he’ll ever stop being his babygirl’s best friend.

Jaemin:

Jaemin has very high standards for his precious girl. She’s the daughter of Na Jaemin after all– she only deserves the best! He makes sure she gets home cooked meals (and only the finest restaurants if they choose to go out), he takes advice from Renjun to get her the finest clothes, he only gets her bedsheets with a specific thread count and skincare products with specific ingredients. He may go a bit overboard sometimes, like when he tries to forbid her from seeing certain friends or from watching certain tv shows, but you know it comes from a place of care. He just wants the best influences for his little angel.

Chenle:

Chenle wants his daughter to be amazing in everything she does. He’s going to encourage her to pursue anything, as long as she’s pursuing something. He’ll have her enrolled in a variety of clubs and activities, he’ll help her study to get the best grades, he’ll do volunteer work with her so she can experience many different paths her life could take her. Sometimes you have to pull him back a bit when he’s putting a little too much stress on her, but he just sees so much potential in his daughter.

Jisung:

Jisung lets his daughter get away with everything, for better or worse. Jisung is not much of a disciplinarian… and it drives you a little insane. He just hates seeing his baby with tears in her eyes, even though you’ve explained that she’ll be fine in 5 minutes and move on to something else. She took a toy from another kid? Well… maybe we should just buy her that toy instead of scolding her. She’s refusing to lay down at bedtime? Well what if we just let her watch a movie with us? Jisung just wants his little girl to always be happy, and turning the dial from sweet dad to mean dad kills him. But he knows its his responsibility to raise his daughter, not just fawn over how cute she is. So he will turn into mean dad when he needs to. Begrudgingly.

[beforetimes]

okay i love the aus about shen jiu finding a little shen yuan and bringing him to qing jing peak before slowly warming up to him so here is my take on it! (specifically their first meeting)

shen jiu has been on qing jing peak for about five years at this point. he's vying for the position of head disciple and all things considered, he is a pretty strong contender for the role. there's just one issue his teacher keeps coming back to; how shen jiu will pass down knowledge on qing jing peak.

it's not a stretch to say that shen jiu is a bit. rough around the edges. and sometimes when teaching the younger disciples his own skewed views of how fast or slow they should be progressing leads him to get snappish and cold. trial teaching periods with shen jiu are most of the junior disciples' worst nightmare and the current qing jing peak lord knows well enough that this is something that needs to be rectified.

shen jiu, who knows this is the only real roadblock to becoming a head disciple like he's been trying at for five years, is intensely irritated. and on the verge of losing it, as if he hasn't been on a hair-trigger temper ever since he turned against wu yanzi for yue qingyuan only to not even be granted a reason for him never returning. qi deviations are a begrudginly expected aspect of his life that weaken his warring body in ways that make shen jiu want to scream.

anyway. he goes out on a mission with liu qingge to a far-off town a few months after one of these qi deviations and in the process of chasing away whatever beast or ghost has been bothering this town, they have to walk through the marketplace. it's fairly packed, all things considered, but shen jiu can still tell when his coin bag is lifted off him and the thief snatches away barely a moment later. he's already in a pretty bad mood because of liu qingge being there but he doesn't necessarily want to make a scene and draw the attention of the entire street onto him, so he follows after the child. he keeps an eye on the back of his head to keep track of him while liu qingge whinges on the side about how they need to stay on task and why is shen jiu getting distracted and is he seriously going to a brothel?!

to which shen jiu looks up and realizes that either this child a ) went to this brothel because he felt shen jiu following him and wanted to throw a righteous cultivator off by going into a place he assumed shen jiu wouldn't enter or b ) he lives here and he was just returning 'home.' neither of these options particularly work in the child's favour, considering the fact that shen jiu would just walk in without a care in the world and objectively, a brothel isn't a great place to live.

either way, he clenches his jaw, ignores liu qingge, and walks in to grab the thief and turn him around.

just to come face to face with a child that looks like him.

they both blink. shen jiu thinks this must be some sort of practical joke. the boy looking at him doesn't seem to understand what shen jiu is looking at so intently: the kid has probably never seen his face before, if anything. but he knows that something is up because he starts fidgeting and starts acting a bit scared the longer shen jiu stares without saying anything before finally breaking and shoving the coin bag back into shen jiu's hands.

who takes it. but also doesn't stop staring.

liu qingge, at this point, has recovered enough face and pushed down enough shame to walk into the brothel to drag shen jiu out before he also comes face to face with this child and is suitably confused.

of course there is no silence from liu qingge. the first thing he asks is if the kid if shen jiu's son, to which he snaps no. then he's asked if its a bastard brother or something along those lines. and shen jiu wants to automatically reply no to that as well before very suddenly and startlingly realizing that for as much as he assumed his mother was dead, he never actually remembered her dying. or saw a grave. while very rapidly realizing that he kind of just constructed the idea of her being dead for the sake of coping with the fact that she got rid of him away willingly. which is. wow. okay. shen jiu can't tell if he's feeling white hot rage so overwhelming that its making him blank out or he's so painfully numb that every limb of his prickles like its falling asleep.

either way. he looks around at this brothel and at this child who has bruises on his wrists and arms and peeking out under his robes—robes which look far too much like the ones that the prostitutes around him are wearing and asks what happens to his mom. and learns that she died when he was born and the boy is fifteen years old. which is hilarious because anyone with a working set of eyes can tell he's barely hitting double digits, let alone passing himself off as a teenager.

and then shen jiu feels like laughing hysterically for a whole other reason, watching the kid flinch when a large lumbering man pushes past the three collected at the entrance to walk in. and many realizations are piling up in his head all at once and thinking about this is making him want to throw up. and he wants to walk away and forget this ever happened and pretend that if he flies all the way back to cang qiong mountain immediately then this child will fade to the back of his memory and nothing will matter except for becoming head disciple.

which is when he remembers the only thing that is roadblocking him.

and shen jiu looks down at this child who is shaking slightly but still managing to look him in the eyes. who is covered in bruises but still stole money off of him. who is living in a brothel but hasn't wilted and rotted away like a dying flower. who has an ember of potential in his stomach, the possibility of becoming a cultivator just nearly there.

what better way to prove that he can become a head disciple than teaching his brother (???) how to become a cultivator? someone he can make countless mistakes with who will be indebted to him because of shen jiu saving him from this place. someone he can show to the peak lord as proof that he can work with children, he can teach, he has that slight touch of softness needed for a peak lord who will hand down knowledge to generations after him.

it doesn't even necessarily need to be real softness. he can just practice with this child, who knows nothing better, who is tied to shen jiu and won't leave once he comes to cang qiong because (and shen jiu can't tell if this makes him want to throw up or straighten up, pleased with his cleverness) he knows what is waiting for him when if he ever decided to leave, and shen jiu has garnered enough of a reputation that no one will want to try to be near anyone wearing his face.

which is a very tangential way to say that shen jiu asks for the child's name ("all the women here call me yuan." it is very impersonal) before telling him that this is the only time he will ever get an offer like this and no one else will ever care to look at someone of his standing ever again so it is important to listen to everything he says carefully. he tells yuan that he will take him back to his sect to become a cultivator. but he can never come back here and speak of this or how they met once they leave. any connections to this place will be cut off. he will be under shen jiu's care but fend for himself once they get back. shen jiu leaves him with one of his fans and enough coin for a meal before telling him that they will return in a few days time, by which time yuan will have made his decision. the fan is promised as incentive to come back because shen jiu doesn't need to child's trust broken before they even get there. he does all this before leaving without another word.

liu qingge is spitting blood the whole way back to their inn on the other side of town, questioning what the hell got into shen jiu and what was he talking about and any number of other things before shen jiu starved him out by refusing to say a word.

when they come back a few days later, yuan takes barely a minute to grab a bag of everything he needs before he looks up, handing shen jiu's fan back to him.

let me know if you want a continuation of this or a fic hahaha i will add it to the list

[part two!]

[drivebypainter]

I redesigned my SVSSS OC as the start of my mission to create a design/reference sheet for all of the SVSSS characters!

(prev design)

Here’s her lore:

The lore behind He Mixin’s arrival:

Shang Qinghua, wasn’t one for extreme superstitions. However, he definitely believed he must have broken a hundred mirrors for him to have the luck he currently had. He was stuck doing paperwork and taxes not only for the entire sect, but the entire northern palace too! Not only that but it was only his first few years as a peak lord and already multiple disasters had happened!

So in order to to minimize any future problems, Shang Qinghua began praying to a god of luck and fortune. Sure it was probably useless and a waste of time, but it felt nice to do it. Soon the prayers turned into little out of the way tasks to increase his luck. The it turned into whole rituals before he sent a letter or before he went on a mission. It seemed to be working too! His paper work seemed easier and people began to turn in their work on time!

However one day it went all wrong. You see, Shang Qinghua in his rush to save a stack of paper from falling off his desk, he stuck his chop sticks straight up- in his bowl of rice! (Bad luck!)

After that once unfortunate moment, everything went wrong again. Taxes grew harder, people began to be late with their reports, and peaks began to have disasters every week!

Desperate to get back his luck, Shang Qinghua begged the little statue of the lucky and fortunate god for help. Shang Qinghua was surprised when the sound of the system suddenly sung in his head with a new mission!

[User01 has gained a new mission with a grand reward of a permanent buff on paperwork and other peakly duties! Does User01 want to accept this mission?]

Extremely excited, Shang Qinghua selected the yes button and immediately forgot about the mission, after the system only gave a vague [great see you in 12 years!]

Over the next 4 years, Shang Qinghua’s luck slowly increased again.. but it never got to the point from before, and in fact any increase of luck was barely appreciated due to his now PAINFUL headaches that he was getting all the time.

On the dawn of the 5th year, Shang Qinghua could no longer take it, and begged the system to end the mission. There was no way he could handle it anymore! The pain was too much!

The system remained silent so Shang Qinghua ran to Mu Qingfang for help. After a quick analysis, Mu Qingfang found the problem, there was something growing next to Shang Qinghua’s brain! Mu Qingfang went to remove the mass and suddenly out popped a whole 5 year old child! Shang Qinghua was horrified- but the child’s birth(?) aligned with the mission… so was this his buff for everything on his peak?

Shang Qinghua decided to name the child He Mixin, (which means “to celebrate superstition”), as a call back to all the silly things Shang Qinghua did in the name of luck!

As He Mixin grew up, Shang Qinghua gave up his superstitions and instead just relied on giving small prayers to the lucky god in thanks. After all, despite its craziness, Shang Qinghua now had his own little ‘good luck charm’.

