#and they reflect my mental state pretty well

[housewifebuck]

911 + memes 10/?

[gods-perfect-idiots]

Okay bear with me folks, I have some ~thoughts~ about the Vanessa/Wade relationship (or frankly lack thereof) in Deadpool & Wolverine. I should start by saying that I am analyzing this with the (likely erroneous) assumption that everything on screen is 100% intentional and mindfully written to deepen the characters and inform their arcs. For the record, I don't necessarily believe that's true - there is certainly room for mistakes, lazy writing, confusing plot elements, or in this case, sidelining a potentially strong and important character for nebulous reasons (I'm guessing scheduling conflicts + run time concerns + actor's strike complications but idk for sure). (Also thanks to @gossippool and @kendyroy for encouraging me to post my thoughts instead of just rambling in the tags in the first place, y'all are the realest)

Long rambly post below the cut fyi

Now, granted, it has been a while since I watched the original Deadpool so I am not as well-versed in their early relationship as I am in the handful of scenes Morena Baccarin has in dp3, but I do think it is pretty canon that Wade generally struggles to express his deeper worries and feelings (without filtering it heavily through crude humor, sex, and pop culture references of course), especially after the events of dp1 and the physical and mental damage he sustains, and Vanessa is frankly no exception despite how much he cares for her. The entire first movie hinges on the fact that he doesn't really believe she could love him in his post-Francis mangled state, which is pretty contrived imo given that the film has established already how bonded they are, and she doesn't strike me as being written to be so shallow as to reject him based on a physical deformity. I mean iirc she wanted to stick around through chemo despite him being literally riddled with inoperable cancer, so she clearly is in it for the long haul (at least in dp1), messiness and all.

Now, in dp2, obviously she is shot and killed early in the film, and Wade spends much of the rest of the film wallowing in his very profound grief, trauma, and guilt over losing her due directly to his violent lifestyle. He goes to prison, he basically gives up on life and seems very resigned to dying once he has the power suppressant collar on, even excited to do so so he can be reunited with her. She is mostly sidelined as a Fuzzy Dead Wife trope basically, but the important thing here is that he spends weeks if not months in the throes of despair over losing the love of his life just as they were trying to start a family, and trying to reach across the boundaries of death to be with her.

Now, my first couple times watching dp3 I was frustrated by the trite narrative presented in the interview scene towards the beginning - specifically Wade's whole "my girl is getting tired of my shtick and I need to show her I matter". It felt contrived and disingenuous, and I just brushed it off as iffy writing, a means to an end, but the more I reflect upon it the more I think it is based in an emotional reality that is just handled with a very light touch by the film in favor of fanservice and Poolverine content (NOT that I'm complaining in the slightest - I think this movie is a masterpiece in many ways, albeit a flawed one but that's beside the point here), which for the record I am not against because I think it lends it an air of realism. This is Wade's story after all, Vanessa is a part of it but it is ultimately about him and his journey.

Basically, I think the combination of what happened to him in dp1 (the brain damage, the trauma, the awareness of the fourth wall, etc) followed by the events of dp2 (Vanessa's death, his grief and the associated guilt and trauma of being the direct cause of her death) led to an unbridgeable emotional gap between the two of them that ultimately leads to their breakup.

It's important to note that I don't think Vanessa has any recollection of her own death, given that Wade goes back and saves her before she can take the bullet, and so of course she can never fully fathom what Wade went through grieving her and their life together and their potential family, for however long he spent between her death and bringing her back with Cable's device. She can try (and she clearly does in the one scene I'll talk about next) but I fear she accepts, maybe even in that scene, that she can never succeed. He is beyond her reach by this point, and vice versa, his experiences having fundamentally changed him.

The one scene we really see from their relationship between dp2 and dp3 is the one where Cassandra mind-gropes Wade in the Void and we see Vanessa struggling to reach Wade across this aforementioned gap - she wants him to open up, she wants him to share what he's going through, she wants him to be the person she initially fell in love with (not even selfishly - to her nothing has changed really, because to her no time has passed). But not only does he not understand what she's really asking for but he responds in such a way that makes me think he has unprocessed issues that are only tangentially related to what she's saying - ie the stuff about mattering, about asking her if she even wants to be with him, etc. And he's not the Wade Wilson she met back in dp1 anymore. He watched her die and grieved her and brought her back, believing it would make everything go back to normal and they could resume their life together as if nothing had changed, but he has been fundamentally changed in a way that she can't grasp, even if he WAS good at externally processing his trauma openly without the artifice of wry jokes. She didn't "come back wrong" - instead, she came back exactly the same as before, but HE'S different now. Not wrong, per se. But changed.

It's an interesting scene because it's obviously a memory, and a crucial one at that, but you can see how Wade is misunderstanding what she's saying, viewing it through the prism of his own lack of self-worth and his own hopelessness - he takes away that she thinks he doesn't matter (even though like he says she didn't actually say that, but I don't think Cassandra invented that wholecloth - I think she pulled it out of his psyche because that's what he believes deep down, hence why his fixation on mattering even though she never said those words exactly), he takes away that she doesn't want to be with him, that she thinks he's nothing. Which would be frustrating as an audience member to witness as a pretty simple misunderstanding which could potentially be solved with one conversation, but it feels believable to me that these two people who have shared a great love would be fundamentally separated by unimaginable, cosmic trauma, and the on conversation they would need to have to rectify the misunderstanding is one that is impossible for Wade to verbalize and equally impossible for Vanessa to conceive of. It was one thing when they had shared trauma like violence and SA in dp1, but what Wade has gone through in dp1 and dp2, humor aside, is unfathomably traumatic, brain-breakingly so even, and that's not even factoring in the possible mental illnesses he now struggles with (I've seen folks suggest schizophrenia, DID, depression, etc. but I won't get into armchair diagnosing a fictional character here - suffice it to say he is canonically unwell as a result of what has happened to him, and yes it manifests as quirky fourth wall breaks and cheeky one-liners, but within the universe of the movies he is undeniably profoundly mentally ill, and that includes this humorous alter ego he created to cope with his trauma).

I think off-screen Vanessa probably really tried to reach him, maybe for years (the six year gap implies to me that they didn't break up immediately, that they tried for a while to stay together), trying to get her Wade back, but that Wade is gone. He struggled to express that to her until eventually he started to feel rejected because he couldn't express his trauma or how much he has changed, because even he can't fully conceive of the gulf that has formed between them. The truth is, he WANTS to be that Wade again, for her and for himself, but that Wade died when she died. Or maybe he had already started dying when Francis got a hold of him in dp1.

Anyway, all this is to say, I think Morena Baccarin WAS criminally underutilized in dp2 and dp3, but I think there is a strong argument to be made for the believability of their breakup regardless. I think even relationships built on enormous love can crumble due to trauma, and what Wade suffers over these movies is mind-bogglingly enormous trauma. It's especially heartbreaking that he blames himself for their relationship ending, talks like she just got tired of him, thought he didn't matter, whatever. But it is a credit to him that he never seems to feel anger towards her about it. He doesn't seem to feel entitled to her, though he longs for her and what they had and what she represented (hope, love, a future, a family), but ultimately she becomes more of a symbol of what he lost when he gained his powers, because let's be super fr right now - even if they had succeeded in having a baby, not only would they have lived in fear of her or the kid getting killed, but ultimately Wade would likely outlive both of them even if they managed to die natural deaths. The moment he gained his powers he was already destined to lose her, which is heartbreaking because she was the only reason he opted for the treatment in the first place - so he could stay with her.

I think a big part of Deadpool & Wolverine is watching Wade continue to process his own motivations (vis-a-vis Vanessa but also his other friends) and how he does eventually let go of the idea of "mattering" in favor of just saving the people he cares about (*cough* and being saved right back *cough* by Wolvie, as the final line and shot implies). And in the process he finds someone new who cares about him, who thinks he matters, who tries to sacrifice himself for him and his friends after mere days of knowing him, who comes home with him at the end of the story, who breaks his own centuries-old patterns, who has also experienced unimaginable grief and trauma, who has struggled with wanting to die and being unable to, who not only matches his crazy but matches his FREAK and also not only won't die on him but CAN'T die on him - and more importantly cannot be randomly killed by a stray bullet.

Idk if any of this makes much sense but I do think if you read between the lines and consider the potency of trauma and grief, guilt and emotional damage at play here, Vanessa and Wade's off-screen breakup is actually pretty realistic, and really heart-breaking to boot.

You can tell she still cares about him in so many ways - she shows up for his birthday party, she shows up to his welcome home party at the end, she finds excuses for physical contact multiple times, her eyes get soft when she looks at him, but there is a distance there that Morena Baccarin does an incredible job of portraying. She cares about him deeply, she has mourned the loss of their potential life together, she has let him go and accepted that the Wade she fell in love with is gone, but she wants him in her life even though she's moving on because she realizes he's gone somewhere she can't follow (literally and figuratively). And she wants him to be happy which is why I fully believe she would immediately clock the Poolverine of it all and not-so-subtly encourage them to make it official.

Anyway. Poolverine forever. Nothing against Vanessa at all - I think she delivers a nuanced and beautiful performance, I think their relationship is sweet and heart-wrenching in large part due to her acting chops, especially given how little she is given to work with - but I think their relationship was sadly doomed from almost the very start, because Wade becomes this traumatized superhuman and Vanessa would always be at risk in his orbit, but also would always on the outside of his multiverse superhero experiences. I think it's weirdly beautiful, even if I am filling in a lot of gaps and giving the writers maybe undue credit.

Anyway... thoughts? Please DM me or write in the tags, I am feral about this movie and just want to talk about it with anyone haha. If you have further insight into these characters too I'd love to hear it - I am by no means an expert in these movies or characters!

[multi-kpop-fanfics]

No the way it would be Cheol’s favourite thing to prop you up against him, back against his chest and finger fuck you into oblivion while watching your expressions in the mirror. He’s so BIG behind you and his arms are so strong around you, dark eyes meeting yours while he murmurs in your ear about how good you are for him, how well you’re doing, how hard you make him, gotta get you all wet and ready for his cock you know that don’t you baby?

tw: dom!seungcheol, sub!reader (fem), fingering, mirror sex, praise, size kink (reader is implied to be smaller than cheol), dacryphilia, use of petnames - minors dni.

@duhnova happy birthday <3

You're crying in your room and in front of the full-bodied mirror. And it's all your boyfriend's fault.

Read: you're crying in your room because your boyfriend is fingering your weeping cunt without mercy, in front of the full-bodied mirror, while you rest between his beefy thighs.

And you fucking love it.

"Never thought I'd get so horny from watching you cry like a little child." Seungcheol whispers in your ear while pumping his thick fingers in your pussy.

He's fucking lying through his teeth, but you're not in the right mental state to reply to him.

"God, you're so pretty with tears on your face and my fingers in your tiny pussy, princess." He kisses your cheek, his lips collecting your tears, "Letting me stretch you out to take my cock, such a good fucking girl."

"C-Cheollie," you hiccup between cries, "Your f-fingers are so b-big....Please d-don't stop."

"I could never stop when you're being so good for me, baby." He coos at you, looking at your pathetic reflection.

You can feel his hardened cock poking at your back and your thighs shake at your impending orgasm. You want to close them so bad, but Seungcheol's thighs are holding them wide apart and there's no way you could ever overpower them.

"You have such a beautiful pussy, you know. It's so tight and juicy, but it can take everything I'm willing to give it, whether it's my fingers or my cock." He stills his fingers in your hole, forcing it to clench around the digits. "Look, even now, it's swallowing me till the knuckles."

You focus your eyes on your stretched out entrance, shaking and fluttering around three of his fingers. You dig your nails in the forearm wrapped around your midriff, your bottom lip quivering from the sensory overload.

You cry out in despair when he takes away his fingers and your slick gushes out of your hole, wet and clear strings connecting your folds to his fingers.

"Do you get it now, princess?" He looks at you in the mirror, lips glued on the shell of your ear, "I just can't help it - your pussy is so enticing, I can't wait to stuff it with my cock."

"C-Cheol?"

"Yes, princess?"

"Please fuck your b-big cock in me, right in f-front of this mirror."

[ramblings-of-a-chaotic-neutral]

Hello everyone! I've got to say, I'm very pleased that this au won the latest poll! Gwaine's one of my favorite characters, but I don't give him enough love in my writing. So, I decided to really let his character shine in this au alongside some other characters who I feel like didn't get enough attention in the show. Enjoy! :D

Also, I saw that Merlin was trending again today, so I decided to jump in while that was happening lol! I love that this fandom will just wake up on a random day and decide to take over tumblr!

This au is set in the years between season 4 and season 5 (but Lancelot is still alive because I say so), and the story starts with Gwaine's getting a little worried about his friend. Merlin's getting more and more stressed as the weeks go by, and he doesn't smile very often anymore despite Gwaine's best efforts, which usually involve roping Merlin into whatever mischief he's stirred up recently for a little bit of fun.

Gwaine feels pretty guilty about Merlin's worsening mental state, because Gwaine is thriving for the first time in his life, finding a community and purpose among the knights of Camelot. And he owes it all, everything he now has, to Merlin, who is suffering under a burden that no one can seem to help him with.

So, Gwaine tries all that he can to cheer up his friend and pull him out of whatever terrible place his mind is stuck in, but no matter what Gwaine does, he can't seem to lighten Merlin's mood any. Sure, Merlin will plaster on a smile for Gwaine's sake and tell him that nothing's wrong, but Gwaine can see the dullness in Merlin's eyes, he saw it every time his saw his reflection for years before Merlin barreled into his life and showed him that there was more to life than taverns and wandering.

Before he knew it, a year had passed, and Gwaine hadn't made any progress in pulling Merlin out of his darkening mental state. Gwaine felt so frustrated and useless whenever he saw Merlin's smile the drop the second he thought that no one was watching. This was his chance to finally repay Merlin for turning his life around for the better, for giving him a home, a family, a purpose, but nothing he did was helping!

But Gwaine couldn't give up on helping Merlin. There must be a way to help him, to support him through whatever was burdening him, some way to bring that bright spark back to his eyes. Gwaine just had to find out how.

From the on, Gwaine kept an even closer eye on Merlin, determined to figure out what was weighing down his friend and how to ease his burdens. It was because Gwaine was watching Merlin so closely that he noticed them.

Gwaine will give them credit, whoever they were, they were good at stealth, far beyond anyone Gwaine had met before. The cloaked figure was almost always out of sight, right in the corners of his vision. At first, he thought that this nearly imperceivable figure was after him, but it didn't take him long to figure out that the mysterious figure was following Merlin.

As soon as Gwaine realized this, all of the alarm bells in his mind went off. Was this an assassin sent to kill Merlin? A spy trying to infiltrate Camelot? A bandit planning to abduct Merlin for ransom?

Or, Gwaine realized, this might be connected to Merlin's worsening moods. This mysterious figure was clearly well trained, but they had been following Merlin for over a week and still hadn't attacked, so they probably weren't an assassin or bandit. Was Merlin being threatened by this figure into doing their bidding?!

Finally, after tailing Merlin's stalker for weeks, Gwaine manages to get some answers after following Merlin on a late-night rendezvous outside of the castle. When Gwaine had spotted Merlin sneaking away under the cover of night, Gwaine of course had to follow him! Merlin could be in danger!

Gwaine followed Merlin as the other man made his way into the woods with a surprising amount of stealth. After a long hike through the woods, Merlin arrived at his destination, which, to Gwaine's shock, looked strikingly like a druid camp. There were painted tents, campfires, and even magical symbols carved into the tree, and all signs pointed to sorcerers living there.

Gwaine's anxiety skyrocketed at the sight. Why would Merlin risk coming to this secret druid camp, which Arthur definitely did not know about? Was Merlin being threatened and followed by sorcerers?!

Gwaine crept around the outskirts of the camp, sticking to the darkness. He saw Merlin approach a rather intimidating bald man, who, if the way the others in the camp made way for him as he walked, was the leader of this group of sorcerers.

Gwaine kept his hand firmly wrapped around the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it and run to the defense of his friend at a moment's notice. As he kept watching though, he strangely couldn't see any sign of a threat towards Merlin. While Gwaine couldn't hear much of their conversation, the intimidating leader guy acted almost friendly towards Merlin, and Merlin was relaxed, not showing any signs of fear at all.

As Merlin and his maybe-friend began making their way out of the camp, Gwaine could finally hear some of what they were saying.

"Thank you again, Alator. I'm not sure what I would've done without your help!"

"It is no burden to me or my men, I assure you. It is an honor to assist a man as great as you, Emrys. Morgana's forces are a threat to us all and an affront to all that is good in this world. We will fight at your side as always and ensure that Morgana's spies never infiltrate Camelot again."

Alright, there was... a lot for Gwaine to unpack there.

First of all, the scary bald man's name was apparently Alator, so that was good to know. He claimed to be allied with Merlin against Morgana, which gave Gwaine some relief.

However, as Gwaine's mind put the pieces together, he wanted to scream with frustration. Merlin was consorting with dangerous sorcerers behind Arthur's back in order to protect Camelot! It was a move so selfless yet foolish that only Merlin could pull it off.

Still, these sorcerers didn't seem hostile towards Merlin at all, so Gwaine could work with that. He just needed a little bit more information on them, some way to confirm that they really were on Merlin's side on not double crossing his friend.

So, Gwaine crept closer into the camp, trying to see what they were up to now that Merlin was gone. He didn't see anything incriminating just yet, but that didn't mean that they were free of any nefarious plans.

Gwaine inched closer and closer into the camp, his eyes trained on the men who were probably sorcerers going about their evening chores in the camp. Gwaine so focused on his targets, in fact, that he didn't register that there was someone behind him until he felt blow to the back of his head and fell unconscious.

As Gwaine woke up, his first thought was that the pounding in his head was just a hangover, which was not by any means an unusual occurrence for Gwaine. That idea was quickly disproven as, when Gwaine tried to raise his hands to his head to try and alleviate his massive headache, he realized that his hands were bound. Once again, this wasn't necessarily an unusual situation for Gwaine, but it did cause him to freeze up with alarm as he remembered where he was and what he was doing before everything went black.

When Gwaine was finally able to peel his eyes open, he was greeted with the sight of several angry-looking men, including their intimidating leader whom Merlin had spoken to. What was his name... ah yes, Alator!

Putting on his friendliest and most innocent smile, Gwaine immediately tried to talk his way out of the situation. It had worked for him in similar situations, so why not give it a shot?

"Well, hello there gentlemen! I was just here looking for my buddy Merlin, have you seen him? Lanky fellow, dark hair, always wearing a neckerchief? A great guy, really, you'd know if you had met him!"

Gwaine scrutinized each of his captors' reactions to Merlin's name. Maybe this way he could find out what their intentions with Merlin. However, all of their expressions remained stubbornly neutral, except for Alator, who simply blinked at the mention of Merlin.

After an awkwardly long silence, Gwaine again tried to get some sort of reaction out of these mysterious men.

"I could have sworn I saw him heading this way, and I got worried about him, ya know? What kind of friend would I be if I let him wander around the forest at night all by himself! He's the kindest person I know, but he can somehow find himself in trouble at any time."

Again, much to Gwaine's rising frustration, Alator simply blinked. After another awkward pause, Alator finally responded.

"You are a knight of Camelot, correct? And you hold Emrys is high regard?"

Gwaine frowned at the seemingly random questions, but he figured it couldn't hurt to keep the conversation rolling, especially if it can get him some answers. Admitting to being a knight of Camelot in front of a bunch of potentially dangerous sorcerer might not be the best move, but they were willingly working with King Arthur's personal manservant, so these guys must not have that much of an issue with Camelot, right?

"Why yes, I am a knight of Camelot! Sir Gwaine, at your service! Based on your question, I assume that Emrys is some nickname you have for Merlin?"

In response to his question, Alator merely gave a single, solemn nod. Man, this group really needed to work on their communication skills.

"In that case, I do hold Emrys in very high regard! In fact, I'd say he's the best person I've ever met!"

Finally, that comment got a reaction out of them! As soon as Gwaine told them about how much he values Merlin, the men in front of him started nodding and murmuring amongst themselves. Gwaine hoped that they were happy about having a common friend and not plotting ways to kill him.

After reaching some consensus, the men all turned towards Gwaine simultaneously, which sent a shiver down Gwaine's back. What were they planning?

