#and makes it so that he's often willing to harm his own kind to help the humans make a profit

[alg3a]

muffins

viktor x f! reader

3.8k, MDNI, no use of (y/n)

description: Viktor had been so kind as to agree to help you out with your midterm prep, so you thought baking him muffins would be a great way to repay him. However, an accidental secret ingredient gets in the way of studying.

warnings: Age gap, roomie smut, more story than smut, p in v, sex pollen/serum (with pretty explicit consent), overall jolly good fun, no harm no foul, yippee!

a/n: inspired by @the-hidden-pages story, Human Testing because it’s one of the first viktor x reader fics i ever read and i STRONGLY recommend!

Any student should feel lucky to have the smartest men at the academy as their roommates. Being an undergraduate biochem student who had to work to pay her own tuition, going to lecture wasn’t always an option. That’s when you’d bake a tray of brownies or do some extra dishes and call in a favor from one of your roomies.

It happened all the time, which made you incredibly thankful to have one people-pleaser in the apartment. Jayce was always willing to put aside whatever he was doing and help you out on your Arcane Studies homework or your Bioengineering project. Last semester, finals week consisted of the two of you sitting criss-cross applesauce on the rug of the living room, paper scattered all over the floor as you tried to decipher the grading scale of your Organic Chemistry class to see what the lowest grade on the test you could get was and still wind up with a passing grade (something Jayce had done plenty of times in his undergrad years).

Viktor, on the other hand, had gotten somewhat tired of your constant requests for him to backtrack and dive into knowledge he hadn’t tapped for years now. He was never particularly rude about it, but you were very perceptive. When you asked him to repeat an explanation once or twice, you noticed the growing exhaustion on his face that bordered frustration and you stopped asking for his help going forward. It wasn’t to his own fault, you could be pretty needy sometimes, so more often than not, you just asked Jayce.

Only, Jayce was out of town for a Hextech press conference this weekend, the weekend before you had your Arcane Studies midterm. In a heartbreaking display, he had apologized profusely for not being able to help, inches away from getting on his knees and begging for forgiveness. You assured him none of that was necessary, and that you’d just stay up studying in the library or even reach out to your TA (who you’d never even spoken to before in class or outside of it, and who you were certain would be less helpful than Jayce).

To remedy your situation–even though you pinkie promised him you didn’t need him to–he took it upon himself to ask Viktor to help you cram study on Sunday night, the night before your midterm. While Jayce asked, you did your best to listen from your bedroom, the next room over. You heard some grumbling from Viktor and a muffled, yet compelling “She’s our roommate and she bakes us nice things” from Jayce.

Apparently that last bit must have been very rousing, because shortly after, Jayce was at your door telling you that Viktor agreed to a maximum of three hours of cramming that would begin no earlier than eight at night.

You worked for all of Saturday’s daylight hours, and then finalized your experimental serum for your Advanced Biochemistry project. For the biochem class, you’d been studying methods of enhancing senses for the first half of the quarter and your midterm project involved making a serum that could temporarily improve the performance of one human sense. Around three weeks ago, you and your classmates drew topics from a hat and your fingers emerged with “arousal” on a piece of paper. Needless to say, you were concerned. You thought the serum project would be fairly straightforward, and had already brainstormed ideas for vision enhancing serums or hearing aid serums, but arousal? You had to think out of the box for that one.

When you finished up your last touches to the serum, you were left with enough time at night to get ingredients to bake Viktor some muffins as a sign of your gratitude. You got enough stuff for twice as much as you would’ve made for Jayce and actually stuck to the recipe this time. Keeping Viktor happy was a very delicate ecosystem and there could be no tampering.

It wasn’t that he was a grump or even that he hated you, he was just too busy to want to help and too intelligent to want to backtrack. Once he had even looked at what you were studying and said, “I’d have to go too far back to help you.” That was inspiring.

You poured the contents of your tote bag on the counter.

On your better days, you and Viktor actually got along quite well. Those were the rare days when Viktor got more than three hours of sleep and ate a full meal before two pm. In his best conditions, the two of you were good friends.

The best days were when he and Jayce both come home early enough for you to make them a home cooked meal. Then you’d all curl up on the couch and watch a movie. The last time that happened, Jayce picked some superhero movie you’d never heard of and you and Viktor both fell asleep. You woke up the next morning asleep on Viktor’s chest with four blankets piled on top of you both. Jayce said he knew both of you ran cold, so he took the blankets from your beds. You and Viktor never talked about that night.

The exhaustion of your stressful Saturday had leaked into your studying Sunday, and in a tired stupor, you whisked together all the ingredients for the muffins and poured them haphazardly into the mold. They might not look pretty, but at least they’d taste good.

You pulled the freshly baked muffins from the oven and rested them on the stovetop. The sweet aroma of warm blueberry filled the apartment. It must have roused Viktor from whatever he was working on in his room, because he emerged a full quarter of an hour earlier than your agreed upon study time.

“Hey,” you said. “I made you some muffins as a thank you. They’re still hot, though, I wasn’t expecting you for another fifteen minutes.”

“That’s fine,” he said, setting himself at the kitchen table and sipping from a cup of coffee that had been there since Jayce was still in town. “Would you like to begin now?”

You grab all your study guides and homework assignments and your assortment of chicken scratch notes and slide them over to him on the table.

“Are your midterms cumulative?” He asked, finishing the remnants of his cold coffee.

“No,” you answered. Thank God. If you had to remember everything that was in the last midterm you’d be losing your mind right about now. “Everything past Arcane History will be on the test.”

“Mm. I see.”

He scans your notes for another five minutes.

“I’ll quiz you,” he decided, standing up to check on the temperature of the cooling muffins on the stovetop.

“Uh, okay.” You didn’t typically study by being quizzed, especially when you hardly went to lecture and didn’t even know most of the material. But you didn’t want to risk arguing with Viktor and have him decide to take his muffin to-go.

“Tell me why the Arcane can manifest in such unpredictable manners?”

“Because…” you started to think that maybe going to your TA wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Your TA was just a random graduate student. The roommate that was helping you study now was one of the inventors of Hextech, the researcher responsible for some of the greatest advancements in Piltover’s modern understanding of the Arcane. “...it reflects the intentions of the user.”

“Correct,” he says, affording you a rare Viktor smile. “Would you like a muffin?”

You had intended for the muffins to be entirely Viktor’s, but you hadn’t eaten all day and gods, they smelled good. Plus, it was like a reward for getting an answer right.

“Sure, thanks.”

You watch as Viktor plucks two muffins from the tin and comes back to seat himself at the table. He hands one to you and sorts through the papers you’ve scattered on the desk as he brings a small chunk to his mouth. You do the same.

Something tastes slightly off, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. It’s possible the ratio is off, and in your tired state you added too little vanilla extract or too much vegetable oil. Regardless, they’re not bad at all.

“Your notes are a little bit difficult to–” Viktor stops before finishing his sentence. He pulls out a sheet of paper from the pile and reads it, his eyes widening a bit as he does.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“These notes are from your biochem class,” he says, his eyes flickering up to meet yours for just a few seconds over the piece of paper. “This is an interesting assignment…”

“Oh,” you feel your cheeks growing hot. “Sorry, that’s not supposed to be in there.”

You reach out to take the paper from him, but he pulls it back as you do. He’s still reading it. You’d really like him to stop reading about your own aphrodisiac serum, but your embarrassment is a bit unwarranted. After all, you didn’t make the serum because you wanted it, you made it because it was a graded assignment. Nothing more. So what if you did eventually garner interest in the topic. So much interest, in fact, that you did extensive research into the properties your serum could afford and spent long hours in your lab experimenting with it. Shamefully, yes, you had tried some of it. Mainly to test its efficiency but also out of plain curiosity. You had determined that it was safe, most importantly, but you’d also learned that it tasted horrible. To counter that, you’d added some–

“Oh fuck!” You shout as you scoot your chair so far back so quickly that it topples over. You stumble over your bag on the floor as you sprint to the kitchen.

“Is something wrong?” Viktor asks from his seated position.

“Don’t eat the muffin!” You exclaim as you run to the counter space next to the stove, your heart pounding.

You confirm your worst fear. The bottle of vanilla extract you picked up from the supermarket sits on the counter, the protective seal still intact. Your arousal serum, however, is halfway empty a few inches beside the extract.

You turn around slowly to face Viktor.

“It’s a bit late for that,” Viktor says, holding up the half of his muffin that remains. “Did something happen?”

You eye your own muffin on the table, half eaten as well.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you scrambled back toward the table where Viktor sat, the serum held tight by your hand. “You’re not allergic to anything, are you?”

“No,” Viktor says, eyeing you like you’re crazy.

Come on, just get it out already. You have to tell him, it would be morally bankrupt not to.

“I accidentally drugged you.”

Okay, maybe not like that.

Viktor just stared at you, his expression unchanged. You sort of just wished he would yell at you so that you could get the encounter over with, but no such luck. He just sat, unphased, until he picked up the notes he was looking at earlier.

“With this?” He asks. Even his voice is still even. You knew that if the roles had been reversed you would be fracking out, absolutely bouncing off the walls.

“Yes, but don’t worry I’ve done lots of research on this serum,” you say, taking the notes from Viktor and looking them over. You read the list two or three times, scanning for any sort of antidote for ingestion. You saw none. “How could I have not included an antidote?” You mutter, mentally beating yourself up.

“It’s okay,” Viktor said and you couldn’t even bring yourself to look up at him from your notes. “It is safe, yes? It won’t kill us?”

“No, it won’t, but it’s a powerful aphrodisiac and I added half the serum to those muffins. If my math is right, you’re taking three times the recommended dosage.”

“But I only ate half the muffin,” Viktor counters. Again, you’re shocked by how unphased he is.

“Okay, then one and a half times the dosage,” you shrug off his comment as you look for anything in your notes that might reveal a way to undo this mess.

“I assume this means you no longer wish to study?” Viktor says.

“How are you so calm about this?” You finally burst out, slamming the paper down on the table to look at him.

Big mistake.

Once you see him, you become lightheaded and your knees buckle beneath you. You have to sit down to stop yourself from falling over.

“Are you alright?” Viktor asks.

“I-I’m fine,” you shake your head in an attempt to get some blood flowing to your brain. No luck.

“Since you’re obviously worked up about this, why don’t you tell me how it works and then we can go from there.”

“It’s a fast acting stimulant,” you say, burying your face in your hands. “The chemistry is irrelevant since I have no goddamn cure for it, but it works the same as any other aphrodisiac. It makes you susceptible to arousal and heightens it by three times at a normal dosage, and in our case… nearly five times.”

“Intriguing,” he says, eyeing the muffin that lays neglected on the table. “Such a strange class project. Aren’t there moral quandaries to be had for such a substance?”

“Yes of course there are, which is why I made it so that it only takes effect if there’s already a degree of attraction in place–”

You shouldn’t have said anything. Especially not when you’re so clearly affected by it in the presence of Viktor. Way to sell yourself out.

“So you’re saying…”

You groan out in frustration, but once you look at Viktor you’re reminded of why you had your face buried in your hands. Somehow every feature of his seems five times more beautiful than you normally regarded them. His perfectly angular nose, his narrowed amber eyes, his messy hair which fell in ways you could never recreate on paper…

“I have a feeling you know exactly what I’m saying.” You squeezed your eyes shut. If you couldn’t see him, he couldn’t torture you.

Or so you thought.

A tantalizing graze of his hand on yours shot shivers down your spine. You pulled away so fast that a few of the papers on the desk shifted from the shear force of the wind.

“Don’t do that,” you seethed, sucked your teeth as you pressed your eyes shut so hard that you saw stars.

“Because…it affects you?” His voice was raspy and slow, or maybe that’s just what the serum was making you hear. Every bit of what he was doing seemed five times as attractive as it would normally be.

You’d done such a good job at hiding your feelings for Viktor for almost a year now. Being roommates with someone you found incredibly attractive was no easy task. And now all of your efforts were thrown out the window because of a stupid baking mishap.

“You’re being cruel,” you furrow your eyebrows as you speak, your voice coming out whinier than you would’ve liked.

“I’m sorry,” he stifles a laugh. “Would you open your eyes?”

“I can’t,” you groan, shoving your hands against your face again. “It’s best if I just go to my room and wait it out. Thank you for trying to study with me but I’m just gonna have to accept a shitty grade tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to do that,” he said, his fingers wrapping around your wrists and pulling them down from your face so that you had to look at him. “It’s been a long time since I’ve taken biochemistry, and I certainly haven’t studied aphrodisiacs, but the effects should go away after the serum is put to use, correct?”

You thought back to your experimentation phase. All the nights you spent alone in your lab trying out the efficacy of the serum resulted in the effects dissipating once climax was reached. It had certainly been the least orthodox experimentation phase you’d ever undergone.