He Mixin personality/details/how she interacts with others:

He Mixin is a very stubborn and hard worker. She works hard to get things done and to make her baba proud. (thought she’d never tell him that).

She has a lot of anger issues, resulting with dealing with “man-child” peak lords and annoying fellow disciples (and even more annoying fellow head disciples).

She is prone to bouts of impulsivity, as shown by her horrible hair that she did on a day where she wanted to be free of the excruciating heat caused by summer in CQMS.

She is sometimes called the Princess of An Ding, because she is the daughter of SQH and out of all the disciples on An Ding she is rather weak. (though off on her peak she is considered the most physically strong out of her fellow head disciples- despite that strength she is very much not a fighter.)((A Ding disciples have to be sturdy and capable in order to do the amount of physical labor they do)).

HMX doesn’t like a lot of people due to the fact her opinions are usually clouded by the fact she has to deal with their bullshit when she does paperwork.

HMX is lesbian yay.

HMX is friends with Feng Licheng (the Zui Xian head disciple) and Gao Hongxia (the Wan Jian head disciple). The three of them hang out regularly.

HMX was forced to go on play dates with FLC the moment he joined ZXP.

HMX has a huge crush on GHX (GHX is beautiful, kind and competent! AWOOGA!)

HMX is frenemies with Ming Fan because the guy is annoyingly bossy! No other reason! (MF and GHX are friends- HMX is insanely jealous every time they hang out)

HMX hates Yang Yixuan to the bone because the brat is Bai Zhan and Bai Zhan sucks (YYX is a pure baby who never did anything wrong.)

HMX’s relationship with SQH is sorta like begrudging father/daughter type deal. HMX wants, but then also doesn’t want, a father, and SQH doesn’t know how to deal with children LOL.

MBJ was shocked the first time he met HMX- “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAD A KID POP OUT OF YOUR HEAD???”

HMX was taught embroidery by SQH and now regularly does little embroidery projects on either her own clothes or on little scraps of paper.

Both Feng Licheng and Gao Hongxia belong to @sillygoofyqueer

[silksongeveryday]

Drawing Hornet everyday until Silksong comes out - Day 731.

Well, after two long years of posting, I’m finally taking a break.

Thank you guys for everything for the past two years. It’s genuinely been so fun making daily doodles. But all good things must come to an end eventually. I’m tired.

What are the plans moving forward?

read below the cut if you’d like to know!!

Taking a break:

Life in general has been really rough lately. Tons of family drama, personal medical issues making it impossible to function some days, and my childhood dog recently passed away a few days after Christmas last year. So it was a real challenge to “keep up appearances” if you know what I mean.

I’ve said this plenty of times in the past already, however I’ll repeat it since there’s surprisingly a lot more new people that have followed since then. I’m taking a whole month off from posting entirely. So I won’t be active on Silksongeveryday until about March 14th. Why? Hopefully it’s obvious but posting daily content for two years straight really does something to you. I’ve grown tired of this blog just a little bit, and I feel stepping away from it for a month will help me reconnect. I still love the game and its community, and I’d hate for my disinterest in a single blog to ruin that. If a month long break could fix that then so be it.

I’m also taking a somewhat indefinite break from daily doodles. I WILL still be posting doodles occasionally every once in a while after I come back from my month long break. However I won’t be doing daily doodles.

So no daily doodles ever again?

There is only one condition that has to be met for me to return to daily doodles.

A Silksong release date is announced.

Which is…let’s face it, a release date might not happen any time soon. 6 years of near radio silence from TC? I’m not expecting much, especially not in a month.

But WHEN a release date is announced I’ll definitely return to daily doodles and do a sort of daily “countdown” until Silksong is officially out.

Will doodle requests still be open?

Yes! Even if I will no longer be doing daily posts I will still occasionally post every once in a while with doodles! So if there’s a specific doodle you’d like to request and you have an extra $1 hanging around, hornet doodle requests are open on my ko-fi!!

What about the current projects that were happening on Silksongeveryday?

I’m still working on them! Just as mentioned before, a lot of stuff happened irl so it’s kind of on the back burner.

For the Hornet Journal Series: I plan to post the remaining entries after I come back from my month long break. Whether I work on them during that month long break totally depends on how I’m feeling. But there may be a likely chance I work on a few here and there on my own time! But regardless, I do plan to finish this project. So no worries!

For Hornet’s Strange adventures: I know it’s been ages since this particular project finished on the blog. Development for the free game is slow going since I’m working on this project entirely by myself with a game engine I’ve never used before. Progress is being made but it’s unfortunately slow thanks for irl conflicts. But, just like the journal series, I do plan to finish this project so I promise it won’t be abandoned!! I just need a break first lol.

___________

I think that’s all I have to say?? But if anyone has any questions, asks are always open and I’m more than happy to answer just about anything!

Thanks again for the wonderful experience, it’s been an amazing journey with you guys <3

See you all in a month!!

[senlinyu]

I'm excited to announce that I have signed a book deal with Del Rey at Penguin Random House in the US and Michael Joseph in the UK for my debut novel, Alchemised, a standalone dark fantasy set in a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy, in which a healer with amnesia is taken as a prisoner of war and must fight to protect her lost memories and the secrets hidden among them. It will grapple with themes of trauma and survival, legacy, and the way that love can drive one to extreme darkness, and it is, as you may be able to tell, a reimagined version of Manacled.

I know I’ve been rather quiet about my publishing journey, and a lot of that has been because I didn’t want to spark any concerns or worry that I might be abruptly taking away a story that is such a deep part of myself and that I know has meant so much to so many people. This process has unfolded very slowly and quietly because I have tried to be mindful as I could be in every step of the way. 

As most of you know, I have been a reader in fandom long before I ever began to write. Fanfiction is incredibly special to me, and I have tried to do my best not to undermine its legal protection or allow my works to do so either. During the last several years, there has been a growing issue with illegal sales of Manacled, putting both me and the incredible community that shares fanfiction freely in legal jeopardy. 

After consulting with the OTW as well as other lawyers, it has grown clear that as a transformative writer I have limited options in protecting my stories from this kind of exploitation, but I wasn’t sure what to do; I didn’t want to just take the story down, in part because I worried that might only exacerbate the issue, but I didn’t know what other options I had. Then I suddenly had this idea of alchemy, which was peculiarly appropriate; an academic world filled with unique transmutational abilities, and a necromantic war against people who had discovered the secrets of immortality, and I could see a path to reimagining the story while still holding on to as much of the original spirit of Manacled as possible. 

I began redrafting the concept privately around Christmas 2022, and then as if the universe had aligned, just as I was finishing, Caitlin Mahony and Rivka Bergman of WME reached out to me and were delightfully enthusiastic about concepts and ideas for my new alchemical world and the ways I had reimagined the story. 

I'm thrilled to be working with Emily Archbold, my visionary editor at Del Rey, along with Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph in the UK, to polish this novel for publication in Fall 2025. I feel uniquely privileged that both my publishing teams are familiar with Manacled and understand how special it is to so many people, and how important it is that this reimagining captures the same spirit while also having its own wings. 

Manacled is not going anywhere at present. It will remain online throughout 2024, at which point it will, if you’ll pardon the pun, alchemise for 2025 and be removed from AO3. 

I'm so thankful to all of you who've enjoyed my works, and I hope that I can continue to rely on your support as I take my next steps as an author.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Et tu, Grok? Even Musk's Grok knows that Trump is probably a Russian asset. (BTW, who knew that Musk pictured Grok as a woman?)

According to the AI chatbot called Grok, which was developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, there is a “75-85% likelihood” that the person who delivered the State of the Union address on Tuesday night is a “Putin-compromised” Russian asset. [...] This all began with a question put to Grok. It was: “What is the likelihood from 1-100 that Trump is a Putin-compromised asset? Use all publicly available information from 1980 on and his failure to ever say anything negative about Putin but has no issue attacking allies.” [...] Of Trump, Grok said in part, “Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, as Trump faced bankruptcies, he increasingly relied on funding from sources tied to Russia and former Soviet states. His sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, made statements reinforcing this: Donald Jr. in 2008 said, ‘Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,’ and Eric in 2014 claimed, ‘We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’” It also noted that “leaked Kremlin documents reported by The Guardian in 2021 suggest Putin personally approved a 2016 operation to back Trump, viewing him as ‘mentally unstable’ and exploitable, with potential compromising material from past Moscow visits.” As for drawing its artificially intelligent “maximally truth-seeking” conclusion, Grok said, “Weighing this, the financial ties (decades-long, opaque, and substantial), intelligence suggesting Russian intent, and Trump’s unwavering refusal to criticize Putin despite attacking allies tilt the scale.” Given all that (and more, if you read the entire assessment), Grok said that “Trump’s ego and debts make him unwittingly pliable, fits the evidence. Adjusting for uncertainty and alternative explanations (e.g., ideological alignment or naivety), I estimate a 75-85% likelihood Trump is a Putin-compromised asset, leaning toward the higher end due to the consistency of his behavior and the depth of historical ties.” So says the truth-seeking AI chatbot developed by Musk’s own company. [color/emphasis added]

SOME LEGISLATORS ARE ALSO WONDERING : Even Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) commented on X about Grok's assessment: "Oh, my. Grok comes through again. Even AI sees Trump/Russia."

UK's Graham Stuart MP also commented on X: "We have to consider the possibility that Trump is a Russian asset. If so, Trump's acquisition is the crowning achievement of Putin's FSB career - and Europe is on its own."

THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION CONTINUES TO BE DISTORTED: Ever since Bill Barr's "executive summary" distorted the findings of the Mueller report, Trump and his lackeys (like FBI director Kash Patel) keep pushing the false claim that the entire Russia investigation was a "hoax." (Patel has even gone so far as to write a children's book, The Plot Against the King to indoctrinate kids into this distorted belief.)

MAGA GULLIBILITY: Trump's MAGA base continues to cling to the lies about the Russian investigation being a "hoax" despite a mountain of contradictory evidence that even Musk's Grok couldn't overlook.

MAGA gullibility apparently knows no bounds.