Alator then waved his hand, and his eyes flashed gold, confirming Gwaine's suspicions that he was dealing with sorcerers. Gwaine flinched back and braced himself for whatever spell had just been sent his way...

Only to feel the chains binding him fall to the ground, leaving him free and unharmed. Gwaine glanced down to check that he was, in fact, still in one piece before staring at Alator in shock.

"I can sense the honesty in your heart as you speak Emrys's praises. Know that any friend of Emrys is a friend to us. We apologize for our previous behavior, as we did not know that you were also an ally of Emrys. Please, join us for a cup of tea so we can discuss this further."

Gwaine, reeling from his host's sudden change in attitude, let them maneuver him outside and give him a seat at their campfire, with Alator and his men sitting with him around the fire.

Gwaine looked around at his hosts, who sat silently around the fire, not even talking amongst themselves. The silence made Gwaine's nerves stand on end, so he decided to fill that silence himself. He might as well get to know his gracious hosts and fellow friends of Merlin, right?

"So, who are you guys? How did you meet Merlin? Hey, maybe we can compare stories of him! Let me tell you, I've got some crazy stories to share about adventures he's dragged me on!"

The men sitting around him shared a silent look at each other before Alator answered.

"We are the Catha, masters of combat and one of the last surviving sects of priests of the Old Religion. I am Alator, the leader of the Catha. I first met Emrys when I betrayed Morgana to follow a better, more peaceful path. Emrys showed us that Morgana's hatred lies opposed to the will of the gods, and we chose to place our loyalty in him instead. What stories do you have concerning Emrys?"

Gwaine nodded, feeling a strange sort of relatability to these intimidating magic-wielding warrior priests. They, like him, were on a path of meaningless destruction and found a better life by meeting Merlin.

"Ah, I can remember meeting Merlin like it was yesterday! There I was, drowning my sorrows in a tavern, when in walks a skinny looking guy and his pompous friend! They got into trouble pretty quickly, and I couldn't miss out on all that fun! I jumped into the tavern brawl to help them, but I got pretty banged up in the process. But, it turned out that it was my lucky day, because wouldn't you know it, I had accidentally saved the life of the prince of Camelot himself!

I didn't think much of prince Arthur at the time, but his manservant sure made a great impression! He brought me back to Camelot on his own horse, took me to the royal physician, gave up his own bed to me for the night so I could recover, and then covered for me after I got drunk off my ass in the tavern, again.

But then some jackasses posing as knights tried to hurt Merlin, and I stepped in to defend him and wound up getting banished by Uther, but then Arthur welcomed me back and even made me a knight when he became prince regent! And I've been lucky enough to have Merlin at my side ever since!"

Gwaine watched as many of the men's eyes widened at his story, unsure of what exactly they were so shocked by.

"You mean to say that you stood up to Uther Pendragon, the mad butcher king, for Emrys's sake? And came back to his side as soon as you could despite the threat of death hanging over your head?"

"Well, I did manage to see Merlin on one other occasion while I was banished, but he sought me out for that one. Apparently Arthur was having some trouble on his big quest to the Perilous Lands, so Merlin called me in as backup."

The Catha started whispering amongst themselves at that, with even Alator leaning forward in interest.

"Emrys specifically sought out your skills on such a monumental quest? You understand the significance of such an honor?"

Gwaine nodded, his expression shifting from a wistful one to a much more serious one.

"Of course I understand. Merlin's such an amazing person, and it shocks me every time that he thinks I'm someone worth relying on. Still, that only motivates me to not let him down. He saw something in me that no one else did, not even me, and he found a way to bring it to the surface. He changed my life, gave me a purpose, and I will never underestimate how much he's done for me."

This time, all of the Catha were nodding their heads in approval of Gwaine's appreciation for Merlin.

"You truly do see the significance of Emrys, Sir Gwaine. I can see your loyalty towards him clearly. For that, I would like to make you an offer.

Emrys's enemies are our enemies, and there are many of them. Morgana's forces grow stronger by the day, and we can only do so much with how few of us are left. Emrys himself faces many dangers, and we cannot always protect him as much as we'd like, seeing as how we cannot enter the city of Camelot. You, however, are at Emrys's side every day.

In working towards our shared goals, will you work alongside us to protect Emrys and keep Morgana's forces at bay? We can provide you with training that will put you far ahead of any of your peers and weapons that shall make you a formidable opponent to even the most powerful sorcerers. Will you accept our offer?"

"Ah, I see now. It was you lot who have been following Merlin around recently! Well, that certainly gives me quite a bit of relief, knowing that he isn't being followed around by someone who'd want to hurt him. I'd be happy to join in on your mission to protect Merlin!"

The Catha started murmuring approvingly amongst themselves at Gwaine's acceptance, until Alator spoke again.

"That is wonderful. It is an honor to be able to work alongside a warrior held in such high esteem by Emrys himself."

As Gwaine shook Alator's hand, accepting his offer, he got the feeling that this was the start of an amazing alliance.

And it sure was. Over the next months, Gwaine trained alongside the warrior priests whenever he could, becoming accustomed to their stoic natures and silent demeanors. They taught him fighting styles that he had never even heard of before and gave him information on people who were trying to hurt Merlin, allowing him to keep an eye on and eliminate threats to his friend before they had the chance to strike.

The Catha figured out pretty early on that Gwaine was rubbish at learning anything about magic itself, but when they placed enchanted weapons in his hands, he could wield them effortlessly and adapt his combat style to whatever the effects of the enchantment were. He even got a sword that could burst into flames!

As Gwaine's abilities to wield stronger enchanted weapons improved, the Catha started letting him fight the powerful sorcerers that Morgana sent into Camelot. Soon enough, he was equipped with indestructible armor armor that could repel spells and curses, weapons with some of the most formidable enchantments that the Catha could muster, and even a growing reputation throughout the land!

Luckily, the helmet that the Catha provided him with obscured his identity, so no reports of a rogue and enchantment-wielding Sir Gwaine made their way back to Arthur, as funny as that would be. Still, reports of the "indominable magic knight" that had defeated some of Morgana's most powerful sorcerers made their way across the land, even into Camelot's court. Some council members wished to capture the unknown knight and kill him before he became a threat, while others saw an opportunity to make a powerful ally against Morgana, and Arthur was constantly on the fence between those two arguments while Gwaine sat at the round table, quietly smug.

Meanwhile, Merlin, checking in with the Catha: What's this I hear about a warrior using powerful magic weapons to fight Morganas men?

Alator: Don't worry, Emrys. He's one of ours, fighting against Morgana in your name. He's one of your most devout followers in fact.

Merlin, not wanting to meet another Emrys fanboy who looks at him like he's a god: Uh, just tell him to keep up the good work and to let me know if he needs anything.

Soon after reports of the magic knight made their way to a very conflicted court of Camelot, Morgana sought out the magic knight, ready to either kill him for being such a nuisance or make an ally out of him. After all, surely a knight wielding such powerful magic would never be on the side of Camelot?

However, when Morgana managed to trap the magical knight and surround him with an army of a hundred sorcerers, the knight managed to defeat her and her entire army before escaping. He rained down fire and lightning upon them, the very elements fighting alongside him, as he cut down her army and left her defeated and humiliated.

Of course, reports of Morgana's defeat travelled to Camelot, where the court was even more incensed over the topic of the magical knight. He was capable of beating Morgana, surely he would be a great ally and could ensure Camelot's protection! But he was also now a magic-wielding threat even more powerful than Morgana! Sure he was now the foremost threat to Camelot!

In the end, Arthur and some of his most trusted knights decided to go on a quest to seek out this magical knight. Gwaine wasn't particularly worried, because how could they possibly find him if he was already travelling with them?

During the journey though, they receive word of a magical beast terrorizing nearby villages. The knights all try to fight the beast, but to little success, and it even managed to injure Merlin's leg before escaping!

Merlin's injury turned out to be not life-threatening, but he couldn't stand on his leg for very long. Unbeknownst to anyone else, Merlin entrusted Lancelot with slaying the beast after his injury, enchanting Lancelot's sword so that it could kill a creature of magic and his chainmail so that he wouldn't be hurt by its claws.

Gwaine, meanwhile, was furious with the creature and, that night, summoned his enchanted armor and weapons to go slay the beast and maybe give its head to Merlin as an apology for being unable to stop it from hurting him. Or maybe he would just treat Merlin to a night at the tavern when they got back.

So, Lancelot and Gwaine both tracked down the beast that knight. When they both arrived at the beast's lair with visibly enchanted weapons, they take each other by surprise. Lancelot is on guard, unsure if he wants to trust the now-infamous magic knight, but Gwaine just laughs and removes his helmet, and Lancelot is shocked.

Lancelot and Gwaine seeing each other with enchanted gear: spiderman pointing meme

Gwaine asks Lancelot where he got that enchanted sword, but Lancelot is tight-lipped about it, just saying he got it because he needed to protect Merlin. Gwaine chuckled and said that he understood.

After they finish slaying the beast together, Lancelot asks Gwaine if Merlin knows that he's the magic knight. Gwaine shrugs and says that he suspects that Merlin doesn't know, but wouldn't mind it if Merlin did know.

Lancelot, as soon as they get back to Camelot: So, did you know that Gwaine is actually the magic knight?

Merlin, spitting out his tea and having flashbacks to his conversation with Alator: HE'S WHAT NOW?!

Things get cleared up between Lancelot, Merlin, and Gwaine pretty quickly from there. Gwaine takes the magic reveal very well, excited at the prospect of going on magical adventures with Merlin and glad that his friend can actually defend himself, because he's rubbish with any type of weapon.

From there though, a sort of friendly competition sprung up between Gwaine and Lancelot, as both of them consider themself to be Merlin's best friend. Soon enough, there's two magical knights running around foiling Morgana's plans, and Arthur's ready to tear his hair out over it.

From there, more knights figure out about Merlin's magic and, if they're accepting of it, they also train with the Catha and receive enchanted weapons. It almost becomes its own secret society within the knights, all united with the sole purpose of protecting Merlin. They eventually have Elyan, Percival, and number one Emrys fanboy Mordred join their ranks.

Arthur eventually finds out approximately where the magical knights are hidden (their meeting spot when they need to meet outside of Camelot), and he sends Leon in disguise to infiltrate them, not knowing that they are knights from Camelot. Being the knights of the round table, they of course recognize Leon immediately and give him the full story, and Leon joins them and just tells Arthur that he "couldn't find the magical knights."

Gwaine laughs his ass off at every round table meeting where Arthur becomes more and more frustrated at not being able to catch the magical knights, and out of the corner of his eye, he can see Merlin having a good laugh over it too.

And I'll cut it off there for now! I had lots of fun writing this, I feel like I should write about Gwaine more often!

Let me know if you would like me to write a continuation for this au!

And, as always, thank you for reading through my ramblings! :D

[musicfranchisetournament]

propaganda under the cut !!

ensemble stars :

what can I say. it's the no.1 highest earning joseimuke of recent times for a reason. i wouldn't say it was the founding father of male idol franchises but it's undoubtedly important for them and the popularization of them. the characters are enjoyable and the story writing is (sometimes) done pretty nicely. when the songs hit well they hit GOOD. with a cast of over 50 characters you're pretty bound to find someone you'll enjoy, you know. there's a nice variation on unit archetypes that is great for music variation :]

There's just soo much happening in this goddamn idol thing I hope it loses bleehh

Idol game except the plot is NOT what you would expect of an idol game. Notably : murder, the War, vampires, and a guy who lives in the vents.

"oh it's just a silly little idol game" and then the silly little idol game has some of the craziest lore you've seen

milgram :

it's very cool and interesting !! idk !

SUCH a unique concept. I love it so much. Delivering insight into characters crimes and psyches through music?! Genius. And the music all slaps too. The VAs are all super talented, the voices all sound different from one another, and even when a character's music style switches between T1 and T2 to reflect their mental state, there are still things making it obvious it's the same character. Also the VA for Haruka (best character in MILGRAM) is the guy who voiced Linhardt (best character in hit turn-based strategy RPG Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the Nintendo Switch) in the JP soooo. Awesome and based, Fire Emblem fans vote for this one. (Also I think there's other overlap of VAs with Fire Emblem but like Natsuki Hanae has been in everything so of course there is)

genuinely so sooo interesting to me from a standpoint. not only is a franchise that runs and happens in direct response to what the fans decide to do with it but also the songs and mvs are sooo good and it's such a nice thing to see coming off of deco, feeling like a passion project with all the different song style and experimentation going on in them. ive been there since the beginnings and its a great feeling to see just how much everyone involved in the project be it art, music etc has improved. the moral experiment point of it is something very curious to follow for me and see people discussing their votes or takes on things as to why they voted for x thing or another is nice! the deco song remixes that always come with the characters album release are (mostly) fire too. milgram my best friend milgram

The songs are absolute bangers!! And each character is so compelling and it's really interesting to see how the audience's votes impact the story and the characters!

[valeriehalla]

Hello! I was reminded of your webcomic Goodbye To Halos recently and wanted to let you know it had a pretty big impact on me. I read it during my teenage years and I think it really helped me to contextualize and make sense of some feelings I was going through about - well, teenage stuff. Change, I guess, mostly. Changing bodies, changing genders, changing role in society, changing relationships with others - your comic helped me process a lot of my fears about those things.

Your comic was probably my first exposure to nudity that was neither sexual nor comedic. It really stuck with me how your comic has characters in states of undress fairly casually. Not like "walking down the street" casual, they're always in a safe place like a bedroom or a bathroom or something, but still. As someone who was raised Catholic it was really powerful to see nudity portrayed as so... not-shameful. Nudity is just a state the characters pass in and out of; they're nude after taking off their clothes like they would be wet after taking a shower. There's no shame in it. And that's really the way it ought to be, right? We were all born nude, it shouldn't be such a Thing as society makes it out to be.

That's just my little input on what impact your art has had on me. It was a good thing that I read it when I did. I wish you luck on all your future endeavors.

that's extremely kind of you, and very well-said, and thank you, and also that's absolutely wild for me to read.

i actually had to remind myself just now that there was in fact a sequence of (counting) eight pages where enae had her tits out. i didn't think a ton about it at the time. i do remember debating mentally whether to slap a "warning this page has boobs in it" label on the social media posts: i chafed at the idea, and i think i didn't do it? or only did it for some of them? i didn't want to because to even put such a warning immediately prompts the reader to think "oh something Sexualle is going on here," putting them on high alert and making it into a whole Thing. and it was not a Thing.

i always thought that some day, if ever i found the right moment, i wanted to have a page where fenic was fully nude. my idea of the "right moment" for that was that it would have to be at a juncture in the story where it made sense for her to be nude, and also where it would feel to the reader like there was absolutely no "point" to her nudity. the one page in the comic where fenic is topless was sort of a prelude to that idea: that might have been the moment, if there had been any reason at all to include her lower body in those panels, which there wasn't, so i didn't.

it's a fine line to walk. i think it's fairly obvious that there were many panels in that comic where the reader absolutely was meant to think "wow this character's attractive" (if they could get past my art back then lmao). i peppered those in liberally, sometimes because it was personally fun for me to draw, but always because it just seemed, i don't know, honest? for this story about young queer adults who are sort of omnidirectionally horny for one another to have a gaze reflecting that--for the reader to feel like they're "in on it" too, not in a leering sort of way, but as if they're just, like, sharing in it with the characters themselves. but then to have that, and then to also have full-on nudity, and for that nudity to feel at home with that sensation, but also purely incidental, and not in and of itself sexual, is a lot of objects to juggle, especially if one indeed (like me) wants it to not feel like there is a "Point" being made. so, it's cool to hear that it worked for at least one person. sorry for writing 999 words about this

[worriedvision]

tighnari x reader where the reader cries a lot, over small things and over small sad stuff. (not quite crybaby but emotional) one day reader is going to like the tavern place in sumeru (yk the place where everyone was in alhaitham's demo?) and hears tighnari complaining and talking bad about reader and a time where they cried over something small with his friends (like cyno, kaveh, haitham) and then the reader well (cries over that, and just avoids him for a while) BUT its gonna be a fluffy ending where he apologizes and everything he said after the reader tell him the stuff they heard. you recently did one of my requests, i was very pleased with it, so, thank you very much, lovely!

As someone who cries a lot over small stuff, this is so me lol! Gender neutral reader, sad ending unfortunately. I was going to make it a happy one, but it felt right to make it a sad ending lol

--

There were times that you didn't know how you managed to get with Tighnari of all people. He was the one who didn't try much, in fact at the beginning of your working life with him he couldn't stand your weeping over small problems. Any minor problem that you caused, anything that could be easily fixed, anything that someone else was going through? You'd cry at the drop of a hat, there were times that you'd be embarrassed after thinking about. He was the one who asked you out, and you landed up crying before saying yes as if it was a damn proposal.

You'd try to get better with grounding yourself a bit, distancing yourself mentally from things that would make you cry, but you'd still cry at small things. You suppose that was your 'superpower' that was actually a pretty pathetic power.

Your most recent crying episode was from some idiot who had consumed a mushroom that caused them to hallucinate - the hallucinations being scary. You couldn't help but cry when seeing them distressed, which was what alerted your boyfriend to find the poor person quicker. When you apologised for crying yet again, your boyfriend brushes it off and states that it's just part of who you are.

You thought he was past the point of being angry whenever you showed these emotions, so you decide to meet up with your friends for drinks. As you get to the bar early, you decide to wait outside for your friends. Kaveh happened to go in, waving and giving a cheery hello as he nips in to hang out with friends. Shortly after, a friend shows up and you both enter.

Upstairs, you can hear your boyfriend huffing to himself.

"What's wrong?" Cyno asks, Tighnari instantly ready to reply.

"I'll tell you what's wrong, my partners a crybaby!" Tighnari tuts, Kaveh clearing his throat as he knows you're no doubt hearing this.

"You knew about that part of them long before you were dating." Alhaitham states, crossing his arms at the same time that you get up to leave.

"Well, I thought they would calm down with their feelings by having a partner, and I am attracted to them physically." As he finishes the statement, you've left the bar with tears in your eyes.

--

The next week, you don't give Tighnari any affection. It was clear to you that he didn't like one of the most obvious things about you - how overly empathetic you are. He didn't have the time to think too hard on this, which gave you more time to reflect on the state of your relationship.

It becomes increasingly clear that you just were not right for him. You were lucky to get some time with him as a partner, but you had the impression that he saw you as someone he had to babysit whenever you started to cry. It didn't matter that he was physically attracted to you, he wished you weren't so emotional about everything.

With him also being the boss, you knew you would need to find work elsewhere as soon as you could. As much as it hurts you, you two were like chalk and cheese.

He deserved someone he didn't need to be on eggshells around, and you deserved a partner that cherished the fact you could put yourself in the position of others and really feel how they felt.

--

When your boyfriend asked you to meet him at the bar, you were ready to tell him you were breaking up with him, and you had been mentally preparing yourself to not cry.

"I hope you are well, I'm afraid I have some bad news." Tighnari states, pushing a paper and a pen towards you. "You are fired. I am also breaking up with you - your empathy is something I cannot work with as an employer, as well as a boyfriend."

It was like a slap to the face, you were ready to just cry a little bit at the conversation.

But instead of being sad, you're angry. Grabbing the pen, you feel several sets of eyes on you as everyone around you is seeing and hearing everything. Signing the paper aggressively, you slam the pen down as you make direct eye contact with your now ex-boss and ex-boyfriend.

"You did this to embarrass me. You did this to emphasise something I already know - I cry too much." You spit out, not a single tear leaving you as you got straight to anger.

"Fuck you, Master Tighnari. I hope I never see you again."

[strawberry-whorecake]

Quite the Little Rockstar | A.S.

pairing: Adam Stanheight x fem!reader

summary: Adam’s feelings for his roommate are strictly platonic, right? At least he keeps telling himself that, until he finds you getting ready for a performance with your band, and you offer do to his eyeliner.

word count: 2.8k

warnings: none, just pure fluff <3

A/N: I’ve been in my Leigh Whannell era for months and the other day when I was doing my eyeliner I couldn’t stop imagining sitting on Adam’s lap and doing his eyeliner aaaaaaa

Having a roommate was weird. What was weirder was having a female roommate. But she’d answered his ad and she paid her half of the rent on time, so who could complain? Especially not when said female roommate was as good looking as you were.

