#and just be the weird little man i'm destined to become

[flannelepicurean]

read this as "girls when they can't BE their favorite fictional man" and honestly still 💯

[dreamsofbroflovski]

Gunslinger!Kyle Broflovski x Reader - lovin' what your lovin' does to me

Also available on ao3!

Summary: You and your partner, Kyle Broflovski, are both gunslingers, roaming the United States on horseback looking for fights to pick and bounties to collect. But when the promise of a better life becomes clearer on your horizon, can you really go for it, change everything you know and take roots for the first time in your life? You find out in the best way possible.

Warnings: Wild West AU, Explicit Sexual Content, Explicit Language, Cunnilingus, Vaginal Fingering, Mating Press, Breeding, Impregnation, Mentions of Pregnancy, Period-Typical Sexism

A/N: There it is. My however-many-thousand-words-long tribute to one of my favourite gingers.

Fun fact, I'm actually as childfree as they go. Got a whole list in my brain of reasons why I really shouldn't have kids. However, if a certain ginger jew from Jersey knocked at my door asking me to be the mother of his babies, I'd just ask "how many?" and get right to fucking work on that.

If some parts of it sound weird, I really did write this instead of sleeping because I wanted it up ASAP and it's crazy.

“Look alive, my dear. We’ve arrived.”

I was jolted out of my thoughts by the gentle voice of my partner.

It was nearing the middle of summer and I was really feeling the dog days. The sun showed me no mercy as it tried to set ablaze what little skin I had showing to the world, which was basically just my unprotected arms. I had been on horseback since dawn without even mentioning a break, and hadn’t exactly considered that the weather at 4am, before sunrise, might’ve been slightly different from what I was currently experiencing now that the sun was at its peak in the sky.

I guess the only salvation when it came to my foolishness was that I wasn’t alone in it. As I turned to the man at my side, matching my horse’s slow speed on his own mount, I saw him wipe some sweat off of his face with the green bandana he kept tied to his neck - being tortured by the heat even more than me, inside of his heavy leather coat.

My partner. My lover, Kyle Broflovski. Notorious gun-for-hire, same as I. We had met many years ago, when he and I were both just seventeen - but life had already taken its toll on the both of us, leaving nothing except two jaded young adults with very little to lose. By then we were already gunslingers, I was here and there committing petty thefts while he worked as a watchman for some merchant in the region. I took his side in a saloon fight that turned into a huge shootout - not proud to say a huge part of its escalation was his fault, but well, at least we won - and the thrill of going through a life-or-death situation together might’ve created a bond between us right at that moment, because from then on we rarely left each other’s side.

We started out merely as colleagues, but feelings quickly grew, and how wouldn’t they? He was handsome, intelligent, kind, honorable and great in bed. Everything a woman would want, if she ignored the ‘outlaw’ part, which I wouldn’t and didn’t even want to. Now, eight or nine years later, we still roamed this godforsaken country together - making money by offering protection services to basically anyone who needed bodyguards or an extra pair of shooters defending their property, and also by tracking wanted criminals and delivering their filthy bodies to the law enforcers looking for them; sometimes living, sometimes dead. Sometimes it felt like he kind of preferred it as the latter.

But as he looked back at me and I allowed myself to get lost in his shining eyes and jovial smile, it dawned on me that, at least for now, that was gone. We were on vacation, so to speak. For the last couple of weeks we had been on the road almost non-stop, all so that we could make it to our destination as quickly as possible. 

Today’s leg of the trip had been rather quiet, save for the occasional snorting of one of our horses, but I liked it that way. After so many years with Kyle, I had come to enjoy even those moments of silence: we talked so much every single day, but even when we didn’t say anything I still felt comfort in just being by his side.

Plus, it had been the first time in a while that we managed to just not have to say anything. For the last year or so, we hadn’t been running by ourselves, instead making use of the connection and safety of a small group with other outlaws. Life with them was decent - we didn’t exactly love each other or keep any type of code, but we’d help wherever we could to make sure everyone’s lives were running smoothly. But it was very clear that my true loyalty was only to Kyle, and his to me. 

So, when about nine months in he started to become visibly bothered and complain more, unhappy about having to set up shelter right next to people he didn’t exactly trust, we started planning our exit. We were used to it just being the two of us anyway, so there were no worries, we just had to plan the exit in a way that wouldn’t create a fuss. The opportunity came in the best way possible - a few weeks after our first talk of leaving, Kyle picked up at the post office a letter from his best friend, Stan Marsh, inviting us to go to his farm just one or two states away for a few days' stay. We left camp at night, after everyone was already asleep, and set out on this trip to meet up with the people we were most likely to actually consider family.

Kyle and Stan had known each other since before even being born, one could say. Randy Marsh and Gerald Broflovski were very close friends as children, though they followed very different paths in life: while my partner’s father took to the books and became a lawyer, the Marsh patriarch bought a plot of land not too far from the small mountain town where they lived and built a small but sturdy farm, which expanded over the years and made decent money. It was called Tegridy - apparently, it was supposed to be “Integrity”, a word Mr. Broflovski taught Mr. Marsh, but the latter didn’t really know how to write it; and, by the time he finally learned, it was already too late and the whole region already knew it by the wrong name, so it stuck.

And that’s how Kyle and Stan grew up: kept close as can be from the very start. Mr. Broflovski would take his family to the farmstead whenever he found a little free time and the boys spent their afternoons playing in the open fields, fishing in the stream nearby and helping Mr. Marsh with tasks around the farm once they became old enough. They saw each other turn from dim-witted boys to respectable young men, and the world seemed infinite for them, bright-eyed adolescents who could experience all the great things life had to offer without shouldering any of its burdens.

Unfortunately, just a few weeks before Kyle turned sixteen, his whole family was taken from him in a violent gang attack, caught in an ambush on the wagon they were riding while coming back from a trip, stripped of every valuable they had on hand and then shot dead. My partner wasn’t present at the time of the crime, so he was spared - something that he struggled with the guilt of for many years, and that was his primary motivation for becoming a vigilante: going after criminals just like those who wronged his family, to take them to justice and, more importantly, making sure their sentences were served. 

When Kyle showed up at Stan’s doorstep for what would be his last conversation as a man without blood in his hands, it took a lot of arguing and convincing from Kyle for his friend to not immediately pack his bags, saddle up and ride alongside him. Stan eventually relented, settled for receiving Kyle’s letters and some rare visits, took over the farm and married a lovely young woman named Wendy Testaburger.

A lovely young woman who, turns out, hated Kyle and I’s guts fiercely. She came from a well-off household and left a comfortable life to be with Stan, so I guess having a pair of shabby gunslingers as the closest friends of her new family didn’t sit right with how she was raised. It also didn’t help that, every time we were around, Stan would drop everything he was doing and stick to us like a tick to a dog’s fur, asking Kyle non-stop about everything we were up to and making us fill him in on every single chase and shootout and bounty delivered, without leaving any stone unturned. His interest in the life was very noticeable, even if he tried to deny it during the multiple arguments we heard him have with Wendy when they thought we were sleeping. The new Mrs. Marsh was absolutely terrified that our constant presence would have a bigger impact on him the longer we stayed, and that someday our wicked ways would win Stan over and he’d ride off into the sunset with us and make her a widow - or, worse in her mind, a divorcée.

Her worries only waned after a particularly long stretch of time we spent at their place. Kyle had gotten badly injured in a shootout against one of our bounties - and, although my quick thinking managed to stabilize the situation to where he was no longer in danger, we still needed to lay low for a while as he healed, and sleeping on the dirt in tents moving from place to place was not it. So I found ourselves a wagon and showed up unannounced to the Marsh residence with Kyle and all of our belongings loaded on it. 

My guess is seeing the dangers of the job in real time and how precarious our day-to-day life really was had been a wake-up call to Stan, since after that his begging for me and Kyle to retell our epic stories had diminished considerably. With this, Wendy was finally able to rest assured that she’d keep her husband, and she was willing to get to know us better and have actual positive interactions. At least something good came out of that whole mess - to this day, Kyle’s left shoulder didn’t work as good as it used to, and he still felt this overwhelming pain at random times.

That is all to say the four of us had a very strong bond forged through years of experiences together, delights and torments shared - a bond that would never waiver even when Kyle and I were on the other side of the country cleaning up the trash and delivering bounties around the most different jurisdictions. So, when we received that letter with Stan and Wendy scolding us because we hadn’t seen them since before the lady got pregnant with their fourth and urging us to come back to Colorado for she was now on the last leg of that pregnancy, we figured it was the least we could do to pack our stuff and ride to Tegridy Farm to spend a few weeks with the Marsh family, helping wherever they needed to make sure that these last couple of days, or the few right after childbirth, would go as smoothly as possible.

It had been about two or three weeks that we had been on the road now and we were finally at our destination. To my side, the very familiar farm spanned across the land, its decent area determined by some flimsy wooden fences in need of fixing. The structures and inside the boundaries of the fence for the most part didn’t match its state of neglect; the cultivation fields with the seasonal crops were well-kempt, the stables and barn had a regular repair schedule, and the main house - the crown jewel of the property - stood elegant in the middle of it all, always clean and pristine courtesy of Wendy’s presence. The only other thing that might’ve seemed neglected in the farm was but a shadow behind the main building - the old house where Stan had lived during his childhood, which hadn’t been inhabited since his mother died, but that he also didn’t seem to have the courage or time to take down completely. 

As we crossed the wooden gateways and made our way inside the farm, the first member of the Marsh family to notice our arrival was actually their elderly chubby dog, Sparky. Stan originally bought him as a puppy to train so he would protect the animals and the land from intruders, but he quickly realized that this dog was a huge wimp and just wanted to play all day, promptly fleeing whenever he sensed danger. However, everyone had already taken a liking to the tiny fellow by then, so he became Wendy and Stan’s personal companion, sleeping inside of the main house and growing up alongside the kids as their pet. When he saw the outlines of us on top of our mounts riding towards the building, he started barking happily and ran as fast as his legs could take him, making a turn when he got to our horses and matching their pace alongside Kyle’s.

His barking must’ve alerted the other members of the household, since not long after he started, we noticed Stan getting up off his chair on the porch. “And look who’s finally here!” He announced as he walked towards us with open arms and, not long after, we saw Wendy’s smiling face appear in one of the second-story windows, her hand waving excitedly out of it as we approached in our steeds.

“Oh, come on, we didn’t take that long.” Though he had essentially just been scolded, Kyle had a glowing smile on his face. Just this moment made almost all the tiring parts of travel worth it, to see how glad my partner would get to see his brother after so long and realize that nothing had changed. To have those moments of his youth back, even if for just a short stay.

“Almost a whole year, Kyle!” Stan retorted, slapping the side of his friend’s arm with his raised hand. “Wait a little more and you might as well have come for the kid’s wedding by then.”

Our mounts slowed to a stop as we reached the front porch, and we heard the thundering noise of several footsteps bolting down the stairs inside. Before we could even dismount, the smiling faces of Stan’s two eldest children - a boy and a girl - ran towards our horses, shouting excitedly and asking questions too quickly and with too high-pitched voices for me to even begin answering them.

“Easy now, children.” A much more soft and pleasant voice managed to be picked up by my ears among the ruckus, and my eyes darted towards the door immediately. Wendy Marsh stood by the doorway, her current youngest child - just shy of two years, if I had my math right - hiding behind her legs. My best friend had one of her hands resting on top of her belly, bump visible even under the loose-fitting maternity dress she wore, and I felt the guilt strike at me on sight; It had been too long since we last saw these two, she had gone through all those changes to her body and mind across multiple months, while I was off somewhere shooting people. I felt like an awful friend.

And then she did something that reminded me exactly how she was more than capable of handling this situation by herself. “YOU DARNED LITTLE RASCALS! SHUT UP THIS INSTANT AND LET YOUR AUNT AND UNCLE SPEAK!” This bellowing, infuriated version of Wendy’s voice had the kids fixing their postures and closing their mouths in an instant, not even daring to breathe loudly anymore, and they gave us one last glance before sprinting back quickly inside the house. The toddler followed suit, waddling after its siblings as fast as its tiny legs could carry it.

With the coast now clear, Kyle quickly slid off of his horse, in a swift movement that only comes with years of doing that multiple times a day. I stayed on top of mine, however, and right after dismounting Kyle made his way to the side of my steed, raising his arms towards me. I turned my whole body to his side and let Kyle take hold of my waist, lifting me off the saddle and putting me on the ground with ease. I was more than perfectly capable of getting out on my own, I had as much experience with this as he did - but this was something he fancied doing, he wanted to be a gentleman whenever he could and there weren’t many opportunities in our daily life for him to fill that role, so he loved to have that little moment and I learned to appreciate it. Plus, he’d get fussy if I didn’t let him do it, so I humored him every single time.

“C’mon, Wends, no need for that,” I turned to her as my boots hit the dirt, “Stan’s right, it’s been so long. They’re kids, they’re just happy to see us.”

“Well, but they’re not giving you a hug before I do!” And she didn’t have to wait any longer, wrapping her arms tightly around me as soon as Kyle let go of my waist and moved his body out of the way. I hugged her back carefully, trying not to put any pressure on her belly, something that she didn’t seem a lick concerned about but kind of worried me a little bit. I heard my partner’s boots kicking the pebbles beneath its soles as he power walked towards Stan to give him a hug as well - although in their case it was more of a side hug, slapping the palm of their hands against the other’s backs amidst laughter. The type of salute men usually shared, not as tender as the displays of friendship between us women, but just as heartfelt. 

After a minute or two like this, Wendy let go of me and gave me one last warm smile before going over to Kyle and giving him a quick hug, and I took the opportunity to do the same to Stan. Even if we weren’t as close as him and Kyle, he was still like family to me. We didn’t linger on the greeting, though; My best friend could get quite possessive when other women were near her man, even if it was just me, and I wasn’t gonna make that lady angry if I could avoid it. 

I swiftly took my spot next to Kyle again, and Wendy did the same near Stan.  “You’re looking gorgeous, Wends,” I stated with a smile. “Really glowing!”

“(Y/N)’s right. Baby number four, too! Stan, you must be proud!” Kyle stretched his arm out and placed his hand on Stan’s shoulder, shaking him teasingly. Stan just laughed and shoved his friend’s hand away from him, but when he straightened his stance again, his chest seemed a little more out than usual and his chin a little more high up. With his pride visible like this, I couldn’t help but be reminded of a rooster, or a peacock with its feathers all spread out.

“Thank you so much, you two. You’re really sweet,” Wendy wrapped her arms around her husband, hugging him from the side, face as happy as could possibly be - but then those smiles turned into a pout. “But don’t think being sweet is going to redeem you! You’ve barely written to us these months! We’ve been worried sick!” 

“Good thing we’re here now to tell you all about what we didn’t write,” Kyle said as he walked back near our steeds. ”Just let me hitch the horses somewhere out of the sun. I won’t be long.”

“No need.” Before we could take action, Stan quickly put two fingers to his mouth and whistled loudly, catching the attention of a nearby farmhand passing through, who stopped in his tracks and beelined to us. It was a young man, couldn’t be older than eighteen, with tanned skin from the hours under the sun, strong arms and a serious expression. “Oi, Milton. Take these horses here, lead them to the stables with the others and give them some water. Ah, and make sure they’re fed, they’ve been hours on the road.”

Milton gave a quick nod and took our horses by the reins, leading them slowly towards a big building to the left of the house. We followed him with our eyes for a couple of seconds, in silence. “Well, anyway, let’s take this conversation inside as well,” Wendy suggested, gesturing with her arm towards the house, her expression softening. “I’m sure y’all don’t want to wait out in this sun any more than the horses did.”

And she was damn right. We excused ourselves in and went through the doorway, sighing in relief as we found ourselves in the shade at last. “No issues on the travel, I assume?” She asked with a smile as Kyle took his hat off and put it in the hanger next to Stan’s.

