#and whose center is everywhere

[infinitesofnought]

Two tasks set at the beginning of life: limiting your circle more and more, and constantly scrutinizing whether you haven't gone into hiding somewhere outside your circle.

– Franz Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms

[angels-heap]

I know my Half Life blog is not the place for this conversation, so I'm holding back from posting a fucking dissertation here, but goddamn, the lack of nuance and empathy in the conversations surrounding the Nickelodeon documentary is appalling.

[narwhalandchill]

very whelmed by the 'anniversary' as usual but honestly archon quest looks hype as hell. not in the actively losing my mind and vibrating at an alarming frequency type of usual hype but this flavor thats more just. im so intensely curious about how things r about to go down? arlecchino maam whats on your mind. what are you planning. huge fan of women with plots and schemes personally

[bammthebandit]

Hallway Crush!Ino who you initially run into in the campus cafe. Like the gentleman he is, he allowed you to skip him in the chipotle line after overhearing the somewhat loud complaints you gave your friend. He’s had your head spinning since

Hallway Crush!Ino who you come to realize has not just one but two shared classes with you (statistics and marketing), the only problem is that he is on the other side of the lecture hall. After coming to this realization, you promptly change seats in your shared statistics class (making sure to only change seats in one class so he wouldn’t get suspicious), now seated about two rows behind him you can sneak glances as you daydream about him as much as you please

Hallway Crush!Ino who notices a new face near his normal corner of the classroom but doesn’t acknowledge it

Hallway Crush!Ino who you honestly had never noticed prior to your first interaction, but you now find everywhere on campus no matter what time of day, he just always seems to be passing by

Hallway Crush!Ino who has become a hot topic in your group chat, it’s not your fault though, how could you not inform your friends about how hot he looks skateboarding from one building to another for his classes

Hallway Crush!Ino whose shaggy hair slightly glides in the wind as he rides his board from class to class, who you’ve noticed has a bad habit of pulling at the hair on his nape when stressed

Hallway Crush!Ino who wears his signature beanie religiously, you’ve never seen him without it but you only think it adds to his charm, your friend however believes his hair is probably a growing grease ball and that beanie hasn’t been washed since it was bought

Hallway Crush!Ino who you rave about to your friends after passing in the halls each day because there truly is no better pick-me-up after a day full of long classes, if anything your friends should be happy he has given you so much motivation to attend your classes, considering the day before you’d ran into him you thought about beginning a skipping streak

Hallway Crush!Ino whose Instagram your friend helps you find after you’ve overheard his friend calling out to him, from there you learn his full name Ino Takuma, apparently he is a 20yr old sophomore and majors in Engineering

Hallway Crush!Ino whose Instagram you stalk damn near the entire night, scrolling between the 20 or so posts he has up and even going as far as to check his highlights too. No sign of a significant other, a fact you celebrate. You can’t help but smile at your phone in the dark of your dorm room, captivated by his smile in the plethora of pictures. That night you fall asleep cheesing, phone clutched to your chest and still open to Instagram.

Hallway Crush!Ino who wakes up to a notification the following morning. ‘New Follower’ is written at the top of his Notification Center. After checking the profile, he realizes he recognizes you, who started sitting behind him in his statistics class a couple weeks ago. Scanning your profile thoroughly he smiles and reciprocates the follow. Maybe he should dress a bit better for classes today.

Hallway Crush!Ino who shows up to class in his usual baggy casual wear, but the air around him is a bit different, there is more confidence behind his usual slouch. He has a few more accessories outside of his signature beanie, you take notice of the jewelry and belts that have added extra flare to his everyday style. He’s so attractive you honestly felt like screaming. He converses with his friend as they make their way to their usual seats but before he can sit down, he looks back a few rows behind him where you’re seated and offers a small smile. “Good morning”

Hallway Crush!Ino who leaves you a bit shocked, you’ve never had an actual conversation, so this greeting is out of the norm. After checking to make sure it was you who he was talking to you offered a reply back “Good morning”

Hallway Crush!Ino who since then, has gone out of his way to say good morning to you every Tuesday and Thursday you share classes together. Before he can sit in his seat he must look back and offer you some form of acknowledgment. Even going as far as to greet you regardless of if you don’t sit near him for your marketing class. You’re unsure why this has started but you suspect it was because of the accidental follow you gave him on Instagram two weeks ago. You woke up the next morning to a follow back, which led you to rant to your friends in excitement and embarrassment.

Hallway Crush!Ino who after a few weeks of this arrangement has started saying hello to you outside of classes too. He waved at you in passing on his way to other classes, said hi if he saw you in the cafe, and even started liking posts on your social media. The small interactions have left you reeling in excitement. Each one leaves you giddy, so much so that your friends have started to call you down bad. You can’t help it though, the way he goes out of his way to acknowledge you regardless of who he or you are around makes your heart race. You’d only wish you dared to start up a conversation of your own or prolong it past simple greetings. Maybe you’d try the next time you saw him.

Hallway Crush!Ino who you notice you’ve seen less and less of once midterms draw near. Your statistics professor was known to be one with high standards for his students, and that was definitely reflected in the way he grades his midterms. You figure that must be the reason you hardly see Ino outside of class anymore. He doesn’t zip past you on his board, or hang in the cafe with his friends, he doesn’t even linger out near the door of your shared class bothering your professor with questions. He comes to class with a concentrated look and then rushes out with his textbooks as soon as you’re all dismissed.

Hallway Crush!Ino who has been pulling at the hair of his nape more and more, who has eyebags the size of his skateboard, and honestly couldn’t tell you the time if you asked. This math midterm seemed to be weighing heavily on him, you’d never seen him this stressed, if anything he seemed to be the type of student who could wing it on a test and still get a good grade if he really wanted.