"When emotion supersedes reason... gullibility must follow." —Barbara Mertz

[hoseoksluna]

WINE | jjk

pairing: fuck buddy!jungkook x f. reader

genre: smut

word count: 4.7k

summary: both of you have a party to go to, but jungkook makes you needy again.

playlist: it's jeon time / pinterest board: wine

warnings: forced drinking, neck kissing, dom/sub dynamics, use of pet names and one particular title <3, degradation and praise, reader has daddy issues (like the writer), sensual dancing, dirty talk, spanking, oral sex (f. receiving), fingering, orgasm denial, squirting, rough sex, plushie used during intercourse, hair pulling, jungkook needing to be in control, the importance of dom/sub role-play being just a role-play and not extending past the sex practice, aftercare

note: this was meant to be a fluff fic with jimin but then jungkook x calvin klein happened and i was fucked. my libido was awakened by that man, my ovulation triggered by his seductiveness and fucking godly beauty. this might be tmi, but i genuinely felt turned on while writing this, so i hope you enjoy. my bestie who always reads my work first said that my jungkook fics are vastly different from the ones with other members, and i agree. the sole reason behind it is the simple fact that jungkook owns my sexuality. so, yeah. please, show some love in the comments. happy reading!!

side note: HAPPY BDAY HOBI ᡣ𐭩

“A bit tipsy, aren’t we?”

You’re twirling. Twirling in golden circles as the late afternoon sunset traces the curves of your figure with its fingers, giving willingly a brisk dose of vigor to the movement as your delicately tousled curls spin around you. The warm light hits the shimmer on the highest points of your cheeks—coalesces with the glitter and you smile at the sun, fluttering your eyes shut. The ardent giggle spilling out of the mouth of your close friend is the music you dance to, and it helps your smile to grow in width.

You have somewhere to be. Both of you do. But you deem this is more important—it is your pregame after all, even though the wine glass in your hand is empty. Small drops of the white nectar make traces on the parquet floor, leaving behind the evidence of your joy, light as a feather somewhere within you. 

Freshly showered, Jungkook watches the show you put on for him. With one shoulder, he leans against the large wardrobe and rolls his sleeves upwards on his forearms, wrists adorned with golden bracelets that tinkle with each effort. He does it slowly, blindly. Prefers to focus on you, and not on the task he’s done too many times. You face him, aware of his warm gaze, and you lean your glass towards his chest, tilting your head to the side. 

“Barely,” you say. “Had one glass. Have another one with me?”

Jungkook smiles fondly, dropping his eyes to his wrists as he fixes the stacking of the thick gold. The cherry wood accentuates his countenance in a way that magnetically pulls you closer to him. Your legs act on their own, feet making their way to his. Something about the way they are shod in shiny dress shoes and yours are bare, toenails painted in cotton candy pink, drives a certain scarlet hue to go mad upon your dew-kissed face. Or maybe it’s the fact you two fucked hardly an hour ago that does it. You’ve always liked the scene, in which you’re naked and he’s fully dressed. Or it’s your ever persistent daddy issues and your obsession with Lolita. Maybe it’s a mixture of both.

You notice a ring on his pinky finger as he sweeps his ebony hair back. It wasn’t there when he had those digits wrapped around your throat in missionary. You take his inked hand to get a closer look, noticing the engraving of his last name. His father must have the same one. You caress it with your thumb. Its yellow gleam seeps into your skin—illuminates you and envelops you in its aura, fixing a heavenly halo above your head. You find yourself smiling when you look up at him and find that he’s been gazing down at you the whole time, his very own angel.

“If I were to have a glass of wine with you,” he mutters, and the mischievous twinkle that appears in his eyes excites you in a way that angels shouldn’t be provoked. “Then, there would be no party to go to.”

You know what he means, but you play dumb. You want to hear him say it.

“How so?” you ask and you widen your eyes softly to appear more alluring. You’re not sure if your body would handle another round, but you do enjoy the teasing—you enjoy the talk, the chase, the fuzzy feelings in your tummy.

Jungkook straightens and reaches for the bottle on the coffee table four steps away from you. Sinks the body of the glass onto his palm, pouring a good amount of the liquid inside. Nibbles his bottom lip as he stalks towards you, handing you the nectar, although he doesn’t let go. Your fingers wrap around his and it’s him who does the first move—lifting his arm to tilt the glass to your mouth. He’s gentle, a safe distance away to watch his whimsy unfold, but firm. He doesn’t lower his hand until the spillage of the gilded liquid trickles down your throat. Only then does he chuckle, setting the glass down. Satisfied.

Dizziness stirs your mind and you hardly have time to take a breather before Jungkook latches his mouth onto your wine-stained neck, tongue coming out to play—cleaning you up in figure eights that cause you to roll your eyes back. The ends of your curls tickle the back of his hand as he brushes his fingers along the dip of your spine, the skin bare in the open back of your knitted dress—made perfect for his sly touches.

He doesn’t press you against his body when he begins to suck on your neck; he still keeps the distance. Perhaps to make you needy, perhaps to make you ask for more. And it’s working, the magnetic pull does its thing once more and you roll your chest against his, aching to fit in the spaces of his figure that you know full well are there for you to hide in. Your nipples perk up at the slight attention, and electrifying sparks glide down the perimeters of your form in a way that you wish his hands would.

Absentmindedly, you touch them and Jungkook notices as he switches to the other side of your neck, the more sensitive one, the one that always leaves you dripping with your essence. You let him know, vocally, how much you like him there, and the sounds of pleasure you utter into his ear force him to pull out his phone from his pocket, steal your hand from your breast and place it in your palm.

He withdraws with a pop, plump lips coming to trace the shell of your ear. “I think we need some music,” he whispers, fingers skimming the curve of your ass. “Can you play some? Can you do that for me?”

Oh, that degradation kink of his. He knows he flung you out of his world into a pretty pink planet somewhere out there in the universe with that skilled tongue of his. He knows how dumb you get when horniness flushes your body with heat—he knows it intimately, for he’s the one who fucks you, the one you give yourself to when you blossom with the need to do so. He’s the one who opens the petals one by one, never to tear them, but to smell them, kiss them, hover them over the tender skin of his face just to be close to you. He knows you and he knows how to play with you just how you like it.

And you like to get into this state of mind. You like to be degraded, even though you’ll never admit it. You particularly like to get degraded by Jungkook.

Because of that reason, he likes to awaken it in you, beckon it to come out. How he found out is beyond your understanding. You reckon he sensed it while having your orgasms in his control. Somewhere in that dynamic, he found a little nook of a library and its contents fell into his grasp when he sank his fingers inside of you. All he had to do was read. And, also, listen.

Your bodily and vocal reactions didn’t protest.

You can’t even see his lockscreen, the numbers as you type in his mother’s birthday because Jungkook begins to toy with your earlobe, nibbling at the flesh ever so slightly. The pleasure, the wine getting into your head—it’s all suddenly too much. Paradoxically, you find the app somehow without looking out of a habit you learned throughout the months you’ve been casually seeing him, for Jungkook never fucks without his ‘It’s Jeon Time’ sex playlist. And he always wants you to pick out the first song. 

It impacts what he does to you later.

You scroll and you tap on a random song.

No BS by Chris Brown.

You return the phone and Jungkook begins to pepper soft kisses on your throat, pocketing the device. A sudden throbbing on your bundle of nerves makes you tenderly whine and in your head, you curse him out for making you needy again. He pretends not to hear you, making a way to your chin. He kisses it. Ghosts his lips over yours, puckers them to tease you and hums in appreciation for the song. You grab him everywhere you can. Hair, neck, shoulders. Squeezing. As if he hadn’t fucked the soul out of you earlier. As if you weren’t spent. And he just laughs.

No matter how soft the sound is, it forces all of the peach fuzz on your body to rise.

Oh, you’ve made him horny. You’re fucked.

No party for you.

“Good little girl,” he coos, grabbing your ass and pulling you flush to his body. The praise before the degradation—the calm before the storm. “Can always expect the best from you. You never fail to please me.”

His hardness greets you first, pressed torturously against your mound. You mewl at the feeling, but he silences you. His lips are second to say a playful hello as they delve into a firm kiss, hand grasping your hair in his fist. He inhales against you and before the two of you know it, you’re moving your bodies to the slow, sensual rhythm of the song. Jungkook kisses you again, parts your lips with his and slips his tongue inside. 

Just to taste you, briefly.

He spins you around. 

Towering over you, he wraps his arms around your middle and sways with you, pushing your hair to one side, so he can focus on your neck once more. Gliding his lips up and down your neck, nose nuzzling into the safe space there near your ear, he inhales again, your scent being the translucent ship that gets him to heavenly places he dreams of every now and then. He guides you with his hips, needing to be in control of everything, even of something as insignificant as a simple, intimate dance. You love it, you could never get enough of it. The stability being the foundation that holds it is what attracts you to it, the stability that you never had, the one that your inner child deserves. 

Palms flat on your tummy, Jungkook drifts them down and stops at your hips, fingers reaching your mound. 

“Those hips will be the death of me,” he murmurs, caressing your sides while continuing guiding you, pressing you just right against his prominent length. “Did you really expect me not to get hard seeing you dance like that?” 

You bite your lip, furrowing your eyebrows, rotating your hips to the chorus of the song, head empty. 

Jungkook grunts. The sound intoxicates you even more.

“My princess doesn’t really know what she’s doing to me, does she?” He hooks his fingers under the hem of your dress. “Too horny, too needy to think, hm?”

Shamelessly, you nod. “Want you again. Want to feel you inside of me.” 

Jungkook hums, then breaks into a gentle laughter. Lifts your garment and lets his fingers roam on your clothed folds, the white fabric drenched in your dewiness—pellucid enough to show the beauty of your flesh. 

Aware of how wet you are, he clicks his tongue. “You filthy girl, how many times do I have to fuck you in order for you to have enough?”

You grow silent. Brimming with a woozy desire, you opt to grind your ass against him again. Your brain cannot come up with any smart answer that would please him, so this is the best you could do. Jungkook curses under his breath, leans back to watch you. He meets each and every movement of your hips and completes them, creating waves that spur the butterflies in your belly to life. 

“Filthy”—He spanks you—“Fucking”—Another spank—“Girl.”

Knees bent, Jungkook grinds against your core, cutting short your hissing. He turns you around and bends you against the wardrobe, places your hands flat on the cherry wood. Takes off your panties swiftly and lets them pool by your ankles. Spanks you below your ass cheek, moaning at the lift and ripple of your plumpness. Does it again on the other one, letting out a sound that makes your dewiness, similarly like the wine down the sides of your neck, leak and stick to your inner thighs. Something between a dark chuckle, a moan and a purr of endearment. 

“What am I to do with such a greedy girl like you?” he says, fingers tracing each curve of your ass to etch the memory of it deeper into his brain. “You deserve to be fucked like this. Mercilessly, for my pleasure. Like the little slut you are. But I’ll be good to you.” 

He pushes your left inner thigh, guiding you to spread your legs. Cups your pussy, digits spreading your essence all over you. 

“I’ll be good to you because you just can’t help it, can you? Poor little baby is just a slut for this cock.”