“Just a tiny quarrel with the sheriff last town back, nothin’ major.” It had actually been a little bit more than that, but we didn’t want to worry our friends. The sheriff, an extremely unpleasant fellow who spent more of his time harassing the local ‘working girls’ than actually doing his job, seemed to have a real problem when people who actually wanted to stop crime came along. So, when we showed up to the town with a local thief tied up on the back of Kyle’s horse - captured in an extremely convenient encounter nearby - the so-called law enforcer decided we were ‘trying to come for his position’ and threw the tantrum of a lifetime looking for any reason to have us arrested. Luckily no guns were drawn, we left as quickly as we arrived, but the stress of the whole situation still stuck to us for a couple miles after that.

“Fuuuuck, I hate that feller. Please tell me you beat his ass.” Though Stan apparently had tried to make his dislike of the sheriff known only to Kyle, he did so in a rather loud tone, which made us all turn to him. “Short fat motherfucker loves to pull on my dick whenever I’m in town for anything. Pisses Wendy off, too. Damn failed abortion is what he is.”

“Language, Stanley!” Wendy chided, glaring at him. We heard a couple of giggles, quickly suppressed, and I turned my face upwards - on the second floor, leaning on the balustrade near the staircase, the children gathered, looking down at us and listening in on our conversation.

Kyle and I could only bend over ourselves laughing as the heavily pregnant Wendy chased upstairs, going after her much faster children to try and give them a thorough scolding as they yelled out their brand new vocabulary, while Stan made sure to quickly leave the scene so as to make it harder for himself to be next.

Oh to live this life on the daily.

༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩♡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚

The rest of the afternoon went by without any issues. Kyle and I managed to take our first proper bath in days, which was extremely appreciated, and then our attention was almost immediately snatched by the Marsh children. My guess was they didn’t get many visitors on the farm, at least not many that were interested in hearing what small kids have to say, so now that they had people to talk to they were sure to teach us all the new things they had learned and play lots of different games with uncle and auntie.

With evening approaching, Wendy prepared some roast beef with mashed potatoes and fried red tomatoes with garlic, along with a whole apple pie for dessert - under the pretext that since guests were over they had the obligation of making more food to be sure we wouldn’t starve, and maybe spend a little more on the process. She knew Kyle and I would be fine with whatever she prepared, her cooking was so good she could probably boil tree bark on her stove and make it the best meal we ever had, so I knew the sizeable dinner was more a satisfaction of her pregnant whims. We all ate until we almost couldn’t fit in our pants anymore, and after the couple put their kids to bed, Stan brought out a nicer wine and we chatted our more mature matters well into the night. 

After a while, Stan and Kyle decided to go out for a smoke and a night walk around the property, leaving me and Wendy to clean up the dinner mess so that we could ‘talk about our feminine issues’, whatever that meant. So we picked up the dirty tableware and took everything to the kitchen, where she had previously set up two buckets - one with warm water and soap, one with clean water - for the dishes.

After we set everything on the counter and she tried taking another step going for the filled buckets, I immediately put my body in front of her, blocking her next steps. “No no no, little mama!”, I declared, putting both my hands on Wendy’s shoulders and pushing her slowly towards the smaller table in the kitchen, which they used for breakfast. “You’ve already done too much today and been on your feet all this time. Now it’s my turn.”

She tried huffing, stomping her foot and going around me, but my grip on her shoulders was strong enough that she couldn’t, so she bitterly relented and took a seat on one of the flimsy brown chairs near the table. “I’m pregnant, not disabled”, I heard her snort behind my back as I finally let go of her and turned towards the pile of dirty dishes.

“I know, I know,” was my reply while I picked up the first dirty plate and dunked it into the soapy water. “But you made this whole dinner for us and it was delicious, Wends. Lemme do this for you, will ya?”

“You helped with the fried tomatoes,” she retorted.

“Sure, but I’m not the one with a whole baby inside me.”

She giggled. “Not yet.”

My hand stopped in the air halfway through grabbing a dirty wine glass. “Come again?” I inquired as I turned to her with raised eyebrows.

“You tell me, (Y/N)! Ever since before I met you you’ve been running from place to place shooting people for money. Don’t you think it’s time you and Kyle settled down, bought a house somewhere? Maybe you two could even get married and finally stop living in sin.”

Her comment had me rolling my eyes, but I still let out a chuckle; the Marshs weren’t all that religious by any means, and Wendy was a particularly outspoken proponent of women’s right to choose how they wanted to live, so I knew she was just taking a jab. “You have no right to use that against me, miss,” I pointed a soapy wet index finger at her, “Not when I know all about what you and Stanley were up to before your daddy let you get hitched.” It was true and she knew it. After we finally became close friends, I was Wendy’s main confidant, and she’d told me all about her relationship to Stan prior to the marriage - tales in great detail about the different places where they met and spent the night together in secret when they were younger. They had lived basically a whole second relationship together away from prying eyes, and the only people who knew about it were within the same mile radius right now.

Hearing this, she smirked and lifted her left hand close to her face, so I could clearly see the back, and I knew then and there that she’d had the last laugh. “And it worked.” With her other hand, she pointed towards her left ring finger, and there was no pretending I hadn’t noticed the shiny golden wedding band she always kept polished to perfection.

Although we had been partnered all those years and were as close as two souls can be, legally Kyle and I weren’t married. We reckoned there was no need, we already spent every single moment together, putting ourselves in danger for each other during the day and sleeping in the same tent at night. Take away the expensive ceremony and we’re husband and wife. Plus, weddings were usually very religious affairs, and not only were we both very distant from that reality, there was also the tiny fact that we were well-known gunslingers (no matter how lawful we thought ourselves to be, killing someone, even a criminal, is still a cardinal sin) and I’m sure your usual religious leaders aren’t willing to officiate for people like that.

And then there was the matter of children. I had always wanted them, it was one of my plans for life, but I had pushed that aside the moment I picked up a gun for the first time. Kyle and I didn’t keep residence on the same spot for too long - we’d lived places, worked for people for a while, but nowhere that we could actually safely stay for years on end. Our normal life was that of setting camp everywhere, to avoid being tracked by any enemies we made along the way, having to move extremely quickly - and sometimes even that wouldn’t be enough and we’d have to face conflict head-on. We could never do that with a child in our arms, it would be a recipe for disaster. Besides, with my age, I just felt too old for them at this point; all the mothers my age had their kids way earlier and it felt weird to start now, like I wouldn’t have anything in common with them. That ship had sailed.

I knew all of that and I was alright with it. My love for Kyle didn’t need no overpriced dress or ring to be real, and we didn’t need kids to have a real family. Hell, so many couples go through that whole song and dance of getting married only to end up cheating and abusing each other beyond belief! If that’s what marriage is, then I don’t want any part of it, thank you very much. We were doing fine. 

So it was the little girl inside of me that felt that little stab of jealousy seeing Wendy’s shiny jewelry and huge belly - the little girl that did grow up flipping through wedding catalogs to see the pretty dresses, that spent her childhood thinking of the names she’d give for her future children and hearing stories about young ladies who met their Prince Charmings and lived their happily ever after, before life took its turns and made her into a killer. This little girl would’ve loved to have a house and kids, and would’ve taken Wendy’s offer in half a heartbeat, but she didn’t have the right to live anymore. 

So as it came, it went. I went back to the dishes, acting like this conversation hadn’t affected me any more than our other casual chats during the day. “Wendy, we can’t,” I said as I splashed a handful of forks inside of the now cold water, “We’re gunslingers, in case you forgot. We don’t have a house like you and Stan do. Ya think a child should grow up living like we do? That ain’t fair.”

I heard the drag of her chair as she got up from it and moved towards me, but before I could turn to tell her to sit down again, she had already closed the distance between us with very quick steps. “You don’t have to live like you do.” She grabbed my right hand between hers and looked me in the eyes in a way that seemed almost like she was pleading. “We told you already. There’s the old house in the back you can take, it just needs some fixing up, Stan would be glad to do it. The kids love having you around, you can help care for them and if you have some we can help too, they can grow up together-”

“Wendy, we’re not gonna live on your farm!”, I interjected before she could go any further in her crazy rambles. Rambles that it wasn’t my first time hearing about - both in letters and in person, she’d sometimes go on about how we should create roots and start a family somewhere nice, while underlining how the farm had all this space and needed more workers and the kids could use a few more friends… “This is y’all’s house. We ain’t gonna impose on your life like that.” I wriggled my hand away from hers. ”And gunslingin’s our job, it’s all we know to do. We wouldn’t know how to live like you do. So just drop it, please.”

She patted her now free hand against her dress to dry it and didn’t seem to want to look at me anymore. “The beauty of being alive is that you can learn.” I heard her say meekly, which made me feel extremely bad that I had been so firm with her when she was so excited about her ideas - but I didn’t want to give her hope, or rather, give myself more hope by listening to her.

I reached to pick up another dirty dish from the pile, but my hand grabbed at nothing. While giving Wendy’s babbles my undivided attention, I had mechanically done all of the washing, now everything just needed to be dried and put away. But, as I stretched my arm out to grab a clean dish towel, it was her time to stop me in my tracks. “I’ll take it from here.” She declared as she reached for the rag before I could and snatched it out of my range. When she heard me gasp and scramble for a rebuttal, she added: “No buts, you must be tired, y’all were on the road all morning and then the kids were also a handful. You’re done for the night.”

“I ain’t going to bed anyway,” I noted, “If you want me to do nothing then I’ll stay here with you ‘till you’re done.”

“Don’t worry about me. It’ll be quick, I’ll dry this all off, and then I’ll go out to call the dog back inside anyway, might as well give the men a shout to come to bed too.” She shrugged as she picked up a wet plate.

I honestly wanted to argue a bit more and not leave her alone like that, but my aching back was very interested in what she suggested - I had spent my whole morning on the back of a horse and then the whole afternoon chasing after zippy children. I sighed in defeat and nodded, earning from her an earnest smile. “Very well then, but tomorrow everything’s on me. Don’t wanna see you up and about before noon, understood? Good night.”

I turned on my heels to leave, hearing her giggle behind me. “Sure thing, (Y/N).” I started walking out of the kitchen, but just then she uttered: “Just… Think about what I said, alright? Good night.”

I looked back over my shoulder to see if she was going to say or do anything else, but her back was already turned to me, as she stared at the window above the counter, watching over her property.

I suppose I ended up doing what she last told me to do in the end, because our little chat really stuck with me through the next minutes.

༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚𓆩♡𓆪༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚༝༚

Even after all the time I spent getting myself prepped for bed, Kyle still hadn’t returned by the time I was done with it. So I picked up a book from Wendy’s collection - reading was one of her main hobbies, growing up educated as she was, and she kept it up even after moving to the farm - and cozied up under the blanket of the guest room bed. I was happy to have something different to read this time; Kyle and I had a couple books with us, we liked to read whenever we had the free time, but it’s God awful having too many things when you’re always moving from place to place, so we kept our assortment to a minimum. Turns out it’s very easy to get annoyed at a book when it’s the only one you ever read, and those I had in my bag were starting to become a real eyesore.

This one I had in my hand I’d never seen before, but the cover was nice enough and the summary got me on its hook, so I was pretty intrigued. It was this fictional story about an outlaw who got diagnosed with a terminal disease and spent the rest of his life trying to atone for his sinful deeds, while also uncovering some truths about the people he was most close to. Without even realizing, even during the first paragraphs, I had grown attached to the main character - his sorrow as he looks back at what he managed to do with his life, when he remembers all the bad things he has done that brought him to his current situation, and the way he tries to change and make the lives of those he loves as easy as possible with the time he has left. 

It put me into deep thought rather fast. That character managed to change everything about his life, his core beliefs and priorities, when faced with the inevitability of death. He didn’t think he could, in his mind he was doomed to be nothing more than the sins he committed, and to pay for them when the time came for that - but, although he didn’t manage to live the happily ever after everyone wants out of life, he still managed to protect those he loved and leave an everlasting mark on the people around him.

‘The beauty of being alive is that you can learn,’ Wendy’s voice echoed in my mind again, teasing me with promises of a better life. Maybe it wasn’t too late for me and Kyle to change. We had something most others in our line of work didn’t have the luxury of - we had people willing to help us. But then again, did Kyle and I want to be helped? We had never considered such an option besides drunkenly debating those hypotheticals every once in a blue moon. It was possible that he didn’t even want something like this, and I’d rather bite my tongue out and never speak again than do so and lose him forever over it.

The sudden squeak of the ancient guest room door opening shoved me right out of the depths of my brain into the real world. Kyle was back from his long walk, whistling absentmindedly some random tune he probably picked up at a saloon. The rather acid stench that usually accompanied someone who had just smoked didn’t enter alongside him, and that I was glad for; He had obviously taken the time to air himself out and get all the smell out of his body before coming back in. I wondered if Stan had the same care towards his pregnant wife. “Sorry I took so long, Stan just wanted to show me the new horses and we ended up going for a ride on them.”

“No problem. I found myself something to do anyway.” I closed the book in my lap and lifted it briefly to show him the cover, before setting it on the nightstand, as far as I could from the candle that was also on top of it.

“You’ve gotta tell me what this one is about later.” He sat down on the narrow bench in front of the bed and began taking off his boots. “Did you and Wendy have fun together?”

“Sure thing, it was real nice”, I answered, “Lotsa great talking about our feminine issues and stuff. What about you, macho man?”

My voice carried a hint of sarcasm that he picked up on immediately. He turned his body slightly so he could look at me. “Sorry about that, I guess.” He rolled his eyes. “But you know you and Wendy don’t have the same kind of conversations Stan and I do. That’s what we meant.”

“I know, I know, I’m just playing with ya.” The reassurance that I wasn’t actually mad at him or his friend for the earlier comment made him relax a little. He turned his back to me again and started unbuttoning his shirt as I kept talking. “We really had a nice talk, her and I. It feels so good to be back here.”

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear that. Let’s make the most of the next days then.”

As he got up from the bench to remove his pants, I took the opportunity to take a good look at his body. Kyle had a very lean build, it was quite hard for him to gain weight and build those big muscles some other guys had, but he was by no means weak; doing stuff at camp, handling bandits to bring them to jail and the exercise it all took made him a very fit guy who could stand his ground even without a gun. He was also quite pale, at least for someone who spent almost all his time outside, and had plenty of freckles peppered all around his soft skin. I remembered Milton again, the farmhand Stan hired, and wondered if working on a farm every day under the sun would make Kyle look like that too - I hoped not, I loved my partner the way he was, didn’t want him to change a thing. But I knew it wouldn’t: After many summers together, the only thing I ever saw the sun do to Kyle was make him redder than a tomato all over, and his skin would usually start peeling a day or two later, which was why he preferred to wear long sleeved shirts even in the hotter months.  

There they were, the thoughts of being on the farm again. I blinked and focused my blurry eyes on Kyle again. He had stopped undressing. “Everything alright, honey?”, he inquired, looking at me with a frown.

“Ya, it’s nothin’. Just thinkin’ ‘bout how handsome my man is ‘s all.”, I was quick to answer. He shook his head with a smirk and, without answering, went back to taking off his undergarments.

When he was fully in the nude, he made his way towards the bed, not bothering to put on any sort of sleepwear. In that, he matched me - besides the bedding, there was nothing covering my body. This was normal for us: there was literally no part of our bodies that the other hadn’t seen, so why bother hiding anything? Besides, it made everything so much easier when we didn’t have to spend time ridding ourselves of all that fabric before making love. It had made for some embarrassing situations in the past, where we had to jump straight out of our beds, guns drawn, prepared for trouble; but, no matter how much we told ourselves that we really needed to stop being lazy and start wearing our pajamas, we’d still lay down the next night in our birthday suits, because there was no shame anyone else could make us feel that was more important than the feeling of his warm skin against mine.

“But you wanna know what’s funny?” Kyle commented as he pulled up the covers on the right side of the bed to lay down beside me, “Stan asked me again what I thought of the old house. Said this time we’re not getting away.”

Him bringing this up came as a shock - my eyes widened and I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. Was this man a seer or something? How come he knew to bring up exactly the thing that was eating at my mind the whole night?