Hallway Crush!Ino who comes into your next Thursday class almost zombie-like. His shirt peaking from under his hoodie more than usual, like it was haphazardly thrown on minutes before, his sweats hanging a little lower than usual, and his beanie damn near slipping off his head. You’d never seen so much of his hair before, thankfully your friend was far from right, it wasn’t greasy in the slightest. If anything it looked so soft, even disheveled. Fuck he was even cute with bedhead. You really were down bad. You don’t have much time to dwell on that fact though because your professor starts explaining the process for your midterm that will take place next Tuesday.

Hallway Crush!Ino who is so out of it, he doesn’t even notice his precious beanie fall completely off and land under his seat as he scribbles away in a tattered notebook. You realize you should probably inform him about the disappearance of his beloved beanie but doing so without disrupting the class would be a challenge, considering your rows apart. So, you open your phone to DM him about the matter. Although you hesitate. This isn’t just any guy you’re about to text; this is a crush that is almost two months in the making. Okay maybe you're making this a bigger deal than it needs to be, but anyone would be nervous talking to their crush. So instead of just messaging him like a normal person, the last 10 minutes of your lecture are spent contemplating if you should go through with it or not.

Hallway Crush!Ino who by the time you gather yourself, has already left the classroom because your teacher has just dismissed you. His friends are a few steps behind although not as urgent. And his beloved beanie still rests on the classroom floor. Sighing in disappointment, you get up and make your way to pick it up. It looks pitiful on the floor, reminding you of the depressing sight that Ino was right now. You walk to your professor with the beanie in hand.

“Excuse me sir, someone left this in one of the back rows. Could I leave it here for them to collect it?”

With a nod of approval, your professor points to the lost and found bin in the corner closest to the supply closet. “Yes of course, although this room with be closed until Tuesday in preparation for exams. So, they’ll have to wait until next Tuesday to pick it up.”

Wincing at that information you pull the beanie back. “Oh, well never mind then I can return it to them myself, I imagine they’ll want this much sooner than Tuesday.”

Your professor gives you an understanding nod before ushering you toward the door. “Understandable, thank you for doing so I know it could cut into your personal time. Now if you need any further help, please feel free to contact me.”

Making your way out of the classroom you stand in the hall. You really should’ve just mustered up the courage to send that message. Would he be okay without his beanie? You’d never seen him go a day without it, so it’s hard to imagine he’d wait until the next class to come retrieve it. Looking down at the black fabric your heart clenches.

Pulling your phone from your back pocket with newfound determination, you type up a new message for Hallway Crush!Ino

“Hey Ino, this is ୨୧ from your statistics class. I think I have something that belongs to you”

Authors note:

୨୧ - y/n

Alright ntm on meeee😭 this is my first time writing on this app. I could barely find any content for Takuma so I figured I’d do it myself 😫

this is all honestly off the dome with no proper preparation or corrections. Sorry if that bothers you😋 again nothing was planned out prior to me typing this up so if the classes don't necessarily connect with his major then whoops! wasn't sure what specific classes an engineering major would take so I just picked some gen ed classes

that being said lemme know if you enjoy this, cuz i kinda wanna make this multiple parts

-bammbo

[remxedmoon]

(you worked yourself to death.)

yeah i wasn’t kidding when i said these would be coming soon. <- haha funny joke marshall. so!! remember when i said that this post would be coming out last weekend? guess whose tablet broke a few days after saying that! so sorry for the delay!! this is long overdue. here’s a link to the drive, as always! everything in this part of the update should be in the miscellaneous folder (outside of the menu icons, which are in the menu folder. wauaua).

unedited versions below the cut, plus some notes. fair warning 90% of this is just ui stuff lol

so! all of this was already done by the time i posted the enemies. the delay isn’t *entirely* because of the tablet issues, i just managed to get distracted by making: even more redraws! i’d say new update soon but after what happened last time i shouldn’t jinx myself. but! almost All of the art for the initial mod release is done!!!! exciting!!!!!!

please be nice to me (silly) this is my first time doing frame by frame animation in… give or take 5 years? i followed the original animations pretty closely, so they don’t look Awful but i am Aware of the jank. i’m not an animator!!! they’re Good Enough for my purposes.

hey did you know that the original teleport map is slightly off center. did you know that. that’s not the case for the redraw for the record but it did make things a little harder. despite that, i think you can tell i was having fun with the dormont part of the map. i would’ve put more detail into the house, but we never really get a more detailed look at it??? and i didn’t want to make assumptions. so that part’s just traced from the original 👍. anyways shoutout to the clocktower being Curved for whatever reason

outside of those, all of the added art is actually just spritework. i didn’t know this at first, but there’s a TON of copies of sprites from the icon set. Basically Everywhere. so those are added now! and should work properly! also added a few sprites that were Missing from my original batch. not going to put them all here, but a few Important ones (which i actually had to make new art for) are the rock paper scissors cheatsheet, the Larger versions of the craft signs (used in the calamité fight and. probably somewhere else idk), and the craft signs for the tutorial kid fight!

aaaand i think that’s it! for stuff from this update. yeah no there’s more coming buddy. my tablet already broke one time this week there’s no way it’s happening twice. i’m not working on portraits Just Yet (though the temptation has been There), but i’ve got the title screens, a few backgrounds, and the ending cgs done! along with a few other assorted cgs sketched out. because im out of my fucking mind. so, uh, see you soon!! enjoy!!

[burreauxsworld]

Ours To Keep | Joe Burrow

Smut/18+, Angst, Fluff

Takes place at the beginning of the 2023-2024 season. Reader is Joe’s assistant, and they are really good friends, whose lives are about to change forever.

Shit. This was never supposed to happen. This never should have happened. None of this should be happening. Your breathing picks up as you stare down at the the plastic stick in your hand. The two bold pink lines staring back at you, taunting you. Punishing you for getting intimately involved with, Joe Burrow, your boss. Your heart felt as if it was going to burst out of your chest.