“Yes, that’s correct,” you say reluctantly. It takes every ounce of strength you have not to let your eyes explore Viktor’s face, then his long, narrow neck protruding his sweater, his Adam’s apple bobbing with a deep breath, then the sharp clavicle poking from–

Get yourself together.

“If you’re willing to retake the class–a class you should easily pass, given your access to the two most prevalent scientists in the field–then by all means, go to your room.” Viktor pulls his hands away from you, then picks up the muffin, peeling off the paper from the bottom. He picks off a piece and drops it onto his tongue.

“What are you doing? You’re just going to make it worse!”

He smirks at you, then sets the muffin back down. “It’s a very good muffin. You’re an excellent baker.”

Fuck.

“You’re playing with me,” you shake your head in disbelief.

“No, dearest, I am not playing with you,” he says, standing up from his chair, then moving toward you tantalizingly slow. He takes a seat on the table in front of you, then crosses his hands on his lap. “You’re smart enough to recognize the alternative I am offering to you.”

Your heart stops. You look at his half eaten muffin, although more than half is gone now with the addition of that last bite.

“You…” The idea is almost impossible for you to grasp, let alone put into words. “You want to expedite the process?”

“That’s certainly one way of putting it,” Viktor laughs. He reaches for a strand of your distressed hair and pushes it behind your ear.

“But you’re not even attracted to me!”

“What makes you think that?” Viktor says, retracting his hand, only to place it over yours on the desk.

“Because if you were, you’d be much more affected right now. I mean, look at me!” You gesture to yourself with your free hand. “I’m a mess! I’m on the brink of breaking out in a sweat and my hands are clammy and you’re just sitting there!”

Viktor laughs to himself as if he’s in on some kind of inside joke that you know nothing about.

“I’ve had lots of practice in concealing my excitement around you,” he finally says, slowly, seductively, the words dripping from his chin as his cold eyes bore into you.

“What?”

You know what he said. In fact, you understand it perfectly, but you can’t be sure it actually came from his mouth because it seems so perfectly unreal. So dream-like, so idealistic, so fantastical.

“You’ve done a good enough job at hiding your attraction, too,” Viktor says. “I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for tonight’s incident. Which is exactly why I’ve felt the need to hide my own.”

“You’ve liked me?”

You still can’t wrap your head around the idea.

“I’ve admired you,” he smiles, rubbing circles on the back of your hand, reminding you just how potent your little sex serum really is.

In fact, it’s so powerful that you hardly have to put any thought into leaping up from your chair and pushing your lips against his. Before you can third guess his affection, his hands are interlaced with your hair, pushing you deeper into his lips as his tongue begs to be let into your needy mouth.

Now it was clear to see how much the serum had actually affected him. In mere seconds, his hands grabbed at your thighs and pulled you up onto the table to straddle him with strength you didn’t even know he possessed. His breathy little moans sent you further into madness and you yanked his sweater off of his head, forcing your mouth off of his for just a few seconds, but once that sweater was off, your lips clung together like magnets.

Deft fingers unbuttoned your long sleeve shirt and he pulled it off your arms so quickly that you worried for a second that he might have ripped it. But you didn't care. You couldn’t possibly be concerned with a silly shirt when Viktor was beneath you on the kitchen table like a meal.

The serum didn’t exactly allow either of your minds to comprehend much foreplay. You fiddled with Viktor’s belt and he pushed your skirt up to your waist. Once both of you were exposed, he didn’t waste any time positioning you above his cock.

“So wet for me,” Viktor whined against your bare chest. “Is that the serum’s doing or is it mine?”

“Yours,” you whimper as Viktor slides his tip beneath your folds. “If it were anyone else in the room with me when I took the serum, I’d be unaffected.”

“I’m flattered,” he smiles cruelly as he thrusts up into you.

“Oh fuck,” you whine as your rest your heavy head on Viktor’s shoulder.

He brings his hands to your waist and guides you up and down as his hips meet your core in long, languid thrusts. The serum sets every single nerve on fire, making it seem as if each of his thrusts has the impact of twenty.

You moan muffled strangulations of his name into his neck, which only urges him to persist with his cruel thrusts. The sound of your cunt being abused fills the kitchen and you’re wildly thankful that Jayce is out of town.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” Viktor pants. “You have no idea.”

You really did have no idea. He hid it so well. You silently thanked whatever force had caused you to accidentally throw the serum into the muffin mix.

“So have I,” you whined against his skin. “Fuck…don’t stop…”

Each thrust is punctuated by the creaks of the sturdy kitchen table below you. His motions become quicker, shakier, and more intense and you can tell he’s reaching the end along with you. Your legs begin to shake and you feel that familiar tickling sensation in your core that the serum does a beautiful job at emulating.

“Viktor, I’m close, I’m so fucking close,” you moan as you lift your head from the crook of his neck. You bring your lips to his and he delivers his final thrusts. As he fills you, your moans echo on each other’s lips, a feeling you never thought you’d experience with your own brilliant roommate.

Your breathing steadies and Viktor wraps his arms around you, bringing you close to him as he tries to collect himself as well.

“You…” Viktor pants, “are forbidden from using that kitchen ever again.”

You laugh as you bring yourself off of him, pressing a kiss to his lips as you collect yourself. “That sounds fair to me.”

[fatkish]

Imagine being a harmless incubus/succubus demon in the world of Demon slayer. Instead of feeding on the flesh of humans you feed off of their lust and cum. You worked in the entertainment districts and preyed upon people. Disguising yourself as a beautiful man/woman and using your power to lure them to you. Once you lured them you would feed off them and leave them. Although you never harmed humans as you think of them as a precious resource, Kagaya Ubuyashiki had heard rumors of you and decided that you would be better off supervised. So he sent his strongest and most trusted Hashira after you.

Gyomei, and Sanemi are sent out to capture you and bring you back. Since you aren’t inherently dangerous and don’t eat people, Kagaya had decided to spare your life but decided you still shouldn’t run amuck. Sanemi decides to go after you head on. He saunters right up to you and demands that you stand down and follow them, Gyomei silently stands behind him. Not really keen on losing your freedom, you fight, Sanemi is rough in his handling of you. Despite his and Gyomei’s best efforts, you manage to evade them.

The next attempt is with Rengoku and Giyuu. Although they too are less than successful with you giving the slip again. Deciding to set a trap for you, Kagaya orders Gyomei, Tengen, Sanemi, Giyuu and Kyojuro to set a trap for you. Tengen would be the bait and lure you into range for the others. Sensing Tengen’s lust (he was thinking of his wives) you sneakily try to approach him. Once within range, you try to lure Tengen only for your charms not to work as he’s already in love and devoted to his wives. Launching their attack, the four Hashira hidden in the shadows close in on you cutting off your escape routes. With the fastest Hashira on your tail, he manages to subdue you and tie you up.

As they return to headquarters with their prisoner, the sun peeks out and bathes you all in its light. Seeing as you don’t disintegrate, they question just what kind of demon you are. When you’re brought before Kagaya, he greets you and kindly asks about you. You tell him about your abilities and how you feed. Upon learning that without feeding you would grow weak and slowly die off, Kagaya decides to ask you to help his ‘children’ and take care of their needs. Since demon slaying is such a demanding job and leaves most of his children without time to find someone to care for their needs, he asks that you become that someone that his children can go to. Realizing you don’t really have any other options, you agree. And that’s how you became the Hashira’s cumdump.

Gyomei doesn’t rely on you very often but when he does, he’s actually very gentle and loving. He isn’t keen on using his strength and stature against his romantic/sexual partners, although that doesn’t mean he won’t lift them up and use them like his own personal toy. Sex with Gyomei requires lots of foreplay, which he’s more than happy to help with. He lasts for quite awhile but is mindful of his partner’s stamina. He cares about his partner’s pleasure and is always checking to make sure you’re enjoying things as much as he is. He loves making you come undone on his cock and fingers.

Sanemi was repulsed by the idea of going to you for relief but eventually came around. He’s mostly rough and dominant. He loves choking you on his cock, he loves seeing you all teary eyed and grasping at his thighs. There’s little to no foreplay with this feral man. He’s in it for his pleasure and if you enjoy it then that’s on you. He’s not afraid to be rough and he relishes in being able to take his stress out on your holes. To him, you’re not a partner so your pleasure doesn’t matter. But if he’s in a good mood he might be willing to help you.

Giyuu wasn’t super excited about it but he wasn’t entirely against it. He’s not experienced so you have a lot of teaching to do. He’s rather shy at first, but once he gets the hang of things he’ll be more assertive. His favorite thing is rutting into you slowly from behind. He loves the feel of your warm insides dragging along his cock. When he gets close, he becomes slightly bossy. He’s not afraid to be rough but he also cares about his partner’s pleasure.

Kyojuro was excited unlike any of the others. He’s very passionate and loves to learn anything you can and are willing to teach him. Unlike the others, Kyojuro is more interested in your pleasure. For him, being able to make you cum is what turns him on. After all, if he’s to ever find a wife to carry his children, he wants to know how to worship her body. He’s very enthusiastic and loves to learn, every technique and method you teach him he’ll practice on you until you’re nothing but putty in his hands. He loves making a mess of you and he only focuses on his own pleasure once you’ve been throughly prepared by having at least 3 prior orgasms.

[twistedwonderlandimaginesblog]

Hello! I was wondering if I could maybe as for Malleus, Azul, Idia, Vil, and maybe Leona with an S/o who tests the Orange peel theory on them?

The orange peel theory being the theory in which someone requests their significant other to peel an orange for them. If they say yes, then it means they are willing to do small tasks for their lover. If they say no, it may suggest they are less willing to offer support.

If you can’t then that’s good I just wanted to ask.

Azul Ashengrotto:

Azul sighed, looking at the orange in your hand and then back to you with raised eyebrows. Were you serious? You couldn’t peel your own orange? He let out another sigh, mumbling that you were truly hopeless without him before taking the orange from your hands. He removed his gloves (as cleaning them was more of a hassle than cleaning his bare hands) and expertly peeled away the skin, giving a beautiful presentation on your plate before sliding it back over to you. He quickly went back to his work but you did note that he completely stopped what he was doing in the middle of it to attend to your silly request.

Idia Shroud:

In the middle of a raid?! These relationship QTE’s continued to get harder the longer you were together, but he feared the consequences of failing one. He quickly typed in the chat to his teammates before setting his character on auto, fumbling with the orange and trying to peel it as quickly as he could while making sure he didn’t go down in flames in the virtual world. He handed it back to you wordlessly when he was done as he was locked back in again, letting out an agonized cry when he realized he forgot to wipe his hands so now his keyboard and mouse were hopelessly sticky.

Leona Kingscholar:

There’s something that Leona picked up in your tone that indicated this was a test of some sort, and while not knowing exactly what you were up to, he wasn’t about to fail. He did complain that you married into royalty and therefore had access to some of the perks, including servants who’d be more than happy to peel an orange for you. He was peeling it for you as he complained at least, and he retracted the orange before you could grab it and asked if he’d get a proper reward for listening so closely.  

Malleus Draconia:

Malleus it not used to being asked to do such domestic tasks. It seemed natural that everyone around him just attended to his needs and, by extension, your needs as well. Seeing as you were asking him directly to do something for you he couldn’t help but be excited about the prospect, feeling a sense of pride that you’d trust in him even if it was a simple task. He peeled the orange with a smile on his face, peeling off a piece of the actual fruit and holding it up as he asked if you’d like him to feed you as well.

Vil Schoenheit:

Vil was curious about what you were doing that was so important you couldn’t peel your own orange, weighing the options of asking and deciding it’s easier to just acquiesce. You didn’t ask him for things often while you often wordlessly retrieved things for him during his intricate skincare routines, so he didn’t see the harm in repaying your kindness. He’s also happy that you’re eating something healthy, although he doesn’t know the exact benefits oranges might have on your skin—he’ll have to look it up once he’s done his careful work, handing over the most beautifully peeled orange you’d ever seen in your life.

[high-dragon-bait]

Pleaaaaase Zevran and Lucanis 💖

Note: I got the request for Zevran and Lucanis A LOT. So there will almost certainly be more banters between them. I'm still grasping Lucanis and am rusty with Zevran, so consider this a trial run as I feel out their hypothetical dynamic. Enjoy!

___

Lucanis: The worst crow in history standing at my side. 

Zevran: So it seems. 

Lucanis: I should kill you.

Zevran: Yes, you very much should. 

Lucanis: The crows' reputation never truly healed from your humiliation in Ferelden. 

Zevran: Humiliating for you, perhaps. That story ends very well for me. 

Lucanis: Are you really going to argue perspective while I debate your life? 

Zevran: Seeing as you haven’t killed me yet, why not? 

___

Zevran: So, how much did you cost? 

Lucanis: Three-hundred sovereigns. Starting rate. 