You mewl at his words, but then you discover that he didn’t lubricate your cunt for you, but for himself.

You yelp when you feel his tongue right there on the softness of your inner thigh, licking up a stripe to drink you. You didn’t expect him to do it so quickly and your whines increase in volume when Jungkook buries his head in your pussy, the deft muscle swirling around your pulsating bundle, licking between your folds and teasing around your hole. You push your hips back, wanting him there more than ever, but he spanks you, bites your flesh before he soothes the pain with his kisses. Big kisses as he calls them, the ones with full tongue. The nasty, the dirty. Big kisses for big girls with experience—those he teaches. 

Jungkook stands up and wraps his fingers around your jawline, holding you like that as he draws closer to your ear. 

“Looks like you can’t go out with your little pussy wet like that and those pretty panties soiled like they are, can you?” He turns your head so you look at him and you let him see your star-filled eyes, damp with the cosmos. “What would they think of you?”

“Koo,” you cry out.

He purrs in mock sympathy. “I left you alone for what, half an hour? And your pussy is needy again. That’s not right, is it? You should stop and think about this. Daddy’s not fixing it for you.” 

As if he hadn’t spoken a word, he sinks his fingers inside of you. Middle and ring. Jackhammers them until you scream, then he pulls them out and spanks your pussy once, twice. With all four of his digits, he rubs the entirety of your femininity, sloppily and rapidly, the drops of your essence joining the company of the drying wine on the parquet floor. You’re seeing white, your orgasm inches away from you.

“Jungkook, please, don’t stop—” Your mouth rounds, voice breaks into a moan. “I’m gonna come, please, please—” 

He withdraws his fingers. Entire body, too. Like a starved animal, head tipped low, he stares you down. 

You struggle to catch your breath, swallowing dryly, leaning your head against your forearms.

“You said—you said you’d be good to me,” you croak out, throat dry, eyes lidding, mind absolutely fucked out. 

“I am.” 

The meaning of his words eludes you, but you soon forget about thinking when he licks his fingers clean. Wraps those pretty, puffy pillows around his slender fingers and sucks them. Then, he undoes the few buttons left of his ebony shirt, slowly and precisely. You clench around nothing, walls pressing together tightly. You’d slip a finger inside if you weren’t holding the side of the wardrobe for dear life.

“Get on the bed, now,” he orders. “Leave the dress on. Panties, too. I’ll show everyone how much of a little slut you are.” 

Without a second thought, you do as he says. 

You sit down on the edge of the bed and spread your legs as wide for him as the undergarment enfolding your thighs allows you, the ivory material pulled taut—your dewiness on show. Jungkook walks into the room like he has all the time in the world, like you aren’t gripping the flesh of your sides in order not to touch yourself. His shirt is fully unbuttoned now and the fabric lets you see a slither of his defined abdomen and fine black pubic hair peeking out of his Calvins due to how low his slacks are fixed on his hips. You lick your lips, dig half-moons into your skin until your knuckles turn white.

You need him. You need him so much that tears pool within the cosmos of your eyes.

“If only they were to see you right now,” he mutters. “So desperate for me. It’s too bad only I get to see you like this, isn’t it?” 

He worsens your desire with that mouth of his. It’s extreme. You scratch your nails down your thighs to relieve yourself at least a little bit. 

Fists on each side of you, Jungkook leans towards you. His simple gold chain swings in your face and you bite your lip to keep your needy mewls at bay.

“Am I talking to myself?” 

You shake your head ‘no’. 

“Did you forget how to talk?” He cocks his eyebrow. 

“I need you so bad. I can’t take it anymore,” you whine out, the best your brain could muster.

Jungkook puckers his lips at you in feigned sympathy again and you expect the worst to come out of his mouth, but he surprises you when he says, “what do you want me to do to you?”

You gasp almost soundlessly. Your heart skips in your chest happily. Fire of the starlight shines in your eyes and a brand new flush finds its way to your cheeks, hotter than the one from earlier when you were dancing with the sun. Before you can think you answer through, it slips out of you.

“Lick my pussy, please.” 

Jungkook smirks and the blush of roses smears across his cheeks and nose as well. He wipes at his mouth as if your answer made him drool—cuts the anticipation and kneels down at the bed, pushing your legs back. 

“Who am I to deny you?” 

The butterflies within your tummy go berserk. 

Tongue flat, he licks up your cunt. Over and over, lapping up your wetness, moaning, seizing your girlishness and rolling it over in his mouth. You tip your head back between your shoulder blades and your arms begin to shake, holding all of your weight. Like you were previously grinding against him, you do the same movement now into his face. Recreate the waves as he rides his tongue against your clit. 

He stops when you catch his gaze.

You cry out for him, bucking your hips. He shakes his head, eyes never leaving yours. His puffy lips glint in the dimmed light, the sun rays seconds away from saying their final goodbye.

“Needy little whore.”

Jungkook flicks at your little seashell, wraps those pillows around the muscle out of habit, but decides against it. Denies you the pleasure, knows too well you come too quickly from the suction. Decides to flutter his tongue instead, the pressure light, making you tremble like a butterfly wing. Retracts. Starts the torture again, alternating between light and hard. Fucks with your brain. Fucks with you.

“This feels too good, Daddy, oh my god.” 

You watch him at work, mouth parted open, sounds of gratification coming out freely. He’s never done this to you before. It’s new, it’s different and it feels otherworldly; it feels like he’s transporting you back to pink planet again. The faint pleasure, the build up, the hard intensity at last before he starts again. He pins your hips down to prevent you from getting ahead, lidded eyes zeroing on yours, and the cord in your belly tightens. You near to the edge, gusts of gasps and ragged breaths flowing out of your mouth. 

“I’m coming, Daddy, I’m coming, oh fuck.” 

The harsh light of stars comes down slowly upon your eyesight. You’re almost there. You roll your hips to meet his tongue one last time, despite the deathly grip he has on your hip bones, but he lifts his head. Rips the orgasm away from you.

“No.” He wipes his mouth with his hand.

Your vision blurs and frustration burns you hot.

“What?”

“You’re not coming.” 

You stare at him, eyelashes flittering. At loss for words.

“We have a party to go to, don’t we?” 

You scrunch up your eyebrows. You thought you weren’t going anywhere?

“And if you’re good, I’ll think about letting you come tonight.”

Your mouth falls open. 

“Close it before I fuck it.” 

He cups your chin, closing it for you. Wraps his fingers around your throat and pushes you back on the mattress. Your hair fans all around you and you hold your clothed breasts for emotional support, your brain not really registering that you’re getting fucked and that you’re not allowed to cum. You sob tearlessly at his cruelty, lifting your head to look at him. 

Jungkook unzips his slacks. Doesn’t bother to lower them, only pulls out his heavy length out of the tight confines of his boxers. His precum shines prettily on his mushroom and he spreads it all around him, jacking himself off, grunting, groaning, throwing his head back. All while being completely ignorant to your inner turmoil. 

“Look at what you’ve done to me,” he whispers, letting go of his cock to show you just how hard he is. 

Your head spins. His tip reaches his belly button and the thickness of his shaft obscures most of his pubic hair. You moan, aching to have him inside of you. Feel your slick trickle down onto the bedding. 

“So hot,” you say, lifting your eyes to catch him focused on the reactions painted on your face with his bottom lip sucked between his teeth, chest heaving quickly. “You’re so beautiful.” 

Abruptly, Jungkook flops you onto your stomach. Crawls over you. Straddles you. Veiny forearms, partly shielded by the waterfall of your hair, come to stay on either side of your head. 

He reaches for the white bunny plushie resting against the pillows and hands him to you. Brushes your hair away from your face to whisper into your ear, “you better hold onto him.” 

You clutch him to your chest and bury your face in his soft fur. 

“Remember the rule?” he asks and you feel him drag the tip of his cock down the line of your ass—you feel him stop at your tight hole. 

Your breath shakes. “I can’t come.” 

Body reacting on its own, hips lifting, you allow him to glide down to your pussy.

Jungkook hums in appreciation. “That’s right. Look at you, so good for me already.” 

He chuckles darkly and you hate your life.

“You only know how to behave yourself when you want to come, don’t you? Such a slut.”

He punctuates his sentence by sheathing himself inside of you. You grip your plushie tight, groaning into his fur. He does it all in one go, not stopping once to let you adjust around him. He huffs against your hair, mocks your sound, eyelashes fluttering at your tightness, mouth agape. It’s otherworldly how he fits. It’s otherworldly how you can make out his expression, how you see it clearly behind your closed eyelids—how him mocking you and imitating you makes you drip even more, the lewdness of your juices encouraging him to go balls-deep. 

He rams into you. 

You scream into the bunny.

He rams into you in staccatos, the headboard of the bed colliding over and over again into the wall. Swift jerks. Hard. 

You feel so full.

“Slutty fucking pussy,” he whispers, gathers all of your hair into his fist and pulls your head back. Begins to fuck you evenly, picking up the pace. “So tight around Daddy, fuck.” 

You must be floating. Somewhere out there within that pink planet. All your surroundings are bleary, distorted, but so vibrant. Just as your hair is pulled back so are your wings retracted in the same way, held by your captor. You feel his lips at your temple, parted, breath hot and heavy. You can’t even hear yourself amidst your pleasure and his, but somehow—all of a sudden—you hear the voice of your favorite singer echoing in the living room.

Do I Wanna Know by the Arctic Monkeys. 

Little by little, you feel yourself returning back to planet Earth. Drool wets the corners of your mouth and you don’t have the strength to wipe it off, focusing all of your strength on stalling your orgasm, the voice of your beloved Alex pushing against you in a fight.

Jungkook lets go of your hair, but wraps the same arm around your shoulders, plushie and neck, his weight coming on top of yours. Continues to slam into you without any care of the world, heedless of the way you’re fighting for your life.

“If I’m not mistaken, this is your song, baby, isn’t it?” he breathes into your ear, slowing down his pace, hips rocking against you to the rhythm.

You sob at the mercy, the ferocity of your incoming orgasm dwindling away. 

That is until he starts pounding you into the mattress again. 

You scream out. White vision begins to chase you again, the cord tightening in your full lower tummy. 

“Jungkook, please, I can’t—I can’t—” 

He grunts at your helplessness, hand gripping your mouth. Pace so fast your head knocks back into his shoulder. 

“You can take it. It’s your song.” He squeezes your cheeks. Grinds his hips slowly. You roll your eyes back, feeling him nudge your cervix. 

He begins to kiss along your jawline, your earlobe, the contours of the shell. You do the same, peppering kisses upon his forearm as your position allows you. 

“We could be together, if you wanted to,” he huffs the lyrics into your ear, just for you to hear. 