The sound of rock music blaring over the stereo interrupted Adam’s darkroom session. He’d been so lost in developing and perfecting his photographs, he’d barely noticed just how much time passed. 

Still… the interruption was not what he was hoping for. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger as he shut his eyes tight. After a moment of realigning himself to reality, he stepped out of the darkroom, following the sound of the music, which only grew louder the closer he got to the bathroom.

He hesitated for a long moment, the door was slightly ajar, but was it weird to enter the bathroom while his roommate was in there doing god knows what? He didn’t want to be a perv. Was it even pervy in the first place if the door wasn't shut? 

About to give up as a whole, he stopped once more to the sound of you singing along to the music, and it pulled a small smirk to his lips. He swallowed down his anxieties and knocked first–like a gentleman– before pushing the door open anyways. 

“What the hell’s going on in here?” he asked a bit playfully, looking around at the state of the bathroom. 

The edge of the sink was littered with products, some of which had lost their balance and fallen to the floor. You looked nice, which confused him for a brief moment. Nice, but in a bad-ass, edgy kind of way. His gaze flitted over your outfit, and he couldn’t help but mentally admire your figure.

“I’m getting ready for the concert.” you said simply, and he furrowed his brows slightly. Concert? What concert? Then it hit him.

“Oh shit… the Wrath of the Gods concert is tonight?! Fuck! I forgot all about it… Scott’s gonna crucify me.” He groaned before running his hand through his hair. He huffed as he caught your reflection in the mirror.

From what he could see it looked like you were about to stab yourself in the eye with a pencil, and his eyes practically bugged out of his skull. He watched with incredulous curiosity as you brought the pencil not into your eye like he’d expected, but around it. The pencil left messy black smudges around your eyes. 

“What is that…?” he asked, probably sounding like an idiot. 

“Eyeliner?” you replied with a little huff of a laugh. Yep. He was an idiot, and your words proved that to him..

“Oh, yeah… I knew that.” he bullshitted. He’d seen that particular makeup look on girls before, but the only thing he’d ever known in terms of makeup was lipstick and eyeshadow. Oh, and that black gunk you’d put on your eyelashes that made them look long and dark. Mascara? 

He watched the way you applied the makeup around your eyes, only to then rub the tips of your fingers over your eyes, making the black pencil even messier… though, it was oddly attractive. It suited you well. 

“What?” you asked, peering at him through the mirror’s reflection. His expression turned sheepish, not realizing he’d practically been ogling at you until you’d called him out on it. 

“Oh, just uh… that makes you look cool, I guess.” In typical Adam fashion, he downplayed his compliment. He had a hard time being genuine around you, he didn’t want you to think he was a pussy or something by calling you pretty… or gorgeous… or just plain outright goddamn sexy. He did think all those things about you, but would you like him to call you those things? Or would you just think he was weird if he did? 

“Thanks.” followed by a little laugh pulled him from his thoughts. You liked his compliment? His gaze softened a little as he watched you reapply only to smudge the makeup around your eyes more. 

“Does that like… hurt?” he asked. It looked painful… a pencil that close to your eye? He shivered as he imagined that feeling. 

Your laughter once again pulled him out of his thoughts and he regained his focus on you as you turned around to face him, leaning back against the sink with your arms crossed over your chest. “You.. wanna try it?” you asked. 

He was a bit hesitant, he still partially believed it would hurt. Didn't girls always talk about how beauty was pain? But also… he was a guy. Wouldn’t makeup make him like, less masculine?

 “I don’t know…” he mumbled. “You’re gonna put makeup on me?” He asked, narrowing his eyes a bit, not at you, though. At that pointy pencil between your fingers.

You rolled your eyes despite the smile on your lips, which he always thought was an attractive quirk of yours, and the gesture made him smirk a bit in return. “Adam… every rockstar wears eyeliner.” you explained with that same smile he thought was really enticing. 

“Every rockstar?” he said a bit jeeringly. 

“Only the best… Billy Joe Armstrong, Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper…” Your smile widened a bit as you continued on, and Adam couldn’t help but roll his eyes, though this time a small smile pulled on his lips too.

“Whatever.” he said, though that was the closest thing you’d get to a yes from him.

“C’mere…” 

His gaze drifted from your eyes to your arm outstretching, finally to your hand as you held it out to him. He rolled his eyes in an attempt to keep up his arrogant nonchalance, though he silently begged that his cheeks hadn’t blushed. Especially when your fingers entangled with his. 

He let you guide him to sit on the lid of the toilet seat, and watched with shaky breaths as you stood in front of him… between his legs. Only to be close to him, of course… right? 

When you brought the pencil up to his eye he immediately flinched away, listening to your little scoff at his cowardice. “Shut up.” he bit back.

“Adam, I swear it doesn’t hurt. Don’t you trust me?” 

Goddamnit, how the hell was he supposed to say no to that sweet tone in your voice!?

“If you stab me in the eye, you’re paying the full rent.” he threatened, narrowing his eyes slightly as his gaze darted between that pencil and your eyes. 

“I won’t stab you in the eye if you don’t move.” Your tone held a sense of focus as you brought the pencil back closer to him again, and he couldn’t help but close his eyes. 

“Adam…” you huffed, making him open his eyes again.

“What!? You’ve got a sharp pencil so close to my eye! You really expect me to just be calm or some shit!?” he scoffed. 

“Don’t be a baby,” you teased and before he had time to even process what you were doing, he found you practically straddling his lap, your hand holding onto his cheek. 

His breath hitched in his throat, but he covered it up by pretending to clear his throat. Your body was so warm pressed against him… and so soft.

Oh fuck… he was blushing. 

It seemed like you knew what you were doing though, because his eyes were practically glued to you. Wide and unblinking, not wanting to miss a single one of your movements. 

And you took the opportunity and ran with it. You brought the pencil to his eye, almost touching, and he clenched his jaw a bit to resist his urge to close his eyes or flinch away. 

“Look up for me.” you instructed as you gently tilted his head downwards, and he obliged your directions, glancing up at the ceiling. 

He was scared as shit as the pencil grew closer and closer to his eye… but then suddenly it tickled? He couldn’t help but pull back slightly from the sensation.

“What the fuck…?” he huffed a laugh, which only made you laugh too.

“I told you it didn’t hurt. But you have to stay still okay? It’s gonna tickle a little bit, just try to ignore it.” you reassured him as you gently gripped his face a bit more firmly. 

He definitely noticed the way you leaned into him to get closer, your face only inches from his and he suppressed the urge to groan, instead bringing his gaze up towards the ceiling like he’d done before.

Adam fought with every ounce of strength to not let his eyes shut in defiance as the pencil tickled his waterline. He was relieved when you’d moved from his left eye to his right, figuring you were finally finished. But when you said it was time for the top, his eyes widened a bit.

“You’ll be fine, just look down this time.” you said, tilting his head up, and begrudgingly he obeyed. You gently placed your fingers on his eyelid, tugging it up as the pencil met his upper lash line.

“Jesus christ… this tickles worse.” he practically whined. He ignored the smile that pulled on your lips in response to his griping. 

What he couldn’t ignore though, was how cute you looked like this. Sitting on his lap, your eyes soft but so focused on lining his eyes perfectly. Your fingers gently guiding and pulling at his face. He liked your touch… maybe a little too much. 

That thought only made him blush and he looked away from you, still keeping his gaze downward like you’d instructed him too. He knew if he looked at your thighs pressed to his, his blush would only grow worse. Hell, his face would probably envy a tomato at that point. 

You worked from his left to his right eye again, and the sensation definitely didn’t get easier the second time around. It was insufferable, like a stuck eyelash that was constantly tickling and poking into his eyelid. “Are you done yet? This sucks… you like doing this!?” he asked, his tone full of disbelief. 

“Relax.” you said simply, running the pencil along his upper lash line a few more times before you pulled the pencil away completely. And leaned back away from him which he wouldn’t admit he didn’t like so much.

“Now just rub your eyes.” you said, reaching over to grab the pencil’s cap from the sink and sliding it over the pointy end. 

He looked at you quizzically for a moment. “But you just did all that… to mess it up?”

Your little laugh unwillingly pulled a small smile of his own to his lips. “Yeah, pretty much. That’s what makes it look cool… and like you don’t give a fuck.” you explained, and oddly enough, you were speaking Adam’s language. 

He huffed a laugh, still feeling a bit ridiculous, but obliged, using the heel of his palms to rub both of his eyes at the same time. When you gently grabbed at his wrists to tug his hands away, he peered up at you.  

He watched as a smile pulled on your lips as you looked him over. “Totally bad-ass.” you reassured him. 

Adam had to suppress a pout as you slid off his lap. He’d gotten really used to that closeness, and now that it was gone, he missed it. He wouldn’t admit it, of course. But he perked up when he realized now he could see what you’d done. 

Pulling himself to stand up, he turned to stand beside you in front of the mirror. “Damn,” he said simply. Your eyes were practically glued to his reflection, and he could tell you were worried that he’d hated it. He let a small smirk pull on his lips. “I look punk rock.” 

He tilted his head in a few different directions, looking over, and practically admiring his appearance in the mirror. He did look pretty cool and that made him feel cool too. “Maybe I should be the guitarist and singer for Wrath of the Gods instead of you.” he teased, earning him a gentle elbow to the ribs which made him laugh. 

He looked from his own reflection to yours beside him, and the way your eyes matched. It felt strangely intimate… and he liked it. He tangled his arm over your shoulders, pulling you into him–wanting to feel your closeness, but easily played it off as a friendly gesture. 

“What do you think? You think I look cool enough now?” he asked, enjoying the way you rolled your eyes despite your smile, and how you didn’t reject his touch… and instead you seemed to lean into it. 

“If you want me to tell you that you’re always cool… it’s not gonna happen.” you teased back, making him laugh. He liked that you were a little spunky. It only made him more attracted to you.

“Okay, okay… fine.” he said with another small laugh before turning his head to actually look at you, not your reflection. “We look pretty punk rock together, huh?” he asked a bit teasingly, though he was pleased at the way you practically giggled. You’d never giggled before and it felt like a huge accomplishment to him. 

“Shut up, Stanheight. You’re such a dork.” You rolled your eyes, but still had that same intoxicating smile. 

He glanced down towards your lips, telling himself he was just admiring the way they curved into the most precious smile he’d ever seen, but he knew that wasn’t true. He was actually wondering if your lips were really as soft as they looked. 

“Shit! We gotta go, Adam!” you interrupted his thoughts as you practically dashed from the bathroom. He glanced in the direction of the clock on the stove, seeing your source of panic. 

“Oh fuck, Scott’s gonna kill us both.” He quickly followed after you, hurrying to his darkroom to grab his camera, looping it around his neck as he met you back by the front door of the apartment. 

He admired only for a moment how good you looked with your guitar case strapped over your shoulder, and he couldn’t deny his excitement to see you on stage performing with so much energy and passion like you always did. 

You were quite the little rockstar, and he liked that. 

It was a silly thought,  but he also liked that your eyeliner matched… like in a weird way, your matching eye makeup was a claim on each other. He just hoped you were thinking the same thing he was. 

“C’mon!” you said, snatching up his hand as you ripped open the front door, pulling him along so hastily he barely had time to shut the door behind him. 

“Hey, hey… slow down,” he said as a bit of a huff. You begrudgingly slowed your roll, peering over your shoulder at him as you dropped his hand. He anxiously ran his fingers through his hair. 

“I was just kinda wondering… if you’d let me kiss you without the guys around.” When he noticed the way your brows raised at his request he quickly stumbled out, “You know! For good luck, duh!” 

Before he even had a moment to backpedal, say that he was just fucking around, there it was again, that soft little laugh that was practically a giggle.

“Well… if it’s for good luck.” you said, stepping closer to him and making his heart race in his chest. He gently reached up and cupped the side of your face, tilting your head up a bit as he leaned in. He watched the way you leaned in too as your eyes fluttered softly shut, and he swore he melted in that moment.

He shut his eyes too, as he closed the distance between your lips, kissing you softly. It only lasted a few moments before you pulled away first, though he didn’t mind. He was awestruck that you’d even let him kiss you. 

He got to kiss you, and he knew for a fact that your lips were indeed as soft as they looked. He was a fish and you cast out the line, hooking him in. He didn’t just want to kiss you again, he felt like he had to. Until your words quickly shut down that desire.

“C’mon, let’s go before Scott loses his shit over how late we are.” you said with a small, almost shy smile. 

“No way…! What if that wasn’t enough good luck!?” he playfully argued, making you laugh. 

“Then if we totally blow tonight, I’ll let you give me a little extra good luck later. Deal?” you offered, and this time, it was his turn to laugh. 

“Okay, fine… deal.” he agreed a bit reluctantly, though that reluctance faded as soon as you tangled your arm around his waist, and he did the same to you.

Usually he hated being the personal photographer for Scott and Wrath of the Gods, but tonight he was rather excited about it. He already knew most of his pictures would be of you. 

And even if you guys killed it tonight… he was still dead set on giving you that extra good luck once you guys got home later, anyways.

[charmedreincarnation]

Sorry, y'all, for the random spam, but I had a lot of things I was doing and exploring, and I now finally have the motivation to share a lot of changes that have happened in my life. Okay, so my life is pretty great, and I've been actively manifesting for a while now. But I had a problem. Outside of shifting when it comes to my manifestations, for the most part, I like them to happen in a "realistic way.” (I wasn’t like this at the beginning ofc but now I am). I know that sounds stupid, but for example, when I manifested a car, I didn’t just have it appear on my driveway. I like to be a part of the process and watch it blossom into my reality (very quickly, may I add, because I'm impatient and a "now, now, now" type person), but I like to see my creations, you know?

So I was talking about my friends about some revisions I'd like to see in my state and life, more so bigger manifestations outside of myself for my community, you know? I've been feeling very grateful, and outside of manifesting, I love to dabble in philanthropy and other hobbies, and I'd like that to intertwine with manifesting as well!

There were a few things I had in mind, but again, I'm picky and annoying, and I was like, "Hmm, how will this come to fruition in my way?" I tried to plan it out, which is like (?? Rule number one of manifestation: don't worry about the how), but I actually do like to plan things out sometimes because I'm annoying, and when it happens, I'm like, "Hehe, that was me, go shawty."

Anyways, here were a few things I wanted:

* I visited Vienna, Austria in the summer, and I found the concept of their homeless shelters very admiring. In Vienna, they have emergency flats provided by the city for safe housing in emergency situations. I wanted something like that in my state, but living in America, which is very anti-homeless, it seemed challenging. I mean they spend more money on funding anti-homeless architecture than solving the ever so rising mental health and housing crisis but that’s a topic for another day. However, I was inspired by the Vienna Women's Refuge Association and their efforts to support women in need and I wanted something like that here.

* I wanted many restaurants that I've seen in other cities I've visited to be established in my city. My city is pretty big, but for some reason, it's often ignored when it comes to those corporations. I wanted to visualize all my favorite restaurants and make a list of where I want them, downtown, by my house, etc. It wasn't coming together, and I couldn't find the desire to script it. I also wanted more unique clothing stores because I’ve gotten more into fashion these past few months.

* I wanted my city to have more of the vibes of LA and NYC, without actually moving there. I love my city, but I wanted it to have that same energy. However, I didn't know how to get to that end point like I normally do with my other desires.

Honestly, I kind of put these desires on the back burner and just forgot about them, knowing that my life is already going in the direction I want it to. Then, we began getting a lot of news about how gentrification is about to occur, and how the prices in my city are going up. There's a lot of new construction happening for seemingly no reason. It turns out a huge tech company is establishing companies in my city, which will bring in new jobs, money, and people. At first, I was annoyed, thinking these people need to stay away, but then I remembered that I literally asked for this. Gentrification and all the other things that come along with migration, jobs, and a rising economy tie into what I wanted for my city to be like NYC and LA. I'm already seeing the renovation reflect what I imagined, and I am a happy girl.

Then, the next like week or so idk, my state gave funding to my fav mall and they received a couple billion dollars for a massive renovation. At first, I thought it was irrelevant, but then I saw a list of 300 establishments, clothes stores and restaurants that will be around my mall area. Every restaurant I desired, even the ones I only thought about for a second, were on that list. It's so funny when you forget about your manifestations and they come together even better than you could imagine. The mall getting renovated is one that I visit all the time, and now I can have all my favorite indulgences in one space. I'm super excited for everything to be done.

* On that same day, I saw that my state's very conservative governor (btw I went to school with his grandson and he was asintelligent as a bag of rocks) Is opening very affordable housing for human trafficking victims. This cause is close to my heart. Though i don’t personally know any victims myself I have read of many cases on the news and trials like cyntonia brown would make my blood boil. I’m surprised I didn’t think of this of myself but I’m m glad to see steps being taken to support these survivors.

So, sometimes, when we put our desires on the back burner, they can still manifest in unexpected and amazing ways.I seriously forgot about all of this and was just living my life, not even consciously trying to manifest it, and it happened anyway. Also, this may seem very stupid, but hey, all desires should be manifested no matter how small or stupid. There's this kind of big influencer at my school, and she seems really sweet and someone who I'd get along with. She's really political and speaks her mind, and has a bunch of reels about spirituality and feminism which is really dope considering how people act on social media, especially Instagram.

Anyways, I just thought one time, like a week ago, it would be nice to be friends with her or meet her or something, and out of nowhere, she slid up on my story yesterday and messaged me 😭😭😭. It was so funny to me, but yeah, we have plans to hang out. So yeah, even though sometimes I like planning my manifestations to see them happen in color, the same thing can happen without you planning either way. It will work out better than I expected, I promise don't worry.

[safarigirlsp]

The Lovely Things I'll Show You

Flip Zimmerman x Siren

Word Count: 16.6k

Warnings: NSFW. Smut. Horror. Angst, maybe? Lots of Violence. Violence Against Women. Violence Against Men. Rage. Revenge. Drowning. This isn't dark by my personal standards, but it's fairly dark by fic standards, so be warned.

This is from Flip's POV, so there's no X Reader language. However, I left the Siren pretty vague and I think she can be read as a reader insert. At least by readers with enough imagination to assume they have a tail etc xD. Also, I don't consider this as 'Dark' Flip, but some people probably will, so consider that an additional warning.

Inspired by Lighthouse by Halsey Based on a request I butchered from @cas-backwards-tie

AO3 Link

Eastport, Maine, perched on the Northeastern most tip of the state like a mole on the end of a witch’s nose, was about as far away from the rest of the country as a man could get. Alaska might be further, but the strange daylight and dark hours that changed with the seasons wouldn’t do a damn bit of good for the mental state of a man already on the brink. On the brink of what exactly, Flip couldn’t really say and he wouldn’t hazard a guess. Things like that should be left to professionals high above his pay grade. Professionals Flip wouldn’t denigrate himself to consult.

Talkin’ about a man’s problems is for pussies and whiners, Flip would say. To his own reflection in his bathroom mirror, leaning over the sink, wiping the sweat from his brow after waking from another recurring nightmare. A shrink is a poor substitute for a cold beer and beatin’ the hell out of a punching bag.

That was back in Colorado Springs, back during the aftermath of the Pigman killings. Sure, Flip had solved the case, shot dead the bastard dubbed Pigman for his penchant for frying strips of his victims up like bacon. Flip resented it in ways deeper than he could ever express to a shrink, how that sorry bastard had ruined the taste of bacon for him. One of his favorite guilty pleasures was his heart attack special – a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and waffles, all slathered in genuine Vermont maple syrup. Flip hoped that pleasure would return to him. After he was able to purge his memory of the smell of human ‘bacon,’ harvested from plump victims, sizzling in a cast iron frying pan, human fat popping up from the pan and burning his hand as he crept past with his gun held at the ready. Firing a bullet into the Pigman’s head was a relief, something he deserved for ruining the taste of bacon for Flip, in addition to his other gruesome atrocities.

Focusing on bacon as the greatest tragedy helped Flip mitigate in his mind what had happened to his partner. Flip had taken that memory, crumpled it into the smallest ball of pain he could, and shoved it down inside his mind, into the darkest, deepest recess. He understood now the meaning of that shrink term ‘unpacking.’ Well, he had no fuckin’ intention of ever unpacking that memory again, or those emotions. There was nothing equal to finding a partner dead and half butchered like a prize hog. Nothing in a shrink’s handbook to undo the damage caused by the smell of bacon frying in a cast iron pan. Thick cut bacon, freshly cut from his partner’s flanks.