Zevran: My that is impressive. I was a mere seven. 

Lucanis: Your talon agreed to contracts worth only seven sovereigns!?

Zevran: Oh, it is contracts we are discussing. 

Lucanis: What else could we be discussing? 

Zevran: How much we were purchased for of course. 

Lucanis: You were… purchased?

Zevran: From a pen of brothel bastards. Where did the crows buy you?

Lucanis: House Dellamorte does not purchase our fledglings. You are born. Or you are chosen. I was born. 

Zevran: Ah. This explains so much. 

—-

Lucanis: I was not aware any crow houses still purchased recruits. 

Zevran: But, of course, it is the simplest way to find them, no?

Lucanis: No. The simplest is to scrape the gutters of Treviso. Plenty of far more willing recruits to find there. Free of charge. 

Zevran: So purchasing children is beneath you, but feeding off the desperate is not? 

Lucanis: With how many fledglings already never reach the rafters, I’d rather not waste the gold. 

—-

Zevran: What did the training of the first talon entail, Lucanis? 

Lucanis: Torture. 

Zevran: Yes, obviously, but what kind of torture did Caterina favor? 

Lucanis: Beatings. Starvations. Often combinations of both. 

Zevran: You are not good at being specific, you know that? 

Lucanis: Once, I’d been challenged to starve in a windowless stone cell for an entire moon. At the end of the third week, the servant tasked to bring me only water and a new chamber pot left the door unlocked. 

Lucanis, cont: I waited, but no one returned. I dared to venture out to where Caterina stood on the other side. She scolded me for falling into such an obvious trap and used her cane to break every bone in my arm. 

Zevran: Ah, there is the difference. My talon would have taken the whole arm. And never provided a chamber pot.

Lucanis: Fewer hands hold fewer knives. Making for a more poor assassin. 

Zevran: Another difference. It seems your grandmother lacked not only discipline but creativity. 

___

Zevran: Why did your cousin not simply kill Caterina? 

Lucanis: She is family. 

Zevran: So? 

Lucanis: The world is made only of enemies and contracts, family is all that matters. Caterina taught us that. He could not even use his own hands to kill me. He could never harm her.  

Zevran: If he cannot put aside such feelings for a contract, he is a terrible crow. 

Lucanis: Yes, he is. 

—-

Zevran: It surprises me, Lucanis, that I have never heard tales regarding the Demon of Vyrantium’s skills in the art of seduction. 

Lucanis: I do not practice that... art.

Zevran: What!? Is it not one of the greatest skills of a crow!?

Lucanis: I was taught the heart was a target. Not a toy. 

Zevran: There are many ways to strike at a target, you know.

Lucanis: But not all of them so needlessly cruel. 

Zevran: Cruel? If you know someone is on the last night of their life, you might as well help them enjoy it, no?

—-

Zevran: What is the longest you can last with your head held beneath water, Lucanis? 

Lucanis: Eight minutes if I can manage a gasp first. Six if I cannot. 

Zevran: Ah-ha! I can manage nine minutes with a breath, and seven without. 

Lucanis: With how much you like to talk. I do not believe that for a second.

Zevran: Fine. Meet me in the baths tonight, and I’ll prove it. 

Lucanis: And I’ll prove you wrong. 

Zevran: I knew you could be fun. 

—-

Zevran: So, if you have any questions regarding the techniques I showed you- 

Lucanis: Don’t. 

Zevran: -Or require another demonstration. I am happy to oblige. 

Lucanis: Stop. 

Zevran: That is not a no I hear. I’ll be waiting. Patiently. 

[apheliia]

FAMILY, OF SORTS. — in which kafka, blade, and silver wolf are an odd but quite special found family to be a part of.

— trigger & content warnings. mentions of unspecified injury.

— pairings & notes. fluff, found family. kafka & teen!reader, blade & teen!reader, silver wolf & teen!reader. 1.3k words. reader is a stellaron hunter. reader is gender neutral (they/them pronouns used).

— author's notes. the sillies <3 APHE POSTING???? APHELION POSTING REAL AND TRUE????????? i had a request for this on my old blog (from my dear beloved moot @starryshinyskies <3) so i decided to finish it 💪 nd tagging @www-brontide since i know you were excited for this post HEHE anyways how are we feeling about this formatting? if you guys don't like it i'm very open to changing it back. i'm just experimenting with my post format is all 🫶

kafka seems strangely motherly to me. caring and doting in her own unique ways, but also quite strange and odd in those same ways. an enigma of sorts.

she is the kind of person to always send the stellaron hunters' youngest member texts throughout the day; these texts range anywhere from silly and inconsequential to sweet messages letting [name] know that she was thinking about them.

(her doting nature is not dissimilar to how she thinks of and regards the trailblazer... hm.)

KAFKA

My coat got stained again :(

Won't you help me clean it when you get home, little one?

[ 1:22 PM ]

KAFKA

I saw a new movie today.

It made me think of you. It was quite to your tastes.

Perhaps we should go see it together sometime, hm?

Ah, but you're probably asleep by now...

That's fine. You do need it more than the rest of us.

Sleep well, darling.

[ 11:34 PM ]

she thinks of her little one quite frequently and has been known to pick up little trinkets from different planets that reminded her of them. a phone charm, a set of rings, something more practical like a new weapon... she once returned with a nice coat that matches one of hers. her gifts are always unpredictable but nonetheless very thoughtful.

and when or if they get injured, she is the one who treats their wound(s) with a tender hand.

she does chide them, however.

"you are a stellaron hunter, little one," she reminds, pulling the bandages wrapped around their wound a little tighter, making them wince. it is akin to a slap on the wrist—not enough pain to seriously harm them, but enough to force them to take her words to heart. "if it is not a part of the plan, try your best not to get caught or injured, hm? silver wolf doesn't like to see you this way, and it causes a unique stir in bladie. your getting injured causes quite the unrest among us all! do be more careful next time."

if there is ever a night during which they are struggling to sleep, they are more than welcome to seek out kafka's company.

she would be willing to read them to sleep, if that is what they desired.

however... a far easier method that would ensure they would stay asleep? her spirit whisper ability, of course.

they know kafka would not use it to harm them.

kafka finds their earnest trust beyond endearing. the trust of a little one like them is quite an important gift! the least she can do, she thinks, is assist them when her assistance is needed.

and sometimes, that just means lulling them to sleep.

blade is quite a difficult person to read, regardless of whether he intends to be so or not.

some days, he is distant and prefers to keep to himself. others, less so.

this, though, should not be mistaken for a lack of care. in fact, he cares quite deeply. his care is simply very quiet and he desperately, earnestly, truly does not wish to cause [name] harm.

he is also most likely the one who spars with them and trains them in the ways of combat, which... he isn't exactly the gentlest at doing. training sessions can be quite frustrating in that they often emerge sore and with new cuts and bruises (but really, these injuries are small and insignificant; they are confident in saying that blade would never truly hurt them, nobody in their family would). he does mean well in his tough methods, though.

the universe is not kind or gentle. it will never treat them that way. therefore, he does his best to prepare them so that they can effectively handle the universe's cruelty and defend themselves from it.

one of the ways in which his quiet care manifests is through his treatment of the small wounds he gives them during training. kafka has said many times that she can treat them, but blade always insists on doing it himself.

out of all of their coworkers, blade becomes the most restless when they're away. he gets particularly antsy when they've been gone for a long period or when they're out there alone. kafka always giggles and points out to him how utterly restless he becomes when such circumstances occur.

(he should be assured that they can handle themselves, given that he is their mentor—there is surely nobody else who would know their skills as well as he would—but somehow he simply isn't.)

blade is also, generally speaking, the most protective.

should they come back injured... if it is anything other than a shallow scratch on the cheek, a rage hotter than the brightest star burns under his skin. in those moments, he almost does not dare to touch them, for fear that he might harm them unwittingly... but he does. his hands are somewhat rough when he snatches their face and tilts their chin around to get a better look at the blood (is it theirs? he hopes not) and grime dirtying their face. there is a terrifying threat present in his voice when he demands, not asks, "who did this to you?"

(if kafka was not present in these moments, he might worry that his mara would get the best of him. thankfully, kafka is intentional and present in such situations.)

unless the ones responsible for the wound have already been adequately... taken care of, he will do so himself. there is nowhere in the universe that the perpetrators could hide from him.

it's about protecting them, but it is also about sending a message.

something along the lines of "anyone who lays hands on them will suffer a fate worse than death," perhaps.

death is anything but a terrible fate to blade, but he knows that it is the worst imaginable to some. he will be certain to deliver something infinitely worse, something beyond imagination, to those daring to hurt his younger teammate.

silver wolf is perhaps the least enigmatic of their little family. she isn't an open book, per se, but she's easier to read than kafka or blade... at least, for someone like [name], anyway.

she never fails to harrass them to play a few rounds (which tends to spiral into many, many rounds...) of a game or two with her. why them, specifically? she insists that blade isn't good at them and kafka is kafka. really, it may very well just be that she enjoys spending time with them, but she—of course—will not simply say that.

however... she bullies them terribly about how bad they are. it comes from a place of affection!

she is also the type to win them every single prize at carnivals, just because she likes the joy it seems to bring them. when she encounters rigged games, however, she becomes all the more motivated by her unadulterated annoyance to beat them.

what do you mean she of all people can't beat this awful and horrible rigged game? her???? the silver wolf????? seriously????????

unfortunately, it does not always end in her victory, even when she is infinitely motivated by her anger.

...and she really isn't above just taking one of the prizes when the stall's owner isn't looking. she has done so multiple times for [name].

she would definitely try to teach them hacking (keyword: try) if they aren't already familiar with it. since it has come in handy for her, she figures that they might also find use in it. it's her quiet way of looking out for them.

(her more obvious way of looking out for them is often seen when she is on missions with them. most commonly, it manifests as her snatching their arm and pulling them out of the way of an enemy before obliterating said threat.)

silver wolf is totally the sort of person to pinch their cheeks (to different degrees, kafka and blade also do this!). they are very cute to her.

overall they are a weird but very special little family to be a part of <3

please consider supporting your writers by reblogging and leaving a kind tag or comment. it really helps me out!

[readerattheend]

Wisdom in the Holy Trinity of Light Novels/Manhwa

I took part in a conversation about wisdom and the evidence of it, and the conclusion we came to at the time was that wisdom is evidenced as a kind of understanding of how to live.

I've seen conversation on this website and elsewhere where people talk about how we often don't know what to do because it is our first time being alive. Wisdom is the learning and experience we obtain as we continue to work and struggle through our 'first time being alive.'

In Lout of the Count's Family, My S-Class Hunters, and Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, the protagonists have been brought up in significantly similar circumstances and they end up taking significantly similar actions. Kim Roksoo, Han Yoojin, and Kim Dokja grew up essentially parentless, or at least abandoned, and through their life experiences they learned extreme hardiness and kindness, not shying away from pain for the sake of the people who are important to them.

However, their wisdom, their maturity, is on different levels. I think we partially see the differences in the amount of pain their sometimes-selfish selfless actions cause their loved ones as a consequence. I would love to hear dissent to reevaluate and deepen my understanding of the characters, but as I understand it right now, here's my analysis of the maturity of each protagonist starting from least wisdom:

Kim Dokja: He collects a family on the pretense of usefulness. He knows that adults should not hurt children, and someone has to stand in the way of the blade pointed at a helpless person's heart. Ultimately, he understands the desire of others to be understood, and he seeks to fill that void because he has seen the decay of his own life in which people constantly misunderstood him with no room for change. However, he cannot hope in anyone understanding him anymore because he hasn't had room to heal, so he fundamentally misunderstands (and therefore hurts) his loved ones, who are so desperate to reciprocate his love. They see that he has given them everything they need except one thing: the need to connect back. Instead, they are left reaching into the empty space he leaves behind, trying their hardest to squint and see the face behind the wall, because Dokja hasn't yet matured in wisdom to understand them.

Han Yoojin: He's only a little better than Dokja, honestly. Yoojin actually gets that his loved ones love him and want to make sure he lives a comfortable life. He is 30 years old and has become an expert at yearning for love, so he recognizes joy when his loved ones care for him. He loves them so much that he wants to keep being with them and continue letting them enjoy his care, too, to the degree that he does not want to die for them. He recognizes death and absence as absolute last-resorts, not as viable solutions like Dokja. However, he's still self-deprecative, still struggles with hating himself enough that even if death isn't an option, extreme agony and mental breakdowns are always on the table. He has spent a lot of time building up resentment against the people who hurt him, but when the people who hurt him were his loved ones, he redirected that resentment at himself. His lack of wisdom comes in that he can't share discomfort with others. He can't delegate agonies. He's willing to subject himself to hellfire, he hasn't developed enough security in his value to ask others to do the same. It stems from extreme outward-facing love, but lacks wisdom in that it is not sustainable with his F-rank self.