I managed to keep my cool and let out a laugh that might’ve sounded a bit too loud for comfort. “Wendy did the same thing to me!”, I yelped, “The way they talk about this with us you’d think they were tryna sell us the farm.”

“They really want us to move in.” He let out a deep exhale as his head hit the feather pillow after a whole day with very little rest. “And he did say Wendy would talk to you and have you hooked on it. That by the end of the year you’d have ‘a bun in the oven’ and I’d finally know the joys of being a father.”

“I’m sure it was just the wine talking. You know Stan’s a major lightweight.” Again with my deflecting. The truth was I didn’t want to give away that Wendy’s suggestions were slowly building a nest in my heart, because I knew it couldn’t stay. Maybe joking around a bit with Kyle would remind me of the situation we were in, that this idyllic little house life we led was only temporary, and that we were bound to go back on the road after a few days, in search of more work. All I couldn’t do was make my current interest too overt, and I would forget about it just fine.

“Eh, I don’t know… He seemed pretty serious to me. Not like he does when he’s drunk, and I’d know that.” He turned on his side, facing me, and I could see the reflection of my candle’s flame dancing inside his olive eyes as he stared intently. Either he was really captivated by it, or he didn’t want to look at me for some reason, and that made me even more worried. He stayed like this for a couple of minutes, during which the room fell to almost complete silence, only broken by the crickets outside or the occasional cackling of the tiny flame. “And… What did you think?” Kyle finally asked, lifting his face toward me, studying my features just in case they gave a different answer than the one that would come from my mouth. “About what Wendy said, I mean.”

“Hey, now, what I thought doesn’t matter.” It was now my turn to look away and stare at the flame, wanting to just blow it out and dunk the room in darkness, all to not continue this conversation. “You know it’s just silly daydreams she has. They don’t get out as often as they used to, with the children and whatnot, so she stays inside and comes up with stuff like this.”

Kyle rapidly sat himself up in the bed and cupped my face in his hands, turning it so that we could finally be looking at each other. “You know your thoughts are the only ones that matter to me.” He stated firmly, gazing into my eyes with even more certainty than that which he had in his voice. “I don’t care about what Stan or Wendy want. But if you have something to say, you have my full attention, no matter what it is.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, bringing my right hand up and resting it on top of his. It was fine. I knew I couldn’t just lie to Kyle here, he’d figure me out. And, with all his brains, surely he could come up with a logical explanation for my troubles and help me see the most sensible path. “Look, I’m sure they mean well and it’s such a pretty idea”, I started, “I’d love to do that if our lives were different. But as it is it wouldn’t stick, honey. There’s no point in pretendin’.”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

I expected all sorts of reactions from Kyle, but not this one. His hand withdrew from my face as he pulled his upper body slightly away from me, but still kept his stare fixed. Both his eyebrows were raised and his eyes were wide, and his mouth fell slightly open as he breathed through it. He looked like someone would if they heard something they didn’t want to, or received disappointing news; which wasn’t how he usually reacted to those situations - Kyle was the type to argue his point to the bitter end, so disagreements usually came with a lot more anger instead of sadness or anxiety. This time, he seemed hurt.

“Oh, honey… You know why.” I rested my hands on top of my chest, feeling my heart accelerate, and trying to ground myself before the shock became too much. “We can’t put a child in a world like ours. Would be torture.”

He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be a world like ours. We can live here, at least temporarily, and then we move somewhere else. Stan already gave us the go.”

“Kyle, you know we have targets on our backs!” I tried moving my body closer to his, like that might get the point across easier, my voice denouncing my increasing concern with his reaction. “All these people we sent to swing, their buddies always try to come after us. Stan and Wendy don’t deserve this. We can’t risk them.”

“How? We’re in the middle of bumfuck nowhere!” There it was, the anger flaring his nerves. It always happened when something hit close to his heart, he felt the need to explain himself and make the people around him ‘see reason’ - I knew that behavior too well, though I wasn’t normally on the receiving end of it. But right now this wasn’t about logic or reason. These were his wishes. “We’ll disappear. I’ll change my name, you’ll change yours, we fake our deaths, these people don’t remember anything anymore after a couple of months anyway!”

Although I kept on nervously laughing, he was hitting all the right points, the points my own heart made when it wanted to feed on the delusions for a while longer. Kyle was very good at that - if he thought something was the better option, he’d twist both Heaven and Hell to make it make sense. “Oh yes? Well, say we go through with it, what do we know about ranch life?” I let out another nervous laugh. “Can you plant anything? Feed cattle?”

“Does that even matter?” In a quick movement, he climbed on top of me, knees at the side of my thighs as he straddled my legs, the blanket draping from his shoulders since he didn’t bother getting out from under it. We didn’t break eye contact for a single second. “You know I learn fast. If I-You want this, then we can figure it out!”

Clarity struck me like a bullet. Did he just say ‘I’? “Stan… Didn’t really talk to you about anything, did he?”

He shook his head again, less enthusiastically this time, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Do you remember a couple months ago, after you and I left the gang, when we talked about life with a house and kids and what we’d do if we had that?” I nodded, before realizing that he couldn’t see the gesture anyway - but he took my silence as agreement and continued talking. “I sent Stan a letter soon after. At first it was just to vent, but then he replied with their suggestion and I thought… Well, we could at least try.” The end of his sentence brought with it a faint smile to his lips, and he opened his eyes again slowly.

For the first time in this conversation had my little fit of laughter been genuine. The three of them had put all this in motion right under my nose, based on one wishful conversation we had, which Kyle had taken to heart and made sure to come to fruition. “I thought you liked the hunt, though” I said, head tilting to the side. “Liked bringin’ people to justice an’ givin’ ‘em what they deserved, no?”

“I like that, but I love you.” He answered without missing a beat. Felt like he was plain waiting for it. “And besides, it’s not like we can’t be virtuous people and do what’s right even without spending all our lives chasing after criminals. Our honor comes from our hearts, not from the barrel of our guns.”

Good ol’ Kyle with his smooth way of talking. It was one of the many reasons I fell for him - though his day-to-day life was rough and he shot outlaws for a living, deep inside he was still a very caring man, someone intelligent who saw all the bad in the world and still chose to do good. “Where did you even learn to talk like that?” I chuckled. “You shoulda been a writer, not a shooter.”

“Who knows? Maybe I’ll get started on that now, since I’ll have more time.” Taking my hands in his, he kissed my knuckles lovingly. Then his thumb grazed my empty left ring finger, his touch, as soft as his rough hands would allow it, lingering for a couple of seconds. “After the wedding, that is.”

“Wait, you serious?” This night was getting so filled with surprises, I might just believe someone if they said Sparky was a human in disguise. “No need for that, my dear. I’m already yours.”

“But I want to do it.” His hands let go of mine and he moved his body closer to me, giving me a quick peck to the forehead. Then he suddenly grabbed the blanket and yanked it to the side, throwing it on the floor and leaving both our bodies completely exposed. “And we gotta do it quick, before you start to show.”

Before I could ask him what I’d start to show, he pulled me by the shoulders and smashed his lips against mine fiercely. My hands shot up to grab his curls, making him groan into my mouth and deepen the kiss - and there it was, the now faint taste of the cigar I hadn’t smelled previously, spicy and earthy, but it tasted like the sweetest thing on the planet just because of the sheer passion we shared right now.  

As I felt Kyle’s hand drift up from between us to knead at my breast, I broke the kiss with a gasp. “Wait, here?” I asked, surprised, though the corners of my mouth curved up, snitches of my excitement.

“Now.”, he declared, straightening his legs and propping himself up in his arms to give me space to slide down and lay beneath him, with my head now on the pillow and my legs spread. When I broke eye contact for just a second and finally looked down, I saw his dick was already almost fully hard - was the simple idea of getting me pregnant enough to make him like that?

“Can’t wait to see how you’re gonna explain this to them tomorrow” I said with a giggle as Kyle lowered his body, putting his weight on his elbows, and planting kisses all over my face. My subdued laughs quickly got replaced by soft hums as he started going down the side of my neck with his lips, while his hips started rocking against mine, his cock grinding against my body and the tip spreading some warm precum over my lower abdomen with each slow movement.

His answer, unlike most everything he ever said, was simple, direct, and left no leeway for questioning. “Well, it would do them some good to get used to it.” I felt my face burn like the damn candle as he said that, and my pussy starting to drip with wetness, the arousal soaking into the bedsheet. He stopped his kisses for a moment to put his mouth to my ear, and when he whispered his next declaration, it felt like it was going straight to my cunt: “Because I’m keeping you filled up now. Make you mine all the time and no one can do a damn thing about it.”

“Oh, you gonna change your mind when I’m all big and swollen…”, I drawled feebly. Disputing his claims was getting hard now since my brain was getting foggy with desire, but I still had to try, even if just to hear him singing praises to me some more.

I felt his left hand coursing through my body, stopping with his palm flat on my midriff, feeling almost cold with how hot I was getting all over. “Absolutely not,” He whispered again, “You’re gonna be even more fucking gorgeous when you’re carrying my child. I’ll make love to you every single night.”

My hand started to move down between our bodies, too, as I tried to reach for Kyle’s throbbing cock, wanting to make him feel good - if I couldn’t with pretty words like he did me, at least I knew I could do it with actions. But, when my fingers touched his leaking tip, he immediately took his hand off my belly and gripped my wrist, moving it back to the side of my body. As I looked at him with a puzzled expression on my face, he simply shook his head, gave me another peck to the mouth and started pushing himself down on the bed, only stopping when his face was level with my pussy and his palms were flat at the side of my hips.

Just by seeing him there, I could feel my walls clenching around nothing, almost like they begged on their own for his loving and experienced touch. Kyle was a damn great lover and from the very first day we laid together it was like he knew all the right ways to make me come undone, and he had no shame about anything he did to achieve it - most of all, he was eager to do it. By God did this man love to please me. If that was what was waiting for me every night from now on, I could very easily get used to everything else.

He started planting small kisses on the inside of both of my thighs as he pushed my legs slowly up, my knees now almost hitting my chest. His lips felt soft and endearing on my skin, but this was not where I wanted them - and he knew it, with the way he held my gaze the whole time as he did it, his eyes glittering with his teasing ways. Every few kisses, he’d break the sequence with a slight graze of his teeth on my skin, the softest of bites, but enough to make all the fine hairs in my thigh rise up in a pleasurable goosebump.

Just as I was getting tired of the wait and was contemplating pulling at his hair to bring him away from my leg, it was like he had read my mind again. He let go of my thighs and put his hands on my hips, not quite gripping them, but steadying them in place. I closed my eyes and sighed contentedly as he licked a stripe from my already very wet cunt to my clit, giving it a very quick kiss at the end, which made me wonder for a second if he was about to start teasing me again and how long for. But then all thoughts left my brain as soon as he started swirling his tongue over my clit, in a pattern I didn’t know or care about, making me squirm almost immediately and dig my nails into my palm.

His tongue slithered down, making its way to my entrance, and my hips started rolling against his mouth, trying to help his movements as he fucked me with it. He’d grunt every now and then as he did it, lost in the satisfaction he felt by pleasuring me, and sending the vibrations through my heat, making me even wetter. I could feel him staring at me from down there, too, despite my shut eyes; He always paid attention to every reaction of mine, licking and sucking all the right parts that he knew made me squirm.

Then he moved up with his mouth to focus on my clit again and my hands darted down to grab at his hair, my palms hurting at the spots where the little crescent shapes from my nails had formed. I felt one of his fingers circling my entrance, gathering my arousal before plunging fully deep inside, my walls almost sucking it in. Another one soon followed and he started pumping them in and out while curling them upwards, massaging my sweet spot perfectly, still never missing the pace of the swirls of his tongue on my hardened bud.

It became too much too quickly. The dam holding back the river of my climax broke after not much longer and my orgasm washed over me violently, every single muscle in my body tensing up and my thighs pressing strongly against the side of my lover’s head while my hips rocked against his mouth, chasing my pleasure to its bitter end. One of my hands darted up to cover my mouth immediately, muffling the loud cries I let out as it happened, my one and only moment of clarity during the whole release.

And even then Kyle didn’t stop his ministrations, his hand covered with my juices as his fingers kept pushing inside, making way through my tightly clenched walls. After I came down from my haze, however, the overstimulation started to become rather painful - only when I managed to collect enough strength to tug at the back of his hair rather fiercely to pull him away from my cunt did he stop, and even then I swore I could see for a brief moment a hint of disappointment in his eyes.

Kyle positioned his body between my legs again and took his time to run one last stripe along my slit with his fingers, the ones he used inside me, before bringing them to his mouth and licking them clean, with his eyes closed. He did this every time, not wanting to waste even a single drop of me. I was his favorite whiskey and, when it came to that, he was a damn alcoholic.

This time it was me putting my hands on Kyle’s shoulders and bringing him down for a kiss, running the tip of my tongue across his lips lightly, tasting my love in him. When we parted, gasping for air, I leisurely ran my hands over his upper body, caressing every inch of him they could reach - his cheeks, then down his neck, around his collarbone, his chest, until my left hand stopped at his shoulder, on top of his biggest and most visible scar.

Kyle had plenty of scars, these things came with our line of work, but this one was different. Not caused by a bullet or a knife, but rather by fire itself - a dynamite explosion that caught us by surprise during a shootout in this very state we were currently in. That fire almost took my lover’s life, dragged both of us into months of suffering and stress, and even years after it was extinguished we still carried with us not only the trauma, but a physical reminder of everything it claimed. 

The physical scar itself was a bit rough to the touch and full of small streaks and bumps all over. It spread all over his shoulder into the right side of his chest, his upper arm, and a bit over his back. Across the years, its color had faded from a gruesome brown to a slight reddish tint, but it still had a jarring contrast to Kyle’s pale skin. No part of it was delightful, if I’m being honest. Yet I’d kiss it every single night, caress it at every opportunity and massage it with expensive essential oils whenever those were available; because I’d take a whole life with that scar over even a single second of the alternative.

“You saved me, you know,” He murmured with a sigh.

“I know, because you say it all the time.” I chuckled. “But we ain’t gotta talk about that anymore, dear. You know I’d do it again.”

“Not that day. Well, yes that day, but also all the others before and after that.” He lowered his head closer to mine so that our noses and foreheads were touching, and his warm breath ghosted my lips, bringing the lustful haze back to my brain. At this point I didn’t know what I wanted to do more: Hear his voice forever as he whispered his praise and love towards me, or kiss him until I could feel all these words inside of my skin.

My partner took himself in his hands and started to slide the tip of his cock up and down between my folds, from my entrance to my clit, making my whole body twitch a little when he got to the still very sensitive bundle of nerves. “And you might just be about to save me again,” He continued, aligning himself with my entrance, “You’ll be the perfect wife and mother. My wife and the mother of my babies.”

Kyle pushed himself inside of me slowly, inch by inch, being extra careful as his big and thick cock stretched out my cunt. It didn’t hurt much, I was used to it after years of taking him regularly, but he still wanted to make sure I was comfortable every single time before continuing. 

Once I gave him a smile and a small nod, he started to push in and out slowly, letting me feel every single twitch of his cock inside me and every one of those veins I knew so well pressed against my walls in their entirety. He quickly built up momentum, however, and soon the room was filled with the squelching sounds of my wetness being pounded against, his hips striking my body and the bedframe hitting the house’s wooden walls perfectly synchronizing with it. After a while like this, without warning, he picked up both my legs and brought them over each of his shoulders, pushing my knees back against my chest, my toes touching his hair as they curled in pleasure.

Kyle was hitting my cervix with every strong thrust now, sending sharp and slightly painful stings that jolted through my lower abdomen with every smash of his soft head against that barrier. And yet, every time I felt those, I just wanted more and more; Having Kyle deep inside me in this position always managed to cover all the right spots inside of me, I just wanted to hold him, keep him there. And I knew he was feeling just as good as I was - the sounds coming from his throat were getting louder and louder as he shut his lips tighter to prevent them from turning into full brown growls, his fingertips whiter than ever since his grip on my hips was so fierce I was sure by tomorrow I’d have a few bruises there.