These days, that memory was left buried in Flip’s subconscious, coming to him in sweaty, pulse-thundering dreams. Flip was a mentally tough man, highly disciplined. He could keep that terrible beast caged. But everything about the Colorado Springs police station reminded him of his partner, a constant kick in the guts that made it impossible to truly repress. Even his favorite restaurants and bars, his own house for fucks’ sake. All of it was now full to bursting with painful associations. This pain came out as anger, which was really the best and healthiest reaction in Flip’s arsenal. It beat taking up drugs, drinking even more, or putting a gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

Before he lost it on some poor bastard who cut him off in traffic or an asshole who pinched a waitress’s ass in front of him, Flip decided a change of scenery was just what the doctor ordered. He wanted to get as far from anything familiar to him as possible. When he came into work one morning and saw a newspaper clipping advertising a small town in Maine was looking for a new sheriff, Flip didn’t think twice about where it may have come from. He didn’t give a damn.

After a long weekend trip to Eastport, Maine that served as reconnaissance, Flip found a nice cabin that suited him, far away from people, and even a friendly little mousy-haired schoolteacher who suited him too. Well enough for some entertainment, anyway. She had great tits and a face that gave Flip the impression she was the kind of girl who’d let a man do damn near whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, because she wasn’t overly burdened with beauty or brains and had the good sense to compensate in more tangible ways. He took her out for coffee and a stroll around the small, quaint town, having her show him what passed for the sights. Afterwards, she was very friendly and rewarded him handsomely and enthusiastically for her mocha latte in the backseat of her car.

Come Monday, Flip accepted the sheriff gig for a surprisingly good salary and made a deal on the cabin for a steal. Both for the same reason – the market was thin pickin’s for successful men with Flip’s level of skill, who were willing to move to a town of fifteen hundred people with a higher population of sasquatch than eligible singles. Eastport was a nice little town, what there was of it. Picturesque in that quaint, rural way that looked great on a postcard but didn’t hold one’s interest for long.

Three months in, and Flip loved it. The work was easy. He hadn’t had to use his brain on a crime since he left Colorado Springs, and the most stress he had was searching for a dumb kid who had gotten lost in the woods and escorting the little shit back to his mom. He’d only had to fire his piece once to scare off a bear that was rummaging through the sheriff department trash. Most of the ‘crime’ he’d been prepped for consisted of vandalism, DWI’s, animal attacks, domestic violence, and bar fights. Flip had already dealt with a few bar fights, about one a weekend. He loved that part of the job. It gave him an excuse to take out some aggression on some wannabe tough guys who could handle it, and who wouldn’t be the wiser when they sobered up as to whether their fat lip or black eye came from the sheriff or the other guy. And the floozy schoolteacher named Cristy gave great head and made few demands, aside from dragging him to church a few times to keep airs that she wasn’t a loose woman. That was a royal pain in the ass, but he could endure it.

He loved the pace and the seclusion. He was damned sick of cities bustling like ants, air that smelled like grime. Colorado Springs had that big city grime along with big city crime, and the punks and gangbangers that came with it. It was nice to have the freedom of driving less than thirty minutes from town and being out in the middle of nowhere. Forest or coast, he could take his pick. He could go whale watching or moose hunting; hiking or fishing; watch the golden sunrise at a local coffee shop and watch it set fiery orange over the ocean while having a juicy ribeye, a fat lobster tail, and a cold beer. Eastport even had a barber shop with the red and white striped pole out front, where a man could get a haircut and a shave with a straight razor and not listen to women chatter about the latest Cosmopolitan article on how to please a man or what celebrity got which body parts inflated.

Six months in, and Flip was beginning to hate it. The easy work had grown dull. There wasn’t a goddamn thing that got his heart rate up anymore – fucking aside, anyway – and he hadn’t had a good adrenaline rush since he’d been woken up in the middle of the night by a bobcat in heat screeching on his back porch, sounding like some banshee straight outta hell. Even that little excitement had been weeks ago. The schoolteacher had grown as dull and uninteresting as a blowup doll, with a comparable IQ and conversational skills. It gave him more reason to keep her mouth occupied with other activities or her face shoved into the mattress, but that brand of enjoyment was only good for so long. Then she wanted to talk, always about the most mundane gossip and dumbest shit imaginable. Flip asked her once if she wanted to read a book with him – some adventure thing he’d picked at random in a used bookstore, packed with plenty of action for him and shirtless strapping men he thought she’d enjoy too. She looked at him with a bovine sort of vacancy in her mossy eyes – an association that had become hard for him to ignore – and asked, “Read? You mean like a magazine or a newspaper?”

The seclusion was turning to cabin fever, the endless wilderness closing in on him like a noose. The bad accents of the locals were as grating as a migraine, and the smell of fish and ocean pervaded every fuckin’ piece of his clothing, strong enough that it vied with cigarette smoke for his signature scent. Going to the five restaurants and three bars in town, having the same thing on the menu over and over had gotten old as hell. There wasn’t even a movie theater within an hour’s drive, only an old drive-in that was only open during the four months a year a man wouldn’t get frostbite on his dick trying to enjoy a movie from the bed of his truck with his girl in the old-fashioned way. The seclusion and boredom had been good for one thing. Flip had lifted weights and run himself into the best shape of his life. His arms bulged, his chest strained his shirt buttons, and both his cardio and timing on a speed bag were better than they had been during his tour in the Marines.

The teacher must have gotten bored with Flip too, because he stopped by her house a little early one Friday night to surprise her with a bottle of cheap wine and a chick flick, only to find her banging some pencil-dick science teacher he recognized as a specimen she had made assurances was just a friend. A married man too, aptly named Less, the piece of dogshit. Flip wanted to knock the bastard into next week, but he was truly concerned he might get a murder charge if the limp-wristed yuppie couldn’t take one of his punches. Actually, fuck the man. Flip wanted to knock that cheating slut around. He’d never hit a woman before, but if anyone deserved it, it was a fucking cheat. Dull and plain as she was, and despite ample opportunity, Flip had never cheated on the little skank.

The icing on the cake was when the murders started. Flip had come to this backwoods hellhole to get away from murders. It seems crime missed him and had followed him across the map. The first body washed up on the shore in a bucolic cove. It was a place Flip had found early on and driven to several times to have a beer and watch the sunset. Tall rocky cliffs populated with pine trees surrounded the ocean, and the waves crashed against the rocks with a thunderous susurrus. Those dense pine softened the light at dawn and dusk, bending into luscious pinks and oranges, and the water gleamed a vibrant sapphire. It was a scene straight off a postcard.

The bloated corpse lying on the beach slightly hampered that postcard beauty. Standing over the corpse in the sand, Flip guessed by the clammy pallor of the gelatinous skin and the damp putrid smell the man had been dead a week or so. Flip’s deputy, an older man with greying hair straight out of Mayberry, gave Flip his opinion that the man had fallen from the cliffs and drowned, or had been boating and drowned, or some other kind of accident that led to drowning. An accident that didn’t necessitate police involvement or investigation. The deputy had been there forever, and had turned down the sheriff’s position twice to avoid the added responsibility. The pattern was easy to see. As were the strange marks on the dead man’s neck and shoulders. The marks were faint, a little difficult to make out for an untrained eye, especially on the bloated, damp, decaying skin. They looked like something between hickies and strangulation bruises.

With a shrug, the deputy mentioned to Flip that accidents like this happened a couple times a year. Flip took the initiative to research exactly what that meant and how many similar accidents like this had occurred.

“Fuck me,” Flip muttered profoundly.

Based on his first cursory examination of the half-assed reports the Eastport Sheriff’s Department generated and the even worse records it maintained, he counted around fifty accidental deaths in that cove going back until World War II. He suspected there were many accidents the police didn’t deem worth documenting in their records.

“Accidents my dyin’ ass.” Flip swiped a hand over his face.

So much for a quiet change of pace.

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

The bodies had all been found washed up on the rocky beach of the cloistered cove. There wasn’t much of a beach, just the rocky bottom of cliffs that the waves crashed against. Flip thought it might be public land or even park land because it was pretty enough that some rich recluse should have bought it up years ago if the government hadn’t claimed it. He was surprised to find the entire cove and a couple hundred surrounding acres had been in one family for well over a century. The entire property was dubbed ‘Thundercliffs,” a term he guessed was coined from the sound the waves made crashing against the cliffs. The old house wasn’t abandoned in the technical sense, not in the way the townsfolk believed. A quick search at the County Clerk revealed it was owned by a trust along with the sizable acreage it sat on and a host of other assets. The sole beneficiaries of the trust were a pair of siblings by the names of Hortence Desdemona and Beauregard Mountbatten III.

“This is gonna go well,” Flip grumbled as he wrote the names and address into the small notebook he kept in his pocket.

The address listed in Port Clyde was easy to find, and even offered a nice drive down the coast. It led him to a quaint cottage in town overlooking a harbor abuzz with working fisherman hauling in nets of fish and cages of lobster. He pulled his truck in behind the only car in the driveway, one of those old station wagons with the wood side panels. Several potted plants taller than Flip lounged on the porch and in the windows there were crystals and weird looking wicker crafts shaped like moons and stars. An old German shepherd was curled up by the door, his muzzle more white than black. He lifted his head to appraise Flip, but decided he wasn’t worth getting up over, and settled for watching him warily. The scent of incense or maybe fancy candles seeped onto the porch from inside. As he rapped his knuckles on the door Flip hoped that froufrou smell wouldn’t stick to his clothes and stink up the inside of his truck on his drive home.

A dumpy eccentric woman answered. She inhaled sharply at the sight of the handsome stranger, instantly flustered, and set about smoothing her rumpled outfit and bushy curly hair. She was dressed somewhere between a seventies hippie and a new age wannabe witch. Flip didn’t really understand the difference, but there were lots of colors and flappy material to her getup, stacked jingling bracelets, and multiple rings on every finger.

“Hi, ummm, can I help you?” the woman stammered. It had probably been a while since she’d talked to a man.

“Is Hortence or Beauregard available?” Flip asked in an authoritative tone.

“Why on earth would you want to see them?” She bristled and folded her arms over her chest.

Clearly, he had taken the wrong approach. The woman was of indeterminate age. She could have been a good-looking sixty or a rode-hard forty. He figured either way, she probably wasn’t dried up enough to be immune to masculine attention. Leaning against the doorframe and towering over her, he turned on the charm.

“Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to come off rude.” He flashed his handsomest smile and ran his hand through his thick cowlick. “I’ve been put in the position of looking into some abandoned property that may be part of a trust of which they’re the sole beneficiaries. I just want to make sure all the property they’re rightfully entitled to gets to them.”

“Property where?” the woman stiffened even more, a rare response to Flip’s moves.

“I can only discuss that with the beneficiaries, I’m afraid.” He looked over the woman’s head, starting to suspect something was off. The cluttered inside of the house looked more like a fortune teller’s parlor than the residence of wealthy siblings. “Are you a relative?”

“I’m May,” she snorted in what passed for a laugh. “You could say I’m their stepmother.” She flapped her arms in a kind of shrug. “If you want to meet Hortence and Beauregard, follow me.” She turned and snorted again. “You can ask them anything you want.”

Flip passed overstuffed bookcases and curio cabinets filled with a myriad of trinkets into a sunny kitchen. The windowsill was littered with more witchy hippie looking things and a large plant with striped leaves dominated the center of a small dining table.

“Can I get you something to drink?” May asked as she started tapping a can on the counter.

“Coffee, if you have it. Thank you.” Flip watched her odd tapping with the can. “About the folks I’m here to see…”

“They’ll be along shortly.” She smiled and poured a mug of coffee from an existing brew in her coffee pot. “Give them a minute, they don’t move as fast as they used to.”

Flip still didn’t know what kind of eccentric he was dealing with here, but he decided to be careful not to leave any stray hairs around just in case. The last thing he needed was some broad crafting a voodoo doll of him or some shit and summoning him to her bedroom in the witching hour. He wondered if witches only used hair for those things, or if any kind of DNA would work. That unsettling thought made him eye the coffee mug suspiciously. An old police trick was to offer a suspect water, then keep the glass for DNA testing after the suspect leaves. DNA was discarded material then, free game to search without consent. He decided he didn’t need coffee that badly after all and set the mug on the counter in the same motion that he leaned his hip against it.

A fat black cat waddled into the kitchen, greeting him with a trilled meow, looking up at him expectantly with rich green eyes. The cat jumped up onto one of the chairs at the dining table, then up onto the tabletop, where it sat politely. Another deeper meow heralded the arrival of a second cat, bigger and even fatter, with a bright orange striped coat, a white patch on its chest, a white tipped tail, and bright amber eyes that matched Flip’s.

May smiled at them and said to Flip, “Let me introduce you to Hortence,” she pointed at the black cat, then moved her finger toward the orange tabby. “And Beauregard.” She emptied the can of cat food onto a saucer and used a fork to separate the contents. “Ask away.”

Flip rubbed the scruff on his jaw, watching as the woman placed the saucer on the table. Hortence began eating while Beauregard hefted his bulk up onto the chair then the table beside her.

“Cat got your tongue?” May asked with a snort.

“They’re the beneficiaries of the Thundercliffs Trust?” Flip stroked the black cat.

“They sure are! Brother and sister. Twenty-two years young,” May beamed as if she were indeed talking about her children. “Their real mom died ten years ago, but they get their longevity from her. She lived until she was in shooting distance of one-hundred. She was an old maid like me, no human children. So, she left everything in a trust to her cats. I get a monthly wage as their caretaker, not that I wouldn’t do it for free. I used to help their mom with chores and errands. Part maid, part cook, part caretaker. She was more like my crazy aunt than anything though.”

“I see.” Flip smiled to buy time while his mind ran through any questions that might be useful. “The trust also owns an old house up in Eastport. Does that mean the cats own it?”

“I suppose it does,” May shrugged. “I left my law degree in my other pants, but I’m told we could all live in that big old mansion on the cliffs, the cats, and my dog, and I. But I don’t think I could spend a night in there and catch a wink of sleep. I used to clean it once a month, and I hated every second I spent inside it. Something’s just wrong in there. I couldn’t even get Elwood to go inside with me when he was young and reckless – you met him on the porch.”

“Why is that, do you think?” Flip asked. “I’d like to hear your thoughts on that house if you have time.”

“I have plenty of time, but those aren’t thoughts I like to spend my time on.” She smiled but her tone was firm. “I might look like a silly old woman to you, but I’m not that silly. Or naive. I know there’s nothing I could tell you about that house that you’d believe anyway. And I know it’s not smart to go telling a sheriff lots of outlandish things and making him think you’re crazy.”

“Sheriff?” Flip grinned a little bashfully. He didn’t know his jig was up when he knocked on the door.

“I could tell you I’m a psychic and see if I could get fifty bucks out of you for a tarot reading.” May winked. “Or maybe news just travels fast in small towns. Especially between women. And extra especially about the new hunk of meat with a silver star up north.”

He laughed because it beat acknowledging his status as a slab of meat. “I’d like to take a look inside that house on the cliff. Would you be willing to show me around? The sheriff’s department would compensate you at the same hourly rate you get from the trust.”

“No way in hell, sheriff,” she smiled sweetly. “Not for the money or that handsome smile. I haven’t been up there in years and I don’t intend to go back. Not ever. If Hortence and Beauregard could sign legal documents, I’d advise them to demolish that house and every other structure on the property, bulldoze it clean, and turn it into a landfill.”

“Hell of a thing to do to a place with such a great view,” Flip said.

“I see. You’ve already been out there poking around.” It wasn’t a question and she seemed sad about it. “It’s always the handsomest men around who are drawn to that place.”

“Well, it’s also my job.” Flip didn’t tell her that he had gone to those cliffs many times on his own before anything suspicious had happened or any bodies had washed up on shore. That he thought the cliffs with the tall pine trees overlooking the boisterous cove was the best place in town to have a beer and watch the sunset. He damn sure wouldn’t say he felt drawn there. But even if he did, it was just the view. A man had every right to appreciate a nice view.

May opened a kitchen drawer and rummaged around, finally retrieving a keyring with a single key on it. She tossed the key to Flip and smiled as he snatched it out of the air with ease.

“Here’s the key to that house. Take it. The honor system is still pretty big here in our small towns.” She smiled. “Besides, if you use it to do something stupid to that house or anything inside it, you’ll have bigger problems than me.” She snorted again. “Actually, I doubt I’ll have to deal with you anymore at all after that!”

“What worries you so much about that house?” Flip asked, shoving the key into the front pocket of his jeans.

“Nothing about that house doesn’t worry me.” May shook her head. “You might want to ask me about the property too, not just the house itself.”

“Alright.” Flip nodded. “Consider me asking.”

“Lots of deaths on that land over the years.” She shuddered slightly. “I imagine that’s why you’re here. One of the first deaths the paper covered was in the forties. A strapping man who’d just come back from the war drowned in that cove. Everyone thought it was so strange because he was in great shape, fresh out of the military. They suspected it must have been a suicide. He was the second man to drown in the cove that year. But if you ask me, or most locals, the very first death was actually just labeled a disappearance. The military man’s wife.” She waved at the cats. “Their mom’s great aunt. I guess that’d make her their great great aunt.” Another snort. “Rumor has it she ran off with some man or other she met while her husband was off at war, and her husband committed suicide when he got home and found out.” She paused and looked at Flip. “But there are always rumors about beautiful women, aren’t there? If a woman’s pretty enough, men will call her a slut regardless of how many of them she sleeps with. Or doesn’t. Come to think of it, the more men a woman rejects, the more likely they are to label her a slut because it makes them feel superior. I’ve seen it a dozen times and I’m sure you have too. A small man’s way to destroy a woman who’s out of his league.”

“And that woman lived in the house?” Flip clarified. “The pretty woman?”

“She wasn’t just pretty. Rumor has it she was drop dead gorgeous. Bewitchingly, enchantingly, dangerously beautiful. But yes, Hortence and Beauregard’s great great aunt.” She patted each cat in turn, eliciting happy purrs. They had plopped down on the dining table, listening to the conversation. “All this was told to me by their mother. I wasn’t there, of course. I wasn’t around at all for a few more decades.”

“I appreciate it.” Flip gave her a genuine smile. “The key and the information. Don’t worry, I won’t hold you to anything you got secondhand.”

“There’s one fact that isn’t secondhand and you should give it some real weight, sheriff,” May said in the most serious tone she’d adopted so far. She was still stroking the orange cat. “Their mother owned that house for decades when she inherited it from her mother. It’s closer to a mansion than a house, and has that great view you mentioned. Still, she never lived one day in that house and she never sold it either. She didn’t want any living thing to live inside it. She rarely spoke of her great aunt, and when she did it was only to praise her beauty. I asked her more about her once and this is what she told me: ‘I don’t believe in speaking ill of the dead, especially when the dead might still be listening. But I will say that since she was a young girl, my great aunt was blessed with beauty and cursed with rage.’”

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

Flip stopped at a local bakery before leaving Port Clyde, letting all the new information settle in his mind. He had two slices of spectacular homemade blueberry pie, allowing himself to wander through this new world of information. It was a strange world for him, one with witches and ghosts and curses and haunted beaches. He didn’t believe any of that shit any more than he believed in Santa Claus, but it was an entertaining world to visit. Plus, it had a dangerously beautiful woman in it.

The drive back would take him around four hours. He’d be pulling into town just in time to catch the sunset. Picking up a cheeseburger and fries to go and a six pack on the drive sounded good. What sounded even better was eating his burger while watching the summer sun set over that gorgeous cove from high up on the rocky cliffs.

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

Flip’s favorite spot was on the highest cliff at the head of the cove. There, a flat rock served as an ideal bench near the edge, offering the best view of the cove from beneath the shade of a tall pine. He sat and just admired the view, the greasy-bottomed bag containing his cheeseburger and fries sitting on the rock beside him. He felt like a gargoyle perched on the top of the tallest building in a city, overlooking his domain below.

The sky was molten gold and fiery orange as the sun dipped below the horizon. The surface of the ocean glittered golden too, like it was a sea of coins instead of water. The light in the pines took on a soft dreamlike haze and a light fog was building along the beach. Lower in elevation and about two-hundred yards away was the lonely old house, its four tall stories keeping watch over the cove. Flip looked at it now from his vantage, conscious of what his senses might tell him. He felt nothing ominous at all. If anything, he felt content, a sense of belonging. A feeling that he could be happy here for a very long time, that he could even stay here forever. With a jolt, he realized he had been leaning nearer to the edge while lost in thought.