Kim Roksoo: He's got to be the best of the three. Although he's in denial about his affection for all of his dear ones, he can't help but show his love in every move and thought. He takes them in, gives them a place and a purpose, showers them in the good he never got while growing up, and reviles anything that would cause them harm. Although he lives in denial, it comes through more as an old wound that he has learned to live with rather than an actively bleeding knife wound that keeps getting stabbed like Yoojin's and Dokja's hurts. Unlike Yoojin and Dokja, he values his own comfort. He is repulsed by death and pain and only undertakes projects that will be uncomfortable for him if he perceives that the reward gets him back 100Xs the value. Because he understands that his discomfort hurts his dear ones, he avoids exposing them to it by avoiding letting it happen in the first place. A lot of accidental pain happens for them because he's living in the denial mindset where he doesn't think to tell them about things, but his choices are not made out of low self-worth like Yoojin's and Dokja's. Out of the three, he is the best at taking his lived experiences and learning how to pursue a life that makes him and his dear ones happy. He's not perfect, but he is the wisest of Holy Trinity.

[ephemeralinstance]

variants of pride

One thing I always found really interesting about DAI Solas was that while he was clearly prideful, his pride was always of a very different kind to the obvious villains like Corypheus, the Evanuris etc.

In Inquisition he is in many ways the exact opposite of Corypheus. He hates the idea of being worshipped, he's quite happy playing the part of the humble apostate and being overlooked, he's eager to personally pitch in to do the hard unglamorous work of helping people, and he's willing to be the butt of the joke. It's very clear that Solas' pride is not about his own personal aggrandisement: he has always genuinely wanted to help people and do the right thing, and he's willing to be forgotten or reviled for it if necessary. Rather his pride seems to be primarily manifested in his tendency toward self-isolation: thinking the burden of fixing things falls on him alone, thinking he sees how to fix things more clearly than anyone else, and being too proud to ask for help.

And that was interesting! It was a fascinating contrast to the obvious kind of pride exhibited by Corypheus, Elgar'nan etc. For me it was really thought-provoking, because being self-reliant and solving problems yourself rather than burdening others are often seen as positive qualities, but from Solas' story we learn that taken to extremes this kind of stubborn self-reliance can become harmful to yourself and to others.

Whereas in Veilguard, there's a definite attempt to make Solas just the same as all the others in terms of his pride. Such as when you walk past a golden wolf statue and Rook&Co assume Solas put it up and say it's just like him, even though anyone who paid any attention to his character in Inquisition knows that's very unlike him. Or at the end when they have him say 'I am a god' even though he's built his whole identity for thousands of years on refusing to be called a god.

I guess, giving the benefit of the doubt, you could say there's an attempt to argue for the thesis that in the end these two types of pride converge. But I just think that is untrue: being proud in the sense of excessive self-reliance does not at mean you are also proud in the sense of seeing yourself as godlike, and in fact it is often the opppsite, since the self-isolation is often linked to self-disgust and becomes a way of hurting oneself. So in practice I think the attempt to erase the differences between Solas and the Evanuris just ends up losing all the interesting nuance we had previously in examining different manifestations of pride and how even genuinely good intentions can go wrong through this kind of self-isolating pride.

[mxtxfanatic]

Thank you for your thoughts on Xie Lian and low self -esteem/self -harm tendencies. My question kinda piggybacks of that.

In the novel, Hua Cheng has concerns about Xie Lian's pain and willingness to withstand it or ignore it in favor of getting a solution. 

Land of Tender was pretty extreme and I think Xie Lian genuinely considered not having any other option before doing what he did. 

But there's the time when Xie Lian planned to jump in the pit to help those thrown in and brushed aside his own potential injury from such a fall. (But was naturally worried when Hua Cheng jumped instead)

And also the time Xie Lian took a blow from eming to stop the fight between Hua Cheng and Lan Qingqui(sp?).  

And withstanding the needle in his foot and forgetting about it until Hua Cheng took it out. 

Or being willing to swallow a sword to capture the fetus spirit.

Or in the Mt. Tonglu arc, where he picks up something that has poison on it. He's had it happen so often, it didn't bother him. 

I can see this is not Xie Lian self-harminhg,  but it does seem like a low amount of concern for his pain/safety.  

He even makes a promise to Hua Cheng (they promise each other) not to touch anything weird/dangerous without telling the other first so the other can handle it. 

And when Hua Cheng took a hit from Xie Lian (who had to obey because he was wearing the brocade immortal) - Xie Lian took issue with that and Hua Cheng called him out on that. 

----

"Xie Lian hadn’t expected him to ask that. “Maybe…it was to remind myself of some things.” He then quickly said, “San Lang, don’t…don’t change the subject. What kind of bad habits have you developed? That situation just now—you could have just restrained me. Why did you stand there and take the blow?” 

“So you do know that it’s a bad habit, gege?” Hua Cheng replied. “You have no right to lecture me when it comes to taking beatings, you know.” 

“Oh, really?” Xie Lian said, but he felt guilty the moment the words left his mouth—after all, he’d almost swallowed a sword back when he fought the fetus spirit in the water, and Hua Cheng had caught him red-handed. 

“Yes, really. ‘Why use other methods if I can solve the problem by taking a beating?’ That’s your bad influence on me,” Hua Cheng replied. 

Xie Lian waved him off. “Never mind, San Lang, let’s not talk about this anymore. Let’s look at these robes.” "

TGCF volume 7, chapter 117, page 200

-------

From all this, would it be accurate to say Xie Lian has low regard for his pain/safety if it means finding a solution to a problem...and potentially even going for that route faster/ or finding that easier before thoroughly considering other options? 

Or is perhaps Hua Cheng being too overprotective? 

Or is it secret option number three? 😅

I leaned towards the first thought. It seemed that Xie Lian maybe stopped concerning himself about his own pain until he realized someone else cared about him very much and so he decided to be more careful. 

Again, not saying Xie Lian is reckless. Or that he wouldn't tend to his own injuries. Just that perhaps he was setring aside his own pain/potential injury in favor of getting a quick solution. 

I hope I explained that well. Thank you for your thoughts! 👍🏾

Idk how long this is gonna be, so I will start off by saying that Xie Lian's actions exist in line with two realities: 1) he has built up an extremely high pain tolerance from just living life for 800 years and experiencing The Horrors against his will. I do not think that having a high pain tolerance and therefore being alright with experiencing injury because the pain means nothing to you is the same as having a low regard for your pain or safety at all. Xie Lian does not seek out situations to harm him, and he doesn't disregard his safety in situations he puts himself in (emphasizing the "he" because there are a lot of situations he is forced into, where him experiencing The Horrors is the point and thus unavoidable). 2) He literally cannot die (also as part of experiencing The Horrors, but he's learned to weaponize it to his advantage). So let's get into these examples:

Land of the Tender: he was drugged and vulnerable with the only thing between him and potential death was a barrier and a child. He quite literally had no options that weren't "assault/kill Hong'er" or "lose your cultivation and get you and Hong'er killed." He stabs himself to relieve the poison and maintain a semblance of mental clarity because the only other cure to the drug outside of sexual intercourse was physical violence. The moment Mu Qing and Feng Xin show up to help, he stops stabbing himself.

Banyue Arc: He is the god who was sent to clean up the mess, he was going to have to go down there eventually anyways. There is no "injury from the fall" (unless due to his own bad luck, but it doesn't happen in when he actually goes down, so...) because he is a god who jumps up and down these heights all the time. This the same dude who has to jump down from the heavens to do work. Why should he have allowed San-lang or, god forbid, an actual human to go down there first in his stead when 1) he knows he can handle the task but has no evidence that they can and 2) he knows that even if he can't somehow handle it, there's still Mu Qing and Feng Xin and he, himself, cannot die?

Fight between Hua Cheng and Lang Qianqiu: Xie Lian had tried to stealth and de-escelate, but Lang Qianqiu was the one who charged forward in reckless anger. Xie Lian, seeing that Hua Cheng's blow would kill him if it connected, absorbed the blow, instead, because he knew he could, only injuring an arm. Was Xie Lian supposed to let his former student die in front of him just because to save his life would injure him in a way that he would heal from fairly quickly?

The needle and the fetus spirit: I analyze the needle scene here (and will return to this analysis at the end), actually, but as for him doing whatever it took to capture the fetus spirit, once again, this was a matter of life or death, and Xie Lian had a choice between temporary pain or sacrificing someone else's life so that he wouldn't be injured. What kind of cultivator would he be, exactly, to let civilians die for his comfort? A cultivator who was asked to save lives, mind you. He could have chosen to avoid the needle and let the fetus spirit escape to kill again, but he didn't.

Now, I'll give you another example of Xie Lian choosing "pain": during the Birthday extra, Xie Lian is experiencing pain so badly that it makes him blackout. He hides it because celebrating Hua Cheng's birthday with him for the first time is more important. After it's discovered, Mu Qing and Feng Xin realize that the pain seems to be worse around Hua Cheng and theorize that putting some distance between the two would give Xie Lian reprieve enough to figure out what's going on. Hua Cheng leaves immediately, no questions asked, because his priority is Xie Lian's wellbeing. Xie Lian, on the other hand, panics, because while physical pain is something Hua Cheng cannot tolerate him experiencing even if Xie Lian can handle it, the emotional pain Xie Lian derives from feeling abandoned is something he cannot handle. He immediately sends himself back to his husband's side. While Xie Lian can tolerate pain, he only tolerates what he wants to and never seeks out pain for himself.

As for Hua Cheng, a loved one being upset at your experiencing of pain for whatever reason is not evidence of self-harming tendencies or a lack of self-care on your part. The thing about Hua Cheng's responses to Xie Lian allowing himself to be injured/pushing into danger is that Hua Cheng knows Xie Lian's history. He was there for the land of tender and saw Xie Lian mutilate himself to keep him safe. He was there in the temple when Xie Lian was mutilated against his will for the sake of others. He was there when Xie Lian was utterly abandoned by everyone he knew and loved and acting out in self-destructive ways. All of Xie Lian's worst moments, he's experienced, and his whole goal of amassing power was to be able to protect his beloved. Even when he wasn't there, he was collecting information and stories on his whereabouts and experiences. But Xie Lian doesn't know this when they first meet.

Xie Lian has spent 800 years as a lone wanderer with no long-term companions and no one who even knew of his existence. He could only rely on himself from his early 20s on. Not even his friends were dependable, and that is the mentality that Xie Lian has at the start of the story. "I cannot ask others to do right because they are unreliable, so I will do it, myself, without asking." Hua Cheng is upset at this mentality not because he believes that there is something wrong about Xie Lian but because he knows that this belief has sprung from the truth that Xie Lian really didn't have someone to depend on, and even though Hua Cheng's 's back again and ready to be that someone, the fact that Xie Lian is still risking himself instinctively without even considering that Hua Cheng can help him means that he has not proven to his beloved that he is dependable and is here to stay.

So for your conjecture, it's not that Hua Cheng is being overprotective, but he wants Xie Lian to see him as the pillar of support that he is and realize that he no longer has to fight anything alone. And it's not that Xie Lian stopped caring about his own hurts until someone else started caring for him, it's that he hasn't had the luxury to care and tend to his own hurts, because no one was gonna do the things that needed to be done while he took a rest. Others may have had him, but he only had himself. Until Hua Cheng, of course.

[batbeato]

Thinking about how emotional Battler is and what that means for him and his relationship to toxic masculinity.

Men are taught to not show emotion, to disconnect from emotions, to only express anger and not to connect through love, through tenderness. By all rights, the Battler Sayo knew as a child should have long since been crushed under the weight of those patriarchal ideals. And, to an extent, he is - he makes crude sexist jokes towards the women around him, in a fumbled, clumsy attempt at claiming traditional masculinity. But in the end, Battler can't follow through on those ideals: when he gets the chance to grope Shannon, for example, he rejects it. He doesn't understand the harmful impact of his remarks, but he also doesn't actively want to claim patriarchal dominion.

The emotion Beatrice most often seems to seek from Battler is anger: it is anger that she responds to with gleeful cackling, and which she seems to try to spur on in him, especially by positioning herself as an opponent he must hate, rage against, and defeat in order to display/prove masculinity. In doing this, Beatrice herself is reinforcing the patriarchal ideal , in which her male partner, Battler, must express his anger towards, and dominate, women. Beatrice forcefully makes their relationship one in which Battler is constantly enraged at her. When he does not rage, but instead fully rejects her, as he does in Episode 3, she can't handle it. When he has emotions other than anger towards her in Episode 3, from his terror to his cold rejection, or expressing sympathy and love, Beatrice rejects him. When Battler shares his personal struggles in Episode 4 during the 'remember your sin' scene, rather than engaging with Battler's past and the complex relationship and emotions he has with/towards his family, she once again rejects him, this time to the point of denying that he even is Battler.