“K-Kyle… Aaaaah… Give… Me…” I whimpered between moans, stretching my arms towards him, nails scratching against his skin as I tried to grab his hips, keep them glued to mine forever.

“Lord… You want me even more, do you?” He responded with shaky breaths, and I immediately felt it when he picked up even more speed - a move made even easier by the amount of slick built up in and around my pussy -, jackhammering into my cunt and making me see stars both from pain and pleasure. 

At this point I should’ve known there was no point in even trying to hide our sinful sounds anymore, but I still felt like I needed to do it. I tried to pick up Kyle’s pillow from the side of my head and put it over my face to muffle my constant cries of satisfaction, but my partner immediately grabbed it from my hand and tossed it back in its place with a growl.

“No. Don’t hide it. I want to see it. The face you make… When you cum for me and I stuff you up to the brim.”

The scene he described burned into my brain almost immediately and I could think of nothing else. For him to fill me up, give me a baby, make us a family - it was all I wanted out of life now, and the mere thought of it was enough to have my muscles tensing and that familiar pressure on my lower abdomen to start building up again, threatening to snap. “Please, Kyle,” I whined, “Breed me. Give it all to me… I need it…”

“I know you do, darling...” He leaned closer to me to give me a kiss, the clash of our lips messy and awkward with our desperate need to touch each other and the fogginess in our brains, but we didn’t care. I just wanted to have him as close as possible. “I need it too… Cum for me, please. I want to feel you milking my dick to the last drop.”

He needed not ask further. For the second time that night I felt my whole body burst into electricity, my cunt spasming like crazy as I tried to give Kyle exactly what he asked of me, exactly what I felt like I was meant to do all along. My legs trashed all over near his shoulders and my back arched as I lost control of my body with the waves of pleasure that washed me over.

The tightness around his cock as my walls fluttered around him and my face contorting in absolute pleasure as I came were what finally did him in. Kyle threw his head back while he came undone inside me, grabbing my hips and pulling them towards him as he buried himself deep into my core, his manhood throbbing, painting my walls with his seed. The sensation was extremely new to me - I felt the warm spurts painting my walls, filling me up and leaving Kyle’s mark somewhere no other man could ever reach.

I wasn’t used to Kyle finishing inside of me. Considering the everlasting battle between our higher than average libidos and our fear of having children, the closest compromise for that was having him do it on my breasts, belly, mouth, face, even ass if he was feeling wild enough. On the rare occasions where he did cum inside, I couldn’t even enjoy it - my brain would immediately be flooded with stress and worry, shutting down any other sensation, and I’d spend the next month or so losing sleep waiting for my next period so I could finally be at peace again.

But here there was none of that. I could relax and ride out this high with him. I let him have his moment, heaving my exhaustion away quietly as I admired the red flush on his pale skin and the sheen of his sweat under the candlelight, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he panted like his lungs weren’t big enough for the amount of air he needed to live. When he finally opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was me, I felt wrapped up in his love all over again.

When his breathing started to steady, I figured he’d get himself off of me and take his place by my side on the bed. Instead, he just laid his whole body on top of mine, somehow being careful enough to not crush me under his weight as he collapsed.

“Kyle?” I gave him some quick taps to the shoulder with my fingers after a minute or two like this in silence, when I’d started to worry that he might just fall asleep. “C’mon, dear, you gotta scoot over if you wanna sleep.”

“Hmph… Sorry…” He groaned, with a sluggishness that made clear he was indeed just a few sheeps counted away from deep slumber. “Wanted to make sure to keep it all in. Don’t wanna waste…”

Even though he clearly didn’t want to, he slowly moved away from me and rolled to his side of the bed. When his dick withdrew from me, I suddenly felt a bit empty and wondered briefly if I couldn’t have tried to sleep like that or at least stay a little longer.

“Sorry, my dear,” I planted a kiss to the side of his head, “But you know, if you don’t get me pregnant tonight, we have plenty of time now.”

I sat back on the bed briefly to blow the candle out on the nightstand, plunging our room into almost complete darkness. As soon as I laid my head back on my pillow, Kyle brought his arm over my body and pulled me closer to him, nuzzling my hair.

“We have plenty of time now,” He whispered, with more energy in his voice this time.

And we definitely did.

Dividers by @cafekitsune

[vellichorom]

that post regarding papa.isa / papa.iwa doing numbers so i'm going further in-depth about my thoughts because i'm So Right

-- @/Zoeyhoshi, quoted around the time the Focus On the Hawks manga was initially set to be released;

( this is not an official description nor is it stated in the manga but could Probably be inferred by the given timeline of the game & regardless likely doesn't go without precedent; )

okay so now that that's out of the way,

here's a bunch of ryuuji & isa/shuu relationship thoughts that have caused me such brainrot ;;

perceive this as papa/isa & i kill you;

to ME ( & this is rather flavored with headcanon so bear with me ); ryuuji kawara, a man realizing a baby & then some beforehand too late that he's just No longer in love with his wife / girlfriend, spends ALL of his time possible at work, with his team of prodigy teenage exploits, honestly just dicking around & refusing to- you know, be a Responsible Grown Ass Man & do something about his life,

& he starts doting on the sad little partridge who's thrown himself into his work to an unhealthy degree & is no doubt having a hard time just being ALIVE after being orphaned & physically disabled by a terrorist attack when he was just a baby, practically hovering over his shoulder, making sure he eats, gets out & has fun, & this is EASY for ryuuji, because they both have a mutual interest in science - as well as each other. ( not in a weird way get out of here, )

& isa's been given the short end of the shit stick ALL his short life thus far; he was born into a rich family that abhorred him since day one for Never being up to their standards, has resented them & felt nothing for anyone around him Since day one, was involved in a terrorist attack that Physically fucked him up for the rest of his life, & was almost immediately indoctrinated into the extremist hawk party at like. age 6 & stayed with them onward. CAN YOU IMAGINE,

so isa's growing up in a sterile, hostile environment & having his progeny used to develop techniques & weapons against humankind. i can't imagine it's the warmest place to RAISE an already jaded child, let alone when they're destined to become the smartest one in the new world order, but i digress.

IN STEPS RYUUJI, showing him all the warmth & kindness that he's yet to experience from ANYONE in his life before, & oh my god. it's wonderful. it is indescribably luxurious- it's so fantastic that ryuuji kawara would be the Only Person that shuu would show respect for, the only person he'd ever do ANYTHING for, the person he would somewhat come to live for, no matter how much he denies it or portrays ryuuji like a fool under his breath.

ryuuji imprints on isa as though he were his own child & finds fulfillment & content enough just to pal around with him for the rest of his days, & isa imprints on ryuuji as though...

he were everything to him, likely. of course, construed to the mentally & emotionally stunted shuu iwamine as Romance, or something along those lines. familial feelings Must have died with his parents, & you want to tell him they probably just transferred to ryuuji during the extremely stressful period toward the beginning of shuu's young life? get out of here,,,

BUT IT'S IN FACT VERY POSSIBLE;

ryuuji loved isa & isa loved ryuuji & shuu still loves ryuuji !!!!! a man admired for his brilliance who also showed shuu the most tender affection he has ever felt in his whole life & that has warped him beyond belief & kind of caused almost everything in hatoful boyfriend to happen

& my god can you imagine being ryouta finding out about this; can you imagine your dad abandoning you prior to your birth & putting all his love & care into someone who screwed you & all your friends & literally almost all of your society over because of it. i can't help but imagine he tries not to dwell on it but... ouh, the resentment he harbors in his heart about it... unfathomable,

OHH my emotionally distant & stunted horrible idiot BASTARDS ryuuji & shuu..... not a week goes by where i don't think about them,

i hate them so much

here's also the abridged discord post version of this post jic i left out some details i wanted to discuss & i think i did

[lowkeyrobin]

Hello I was wondering if you’d be able to write a Ranboo from the we bounced to the death video x Gender neutral reader? :) (only if you’d write for them Ofc, I’m not sure if so but if not then just disregard this)

-💠

ooo yeah sure!! ; also any like characters of charlie/ranboo/tommy in sorry videos I will do! even if it's the old ones with the man who we don't name, I'll just cut him out of it lmao. I'd love to write for sorry apocalypse! ranboo or tommy so feel free to request any sorry!character version requests haha ; thanks for requesting! hope you enjoy :)

SORRY! RANBOO ; urban jump

summary ; you and ranboo are both angsty teens working at urban jump when tumgo shows up to hang out with chounce and master zah

warnings ; language, ranboo pulls their mask down for a moment

word count ; 1.4k

masterlist

"I literally don't understand this shit"

"Me neither"

You and Ranboo share a quick glance, then look back down at Tungo and Chounce bouncing about the trampolines while Master Zah sits criss-cross on a center stand.

"Do they actually think they're built like sumo wrestlers, or is it supposed to like, impress people? What-what is the point here?" You ask, furrowing your eyebrows as you squint at them.

"I have no idea. Every Tuesday they're in here, they rent the place out all day" Ranboo shrugs.

The two of you travel down, needing to clean up a bit and disinfect the areas they weren't currently using. Their camera man stops you two, explaining some things before flicking it on. You two stand next to each other, tired and confused.

"Wh-What is this for again?" Ranboo asks. "Documentary?"

You rub your eyes, looking back at the weirdos to keep an eye on them so they couldn't reak havoc while out of your peripheral vision.

"Yeah, so, they've been coming here for about, I don't even know how long. I've only started working on this shift a few weeks ago"

"A couple months, maybe." You shrug, "They didn't start renting the place out til then, at least"

"They come in, they rent the place out, and they uhm, they just kinda, bounce for a bit. Fight a lot. I'm just getting paid and it's less kids to work with. So, it's a win in my book"

You nod, "I'd take them over a bunch of disgusting feral children"

He nods before the camera is put down.

"I need to retreat into my Chounce Sanctum, Chounce Hole!"

You watch as Chounce becomes one with his fake sumo wrestler body, using it as some kind of shell like a snail or a turtle.

"Alright, alright everyone. What do we think of this?"

You and Ranboo share confused looks, watching from the sidelines. You sit next to each other on a hard ledge a few feet away, absolute confusion painting your expressions.

Ranboo looks back at the camera, "This has got to be a disease, right?"

"Maybe he's like... challenged"

"He's challenged in more ways than one"

Master Zah speaks up, seeing Chounce was using his body as a shell. "I don't see enough bouncing!"

"Don't come in. Dude, I'm jacking my hog"

You and Ranboo become even more confused and now concerned.

Ranboo speaks up, "Wait, you're what, man? What're you doing in there?"

"Dude? What? How many times do I have to tell you, dude? I'm yanking on my freaking porker, dude! Don't come here!"

"Ew, what the fuck?" You look at Ranboo, "Biohazard on aisle fifteen, pal"

They stand up, walking toward Chounce, "Dude, c'mon, you can't- you can't do that here"

Ranboo pulls Chounce's weird little helmet back, revealing his defeated face. He walks away to talk to the camera after a few seconds, which you watch.

He then runs back out, apparently destined to do a flip. He quickly falls up the stairs and then cries, though. So, maybe today wasn't the day.

After some more weird and delusional grown man antics and practically babysitting, you retreat downstairs to the little playground area. Ranboo apologizes to Master Zah, who's sitting in the middle of the Under 5 Soft Play pit, crying as he's hidden in his skin shell.

"Zah?" Tungo calls as he approaches.

"How did you find this place?"

"It's next to the slushee bar"

Ranboo continues with his apology while you sit at the slushee bar, making yourself a treat.

"It's, it's not my place to ruin anyone's fun here."

Tungo falls into the pit, probably breaking a tooth somehow with the fall.

"Hey, man, we're trying to have a moment"

Tungo doesn't respond, he rather climbs into the little playground.

"It's not my place to ruin anyone's fun here-"

Tungo rustles around the plastic balls in the playground pit, causing a loud and obnoxious noise to sprout.

You walk over to Ranboo, sharing your slushee with him after he'd given up on trying to tame Tungo and apologizing to Master Zah.

"Tungo, dude, I was wrong!" Chounce falls into the soft play pit after he lays his eyes on Tungo, hiding in the playground behind a little plastic window section.

He quickly stands up, then pounds on the plastic to get Tungo's attention. He falls back on the ground quite roughly, then breaks out into song about wanting life to be like trampolines?

You and Ranboo walk away, having had enough and now sweating in your hoodies. You warn the trio to behave as you walk away, heading toward the locker room to switch into your company t-shirts.

"I can not believe we're still babysitting these delusional weirdos," Ranboo comments, pulling out his lanyard of keys to open the staff only door.

"Me neither." You shrug, pulling out your own lanyard to open your locker as you enter the room. "I'm so serious when I say I'm grabbing my earbuds, I can't listen to their brainrot anymore"

"Good idea"

You unlock your locker, hang your lanyard on the hook inside the door, and switch your phone from your hoodie pocket to your pants pocket. You pull the hoodie off, shoving it into your locker while you pull out the t-shirt you left in there for emergencies. You unfold it and shake it a bit, wanting to get whatever pet fur that was on it off.

Your backs face each other, both now bare as you rush to put your shirts on. You pull your shirt over your head, adjusting it and slightly tucking it into your pants because it was just slightly too big on your torso. You turn around, wanting to ask if he had any deodorant, because you felt gross being around Chounce, even if he wasn't yoinking his shrimp.

"Oh, fuck, sorry!" You quickly cover your eyes and look down, not wanting to invade their privacy as they're half dressed. They'd been turned around as they slid their shirt on, meaning they saw you see them. "Uh, do you have any deodorant?"

"It's fine, uh," They reach into their locker, grabbing some deodorant out for you. "Have fun smelling like Old Spice White Water, whatever that's actually supposed to smell like," He lightly chuckles, tossing you the plastic bottle as you release the hand from your eyes.

"Thanks," you whisper as you catch it, popping the cap off to reveal the product.

You quickly apply a layer under your arms before tossing it back to him, and he places it back in the metal locker. You stuff your earbud case in your pocket for the moment, deciding to connect them after you left, not wanting to take a long time to get back to the man-children. You do the same with your lanyard, stuffing it into your back right pocket, making sure the goods were safe.

You notice Ranboo's muscles, exposed by the short sleeves. The more you look at them, the more you feel compelled to just explore hid lips with yours.

You quickly turn around, close your locker, and head towards the door, before you're stopped.

"Wait, can you help me with something?" They ask, "This tag is itching me, can you cut it off?" They hold up a little pair of scissors for you to use as well.

You nod, step onto the wooden bench behind him, to get some height that you need, and pull up the collar of his shirt. You place your thumb and index finger on the tag, your remaining fingers holding the shirt down. Your dominant hand holds the scissors, cutting into the plastic tag on the back of his company shirt. You cut it off and he turns around, thanking you.

You handed the scissors to him and the cut-off tag so he could throw it away. He looks up at you, and you look down at him, staring into each other's souls.

He places his hands on your cheeks after pulling his mask down to his chin, revealing the lower portion of his face. You quickly peck his lips, feeling your face heat up. His clearly does the same as he pulls the mask up, his cheeks visibly pink.

"Oh my God, dude!" Chounce shouts.

Your heads quickly snap toward the open door, revealing Chounce, Tungo, and Master Zah all standing in the doorway, watching you.

"They're having romance!" Tungo exclaims

[mimikyu-oli]

Memories of the Neighbor's House.

Chapter1: New town, new people, new start.

Hurricane. The town with a weird name. Surrounded by desert. The south? Desert. The north? Desert. East and West? You got it! Desert! The town was hiden by the desert. But somehow. Rain was still possible there. But somehow. Forests was still present. A true mystery. Fortunately, one familly would be able to solve it! Their adventure start when they moved in-

"Can you stop narrating, please. The trip was very long and I'm incredibly tired."

"You're no fun Lu-Lu." "Yeah! No fun."

“It’s not really my fault that we left at 7 in the morning and the drive took 10 hours.”

"You could have just took a nap like us."

"Oh wow, thanks. I didn't think about it. It's not like I tried to do it three times during the whole trip and that each of them had been impossible to do due to either too much light or too much noise or a bad posture or all of the above."