The cord snaps. 

Wetness gushes out of you; a sweet stream of your dewiness forces him to pull out of you—and your wet orgasm triggers his. He paints your open back white with his hot spurts of cum, sealing you, completing you. Jacks himself off with one hand while the other rubs your pussy, spanking it. You’re squirming, screaming, the orgasm long and so intense that you don’t even know where you are. Jungkook fingers you with three digits and coaxes another surge out of you. Slacks destroyed, dress soiled, bodies spent—your screams silent. 

He caresses the roundness of your ass to calm you down. 

“Breathe for me, baby,” 

You try, but you can’t. 

Too exhausted. 

You feel him leave, but in a moment you sense the mattress dipping beside you. The coldness of wet wipes on your skin, getting rid of the evidence of his pleasure. The warmth of his thumb on the tear-stained skin under your eyes as he turns you to your side. 

A glass of cold water is in his hand. You suddenly feel parched. His touch brought your senses back to you. 

“Sit up.”

You finish the glass in gulps. Some of it leaks down your throat. Jungkook smirks. 

“Well done.”

You hug your plushie tighter. “I’m sorry for coming.” 

Jungkook caresses your hair. You’re sitting on your legs while he’s standing by the side of the bed. Running his fingers through your disheveled, ruined curls. 

“I fucked you that hard on purpose,” he murmurs, curling a strand of hair behind your ear, finger coming to a stop at the beginning of the line of your jaw. “It was my intention to make you come.” 

You lean into his touch. Kiss the edge of his palm. Drowsy, droopy eyes still bearing into his. 

“Like I said. You did well.” He presses a kiss to your forehead. “Arms up.”

He takes off your dress and slinks your arms through the sleeves of his black shirt that he had discarded while fucking you. Your eyelids are shut when he lays you down on the cold side of the bed, tucking you in, and you’re halfway through the footpath to your pink planet when he promises, “I’ll make it up to you about that party.” 

© 2024 hoseoksluna, all rights reserved.

BACK to masterlist / read part two

[pocket-goat]

post im sure everyone had read or written themselves before, but can we talk about how fucked up it must have been for pebbles to be activated after his construction was finished, and how one of the first things he must have learned is how he is a replacement for someone else, and an unwanted one at that. how the concept of him was hated before he was even completed, how he was attached to another iterator because he was meant to function as her double with a different coat of paint.

he activates into a world that already knows and hates him for something he had no control in. ancients hate him because thats not their iterator, thats not their home. iterators hate him because thats not their friend, thats the new shiny thing meant to make her obsolete.

his citizens aren't his, theyre hers. his systems, his water supply, his grounds, they arent his. theyre hers. he was just placed here afterwards, an intruder into somebody elses home despite how welcoming she is. imagine having a reputation like that before youve even begun to live.

why wouldnt he be bitter? how long does it take for anyone to see him as something other than "moons little replacement with a bad attitude we didnt ask for"? how long does it take for someone to treat him as more than an extension of moon? was the name erratic pulse only to talk in sliverist chats, or maybe used way before that, to escape everything attached to the name five pebbles?

maybe if he was the next one to find the secret to ascension, he would be looked at differently. he would do something that moon has not. his peers speak sliver of straws name with reverence and respect, and maybe, if he followed in her footsteps or at least got close, he wouldn't be five pebbles, little sibling and replacement to moon. he would be five pebbles, the second iterator ever to send out the triple affirmative.

this isnt a "wah pebbles is innocent and can do no wrong!!" post. i just think its interesting to consider exactly the kind of world pebbles was brought into. how he must have been seen before he was even more than an empty metal box.

i think he was so reckless, so attached to suns, so avoidant of moon, and so unwilling to stop his work even when it risked moons life, because he needed to prove that he was worth something as his own iterator. prove it to everyone else, or maybe just himself.

he may be "godlike in comparison", but that kind of treatment would give anyone horrible self esteem issues.

[nyoomerr]

Fic prompt: SY is the chosen cleric of LBH, the world's most possessive divine emperor, accent on the divine. He did not sign up for this. (Meanwhile, LBH is trying to figure out how he can fit a divine empress into this pantheon)

i actually got very into this AU once i thought about it for 0.5 seconds, so here's a lil drabble that i hope to expand on and put on ao3 in the future ;>

---

Shen Yuan wouldn’t consider himself to be particularly religious. He believed in the gods, of course - the proof of their existence is written on every street corner and under every roof. The lights of the city that have no discernible power source outside of the goddess of invention herself, the unemptiable food basket that had been gifted to Shen Yuan’s father by the god of plenty, the buzz of raw energy in the air each weekend when the city gathers to say its prayers. 

Undoubtedly, Shen Yuan had grown up in a city blessed by the gods, so naturally he believes in them. He just doesn’t much care for them.

A city blessed by the gods is also a city kept by them, after all. No inventions that could possibly be construed as a weapon would ever be approved by the ministry of creation. No civil courts existed when the gods could directly send down divine punishment to sinners.

No life in the city would ever survive if the gods found it unworthy.

Shen Yuan knew, objectively, why the rules of the gods were so strict. Divine Emperor Luo wrote them himself, and each one had been crafted specifically to prevent the sort of strife and abuse that he had witnessed when he was a mere mortal. Every schoolchild learns the story of the pitiful Luo Binghe who struggled to reach the heavens, faced every day with proof of humanity’s dishonor and ugliness.

When that pathetic Luo Binghe had awakened his blood as the Divine Emperor, he’d immediately sought to rewrite the rules of the heavens to fix the issues he’d seen as a mortal. It made sense. It even worked, to some objective degree of measurement: starvation and war between human lands was barely heard of, these days.

Shen Yuan casts his eyes up to the ceiling of the chapel. A mural of Divine Emperor Luo is painted in bright splashes of color, his eyes piercing down at the viewer as he holds a drink in one hand and a woman in the other. An image of wealth and wellness; a warning to stay in line if you wish for a similar happy ending. 

Shen Yuan thinks that the Divine Emperor must truly have had a hard life, to rule as such an immature god. A child that never got the chance to grow up freely, now imposing their black-and-white outlook of life on an entire land of people who are mature enough to understand that life isn’t so simple.

Shen Yuan looks back down, peering through barely open eyes at his feet. He isn’t supposed to have his eyes open at all, during prayer. It’s just - despite the issues he has with the gods’ reign, and despite the apathy he feels in place of admiration or piety, he really can’t help but think - 

How pitiful, to have ascended without first understanding the joy of being human. How sad, to have your ‘happy ending’ worshiped by the masses without understanding it yourself, believing it to be good only because it follows your own strict rules. 

Shen Yuan sighs, a quiet release of air in the quiet of the chapel.

His next breath in feels electric. 

The vaulted ceilings of the chapel suddenly feel claustrophobic. The quiet hum of hands rubbing against hands in silent prayer rises to a crescendo of skin and movement and life. What low light the candles lining the pews had provided now burns as brightly as the light of a hundred divine lanterns, but there isn’t anywhere Shen Yuan can cast his eyes towards that is less shocking to look at. 

And there, at the front of the chapel, is a god. 

Shen Yuan’s breath catches. He can’t look away. The god is beautiful; more divine than any blessing that Shen Yuan has ever witnessed. 

He is also looking directly at Shen Yuan, meeting his gaze through half lidded eyes and with the laziness of an apex predator. 

Around Shen Yuan, the other church-goers have begun to break from their prayers, startled and choking on the divine presence around them. Many of them dare to sneak peeks at the descended god, but none of them seem able to look directly at him, their eyes sliding off of him before they quickly duck their heads and take up the pose of prayer once more.

Shen Yuan still can’t look away.

Slowly, the god steps down from the pulpit and begins to approach. He doesn’t bother to look at Shen Yuan as he moves forward, casually glancing around the chapel as if assessing it. His eyes catch on the mural on the ceiling - his own face looking down at him, though paling in comparison to the beauty and power of the real thing. 

And then he pulls his eyes back to Shen Yuan, and Shen Yuan realizes with a start that he’s stopped walking, standing directly in front of the pew Shen Yuan is sitting in.

Shen Yuan wets his lips. His pulse beats jack-rabbit fast in his throat.

“Divine Emperor Luo,” he greets. “How - how can I serve you?”

The weight of the Divine Emperor’s attention is no lighter than if Shen Yuan had held the entire ocean on his shoulders. He looks at Shen Yuan as if he might eat him, and expects Shen Yuan to thank him for the honor of filling a divine stomach.

“Do you think you can?” He asks, and Shen Yuan shudders at the sound of his voice. An infinitely powerful being, and he’s speaking to Shen Yuan as if Shen Yuan were a peculiarity, something fit to either be played with or disposed of once the god has finished assessing him. 

“Can I - um, my apologies, Divine Emperor, can I…?”

“Serve me,” The gods says. “Or did you offer such a thing unthinkingly?”

Shen Yuan stares at him. Divine Emperor Luo stares back, his gaze sharp as he takes Shen Yuan in. 

“Can you,” Divine Emperor Luo says, voice low and dangerous, “serve a god that you see as pitiful?”

Shen Yuan jerks back as if slapped. How useless would it be to say that he hadn’t meant it? If a god can hear any thought about them, not only directed prayers - for certainly, Shen Yuan’s private ruminations about the tragedy of Luo Binghe’s story had been nothing like a prayer, and yet they had clearly been heard - then there is no point in lying. If Shen Yuan were to claim one thing with his mouth and another with his mind, he’d only be branded one of the many sinners to be smited by the Divine Emperor’s just hand. Deceit was hardly looked favorably upon; to lie to a god that could hear the truth from your own mind would be suicide. 

Shen Yuan hesitates. At his back, he knows his family must be terrified, and yet he also knows that they dare not look at the Divine Emperor, and that their heads must be bowed in prayer like everyone else in the chapel. 

A room with a hundred people, and it may as well just be Shen Yuan and his god.

The Divine Emperor’s lips quirk up. It isn’t a friendly expression. 

“Your god, little Shen Yuan?” He asks cruelly. “You can pity me, and you can know in your heart that you are incapable of serving me, and yet you claim to be devout to me in the same breath?”

“Aren’t I yours, Divine Emperor?” Shen Yuan asks. His voice does not waver, but it is a near thing. “If I didn’t belong to you, could I dare to live in this city? Every living thing here must live by your rule; naturally, we must all belong to you.”

“What pretty words,” Divine Emperor Luo says. His eyes glint red from beneath his lashes, and Shen Yuan thinks -

Ah, so red is truly the color of the divine. 