Beatrice expresses emotions that women aren't allowed to display: she is angry, she is mocking, she is powerful, she is violent, and she is dominating. In fact, Beatrice expresses traits that, if expressed by a man, such as Battler, would be praised as a display of 'traditional' (patriarchal) masculinity. And, much like many men, she is stymied by the fact that, instead of her violence acting to help her loved one understand her, it only pushes him away and drives him further from understanding. Beatrice wants Battler to come to understand her, but isn't willing to put in the taxing and important emotional work of meeting him as an equal, seeking to understand him in turn, or openly expressing her emotions with him.

The end of Episode 4 is the culmination of this one-sided dynamic between the two of them. Battler is torn between his anger at Beatrice and his desire to ease her pain - to show her kindness and compassion. However, Beatrice continuously spurns his kindness, and instead incites his anger at every turn. She rejects Battler when he is sensitive and emotional - the very thing she is seeking from him - and instead seeks a Battler who will enact wrathful patriarchal violence upon her.

Beatrice, due to her own self-hatred and inability to accept emotional connection, believing herself to be unlovable, creates barriers between herself and others. She wants Battler to understand her, to love her, to listen to her - but she is unable to directly express these desires to him, and does so indirectly through her game boards instead. And yet, she also wishes for him to re-enact patriarchal violence upon her, as Kinzo did to her mother and grandmother, but this time "justified" due to her status as a witch, her incestual desires, and her role in the massacre of Battler's family. By giving Battler the role of patriarch, and pushing him towards it by encouraging his anger and denying his other emotions, she ultimately fulfills this desire, and he kills her at the end of Episode 4 in 'justified' and 'masculine' rage.

However, it is at this point that Beatrice is finally able to communicate with Battler - she openly asks him to kill her, and she gives him her final riddle, and her true desire all along: for him to unmask her.

In Episode 5, without Beatrice to urge him on at every turn, much of Battler's rage has evaporated. Though Beatrice is no longer able to act or to express herself, Battler does not take advantage of this to dominate her or her narrative, or to press his own desires upon her. Instead, he seeks to understand her and fulfill her wishes, relinquishing his anger as he instead chooses kindness.

In Episode 5, Battler speaks kindly to Beatrice, wipes her sweat, and assists her in drinking tea. He engages in nurturing, emotional acts that the past Beatrice would have scorned and rejected, and that do not fit the patriarchal model.

Battler, at the end of Episode 5, comes to understand Beatrice - an act that takes a reckoning of his part to play in the patriarchal, oppressive systems that resulted in her suffering, and his personal relationship with her and how it harmed her. It also takes Battler doing important emotional work. It is only by engaging with love - without love it cannot be seen - that Battler is able to win, to revive, and to be rewarded.

In doing so, Battler becomes a witch, a 'feminine' role. He becomes a believer in miracles, a hopeful man, a grieving man. He places himself under another's power (Erika) in the hopes that Beatrice will rescue him, giving himself the role of the 'damsel in distress'. He rejects the role of macho hero, of the masculine physical, and instead works to empower the women around him (Beatrice, Ange). He gives Erika tape because he sees how she is being dominated and coerced by Bernkastel and wants to empower her to fight as she pleases, not as someone else wants her to. He attempts to give others fairness rather than play unfairly and unjustly - perhaps a metaphor for a divestment from male privilege.

Battler faces pressure to conform to patriarchy through his family, from his sexist father to his sister insisting that he close himself off and cease to trust others, as well as from Beatrice, who scorns his kindness and sensitivity. However, it is only by rejecting rage, and choosing to love, that Battler is able to understand Beatrice, to keep his promises, and to help those he loves. It is only by embodying a masculinity that rejects patriarchy that Battler is able to have an equal, loving, and fulfilling relationship with Beatrice.

It's not a message/aspect of Umineko I see talked about often enough: how amazing it is that Battler is a man who is allowed to cry, to be weak, and to openly, wholeheartedly, love.

[colourstreakgryffin]

If we saw how Charlie and Alastor reacted to Rarity like!reader and Pinkie Pie like!reader,maybe a Fluttershy like!reader x Husk??

Idk I think they would be cute together

Haha. Awww, I can just imagine Husk carrying us away whilst we’re crying in fear over Charlie borrowing our little animal friends for the Hotel briefly! Needless to say, this is actually the cutest and one of my favourite MLP-Hazbin mix-couples/duos so far! And again, kinda short!

Husker- Glass Barfly

As I stated previously, Husk is a sweetheart of a lover and his patience is quite high so trust me. He can handle his precious timid helpless little girlfriend better than anybody else. Somebody who is so shy yet kind that she hides behind him for support, he is quite good

Of course, Husk can’t help but instinctively treat you like glass. The most beautiful glass figure he’s ever found. He knows what to do with you

Husk is emotionally intelligent and able to recognise problems very well. So, he can recognise your antisociality and your fear over coming off as a fool, for that, he’ll slowly and carefully push you into pushing your own boundaries for your own good

Husk is getting better and better with your animal friends. He isn’t perfect but he doesn’t ever harm them… well, not on purpose. He’s growing to handle how many they are and how often you carry around your hot-tempered bratty bunny, Devil

Husk finds you precious and he’d beat the shit out of Alastor with the bar itself to protect you. You’re a little fragile butterfly, a charming doll of kindness that loves her animals. It’s natural that he adores every fibre of your being. Others may get annoyed with your shyness, he doesn’t

You can fly like Husk and have wings like him. He is lazy and dislikes flying but he will fly to encourage you to use your wings more. They are soft and beautiful, you deserve to be able to rely on them. He wants you feel comfortable so he will make it that you are. Luckily, he always succeeds

Husk is quite proud everytime you stand up for yourself or you do something you’d never normally do without his push. You’re learning, you’re growing! He can’t help but feel his heart swell at it and he showers you with praise and pride as soon as he can

Husk is learning to be a good person whilst you’re learning to be more confident. You’re helping each other and for that, you’re both quite dedicated to each other. Husk is your armour but you’re his heart

Husk knows you like the functions of a roulette game. He knows when your patience has been pushed too far and when you’re willing to be firm, if not cruel and harsh, and when that happens. He doesn’t even try sway you, he steps back and waits for you to cool down before calming you even more

Husk is always covered in your animal friends. And always means always! He has birds, squirrels, bunnies, butterflies, all kinds of Hell animals following him about the Hotel and he knows that they like him as much as they like you

Husk enjoys snuggling you in bed after work hours. Wings perked overs yours and laid over your back. You’re warm, you’re safe and you’re covered in soft fur. Both you and him like this so every night. You hop into the bed you share with Husk and he hops on top of you

Husk is the only one who can and will hear you in your whole singing glory. You’re way too insecure to sing around anybody else and it took some time for you to be comfortable with him but now that you are, you feel confident and safe singing around him

Yep. Husk got you a cute ring with a pink butterfly-shaped gemstone in the middle. It’s, to you, a sign that he is your safe spot and always is your safe spot. The one you can not be so frightened of embarrassing yourself with, somebody you can lean on and feel supported with

Husk knows about your crippling fear of social situations and how easy it is to embarrass you so you two regularly just spend time together and not ever go out, not until you actually feel okay with it. But of course, you’ll always do stuff for him too. You both give and take from one another

If it is my choice, y’all are engaged

“Leitora, butterfly. Don’t worry, the little buds will be okay. Do you want to go back to our bedroom, we don’t have to watch anything Charlie does with ‘em”

[dandysworld-mansionau]

DANDYS WORLD MANSION AU MASTERPOST

WOAH. DANDYS WORLD MANSION AU??? OWNED BY @the-silly-superstar ???  YOU SHOULD TOTALLY CHECK THIS OUT??

BECAUSE ITS DANDYS WORLD AU.

Heh. Epic intro Am I right? Wrong, READ THIS NOWWWWW /silly

Rodger Glass

Rodger Glass, a famous detective living in the town of Gardenview. Was first in an arranged marriage with Connie Boolynski, but is rumored to have murdered her. He was taken to court for these charges, but his own quick wits saved him.

Lives in the town’s great manor with his new wife, Teagan Glass, their employees, and adopted child, Toodles. He doesn’t exactly love Teagan, but he sure loves the money her family brings to them each year. 

He’s rather stern with his employees, a no-nonsense man as he usually is when it comes to work, but one butler does seem to get ‘special treatment’ every now and again.

Teagan Glass

Teagan Glass, the second wife of Rodger’s. She lives in the manor with her husband and adopted child, Toodles.

She comes from a rich background, growing up wealthy and staying that way throughout the years. Despite this, she’s a kind-hearted soul in public, willing to help anyone she knows financially. Behind closed doors it’s a different story. Like Rodger, she’s strict and pushy, but doesn’t mean harm most of the time. She tries to be polite to the employees, but it seems after each passing day her teabag’s rope is wearing thin.

She seems weary of her husband and his whereabouts, especially with that butler, but Shrimpo, the second butler, seems to help her out a bit. 

Glisten

The Manor’s lovely butler, part time diva. He’s not the best at his job, having dropped many plates and drinks, but his jokes towards guests make up for it. He’s most often busy when Rodger has guests, however. He often reads to Toodles and helps her choose outfits each day.

Shrimpo

Shrimpo, the angriest butler in town. Definitely not favorable when it comes to interacting with guests, or anyone really, but excellent at his work. Often assists at Teagan’s tea parties. He’s very easy to set off, but something about Teagan keeps him calm, maybe it’s the smell of the sweet tea?

Tisha

The lovely maid of the manor, consistently cleaning so the place is spotless. Hates when guests dirty her floors with the ichor outside, cleaning their shoes before they even enter. Enjoys Toodles’ company while she works, but the lovely ghost of the mansion keeps her company.

Design update notes - jabot added and sleeves are more similar to Connie’s, just round. Gloves also have three rounded edges. Has petticoat under dress

Connie Glass Boolynski

Rodger’s previous, now deceased wife whom haunts where she died. Cause of death? Her corset was incredibly tight, allowing her husband to stealthily stab her. She bled out, unknowing of her fate until it was far too late.

Design update notes - chest and sleeves are more triangular and pointy.

Toodles 

The young daughter recently adopted by the Glass family. Astounding straight-A student, despite apparently never studying. She enjoys reading books or hosting small ‘fashion shows’ with the butler Glisten when he’s not busy. Dislikes Teagan, finding Tisha’s company more welcoming and comfortable.

LINEUP (w/ flat colors)

RULES

No nsfw asks, even if the characters are adults!

Suggestive is fine tho, ig?

If I’m uncomfortable with the ask, I’ll ignore it tho.

Don’t be mean!! Bullying is a no no here

No proshippers/creeps allowed >:(

FAQ

Can I make fanart?

Yes!! Tag me so I can see it!

Can I make nsfw?

I’d rather you don’t, to be honest, but I can’t stop you, GO FOR IT! The kids and any animal characters are strictly OFF LIMITS for this though.

If you do make nsfw, DO NOT TAG ME IN IT. I will quite literally block you if you do.

What do you plan on making with this?

Comics, art, or whatever, honestly. I don’t exactly have any big plans, but I’ll mess with this for as long as I want to.

I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS RAHHH

Go to the ask box for more info cause omg I hate writing all this!! :]

Also, quick intro, I’m Uni! (She/they, @the-silly-superstar ) I’m really into dandy’s world rn, so AU!! First time with a more ‘big’ AU blog, if that makes sense, so be nice plz :(

Also, you can ask me questions about the AU, or ask the characters directly!

Have fun with this chat!

[goldenlikedayl1ght]

you're the one - j. cage

a/n: not proud of where my life has taken me, honestly. but this is for the love of my life, luca. hope you all enjoy! likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated! warnings: kissing, suggestive comments, johnny being like the worlds biggest flirt, nothing too crazy, but definitely a lot of sexual innuendos, teasing, inappropriate workplace relationship, kind of, light angst with a happy ending word count: 3.1k summary: you're johnny cage's assistant babysitter agent, and you're his opposite. and yet, he finds himself unapologetically into you. pairing: johnny cage x gn!reader now playing: you're the one - greta van fleet "you're the one i want/you're the one i need/you're the one i had/come on back to me"

You decide you can never be with Johnny Cage in a dingy bar on a Saturday at 11:19 PM.

You’d been his agent for around three months at this point, and you’re always with him, to the point where it became weird that you know so little about each other. And really, it’s a wonder that you lasted so long given how different you are.

You’re awkward, and there’s no harm in it, but you find yourself standing to the side of every movie set, glancing down to your phone to try and find a reason to send an email to someone to distract yourself.

Your relationship history is far and few between, you’ve only started dressing well recently, and you find yourself struggling in crowds and public speaking terrifies you.