"Well, it's not really our fault if you're too picky to sleep in a car."

"I'm just asking, for both of you, to be quiet for a bit. At least, until we all are in our own new rooms."

"How would we be able to record our discoveries and get views if we're too quiet?" "Yeah, it's very lame and boring when the guy is all silent during the whole video." "How can I narrate without narrating!?"

"Guys! Just… Please. Shut up. I can feel a headacke coming."

"Well that's just too bad, cause your head is not important in this video." "There's unresolved mysteries that is waiting to be discovered."

"And then, the mystery stop being one when the researchers discover that it was all just a lame smudge in a corner."

"We don't need your skepticism to ruin our show!" "And fun!"

"I'm not skeptic-"

"You clearly don't believe in ghosts."

"It's not that I don't belive in ghost. It's just, most of the time, there's a reason for any little things that you may consider as 'surnatural'."

"That's just an excuse for the fact you actually give up easily when you can't explain anything."

"I don't give up. I put the questions aside until I get new informations and tools to use."

"You're giving up."

"Urgh. Mom. Help me there."

"Well, I don't know what to say, sweety. They do have a point." "MOM!?" A clap can be heard from the back of the car when the twins high five each other.

"Well, they have to find a way to entertain themself. And there's not much to do in a car. We also have to encourage their passions. And we're almost there. Just a few more minutes and you can use the rest of the day to sleep, sweety."

Lucius sigh. Why wasn't he with their dad and uncle Jason again? Right. They have to go first so they could settled earlier and he had to sleep for longer.

The praparations for the move had stressed him out for quite a time. And it got worse and worse as the D-day approached.

So he didn't really had the opportunity of a 'good night sleep' since then.

Was it really a bad thing he wasn't with the two men though? His father is smart. But when he's with his brother, they both suddenly become the half of a brain cell.

And their dads joke become more insufferable too.

So, it was either:

1) Annoying siblings.

or

2) Annoying dump older man.

Yeah, the choice wasn't difficult.

Still annoying, though.

They arrived at their destination precisely 7 minutes later. They could see the patriarch stepping out of the front door of their new house and walking their way.

"Hey-hey! You made it!"

"Yeah! We survived the complain of a jerk." "And a narrating stopper!"

"And I survived the pestering of two energetic mosquitoes with only three hours worth of sleep in my body."

"Told you you should have got to sleep earlier." His dad retorted.

"And I told you the stress had infected the nights too."

"Oh boy." …

….

"So! Ed. Did you two were able to setle all our furnitures?"

"Uuuuhh…-" "EDMUND!" A large man errupt from the front door. "You'll NEVER guess where I found the remote!"

"WHERE!?"

"Here we go again." Evelyn sighed, dejectedly knowing perfectly well what was coming.

"Hehehehe. It-it was in- Pffff. It was in…hehe." "Say IT!" "Hihihi." "Come on! SAY IT!"

(He's way too enthusiastic about it.)

"It was-it was in…eheh. It was in the frame of your family painting. HA!" "REALLY!?" "Yeah! Right behind it! HA!" They both start laughing. Like this was one of the greatest jokes said of the day. "Oh lala." Which was the height of his mother.

Edmund, the father in the Mortimer familly, was a….. He's honestly isn't sure what kind of job he was working. Something about computers….. Maybe?

Anyway, he got a proposition to work in some business that could lead him into a promotion in later days.

Work that was literally at the opposite side of the country. In a city named Hurricane. (Which was pronounced "Her-ah-kun". For some reasons!)

Fun.

"Please, tell me there's no other… "fish" incident?"

"Oh. Come on, Ev. How could we have known that there was fish in the percolator." (In the percolator.) Lucius think at the same time as his uncle. "Yeah. And you used it in one of your books. So, you can't complain."

"Mmm."

Evelyn Mortimer. Obviously the mother. (And obviously the one with the head.) She's a writer. So, moving out to another state doesn't really bother her. She can use the new scenery for inspiration.

It was a win-win!

And obviously. When the parents are all ready to move, the kids as to follow. He wasn't against it. He was pretty much already a loner in their old place.

But this is a Big change.

A new place.

New rules.

New people.

New streets.

New stores.

New school.

New time.

New EVERYTHING!

Everyone was WAY too enthusiastic for this.

It was REALLY overwhelming.

"Ok. Fine." "Yes!"

"But how much of stuff did you do?"

"Oh! We're almost finished."

"And how much do we have to move it again because you didn't placed it correctly?"

"Uuuh…"

"Alright. Kids!"

The siblings trio looked at their mother.

"Go look where your stuff are and place them in your rooms."

"How do we know which rooms is ours?" "Yeah! Which one!?"

"Obviously the one with two beds."

"Lucius."

"What!? Am I wrong?"

Evelyn sighed "The twins room is on the second floor while Lucius' is in the basement."

"WOOHOO! Cool air and darkness!"

"NOT FAIR! Why does he have the whole basement and us just a tiny room?" "We demand fairness!"

"Your room have two doors, a sliding wall you can close anytime so you can keep your privacy to each other and it's as big as the master bedroom. Which make your brother's bedroom the smallest of all of us."

"Yeah. If there's someone who should demand fairness, it's me. But I won't complaint. It's exactly what I wan- and they're gone."

The twins rush inside retrieving their misplaced belonging.

Jason whistled. "They're really into it."

"They've been really trilled about the idea of new "ghost story" to investigate. They even kept talking about the famous incidents during the whole ride."

"Incidents? You mean that pizzeria? What was its name again?"

"Freddy Fazbear's Pizza."

"Oh yeah. The bear one." Jason stated. (He wanted to feel included.)

"Kind of weird for one restaurant to have so much 'issues'." Edmund inquired.

"It wasn't one restaurant." He stated.

"Uh?"

"It was at least four or five. Some of them were probably even in the same location, but that's just a theory."

"You sound quite invested for someone who doesn't like 'ghost stories'?" Edmund asked his son.

He sighed "It has nothing to do about ghost. It's a bunch of kidnapings, murders, cover ups, arsons, 'malfonctioning' animatronics and much more. They even had the culprit for a time, but he suddenly vanished after his release."

"Why did they released him if he clearly was 'the man behind the slaughter'?"

"Lack of evidence."

"Really!?"

"No body. No weapon. No murder."

"This city has serious problems with illegality."

"And that's one downgrade of this place." His mother replied.

"That's another thing good for inspiration. I remember you saying that often for excuses to your friends."

"It is good for inspiration."

"Well, I guess there's no need for me to stay." Uncle Jason interrupted.

"Really? Don't you want to stay a little? We're about to have take outs." Edmund replied to his brother.

"Very nice of you. But the move was exausthing and I have to go back. It's a long route, you know."

"Right. Well, don't hesitate to call us, okay?"

"I sure won't."

"Bye. Thank you again for everything. Be safe on the road." His mother told her brother-in-law.

"Of course Ev."

"HEY THE JS! COME SAY GOODBYE! YOUR UNCLE IS GOING!"

"BYE UNCLE JAY!" They can hear two distinct voices deep inside the house.

"BYE KIDS! You too, Luce."

"You're not italian."

"It was more latin, but alright."

(CRAP! Right. It pretty much means the same thing as his name. Urgh. He's so tired.) "A-anyway. Goodbye uncle J."

"Don't get in too much trouble."

"I'll do my best, but I can't promise anything. Especialy with these two inside."

"Hehe. Fair. And don't course for a girlfriend too hard, ok?"

Sure. A 'Girlfriend'. "That's you who think that."

"Eheh. Anyway. Bye Ev. Bye lil' bro."

"Bye Big J."

"Don't molest him too much, Ev."

"I'll try my best!"

Jason got in his truck and drives away of the house.

"You're not actually going to molest me, right?"

"Depends on how much we need to replaced."

"Ehe.. uuuh."

The parents entered their new home while he retrieved his stuff in the car. As he walked towards his place, he noticed movements out of the corner of his eye.

The only thing he was able to see was a single house a few meters from him. It was pretty old. And clearly abandoned judging by its lack of maintenance.

Did he saw it right? He was sure something or someone were observing him.

(He didn't dreamed it, right? There was a shade looking at him a second ago.)

Lucius stared at the house for a moment. Time seemed to instantly freeze.

Everything was quiet. Everything stayed still. Like there was only him and the house.

"LUCIUS! YOU'RE COMING!?"

He jumped at the call. "YEAH YEAH! I'M COMING!"

He looked back at the house for a minute.

(Strange.)

He walked back to his house.

He really needed to sleep.

---

Completed.

What do you think? @murkymusito

Should I post it? 🤔

[danggirlronpa]

6, 7 and 23 of the Danganronpa asks.

6. Do you have a fan character? Tell us about them!

I...DO.............the concept is that she's class 78th's (Makoto's class) homeroom teacher. Like Chisa, she wants to encourage the class to engage in their lives as high schoolers, but unlike Chisa, she is less Nurturing Caretaker and more Serious Professor. She's the Ultimate Prosecutor, and she structures her class as a round circle debate club. The only time she softens up is when around bunnies.

The idea is that it's a ton of little stuff that can be picked apart as reasons for stuff that's unexplained later - why Junko picked the trial system (replacing fond memories of faux class trials with the despair of the true class trials), why Usami is designed as a bunny (though her personality was taken more from Chisa), etc. - so there's a lot of retroactive foreshadowing, but also a guise through which to see the THH embrace each other and grow as people. Ultimately she's more of a catalyst and perspective character than she is a person with her own arc, because I would love to explain the pregame students one day and the depth of the tragedy that is their lost memories. But Not Today. Maybe I'll draw her one day, too!

7. You get the chance to reassign five characters new talents. Who do you choose, and which new talents do they get?

YES. YESSSS.

Mukuro: Ultimate Mercenary. The wording on this just pisses me off. She was part of a mercenary company. Come on.

Akane: Ultimate Parkour Artist. Another one that just pisses me off. She calls it parkour.

Byakuya: Ultimate Butler. This is the first one where we're going off the rails a bit. Listen. I would hate Byakuya no matter what. That's just how he and I are. Destined mortal enemies. But I would hate him slightly less if his nonsense asshole snobbiness was because he served the rich instead of because he is rich. At least then I could justify it as internalized class politics. Instead of just being. Some rich guy.

Nekomaru: Ultimate Nurse. I couldn't tell you why, but "team manager" always struck me as a really weird, out-of-place talent. But between his knowledge of the body (he can do...It) and his experience as a child in the hospital, I think Nekomaru would be a great nurse!!

Tenko: Ultimate Aikido Master. You'll notice this is not a different name. But it IS a different talent. Because it's just regular aikido. Why did they decide Tenko would have her own fake aikido that wasn't as good. That was so weird. Just let her do aikido.

23. Which are your top three favorite beta designs?

I don't look at the beta designs too often, but these are the ones that stick out to me!

The Sakura art always stood out to me - though I understand why they didn't do it, considering the colorist implications becoming Even Worse. The Fuyuhiko concept art stood out to me in a different way. Look at how stupid that guy looks. Look at that chin. What a man.

I don't actually really like any of Tenko's designs, though I do like this one better than her final one. The most important part is the little snaggletooth on the right. I LOVE that. I LOVE snaggletooth Tenko. I'm obsessed with it.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Monsters of Rock 1998 Hair Metal / Hard Rock / Arena Rock /Heavy Metal / Pop-Metal

Good lord, this had to have been one of the most heavily advertised albums of all time, man. I don't know how much ad money the Razor & Tie label shelled out for all of their 'As Seen on TV' comps back in the day, but the commercials for Monsters of Rock and Monster Ballads were fucking inescapable throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, especially. Like, you'd be watching something on cable, and the commercial for this album would come on, so then you'd change the channel, and the same commercial would be playing on there too! And then you'd just force yourself to sit through it, and eventually, through repetition, the entire sequence of little song snippets that gets played throughout the ad would become a permanently etched medley inside of your goddamn mind, destined to haunt your soul for the rest of eternity:

🎶Cum on feel the noize, girls rock ya boys…my, my, my, I'm once bitten, twice shy, babe…poison!…*synths from Europe's "The Final Countdown"*…round and round, what comes around goes around, I'll tell you why…she's my cherry pie, cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise…we're not gonna take it, no! we ain't gonna take it…she's only seventeen, seventeen…here I go again on my own…I'm no fool, nobody's fool, nobody's fool…so hold on loosely…🎶

Now, the hair metal era may have been the dumbest and most ridiculous period of mainstream rock that we've ever borne witness to—and it's very difficult for me to think of another commercially successful subgenre in which rank stupidity has been such an inherently defining trait—but thanks to a combination of my own nostalgia for these damn Razor & Tie ads and my sometimes weird and ironic affinity for bad shit, after listening to this album, there is really nothing more that I want to do than hitch a ride back to 1990 so I can live out a super corny fantasy as a badass suburban high school senior who cruises through town in a boxy, red sedan with the windows down as these silly songs blare out of my speakers 😎.

But like I said, I am also under no illusion here; I'm fully cognizant of just how patently absurd so much of this music was. And when it comes to the pinnacle of pure trash, I really don't think anything ever quite managed to top Warrant's signature 1990 anthem, "Cherry Pie," which is obviously on this album. Like, have you heard or thought about this tune recently? It really might be the single-dumbest song that's ever been recorded in human history. And as the single-dumbest song that's ever been recorded in human history, it has thankfully and, I guess quite fittingly, been memorialized in some way, since…*checks notes*…you can currently go see the pizza box that its lyrics were originally transcribed on at the Hard Rock Cafe in Destin, Florida… 😭.

🎶I scream, you scream, we all scream for her Don't even try, 'cuz you can't ignore her!🎶

Also, Winger's "Seventeen." Yikes; you can probably guess what that one's about! Talk about songs that haven't aged well at all 😩:

🎶She's only seventeen (seventeen) Daddy says she's too young, but she's old enough for me🎶

Yeah… This one's catchy and all, but, um…no. 👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎 Really glad we've finally realized as a society that, at the very least, fully-grown adults singing lustily about minors is a very unacceptable thing to do. I mean, it took way too long for us to get here, but at least we've finally made it to this point, right? And I think "Cherry Pie" is probably about a minor too, by the way, but that's also up for debate 😑.

To be clear, though, not every song on this album is embarrassingly dumb and/or skeevy hair metal. I happen to think Living Colour's alt metal classic, "Cult of Personality," is a genuinely great banger. And I also dig the southern rock smoothness of a song like .38 Special's "Hold On Loosely" too; but most of the rest of these are just pure dunderheaded hair metal classics, and a key, overarching feature of this stuff was just how fucking maximally mindless it all was. It's hard to put a finger on what exactly allowed this madness to spread so widely and flourish for nearly a whole-ass decade in the first place, but thank goodness grunge came along when it did and dethroned this stuff from its perch as rock music's top subgenre in the early 90s, because, seriously, this shit was so excessive and outrageous.

All that being said though, and as good and necessary as grunge was back then, I can't help but imagine what a kick-ass time it would probably be to have almost any one of these Monsters of Rock songs come on at the bar while you and everyone else around you are in a highly intoxicated stupor; like, "Black Hole Sun," "Man in the Box," "Interstate Love Song," "Even Flow," etc., might be total jams in and of themselves, but songs like those are probably not gonna do the same trick as something like Alice Cooper's "Poison" can in that type of situation. I mean, when you're fully committed to annihilating some brain cells, it's good to have music that's way ahead of you in order to accompany your experience, right? 😅

Highlights:

Quiet Riot - "Cum On Feel the Noize" Great White - "Once Bitten Twice Shy" Alice Cooper - "Poison" Europe - "The Final Countdown" Ratt - "Round and Round" Warrant - "Cherry Pie" Whitesnake - "Here I Go Again" Winger - "Seventeen" Living Colour - "Cult of Personality" Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It" Judas Priest - "You've Got Another Thing Coming" Cinderella - "Nobody's Fool" .38 Special - "Hold On Loosely" Autograph - "Turn Up the Radio"

[charlottesbookclub]

General Armitage Hux Headcanons (pt. 2)

okay so to prove that I'm still alive and bc I just feel the need to write, have some of my more unhinged Hux thoughts!!