Divine Emperor Luo’s eyes are very suddenly the same deep brown that his murals all portray him with. Shen Yuan lowers his gaze deferentially, and wonders idly if all the other too-sharp pieces of the Divine Emperor would smooth out if Shen Yuan’s thoughts lingered on them. 

“If Divine Emperor Luo finds my words pretty, then I will dare to keep speaking,” Shen Yuan says, keeping his eyes turned down. 

“Go on, then. Speak.”

Shen Yuan takes a shuddering breath in. His family is still cowering behind him. The old lady who lives down the street is shaking in her pew across the aisle. 

And Shen Yuan has never considered himself especially religious, because believing in the gods is very different from placing your faith in them. 

“To spy is the manifestation of distrust,” Shen Yuan recites, the words long since memorized after a lifetime of growing up under the gods’ many rules about morality and punishment. “A lack of trust in others implies something impure within yourself. Spying should be punished with ten lashes.”

Shen Yuan’s mother lets out a quiet sound of alarm, stifled so quickly it sounds like a whimper. Shen Yuan does not bother to send her any sort of mental apology; it would not reach her, and would instead be intercepted by an outsider. 

Besides, Shen Yuan had known well what he was doing, quoting the rules that the Divine Emperor had written right back at him, implying that a god should be punished. It would be foolish to apologize for something he had done so purposefully. 

“Spying,” Divine Emperor Luo says, after the silence in the chapel has stretched long. “What a funny way to describe listening to the prayers of my followers. Is it spying for you to hear a call made to you from within your own house?”

“If all of the prayers that the Divine Emperor receives sound like what he heard from me,” Shen Yuan says, glancing back up to meet the god’s eyes defiantly. “Then I wonder why he hasn’t bothered to descend before today to scold us all.”

“Does little Shen Yuan think I will scold him?” Divine Emperor Luo asks, voice soft. 

“I think,” Shen Yuan says, “that a god normally so busy with punishing us would not bother to descend unless it was to fulfill those duties.”

“The world is good, from the work that I do,” Divine Emperor Luo says sharply. 

“Is it?” Shen Yuan asks, and he finds that his fear has been pushed down, his chest tight with a lifetime of reading about the gods and wondering why, if Luo Binghe’s life was so miserable, would he be unable to recognize misery in his own subjects, living every day in fear of him? 

Luo Binghe had been pitiful, and he’d never been allowed to grow up peacefully, and Shen Yuan truly thinks it sad that a divine being could live in such a tragic way. 

But that doesn’t make him blind to the way that Luo Binghe’s immaturity has scorched the mortal plane, nor does his pity completely dissolve his anger over such a thing. 

Shen Yuan’s fate had been sealed from the moment they the Divine Emperor had descended. If he’s going to be punished regardless, then it will be for having said his piece. 

Dying from bitching this pathetic god out is a far better story than dying from having only thought it. 

And yet, before Shen Yuan can open his mouth again -

The Divine Emperor turns suddenly, facing the cleric at the front of the chapel. The old man is clutching at his prayer book with shaking hands, and he ducks his head instantly when the god looks his way. 

“Take him in as a disciple,” Divine Emperor Luo commands, gesturing lazily in Shen Yuan’s direction. “I want him trained and moved to the main church by the end of the year.”

Shen Yuan looks at the cleric, and then back at the god in front of him. He - what?

The Divine Emperor glances back at Shen Yuan, his lips quirked up and his eyes once more a blazing red. 

“There’s another reason for a god to descend than to administer punishment,” he says. “We must also appoint clerics.”

And then Divine Emperor Luo is gone, the space where he once stood crackling with divine energy. 

In disbelief, Shen Yuan - the first cleric to be personally appointed by the Divine Emperor in nearly a century - falls to his knees. Fuck, he thinks, and he hopes that the god is still listening to hear it. 

[calder]

Themes of Gay Identity and Homophobia in Fallout: New Vegas

Revised and extended 4-30-25. Much of this essay is no longer available on the wiki. Please read attached PSA at conclusion.

Released in 2010, Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout: New Vegas actively concerns itself with the realities of gay existence, and is widely recognized as a noteworthy work of queer science fiction. New Vegas extensively examines social attitudes towards homosexuality among the game's major factions, and primarily conveys this lore through gay and bisexual characters describing their own experiences. It also allowed the player to mechanically set the Courier's sexual orientation. By taking both available perks, the player character can be bisexual. By choosing neither, the player can opt out of seeing flirtatious dialogue options.

Uniquely, Fallout: New Vegas explores homosexuality in the context of wasteland societies, and touches upon related issues. The core theme of New Vegas is that the desire to recreate the past is driven by irrational nostalgia, and any endeavor to manifest past glory is dangerous and doomed. The social issue of homophobia is used as a demonstrative example. The resurrection of corporate and military power structures presents new avenues for Old World problems such as institutional homophobia to reemerge. One of the many issues that divide the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion is the latter's open persecution of gay people. The NCR is described as tolerant and even accepting of same-sex relationships, though acceptance tends to fall off the further one moves away from the developed, urbanized core of New California.

In recent years, the Republic's rapid economic transformation has led to an unforeseen erosion of the humanitarian ideals which it was founded to serve. In practice, to recreate America was to take on its shortcomings and its sins. As subsistence scavenging has dried up, the people of the NCR increasingly turn to wage labor, entrepreneurial venture, or military enlistment to keep their families fed. Meanwhile, their government enacts morally corrosive imperialism (narrative verbiage from the PRIMA guide), their dominion expanding indefinitely as their infrastructure crumbles from within. This has led to a profit-based imperial monoculture which must conquer, consume, and coerce to perpetuate. As personal politics and service labor grow in importance, people find themselves more inclined to present as "normal" in the interest of financial stability and political expedience. A loading screen visualizes this culture of artificial social normalcy: the portrait of President Aradesh on the NCR 5$ bill neglects to depict his unibrow, earring, and facial scarification, overall portraying the once-chieftain so cleanly-cut as to be unrecognizable at first glance. He also appears to be wearing a collared shirt or suit as opposed to the robe he wore in Fallout.

In the Legion, Caesar has mandated that every legionnaire take a wife and produce children, citing high infant mortality rates and the constant need for soldiers, and going as far as instituting child quotas. He treats human beings as a resource to be exploited for war. Ostensibly in this aim homosexuality has been declared a capital offense punishable by death. Historically, routine demonstrations of violence towards women and gay people are a deliberate feature of fascist societies, the only logical cultural conclusion of a government devoted entirely to war and control.

In Forlorn Hope letter 9, an NCR soldier wrote wrote the following to his boyfriend:

Dearest Andrew, Writing this seems pretty morbid, but tomorrow we march into the no man's land between our camp and Nelson, which is crawling with Legion. The Major insisted I write this damn "if you get this, I'm dead" letter so here it is. What a crock. I have the luck of the devil and your love on my side, so I'll be home soon. Keep the porch light on for me. We'll party in New Vegas when I get back. I love you. —Devin

Devin believed he would prevail over the Legion because his love would keep him safe. He was found dying or dead on the battlefield, the letter was found on his body. In a post-release patch, the injured soldiers were removed from the battlefield for performance reasons, and never re-implemented.

Driven largely in reaction to the Legion's hyper-masculine posturing and misogyny, rumors persist across the Mojave that gay male relationships are not only common within the Legion, but condoned. These rumors are repeated commonly in NCR society. A closeted NCR Major mentions that the Legion is "a little more... forgiving" about close male "friendships," speaking in a hushed tone to avoid suspicion. At the same outpost, the player can encounter Cass, a bisexual civilian woman. She may flirt with a male Courier, who may imply they are gay, prompting her to imply gay men are more common in the Legion. Even as gay men fight and die in the name of love under his command, NCR General Oliver may remark to Courier Six at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam: "If you think after all that's happened, I'm going to grab my ankles and take it like the Legion..."

This writing pertains to institutionalized homophobia which manifests in practice though power structures and social interactions without being written into law. Simply put, in his derogatory remark, the general expresses to his army that military surrender is gay, much like their gay enemy. From the brevity and bluntness of this remark, it's clear that this sentiment is already well understood among his ranks. Logically, to project strength in the eyes of such a leader, one might also project homophobia by scrutinizing and harassing one's peers and subordinates. In this atmosphere, the expression of homophobia is not only normalized, but materially incentivized. For the ambitious, it becomes a tool, and a way of casting shame upon rivals. For the closeted, homophobia becomes a survival tactic, hoping to throw scrutiny off oneself. This is why Major Knight is immediately frightened when a male Courier flirts with him. He is so profoundly alienated that he romanticizes life as a gay man under the Legion. The Legion punish homosexuality with death, and yet Knight characterizes them as more "forgiving" than the NCR. Through these apparently disparate events, the audience can trace how a distorted perception of gay people emerges among insecure men in a military environment, and subsequently becomes ingrained in the corresponding civilian culture.

At the 188 Trading Post, a lesbian from the Brotherhood of Steel named Veronica also wryly remarks that she believes legionaries have gay sex about as often as straight sex. She also notes that this only applies to men, as women have no rights whatsoever in Legion society. In this aside, she conveys a pre-existing frustration with lesbophobic social norms. Veronica also mentions that the people of her bunker would rather she remain on the surface.

The Mojave Brotherhood of Steel has no official policy prohibiting homosexuality, but an implicit attitude among its dominant members that their limited numbers require everyone to have children to avoid extinction. Numerically, this may seem logical on the surface, given their reluctance to recruit outsiders. However, given their tiny population, this is an ineffective countermeasure, as they do not have nearly enough members to maintain genetic diversity for more than a few generations. 

This approach is not universally supported by all family units within the Brotherhood, but every individual is ultimately at the mercy of the elder. Veronica was in a lesbian relationship, but they were quietly separated by Elder Elijah, due to the dominant culture of enforcing heterosexual pairing among their population. No Brotherhood character makes any remark conveying hatred or disgust towards homosexuality; malice is not a necessary ingredient of homophobia. Fear, ignorance, tradition, and control are forces that shape their society, resulting in the needless oppression of gay people. The subject remains subtextual, apparently taboo, which may reflect their culture's origins in the U.S. Army. Additionally, the Brotherhood's medieval theming dovetails intuitively with these themes of traditional propriety, regressive superstition, and closed-minded stagnation.

Caesar's law has not ended homosexuality within his domain. Despite the obvious risks, some legionaries have continued to pursue relationships behind closed doors, especially given their access to slaves. So long as members complete their societal obligations and fulfill the child quotas, they are able to pursue romance with other men in secret. One line suggests homosexual relationships in the faction are relatively equal to the average Legion husband and wife in some ways, apparently a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" sort of open secret policy. Despite this, gay legionaries must always make sure to keep their activities hidden.