Fuck. Joe. You scrambled around, dropping the stick onto the bathroom counter and bolted toward your bedroom. You’d lost track of time. You have to be at work in 15 minutes, and it’s a 30 minute drive. He shouldn’t be too mad. I mean you guys are friends, maybe even a little more. Definitely a little more after today.

Let’s go back to how this whole thing happened.

Flashback / January 2023

Your tires came to a screeching halt in front of Joe’s mansion. After a frantic call, where Joe was damn near crying into the phone begging you to come over, to say you were worried would be an under statement. He gave you no insight on what you were about to walk into. You slammed your car door, and shivered. Regretting only wearing leggings and a long sleeve sweater in the cold Cincinnati weather. You rushed toward the door, and entered the house with your spare key.

“Joey?” You called out. The place was trashed. Glass broken everywhere, cushions from the couch thrown around the room, wine stains on the white carpet. “Joe?!” You yelled, a little more frantic, moving toward the living room. Joe sat in the center of the living room, on the floor. His head in his bloody hands, and an empty bottle of grey goose laying next to him. “Joey, what happened? Are you alright?” You frantically ask, kneeling down in front of him, just nearly missing a piece of glass.

He looks up at you, and your heart nearly shatters. His eyes bloodshot, and cheeks stained with tears. “Oh, Joey” you frown, pulling him into a hug. It had been a rough few months for Joe. After finding out his girlfriend of 5 years, fiancé of a few months, had cheated on him. She was gone that night, and you were there to pick up the pieces within an hour. Joe was distraught. You’d never seen him like this in the 3, almost 4 years you’d been working for him. Usually he was Joe Cool, everything just rolled off his back, but this was different.

If anyone knew Joe, they knew how much he loved Olivia. Hell, he would’ve went to the ends of the earth for her if it would’ve made her happy. You actually almost lost your job in the beginning because Olivia had gotten jealous, but the two of you ended up becoming great friends. You often had dinner with her and Joe on late work nights.

So when he discovered the messages in her phone, his heart was broken. Completely shattered. A big fight had happened, and Olivia was gone that night. You’d received a number of text messages from her before Joe even called you, telling you how sorry she was and she hoped you’d stay friends. That went out the window as soon as you heard what happened.

“I tried. I really did,” Joe slurs, motioning to the empty bottle next to him. “It’s okay. Let’s get you to bed, I’ll clean up” you told him, attempting to help him to his feet. However, his 6’4 stature compared to your 5’1 stature didn’t make it easy. “You don’t have to clean up. I’ll hire someone in the morning” Joe slurs, and you scoff. “The last thing you wanna deal with is people you don’t know. I’ll take care of it” you tell him. “Alright, hold onto the railing” you order, bracing yourself for the journey up the stairs.

“Joe, hold onto the railing” you scold, when he reaches his other pen toward you halfway up the stairs. “Joseph, you’re going to make us both fall. Put your hand back on the railing” you order, and her frowns but does your bidding.

After what felt like an eternity you made it to his room, him falling onto his back on the soft mattress. “I’m gonna go clean up. You get some sleep okay? You have practice tomorrow” you told him, knowing he was gonna feel like absolute shit in the morning.

“Don’t go. Please stay with me. I don’t want to be alone” he pleaded, and you shook your head. Knowing this wasn’t what he needed right now. “You need to sleep-“

“Please stay. I’ll give you a raise”

“Joe, I don’t need a raise” you argue, and his pouty face makes you crack. “Fine, I’ll stay. But only until you fall asleep” you told him, kicking your shoes off.

End of flashback

It wasn’t only until he fell asleep. You ended up falling asleep too, and woke up tangled in his limbs the next morning. And you were correct, he did feel like absolute shit and practice went horrible that day. Nothing sexual had happened that night, just sleeping. It wasn’t until a few weeks later that you were in his bed again, only this time, no sleeping happened.

Flashback / February 2023

You don’t know how this happened. One minute you’re in the living room having dinner and watching a movie. The next, you’re sprawled out on his bed with your face shoved into his pillows and your hips up in the air. Skin slapping skin, your moans, and his grunts fill the room. Your loud moans muffled by the pillow.

Joe wraps your hair around his hand and pulls your head back, hard. “Wanna hear you,” he grunts. He slaps your ass with his other hand, and you let out a loud moan. “Fuck, Joey! Right there!” You cry out. “Yeah, right there? Fuck you’re taking me so well, baby” he groans, slapping your ass again. “This pussy was made for me. Fuck” he grunts.

“Fuck I’m gonna cum!” You whine loudly. “I’m gonna cum so hard” you grit your teeth. You gasp when his free hand reaches around to toy with your clit. “Cum for me baby. Cum all over this dick”

You yell out his name like a mantra as you come undone. He wasn’t too far behind you, grunting loudly as your walls squeezing him hard. “Fuck baby” he moans. “Milking me dry” he taunts, smirking while he unravels your hair from his hand. Weakly, you fall against the mattress, and he drops down next to you. Both of you trying to catch your breath.

“What just happened?” You ask, your voice to shaking from your orgasm. “I don’t know. But I’m not mad at it” Joe says, letting out a breathy laugh. “Joe, this can’t happen again,” you murmur. “It’ll complicate things” you conclude, looking over at him. He nods in agreement.

“We just act like it never happened,” Joe confirms, and you agree.

End of flashback

But it did happen again. It happened a lot more. It’s now July, and the two of you haven’t stopped fooling around since the first time. Now it was coming back to haunt you. What the fuck were you gonna tell Joe? You sigh as you pull into a spot outside of Paycor Stadium. Conveniently, right next to Joe’s Porsche.

Quickly getting out of your car, you rush toward the door. Practice started about a half hour ago. You hoped Joe wouldn’t be too upset with you.