Johnny is electric. He has no problem finessing a crowd, has no problem being the center of attention. He’s just unlike anyone you’ve ever met.

So really, you can’t say you’re shocked when you wake up one day and realize that you have in fact, developed feelings for him. It isn’t a tough thing to do, not when he’s always flirting with you.

After a rather large slump in his career, Johnny’s new movies have been doing well in both the box office and with movie watchers all over the country. Really, you became his agent at the perfect time because right after you started, he really became quite the star. Maybe the change of pace behind the camera worked out rather well.

He sort of feels bad, that you’re constantly with him. He doesn’t know when you sleep, because if he isn’t on set or doing press or getting ready to do either, he’s asleep, but every day when you show up to the set, you have a new agenda for him to follow.

When you do it, while also sleeping, eating, and taking care of your own obligations, he doesn’t know.

But one night, after three months of your help, he asks you to grab a drink with him.

(“This isn’t a ploy to get me alone and drunk is it, Cage?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”)

And that’s how you wound up here. You’re dressed more casually than he’s ever seen you, sporting this old band tee and some rather casual jeans. He can’t stop looking at you, and he’s a little confused about it.

He doesn’t get star struck often, but he has this thought, that maybe in one of Liu Kang’s alternate universes, you two ends up together. Maybe he fixes boats in a coastal town, maybe you work at the diner there, maybe you have a dog together. Maybe, in another universe, you and Johnny have a quiet life, where you don’t have much, but you have each other, and that’s enough.

“So how did someone like you end up in a place like this?” he asks, charmingly. You roll your eyes and take another sip of your beer.

“Well, this asshole I work for—”

“Hey!”

“He asked me out for a drink, and I don’t know if it’s because I felt obligated because he pays me, or because I genuinely wanted to, but I went out with him.”

“You’re so mean to me.”

“You make up for it, always flirting with me.”

“Can’t say you don’t like it, sweetheart—”

“Listen, Cage—"

“But you never answered my question. How’d you end up in Hollywood? We spend all this time together, yet I feel like I barely know my own assistant.”

“Agent.”

“Whatever. Answer the question.”

It’s a loaded one, no doubt, but not one you aren’t willing to answer. You find yourself unable to really keep anything from him, he just needs to know where to look for it, how to interpret it.

“I moved here from home, never

had much of anything—Family, Money, Whatever—Got an internship and before you know it, I’m networking my way to being Johnny Cage’s babysitter—”

“Agent.”

“Whatever.” You shoot back, a goofy grin on your face.

“Okay, let me ask you this,” He poises, “Favorite movie?”

You exhale, finding that a near impossible question.

“Oh, and none of mine! Then, it would be too easy!” He grins, and you shoot him this look.

You have a lot of favorite movies.

You take a few minutes before deciding on one.

“Paddington 2.”

“What?!”

“Paddington 2!”

“You cannot be serious!” He gawks. “Paddington 2 over, what? The Shawshank Redemption? Gladiator? Better than Aliens?!”

You take a minute.

“I’ve never seen Aliens.”

“What?! Big alien, tiny girl, Ripley!” He says the main character’s name in this high pitched, annoying tone.

It makes you burst out laughing, and he just laughs at your laugh.

“Nope, never seen it.”

“Oh my god! How do you work in Hollywood, and you’ve never seen Aliens?”

“Stop asking me if I’ve never seen Aliens, you know what the answer is!”

You both laugh again, and for a moment, it is perfect. There is no one else in the world except you and him, and there’s no reason to feel as if this isn’t real. There’s no reason to deny yourself the rather simple pleasure of admiring him, and there is certainly no reason to stop looking at him like you are right now.

And then this beautiful blonde woman strolls up to him. Even you can admit that she’s gorgeous.

“Excuse me,” Her voice is that of a songbird, “I don’t mean to bother you, but are you Johnny Cage? Like, the actor?”

“Indeed, I am, how can I help you?”

“I was just wondering if I could buy you a drink. Maybe we can go back to my table?”

You’re full of jealousy. You feel awful for it too, because in no way is Johnny yours.

“Uh, you know what..” He glances back at you, and you give him this weak smile.

“Go, it’s fine. Have fun, it isn’t like this is a date or anything.”

He grins at you and puts a fifty on the bar to pay for your drinks and leave the bartender a rather nice tip.

“You’re the best wingman ever, man! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

You finish your drink bitterly as Johnny goes off to flirt with, and eventually sleep with, that nice woman. You take notice that when the two of you are alone, you’re ‘sweetheart’ but when another woman strolls in, you’re ‘man’.

And that’s it. It’s 11:19 PM and in that dingy bar, you decide that you can never be with Johnny Cage. You know it will never be what you want it to be. That if it does happen, it’ll be like it is with this woman. A one-night stand, never to be brought up again. You’ll get him all to yourself for one night, and then after that, he will never be yours again. He’ll go back to being no ones, back to being the spotlights. Back to belonging to everyone, except you.

• • •

To tell you the truth, you snuck up on Johnny. After you made it clear the first day you met that you had no intention of sleeping with him, he sort of wrote you off other than flirting.

And one day he woke up and realized how desperately, horribly in love he is with you.

It happens a few weeks after your night at the bar. You were supposed to spend the night filming an outdoor scene, but it rained so hard that the stunts wouldn’t have been safe, so here you are in his living room. He had sold his mega mansion for something less expensive—Still lavish, but not nearly as expensive.

“So, do you want to go over the script and make those edits that the studio suggested or—”

“Nope.” He comes out of the kitchen holding a big bucket of popcorn. “We’re watching Aliens.”

You sigh and plop the script down on his coffee table.

“Johnny—” you say in this exasperated tone.

“Darling,” He echoes, in that same tone but more sarcastically. What a dick. You can’t help but want him. He sits with you and puts the popcorn between you, as he turns on the TV and brings up the movie. “Say what you want, but you’re my assistant, so you have to do what I say!”

“Agent.”

“Whatever! C’mon, take one night off, just watch this movie with me!”

You glance over to him and sigh. Why do you do the things you do for him? You’ll never know.

“Fine. One movie, and that’s it!” You tell him and curl up on the couch, your hand reaching to the popcorn to grab a fistful.

One thing no one ever told you was how God damn scary this movie was! You aren’t a big gore or horror person, so it takes you by surprise.

It’s really good, though you’d never admit it to Johnny, just fucking scary.

At some point throughout the movie, one of you moved over the popcorn bowl, slowly closing the gap between the two of you.

During a particularly scary scene, you find yourself jumping, right into his side, gripping his arm. Your heart is racing, but you’re so totally glued in.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” You gasp, your clutch on his arm growing tighter.

“Pretty cool, right?” He grins, noticing your grip on his arm.

“It’s fine.” He chuckles and shakes his head, leaning back on the couch.

And that was it. He was hooked. He knew how his image had been around Hollywood, and he knew that you saw him as this playboy. Which wasn’t entirely untrue, especially since his divorce.  But he wanted to make a change, wanted you to see the change, but he just couldn’t put his finger on how.

The rain is still pouring when the movie ends, when you finally pull yourself off his arm.

“I should be heading out.”

“What? You can’t drive in this.” He doesn’t want you to leave.

“It’s not that bad.”

“Just stay the night.”

“Johnny, I don’t even have clothes to—”

“I’ll give you some of mine. You can take the bed.”

You pause.

“Don’t think that this means I’ll sleep with you.”

He grins.

“Sleep in the same bed as me? Yeah. Let me do all these dirty things that I—”

You get up and head towards his room.

“I’m not on the clock, I’m not dealing with you.”

He grins and follows you.

“I don’t hear a no in there, hot stuff—”

“I swear to god, Johnny—”

You’re too busy bickering to get much sleep that night.

• • •

The movie comes out in two weeks, so on your agenda for today is fitting him for a new suit. You’re sitting, sipping a rather crisp mimosa when he comes out in this one suit. He does a nice twirl and holds his arms out, expecting approval.

He looks good. Like, good enough that you almost break that rule you made at the bar that night.

It’s been a month since you stayed at his place, and since then, things have just been different. You no longer must watch him go off and flirt with other people, because he seems to have some sort of change of heart.

You grin gently.

You put your drink down and stand up, going over to him and adjusting his tie.

He wears this black suit, except the suit coat is a deep blue velvet that is soft to the touch.

“You look great.” You tell him. He grins.

“Only missing my signature shades, good lookin’. That way you can’t tell when I’m looking at your—”

“Eyes, right, Johnny?”

“And ass.”

You laugh and shake your head, unable to comprehend that you feel anything except great love for that comment.

“So, what are you gonna wear?” He asks.

“What? To where?”

“To the premiere?”

“Johnny, I’m not going to the premiere—”

“You have to! You’re my assistant!”

“Agent!”

“Whatever!” His hands come to the dips of your hips. It’s a little too past platonic. You say nothing. “We need to get you an outfit.”

You groan. You hate shopping for clothes. You hate fancy clothes especially.

“Let me go order this to be tailored, and then we can go shopping for you. I’m thinking either blue, to match me, or gold, to compliment—”

“If I’m going to the premiere, It’ll be quietly behind all the cameras, not—”

“Then come as my date. Not as my agent, not as my assistant, not as my babysitter. As my date.”

“Don’t you want to go with someone pretty?”

He frowns.

“You’re pretty.” He tells you.

“Johnny—”

“No argument on this one, Darlin’, we’re going shopping,” he quickly kisses your forehead and walks off to go get changed and pay for his suit.

So that’s how you find yourself awkwardly fitting into this gold outfit, with black accents and the right curves to fit your body shape just right. It isn’t your body that fits awkwardly into it, it’s you. You’re not used to this level of formality.

“Come on out, sweetheart, I won’t bite!” Johnny calls from outside your dressing room.

“You’re gonna be mean to me!”

He gasps, “I would never!”

You sigh and adjust the outfit before walking back out of the dressing room.

“Don’t laugh—” But he isn’t laughing. He’s just looking at you. “You don’t like it.”

“Nononono—” he says, walking towards you and putting his hands on your shoulders. He smooths out the shoulders of your outfit, his thumb gently rubbing over your collarbone. “You look amazing.”

“I feel like a barbie.”

“You look great.”

“I’m not used to this.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be a natural.”

“Besides, it won’t matter, everyone will be looking at you.”

He hums and shrugs.

“Everyone will be looking at you, I think.”

Your face goes red.

“Johnny!”

“I know you’re uncomfortable, but you do really look amazing, honey.”

You take his word for it.

• • •

When you get to the premiere two weeks later, it’s overwhelming. People are taking photos of you two, yelling his name, asking who you’re wearing. His hand does not leave yours.

“Just relax,” He tells you gently, “Just smile, it’s all you have to do.”

You do your best, trying to focus on the feeling of his arm around you as you pose. He glances down at you, tilting his shades down to the end of his nose. You can just make out his eyes. His hand comes up to your face and tilts your chin up.

He leans in and kisses you, as the crowds around you scream even louder. It occurs to you, at this moment, that he’s only kissing you to get publicity. That maybe he’s just taking advantage of the fact that you could be his mysterious new beaux. That he doesn’t want you, doesn’t want to kiss you, doesn't want anything to do with you.

You kiss back, not having any ability to resist how badly you want him anymore. You don’t care if it’s just for the cameras. You have no desire to pull away from him, no matter how pretend it may be.

When he does pull away, you make your way off the red carpet and into a secluded corner of the room.

“I’m sorry,” he starts.

“It’s okay, I get it, it didn’t mean anything—”

“What are you talking about?”

“…What are you talking about?”

“I’m sorry for surprising you so suddenly, it wasn’t where I wanted to do that, but I just.. I couldn’t help myself. You’re looking so good right now..”

“Not where you wanted to do that?”

“I’ve been meaning to kiss you for a while.. I just wanted it to be romantic and amazing, like you deserve, but I just couldn't help myself.”

“Like I deserve?”

“You have a lot of questions for someone who just got kissed by me—”

“Ugh, you’re the worst!”

“Does that mean you don’t want me to kiss you again?”

“…No.”

“That’s what I thought,” he leans to kiss you again, and you gladly let him. You only break off the kiss to take his sunglasses off his face, before kissing him again. Now that you had him, the want didn’t dissipate. Especially when you feel his hands on your hips again, and you only lean further into the kiss.

You can’t believe you waited so long to kiss Johnny Cage. Why would you ever deny yourself the right to make out in some quiet corner of a blockbuster movie premiere?

• • •

A week later, you’re sitting in that bar again. This time, you and Johnny have this booth in the back of the bar, and you’re leaning against him while he tries your extremely fruity drink and cringes at how sugary it is.

“I don’t know how you drink this shit.”

“I need to get nice and drunk after the day I had. Boss was being mean.”

“Sounds awful.”

“Yeah but He’s a great kisser, so.”