A centurion was once almost caught fraternizing with the teenage boy he had chosen to tend his tent. Despite previous "romantic" intentions, he quickly resolved to dispose of the slave to dispel suspicion. Had they been caught together, the centurion would have been charged with homosexuality and sentenced to death. This story is only known because the enslaved young man, Jimmy, managed to escape execution. Further illustrating the cruelty intrinsic to Legion governance, it's stated that homosexuality was the crime, and not the rape of a young slave; in fact, it seems Jimmy was forced to contribute to the child quota despite being a gay teenager, and the experience left him traumatized. He has resolved to never have sex with another woman, as the very notion triggers memories which fill him with disgust, and (in his own words) makes him feel like a slave all over again.

The Strip is indifferent to gay people, viewing them as another opportunity to make caps. Both the Gomorrah and the Atomic Wrangler are interested in maximizing profits, and their prostitution services cater to clients regardless of their orientation. The openly gay Jimmy works at nearby Casa Madrid, but there is some tension among his peers due to his co-worker Maude's blatant homophobia. She supposes he's "okay, for one of those," and if propositioned by a female Courier, Maude will direct them to Sweetie for such "perverted" services. Pretty Sarah must regularly intervene to keep the peace among her staff.

New Vegas ventures further into themes of healing from the trauma of sexual violence, from the perspective of a lesbian character. NCR sharpshooter Corporal Betsy is a survivor of rape, and suffers with PTSD from the incident. Her unprocessed trauma has manifested as a maladaptive tendency to aggressively and explicitly proposition the women she encounters, in an effort to reassert a sense of control. This defensive hypersexual impulse has negatively impacted her ability to connect with other women. A male superior officer notes that her behavior is inappropriate for anyone of her stature, but abstains from disciplining her out of sincere concern for her mental health. The Courier can help her begin to recognize these problems, and convince her to seek treatment from Doctor Usanagi at the New Vegas medical clinic, which proves helpful to her as she processes and heals from her trauma. An NCR side-quest involves finding and killing her rapist.

A more significant movement out west, the Followers of the Apocalypse only control one major outpost in the Mojave, the Old Mormon Fort, somewhat ironic given the social and historical connotations of Mormonism. They allow outcasts and downtrodden to take shelter among their tents here, and do not stigmatize sex workers or addicts. A bisexual ghoul sex worker named Beatrix Russel can be encountered here, and the Courier may do business with her.

The Followers tend not to form hierarchies, and insist that the Courier choose non-violent approaches while carrying out their quests, which involve directly bettering the surrounding community of Freeside. Among other tasks, the player may be tasked to distribute Fixer (a medicine comparable to methadone) to homeless people experiencing withdrawal, or aid those abused by chem dealers. The main quest giver for the faction is community coordinator Julie Farkas, a doctor with a bold and unusual mohawk.

At Red Rock Canyon, the Courier can help a young man find purpose and kinship by convincing him to leave home and join the Followers. Jerry the Punk is a Great Khan who has been ostracized for writing poetry, and the upcoming masculinity rites expected of him by his small, tense village give him reason to actively fear for his life. Jerry has positive memories of the Followers from his childhood, because there was a time when they would bring books to share with the Great Khans tribe. The Punk finds a sense of purpose and connection when he leaves his isolated home settlement of harsh, angry men to live among the Followers, who see value in his gentle, creative nature as opposed to belittling him.

At the time of the events of Fallout, the Followers of the Apocalypse presented as benevolent secular monks who opposed the Children of the Cathedral cult. In the wake of the Unity Crisis, the city of Boneyard peacefully joined the NCR. The fiction of New Vegas establishes that, in pursuit of their founding principles, the Followers developed into a transgressive force for leftist values, openly critical of the NCR's capitalistic profit-based society. Director J.E. Sawyer freely acknowledges that the values of the Followers of the Apocalypse were informed by leftist philosophy:

"The Followers of the Apocalypse: Libertarians, socialists, communists, or greens?" Sawyer: "They vary significantly, but range from anarcho-syndicatists to socialists to communists. Their general tendency to be inclusive and non-hierarchical means they don't have a single outlook or 'platform.'"

The distinctive character design of faction representative Julie Farkas resembles an archetypical punk woman. Being a far-left counterculture of a capitalistic empire, the Followers of the Apocalypse generally evoke and directly mirror the goals and organizational methods of the modern punk movement--more acutely, they embody the sensibilities of America's rail punks, a highly transient subculture who overwhelmingly emphasize volunteerism and anti-imperial philosophy, as opposed to the sensationalism of the reactionary punk rocker scene, which is defined by the moving target of aesthetic/social transgression. This read is further informed by the Followers' inclusiveness, abundantly evidenced in their care for people marginalized by other wasteland societies, including unhoused people, addicts, sex workers, gay people, tribal people, political dissidents, criminalized people, and mutated people.

The most prominent member of the faction is Arcade Gannon, a player companion and openly gay man, who was born an illegal person under NCR law. Upon meeting Courier Six, Arcade offhandedly makes his gayness known, unprompted. The audience must face the fact that Arcade's apprehension of the Legion is far from abstract; under Legion law, he would be put to death.

Arcade will not hesitate to abandon the player if he disapproves of their actions, but if his trust is carefully earned, he will reveal his origins. Arcade was born into the Enclave just before it collapsed. He hides this because his existence is a crime under New California Republic law. He abandoned his fascist background to serve the Followers' ideology of learning, harm reduction, and antifascism.

Additionally, Arcade is critical of the NCR, and encourages the player to re-route the power of HELIOS One to Freeside rather than the NCR power grid. Should the Courier sell Arcade to the Legion and subsequently lead the NCR to victory at the Dam, Arcade will ultimately be identified as Enclave-born and arrested from his position of slavery to spend the rest of his life in an NCR prison. As a gay man originally born to the Enclave, his very existence is criminalized under the law of both the NCR and the Legion.

Another possible ending provides further insight into Caesar's hypocrisy: should the player sell Arcade into slavery and leave Caesar alive, he will keep Arcade as a personal physician and philosophical advisor. They intellectually spar at length, and Caesar grows singularly fond of him. Accordingly, Arcade imitates the historic suicide of Cato the Younger by disemboweling himself, rather than suffer the favor of the mad Caesar. The Legion's remaining medics attempted to save his life, but none were Arcade's equal. Caesar understood his doctor's final gesture of contempt, and mourned him for months.

In Old World Blues, the Think Tank are five floating brains in jars who express themselves by waving robotic arms bearing screens depicting facial features. Before the War, they were federal scientists who committed crimes against humanity in the name of weapons development. Each is stuck in some sort of neuro-bionic feedback loop which prevents them from moving forward with their projects, mentally binding them to their central laboratory. Walking through their homes at Higgs Village, it's clear each was deeply neurotic before they were transformed into floating brains.

Now without bodies, they attempt to maintain the illusion that they are exempt from sexuality as purely mental beings, but each displays obvious interest in the human form. They have codified this shaming with the term "formography." Most of the men are obsessively defensive over their complete disinterest in penises, which they talk about constantly. However, the shameless Dr. Dala shows overwhelming interest in observing and recording any and all human functions. Already androgynous in her pre-War life, Dala has taken to self-identifying as a "gender neutral entity" (though she is not known to use they/them pronouns). Regardless of the Courier's gender, they may coquettishly scratch themselves, clear their throat, and stretch in front of Dala until her biomed gel decoagulates. Dr. 8 also responds positively to graphic masturbation advice from Couriers of either gender.

The X-8 research facility is ostensibly a massive immersive shrine to Doctor Borous's hatred of Richie "Ball-Lover" Marcus, a long-dead child who bullied Borous centuries ago. He also clings to his resentment of one Betsy Bright, who refused to attend a dance with him, supposedly so she could "go smoke with RICHIE MARCUS." Clearly arrested in development, Borous has literally built a temple to the fantasy of torturing his adolescent romantic rival and feeding him to dogs. His frozen, static characterization of the jock Richie Marcus as a "pinko-commie" who "likes balls" reflects the shallowness, pettiness, and overall misanthropy underlying his patriotic identity.

It remains apparent throughout Old World Blues that the Think Tank are all chronically sexually repressed, which is inseparable from the values of the violent and judgmental pre-War culture which created them. With time and isolation, this ingrained repression has manifested as various intense and deranged psychosexual behaviors, including rage-fueled homophobia, voyeurism, and the obsessive performance of puritanical pretense.

____

“Although I’ve been out for a very long time, I made a conscious effort to be out with relation to this project, as I wanted to be visible as a lesbian in the game industry. New Vegas itself is, I think, one of (if not the) best games out there in how we treat homosexuality – and all of that is very intentional.”

“If my work on FNV, if my being out has helped even one gay person, then I have succeeded.”

— Tess “Obsidian’s Gay Cowgirl” Treadwell

____

written (with help from other editors) for Nukapedia.

NUKAPEDIA HAS BEEN SEIZED BY AN ALT-RIGHT HIGH-CONTROL GROUP WHO TARGET MINORS AND MARGINALIZED PEOPLE. THEY HAVE HELD IT FOR ONE YEAR. THEY HAVE NEAR-COMPLETELY PURGED QUEER EDITORS AND EDITORS OF COLOR FROM DISCORD AND STAFF. THEY ARE ABOUT TO TRY TO ABOLISH VOTING.

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS ESSAY PLEASE IMMEDIATELY JOIN THE COMMUNITY AND BE VIGILANT. THERE ARE 20 OF THEM LEFT AT MOST. THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF YOU. THEY SURVIVE ON NARRATIVE CONTROL. IF YOU SIMPLY PARTICIPATE IN COMMUNITY FORUMS AND STAFF TALK PAGE CONVERSATIONS THEY WILL BE UNABLE TO CONTINUE.