(headcanons under the cut bc they got long as always)

people have absolutely said this before but I guess I'll just reaffirm my agreement here: Hux for sure has an incredibly detailed hygiene routine that involves both skin and hair care

when he's on the bridge or in meetings, he keeps as still and stoic as possible, but if he's working on something alone in his own quarters, he bounces his leg or taps his stylus against the desk. typically it's just a single repetitive movement, and he's usually unaware he's even doing it (is this bc those are some of my stims and I project too much onto fictional characters?? who's to say, who's to say.......)

okay this one's kinda sad but Armitage genuinely has no real sense of self. his identity has been so wrapped up in the development of the first order that it has become his identity. that and the fact that rank determines so much in the first order have conditioned him to believe that his rank within the order is him, if that makes sense. that's part of the reason he wants the title grand marshal so much; because in his eyes, achieving that title is Hux reaching his fullest potential and - to him - becoming his truest self that he was always destined to be

following off this last one, Hux has no real idea of what he actually likes. when the crew is planetside, his lieutenants might spend their time off shift going to restaurants or bars or even attractions like museums or whatever the space equivalent of an amusement park is. Armitage's life is consumed with work, work, and then more work, so if he has even the slightest bit of free time, he's left in this weird limbo of not knowing what he wants to do, because he doesn't actually know what he likes to do. Br*ndol's abuse, the fact that he grew up a refugee, and just the nature of the first order in general essentially assured that the young Hux never got to develop any interests outside of those that would further the cause of the order. so while he does enjoy engineering and some of the work that he does (not all though - he suffers through the rest because he knows it will help the first order's cause) he genuinely has no idea what his interests are outside of that

again, building off the last one, this is part of the reason that he does work so much. he hates that weird, unsettled feeling of not knowing what to do with himself. and, as a man of efficiency with little time for the consideration of his own emotions, rather than interrogate that strange, hollow feeling further, he just dives back into something he knows: work. also, if he's working, the thoughts and weird feeling go away, so it's a win-win in his opinion

I guess this circles back to the first one a little bit, but when he's had a particularly hard day (or a run-in with Snoke or Kylo), Armitage will allow himself to take a long shower. typically, he just gives himself enough time to clean himself, and he often makes himself take cold showers because he believes it helps invigorate the body or whatever. but on those hard days, he'll turn the heat way up - like, all the way up - and just stand under the nearly-scalding current of water until his pale skin turns bright pink and the refresher is clouded with steam. also, he often cries. not that he acknowledges that though - tears? nah, that's just moisture on his face from the water (also I was thinking about writing an angsty little fic based on this headcanon if people would be interested in that)

okay, so that's all I've got for now, but I hope you enjoyed these (and that they didn't make you too sad). as always, I'd love to know your thoughts on these and any other headcanons or ramblings you'd like to share!

[sugarywishes]

Going in the post FNAF6 events, is there any other notable changes of note in this AU? Like changes to the games before Security Breach, different animatronics, etc, or is it pretty much one to one otherwise?

Okay, so this is where my rewrite starts to become a little...weirder than usual since I changed a LOT about post FNAF 6, (although believe me the security breach part will need its own post!) Reminder that this is still very much a work in progress, I haven't fully finished thinking the whole thing out yet, so as time goes on there is a possibility of lore updates or changes, answers below as usual!

Well for FNAF UCN, I know there's people who think that Andrew (i don't actually know who this is, but it's some kid from the books) is 'The One You Should Not Have Killed'/TOYSNHK, but lowkey i think that's stupid and I have decided to not include him. As I've said plenty of times before this rewrite does not include ANYTHING from the books (okay I lied there's a handful of things from the books that I've altered to fit into my story because I like the idea of it, but I'll list ALL the changes of the rewrite in another post if people are interested!)

Cassidy is TOYSNHK. Old Man Consequences is Henry, I guess. And yes, UCN is Afton's afterlife prison created by Cassidy, but it's not his real afterlife destination. He probably could've been able to escape sooner it had it not been for Cassidy constantly torturing him. And also Afton comes back I guess. Besides that everything is the same! (Mostly because, does this game really matter? It's basically just a spin off)

Anyways onto Help Wanted, I guess the only changes are just handfuls!

As we know in canon, Fazbear Ent. hired Silver Parasol Games to create a game trivializing and mocking the company's past to make a quick buck and probably to get people off their back about it. However an incident involving a beta tester named Jeremy (I'll get back to that in a sec) caused production of the game to halt, and development of the game was sent to another unknown company (presumably Fazbear Ent. Maybe?) But I'm altering some of that.

Silver Parasol Games does not exist in my rewrite. Instead the development company working on the game is a branch of the Fazbear Ent. Company, mostly because I feel like it makes sense for this moronic business to employ their own workers to do stuff for them at a cheaper rate than actually pay another studio more money to get things done. While the incident with Jeremy still occurred, the game halted production because Fazbear Ent. had to deal with the legal issues cause yk...one of your employees disfigured himself and probably a few people saw that. And after that was dealt with (rather swiftly, they probably bribed a few people here and there) the game production continued.

As for tape girl in this rewrite, uh...idk, I made her Vanessa/Vanny. I know there's probably some evidence out there that is like "but they're two different people you idiot !!" And yeah I'm sure they probably are but whatever, this rewrite has way too many characters and I'm not dealing with that. I felt like it didn't make sense for Tape Girl to not deal with Glitchtrap herself instead of getting the player to do it themselves. Like you said you knew a way to get rid of him, so...why didn't you do it earlier?? Anyways the way I'm changing Tape Girl and her lore is gonna be weird to explain, but that's for me to refine later in life!

Anyways, back to Jeremy, I made the choice to not make him Jeremy Fitzgerald, because 1. I feel bad for the poor dude already, he already lost half his head, does he need to lose his whole face too?? 2. Jeremy in HW isn't too important anyway, so no point in bringing Jeremy back just to kill him off (I mean J. Fitzgerald isn't that important either, but 🤷🤷) and 3. He would be too fucking old for this! During 1983 he was about 15-16 years old, and presuming HW takes place around modern time, he'd probably be in his 40s or 50s I think (maybe 60s idk, there's a reason it's my least favorite subject 💀💀) and like what the hell would he be doing there? Senior citizen ass go to the retirement home bro. And also who the hell would work AGAIN for the company who covered up the time you got your BRAIN BIT OFF by one of their robots??

And yeah Glitchtrap = William Afton. However, he STILL doesn't have any memories of his life as William (and now, he only barely remembers Mike and Henry, his strongest memories are when he was Springtrap and Scraptrap) when he escaped the UCN afterlife prison created by Cassidy, he managed to find out how much things have changed in the company, and more importantly he found out about the game they were developing.

He still wanted to have an immortal life (cause he also vaguely remembers wanting to live longer from when he was still working on reviving Evan, and his 'brain' scrambled it into him wanting to live FOREVER, no dead son here!) And he was like, "well, I guess coming back as a digital entity would be awesome!" But remember there's still a chance of him being fully deleted forever as explained by Tape Girl, so his plan is to infect people with his virus to use them as vessels to live in the real world again (and maybe collect remnant? Idk, this is still an idea I'm debating on keeping in this part, will likely get dropped though.)

(Also, I guess Special Delivery can stay the same in my re-imagining, not much to change about it and I like the Vanny lore!)

Again, I'm still working out the kinks here. This will probably be subjected to change if it calls for it! Any questions, let me know!

[teekays]

bless us with your ekky thoughts please and thank you 😌

EKKYYYY my terrible son. my horrible son who hates and bites me

First impression

my first impression of ekky was literally like the comic that's like "awww how cute! OH! he's a little bit fucked up actually!" i saw like. pictures of him and then i actually saw him committing atrocities and i was like wow... a princess who bites. i can get into this

Impression now

more than probably anyone else ekky's whole deal is SO FUNNY to me. because like. he has a terrible personality actually in many ways. he's SO competitive like WILDLY competitive which is saying something because he literally works at the competitive guy factory. not letting your two year old brother win at things to "teach him to appreciate winning more later" is CRAZYYY. he is pouty and insane and a little bit evil but in a fun and silly way. he has bitten before and he will bite again, gladly. and he does all this while looking like a disney prince with those bright pink kissable lips. the way that he made himself a hockey player out of sheer force of will is so fascinating to me like the fact that he will readily admit that he was not good at hockey at all until he was like, 16 but he just worked and worked at it and now he's the guy you want on the ice when you need someone to go unbridled beast mode... in many ways so much more interesting than someone who has heaps of natural talent. descended from a Vibes Guy and becoming his own special brand of Vibes Guy but the Vibes in question are kind of scary? he's my favorite teen mom <3

Favorite moment

this video where he's like. genuinely pissy and mad about his brother "letting their dad win" like bro you are beefing with a teenager 😭😭😭 i don't even speak swedish and i can tell he's mad. something so wrong with him

Idea for a story

the funniest thing about the san jose barracuda is that fundamentally they are just a bunch of coworkers which is true about all hockey teams but the cuda have a vibe that would translate really well to like, an actual job which a lot of teams don't. but i simply think they should all work at a restaurant together complete with the insane interpersonal sexual politics of working at a restaurant. vanderpump cuda ekky is stassi. this has just devolved into saying words but the restaurant idea is so real and true to me. ekky would love unfettered access to a bar soda gun

Unpopular opinion

maybe only unpopular to the sharks front office but give my man a contract. a big one. full time. run him his check. let him bite at the pro level. come on.

Favorite relationship

him and bordy for sure because narratively there is some crazyyy stuff happening there like the previously mentioned "they're destined to play together" and the way that they are both nepo babies but in different ways... fascinating. the alex holtz relationship is also up there tho because like... it could be very "you're the star and i'm just your weird friend" but ekky is like yes i am the weird friend. what about it. the weird friend can control their own narrative.

Favorite headcanon

i think he is, like many of us, a little treat girlie. like he needs a little beverage and a snack to get him through the horrors. you know how it is

[dark-twist-fairytales]

Okay, well, I guess this is as good of a time as ever.

Ninjago AU's:

(Plain text: Ninjago AU's:) All of these have been swirling in my mind for A WHILE. No, some of them literal years! I'm going to go through this one by one, give details, and tell more while also naming them.

Dragon AU (Original)

(Plain text: Dragon AU (Original))

This AU has been with me for years, and has since gone through MAJOR changes. Which is why THIS is going through the Original version of the AU

-Loosely based around the movie, as it had been created around this time (think 2017-2019)

-High school sort of AU

-Dragons were hunting for the 'ninja', aka, elemental power users

-Only those with the elemental powers could see THEIR dragons wings

-Dragons were hatched/raised together by someone, taught a human form, and left to fend for themselves after their passing.

-Knew basic skills and what their goal to find was.

-Cole was a baker. I don't know why this was such an important detail, but it was.

-Incompleted, lead to a dead end, original won't be worked on, but a wonderful memory nonetheless

Royalty AU

(Plain text: Royalty AU)

Ninjas were royalty instead of ninjas! Everyone had their own kingdoms to rule as either kings, queens, princes, or princesses!

-Kingdoms loosely based around elements

-Loosely based after Tournament of Elements, only Lord Garmadon and Lloyd are.. Well, Lord and child

-There was a previous side-blog dedicated to this, but the original has since been deleted (nothing was actually on it, don't worry)

-Revamp blog can be found here: @royalty-ninjago

Dragon AU (ReMake)

(Plain text: Dragon AU (ReMake))

This is the current version of the Dragon AU! A lot of changes, a lot of major bringings, and so much with this AU that I just Love.

-Loose college based AU

-Cole's working to become a teacher. Zane a doctor, while working alongside Misako at a museum. Jay's an inventor and you can pry that out of my cold, dead hands. Kai's partially dyslexic (barely having a proper education as a younger kid), but working to be a blacksmith instructor.

-Nya's there, don't worry. So it Lloyd!

-Yes, there are still dragons! Don't worry about where.

-This AU is being written down, so not TOO much will be spoiled. Chapter 1 is about.. Maybe halfway done with?

Possessed? Jay AU

(Plain text: Possessed? Jay AU)

This came from a really weird fact pointing with @ninjago-autism-hours , and being written down. This will eventually be posted to Ao3 when completed and linked.

Ignacia Curse AU

(Plain text: Ignacia Curse)

I have named this AU finally!! You can find the information here!

Headcanon X Show Crossover AU

(Plain text: Headcanon X Show Crossover AU)

This one is self explanatory: My headcanons for the ninjas meeting themselves in a crossover.

Ninja-less AU

(Plain text: Ninja-less AU)

Once again, a little self explanatory, but more in depth than you think.

-Wu never finds the Ninja, despite trying to. Lord Garmadon is still 'Lord', and is still destined to destroy Ninjago, with Lloyd trying to stop him.

-The four OG's work on themselves and their own skills;

-Kai becomes a skilled blacksmith after years

-Jay becomes a spontaneous/on-the-spot inventor/mechanic and creates many things, ranging from cars to jets

-Zane becomes this sort of grey area of a 'Jack of all trades', yet still dedicated to helping people out

-Cole becomes an infamous hit man. No, I'm serious, that's where my mind went to for Fole, and it stuck.

-Lloyd somehow ends up in Cole's care, crossing paths before the snakes could be released, so the whole Pythor thing doesn't happen...

-Or does it?

-Can't remember details, but Pythor gets released. The 'ninja' have connections with each others, yet are so disconnected, you'd never think they'd know each other!

-They do. Barely.

-Morro also gets released, but instead of possessing Lloyd, zeoh just.. Kind of vibes with Cole and Lloyd, but most often gets left in Zane's care.

-There was a lot to this and I loved it a lot. I need to write this down.

Mute Kai AU

(Plain text: Mute Kai AU)

A more what if: Kai was a mute

-Pilot would be changed MAJORLY. The dudes wouldn't know Kai's name until Nya said it!

-Actions become words to the Ninja, and so often, Kai will motion in a really basic way to confuse someone, and then Jay pops up like 'Oh, yeah, we can absolutely go get something to eat after this', or Cole saying 'No, I think you're confusing Mystake with the other tea lady.'

-Just that. Mute Kai. There's a scar on Kai's neck that glows gold at random points, but no one ever says anything about it.

-Nya actually knows sign language, and has taught the others bit by bit so they can actually hold a conversation with Kai. By the time season 3 rolls around, they all know sign language and finger spelling.

+Jay's both offended and accomplished by his sign name (first starting as just 'talks a lot', but changed to 'electric boom', or something like that)

Dragon Kai AU

(Plain text: Dragon Kai AU)

If Kai was a hybrid of human and dragon. There's a LOT on this already, check the tag 'dragon kai' or 'dragon kai au'

Bizzaro Verse

(Plain text: Bizzaro Verse)

There's already a good bit about this out in the tags 'bizzaro verse'.

[shortpplfedup]

My School President Episode 8: Don't stop believing

So was it just me or was this episode PERFECT? My #1 Glee episode of all time is season 1's 'Sectionals' and this gave me the exact same vibes and feelings. This week, in the most episode to ever episode Gun is a menace, just like I knew he would be, and count Tinn in as gleefully horny about it; Win starts doing boyfriend tings for Sound, because he is at heart a big ol' softy and wounded warrior is his specific jam; and Chinzhilla finally get to the preliminary round of Hot Wave and CRUSH IT...

...but not before first having a true one-braincell moment of the kind I've been missing for a few episodes.

Verse: Don't stop til you get enough

I have a dream, a fantasy To help me through, reality And my destination, makes it worth the while Pushin' through the darkness, still another mile

ABBA | I Have A Dream (1979)

It's the nature of the beast that is rehearsal that eventually somebody is gonna get pissed off and start yelling about how much everybody sucks and nobody is taking it seriously. Repeating the same thing over and over striving for perfection is one of the most frustrating things a human being can do. Chinzhilla going into a week of basically nonstop rehearsal was always going to be beset with frayed tempers. Throwing Gun's desperation, Sound's bum wrist, Por's hamster-wheel chef brain and Kajorn's...Kajorn-ness into the mix was a weird powder keg that was bound to get set off somehow. Luckily the explosions were minor and contained.