“Look who finally decided to show up,” Gabby, Ja’Marr’s assistant jokes as you walk into your shared office. “Don’t worry, he’s not mad. More worried than anything because you’re never late. Why are you late, by the way?” Gabby asks, as you set your stuff down. “Lost track of time. Took an everything shower this morning,” you lie, and she smirks.

“Who’s getting the goods?” She questions, and you roll your eyes. Pulling out your phone, you make an online appointment with your gynecologist for tomorrow. Maybe the test was a false positive, doubtful, but you could hope. “No one. Just needed an everything shower” you told her, laughing slightly. “Are you okay?” She questions, noticing you seem slightly off.

“Yeah, I’m good. Being late to work throws off my entire day” you lie, and thankfully she believes it. Her phone chimes, and she sighs. “Duty calls. See you out on the field” she says, before leaving the room. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Hiding this was gonna be harder than you thought.

You began to pull out your laptop when you hear a light knock on the doorframe. “Hey, you okay? You’re never late” you look up and make eye contact with Joe. “Yeah, I’m all good. Just lost track of time while getting ready. I’m sorry,” you apologized, and he raised an eyebrow. “You never lose track of time. Are you sure everything’s okay?” He asks, stepping into the office with concern written on his face. “Joey, I’m sure. Just more mad at myself than anything. I swear-“

“You’re lying.” He says, eyeing you. “Excuse me?” You ask, feeling slightly offended. “You do this thing where you play with your bracelet when your lying. I noticed it last year when you’d lie to guys about why you couldn’t go out with them” Joe said, laughing slightly. “You wanna tell me what’s wrong now?” Joe asks, leaning on your desk closer to you.

“I’m okay, Joey. Promise”

He sighs, but lets it go. Until you open your mouth to speak again. “I’ll be late again tomorrow. I have a doctors appointment in the morning”

“Y/N-“

“Joe, it’s nothing. I told you I’m fine, now can you please drop it” you snapped, and immediately regretted it when he frowned. You never snap at him. Other people, definitely, but never him. “I’m sorry. I’m just stressed out right now, and I shouldn’t have snapped at you” you say, walking around your desk to stand in front of him. You think he’s mad when he moves away, but you realize he’s just shutting and locking the door.

“Baby, talk to me” he urges, and you cringe at the pet name. Not because he called you it, you’re used to that since you guys started sleeping together, it’s the name itself. Your breath feels like it’s caught in your throat. You’ve never been nervous around Joe, but this was different. Your lives are changing. You’re afraid of what might happen once you say something.

“Hey, hey, hey. Don’t cry. Come here” he pulls you into his arms, rubbing your back while you softly sob into his chest, getting mascara on his practice jersey. “It’s just me. You can tell me anything” he reminds you, planting a soft kiss on the top of your head.

Finally you pull away and look into his eye. Here we go.

“You might wanna sit down for this” you tell him, and he shakes his head. “I’m good right here”

“Joey…” you trail off, your voice cracking. His concern for you growing, and you can see it in his face. “I—I um…took a home pregnancy test this morning” you start, not looking up at him, but you can feel his body tense up. “It was positive” you say, letting out another sob.

“Joey, I’m pregnant.”

[netherfeildren]

Busy, Dying. Part 3;

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to my lovely and kind friend @FloBallestra whose beautiful beautiful art inspired me so much for this story. You’re the coolest, smartest girl in the world, Flo; I love being your friend. 

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No Outbreak AU, A/B/O, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Soulmates AU, Infidelity, Cheating, Heat Sex, Knotting, Fluff & Smut & Angst, Premature Ejaculation, Scenting, Dacryphilia; Explicit Sexual Content, Dom/sub Undertones, Breeding Kink, Excessive Amounts of Cum, Aftercare, Touch Starved Joel Miller, Angst With a Happy Ending

Word Count: 6.8K

Read on AO3

Part 3;

The apartment with the small, warm room you bring him to is a radiant and generous place; some brightly lit bubble of life Joel hasn’t looked upon in years and years.

You tell him you have a roommate who spends all her time with her girlfriend—crazy in love. They work at the opera, too—set carpenter and sound design. Soon, they plan to get married. 

You tell him all of this with a patently wistful look in your eye. Like you’re happy for your friends, and also terribly aware of what it is that landed you in a place like the Emmanuel. 

In your bedroom, there are twinkling lights that hang from the edges of the ceiling, and a mess of a pink and cream colored bed at the center of the closely packed room, blankets and pillows piled high into what looks like a preemptively engineered nest. 

You move into the space slowly, like you’re shy, hesitant to allow him into this sacred place, as you drape his borrowed coat over the back of the desk chair. The surface of which is cluttered with books and papers, a beaten up red journal, a laptop and makeup strewn about haphazardly. An etched glass bottle of perfume perches precariously at the corner's edge, the deep golden liquid within: still and undisturbed. 

“I like your room,” he tells you. 

But what he’d really like to say is that he feels in danger here, in this comfortable space. That he wishes he could run but that there’s nowhere else he’d rather be, also. Nowhere to run to. That he’s grateful. That the act the two of you are about to commit here will be undeniably selfish. That at the end of it all, he hopes you might forgive him. 

The look on your face when you turn to thank him, one hand braced against the back of the chair as if to hold yourself upright, is full of the ardor of your unfurling heat, the weight of your biology, the reasons for finding yourself in the basement of an old church. There’s sweat dampening your hairline and a glaze in your eye that tells him soon you won’t even remember your own name, but you’ll surely remember his. 

Joel feels suddenly flayed open, like some prey animal gutted by a wolf, spilling all of his own ravenous hunger out for your witness. It’s a moment of undeniable honesty. His own face, a mirror, his own skin damp with sweat. He’s painfully hard already with your scent on his tongue and fingers and surrounding him everywhere in this room. And the look on your face is so similar to the shiver in his gut, that he decides to be honest with his fears:

“We’re about to do somethin’ selfish here. With no thought for how it might hurt anyone.” Not even ourselves. “And I’ve always been a selfish man. But I worry for you.”