Movement on the beach far below caught his eye. Staring intently, he quite literally couldn’t believe his eyes. A woman lay on the beach, stark naked, and writhing in pain. She was also thrashing what appeared to be a shimmering golden tail. He didn’t believe in ghosts or Santa Claus, and he wasn’t about to start believing in fuckin’ mermaids either. But that’s damn sure what she looked like. Flip rubbed his eyes and forced them to focus more clearly. No, that long golden tail was still there, glistening wet and whipping violently on the beach. He could even faintly hear the wet slaps of it on the sand, paired with an ethereal voice calling for help.

Flip launched off the rock and ran back through the trees toward the house. A trail took off from the house, navigating the treacherous cliffs down to the beach. It would be suicide to attempt a descent anywhere else. At the base of the cliff, he charged into a full sprint, pumping his arms and kicking up sand as he ran down the beach toward the woman. Her cries for help were louder now, so loud they seemed to echo inside his head. There was a lewdness to it, too. If Flip hadn’t seen her writhing in pain, he would have taken the sound for loud moans of ecstasy.

He vaulted over a boulder at the head of the cove and found her, only feet ahead of him. The woman was every bit as naked as he had thought, but it wasn’t a tail he had seen thrashing. From the waist down, she was tangled up in a tawny fishing net. Somehow, the sunset must have made it look golden. In his mind’s eye, he could picture a perfect tail, complete with fins and individual scales of gleaming gold, thrashing and slapping the sand. He didn’t know how the hell he had seen that from the tangled mess of rope binding the woman’s legs, but he didn’t need to think about that now.

Falling to his knees beside the woman, he spoke soothingly like he would to a frightened animal. “I’m here to help you. I’m not going to hurt you. Let me help you.” It required a herculean effort to keep his eyes from wandering over her magnificent heaving breasts. He cupped her cheek to stop her from thrashing in the net. The ropes were digging into her, leaving angry red burns across her skin. Her eyes were wild with fear like a fox caught in a snare, but also bright and fierce. He grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently, keeping his voice soothing, “Look at me. I’m going to help you. Be still.”

The woman’s eyes rolled to meet his, and it felt like they bore straight into his soul. His throat went dry and his hands felt weak. The sun had set now, leaving a lingering purple twilight. Her eyes were luminous in the lavender light, somehow catching the ambient glow and reflecting it back even stronger. A mane of glossy hair was spread across the sand beneath her, and the fading light danced on her skin like diamonds on silk. Her eyes were no longer frightened, but still wild. They drew him in. Without realizing it, Flip’s hand had slipped from her shoulder to skim down her side, coming to rest on her hip on the only free patch of skin between ropes.

Flip flinched at the realization, fumbling a broken, “I’m sorry.”

The woman said nothing, continuing to stare up at him. Her lips curled in a slight smile that may have been satisfaction. Or it may have been relief at finding a savior.

Flip felt a foreign compulsion. Something dark and sick. Something he would have beaten another man up for. He felt the almost irresistible urge to unzip his jeans and cage the woman beneath him. To use the ropes to his advantage, plunge into her and ravage her like an unhinged beast. It was a base impulse, something at home in a feral animal instead of a man. Flip had felt lust, and he had a bad habit of thinking with his cock, but he had never felt the drive to take what wasn’t offered willingly. He had never felt desire so aggressive and consuming.

“How long were you out here on the beach?” he asked to ground himself. He shook his head, berating himself internally, asking himself, What the fuck is wrong with you? He had seen plenty of naked women, beautiful women. Had plenty of them beneath him writhing in much more lascivious ways than this one. He wasn’t a blushin’ virgin and he goddamn sure wasn’t a fuckin’ pervert.

“I’ve always been here,” she said with a laugh on her voice, as harmonious as a sonata.

Looking away from her, he took a breath to purge the perversion from his mind and unbuttoned his shirt. He roughly shrugged out of it and draped it over the woman’s torso, covering the most enticing bits of her. He wanted to rip the ropes off her, but he forced himself to move slowly and untangle her with care.

“Are you hurt?” he asked when she was free of the net, forcing himself to look into her eyes and nowhere else.

“No,” she said in a serene voice with a sound as pleasant as windchimes. “What are you going to do to me?”

That odd, innocuously asked question flooded his mind with another violent rush of terrible, driving, impulses, alarmingly perverse. His jeans felt tight, and he felt disgusted with himself. He decided it was even worse looking into her eyes than it had been looking at her perfect naked figure. He fought the urge to tell her what he wanted to do – ravage her, and even more than that he wanted to take her home and keep her chained to his bed. All to himself. Forever. In a great effort to remain civilized, he gritted hoarsely, “I’m gonna get you off this beach and somewhere safe.”

Flip wrapped her in his shirt, lifted her into his arms, and pushed up to his feet. He cradled her gently in his arms as he carried her back down the beach. It was now nearly dark, but her eyes were still almost unnaturally bright as they watched him serenely. She should have smelled like the ocean, even salty or fishy, but she smelled sweeter than anything he had ever scented. He couldn’t place her scent, but it was like an amalgamation of everything that had ever enticed him, from the hottest woman to the sweetest honey to the most fragrant perfume. All those scents mingled harmoniously where they lived in her skin. She laid her head on his chest and made a sound in her throat like a purr. It shook Flip straight through to his bones.

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

Flip carried her up the steep trail back up to the top of the cliffs. He carried her to his truck, parked near the trailhead. He wanted to take her to the hospital, have a doctor sign off that she was alright. But the strange woman protested, insisting it was too far and she was too cold. Flip hadn’t noticed her shivering before, but now she trembled in his arms, her body fluttering against his chest.

Instead, she asked him to take her into the old, abandoned house, assuring they could warm themselves inside. Though she had only asked and in the most melodious of tones, Flip found it was a command he couldn’t refuse. Still carrying her in his arms like a doting husband with an eager bride, he strode to the front door of the abandoned house. The door was a shade of purple-brown, like a fresh bruise, with a standoffish doorknocker in the shape of a lion’s head with a heavy ring clenched between its teeth. Glaring at the beast, Flip kicked the door in.

Still holding the woman to his chest, Flip paused at the threshold, looking from one dark corner of the foyer to the other, prepared for anything, like an old west gunfighter entering a saloon. He felt immediately ridiculous. Those ghost stories and tall tales must have gotten to him more than he’d wanted to admit. There was nothing amiss inside, save for some dust and cobwebs. Moonlight filtered through the windows, making the dust he had disturbed look like mist wafting lightly on the air.

“Upstairs,” the woman said. “There’s less dust upstairs.

Flip didn’t care whether she was right and he didn’t ponder her statement. He attacked the stairs, taking them two at a time. The house was Victorian-styled, filled with tall ceilings, ornate details, and airy windows. A pair of double doors stood open at the end of the hallway on the third floor, beckoning him inside. Flip carried his prize through them and into a master suite, noticing at once it was surprisingly clean. Bay windows were ajar, open just enough to allow a crisp breeze tinged with pine and salt blow in from the cove. The light wind must have kept the dust and cobwebs at bay because the room looked and smelled pristine.

Flip tried not to focus on the large bed, almost as plush and inviting as the woman in his arms. He aimed for the bathroom, intending to fight her chill with warm water. She tugged on his collar, pulling her face near his ear and whispered, “You just pulled me out of the water. Don’t put me back in it yet.” Her breath was hot on his neck. “Take me to bed.”

“That’s not what you need,” Flip rasped, trying to deny the way his blood boiled and remain a gentleman while his cock throbbed.

“Isn’t it just like a man to tell me what I need?” she laughed, both husky and harmonious.

“You need warmed up, and a doctor, and probably a hot meal,” Flip told her as he walked to the bed. In one swift motion, he sat her down and peeled his own soaked shirt off her, trying not to look at the perfection that revealed. He pulled the quilt around her in a cocoon, both to warm her and keep her hidden from his view. He turned her brusquely around and laid down beside her, wrapping her cocooned figure inside his arms, hoping the thick quilt barrier between them would keep his arousal his own dirty little secret.

“Can you not think of a more effective approach to warm me up?” the woman lilted.

Inhaling her scent with his nose near the back of her neck, Flip thought he had never been so intoxicated by any substance. He cleared his throat. “I’m not very imaginative. Sorry to disappoint.”

“I have some ideas,” she teased. “Do you care to hear them?”

“Not unless you buy me dinner first, darlin,’” Flip gruffed. “I’m not that easy.”

“You can take whatever you want, you know,” she said in a sultry invitation.

“I don’t want to take anything from you,” his voice rumbled.

“That’s a lie and we both know it. I can feel how much you’re lying.” She wiggled her perfect ass against the ridge in his jeans. He only tightened his hold to still her, making no moves to relieve his own suffering. She stilled, and when she spoke again there was a sprinkling of admiration in her voice, “What a strange man you are.”

“Darlin,’ you have no idea,” Flip laughed, adjusting his large arms around her body. “You should see me cut loose on the weekends. I really live on the edge. I have pizza with pineapple and stay up past midnight to watch Twilight Zone reruns and everything.”

Flip held her tight and forced his eyes shut, trying to ignore the way the moonlight danced on her pristine skin and glossed her hair; the feel of her curves through the quilt, as apparent to him as a pea beneath a princess’s mattress; the way her scent curled into his nose, as decadent as rose petals and as potent as whiskey. He could feel her weaving spells around him, through him, inside him, a kind of intoxication that settled in his blood. Flip knew once he was good and drunk on her, he’d never want to sober.

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

Flip dozed during the night, falling into a fitful nightmarish kind of sleep. His mind reeled with images of men screaming as they drowned, a beautiful beach corrupted by waterlogged corpses, and an unnaturally gorgeous woman swimming in the cove, watching the mayhem and smiling at it all.

The feeling of his back being forced down into the mattress made his eyes fly open. The sight of the mystery woman straddling his lap, her mane backlit by moonlight, the same moonlight that gleamed in her eyes, made his pulse thunder. Inhaling sharply, he gripped her naked thighs, his fingertips digging bruises into her skin.

Flip wouldn’t take her, but he was damn fine with being taken by her.

Pleasure rumbled through his throat as she raked her nails down his chest, tracing angry red streaks down his body. She had discarded the quilt, brandishing her exquisite and fully naked body like a weapon, her tits languidly jostling to the circular motion of her hips as she worked him into a frenzy through his jeans. She whipped his belt loose and yanked the button open on his jeans. He tried to sit up, to capture her pouting lips, but she pushed him back with a throaty laugh.

It was the first time in his life Flip had been manhandled by a fuckin’ woman. She was stronger than she looked. He looked up at her in a kind of daze, unable to look anywhere else, or to look away from those oddly luminous eyes. He had an unsettling feeling of being a prey animal, caught in the claws of some carnivorous predator. But with a cock as hard as his was now, he didn’t give a damn about that or any other misgiving.

Purring or maybe snarling, she arched her back and shook out her long glossy hair, crooning his name when she sank down onto him. Flip didn’t remember telling her his name, but that hardly mattered now. All around him, the room blurred like a steaming mirage until everything was a shapeless haze except for the glorious woman riding him. His skin simmered and his throat burned with every breath as if he were sitting inside an oven, but he had never felt more alive. Every sensation was heightened, and his pleasure was more intense than anything he had ever known.

Flip was a big, big man, and he was big where it counted. He was used to women being impressed by his body and his size, intimidated even. He wasn’t used to being stared down with unshakeable confidence as a woman took her pleasure from him. It was strange finding he wanted to give her not only pleasure, but everything else he had. He wanted to give it to her as good as he was getting it, bucking his hips beneath her while her hot pussy strangled his cock. Kissing and licking, grabbing and caressing, thrusting and bucking, he used every part of his body to earn her shudders and hear her moan his name.

Feeling her body tense around him like a silky vice, Flip fisted his hand in her hair and yanked her down to capture her lips. Growling into her mouth, he followed her over the edge, drinking her breath as she trembled in his arms while he filled her. He thrummed with something far deeper and stronger than lust, and he kissed her with a passion he had never given any other woman.

Holding her against him, Flip rolled with her, bringing her beneath him and propping himself up on his palms to admire this view of her under him. She locked her arms around his neck, urging him into her again, assuring him they were far from stopping for the evening. Again and again, they enjoyed each other until his back was stiff and his jaw ached, and until he even wondered if he would have some chaffing in some rather embarrassing areas by morning. When he finally fell asleep with her in his arms in the last hour before dawn, he dreamed of her still.

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

Flip woke with the sunrise, a habit ingrained by his days in the military. Turning over in bed, he reached for the intoxicating woman. How he had released his hold on her in his sleep baffled him, but he resolved to keep her in his arms for the rest of the day to compensate. His hand met only cool sheets and a vacant mattress. As if she had been nothing but a drunken reverie or a fever dream, she was gone from the bed. She had left no note or token, only her luxurious scent lingering in the sheets.

With the sunrise, a realization dawned to Flip. His missing mystery woman was unlike anything he had ever touched or tasted. She was his wildest dream and wickedest fantasy. It was unnerving, frightening even, to realize he was so far gone after one impulsive evening. Flip had tried the most addictive substances in the world at one time or another – it came with the territory for an undercover cop, having to blend in with the worst kinds of men – but he had never sampled anything so addictive, so utterly arresting from the very first taste. The marks she clawed into his back and shoulders would last for days, but the mark she carved into his heart was one he knew would never heal. Flip was tempted to call it love at first sight, but this felt more like enslavement. Love, in his experience, had its limits. His feelings for this woman had no such limitations. Neither did the lengths he would go to have her.

Outside the window, it was a beautiful summer morning with bright sunshine and blue skies. Inside the lonely bedroom, Flip had awakened in his own private hell. A gloom so heavy as the one that settled over him upon seeing her gone should not have been possible after the night he had and the hormones that still flooded his body. There shouldn’t have been a single damn thing that could knock him off cloud nine, but all the happiness and pleasure he had felt throughout the night blackened into loss and sadness as despairing as a moonless winter night. Collapsing back into the mattress, he knew that he would give anything, absolutely anything, to hold her in his arms again.

That’s what love will do to you, he thought wryly.

The woman was the cause of his suffering, and only she could be his relief. He didn’t know where she’d come from or how he hadn’t encountered her before in the claustrophobically small town. As he thought it, despairing at his lack of leads to find her again, he heard her voice quite clearly. She sang a hauntingly beautiful melody in a language he didn’t understand. He didn’t know her words or even if her voice came in through the window or echoed out from the depths of his soul. But he knew her message with stark clarity.

When the moon shines on the ocean, you’ll find me. On that beach, inside this house, I’m yours. Surrender to me, and I’ll show you lovely things.

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

Flip did as she asked. Or maybe as she commanded. If he could tell the difference, he didn’t care. Night after night, he returned to the mansion on the cliffs. Sometimes, the front door would be ajar, leading him inside and into her waiting embrace. Sometimes, he would find her on the beach, out for a walk in the moonlight, reveling in the way it shimmered on her skin. He would swim with her in the ocean, stroll with her in the sand, hold her in the sheets, and fuck her with an insatiable hunger every way she wanted.

She never came to him when the sun shone or when the moon was black, nor would she leave the acreage. She was always gone from his bed and his arms before dawn, no matter how tightly he held her. The rational part of Flip’s mind told him it was some weird game she was playing. Maybe she was married to some big asshole with a temper. The instinctual part of his mind, the dormant part where dreams and intuition reign, told him something that he couldn’t believe even though it felt true down to his bones. Flip knew he had found the creature who haunted that beautiful cove. Hell, he had probably found the woman responsible for so many deaths over the years that he hadn’t even cataloged them all.

As summer bled into fall and the colors turned vibrant, more accidental deaths occurred in the cove, more torn and bloated corpses washed onto the rocky beach. Flip now agreed with his unconcerned deputy, that these deaths were unfortunate accidents. Just as he knew damned well they were murders, Flip knew he had fallen under the spell of the murderess, that he could never again be free of whatever kind of enslavement this was. But he knew also that as much as she had enchanted him, he had captured her heart just as surely. It was like taming a man-eating tiger to eat from his hand and purr from his touch.

If something had cursed this magnificent woman to wander the cove on moonlit nights, that meant there should also be a way to cure her. That’s what Flip did, he solved problems. He was pretty damn good at operating within rules he thought were arbitrary and chickenshit – that’s how he categorized whatever rules held her prisoner. If he could find loopholes inside the penal code to get what he wanted, he could figure out how to save her.

If Flip couldn’t save the woman he loved, what kind of a man was he?

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

The nurses at the Eastport Hospital had all grown tiresome to Dr. Jason Monroe. Plowing through them all had taken most of the year, and it had been a nice ego boost – just what the doctor ordered, as he liked to say – but now the flock of nurses had become just as dull as the withered shrew of a wife he begrudgingly went home to most nights. In addition to the way her once mediocre looks had been eroded by age and the toll taken by their offspring, in recent years she had even neglected to remind Dr. Monroe how impressive he was, how lucky she was to have whatever morsel of attention he gave her. This was an unacceptable slight to a doctor whose ego had outstripped his credentials since his first residency rotation. Eastport was a good fit for him. People there were provincial enough to be highly impressed with Dr. Monroe whereas his arrogance had worn thin to his peers back in Boston.

The drive home from the hospital was long enough for Dr. Monroe to resent what he’d find when he got there – the yellowing smile of his middle-aged wife greeting him along with the smell of whatever trendy meal she had attempted – but not long enough for him to think of any suitable excuses to stay out for the evening. The missus believed him a few nights a month when he told her he had to work late but he couldn’t overuse it, and he was already over what he considered his safe allowance for the month. He decided to take the long way home, take a scenic cruise along the coastline.

The full moon glittered on the ocean like diamonds on satin. Without a large city within miles there was nearly no light pollution, and the moon and diamante stars illuminated the forests and beaches like a dreamscape cast in silver. The moon was so bright, he saw a white spume burst from the ocean and telltale black fins peeking above the waves as a small pod of whales swam near the deserted coast. There was no one else on the lonely two-lane road, so Monroe watched them instead of the road, smiling when a calf breached and turned its belly up toward the moon.

When he returned his eyes to the road, an unfamiliar cove came into view ahead. Frowning, he thought he must have taken a wrong bend in the winding road. The road narrowed and there was no shoulder, making it cumbersome to turn around. He quickly oriented himself when he heard the crash of thunder on the cloudless night. Monroe knew all the stories about the beautiful cove surrounded by thundering cliffs and the haunted house perched high above. He had always wanted to see it, but his doe-eyed and doe-hearted wife had always nagged him out of it.

“What about the rumors, Jason?” she would whine. “It’s supposed to be haunted and it gives me the creeps.”

What a fortunate wrong turn, Monroe smirked to himself. Now, he could take a walk along that beautiful, ‘haunted’ beach and see what all the fuss was about. He could even keep a clear conscience and save his evasion for when he really needed it.

The road had taken him to the beach before it doubled back and wound up the nearest hill toward the old, abandoned house on the cliffs. He thought about driving up there to get the bird’s eye view, but movement in the water caught his eye. Squinting, he thought he saw something glimmering in the water near the shore. It looked like a woman swimming, but that couldn’t be right. The leaves were starting to turn crisp and vibrant as autumn approached, and the nighttime air had a cool bite.

Stepping out of his car, Monroe strolled along the beach toward the head of the cove. The cliffs formed a perfect horseshoe around the ocean and towered above him. The beach was littered with fallen boulders and large monoliths that protruded from the sea like the teeth of a great petrified monster. The beach’s dangerous edges added to its beauty, like a woman in a tight red dress and stilettos.

Monroe saw the movement again, something glistening in the water. Closer now, just beyond the nearest protruding fang of rock. He couldn’t explain why his heart kicked up as he trotted around it to get a better look, but his intuition was rewarded. He’d been right at first. It was a woman. A fucking babe, too, so hot she could have walked right off a porn set. Her tits already had his dick twitching. She was treading water a few yards away, close enough for him to see the way her eyes reflected the moonlight. Below the swell of her tits, her body was hidden beneath the gentle waves, but Monroe had seen enough.