He grins and presses a kiss to your head. Somehow, He is more comfortable than he has been in a long time, feeling more like himself than he has in… years, maybe.

“It’s getting late, we should get you home soon.”

“Mm, But I like drinking. Besides, when did you become the responsible one?”

“When you ordered that fourth margarita.”

“Touche.” You finish your drink and sigh. “You’re not gonna let me have another, huh?”

“Not tonight, baby.” He says, patting your thigh gently. “C’mon, get up, I’ll go pay our tab and we can get some fresh air.”

You hum and get up, leaning against him as he makes his way to pay, and then you head outside to lean against the wall. Johnny keeps you up right as you try to breathe through the liquor. Then this girl comes up to you, and grins at your boyfriend.

“Are you Johnny Cage?” She asks. He bites back a sigh and smiles to her.

“I am, Hi—”

“I love your movies! Do you want to go grab a drink with me?” she asks, flirtatiously. You’re literally standing there leaning against him, with his arm around your waist.

“I’m sorry, you seem very nice, but I have to get my partner here home.” He says, “Have a nice night.”

She seems a little sad, but she bids you guys goodnight respectfully and heads into the bar.

“Your partner?” You ask, drunk on sugary drinks and love for this man.

“Yeah, they’re pretty nice.” He hums. “A pretty great assistant. An even better kisser.”

You frown.

“Agent!”

“Whatever.”

He leans in and kisses you to shut up before you can argue with him anymore. For once, you don’t mind his interruption.

[astariontopofme]

𝐀 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐂𝐫𝐲 𝐎𝐧 🤍 (Astarion x F!MC)

Summary: Astarion is on a personal journey of self improvement to support his relationship. A little fluffy / hurt/comfort drabble.

Word Count: 1.8k

—————

By any sense of the word, Astarion was not known to be a nurturing man.

He wasn’t quite as in touch with other people's feelings in the way that Wyll or Halsin could be. If anything, he was rather cold in the sense of comforting another. Comfort was something he was deprived of in his two hundred years as a slave to Cazador, so what he’d never received he felt could not give out.

Which left him in a tricky predicament tonight.

Unlike most nights, she did not wish to indulge him in the details of her brutal adventure as soon as she returned. His strong little love had arrived shivering, distant and doused in dozens of conflicting scents of cold blood. All he could do was gawp at her for a moment, unsure of whether or not he should do something. It wasn’t uncommon for members of their party to return in such a state of gore and emitting a strong stench of death, but to return looking so mentally sore and empty was something he was yet to deal with.

Entirely unsure as to why, he wanted nothing more than to be the comfort she so clearly needed after such a day. He wanted to see her smile, it was the only thing that brightened up his night at camp. Smiling was obviously not in her repertoire of emotions that evening. 

As much as he wanted to give in to this new desire to nurture her, he didn’t dare get close until she had washed away the temptation staining her skin. No matter what, he had to resist the urge to aid in the cleaning of such an abundance of thickly spread blood. Visually, she was in a bad way, and he wouldn’t be able to help her while resisting the temptation to help himself to the scarlet feast she was drowning in.

All he could do was sit outside his tent, watching as Halsin helped to wash away the liquid badge of accomplished combat whilst healing her own open wounds. He studied the gentle touch of the well-built Druid, his large and rough hands so carefully patching her up as he tried to coax her out of her hypnotic-like state. Although the kind words from Halsin didn’t seem to be soothing her, Astarion made a note of the words of encouragement and sickly sweet pet names the healer used in an effort to make her feel safe.

Once she was patched up and in a much cleaner set of comfortable clothing, Halsin had offered her a shoulder to lean on and ear to listen to her troubles, but she quietly declined. Before she made her way to the lake, she thanked him for his help as she stood from her makeshift seat, not stopping when he suggested that she return to him if needed.

Astarion suddenly felt uneasy about her leaving such comfort to go and sit alone. Sure, she was his partner, but even he couldn’t deny that Halsin could give her emotional support and likely the warmest hug of her life to at least give her the slightest sense of security. 

It often made Astarion wonder what it was she actually saw in him. There was no doubt that the two of them were pretty nifty in battle, and she knew as well as he did that they had each other's backs. They were fearlessly protective of each other, each willing to do anything to shield the other from harm. 

But was that all their relationship could be defined as?

He wanted more for her, and admittedly for himself as well, but he was the only thing in the way of their progression. She was ready, willing and able to begin that chapter in their relationship, but he couldn’t let it be one sided. The cuddly and intimate side of things was still a learning curve for him as he progressively taught himself what he was and was not comfortable with and where his boundaries lie. He’d never had the luxury of boundaries before now, so her encouragement of him slowly discovering his own was greatly appreciated.

For that very reason, he had no qualms with her seeking comfort from other members of their party. If anything, it helped him learn the importance of patience and understanding and taught him how to express his own feelings. Although it wasn’t something he had yet expressed to the others, he was grateful for their unconditional support of her where he couldn’t yet give it.

Many nights he sat in his tent, building himself up to take that first step towards being the partner he wanted to be to her, only for his courage to come crumbling down as he thought more and more about whether or not he truly was ready for it. So as he watched her sitting by the lake, her arms wrapped around her own waist and shoulders slightly shaking from her torment, he felt something new.

Almost like a feeling of connection, he was suddenly completely drawn to her. He was standing from his uncomfortable perch on the bumpy terrain below him before he could even process any thought for what he was doing. She needed him, and this was both the first time he had recognised it and the first time he was acting on it. He moved toward her quickly, actually sensing her level of distress before he even knew what was truly eating away at her.

Unlike any other night at camp, he wanted to hear every detail of her troubles; tears and all. He wanted her to confide in him the way he had in her so many times before. He wanted her to lean on him for support because he wanted her to feel better.

Most importantly, he wanted to be her main source of comfort.

So as he approached his sniffling partner and silently sat himself behind her, he felt the first almighty crack in his hefty barrier. Fighting off the sudden quickening of his breath took mere milliseconds, a record by all accounts. That defensive stance of panic that repeatedly presented itself at even the slightest thought of being part of someone else’s emotional support system was overstaying its welcome, and he was ready to rid himself of it.

His hands gently pried her arms away from the tight hold they had on her waist, her grip so strong that it seemed she was trying to hold herself together before she fell apart in front of him. He locked his own arms in their place around her middle, pulling her back into his chest with a reassuring squeeze.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered suddenly, his mouth taking on a mind of its own.

Never before had he said such a sweet sentence with zero malice or ill intent. Every little doubt in his mind slithered away as her tense form shook pathetically in his hold. She was holding something in, a traumatic detail from her adventures that she may not want to relive.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The more he rubbed little circles into her waist with the tips of his fingers, the more she sank deeper into him. Her raised shoulders began to relax as each muscle softened within her, the unsettling tension slowly leaving her. He could feel himself doing something right, something that made him feel worthy of her love and time. Not even sex could make him feel as good as he did in this moment.

Astarion waited patiently for a response as she seemed to be clawing through her thoughts for an answer. His cold lips pressed a gentle kiss into her hair, the faint smell of blood still presenting itself upon her person. The smell did not deter him from his focus on her state as she began to break down into pitiful sobs, each heartbreaking tremor shaking them both as he completely enveloped her into him.

“Shhh,” he whispered softly. “Shh shh shh…it’s okay.”

She shook her head quickly, inhaling a shaken breath in an attempt to calm herself enough to speak. “I-I couldn’t…s-save-”

She needn’t speak any further, unable to anyway as she buried her face in her hands to muffle her sobs. She couldn’t save somebody, something that had been a reoccurring torment for her whenever she faced what she deemed as the highest form of failure. If Astarion was being wholeheartedly honest, he didn’t entirely understand her strong feelings for helpless people that had zero relation to her. 

She couldn’t save everyone.

He didn’t want to lose her in her personal mission to be everyone’s saviour, but he tactically held his tongue about his opinions. Conflicting opinions was, as Gale would put it, a normal part of a relationship, but Astarion knew he could be rather cut throat in his approach to such topics. He didn’t want her to think him heartless, because he really was trying to at least see things from her point of view first. And even if he couldn’t see why she was so attached to the helpless and needy, he wanted to convey that in a way that wouldn’t damage their relationship.

He still had a lot to learn, but truth be told, he was rather enjoying this personal journey to becoming his own person. A shocking turn of events to say the least. Something about this particular adventure made him feel like he was doing something right for a change. He was finally finding himself. Not the slave that Cazador created, but a man with his own morals and feelings.

His lips pressed many more little kisses wherever he could plant them, shushing her softly to alleviate the harsh sobs wracking her body. The back of her head eventually found its way into the crook of his neck, her soft hairs tickling at his puncture scars. He swayed them both slowly, resting his cheek upon her head to embrace her as much as he could.

She wasn’t in the right mind to tell him the story of her tragic day, so as much as he currently didn’t want to blindly promise her that she’d be presented with this side of him tomorrow, he wanted her to know that she no longer needed to seek out comfort from anyone but him. He wanted to hear about her upset, whether that was tomorrow or a week from now. All he knew was that tonight was not the night. 

Tonight, she just needed a shoulder to cry on.

_____

A/N: Hope you enjoyed my first little fic/drabble for BG3! FYI, I do accept requests! If you haven’t followed me from my HL blog, then please know that although I’m fully confident in my English, it is not my first language 🤍

[scoobydoodean]

How did, you think, the perception of Dean come to be so twisted/different from what is actually shown to us? Like some things I can see people just not bothering to look past superficial instances (The “no chic flick moment” thing, assuming that him not having Sam’s level of formal education means he’s automatically unintelligent because people assume that irl, for example) but others (Him being emotionally constipated in fandom but genuinely one of the most introspective and emotionally intelligent characters in canon, making him a slob/a bigot/an abuser, or someone that only hunts for the thrill of the kill) just… I can’t even begin to understand and it’s so homogeneous in the Fanon Mindset too.

I honestly do think a lot of these relate to Sam in an interesting way. A lot of narratives about Dean are in "contrast" to Sam. Sam is smart, Dean is dumb. Sam is introspective and emotionally intelligent, Dean is repressed. Dean is a slob, Sam is neat. We get many of these ideas from or through Sam.

Sam sometimes makes digs at Dean's intelligence (though he's far from the only one—even Dean himself is guilty of it) and people just kind of buy into that and regurgitate it despite the many examples we get to the contrary. In fact (and I wish I had tracked this in particular over this rewatch but I noticed how often it was happening pretty late) Dean is often referred to as dim-witted right before or right after displaying exactly how brilliant he is.

I think a lot of the idea that Dean is emotionally closed off also heavily comes down to Sam... because Sam is often the person asking demanding Dean open up, and when Dean refuses to open up to Sam, and Sam starts spouting off pop psychology talk about it not being good to "bury your emotions" or whatever... people buy into what's being sold to them... by Sam. Sam is selling a story that HE is emotionally healthy, but Dean is NOT emotionally healthy, and the details of what is upsetting Dean need to be pried out of him for his own good. When the truth is, 1) in many cases, what we are actually seeing is Sam being pushy and not respecting Dean's boundaries 2) many of these instances show Sam urging Dean to open up to him as a proxy for his OWN feelings that HE is avoiding (ex: 2.02, 5.11, 13.04) 3) other instances demonstrate that he is a poor confidant for Dean who is best avoided because he will harm Dean using what Dean's opened up to him about (ex: 2.09/2.11, 4.08/4.14/4.18/4.21, 6.02, 13.04). 4) Other episodes simply demonstrate that Sam is not always a preferred confidant because of their upbringing or whatever other reason but is still willing to be vulnerable with others (even if spurned by them too) (ex: 2.03, 3.10, 3.16, 4.15, 4.16, 4.22, 5.07, 6.02, 6.06, 7.04, ). And even then... Dean still opens up to Sam quite a lot! (ex: 1.16, 1.18, 1.22, 2.03, 2.09, 2.20, 4.10, 4.11, ... I'm losing steam here but you get the idea).

One of the reasons this happens I think is actually a lack of interest in Sam. Because many fans don't spend a lot of time analyzing Sam, they tend to vaguely grasp who he is based on how he talks. Then the issue multiplies when they use him as a self-insert in a fanfic instead of characterizing him as he is in the show, using him to tell Dean or Cas things the author wants them to hear, or to act as a confidant. That further lends to this belief that Sam is some High EQ Therapist Lite type who is endlessly sensitive and vulnerable and Dean is uniquely in need of Someone To Help Him Get His Shit Together.

The idea that Dean is a slob I give people a little more grace with, because I think it likely comes about more honestly through how Dean eats—and this is one area where Dean absolutely is not neat. He tends to ignore manners when eating, and I think a lot of people extrapolate from "Dean doesn't care about table manners" -> "Dean is a slob". Dean actually having some issues with germs at times is something members of the writing team have messed up before. It might also be related to Sam's weird perception of manners surrounding food (i.e., not eating food in other people's houses even when it's offered to him for some reason) and people associating his overemphasis on that with "neatness" in contrast to Dean.