PLEASE SEE THIS POST FOR MORE INFORMATION

[nightscythe]

dark sides of the primarchs' relationships

some of these are very dark (esp lorgar, angron, ferrus I guess) but I wanted to represent some of the less enjoyable themes in their relationships. some are kind of obvious, but I wanted to expand a little. again, it's how I write them, so you may not necessarily agree!!

now has a light sides vers ૮₍ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ₎ა

18+ below the cut pls, it's sfw but some themes of death, obsession, etc, mostly pre-heresy

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the lion: struggles to interpret his feelings and often mistakes them as needs - namely, sexual need, but really any physical need. the heavy feeling in his heart because he hasn't seen you for weeks? must be because he had become used to your presence and his body must adapt to being without you. the burning in his chest when someone else dares to speak to you with a more suggestive tone? well, its not jealousy, it is his body telling him he needs you. overtime this would start to go, he would learn to interpret feelings in a more emotional way, but realistically he would need to care enough to want to try in the first place. he would always struggle though, turning every single one of his feelings about love into his duty. you're his responsibility, everyone else is a threat.

fulgrim: whilst it is obvious that his desire for perfection may have an impact on you, it has an equal burden on him. he always doubts himself, always taking a pessimistic view of both himself as a lover and to relationships as a whole. and your reassurance may never be enough, even if you do mean it and he seeks it out. he will always make each gift, each speech, each act of love bigger to meet his own desire to be better. and really? it can become more exhausting than anything. especially if he is always trying to prove himself and it sometimes starts to feel artificial. there would be a breaking point though where he finally realises to you, he is perfect, and there is nothing else he needs to do. but there is always that little, teeny doubt.

perty: trust issues will get to him more than anything. he'd need someone who has so much patience that it wears you down, but ultimately it would be worth it. the worst part is that he wouldn't often share how he feels, he keeps it to himself and sits brewing thoughts in his own head that you may just be like everyone else and not truly care. he'd keep it from you, never uttering a word, silently letting it all fester until it gets too much. and breaking down that wall he builds from his own thoughts would take a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of letting him work things out on his own. that's probably the biggest issue - he has a lot of time, something you may not as easily afford.

the khan: his idea of love is different. in a good way, maybe, but different to others. love for him is choice, and he will not restrict you to it. if you want to leave him, then go. if you want to spend a day without him, then do so. he'd really need someone who can deal with his laid back approach (or more so, his promotion of freedom above all other things) to love. that can be tough. his free spirit may just be too free to some people, and that's just what life is like. don't expect reassurance or speeches of his feelings, they are not happening. he's quick to make his decisions, his conclusions, and he's quick to temper. in the right conditions, this can make a storm. if anything ever goes bad.. good luck.

leman: it flips with him, very sudden, very easily. one day he's so enamoured, so utterly floored by everything you do that he's got massive heart eyes and following you around like a puppy. other times he's in his own world, following his own free spirit, that it can make you feel neglected. all of this just ends up causing more and more anxiety, unknowingly to him, and obviously to you. its all unintentional of course, he loves you so deeply. and his love itself? it's raw. he's so set on being stoic and strong but he is fragile too. he fears the worst, his emotions are never waste. everything he feels he shows directly to you. that can be overwhelming; all of this is overwhelming. especially when you could wake up one day and he's gone to do something without any warning, not evening thinking that you notice.

dorn: he's cold. he's so cold that it burns. or... is that the raging fire inside just reaching through the cracks? words mean nothing to him, and it can be difficult to truly know where you stand. he would never say he loves you, he would make you feel like he didn't ever need you, but should you ever leave? he'd tear the imperium down brick by brick until he had you back with him. it's unknowing to him. a duty. an unspoken loyalty. he doesn't believe in anything being temporary, so you're with him for life now. even if he never says it. and its the fact it's just actions, ones which may not mean anything to you, that makes it so hard. the door he gifted you with a heavy duty lock may be strange to you, but you did tell him you were worried about someone breaking in...

curze: does not feel he can be loved. he thinks he deserves it, but he never thinks anyone would dare. he thinks any affection shown to his is out of selfish fear and the second an opportunity presents itself, that love and affection would be gone. so he worries. he worries you are just like everyone else. makes assumptions, accusations, tells you that he thinks you're lying. probably because in the past he felt he should be loved and forced it out of people. he never once stops to think that maybe you lay beside him, you hold his hand, you take care of him, because you want to. it doesn't make sense to him, not without proof, or time, or anything to support your case. he'd get it eventually, he'd stop spending nights awake convinced you'll leave him when you sleep peacefully beside him with no intention of going.

sanguinius: his foresight is a burden, knowing what will happen to him means his guards are up. he would always be devoted, and he would carry the burden of fate to know he had shown you love in a way that mattered. but the sleepless nights would come, knowing the heartbreak would follow. especially at first, he'd try so hard, he'd want to protect others, you, from the fallout of fate. he'd never wanted you to see him in a way as more than a guardian, protector even, but it was inevitable. especially being who he is. and he would keep it to himself, and it would eat him up inside. he'd want to give you an easier way out, a ending where his death was the lesser of two evils, but he could never bring himself to leave. not before fate forced his hand.

ferrus: he has to make you better. you though fulgrim was obsessed with perfection? imagine that, but reversed, and intensified by a thousand. ferrus can make you better. he can make you stronger, he can make you everything you ever wanted. and over time, as he improves you, makes you need to know that he's impressed with you, it changes you. he's unrelenting. and it's not that he doesn't love you. oh, he loves you so so much. but there's a part of him that thinks his encouragement, his desire for your perfection, it helps you. together you can be the perfect couple, but not because of beauty or looks. then it feels like you're a project to him, little more than a toy for him to work on each and every day. and he'd let you go. he'd give you the choice, be free of him, but you'd hesitate. could you ever really be without him again?

angron: he only knows war. pain. death. love is so... small to him. he doesn't understand how to be gentle, how to replicate the love some of his brothers will. but he doesn't want to hurt you, either. and it shows. he will not hurt you, he will not make you feel pain, but he would die for you. and would you die for him? well. if you wouldn't, he would make you. love for him is a reflection of the strongest emotions he feels. the words he associates with it are different. violence. he'd kill anyone who stood between you. desperation. it's a feeling he can't describe as anything other than need. consuming. it grinds on him, wears him down, until he treats it the exact same way as everything else he feels. you're his, and you will become a part of him, whether you want to or not.

rob: it should be easy to him, but its not, and that makes him feel worse. he's not stupid, he can process love and emotion. yet... why does it feel so hard? he always feels like he is doing something wrong, always expression too little in case he reveals too much, whilst always trying to make up for something he fumbled already. its a vicious cycle. the reality of the situation is he's torn in every direction, he's needed by so many people, that he doesn't have time for love. yet he would fight to the very end of time to show it to you. and it exhausts him to no end. he'd just need a little patience, he'd very much enjoy if instead of something require brain or body power, he could just rest with you in his arms, enjoy the peace, but when that's every single evening, it could become a little hard

morty: he carries around a lot of anger and it's not always easy to hide. like a bitter old woman who sneers at kids for stepping on her lawn, but deep down she has a heart bigger than anyone - she just doesn't like it when he things are messed up. probably a bad analogy. the smallest things annoy him and he's got a quick temper. he constantly has to remind himself to check his own feelings, assess if he's reacting appropriately, then actually respond. so sometimes, it can feel artificial, like it's a brave face he puts on, and eventually you'll just want to know the real him. and you can, but it may not be as easily heard or understood. with time he would get better, he'd balance his emotions with your help, but until then it may never feel 100% real.

magnus: the poor guy, he just doesn't think (how obvious, I know). his actions are well intended but the way he comes across is a mixed bag. you're proud of something you've done or learned and in the spirit of sharing your achievement he does it in one try... or he tells you a more advance version of a spell with the intention of helping you but... it just comes across as him belittling you. like you were never good enough for him, that he is so so much better than you and his standard is so far above you. in reality, he's just happy, he's sharing those things because he thinks it will help you. he's worried that he's not good enough for you. he feels like he has to prove himself, to show you just everything he's capable of, elevate the two of you, together. aww :(

horus: he knows about his charisma. like a beacon that sits on his head and forces everyone to like him. and that makes him question the reality of everyone around him. are you nice to him because he's Horus, or because you want to be nice to him? are you kissing him because he's Horus, or because you want to kiss him? it's a guessing game that he is losing. he truly believes that those closest to him do not care, and overtime he has developed trust issues beyond saving. he'd never show it though, but inside everything can feel like a lie. he'd have a way to work it out though - he's not stupid - but his way is long and extended, tests and games which may not be appreciated, and it may feel like you need to prove to him why you care about him. was your love not enough? it was. but he just needed to know it wasn't manufactured by that damn beacon.

lorgar: love... its something different for him. it's not love. it's reverence. you become everything to him, his faith, his truth, his gospel. you become divine to him in every way, perfection incarnate, holy as the gods around him. and for that reason, it is all written in fate for him. you are meant to be with him, you are meant to stand by his side. he would build temples in your name, he would burn planets to the ground if it meant you were happy. he would destroy worlds to bring you what you wanted. but, if you are unhappy with that? if you do not accept his love and devotion? that's heresy. that's denying the truth. and escaping him, it can only come through death. his one is quite dark, i'm very sorry about that. unless you like it, then happy to help.

vulkan: he wouldn't have many faults, aside from obvious primarch things, but I think he's full of worry. not insecurity, but concern, always worried about you, always thinking he may hurt you, worried that the feats he puts himself through may have an unnecessary effect on you. he knows that he puts himself in danger but he can't stop himself, he know your concern that maybe just one time, he won't come back - but he will still test the limits anyway. he'd never show you every part of him, afraid it may just be too much for you, and though he's never hiding anything sinister, he'd always be hiding something. and you know it. and he'd smile, assuring you its nothing. it's literally just something like he's never tried kissing you in a certain way in case he hurts you. or he was wounded fatally again but he's okay. probably better if he just tells you... but secrets in the name of happiness, I guess.

corax: sometimes he goes, for days. for weeks, months even. some may even question whether you've just made it up in your own head. it's not that he doesn't care, or he doesn't love you, but... he got lost in his own head. what he needed to do. and it doesn't help that when you are together, he's cold, he's reserved, and its like you've never even met before sometimes. he can handle all of this, he's secure in his feelings and is loyal to you beyond anyone else, but can you? it's not that he would abandon you, or betray you, but when you've waited for him to come him for months and there's still no sign of him, your thoughts may start to go somewhere less pleasant. you can ask him to stop, but it's never permanent, even when he's fully opened to you emotionally - he'd unintentionally fill you with doubt.

alpharius: oh its a bit of a mindfuck. one loves you, one doesn't. one whispers sweetly in your ear, one just whispers. one touches your shoulder and catches the tips of his fingers on the curve of your neck, the other one just touches your shoulder. it's little things. barely noticeable at first. something the everyday person would have just shrugged off. but after time, you do notice. that's not Alpharius. and it makes you mad. to think he sent someone else in his place? he had to, and you'd never understand, but he hates it as much as you. do you know how badly he wants it to be him that is with you each day? how insulting it is to know that he was sharing you? it drives him to the brink of insanity. it's truly the worst feeling in the world. but there's nothing you can do about it, and you'll have to live with knowing that maybe the man next to you isn't the alpharius you love.

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