“Hey, baby!” he called to her, trying to sound suave. “Are you out here all by yourself? It’s dangerous for a woman. Especially a woman that looks like you.”

Monroe didn’t like operating from the disadvantage of his prey not knowing his professional status. But it did give him the opportunity to enlighten a new woman, watch the admiration bloom in her eyes when he regaled her with stories of all the lives he’d saved. But for the first time in years, he didn’t even feel the desire to regale her. Monroe just wanted to fuck her. He felt like an alcoholic at a bar, his mouth watering and hands shaking. He walked closer, waves lapping over his six-hundred-dollar brogues.

“It is dangerous,” the woman agreed in a voice as harmonious as a symphony. “You should stay away.”

Her angelic lift didn’t fool Monroe. He caught the sultry devil in her tone, too. It was the tone of a woman who wanted it, wanted him. He kicked off his waterlogged shoes and told her as much, “You look like a woman who wants some company.”

“How does your wife look when she wants company?” The woman asked and kicked away, further out into the ocean. “You should go home to her.”

Monroe saw a flash of gold in the water beneath her, something he swore looked like scales. He wondered if she was blonde down south and the thought caused another jump in his pants. He didn’t bother taking them off when he waded deeper. Fuck, the water was cold. It was a testament to how hot the mystery woman was that his hard-on could endure the frigid water as he swam out toward her.

Just as he closed in, the woman glided away. She looked back at him over her shoulder in what may have been fright or evasion, but Monroe knew better. She was playing coy, giving him a chase. Women did that to him from time to time, played those little games. It never meant they didn’t want him to catch them. He thought about what he’d do to this one when he caught her. He wanted to sink his teeth right into her. One thing he was certain of, he hadn’t ruined his shoes and his clothes to play coy. Play time was over once he caught her.

Which, judging by the way his outstretched hand was nearly clawing through her luxurious mane, was right about now.

Monroe caught her hair as she swam away from him, still playing coy, and used a little too much force when he yanked her back to him. Her beautiful features were twisted and her mouth was open when he yanked her head around. Monroe had expected that – a look of pain or surprise. But the woman was smiling. And she wasn’t a woman anymore. The creature was smiling at him. Its features were still beautiful, but its eyes were vicious with narrow, slitted pupils, and its smile was too wide with too many teeth. Dear god, the teeth! Rows of sharp, brutal, shark-like teeth.

The creature laughed, drinking his fear like wine. It laughed as it tore into him with its brimming smile and those terrible teeth, latching onto his neck with vice-tight strength. The pain and surprise belonged to him alone. And what exquisite pain it was, like nothing he had ever experienced. He felt his flesh being serrated by ragged teeth, and even heard the tearing of his tissue like a seam ripping as the creature tore a chunk out of his neck. He felt his blood oozing down over his collarbone, hot on his chilled skin.

Monroe didn’t think it should take so long to die or that a person could endure so much pain before the release of death. He flailed feebly, or possibly it was his muscles twitching spasmodically as the last currents of life tried to save him. He looked up at the full glowing moon and sputtered a prayer, blood frothing from his mouth as he pleaded to God for help. Or at least to let him die quickly.

“God’s not here tonight, doctor,” the creature told him, her voice still as wickedly harmonious as a devil’s serenade. A golden fin breached the water before the creature dove under with him, fanning a magnificent golden tail to drive them deep into the crushing black depths. Somehow, he could still hear her voice or perhaps the words were driven straight into his soul.

“There’s only me.” Her voice seemed to fill the water like light. Terrible, golden, hellish light. “And the lovely things I’ll show you.”

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

It took a week for Dr. Monroe’s corpse to wash back up onto the beach. Clammy skin had begun sloughing off in patches which, combined with the bloat of decay and waterlogged oozing, gave the body a poached egg sort of look. Flip always had thick skin when it came to murders and crime scenes, it had thickened even more in the last few months. The smell was particularly loathsome with bodies dredged up after marinating in water for days. Soggy, rancid meat was just a little more putrid than dry rot. It should probably worry him that the humid stench coating the back of his throat no longer bothered him, but now he was more concerned with not getting his boots wet from the waves lapping at a vacant eye socket, the surrounding tissue hanging loose like a worn-out buttonhole. In addition to the missing eye, there were other places the fish had eaten. They went for the soft tissue first – eyes, lips, genitals.

I hope you did something in life that warranted your dick bein’ chewed off in death, you poor clammy bastard, Flip thought as he studied the corpse. Fuck, I hope he was dead when that happened. He smirked at his own dark humor.

That humor faded quickly when he had to break the news to the doctor’s hysterical widow; console her while she sobbed, listen while she bemoaned the fate of their litter. He really needed to hire some deputy to do this part of the job, some kind of emotional support golden retriever in human form. Especially with the impressive accidental death toll Eastport boasted.

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

“I found your latest handiwork on the beach this morning,” Flip said to his golden girl between kisses as his mouth trailed from her throat down toward her navel. Moonlight gilded her skin as she moved beneath him in the bedroom he now considered theirs, hidden away in the seaside mansion. “You gotta quit doin’ that, darlin.’”

She bucked her hips against his face in invitation. “You don’t need to worry. I know what’s really bothering you. None of them touch me. No one has touched me since you. Only you.”

“It ain’t a walk in the park breakin’ the news to all these wailing widows, you know.” Flip nipped her skin, delighting in the way she shuddered in response.

“Tell the wife about the nurses the good doctor was fucking,” she said with no remorse. “That should put a bandaid on her grief.”

“Is that an educated guess?” Flip asked redundantly. He had learned earlier that day the doctor had been making the rounds in the hospital in multiple ways.

“When a man drowns in my cove, there’s a good reason,” she said with a hint of venom.

“A man-hater, huh?” he grinned against her skin, teasing her with the scratch of his beard. “Should I be concerned?”

“You? Never, handsome.” She laughed headily. “A hard man like you is good to find.”

“Is that what’s behind all the killing?” Flip asked more seriously, looking up at her and meeting her eyes. “Some asshole hurt you and have a score to settle?”

“I had a score to settle, alright. I was filled with rage, for years and years. But now, it’s nothing so simple as rage. Not anymore. It’s all part of a bargain I made long ago.” She tangled her fingers into the thick forest of his hair. “You might say, I have quotas to meet.”

“Tell me what happened.” Flip raised himself up, cupping her cheek in his hand and looking steadily into her eyes.

“You talk too much, handsome,” she said and used her surprising strength to roll him onto his back and hoist herself to straddle him. Better than that, she straddled his face. “I can think of a better use for that mouth.”

Some time later, she lay draped across his chest as the sweat cooled on their bodies. Flip marveled at her indefatigability. He felt like he had run a marathon, and she could go all night. They still had a few hours before dawn and Flip didn’t want to waste them sleeping.

“You know if you need a hero, I’m happy to step up,” Flip told her, rubbing his hand along her back.

“A hero can’t save me,” she scoffed with surprising rancor. “A hero would never do what’s necessary to save me. Only a villain would have half a chance. A man who chooses to be my hero alone and a villain to others.”

“Hero or villain, I’ll be whatever the hell you want me to be,” Flip assured her, his voice soft this time as he cradled her head on his chest. “Tell me what happened to you, darlin.’”

“What happened doesn’t matter,” she replied with a hint of melancholy. “Why things are the way they are rarely matters.”

“Anything that affects you matters to me.” His voice rumbled through his chest.

With her head resting on one side of his chest and her sharp fingernails tracing patterns on the other, she began her story. Her sonorous voice played harmony to the spell woven by her words. Flip had never been the best listener, not to the frivolous pillow talk most women tried to engage him in. Yet he found he hung on every word she spoke as if it were the thrilling cliffhanger at the end of a riveting novel chapter.

“It’s been more than eighty years since I’ve let a man have me for more than one night.” She kissed his chest. “But I suppose you figured that out.”

“Not really,” Flip huffed, jostling her on his chest. “I don’t have a damn thing figured out, other than I have you now, but I’m not supposed to be able to keep you. I know I want to keep you.” His brow was set and voice heavy with conviction. “I’ll find a way to keep you.”

“I want you to keep me, too,” she purred. “And you’re the first man I’ve ever said that too.” Her voice grew darker. “But there’s a price you must pay to keep me. You’re also the first man I’ve ever wanted to know exactly what that price is. If the price is too steep for you, I won’t force you to make the purchase.”

“No price is too high, darlin.’” He grinned. “Can I whip out a checkbook?”

She smiled up at him with great sadness and returned her head to his chest to begin her tale.

“I married too young to the first man who had ever made me laugh. I was just coming into my beauty and had never kissed a boy before. My husband promised he would take me far away when he returned from the war. I was young and foolish, and I believed him. While he was at war, men in town hounded me. They were merciless. Truly merciless, like hounds baying after a fox. I wouldn’t have looked twice at any of them even if I was single. I was more vigilant over my reputation than I needed to be, more vigilant than any other woman I knew. I couldn’t have done more to avoid and deter them, unless I started undermining my appearance. I wouldn’t give any man the power of making me lessen myself to make them more comfortable. I wasn’t too much. Those men were inadequate.”

Flip stroked his large hand along her back soothingly and kissed along her hairline, letting her take whatever time she needed.

“It didn’t take long – weeks it seemed – until one of those men, a fat, verminous, troll who could never touch a woman like me, started telling everyone who would listen that he had slept with me. That I had begged for it and moaned like a whore. I don’t know how many people in town believed it at first. I thought surely no one could. But the women who heard the rumor were jealous of me and fostered it – ‘I’ve always known she was a whore. Just look at her!’ And the men who heard it wanted it to be true so they might have a chance with me – ‘Yeah, you know she wants it.’ That foul rumor spread through town like wildfire, until I couldn’t walk down the street without getting poisonous looks and lewd propositions.”

“Let’s take a stroll down mainstreet tomorrow,” Atas suggested with gravel in his voice. “I’ll rearrange some faces and punch the teeth down the throat of any asshole who so much as looks at you sideways.”

“I’d give anything to have you show me off on your arm,” she said in a faraway tone. Her voice hardened when she continued. “All the perverse talk emboldened the perverts, I suppose. It didn’t take long until the looks and comments weren’t enough. Then the pinching started, then the grabbing. I could handle myself. I could even fend them off one at a time. I was never a meek woman and I was raised on a farm. Then they started following me in packs like hyenas.”

Flip’s hand stilled on her hip, his grip tightening.

“I went to the sheriff,” she scoffed. “He asked me what I expected, looking the way I look, dressing the way I dress. He told me I was asking for it, and I shouldn’t be surprised when men wanted it. He also asked what it was worth to me for him to do something about it.”

“Is that sonofabitch still alive?” Flip growled.

“None of them are.” She smiled at the thought. Then her lips thinned and her face hardened. “One night one of those men – I can’t remember his name, but I remember his face and his rancid breath – came to my house, the house on the cliffs. He broke in and knocked me out. I woke up when he was dragging me along the beach by my hair. When I fought back, he beat me more, beat me until he could take what he wanted from me. He was stupid though. He turned his back to me to stuff his little dick back into his pants. I bashed the asshole in the head with the nearest rock I could grab. I bashed him again and again and again until his face was hamburger, then I threw the rock into the ocean and dragged his body out. I waded until I was swimming and then I kept swimming. I was a good swimmer, and it felt good to wash the filth off me. I left his body in the middle of the cove to sink and swam back. When his corpse washed up days later, it looked like an accident.”

“That asshole deserved it,” Flip said genuinely. “He deserved a helluva lot worse.”

“My husband came home from the war a few weeks later,” she continued. “I tried to tell him these things. I needed to tell someone other than my damn pets. But he had heard the rumors in town too, and he had already been poisoned by them. He thought it was all my fault. That I must have been putting something out there to elicit the response I received. He thought I took lovers and flirted. That I acted like a whore in his absence because I couldn’t keep my legs closed until he got home.”

“I see why you wanted to get outta Dodge,” Flip grated, his body rigid beneath hers. He dreaded what he thought was coming, but still had to hear it from her lips.

“He said if he couldn’t have me, no one would. He killed me, beat me mostly to death,” she revealed. “When I was barely conscious, he dragged me to the cliff. I screamed and screamed, but no one heard me. He tied an anchor around me and shoved me off into the deepest part of the cove. You’d think it’s quick to drown, but it takes a long time when it’s happening to you. It felt like I sank for hours in my last few minutes. I screamed, watching my cries for help rise in bubbles toward the surface.”

Flip felt her body grow stiff against him as she continued. “I begged and pleaded. When I thought I would do anything anything to live a little longer, something answered. Something that lurked in the bottom of that cove. Something monstrous. I heard its voice inside my head and it offered me a trade. A trade I was all too happy to accept. Instead of a handshake, I felt thick slimy tentacles wrap around me. I thought they were dragging me deeper, but they dragged me somewhere else. I kicked so violently I broke free and I shot to the surface, kicking and kicking. A part of me realized that I should have drowned, that I couldn’t be alive after so long under water. Then I realized that my feet weren’t there anymore. The creature had stolen them, replaced my legs with a tail. I had become one of whatever that creature was. Something cursed. Something soulless.”

“Jesus,” Flip said dumbly, at a loss. What does a man say to that?

“Jesus wasn’t there that night. He didn’t answer my prayers,” she said vehemently. “I made a deal with the devil that night, or a kind of devil, and I became his pet and his ward. Since that night, I have taken my revenge and sated his hunger at the same time, luring men to their deaths with my beauty and my siren’s song. They find me on the beach, and come to save me, then they try to take me,” she laughed cruelly. “Then they beg God to let them drown. So, I show them all my teeth and then I laugh out loud. I never wanted saving, I just wanted to be found. That will teach them. All of them. They’re never to be seen again, and I’m still wandering my beach, swimming in my cove.”

Flip thought she was finished, so he asked with conviction, “So what’s the price I have to pay?”

“I’m glad I met the devil,” she said and propped herself up on his chest so she was looking down at him. “He showed me I was weak. He removed the weakness from me and replaced it with a part of him. In exchange he took a part of me too. The part of me he barters in.” She smiled grimly. “The price, as you see, is a piece of your soul.”

Flip chewed his cheek, considering this for only a moment. “I can go without a piece of my soul, darlin,’ as long as the rest of it belongs to you. And all of you belongs to me.”

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

When Flip awoke the next morning, she was gone. He knew she would be; he had grimly resigned himself to that reality months ago. It could have all been a dream, a fantasy or a nightmare. Maybe he could walk away from her and after a few painful years, convince his mind of that. Inconveniently, she was real. The realest and most alive Flip had ever felt and would ever feel was when he was with his siren.

Thunder roared outside and a gusty wind blew the bay window open with a rusty groan of hinges. Flip groaned himself as he rolled out of bed, grabbed his pack of cigarettes, pulled one out with his teeth, lit the tip and dropped his lighter back on the nightstand. Smoke trailed from his nose as he walked to the windows. He was still naked, boasting scratches from her nails across his chest, his hair wild from her fingers. Leaning against the window frame, he blew a stream of smoke outside.

Clouds as dark as gunsmoke hung low overhead and the thunder booming in the sky was louder than the crash of waves against the cliffs below. Waves ripped across the surface of the usually calm cove, cresting white like lipizzans in capriole. Watching the water boil from the storm, feeling the chilly air on his skin, and taking a drag from his cigarette, Flip wondered how in the hell he could pay the price for his siren’s absolution. If it was as simple as handing over a pound of his flesh, he would go down to the kitchen and cut a chunk out his side before breakfast. Ideas turned over in his mind, he rejected each one as fast as it bloomed. He focused so intently on that question, he didn’t realize he was chewing his lip around his cigarette until he tasted blood mingled with tobacco.

A strange movement in the water in the center of the cove caught his eye. The shape of the cresting waves in the center had changed, becoming sinuous. The water looked like insects crawled over its surface. Flip frowned, stepping outside onto the balcony, clamping the cigarette between his teeth. The wind buffeted him, raising goosebumps on his shoulders. Or maybe it was the sight of a long oily black tentacle reaching up from the water, twisting in the air, then vanishing again.

Flip spit his cigarette over the balcony rail, as he planted his hands on it and leaned forward. He strained his eyes, focusing on the sinuous writhing in the center of the cove. Horror prickled his skin like icepicks when he realized the strange movement of the waves were a multitude of black tentacles, wringing and twisting inside and on top of the stormy waves. The very center was calm, about the size of a dinner table. It gleamed like oil. Something inside the round center made a jerky movement. Flip realized it was an eye. A giant black eye. And that eye had just focused its abyssal pupil on him. The tentacles whipped wildly around it now, breaching the water in agitation or excitement.

Whatever this creature was, it was not his siren nor anything possessing of her beauty. He recalled her story and the tentacles that had caught her legs and dragged her under. This was the hellish beast that had lived in the cove long before the siren ever took her first swim. This was the eldritch monster that collected the souls his siren harvested. Flip stared at it, and the monstrous eye stared right back.

An idea flashed into his mind. Whether it was his own, a spark of brilliance born of the terrified adrenaline that coursed through his veins, or whether the tentacled monster had impregnated his thoughts, he didn’t know or even care.

Flip knew what he had to do to save his siren, to have her all to himself. He was too late to avenge her, but he could try his best to save her.

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

After meeting the shining black eye of that monstrosity in the cove, Flip was rattled. He didn’t like the idea that had been put into his head, but he wasn’t forcing it out either. He was allowing it to percolate, considering his options. His phone dinged from an incoming text as he was pulling on his jeans. It was unusual for him to be bothered by calls or texts out on that acreage; it allowed him to feel like there was only him and his siren alone in the world. Service was spotty and unpredictable at best out on the cliffs. His phone varied between one bar and no service depending on the device’s mood. He fished it out of his jeans pocket and glared at the new text, wrinkling his nose more from the text than he did from the smell of moist corpses.

“I miss you,” said the whoring schoolteacher, Cristy.

“I bet you fuckin’ do,” he gritted to himself and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

The thought that had taken root in his mind that morning blossomed into something thorny and brutal. Maybe even a little evil, the kind of thought that was rare for Flip. And it was brilliant.

Instead of the petty barb he had been poised to text, he typed a new message. “Then let’s do something about it. Pick you up at 7?”

“See you then,” her reply came almost instantly, followed by a string of emojis.

Another check in his siren’s box. She didn’t text him stupid shit with stupid fuckin’ emojis.

“Better get movin,’” he grumbled to himself as he shoved the phone back in his pocket and pulled his shirt on. He had a lot to do between now and seven.

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

Before picking up Cristy, Flip ran a few other errands. He went into his favorite coffee shop, as he often did in the mornings after leaving his empty bed. This time, he flirted with the barista he knew was married. Loud enough for his voice to carry to the surveillance camera behind the counter, he told the married woman he was thinking of watching the sunset from the local lighthouse and asked if she wanted to join him. She declined as he knew she would. Later in the day, he purchased a ticket for a show at the drive-in theater and made sure a few people spotted the sheriff there, talked to a few others. Once the movie was rolling, he doubted those same people would notice him leaving early, and there was no surveillance in the dated drive-in to be concerned about. He still had time to drive to the lighthouse, at the far end of town from the siren’s cove, and toss out an empty Coke can with his DNA on the rim. With the recent storm and the humidity, it would be impossible to place his tire tracks to a timeframe narrower than twelve hours, which was just what he wanted. His last errand of the day was surprisingly easy, and he even arrived early to pick up the teacher. He ensured there were no witnesses or cameras in the area. And he kept the radio loud in his truck while he drove her out for their date, loud enough to cover any noises coming from the truck bed.

The hardest part of it all was faking a smile at Cristy’s bland wit and keeping his mouth shut on the topic of her liaisons with the science teacher, Less. Even though he had no interest in her and now had the woman of his dreams in bed most nights, being cheated on still irked him. He wondered if that lingering anger would be resolved tonight too.

Flip just hoped her lackluster spirit and dented soul were fungible with those of his magnificent siren. He would never make that trade, but he hoped that was just his mortal sensibility.

Ignoring Cristy’s protests that the cove was haunted, Flip drove them there anyway. He remembered the road with beach access thanks to the late Dr. Monroe. It was convenient that any tracks on the beach were washed away by the tide within minutes. Few people ever came to this place, thanks to the ghost stories and tall tales surrounding the cove and the old house. From the beach, enclosed on three sides by high cliffs and tall, toothy rocks, a man could feel like he was alone in the world. Flip parked between two spires of rock rising out of the surf, near a small dinghy and oars he had dragged there that morning, still patiently awaiting him. They arrived when the sun was setting, the prettiest hour of the day to spend in the haunted cove.