Your lashes flutter, as if taking in the weight of his words. But you smile, “Think I can’t handle it?” Another drooping flutter of your lashes, thick and curling. The fever turns you into an unreliable narrator. He can see the flutter of a too fast pulse beneath the thin skin of your throat. All bravado—you struggle to maintain the smirk. “I don’t think I believe half the things you say about yourself.”

“I don’t care about anything,” he tells you, palms splayed wide as if to show you all his cards. 

“You’re a bad liar, Joel Miller.”

You know his last name without him ever having told you, and it feels like a sign. Like you already know everything there is to know about him, so obviously he’s supposed to be here. 

“You can sit down,” you offer, slowly moving to shut the door. “They never stay here, we’ll have the apartment to ourselves for a few days most likely.”

He swallows his nerves, the reality that he’s never done a thing like this, been in this position before, slides down his throat to settle heavily in his gut as he sits slowly at the edge of the pink bed. On the nightstand there’s a dangerously leaning tower of books: Anna Karenina, The Second Sex, Emily of New Moon, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, an autobiography of W.B. Yeats, The Happy Hooker, The Act of Creation, Seven Gothic Tales. 

A wishful romantic, a realist, a smart girl doing a stupid thing. 

He stares at the stack unblinking. You like to read. This is who you are, this person who collects books in your small, pink room with the absent housemate and a brother who’ll only speak to you once a month. Parents who you want to be nothing like. Someone who works at the opera and likes to walk and eats too many sweets, with the golden perfume teetering dangerously at the edge of a desk. 

Someone who’d dreamt of something better. 

Suddenly, he can’t think of anyone else in his life whose small details he knows like this. Not a single person. Certainly not the woman he’s lived with for the past seven years. Perhaps not even himself. 

And learnt in such a short time, too.

You move around him slowly, a gentle hand at his shoulder dragging to softly touch his cheek. He’s glad it’s you he knows like this. At least there is that. 

“I’m not scared to be selfish. I’m scared of other things, but not that.”

He swallows, eyes wide and dry. And you’re so beautiful, and wanting him, what else is there to be but frightened and here, waiting for you to decide what’s next for him. 

Your soft fingertip follows the curve of his cheekbone, back and forth, watching him with eyes that are not as afraid as his, but wide and young and honest. Full of the potential for life that has so callously slipped through his own hands. He thinks there’s nothing within him that can understand why you’d have found yourself in a place for lonely people. Why would you ever need a miracle cure the way he does? How could God or the whole world not want to miraculously cure you of any sort of loneliness you might have ever suffered? Desperate for the power to turn back the clock, change his whole life, find you at a time when he was young and unbroken and honest, too.

You push his hair back, fingers sliding through the thick strands, dancing over the shell of his ear the way they’d danced over the temptation of sugar. His blood throbs madly at his temples, his muscles spasming beneath his skin; he shuts his eyes, sucking in a slow, deep breath to steady himself. He’s not afraid to admit he’s afraid of this.

He hadn’t suffered any sort of real sex drive in years. His libido cold and inconsistent and… gone. He can’t remember the last time he’d slept with his wife, taken himself in hand. His erection this morning had been the first he could remember in months. Joel worked, he thought of the past, he did not consider himself. He went home, he existed. 

He was so, so cold. Frozen. 

Now, he is here. 

Slowly, he brings his palms to your hips, gripping you there carefully, hearing the phantom sound of your moan in his ear as he’d made you come on his fingers. Unbelieving he’d had the gall to even touch you like that. 

The hand at his ear moves to the buttons at the base of his throat, opening the first, the second. His breathing goes erratic, coming in quick, hot bursts. He pulls you in closer, spreading his thighs wider to make room for you, and his hold on you slips higher, mapping the curve of your waist beneath your sweater. Looking up at you with all the wonder of a man coming upon the answer to a question he’d been looking for his entire life. 

He tries for sound once, falters. There are so many things he wants to say to you now, and all his bravado from the church has fled him. His strength gone under the feel of your soft fingers and the glow of your pink room in the warm fairy lights. Things he wants to say that might frighten you, disgust you, make you wet and pliant. He swallows courage once again.

“You’re going to let me have you.”

A muscle under your left eye flutters light and frantic, spasming with your nerves. You nod once.

“Fuck you, knot you—” he insists on clarification.

Another nod.

“Say it. Lemme hear it.”

“Yes. I’m going to let you have me.”

He pulls you in even closer, a groan as he presses his face against your belly, breathing in deep, filling his lungs until they hurt with your scent. The ache in his groin and his stomach beats behind his eyelids. Your fingers move quickly, undoing the rest of his buttons and then push his shirt back and off his shoulders, smoothing over the hot skin there up to his neck to ghost over the sensitive skin of his glands. He shudders a broken sound, pressing his face deeper into your stomach. 

“The rest—tell me.”

“I’m…I’m going to let you fuck me, knot me.”

He pulls you in tighter, thank you thank you, he says against your midriff, mouth sliding against the knit fabric of your sweater that he pushes up your waist, uncovering the skin of your stomach for him to kiss. 

Tugging the garment over your head, you let it fall to the floor from listless fingers, the soft shucking sound landing heavy against the carpet of the quiet room. You have on a black bra, soft, translucent lace, he can see the color of your nipples beneath, beautiful and succulent so his mouth waters. You’re like wild prey caught in his thrall, looking down at him with those bright eyes full of mirrored hunger. His fingertips make their slow, ghosting way up the skin of your back and then down again, mapping you, catching at the waist of your skirt to tug it down over your legs. You’re left only in your dark tights and tiny underwear. Hands on your hips he pivots you, taking a look at the back of a little thong. He feels perverted—he wants to bend you over and spread you wide and look at it all, press his fingers against tight, sensitive skin before getting to taste it all, too. 