Tinn has preternatural emotional intelligence for such a young man. Or maybe he's just been paying attention to Gun for so long, and listening to him so intently, that he knows exactly what Gun needs when he needs it. Breaking the tension by shoving Gun into the pool, suggesting he scream out his frustrations underwater, acquiescing to being dunked himself, just generally giving him an outlet that isn't shouting at the friends who have walked this entire journey with him; that's exactly what Gun needs when he needs it, and without Tinn being there, my guess is that things would have escalated quickly.

Chorus: Dream a little dream of me

'Cause you know I've got So much that I wanna do When I dream I'm alone with you, it's magic

ABBA | Take A Chance On Me (1977)

Also showing up this week: the horn. Tinn's fantasies are becoming sexier, and also less private, as he's openly zoning out now to envision Gun in all manner of adorably racy situations. I appreciate that the horny teenagers are actually allowed to be horny in this, and also to let each other know that horny thoughts are being thunk. Gun can tease Tinn with a promise of allowing him to 'give orders' for a week because he knows Tinn's probably going to be into that shit, and it gives him a little tingle as well. In return, Tinn can tease Gun with last second swerve to a forehead kiss and a bold statement that it won't be his forehead that he kisses next time. I just love watching people realise in real time the sexual power they hold over somebody they're also into, because that leads into my favourite BL trope: gay chicken.

Bridge: Mama said

I used to think I was sensible It makes the truth even more incomprehensible 'Cause everything is new And everything is you And all I've learned has overturned What can I do?

ABBA | Lay All Your Love On Me (1980)

In other news, Tinn's mom returns to the picture this episode, and that feels right because I don't think we could have gone on much longer without carrying on the runner that is Tinn's soft rebellion. Tinn brushing off his direct examination study and then the meet up with the interviewer to help and support Gun are choices that his mom is not at all pleased with, and that's got to be coming back around soon with only 4 (!) episodes left to go. Tinn does have to find a balance between supporting Gun's dreams and pursuing his own, that's something that Gun understands clearly if their conversation on the basketball court is any indication. In his head, Tinn knows that too, knows that his mom and Gun are both right about meeting the doctor being more important than going to the show. But his heart Anita, but his heart!...ok ok no more musical references today.

Outro: Defying gravity

People everywhere A sense of expectation hangin' in the air Givin' out a spark Across the room, your eyes are glowin' in the dark

ABBA | Voulez-vous (1979)

Say what you want but the moment Tinn busts through the doors just as the guitar solo ends and then Gun starts the bridge to 'Just Being Friendly' is fucking movie musical perfection. It was beautiful, it was joyful, it was sexy, it was EVERYTHING. It's no wonder Gun wanted to kiss the stuffing out of him after that, but Tinn is a man with his eye on the prize. He's waited this long, he can wait a little longer to make sure Gun will never regret his feelings for him. He wants Gun to come to him triumphant, not before time, and not defeated.

Ad Libs

First episode without a new OST or cover. A fabulous a cappella arrangement of Come Closer though!

Gun unlocked something very specific in Tinn with that whispered "Mr. School President, don't you want to give me orders?"

Drunk Gun was absolute perfection. Who among us hasn't been either the drunk friend or the sober friend trying desperately to keep the drunk friend from being rumbled? Also, drunk Gun silently flirting with Tinn via hand signals while also ready to throw hands at Kajorn at any moment gave me excellent chaos.

"Shit, the cops!" GUN PLEASE!🤣

Win offering to be Sound's hand, kinky! I loved absolutely everything Win/Sound this ep, and I love even more that it's happening right under everybody's noses but nobody will even think of putting it together.

The return of PaTinn the interviewer!

Tinn called himself Gun's boyfriend, and Gun did not correct him.

The in media res opening for the episode was effectively tense.

Beach episode next week!

[sketching-shark]

Im kinda am getting annoyed how much they r avoiding saying swk actual name. Like whats the point of him having a name if the show is not gonna refer to him with his name besides having moments of characters chastising him using his first name. Ie: just yelling out wukong.

Liek i want to here his various other titles besides monkey king. Its pretty weird how they’re solely just calling him monkey kings when hes just 1 of many monkey kings :/

Sometimes, i wonder if they knew that they could have kept swk w all of complex characteristics without having to downplay any of it so they can uplift mk. (Mk is such a amazing character dont get me wrong i do adore him. But it suck that in a equivalent exchange of a good character we get a frankly a worse vers of sun wukong.

Like not even other versions of swks ever acted(or granted made such repeated mistakes) like how lmk swk do. Like theres no one defending him within the shown(mk doesn’t count bc literally thats his teacher. But even he himself doesn’t realize he’s afraid of becoming like swk.) and as much as lmk writers, producer etc etc. want, they have to actually have to show swk’s side. Bc by the time lmk is over, its going to v hard to give him justice when almost everyone have a right idea of keeping him away bc how much hes a danger to everyone.

I also am a lmk LEMH hater forever. i just think he shouldn’t of have that type of importance to swk when hes just a dude w a pent up superiority/inferiority (he can have both bc yea)complex thats in a parasocial relationship to swk. Like sure he died and all but so did all the other demons in jttw. Hell he didn’t got the vore kill treatment like other demons like azure lion did.

Monkie Kid spoilers below

AWETTHGRFRWETETFGDSD THE VORE KILL TREATMENT THAT'S A PHRASE THAT WILL STICK WITH ME FOREVER ANON.

But YEAH this is a pretty good summary of many things said before anon...in particular it's genuinely disheartening how Qi Xiaotian's experiences have brought him from a state of being excited at the thought he could be like Sun Wukong to now being terrified that he's destined to be like the Monkey King...but then again how could be not be. We're now 4 seasons in and everything just gets worse and worse for the little monkey lego man in large part because of the things his shifu did or failed to do. At this point even with the hints of the torture headband making a significant appearance, trying to defend or even understand SWK's actions in the present kind of seems like a fool's errand, and I genuinely am worried that no backstory Flying Bark gives their version of the Monkey King will provide a satisfactory reason for why he acts the way he does. As it is there's been a pretty consistent flow of popular fan works about the Monkey King getting punched & yelled at & portrayed as completely in the wrong, and well I do not see that ending any time soon given the events of canon material :(

As always I want to note that I'm fully capable of being too negative and pessimistic & forgetting the good sides of SWK's lego show character and that yeah obviously there's a lot of other characters running around with more antagonistic intentions (including perhaps this mysterious person who may be behind Azure Lion being freed as part of some greater scheme). But between this already firmly established characterization of SWK as a liar who's ideas routinely end in nothing but catastrophe for even those he loves and the show itself pretty clearly having little interest in including SWK in the story's adventures outside of an explodey ending or being a problem that needs to be dealt with because of his disastrous decisions (given how much he keeps getting shoved out of the plot), well...you can see why many people think this could easily end with even Qi Xiaotian thinking Sun Wukong is a lost cause.

[bamby0304]

The Hart III: Secrets

Ch.28: Carver Edlund

Series Masterlist

Summary: Three months… Dean was gone for three months and now he’s back. He’s back and he truly has no idea how much things have changed. Life moved on while Dean was in Hell, and now things are complicated. With new faces and troubles right around the corner, will the trio find a way to come back together? Or has all hope been lost?

Bamby

DPOV

The moment the man in front of me pulled his fingers away from where they'd been pressed to my forehead, it was like everything around me changed. Like the lighting dimmed a little as everything settled back into place.

"What the hell?" I frowned, looking around, confused... as I looked down at myself, the confusion only grew. "Why am I wearing a tie?" As if on cue, my stomach growled, pulling my attention to the fact that it felt like I hadn't eaten in weeks. "My God, am I hungry."

The man in front of me- who dressed in a suit which I was pretty sure would be more expensive than the one I was wearing- chuckled lightly. "Welcome back."

Standing up I looked him up and down, getting ready to be on the defensive. "Wait. Did I- did I just get touched by... you're an angel, aren't you?"

"I'm Zachariah."

I groaned, "Oh, great. That's all I need is another one of you guys."

He smirked at my response, moving around to stand on my side of the desk in the office we stood in. "I'm hardly another one, Dean. I'm Castiel's superior. Believe me, I had no interest in popping down here into one of these smelly things." He gestured to the body he was wearing. "But after the unfortunate situation with Uriel, I felt it necessary to pay a visit. Get my ducks in a row."

"I am not one of your ducks."

"Starting with your attitude," he added without missing a beat.

"Oh, so, what? This was all some sort of a lesson?" I gestured to the room, but was talking about everything I was remembering... though I wasn't sure if it had all been real or not. "Is that what you're telling me? Wow. Very creative."

"You should see my decoupage."

"Gross. No thank you." I frowned, genuinely grossed out, before going on. "So, what? I'm just hallucinating all this? Is that it?"

"Not at all." He shook his head, moving back to the other side of the desk. "Real place, real haunting. Just plunked you in the middle without the benefit of your memories."

The last thing I remembered was being in the hospital. I mean, I remember the rest, but it's like it wasn't me. Three weeks ago, I woke up in an apartment I knew, with a life I fully believed was my own. I had a new job, a family, things felt pretty great. I was a happy guy.

But then people started dying at work. Most of them were suicides. Things started to get a little weird- especially after I met Sam a couple of days ago. We'd been working here for the same amount of time, but while I was some fancy office guy, he was a cubicle worker bee. We knew nothing of each other, but still managed to become friends pretty quickly.

We figured out what was happening to all the people who were dying. We figure out who the ghost was and why they were here. We learnt how to kill it- which we did. We saved the day just like we did in our normal lives, despite the fact that we were one hundred percent clueless as to who we really were.

I shook my head at Zachariah. "Just to shake things up? Hm? So you guys can have fun watching us run around like ass clowns in monkey suits?" I snapped.

"To prove to you that the path you're on is truly in your blood. You're a hunter. Not because your dad made you, not because God called you back from hell, but because it is what you are. And you love it. You'll find your way to it in the dark every single time and you're miserable without it. Dean, let's be real here. You're good at this. You'll be successful. You will stop it."

"Stop what? The apocalypse, huh?" I asked, getting worked up. I just wanted an answer already. "Lucifer? What? Be specific, man."

"You'll do everything you're destined to do. All of it," he answered, without telling me what I actually wanted to know. Without telling me anything. "But I know, I know. You're not strong enough. You're scared. You got daddy issues. You can't do it. Right?"

"Angel or not, I will stab you in your face," I told him simply.

Ignoring me, he continued to speak. "All I'm saying is it's how you look at it. Most folks live and die without moving anything more than the dirt it takes to bury them. You get to change things." As I turned away he went on. "Save people, maybe even the world. All the while you drive a classic car and fornicate with women. This isn't a curse. It's a gift. So for God's sakes, Dean, quit whining about it." I turned back to him. "Look around. There are plenty of fates worse than yours. So are you with me? You wanna go steam yourself another latte? Or are you ready to stand up and be who you really are?"

SPOV

I was still reeling from everything that had just happened. I'd quit working at Sandover, walked out the front doors, and was hit with the memories of my real life. Just like that, I knew who I was. Only problem was, I had no idea how I'd gotten where I was.

The first thing I did was turn back around and ran inside, heading for Dean's office, hoping he'd be there and that he remembered too. But as the doors of the elevator opened, I came face to face with him and knew he remembered everything as well.

We both left then, getting in the car he'd been using during the three weeks that we hadn't been ourselves. As he drove, he explained to me what had actually happened to us. How the angels had erased our memories to prove a point. Then they'd told Dean where we could find the Impala and all our stuff- which is where we were headed.

We found the car parked in the middle of a forest, a tarp thrown over her. Sure enough, everything of ours was inside. Nothing appeared to have been touched. Though our phones had been dead. Needing to make sure everyone was okay and that we hadn't missed anything, we headed for the nearest diner where we could grab some food and charge our phones.

"So, this Zachariah guy just dumped us in the middle of a murder ghost hot spot, hoping that we'd figure out how to save the day?" I asked.

Dean shrugged, spooning a mouthful of pie onto his fork. "I mean, you even said it. It's in our blood," he noted.

He had a point. Even with all our memories missing, I still felt like we were destined for more. After we ganked the ghost, it was like I just knew that's what we were made for...

I reached for my phone and turned it on. The moment the light flashed on, I was bombarded with dozens of missed calls and messages from Bobby. Frowning, I checked some of the voice mails, hearing the worry in his voice. With each one he seemed to get more and more panicked. Then I heard the last one...

"I don't know where you boys are, but I need you to get here now. Lizzie... there's something wrong with her. I don't know what to-" The line cut off.

Grabbing my charger, bag and wallet, I threw some money on the table as Dean watched me with a confused frown. He hadn't checked his phone yet and had no idea about the missed calls and messages I was sure he'd have as well.

"Where are you goin'? We just got here," he noted with a mouth full of food.

"We gotta go. It's Lizzie."

That's all I had to say. Hearing the urgency in my voice, and seeing the concerned look on my face. Dean knew this wasn't some joke. He could see how serious this was. If Lizzie was in danger, we had to go and help. She was family.

Leaving his pie, he grabbed a napkin and stood, wiping his face quickly before throwing the napkin back on the table as we both left the diner in a rush.

DPOV

I was a fast driver. Sometimes Sam would scold me for it. I knew there were times where I would be a little too reckless just for the sake of having some fun, and it annoyed him. But at that moment, as I pressed my foot down as hard as I could, he didn't say a word.

We both knew we needed to get to Bobby's as soon as possible. It was a bit of a drive, but I wasn't going to let that slow us down. If Liz needed us, then we'd be there.

It was at that point, as I sped down the many roads, making our way to Bobby's, that I really wanted to rip the angels a new one. If they hadn't taken our memories away for their own purposes then Sam and I might have been able to be there for Liz and Bobby sooner.

It's their fault. Son of a bitch.

I was getting more and more worked up, the more I thought about it. My grip on the wheel tightened as I pressed my foot down even more.

We couldn't get there soon enough.

...

I slammed on the brakes as soon as we were at Bobby's. Dust and dirt picked up around Baby like a cloud, but Sam and I just ignored it as we hurried out of the car and towards the front door. Our feet pounded on the wooden boards of the porch, each of us lifting a hand to knock on the door with panicked force.

A moment or two later, the door opened. Bobby stood there, genuinely surprised to see both of us. But at the same time, he was equally relieved and annoyed.

"Where the hell have you two been?" he asked as he stepped back so Sam and I could enter the house.

"Long story-"

I cut Sam off, wanting to skip the pleasantries and get to the point, "Where's Liz?"

Bobby looked to each of us, an unreadable expression on his face as he gave a short nod and started for the stairs to head to the second story. Sam and I were right behind, saying nothing as we followed.

As we walked down the hall, Bobby stopped at a door.

When I was younger, Bobby use to take care of Sammy and I. A lot of the times we'd stay here. At first the room had been empty. Just some boxes in a corner. But one day, when I went to go look inside, it was suddenly locked. Since then, the door had never been opened.

When I was younger I thought it was because there might be something dangerous in there. As I got older I lost interest. If Bobby didn't want us to see something then he must have a good reason. But now, as he raised his hand to the open the door, I was surprised to see it open without a creak. The movement so smooth and silent...

Stepping inside, I found myself looking around at the unfamiliar room. Forest green walls, wooden dresser and chest of drawers. Books lined the shelves on the walls. A mirror sat above a dresser, with some photos framing it. White lace curtains sat on either side of the window. A wooden double bed with dark grey sheets sat under the window, and tucked under those sheets and blankets was Liz, fast asleep.

Just like that, it clicked. Nothing dangerous had been hiding in the room. Nothing sinister or creepy or weird. It had been locked for her privacy. Even when she hadn't lived here, when she'd gone off to hunt on her own, Bobby had kept the room locked.