“Get your whorin’ ass in the boat,” Flip ordered the woman in a frightening tone, shedding his pretenses of civility.

“What did you say to me?” Cristy tried to sound offended, but fear shook her voice.

“I’m askin’ nicely.” Flip smiled cruelly. “But I’m not above askin’ another way. I suggest you don’t make me ask twice.”

She was stumbling over her words, backpedaling some kind of excuse or apology. Atla didn’t care and he wasn’t listening. He got out of the truck, made sure to pocket his keys, and walked behind it to open the tailgate. He wasn’t concerned about Cristy getting away. She couldn’t get up the cliffs here, so all she could do was try to run away down the beach and Flip could catch her in seconds. Or she could try swimming away across the cove, which would be just fine by him.

Grabbing the bundle Flip had covered with a tarp in the bed of his truck, he yanked it out, letting it fall to the sand in a heap. He had thought the man, Less, might have given him more trouble, but he lived up to his name. Flip had dealt with stray dogs who put up more of a fight. Less was crying behind his broken glasses, sucking against the duct tape over his mouth as he sobbed. He wasn’t even fighting against the zip ties on his wrists and ankles.

Flip walked to the passenger door and yanked it open, unable to keep himself from grinning at the sight of Cristy’s dull, horrified eyes. Flip leaned on the door and told her, “I doubt you believe me, but I have no intention of hurting either of you. I just want us all to have a little chat.” He jerked his head toward the dinghy. “So, you can either walk your ass over to that boat and sit down in it on your own, or I can drag you to it and throw you in. Your choice.”

Trembling with fear and crying, Cristy complied. As she walked toward the boat, she looked around, calculating her odds of escape and realizing it was hopeless. Flip bent and grabbed hold of the man’s collar, dragging him through the sand and hoisting him into the boat like a duffle bag, landing with a heavy thud.

“I’m sorry,” Cristy sputtered. “I didn’t mean to cheat on you. It was all a mistake.”

“Yeah, it’s a dangerous world out there for a woman,” Flip menaced, letting her know the world she was in now was very dangerous indeed. “A girl never knows when she might trip and fall onto a dick. I don’t know how you navigate it. Me? I’m just thankful I haven’t tripped and fallen on top of any strange women yet.” He bared his teeth in a cold grin. “Get in the boat.”

“You said you weren’t going to hurt me,” she sobbed, climbing into the dinghy.

“I’m not,” he said gruffly. “You have my word.” He jerked his thumb at the quivering man curled in the bottom of the boat. “Believe me, if I was gonna rough you up, it would have been when I caught you with that fuckin’ joke.”

Flip shoved the boat with both teachers inside out into the water and jumped in as a wave caught it. He took the oars and began rowing them out into the cove. The sun had dipped behind the pines on the cliffs above and the light was rapidly fading. By the time they reached the middle of the cove, the shore was hazy and indistinct, shrouded with purples and blues and a light mist.

Flip retrieved a knife from his jeans pocket, smirking at the way Less cowered from it. Catching Less by the ankle, Flip cut the zip ties binding his legs. He jerked his hands back when he realized the pathetic excuse for a male had pissed his pants. He cut through the ties on Less’s wrists and then stood, trying to keep his balance in the small boat. Less staggered up on shaky legs, his puny fists balled at his sides. Flip grinned at the feeble sight, but it gave him an opening he had wanted for some time.

Still grinning, Flip slammed a vicious right punch straight into Less’s nose, feeling the rewarding crunch of cartilage as the skinny dweeb reeled backward. Before Less tipped over backward, Flip grabbed the front of his shirt and the waistband of his pants, and unceremoniously chucked him over the side. Less shrieked like a woman when he hit the water and sputtered in hysterics next to the boat.

Looking at Cristy, Flip gave her his best Dirty Harry glare. “Do you need help gettin’ out of the boat too, or can you manage on your own?”

“What are you going to do? You can’t leave us out here!” she screamed, but she timidly stepped out of the boat into the ocean to tread water beside Less.

“Like I said, I just want to have a conversation,” Flip said dangerously. “And what I want to hear is the two of you begging. I want you to beg for your lives. Beg not to drown. I want to hear what kind of bargain you’re both willing to make not to drown here tonight.”

“I’ll do anything,” the woman cried. “Oh, God help us! What do you want?”

“Keep it up.” Flip grinned at her.

Grabbing a fistful of the man’s thinning hair, Flip shoved his head under again. The man flailed and sputtered, giving Flip about as much trouble as a wet rat. The woman sobbed, treading water in place. It was pathetic how weak the couple was. Not an ounce of fight or flight in them, just sobbing and pleading. They didn’t even try to capsize his dinghy, which wouldn’t have been difficult.

Keeping hold of his hair, Flip let the man splash back to the surface, wheezing for breath.

“Beg, you sorry sonofabitch,” Flip growled in his grittiest tone. “Beg to be saved. Promise you’ll do anything.”

Less instantly amped his sobbing to the level of horror-movie-cheerleader, begging and pleading and promising with everything he had. Cristy followed his lead, stupidly thinking that being pitiable enough would save her. They carried on for minutes, wailing and splashing, pleading and promising.

“Please,” Less pleaded, snot clogging his nose and tears streaming from his eyes. “Please, I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything you want.”

“Don’t let me drown!” Cristy shrieked. “I’ll give you anything you want if you save me.”

The ocean began swirling around the couple. They were too preoccupied by Flip to notice. The eddy was gentle at first, quickly gaining speed. Cristy noticed when it started to tug her under, like filth getting sucked down a drain.

“We begged you,” she sobbed. “We promised to do anything you wanted to spare us.”

“You weren’t beggin’ me for a fuckin’ thing.” Flip laughed cruelly. “And it wasn’t me you made those promises to.”

Punctuating his laughter, a forest of tentacles erupted from the whirlpool, oily black and as thick as Flip’s waist. The tentacles whipped around like cats o’nine tails. The woman screamed and the man cried pitifully. Flip grabbed the sides of the little boat to keep from being thrown out as it bucked on the turbulent water, hoping to hell it wouldn’t capsize.

The tentacles latched around the pathetic couple flailing in the water, catching Cristy around her legs and waist and Less around the neck in a slimy noose. His mouth opened in a scream that couldn’t escape his strangled throat and his eyes bulged from their sockets, as the woman splashed feebly. Their screams and sputters and splashing sounded deafening to Flip in the otherwise silent cove. Just as fast as they had appeared, the tentacles were sucked back beneath the water, leaving Cristy’s terrified face and Less’s lobster-red strangling head bobbing for another heartbeat before they too were sucked down into the water.

The whirlpool grew smaller, swallowing the couple down into the cursed depths of the cove. Flip’s dinghy settled with a splash, its violent bucking slowly calming until it was rocking gently. The whirlpool had vanished along with all trace of the teachers, and the waves had returned to normal. The starry night was incongruously peaceful, the ocean beautiful and the sky pristine. With a heavy sigh, Flip dropped his hands from the sides of the boat and let his breath return to normal, waiting for the guilt that never came.

Two worthless souls in exchange for one exquisite soul was a fine trade by him. Maybe he’d thrown in a little piece of his own soul as a tip, but he was fine with that too.

A hoarse cry coming from the shore snapped him back to attention. There was enough light from the moon and stars for Flip to see movement on the beach, but he couldn’t make out what it was. There wasn’t any way either of the two teachers could have gotten there that fast, and slimmer odds still they’d survived.

Grabbing the oars, Flip heaved against them, sending the dinghy lurching back to shore. His heart jumped when he recognized the familiar, superb figure of his siren. When he neared the shore, he jumped out of the boat, splashing water up to his thighs, and dragged the rowboat ashore. She was on her hands and knees in the sand, doubled over coughing up water. Flip ran to her, falling to his knees beside her, his hand going instinctively to rub her back.

“Are you alright?” he asked, still rubbing her back as she coughed. He had never seen her cough like this before, as if she had just narrowly avoided drowning. She was naked, as he had found her many times, but this time her skin was cool to his touch and goosebumps rose in a rash over her shoulders. Flip yanked his shirt open, shrugged out of it and wrapped it around her, pulling her onto her knees and into his arms.

She shuddered against him, her entire body heaving.  Worried, Flip squeezed her tighter. Then he realized she was laughing, silently laughing so heartily her whole body shook. Pulling back enough to look at her, Flip cupped her face, studying her smiling features.

“I think you did it, handsome,” she crooned, her smile widening further, tears brimming in her eyes. The ethereal lilt was gone from her voice, though it still spoke to his heart. The oddly luminous glow was gone from her eyes, though they were still bright and beautiful and looked right into his soul. Her mane of hair was still luxurious but lacked some of the gloss it usually held, and her skin was soft as velvet but was missing the ethereal golden flush that had always seemed to shimmer just below the surface.

“You’re free?” Flip asked, his voice hoarse in his tightening throat, a toothy smile blooming on his lips.

“I think so,” she laughed, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him so roughly she bruised his lower lip. “Take me to bed. If I’m allowed to stay until dawn, I’m yours.”

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

For the first time, Flip was able to watch the sunrise holding the woman he loved. He stayed awake all night waiting for it, just to make sure she wouldn’t somehow evaporate in his arms. He wanted to touch her, assure himself she was real, while he watched the morning sun gild her skin and dance in her hair. This morning, he would be able to take the woman he loved with him into the little coffee shop, show her off in town. Thinking of spending his life enjoying such simple pleasures with her made him feverish with love.

A thought played over and over in Flip’s head, making him grin like an idiot. She was still his as the sun rose. She would be his forever.

The sunrise was golden, lighting the reds and oranges in the autumn foliage aflame. The cove was calm, the water a peaceful sapphire. If Flip strained his ears, he thought he might have heard a faint cry, carried up from the water on a light breeze. With some imagination, it might be the screams of the souls trapped beneath the water. The new recruits Flip had engineered as a trade for the release of his siren. But a rational man would chock it up to the wind rustling the pines. The sound was barely audible when the waves thundered against the cliffs. And the waves would always be there. The waves would always come crashing down.

Flip would label the drowning of the two schoolteachers an accident. One might call it following traditional Eastport Sheriff Department protocol. Even if some ambitious cop wanted to investigate, there was no evidence to support anything else. Two lovebirds went skinny dipping in the cove and drowned. Damned shame.

Flip’s siren heard the faint sounds carried across the water, turning in his arms to look out of the windows. She smiled, a wistful sort of look in her bright eyes. Flip kissed her shoulders and neck, feeling her body respond to his touch. When she rolled onto her back and pulled him over her, he saw the familiar wildness in her eyes. Her wildness wasn’t a gift from the being in the lake. It was born into her and it remained a part of her. As Flip kissed her smiling lips, he wondered if her desire to kill, her rage, were gone too. Or if that had been a part of her long before she was taken by whatever dwells in the cove. She still seemed like a wild thing to him, like a fox or a tiger. Then he wondered if he could possibly domesticate a wild tiger. Or if he could only keep her sated. He didn’t know, but he intended to do his part on that front right now.

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

 © safarigirlsp 2024

Tagging some sexy sirens!

[goingbuggy]

Shanks' Savior Complex

A few months ago, I posted a joke tweet about Shanks’ savior complex and Buggy’s inferiority complex. While Buggy’s feelings of inadequacy are pretty obvious in the source material, Shanks is constantly evading serious analysis because of how little he appears in the manga and how nebulous those few appearances are. So, naturally, I was met with a lot of confusion. (What do you mean by ‘savior complex?’ Why Shanks specifically?) I thought I’d address all that now in one comprehensive, all-inclusive post.

Before I dive in, please note just a few things:

A SAVIOR COMPLEX is a pattern of unconscious behaviors. It is associated most often with self-sacrificial people – those who help others even at the cost of their own personal well-being, mental or physical.

Within the field of psychology, ‘complexes’ are just constructs. My goal is not to diagnose. Rather, this post is a conceptual analysis using the idea of a “savior complex” to better explore Shanks as a character.

Now that all that’s out of the way, let me begin!

For a character who is so significant in the grand scheme, Shanks is remarkably absent for the better part of One Piece. Really. He is so nonexistent, actually, that the first chapter of the manga is probably the most we’ve ever seen from him uninterrupted. This is for good reason, though; Shanks is the catalyst for Luffy’s entire journey. He owes a lot to Shanks: his devil fruit, his life, and even his dream, to an extent. Luffy learned a lot about being a captain from Shanks, and much of his advice – like picking and choosing your battles, for example – Luffy puts to good use later down the line.

So, considering his role as Luffy’s mentor, it’s fitting that Shanks’ character is defined by RESPONSIBILITY. He’s goofy, sure, but don’t let that devil-may-care attitude fool you – Shanks is a knowledgeable pirate, grounded by the weight he carries. His dialogue and actions throughout the first chapter reflect this. When Luffy demands to be taken out to sea, Shanks refuses, claiming he is too young. While the rest of his crew wax poetic about the freedom and joy of being a pirate, Shanks is the one bringing them back down to reality, telling them not to fill Luffy’s head with “crazy ideas.”

Those who know him best seem to agree. “The captain’s just doing what’s best for everyone,” Beckman states. “The safety of the entire crew and ship rests on his shoulders.”

Although Shanks is realistic, he is not a pessimist, and he certainly still values dreams. Let’s not forget: Shanks entrusted Luffy with Roger’s hat. Not only that, he asks Luffy to give it back when Luffy has become a great pirate – not if. Of course Shanks has hope for the future and the new generation. He's just also experienced enough to know the dangers and horrors of the current world, and curbs his own expectations as a result. Yet again, Beckman reinforces this when he talks to Luffy.

The future needs a strong foundation. Anything is possible, including what Luffy wants to achieve, but there are necessary sacrifices to make dreams a reality.

I believe Shanks sees himself as one of those necessary sacrifices.

Oda may not have envisioned Shanks losing an arm in the original draft of the story, but this decision sets a precedent going forward, for both Shanks as a character and the series at large. Sacrifice is at the core of One Piece’s identity; previously, I’ve discussed its emotional significance as an act of love. But sacrifice also serves as the foundation for the new generation. Corazón’s sacrifice, for example, enabled Law to outlive him and change the future. Toki and Oden’s sacrifices enabled their children and the Nine Red Scabbards to change the future. Queen Otohime, Fisher Tiger, Shimotsuki Yasuie… although these characters died without ever seeing the future they hoped for, their sacrifices are the foundation upon which their successors enact change.

And who do we also see facilitating the changing world, ensuring the “new age” succeeds?

Shanks.

Whenever Shanks reappears in the manga, it is usually on the precipice of a dangerous conflict, or at exactly the perfect moment to intervene in said conflict. Take Shanks visiting Whitebeard, for example; here, he attempts to navigate the growing tension between Ace and Blackbeard, which eventually results in the war at Marineford. Although he fails at convincing Whitebeard to stop Ace’s revenge quest, it’s clear that Shanks has a vested interest in balancing the current forces at play, including marines and pirates.

At Marineford, not only does Shanks intervene to stop the war, but he saves Koby, a member of the new generation who will undoubtedly change the future on the marines' side of things. His words also reflect my point about sacrifice as a foundation for change. As he stops Akainu, he praises Koby for putting his life on the line: “The seconds of courage you bet your life on creating, for good or bad, have just now greatly changed the fate of the world!”

This aspect of his character remains consistent in Film Red, too. Even though he has grown to love Uta as a daughter, Shanks still encourages her to stay behind because her singing brings happiness to a world where "peace and equality don't exist." Afterwards, when Uta causes the massacre on Elegia, Shanks shoulders all the blame, effectively hiding the truth to protect her. He sacrifices his own connection with his daughter for what he believes is the greater good. Note that Shanks’ own personal feelings on that decision are never explored or discussed; obviously, Shanks loved his daughter, and it's safe to assume he didn't want to leave her. But he set aside his own happiness and made the hard choice anyway. (Sound familiar? The "savior complex" alarm bells should be ringing in your head.)

Even as an emperor, Shanks sacrifices his own strength, influence, and reputation. His fleet is “notoriously weak.” The pirates within it even admit that they never would have survived this long without Shanks protecting them. This fleet is another responsibility weighing Shanks down, and yet he takes on that burden anyway for their sake. 

We don’t have the full context behind Shanks’ decision at Loguetown either, but it’s likely that his refusal to go Laughtale right away ties back to responsibility, too. We know whatever Roger said to Shanks the day their crew disbanded rendered him to tears. (Did Roger’s answer to his question change his mind?) We also know he regards Luffy as Roger’s successor, and claims Luffy acts just like he did as a kid. (Shanks "crowning" Luffy with Roger's hat also parallels Shanks' moment with Roger visually, placing them in similar roles.)

Given this, it’s possible that Shanks believed he could take on Roger’s legacy, but later realized he would not be the one to change the world. Roger might have even tasked him with finding the “true” successor, who will “turn the world upside down.” (Shanks’ fixation with the “new age” would also make sense in that case.) This is all speculation, but I thought I’d throw it out there anyway, because if this were true, Shanks would have sacrificed his own dream for the sake of the world. (Very fitting!)

But how does Shanks feel about his role in the bigger picture? The short answer: we don’t know, and I think that’s purposeful. Oda consistently draws Shanks looking wistful and resigned when it comes to his choices; although he has severed relationships and damaged his body, not once has he expressed resentment, anger, or sorrow. In fact, he's usually smiling.

Shanks also has his own monologue where he discusses the act of crying.

If you apply his advice to his own character journey, it raises a lot of questions. Does Shanks view his current sacrificial actions as “overcoming” his own tears from back then? Is that why we so rarely see him cry now? Considering how reserved Shanks is in expressing negative emotions, I think it’s possible. His emotional restraint could also be seen as “saving face” for the sake of others – something I’ve discussed before. That is my own interpretation, though, so take it with a grain of salt. 

Speculation aside, Shanks has shown time and time again that he prioritizes the future over his own life. His dedication to/fixation with the "new age," his role as a mentor, how he believes in putting his life on the line and "overcoming" negative emotions... these indicate a pattern of behaviors seen in those with savior complexes. Even if it's at the cost of his own mental/physical well-being, Shanks plans to facilitate the world as Luffy changes it.

Is the "new age" his dream, or did he sacrifice his real dream for the sake of the new age? Does that dream even matter to him, anymore? The reasoning for Shanks' motives is still unknown, but the answer must lie in whatever mysterious question he asked Roger – otherwise, why hide the context for his massive turnabout at Loguetown? Once the curtain is drawn back on that moment, I think we will begin to see Shanks in a new light.

[a-d-nox]

web of wyrd: what indicates cheating (and other negative traits that lead to cheating/deception)?

i feel like it is very important to look at the individual person's relationship and relationship blocker on top of all this. usually the top corners in the compatibility web are beneficial to how a person acts in the relationship but certain numbers can be troubling. in this case, a personal one to my family, this man was VERY good at lying and gaslighting, and he really crushed my family member (unfortunately, she is still very much attached to him - curse that 13 core; they just can't quit one another)... so 18 for example could go either way: very good at self-reflection/empathizing or very good at lying... the main focus though in the bottom corners - what the weakness in for each person (feminine for feminine and masculine for masculine) in the connection. the relationship blockage and relationship numbers in the compatibility web shouldn't be ignored though as they show mutuality (she did start lying to him about where she was and what she was doing).

22 - the fool

these people commonly feel like they can pull the wool over others eyes. they take risks where the relationship is concerned without thinking of the other person involved.

1 - the magician

they often feel like they can do and say whatever they want in the relationship without any consequences. they have the tendency to manipulate their partner and emotionally gaslit given the situation.

6 - the lovers

codependency is pretty common but also very important - this energy is ruled by gemini. thusly communication is key. on a low vibration or as a blockage number, there is a lack of communication.

7 - the chariot

these people are quick to switch up. they will stay with you but only until they find someone who shares their same mentality and vision for the future. they could also lack self-confidence, and thusly seek validation from more than just who they are in a relationship with.

12 - the hanged man

these are the people who are quick to play victim. they might project their faults on to you - if they cheated, then they might question your loyalty in return.