His legs shake and he hides his face against your stomach again, embarrassed with the intensity of his wanting, breath shaking in his lungs. Your hands smooth over his hair, comforting him, soothing and painful all at once. And cautiously, you begin to push him backwards until he’s stretched out and laying against the soft duvet. 

It’s like he floats on a pink cloud, and Joel is nervous. 

With his eyes closed, he concentrates on the feel of gentle fingertips moving over his chest, down his belly, sifting through the hair there to the clasp of his belt—open, his jeans, the zipper, parted. It’ll be his skin next. He breathes fast fast fast, he can’t remember the last time anyone touched him, and he has to focus intently on willing the boiling heat his blood full of mercury has become to calm down or he’ll spend in his jeans without you even having pulled him out. 

At his sides, his arms are tangled in his open shirt, and he’s unable to defend himself when you climb on top, settling on his lap in nothing but your flimsy tights and your tiny panties. 

He can’t look, he’s afraid of what he’ll see. He’s afraid of you. 

“Open your eyes, Joel—”

The immediate realization that he’d been wrong before, that he is a weak man, that he’d never been able to escape it, that maybe all the sad, childless alphas of the world are a little bit the same—dying, it doesn’t bother him as perhaps it would have, had he not made it here with you. 

“I can’t believe I found you,” he says in utter awe—eyes wide open now. 

Your smile is beautiful when you lean over to kiss him. Fingers twisting into his hair as you moan against his tongue, sweet kittennish laps while you grind and press along his chest. He tries to twist out of his tangled shirt, frustration mounting at his trapped arms. He wants to pull you tight, grip you hard, feel your skin and leave his fingerprints everywhere, but you reach down, bracing your hand against his wrist to hold him down. Other hand coming up to circle his throat lightly. 

At the provoking nature of your touch, his instincts finally come fully alive. 

“This you pretendin’ to be in charge?”

“Yes,” you shiver, pressing your face to his throat, your hips starting a rhythmic cant against his abdomen. 

The rumble, low and satisfied in his chest, is one of gratification. Happy to let you play for a moment, familiarize yourself with his body. 

“Alright,” he says. “Enjoy it. It’s all you’ll get.”

He settles back, accepting he’s trapped for now whilst you slither lower, shuffling to straddle his thighs. Your touch is tentative, looking up with your own shy candor and glowing cheeks as you carefully grasp his hard flesh. 

The muscles in his stomach bunch, a rough, pained sound clawing its way up his throat—he has to clench his whole body to stave off a humiliation. 

“Fuck—” Joel whines. 

Pulling back, you shove his jeans down his thighs and he toes his boots off, helping you to dispense with the horrible, confining clothes that hurt his skin. When he’s free, his sex lies there, heavy and jutting, and it embarrasses him. The angry, violent looking thing under your beautiful hand.

But there’s a sound in your throat, click clicking, whining too like him, and when you wrap your small fingers around his cock, the both of you stare down in awe. Your touch is too gentle, not hard enough. He needs more. Straining to wrap his own large hand around yours, he shows you how he needs it. Squeezing tightly he writhes on the bed, moving your palms up and down together, teeth clenched tight. He pulls away, letting you handle him on your own, and your touch goes light again, maddening. 

“Does it hurt?”

“God yes.” 

It aches, it needs inside. 

He hisses when you gently part the spongy skin of the tip, foreskin rolled back, pulling the small slit open. Your eyes are glazed over, shiny with the fever heat now, like you don’t really know what’s going on anymore. Humming to yourself while you play with him.

His sac is heavy and tight, the space behind beats. He’s going to come soon, already. It doesn’t matter that you’ve barely touched him, it’d been so long for him, and you’re so beautiful on top of him, sweaty and fevered and ripe. He rips his arms violently from the trap of his shirt, seams popping and grips your hip forcefully with one hand, the other pulling your touch back to his agonized erection, moving your grip up and down brutally. Reaching to tuck his fingers beneath the half-cup of your pretty, lace bra, he tugs, letting one soft, full breast free. 

“I’m so close,” he begs. 

Your lashes flutter at his tone, nodding your head—I’ll be gentle, I’ll be gentle with you—slicking your palm over the wide, wet head, and then gripping there in a twisting motion, sliding down the length. It’s not hard enough, but goddamn it’s so good, too. 

“I’m going to come in your hand, I’m sorry,” he says, too far gone to remember he was feeling embarrassed just a moment ago. 

Suddenly, his semen is spilling hot and wet over your fingers and down your wrist, knot pulsing in agony. His animal snarl sends a shocked shiver down your back so that you’re gripping him even tighter, pulling his hips off the bed by the cock, your own high pitched sound meeting his deep one. 

He ruts into your fist, moaning, crying your name, and your other hand joins your moving fist to scoop up his thick white come, bringing it to your mouth to smear against your tongue. 

Joel is going to die. 

He jerks you forward, over himself, fists twisting in your tights and wrenching them apart, snapping the clasp of your bra to tear it off. You’re crying his name back at him, writhing against him, wet hand sliding over his skin and getting come everywhere while you tell him how much you ache, how hot you are, how it hurts without him. How you need him. 

Joel is needed, and it is a perfect, suspended moment. 

Flipping you over suddenly, he crowds you with his heavy mass, pulling you up off the bed against his chest, belly to belly, fingers in your hair to tug your head back roughly and bearing the soft column of your beautiful throat, he closes his lips around your gland and sucks hard, the flavor of your pheromones flooding his mouth, sticky on his tongue like honey. Your fists tangle in his hair, pulling him in closer, bearing yourself further, a keening cry on your tongue as he ravages the supremely sensitive skin.