"Sam called to tell me you were in the hospital," Bobby started as the three of us watched Liz, "I was about to go see you when that angel friend of yours showed up in the middle of my living room, with Lizzie. Her clothes were covered in blood, but she didn't look hurt. I didn't have time to ask any questions. The angel was gone as quickly as he showed up. I was still going to see you, but wanted to make sure she was okay first." He shook his head. "Last I heard she was with her boyfriend."

My jaw tensed at the reminder of her boyfriend. The reminder of the fact that he'd been lying, that he wasn't a hunter. I hadn't told anyone, yet, but the moment I was sure Liz was okay, I'd find out who that asshole really is.

As I stood there, I wondered where he might be. Why had Castiel been with her? Where was Tristan? Had something happened? Had they been hunting and something went wrong? Had he done something to her? Were they still together? Was he even still alive? So many questions...

"Once I was sure she was okay, I ended up leaving. Lizzie wanted to stay and get cleaned up. I told her I wouldn't be too long. When I got to the hospital both of you were gone. I waited and looked around for a day or so, tried callin' both of you, but you were missing. So, I headed back home. When I got back things still seemed to be fine, but I wanted to make sure. Decided to keep an eye on her.

"Spent a week with her here. Things went back to fine. Eventually I got word of a case, had to leave for a couple of days. We talked on the phone while I was away, but I could tell things were getting worse again. I don't know what happened, but when I got home I found her on the bathroom floor, passed out. Managed to get her to bed, but she didn't wake up for hours."

"You know what's wrong?" I asked, my concern growing with each word he said.

"Got no idea." Bobby shook his head. "She has good days and bad days. Most of the time she's fine. But..."

When he didn't say anything, I pressed for him to go on, "But what, Bobby?"

"I'm really worried about her. I just... I don't know what to do, boys."

EPOV

As I opened my eyes, I flinched at the light streaming into my room. It was like looking directly at the sun, though I knew that was just my body reacting to the withdrawals. I knew everything that was happening was because of that. It had been three weeks since I had demon blood, which hadn't been much, not to keep the withdrawal symptoms at bay long enough.

"Here."

I hadn't even realised someone else was in the room.

Dean stood from the chair that had apparently been set by my bed while I was asleep. Reaching over, he pulled the curtains closed, giving me instant relief. As he sat back down, he watched me carefully.

We were silent for a moment, just looking at each other. I knew he wanted to ask me a million questions, and I wanted to answer all of them. But he wasn't sure where to start and I wasn't sure if I should tell him anything...

"Hey."

A small smile played on my lips. "Hi."

"How are you feeling? You need anything?"

"I'm fine. But I do need something..." Wincing and hissing in pain, I managed to sit myself up, ignoring every ache in my body and throb in my head. "I need to get out of here."

"Liz, I don't think-"

"It's not a good idea. I agree. But Dean, nothing is going to make me feel better. There's just bad, and worse. Staying here, having you, Bobby and Sam worrying about me, is just going to make things worse. Getting out there, finding a distraction, it's the best thing for me right now."

I wasn't sure if that was true, and if I'm being honest, the idea of moving from my bed was a horrible idea. But I did know that staying here was not going to help me find Tristan and kill the asshole.

Yes, you heard right. I wanted to go out there, hunt, and do whatever it takes to find the asshole who did this to me, and kill him. Slowly.

"We don't even have a case-"

As I reached over to the drawer in my bedside table, Dean fell silent. He watched while I pulled out some articles, passing them to him. "Possible haunting. Looks like an easy gank."

Without a word, he took the papers and looked over them. Sighing, he turned his gaze back to me. "What if I say no?"

I gave him a small and knowing smile. "You won't."

DPOV

It took some convincing to get Bobby to let Liz leave with Sam and me. While I'd been in her room, Sam had filed Bobby in on what had happened to us. I guess finding out that the angels could go the same thing at any moment... I mean I understood why he didn't want Liz to go with us. Also, her hunting in this condition was not a good idea, even I knew that.

Yet here we were, dressed in out FBI suits, headed for a comic book store to find out if they'd seen or heard anything related to ghosts.

"Look, I know you said you're feeling fine-"

"Which I am," Liz insisted as I went on.

"But just take it easy. Okay?"

"I'm fine, Dean. I swear," she sighed, clearly annoyed.

Hurrying ahead, she walked into the comic book store without Sam and me. My brother and I shared a look, shaking our heads as we walked into to join her, moving to stand by the counter to talk to the guy at the cashier.

He looked up at us, his eyes glued to Liz. Every pair of eyes were. It was like they'd never seen a chick in here before... which they probably hadn't.

"Uh... can I help you?" the guy behind the counter asked.

"Sure hope so," I started as Sam, Liz and I pulled out our badges. "Agents DeYoung, Shaw and Gowen. Just need to ask you a few questions."

"Notice anything strange in the building, last couple of days?" Sam asked.

The guy looked confused. "Like what?"

"Well, some other tenants reported flickering lights," I noted.

"Uh, I don't think so. Why?"

"Have you heard any noises?" Liz questioned. "Skittering in the walls? Kind of like rats?"

The guy's confusion grew into scepticism. "And the FBI is investigating a rodent problem?"

Ignoring his snark, Sam went on. "What about cold spots? Feel any sudden drops in temperature?"

Slowly, as if realising something, the guy began to grin. "I knew it! You guys are LARPing, aren't you?"

It was my turn to frown, confused. "Excuse me?"

"You're fans."

"Fans of what?" Sam asked, equally confused.

"What is 'LARPing'?" I looked to Liz. "Do you know what 'LARPing' is?"

Before she could say anything, the guy behind the counter scoffed. "Like you don't know." But when we all continued to look at him with silent confusion, he explained what it was, "Live-Action Role-Play! And pretty hardcore, too."

I shook my head. "I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're asking questions like the building's haunted. Like those guys and that chick from the books. What are they called? Uh... Supernatural. Two guys and a girl, use fake IDs with rock aliases, hunt down ghosts, demons, vampires. What are their names? Uh... Steve, Dirk and Lexi...? Uh, Sal, Dane and Lilly...?"

Sam glanced at Liz and I for a moment before suggesting, "Sam, Dean, and Lizzie?"

The guy nodded enthusiastically. "That's it!"

"You're saying this is a book?" This was weirding me out and not helping with the confusion...

"Books," the guy corrected. "It was a series. Didn't sell a lot of copies, though. Kind of had more of an underground cult following." Getting up, he moved around the counter and towards a table labelled 'Bargain Bin'. Sam, Liz and I followed, tense and unsure. "Let's see. Um... ah. Yeah." He grabbed a book and handed it over to me. "That's the first one, I think."

I looked at the cover of the book- which had an illustration of a topless guy holding a shot gun, and a guy carrying a bag of salt, standing by what looked like the Impala. "'Supernatural' by Carver Edlund." Turning it over, I read the blurb out loud. "'Along a lonely California highway, a mysterious woman in white lures men to their deaths'."

"Give me that." Sam snatched the book from my hands to take a look. After a quick scan, he looked up at the guy. "We're gonna need all the copies of 'Supernatural' you've got."

EPOV

I sat on the couch in the hotel room I was sharing with Sam and Dean. Sam was on the computer at the table, doing some research. Dean was on his bed while I was on the couch, the two of us reading the books we'd gotten from the comic bookstore. At first, I thought it was amusing, reading Sam and Dean's lives... But when I showed up in the books, things got less funny. I felt very violated.

"This is freakin' insane," Dean suddenly spoke up, clear annoyed. "How'd this guy know all this stuff?"

Sam shrugged. "You got me."

"Everything is in here," Dean noted, flicking through one of the books. "I mean everything. From the racist truck to… to me having sex. I'm full-frontal in here, dude."

"I am too," I added.

Dean sat up and turned to me. "You are?" He sounded both pissed and interested. As if he wanted to read to but he didn't like the idea of other's reading it.

"Yep," I sighed, tossing him the book I'd been reading, as I got up and moved to sit at the table with Sam. "Like you said, everything is in these books." Even things the guys didn't know about…

Dean- holding he book I'd tossed him- stood and moved over to join Sam and me. "How come we haven't heard of them before?"

"They're pretty obscure," Sam noted. "I mean, almost zero circulation. Uh… started in '05. The publisher put out a couple dozen before going bankrupt. And, uh, the last one, No Rest for The Wicked," he turned the laptop towards Dean and me, showing us a list of the books, "ends with you going to hell," he told Dean.

"I reiterate. Freaking insane," Dean mumbled as he started to scroll through the page. "Check it out. There's actually fans. There's not many of them, but still. Did you read this?"

"Yeah." Sam nodded. He didn't seem as excited as Dean suddenly was.

"Although for fans, they sure do complain a lot. Listen to this. Simpatico says 'the demon story line is trite, clichéd, and overall craptastic'," Dean read. "Yeah, well, screw you, Simpatico. We lived it."

"Yeah. Well, keep on reading." Sam gestured to the laptop. "It gets better."

"There are 'Sam girls' and 'Dean girls' and..." Dean's brows furrowed. "What's a 'slash fan'?"

"As in... Sam-slash-Dean," Sam answered, a look of discomfort and disgust on his face. "Together."

"Like, 'together', together?" Dean asked, equally grossed out.

"Wait, what?" Grabbing the laptop, I took a look, cringing at the words before me. "Okay, gross..."

"Yeah," Sam sighed.

"They do know we're brothers, right?" Dean asked, genuinely disturb.

"Doesn't seem to matter," Sam noted.

"Oh, come on. That... that's just sick." Dean shut the laptop in disgust.

"They even have 'Sambeth girls' and 'Dizzie girls'." when Dean and I looked at Sam confused, but also afraid of what that meant, he explained. "Sambeth is a mix of Sam and Elizabeth. Dizzie, Dean and Lizzie. And then there's... 'Dean, Lizzie and Sam girls'."

I looked to both brothers, eyes going wide. "You mean... together? All three of us?"

Dean shook his head. "We got to find this Carver Edlund."

Sam sighed again. "Yeah, that might not be so easy."

"Why not?" Dean and I asked at the same time.

"No tax records, no known address," Sam answered, shifting in his seat to lean forward a bit more. "Looks like 'Carver Edlund' is a pen name."

Dean shook his head. "Somebody's gotta know who he is."

Bamby

[exhaling-dust]

dealing with some weird funky thoughts about destiny before beyond light and after beyond light.

disclaimer: these are my thoughts only and i don't want anyone else adding unnecessary hate. if you seek to do that, go bother on someone else's post, not mine. thanks.

like, everytime i have to go out for some research on cutscenes and so, i get hit with the unexplainable feeling of "this was better" and "i could not get tired of it". maybe i am blending my personal feelings on it too, as always happens, but nowadays i feel... tired. disappointed, perhaps. no experience of this game nowadays is as hitting as it was - meaning, i can fondly remember the tidbits of running adventures through io and titan and how fun it was to fight against xol, even if i didn't know who this big worm was, or mercury (my favorite destination) and its infinite forest who, to this day, i deeply miss getting on it during festival of the lost. the first time i landed on the edz............. my first event on mars and how someone reached out to me and asked if they wanted me to teach me how to play it. so many little things..... crashing against what i feel like it's nothing now. no memory feels dear to me, save for lightfall's campaign - yet even lightfall has its problems. even there i find myself troubled, because lightfall is so often the center of discussions i am often avoiding and yet it reaches me.

and, well, since i'm here complaining about it....

i feel like my thing with destiny turned out to be a massive roll of ups and downs, but mostly downs. i can blame it on the fandom and its unrelenting discourse and the times it becomes an insufferable polarity between Those Who Complain (criticizing so badly it's becoming lowkey toxic to stand near as nothing productive ever comes out of it) and Those Who Love It So Dearly That Cannot Allow Criticism (loving it enough you'll punish anyone with fair points). i can speak on the writing and how it's not the same, but it's fine to not be the same, just... not what it is now; how plot points are based on vague and unreasonable arguments, how potentials are so easily lost because you cannot grasp (anymore) the strangeness and the uniqueness that made destiny so distinct from others, and, i'm really sorry on this one, the tropes. the blatant... misogyny, the difference of treatment between a lesbian couple versus a gay one, and flattening of character. i can, too, go on the shit behind the curtains at bungie and how it made me feel upset enough that playing it just doesn't has the same magic as before. i don't know, honestly. i don't.

see, those things are tricky. if talking about narrative, i will forever defend the writers from people exclusively saying "it's their fault" or "they aren't competent enough for their work and therefore deserve being laid off" or diminishing them in any way, but i'll still feel like criticizing the narrative itself. if talking about fandom... fandom will always be the same, whatever, i'll feel angry regardless. and bungie? aw, man...

i still wish to move on with this. there are some concepts or so i want to explore and create, but when it comes to wanting to continue for the next episodes? when i'm not having any fond memories anymore, when i'm often finding myself weirded out by its fandom, when i keep thinking that the silly little dream of working at bungie is just Not It Anymore and bad things keep going on in there, it's just hard. really hard.

honestly? i really miss what i had in the past.

[mystalwartheart]

Something else I think about a lot when it comes to Jill and romance is reciprocity.

In a healthy relationship, all parties involved should be willing and able to take care of each other equally. We all have our old wounds and we all need TLC, but if we find ourselves in a situation where we're spending most of our time attending to someone else's pain while they're doing nothing or very little about our own, that's a lopsided and destructive dynamic.

I have to say it. It's almost a cliché at this point to reiterate how it's not a woman's job to fix a broken man (and any additional genderfluid permutations of this), but it does need to be said.

There is a trend I've noticed in some (not all, and maybe not even most) portrayals of the Jill/Chris relationship that Chris is a shattered man barely holding on because of what he's been through over his life, but Jill is the one who can soothe and heal him and remind him of his humanity. It's enough of a theme that when Death Island tried to invert it the result felt weird and out of character for them both.

Jill's been through the ringer just as much as Chris has, if not more so, regardless of whether or not you follow canon or my divergent biography for her. And the portrayals of Jill I gravitate to, and that I've based mine on, show her handling it in a far healthier way: She has her wounds and her scars, but she's still alive. She keeps coming back to do what she's devoted to, and more or less takes life in stride.

But that doesn't mean she doesn't need love and softness. Even the strongest of us still need a safe space to be vulnerable. She has her own needs that must be met, and I have healthy doubts that most portrayals of Chris I come across in canon or fandom would be capable of meeting them. And that just wouldn't be fair to Jill.

That's also partly, I think, why my story has ended up the way it has. Chris certainly could be the person Jill needs: He absolutely has it in him, and I'm always down to ship my Jill with any Chris who recognizes this. But that self-destructiveness has unfortunately become a huge part of the canon character and derived portrayals over the years, even if the endings of neither Resident Evil (1996) nor Resident Evil (2002) necessarily imply that's the road he's destined to go down.

This is something that's built into Ashley's character by default though: It's simply part of who she is as a person that's established as early as Resident Evil 4 (2005), and Resident Evil 4 (2023) more or less makes it her entire character arc. Her relationship with Leon is almost the complete opposite of the unhealthy Valenfield takes: Ashley spends the entire game practically throwing herself at Leon, begging him to let her help him and take care of him. She's afraid she can't do much, because she's a scared and traumatized kid, but she recognizes the severity and desperation of the situation they're in and still wants to do what she can.

She knows what she has to do when the chips are down, and that's what makes her a true Survivor.

Leon though, brushes her off at almost every opportunity, only relenting in the emotional climax where she saves them both from Las Plagas (and again, this is elabourated on in RE4make when there are a number of puzzles Leon and Ashley have to solve together). Leon has his own special cocktail of self-destructive traits, but I'm going off on a tangent: The point is, Ashley would do the same for Jill if she were in that situation with her, and Jill would immediately pick up on and be receptive to that.

It might even be novel and unexpected enough for Jill to momentarily wrongfoot her: She likely wouldn't have been used to that kind of treatment, at least on this team. Ashley's pure care, concern and affection takes a decidedly different tone to Chris' overprotectiveness or the professional camaraderie and loyalty of O'Brian, Billy and Rebecca.