15 - the devil

this is a toxic relationship to begin with and when on a personal lines this person is more likely to seek out lust than love. codependency and controlling nature is also present.

18 - the moon

if these people have not done self-reflection, they will 100% cheat and deceive others in a relationship due to immaturity and avoidance of fault finding.

19 - the sun

these are the people that think that the grass is greener on the other side and who tend to be immature in a relationship (often, they are in a connection for a good time but not for a long time). ghosting is common and so is desiring an open relationship.

like what you read? leave a tip and state what post it is for! please use my "suggest a post topic." button if you want to see a specific pac/pile next. if you'd like my input on how i read a specific card or what i like to ask my deck, feel free to use the ask button for that as well.

click here for the masterlist

click here for more web of wyrd related posts

want a personal reading? click here to check out my reading options and prices!

© a-d-nox 2024 all rights reserved

[v3nusxsky]

Hello! 👋🏻 I would love a little smutty Larissa x Morticia x Reader oneshot if I'm the first ask. Please and thank you 😊

Can we keep her? 18+

*Authors note~ I’m so sorry I haven’t posted in a while placement has been hectic with so many assessments needing to be done for me to pass the year which ends in two weeks! But have this little brain child*

Trigger warnings ~ established relationship Mortica x reader, mommy dom! Mortica, sub r, sub leaning switch!Larissa, talks of past Tish x Larissa, oral fixation (r), thigh riding (L-M), praise kink, degrading kink, oral sex, fingering, sensory play?, blindfolds, overstimulation kink, mirror sex, aftercare obvs

Prompt^^^

Being Nevermore’s Literature professor was in all honesty a dream come true. Ever since your time as a student in the school you’d wished to end up here. And that you did. Larissa couldn’t wait to offer you a position after being your last placement before you qualified. The skills you possess are honestly some of the best she has seen and therefore makes you an asset to her staff.

But if you know Nevermore, which you do, it always provides the unexpected. The youngest member of staff just so happened to unknowingly gain the interest of a certain raven haired beauty. Morticia Addams. But it was not the only time you’d been on her mind, no, when you were studying you often ended up shadowing her class as Larissa felt you needed to be well rounded in classroom management. Your nature making you quiet and reserved and a little afraid to assume your natural authority over the class. Which is why Mortica was perfect for you.

Thinking back to how it all started out with you and your girlfriend always brings a smile to your face. When things got tough she was always there, rain or shine to support you. Also you’d be utterly insane to not notice her radiant beauty she so effortlessly wears. Everything about her was perfect. Beautiful skin like the pale moons reflection on the lake. Raven hair as dark as night, perfectly straight and never out of place. Dresses that hugged her body as if they were her skin. And the height that woman has often brings you to your knees. Truly, she’s magnificent. So of course it was only natural to see her celestial being in your dreams.

You knew of her psychic abilities and she knew that you process the ability of mental projection. Now you have a higher ability than most would assume which allows you to project thoughts feelings, create alternative worlds with your imagination and even switch realities. Mostly, you enjoyed your ability and the fact you could use it to help others, but you’d never would’ve thought that your own mind would let out your secret desire.

You’d been utterly exhausted the whole day which resulted in your head snuggled into the woman’s neck as she read a French book out loud to soothe you to sleep. And like always the smooth silky voice and the steady thumps of the heart bellow you worked like a charm. Only to send you into the spiciest dream you’ve ever had.

“Mommy” you whined pitifully as you squirmed under Larissa’s gaze. The blonde seemingly confident as she towered over you, not even throwing her past crush a glance. “She is a pretty thing Tish, I could do so much with her” the shifter murmured thoughtfully, clearly talking about you and not to you as she ignored your desperate state.

“Ah, mon amour, you aren’t in control here are you darling?” Your lover reminded the principal, clearly stating that she is in control of both you and the blonde. “Will you be good for me sweet girl?” She practically coed at the older woman while actively ignoring you. “Yes mommy” came the mumbled response, her shyness soaking the words. “Oh my dear Rissa, we both know you aren’t shy in this department darling” came her chuckled teasing words. You’d know there was something with them in the past, but purposely not spoken about until this interaction.

It was then that you became overwhelmed with your thoughts of the two women together in the most intimate and inexperienced ways that your grip of control faltered and everyone in the room was blessed with the image of Larissa Weems in her youth, riding your Tish’s milky thigh in a frantic rhythm. “Oh! You’re so good Rissa, keep going for mommy, I want to feel you cum for me darling” she would murmured into the blondes ear before taking it between her teeth and tugging gently.

Unbeknownst to your slumbering self you’d given your girlfriend the opportunity to hopefully bring her first crush and lover to the bedroom without fear of upsetting you. Seeing the sexual dream that had caused you to entangle your legs to hers, effectively pressing your now dripping warmth to her leg was enough reassurance. All she needed now was the principal to agree.

To say Larissa was expecting the potion teacher to barge into her office with such a personal invitation during school hours would have been insanity, but then again the Addams family love to make keep her on her toes. Truthfully, Principal Weems kept her ex lover former crush on the staff for many reasons. Her teaching for one, to be close to her for another, and the third being those pesky lingering feelings that never left once she left the gates of Nevermore with Gomez. One swift divorce had her back where she belongs it still not hers. No. Because she wanted you.

Meetings with the principal after hours were not uncommon for you as a first year qualified teacher however, seeing Tish sat on her desk as their lips fused together like a centuries old dance was definitely a first. Not that you were complaining at all. In fact, you decided to let them feel the affect they have on you, causing Larissa to let out a whimper of need. “Patience sweetheart, this isn’t about us yet” Morticia reprimanded as she pulled herself away from the shifters body. ��Would you care to join us sweet girl? I know just how much you enjoyed your dream the other night, and mommy wants to give that to you baby.”

That’s how you found yourself reliving your first part of your dream, word for word squirming on the sofa by the warm fire. Two pairs of eyes drinking in your now semi naked form. “Much better sweet girl you’re so pretty for mommy baby” your girlfriend praised before swiftly moving to grab the blindfold she’d stashed away before your arrival. From there you were promptly ignored by the older women as Mortica claimed her dominant stance causing Larissa to slip into a happy medium, content to please everyone.

Slender fingers trailed your exposed abdomen ever so lightly that it may as well have been a ghost. A phantom feeling only to be chased away with a rougher texture on your plush thighs. “Mm” you purred happily, Morticia always knew just what you craved without you needing to say it. So there was no surprise when she instructed Larissa to fetch a cold water bottle and roll it over your skin leaving goosebumps in its wake. “C-cold mommy” you whimpered with an adorable pout on your luscious lips. “Oh my poor baby” the faux sympathy rolling off her words in waves. Soon enough there was a soft tassle being dragged all over your body like a snake looking for its prey as it slithers over your bra clad chest.

Soon enough both women grew tired of their little game, deciding that you were all simply too clothed for the occasion. Tish instructed you to try and undress her while your vision was not present but you ended up reaching for Weems instead. A quick tut of disapproval soon had you swivelling around to please her only to lose your balance. “Such a silly baby, can’t even undress me. Well Larissa will have to do it seems I know she can be a good girl for me.”

Only when Larissa freed the older woman from her garments did she get permission to strip down herself while Morticia ripped the skimpy lace off your body. “Please can I play with her Mommy?” Larissa mumbled completely star struck by your bare body. With a wave of the other woman’s hand Larissa immediately yanked you onto your hands and knees and settled under your body. Mortica coming to sit on the arm rest and spreading her legs for you to be eye to eye with her aching core. “Get to work little slut, be good for me baby.”

You immediately delve into her awaiting cunt, blindly missing your target by an inch causing your lover to grab a fist fall of hair to guide you, all while Larissa happily began to kiss and lick your pillowy thighs before eating you out like a starved woman. Soon enough the office was filled with the sweetest moans where French and English words blended together in the height of her enjoyment. Larissa simply moaning shamelessly into your soaked pussy causing you to mirror her with the raven haired woman’s clit pulsing between your lips. “Oh fuck baby! Right there pretty whore. Best whore for mommy” her praise only spurring on your determination to please her. Only when you decide to plunge two fingers into her greedy core did she cum as you happily lapped up your reward before tumbling over the edge yourself.

“Oh sweet girl your blindfolds all wet.” She mock gasped before ripping it off your head to examine it. “Messy whore” was offered by the blonde whose mouth was coated in your arousal and cum. All while you were blinking rapidly trying to maintain your position not wanting to disappoint them. Inevitability your shaking legs failed you causing you to collapse against the sofa earning a time out.

That’s how you found yourself sat on the floor, let’s spread wide, hands behind your back as you watched Tish bring Larissa over the edge time after time, lavishing her on sweet praise with ever orgasm, while you sat untouched and ignored. Every little needy sound that slipped past your lips bought the blonde another high. Every time you moved from your position brought your girlfriend a chance to feel the bliss while you sat there watching another woman have her screaming and crying out with pure pleasure. On one hand you were jealous as sin on the other it was hot as hell and what a spectacular show to be blessed with. Perhaps that’s why you behaved.

Tish had simply lost count of how many times she’d rode the waves of pleasure, simply forgetting how good Larissa is in the department before she had some experience. However, she’s not as young as she was back then and her body simply requires a break which is why Larissa gets you resting against your mommy’s front, legs spread as she instructs you to keep your gaze on the ceiling. Fuck. Mirrors. Everywhere, you realised. “Gonna make you watch how much of a filthy slut you look like as you fall apart for another woman” she stated before setting to work in trailing her fingers through your slick. “So fucking messy sweet girl, eyes on the ceiling or I’ll make mommy hold your head that way” the blonde threatens before unleashing a whole new burst of energy on your pleading core.

“Tish, the whore won’t look” Larissa grumbled noticing how your head had dropped to the side after the second orgasm. “Mommy, too much” you slurred letting out a little squeal when Larissa touched your oversensitive clit. “One more sweet girl, mommys right here, one more baby you can take it. Look how pretty my girl looks.” Her praise combined with the principals three fingers curling just right to hit the perfect spot had you seeing stars and drenching the sofa below you all. It was only after working you down from the high did you let out a sob of “no more” over and over.

Larissa hurrying to find the pre set out aftercare things while morticia hummed a French lullaby, your favourite when this deep into sub space. Your eyes filed with a haze as you immediately began to root around for more skin to skin contact. When Larissa returned with water and sugary treat you seemed to far down which worried her. Yet Tish seemed to know just what to do. After sipping her water and encouraging you to do the same with the support from both women you settled in between them both. Completely submerged into your subby mindset you gently grabbed Larissa’s hand and brought her fingers to your lips before ever so lightly drawing them between your lips. Immediately a content sigh left your body as you snuggled more into your mommy muttering around the slender fingers, “mm we keeps her?” Without knowing Morticia already planned on it.

Word count ~ 2161

[bambimanifests]

Can you explain a little bit about the change of appearance? I mean, it does not require surgeries? And can I become the most beautiful? How do I do it? I am new to the community. Thank you sweetie

hi anon!

yes i can. to answer your question no manifesting an appearance change has nothing to with surgery, tho i think it could, like if you assume that manifesting an appearance change will result in surgery in the 3d, but so far as i’ve seen it has nothing to do with surgery at its core.

appearance change is like any other manifestation, the law says that whatever you think/assume/believe in essentially persists on in your mind (mind = 4d) will reflect in the reality around you (3d).

4d —> 3d

not the other way around.

when it comes to manifesting anything the most important thing is consistency in the favourable thoughts and persistence in your desire.

so if you are on tumblr you will see a lot of “just chose it to be done and it is!” which sure, if you say “i have xyz” then you do, but if you are new to loa i think that concept may be hard to grasp, as the whole “anything is possible” is hard to grasp as well at times.

if you are a beginner i think it’s best to focus on a specific manifestation method, whichever you like most, if you don’t know which one, try them out!

you can affirm(out loud or in your head), script(in a notebook or phone notes), visualise, there is also the void, i know many use it to manifest i personally do not, but there are plenty of posts on the void state on tumblr.

so i personally prefer to affirm + visualise, i say you should pick a method that doesn’t bore you or tire you out, like of you dislike writing, don’t scrip.

as to how to manifest it’s pretty simple, you said you want to be the most beautiful so affirm, scrip and/or visualise you are.

“i am the most beautiful person on the planet.”

“i am drop dead gorgeous.”

“everyone looks at me when i enter the room because of how beautiful and stunning i am.”

those are just some examples of affirmations, i will say that it’s the best to affirm the way you talk and thunk normally, it just feels more normal to you.

so even when you do your method of choosing, you need to keep 3 things in you mind such as:

manifestation is happening always, right now your manifestation is conscious/intentional, but we manifest at all times, so you need to keep a mental diet, which means do not think against your desire! however we are all human and when that happens just think in favour of it. “i’m so ugly!” “uhm? no i am not? i’m literally the most beautiful person in the world!”

secondly, emotions do not manifest! if you are feeling sad that in no way shape or form affects the reality around you, however if you had a bad day and you’re all sad and start to think against your desire and spiral on why you don’t have it etc. that may affect your reality, but doesn’t necessarily have to it depends on you, if you persist in it for long enough. if you spiral just once again flip your thoughts and think in favour of your desire.

ignore the 3d! not like completely, while we manifest you continue loving how you did you just change the inner world - the mind - the 4d - in order to change the outer world - the reality around you - 3d, so if the 3d follows the 4d seeking evidence is pointless and may discourage you at times. and there is a lot of the time movement which you don’t see, it’s called “behind the scenes”, which i noticed happens a lot with sp (specific person) manifestation.

there is no logic in loass, manifestation isn’t supposed to be logical “but how can i become rich if i have 2 dollars!” well if you keep whining about having two dollars you persist in it, so you have two dollars… just persist in something else, we always think and we always believe into something so believe in the things favourable to your reality and to you.

if you need any more guidance my asks are open!

🌸

[musicfranchisetournament]

propaganda under the cut !!

alien stage :

ive been a vivinos fan for a long time and trust me when i say getting a franchise with songs after years following was kinda insane to me. the moment my clematis dropped i went to sob and cry on my friends dm and spoilers its been the same thing w the most recent round. the characters have such a grip on me through everything we get to know about them through the comics vivinos posts and they're so darling you cant help but hope and cheer for them even if, in the universe, theyre insantly doomed by the narrative. the songs are always so nice and reflect so well on the characters and their mental states it makes me eat drywall sometimes. the artystyle from both artists improved so much since the beginning and its so nice to have been there through it. also, it's one of the few music franchises i can think of that aren't in japanese and i think it's cool to have non jp franchises there!

hypnosis mic :

hii my friend really likes uhhmmm doppo? yeahh and i thibk ramuda is very silly and fun and should be allowed to do anything he wants ever. idk anything else except like yhe lore is crazy and from what i understand/remember its like love nikki with music instead of styling. pretty sure daisuke hirose and ito ken are in this. could be wrong tho its 1am im not checking. 

Jyushi is there

kind of an ass franchise and i love it for it sooo much. with every passing day i learn something new about the hypmic lore that makes me tilt my head in confusion and question everything i knew about that franchise. daily. while not the biggest song franchise out there i feel hypmic and its fandom truly had some insane impact on idol fandoms through amazing moments such as the hypmic official merch underwear or how the autism creature came from a hypmic drawing. it has such an amazing balance between taking itself way too seriously and making some insane moments in story and then doing a complete 180 and deciding that yeah we can release a song about the two fuckers who live together rapping about cooking. its great. also the only franchise to have hit song Stella by Fling Posse.

[sch-com]

Specific manifestations of schizoid PD in my life

see similar post for anakastic PD / OCPD

When I first heard of my personality disorders, it was hard for me to notice their role in my life. Part of it was that I was younger, and with less experiences, but part of it was that by nature PDs are so ingrained it's hard to see the full scope of their influence. Particularly I struggled to see the "dysfunction" part - I was thinking that sure, I do experience that, but is it really that bad? And you can't have a PD without the dysfunction, so do I even count? I think that now, after some time and more reflections, I can say I do see the dysfunction, so I thought to share my observations.

Using the DSM V criteria for schizoid PD:

1/ Neither wants nor likes close relationships, counting being part of a family / Has no close friends other than immediate relatives

When I was first moving out for university, I didn't really have any close enough friends I would feel truly comfortable moving with. It limited my choices, and influenced the one I ultimately made (a mistake).

Also, when I was moved out and experienced my first full-blown mental health crisis, I didn't have anyone around me to rely on.

Studying in uni is much harder when I am not talking with people in my class. Normally students support each other, share notes etc I imagine. I have to do everything alone.

Talking to people = opportunities. And support. Real, material support of being physically near. Going to places together, someone having a job opprotunity, hell even having anyone around in case of an emergency.

I suspect at least part of my emotional problems can be attributed to my self-imposed isolation. Occassionaly when I do talk to someone, it's like... an altered mental state, in a good way. When I laugh, I feel physically good. And it's easier to laugh with other people around. It's the little things I think, that are crucial and I am largely missing out on.

2/ Almost constantly picks introverted activities

Sharing what you do can help you progress faster. Sharing your art and getting critique, joining language classes. Sure I can do all of this on my own as well, but it may be sub-optimal. I think it's a matter of balance - and if I consistently choose to opt out of group activities, it could be seen as dysfunctional.

Also again, doing stuff with other people = meeting other people = getting the social connection, vital for even physical health, and gaining access to opportunities and support.

Other people can also motivate you, or keep you accountable for doing something. When I do (almost) everything on my own, I have to well, rely on my motivation / determination, which is often hard (more on that in 4/).

3/ Has little if any, thought in engaging in any sexual experiences

Frankly I am asexual, so I wouldn't say it's causing me any distress. I suppose that lack of sexual life can be viewed as lack of a major life activity, if you want to interpret it that way.

However, somewhat connected to 4/, it's hard for me to say 100% that sex life is something I truly don't want, or if it's just another thing I am opting out of out of the lack of reward. More on that below.

4/ Seldom derives pleasure from any activities

The emotional implications are written into the criterium itself. Lack of pleasure is I think dysfunctional already.

But, adding on the above - lack of pleasure/satisfaction definitely made me lose a lot of motivation for doing anything. I have disengaged from hobbies because of it. I have disengaged from studies, from social activities, from even simple things watching movies, reading, or cooking a good meal because of this. I have to force myself to do pretty much anything. There is not a single thing that I do simply because I truly enjoy it - I need another reason on top, like an obligation.

What I mean by the above, is that... I think I have opted out of things because they don't bring me much emotional reward, not the other way around (so it's NOT that I don't get a lot of joy because I don't do things). I remember when I was younger and more active in life, doing something like travelling, or acomplishing something, and emotionally not getting anything out of it. So I wished I was just in bed and not doing the thing, because at least it's less effort, for the same emotional reward (= lack thereof). And as I became an adult with more control over my day-to-day, I stopped many major life activities because I can. And it's all the same.

5/ Appears apathetic to the admiration or disapproval of others

For me it's largely related to 4/, because I don't get much internal reward from external stimuli, it also manifests in how this criterium describes it.

I've had people believe in me in the past. Try to encourage me, praise me, tell me they see a potential. But I... couldn't believe them. I don't feel this, it's all the same if I am awarded something or not. External rewards don't cause internal reaction, so like why bother? Why bother going after this hard thing, winning a competition, if after I acomplished it it's all the same void? I put the effort into something, only for this to not matter. So I stopped putting so much effort.

I think it may also discourage others from trying to help me, because historically I haven't shown much reaction, or improvement, or gratefulness for their honest efforts. To give up on me, because I seem like this empty shell of a person. But I don't really know, I think it would have to be someone else to confirm this.

6/ Shows emotional coldness, detachment, or flattened affectivity

People told me that I appear flat and so it's hard for them to read me. It's hard to know what I think, and some became afraid that I was judging them, when I... I don't? Overall, this one makes it really hard to connect to others and to be understood. So it makes me feel even more like an alien.

I have also hurt people because of this. Because I detach, I isolate, I forget about people. I am the friend you have to message to get a conversation, or schedule a meetup, because I don't initiate. I know it's a hard position to be in, and I don't want to hurt anyone, so I only disengaged more to not even have any friends that would care about me enough to be hurt by my isolation.

Because I seem all the same (flat and withdrawn) all the time, it's harder to notice when I am struggling. I can be in the throws of depression and actively suicidal, but outward appear pretty much the same. So people don't believe me, not even professionals, and I have been neglected because of this.