With a growl, he pulls back, running his rough hands all over you. Skin, bare and soft and hot. And with one rough tug, he rips the barely there panties from your hips, beneath him you’re breathing fast and hiccupped in a way that makes him feel like a predator and you some small prey. Your breasts are soft and lovely—on a quiet, hungry sound, he captures the tip of one in his mouth, sucking careful, then hard, biting gently, working the sensitive nipple with his tongue until you’re moaning and pleading with him for more. He can feel your hot cunt wet against his stomach. 

“Hmm, such sweet, sensitive pretty tits. Do you like that, little omega?”

Your scent builds, blossoming and swelling and he feels the change in your temperature when you dip fully into the pit of your heat, his own rut responding in kind, coming up on him like a wave so that he feels suddenly that all sense has been lost and all he is, is a thing that takes, with you beneath him so ready to give. 

He had warned you that this would be a selfish sort of thing. 

Wrapping his big hands around your soft tits, he sucks on one and then the other, slapping the side to watch it jiggle and then, with a rough sound, nipping at it again like he’s angry at how it moves. He slides lower, teeth scraping along your ribs, tasting the curve of your soft belly, dipping to bite at the plump inner slopes of your thighs. Between your legs—God. Had he ever smelled something so sweet? Your arousal is thick and leaking heavily, pooling between your thighs onto the bed. 

You’re beyond words or reasoning now, maybe that’s why he feels brave enough to say: “You can’t imagine the things I’ve done t’you in my dreams. Disgusting things. I wanna fill you so badly, mark you with my scent and my come. Want you to be only mine.”

He buries his face in your cunt, lapping at your hole and sucking on your pretty clit, so swollen. Spreading your sex open to admire what’s his. 

Oh please, you cry above him, dragging your palms over your body to squeeze your own breasts tightly. He watches a lone tear slide down your temple in rapt fascination, and he’s certain he’s never laid eyes on such a sight in his entire life. 

“Shh,” he soothes. “Let alpha kiss your little clit.”

He presses a full mouthed kiss to the swollen bud, eyes still locked on your face, flicking his tongue slowly back and forth. You’re so wet, pouring slick for him. Joel takes a deep breath through a clenched jaw, and distantly, thinks it would be wise of him to make you come first on his mouth. But as he straightens to his knees, his palms sliding up the backs of your thighs, the pads of his fingers pressed against the vulnerable backs of your knees, spreading you wide, touching skin softer than he even knew was possible, he knows he can’t wait any longer. Doesn’t want to. 

You’re begging for it anyways. You don’t want him to wait either. 

His wet cockhead brushes against your belly as he leans over to give you a long, lingering kiss. One last moment of softness, he thinks, before all reason is lost to rut. 

He’d like to say so many other things. That you’re like an angel. That it makes sense he’d found you where he did. That he wants to do obscene things to you. Tie you up—ropes wrapped around your heavy breasts, your soft thighs, so that he might watch your skin take his marks. Keep you captured and bound.

Abstinence does strange things to a man. 

Kneeling between your spread thighs, he lets his cock lay heavy against you, reaching halfway up your belly. Your palm slides over it, pressing at the hot skin, letting yourself rock against it, thighs flexing. 

“This part is the worst,” you cry. “—So hot. Oh, I itch and burn everywhere, alpha.” Your words are slurred and febrile. 

“You’re alright,” he soothes, taking hold of his thick flesh. “I’m here to fix it now.”

You claw gently at his shoulders like a desperate creature seeking safety. He tucks the wide head against your little hole, and eyes full of glorious fever, hair clinging to your sweaty face, you lift yourself up a little to watch him push it in. 

As he presses inside you, Joel feels like he might cry. 

He’s sure when he returns to that house not a home, that meager and cold place, that he will cry. Thinking he can’t remember when the last time was that he allowed himself to weep. Like touch, like lust, like all he’d deprived himself of for so long—his whole life, nothing but abstinence—Joel can’t remember the last time he let himself cry.

Now, he presses deeper, lashes fluttering, and he feels the hot press of tears behind his eyes. He slides his hands beneath your bottom, lifting you, filling you, and hisses, eyes on where he fucks you open. His hips nudging forward, rocking, until he’s balls deep, the wide, painfully sensitive tip of his cock pressed firmly against the mouth of your cervix. His burgeoning knot is an unspeakable ring of pleasure at the base. He bends, hunching over your splayed open form, to kiss your midriff, nuzzling gentle at your belly. Above him, you mumble nonsensically: his name, alpha, pleading for more. 

Joel—it sounds more beautiful than he’s ever heard it said before. Like it means something now, not just a thing that exists, but a real person, too. 

He pulls his hips back until only the wide head remains caught in the tight ring of your pussy—it’s so swollen, he can almost imagine he sees the blood beating beneath the thin, slippery skin. You’ve bloomed for him, and you’re so beautiful for it. He slides forward, hard, bumping roughly against your womb again and grinding there, making you really feel him. You wail once, long and sharp, and then the low pitiful sound of an animal trapped in a maw of teeth. 

“Fuck—Oh, fuck,” he grits, letting himself fall forward on braced arms, looking down at where you connect, how you stretch so shockingly around the thickest part of him, the place just before his knot starts to swell. As if he could tear you apart. 

His thrusts pick up speed, not bothering to measure the strength behind them, you were made for this after all. Perfect little omega cunt meant to be fucked hard—it starts to flutter around him, the wettest, most obscene sound he’s ever heard, squeezing and milking his length as you come on him for the first time. 

“That’s it. Yes—” he growls, fucking you on his cock, your arousal dripping down onto his balls as he pulls out and slides back in with a deep, satisfied groan at the feel of his omega coming for him.

Joel loses his mind to the feel of it—better than anything else has ever been. 

“Is your pretty cunt feeling good? She’s sucking on alpha so well, little one. This is what y’needed. I know. F’r me to fuck you until you wet my cock with your come.”