Another angle here is probably classism rearing it's ugly head. Because Dean has less formal education than Sam, he has to be a slob, and he has to be emotionally closed off, and he must be a bigot, and etc etc etc.

The reasons some people insist on Dean being a bigot or an abuser are more nebulous (many forms of bigotry may be under discussion, many moments might be chosen as "proof" of one thing or another and that may require some more individual attention). In a broad sense, it's sometimes classism at work here. However, a lot of these ideas persist through certain metas passed around by people who already don't like Dean. Many of them developed a dislike for Dean early on and will always choose interpretations of various events that cast him in the worst light based on their first impression, whether their interpretation is all that reasonable or not. I mean, I could go around saying Sam idolizes a known pedophile and is afraid of people with certain disabilities because he's ableist, and I could insist his interactions with Madison in "Heart" are intentionally written to tell us that Sam is an absolute creep who takes advantage of vulnerable women, but if the goal is to analyze the show in good faith, my analysis ends up being more charitable as I dismiss some of these things as Writer Crimes or things that maybe I wasn't intended to take so seriously or things that are a product of their time. Of course we also all know that some Sam and Cas fans love to shit on Dean for doing the same shit their fave did. That does sometimes leave me wondering if people's selective memory on Sam and/or Cas is more of the issue than their selective memory on Dean, but I also think because Supernatural is so long, and there is SO much fanon content, a lot of people's views on the characters are based around fanon/fanfiction they read in ways they simply don't realize, and that ignorance persists and strengthens as memories of the actual source material become more hazy.

NOTE: I know you know this—but for others: I track some of these things in the following tags:

#my smart bby

#dean and introspection

#bad therapist sam

#dean and cleanliness

#dean minimizations

[xhikatsu]

Topaz and Aventurine’s Silent Acceptance

Aventurine and Topaz, despite seemingly very opposite of each other, actually seem to get along with each other far more than they have shown with Jade. It’s rather ironic considering we don’t get to see them together really, yet there’s so many bits and hints they work together often.

Despite the way Topaz seems to openly admit to disagreeing with Aventurine, even sometimes sounding rather begrudgingly working with him, she always seems to be willing to back Aventurine up when he needs her. And vice versa, Aventurine has shown to be there for her when she needs it as well.

Throughout the Penacony quest, despite not making an appearance until the end, Topaz has been supporting him from the sidelines. Just making some assumptions due to her being in constant communications with him, she was probably the one trying to help contact allies for him while being in reality and Aventurine in the dreamscape.

She even asked Trailblazer to help Aventurine out when the time comes, so it’s not too far off to assume that it is possible she might have been the one contacting others with/for him. For example, such as the Knights of Beauty since she has connections to them with her probably knowing Wilder from the Aetherium Wars, the younger twin of Velite who was part of Argenti’s quest.

Overall, she is stuck in the reality hotel in Penacony. Instead of doing nothing, she was most likely helping Aventurine in any way she can since she is his project manager and he was in the dream world alone. This may also mean she might have been the one who ordered a doctor of chaos for him after being slashed by Acheron's blade, sending him to the Nihility and affecting him a bit after escaping (Thanks to Mr. Knight of Beauty as well).

Handling the negotiations, which was most likely her main duty in the project, she only had to work with Jade for this bit since Aventurine overplayed in giving them the opportunity and chance by getting the Emanator of Nihility involved to cause a scene. This means if things went as planned without extra complications, it would have just been the two of them working on the project while Jade only included her stone as part of the deal made prior to Penacony.

But even after that, during the meeting with the other Stonehearts, Topaz has continued her support towards him. Specifically, she was the first person to vote for Aventurine to have him stay in the Stonehearts during the debate on whether he should be kicked out or not. When Sugilite probes Aventurine that his "death" and ruining the Cornerstone was unnecessary, hinting that he probably did it out of his own selfishness of wanting to give his life away, Topaz was the one to shut down that line-of-thought by immediately voting to counter him. She specifically states to not ignore the facts, most likely pertaining to the results that Aventurine did complete the project and won Penacony for the IPC. On top of that, she never fully stated her reason for voting for Aventurine, only defending him against Sugilite's accusation.

Ironically, this was a similar case to Aventurine staying on call after Topaz’s demotion. After the 1.4 quest with Topaz on Jarilo VI, Aventurine was the only one to stay on call with her when she clearly did not seem happy by being demoted. Right after taking his voice changer off, Topaz seems visibly more happy compared to how she looked during the discussion of her demotion and Aventurine immediately seems to tease her (similarly to how the two bickered or poked at each other during the Checking Out quest after 2.3).

On top of that, Aventurine did two things during this conversation. First, he warned her about her kind heart when he didn’t need to. According to his words, he already warned her ahead of time that the project was more risky than beneficial but still continued to warn her of the potential harm that it may cause to her. Why is that? On top of this, the second thing he did after this was immediately recruit her to his Penacony project even though she just “failed” her project. His words in the CN text was:

“No one but you” instead of “what do you say”

What makes this conversation interesting is how he seems to continue to worry for her, hinting that he keeps warning her to be careful on the kind of projects she takes and even advise against it. Since in this particular case she ended up "failing", he immediately seems to try to cheer her up by staying in call with her to try and tease her like he usually would. But, he also even tries to offer her an opportunity to help her rank back up. Now do recall, Topaz does not care about ranks. But also, she has mentioned in Penacony that she is only there just because of Aventurine. The project was not something she cared for, but merely joined because Aventurine seemed to have personally asked for her help and specifically her out of all people despite her just being demoted when he asked.

This silent acceptance to help one another and continually support each other has always been an interesting trend between the two. Despite bickering and poking at each other, almost as if they are rivals or sorts, they have shown to be far kinder and closer to each other so far than the other Stonehearts that they have had interactions with in the main story, character stories, or myriad trailers.

Original Date of Posting on Tumblr: Oct 2, 2024

[amica-aenigmata-naboo]

Humanity

Astarion x Y/N - drabble - 1.3K WC

Masterlist

Warnings: TW!! self harm, blood, cutting, soft Astarion, not glorifying self harm it is a real problem people struggle with myself included, angst, hurt/comfort

-------------------------

Astarion constantly smelt blood when he was around you. Given all the adventuring and your general clumsiness he assumed you always had a scrape somewhere. You were quite odd to him. Skittish, afraid of the world. And yet, you were kind as could be. Always helping, sometimes to your detriment. He couldn’t quite discern what he felt towards you. You annoyed him beyond belief. But heaven forbid anyone say anything remotely negative about you and suddenly he had a knife at their throat. You were… complicated. To say the least. 

He saw the pain in your eyes, the same pain Abdirak mentioned the day Astarion met you. He knew how introverted you were and how the smallest things could have you blushing. He often used it to his advantage when he needed to persuade the others. You almost always sided with him, naively. He couldn’t tell what you felt for him, which frustrated him further. You never fell for the obvious seduction. Even when he asked you to his bedroll at the tiefling party; you blushed violently before stuttering an excuse to get away from him. He didn’t see you the rest of the night and when you were at camp the next morning he thought nothing of it. He noticed how often you were alone, how distant your face looked when you thought nobody was looking. He could always see the lack of sleep under your eyes, the hollowing of your cheeks as your eating was disordered. You had an air of melancholy around you when you weren't actively being the sunshine of camp. He never knew how to approach you when you were so obviously in pain. He wanted to care, but he himself was afraid of what caring for you might stir inside him. 

Tonight he sat at his tent, reading and drinking his usual red. Everyone had seemingly retired for the night, only his and your tents remained illuminated by candles. He glanced at your tent every now and then, wondering what you were up to. Suddenly, he watched you walk out of your tent, you headed for the lake. Astarion assumed you were going to wash so he left you be. That was until he smelled your blood, fresh. So fresh you were likely still bleeding. He listened closely as he stood to make his way to you. Your heart beat was even. How were you so calm if you were bleeding? He made his way to the lake stealthily. Not wanting to alert whatever was hurting you so he would have an advantage over it. 

What he saw stopped him in his tracks. There you sat, your legs partially in the lake while you sliced little cuts into your right thigh. With each new cut you watched the blood trickle and ooze before splashing your leg with water and repeating the process. He could hear your random sniffles, he could see the tears that flowed down your cheeks shine in the dim moonlight. 

“Oh my sweet…” he gasped out before cautiously making his way to you. 

You heard a twig snap a few feet from behind you. Your first instinct took over and you immediately cast sanctuary on yourself. There was no way you could fight something with muscle right now. All you had was your magic. Your eyes widened in horror when they met Astarion’s. 

He tried not to look, he really did. But your flowy white night shirt was seeping up the blood from your upper thigh, while the lower cuts bled down your leg. He was horrified in his own way. The purest soul, so selfless and sweet, insufferably kind - was hurting themself. He opened his mouth before shutting it again, not knowing what to say. He tore his eyes from your leg. Your eyes were round and full of fear. Your waterline was ready to burst with tears but you willed them to stay put. 

“Please don’t tell the others.” you whispered after a moment. 

Everything was so still, except you. You were shaking. Astarion carefully stepped towards you. When you didn’t retreat, which he fully expected you to do, he softly held your arms. Supporting you physically, he could feel the way you trembled. You reminded him of a frightened animal. And here you were being supported by a natural predator. His throat clenched despite him having no intention of biting you or drinking from you. His pupils dilated, the smell alone called to his savage, vampiric nature. 

“I won’t.” He said back sincerely. “What happened, little love?”

You nudge your head into his chest, unable to speak with the current lump in your throat. You weren’t brave enough to look at him. You didn’t want to see the pity, or disgust. Astarion slowly walked you back a few paces to sit you on a rock. 

“Stay.” he said before you watched him use transmutation to blink to gods know where. He vanished for only a moment before he reappeared in the very same fashion he vanished. He held a small parcel in his hand. You shifted your legs facing them away from him. He put a gentle, cold hand on your knee, tilting you to face him. 

His fingers worked diligently. He focused on the larger cuts before the smaller ones. “You wont need any stitches…” he said, mostly to himself but smiled slightly when he saw you watching him. 

You closed your eyes, slightly relieved. “I… I’ve been doing this since I was 12. But this is the first time someone else has… seen them. I thought I was so clever…” you finished with a watery laugh. 

“You don’t owe me an explanation, darling. Pain is pain. It manifests differently in us all.” he whispered as he laid the large pad of gauze over your cuts. You winced, sucking in a sharp breath. “I know, I know sweetheart. Just breathe for me…” he said, holding your leg in place as he gently but quickly wrapped your leg in gauze. Your small whimpers that you tried to hold back were like a hammer to his heart, cracking a little more with every whine. 

“All done.” he said, letting go of you. You hissed as you pulled your knees up. 

You felt the angry red skin beneath the bandages, heat radiating from it. You nodded at him, “Thank you…” you mumbled. 

Astarion finally felt his thirst subside slightly. He sat across from you, waiting for you to speak, if you wanted to. 

“I feel like I’m getting the bad out when I do it. All the hate and malice and pain… just goes with each cut.” you mumbled, not looking at him, your hands fidgeting with your sleeves. 

“I understand. I think most people hurt themselves in one way or another to relieve themselves. Life is too difficult not to. Your preferred method is just a bit more obvious than others. This doesn’t make you bad or unworthy. This just makes you… human.” Astarion said, sincerity laced every word. 

You stifled a small laugh, you weren’t human, but you understood the sentiment. He understood your humanity. “I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all this…” you said, your heart hurt just thinking about how strange and possibly traumatic this is for Astarion. 

He waved his hand absentmindedly, “Think nothing of it, darling. I am always happy to be here for you, in any way you need me.” he gently took your hand. 

You smiled at him. He stood before he picked you up bridal style, his inhuman strength on full display as he carried you back to camp. You watched him look between your tents before he walked to yours. Placing you gently on the bedroll, careful not to bump your sensitive leg. He started to get up but your hand caught his wrist. 

“Could you stay?” you asked, not entirely sure why. 

“Of course. Sleep now, and in the morning I’ll buy you a delicious little health potion and…” he said, eyeing you to see what else you could want.

“Cake?” you said.

Ah, your sweet tooth, another trait he secretly adored. “Cake it is, dear one.” he watched you wrap yourself around his waist before drifting off rather quickly. He watched you fondly, moving a bit of hair from your face every once in a while.

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Naboo's Note:

Hello all! I hope everyone is well. This is a bit of a heavier fic but I think it might be a new personal favorite. Quite a bit of the behaviors described are derived from reality. Felt a little therapeutic to write this somehow? Idk if it is weird let me know an I'll take it down ASAP. Thanks for the likes, comments, reblogs, and requests. XOXOXOXO!