Wrapping his palm around your throat, reaching for your wrist to pin it to the mattress, the way you’d held him, prone and caught beneath him, he holds your pulse in two places, presses his lips to a third, the perfect, fragrant spot behind your ear. Tasting there, licking and sucking on the delicate skin. Ravenous mouth moving down to your gland, as soft and sensitive as your clit. 

“Perfect, perfect thing. Can’t believe I found you—” he says again, taking your mouth now in a desperately hungry kiss. Your free arm wraps itself around his neck, holding him tightly. His chest fills with a heat so unbearable his heart feels it’ll burst, and then he’s settling as deep as he can, knot catching and swelling, and he’s pumping long spurts of hot come into your soft little womb, filling you. 

His weight falls heavy over you, smothering your body with his much larger one, while he throbs deep inside of you, breathing in your scent, letting himself be suffused with your warmth. 

Your smell, full of heat-fever, so sweet it sticks to his gums—it fills his head with thoughts of what next…what if? Plots to keep this for himself for the rest of his life because beneath all of that sweetness, all of that sticky slick that slides between your two hot, perspiring bodies, there’s him. Beneath all of that, him, him, his. Your bones are made of his own scent now. How could he ever let you go when you’re made of him?

“Look at me, look at me.” He pushes the sweat soaked hair out of your face, tilting your head back to get a good look at you. “You’re alright? Lemme see that angel face.” Your cheeks are burning hot, eyes unfocused, but you give him the most beautiful smile, sated and entirely trusting. 

Your fingertips touch his own face, passing lightly over his eyelids and nose to his mouth. 

“I’m okay. I’m okay, alpha. I’m here.” You tug his head closer with weak, heat-sick fingers. “More. More. I’m so hot—” But you shiver like you’re cold. “It hurts, please.”

“Tell me how it feels,” he rumbles. “Describe it to me.”

He goes limb-heavy over your body, pressing you into the bed, comforting you with his breadth. The skin between your eyebrows wobbles and creases, a tiny frowning pinch, and you make the most curious hiccupping noise. Like the answer to his question needs to work its way slowly through your silly, little heat-addled mind.

“Oh—it’s… it’s— Joel, it’s so good. I never thought—alpha, I never imagined it would be like this,” you mumble and slur. “So full.”

He watches the bright eyes fill with tears then, and spill over in a hot rush, clinging in large perfect droplets to long lashes of which he counts every single strand. The sight of your tears, of your overwhelm—it makes him come more. His cock jerks and swells impossibly fuller, and he begins to spurt again, filling your belly swollen with his seed against his own stomach. 

“Silly thing,” he soothes gently. “S’no need to cry, little omega.”

“Oh, but Joel—” you sob, nuzzling into his throat, mouthing at the swollen gland behind his ear. 

“I know it’s a lot,” he assures you, rolling the two of you over onto your sides, cuddling you close and gentle-like, petting your hair and letting the deep, rumbling sounds in his chest wash over you soothingly. “Just need some rest now. That’s all.” 

He presses a kiss to your hairline, your brow, your mouth again—he licks into it deeply, pulling the edges wider to make more room for himself, his tongue tasting all along your own. He can understand your tears, how overwhelming this must be for an omega inexperienced in taking an alpha with a knot as big as his. It’s true that he might not have had much experience before this, but this is natural, after all. This is who Joel is and what he was meant for. This is exactly where he’s supposed to be. 

I belong here, he whispers into your hair as you settle into him, melting into a heavy and sated sleep—so beautifully obedient, willingly submitting to his caring command for rest. 

He feels so far away from where he’d started, from that mad creature who’d lost everything—that man with a daughter a whole world away. With nothing to hold on to and even less to lose. 

He feels closer to his real self, here and now, than he has in years.

You had both been so alone and in so much pain, but he had found you. 

The heat dips and swells in waves and bursts. You wake gradually from that first reprieve, calling his name, begging for something only he can give you. He takes you again and again, the bed so wet it sticks to your fevered skin, sweat and semen and spit. On your side, back to chest, his body cupped around yours in a shape akin to love, kissing your neck, your chin, the cup of one palm and the inside of a wrist. On all fours, mounted like a defenseless thing, fluttering, little hole creamy from use—spread it open, let me see what belongs to me. Splayed above him, little drip of a girl, cooing his name mindlessly, caressing yourself, sliding your hands over the round of your belly, cupping your breasts, tips of your fingers tangling in your hair while you writhe above him, and Joel…Joel is sure he will die beneath you, watching you like this. He moves inside of your slick heat, cunt like a little furnace. Your tears leak in a constant stream that he licks from your cheeks to slake his thirst. 

Time is a loop and a loop and a loop and maybe the two of you exist here only, together now. 

He thinks that he goes away from himself too, sometimes. Forgets his name and his past and who he was or who he could be and lives only inside your cunt, to fill and mark as his. He is certain that this is the warmest bed he’s ever known. 

When he blinks awake and coherent, he feeds you soup he’s pilfered from the fridge and water that he drips into your mouth from his own, and feels sure that it must turn sweet on your tongue. If anyone could, it’d be you—turn water to wine. 

Joel thinks he might finally believe in God now. 

The gut twisting realization of all he could lose here, how he feels so happy beside you—it turns him from a faithless man into one full of zealous belief. And on a sigh, he feathers his lips over yours, the round of your cheek, the arch of your brow. He’s not alone anymore, and he’s happy. If he could, he’d hold onto this feeling forever.

Your eyes blink open, focused for the first time in hours or maybe days, but heat burns so brightly from the center of your navel, osmosing into his own belly, that he knows he only has a moment. 

“Hey,” softly.

You murmur back at him, confused little hiccups of sound followed by a fluttery kiss to the tip of his chin, the bite of hungry teeth demanding flesh. 

“Did you know you snore?” He laughs into the sensitive shell of your ear, rolling on top of you. His knot is sated for now, but it throbs with the feeling of his heavy length moving within you. 

You blink once, wide eyed—then a funny little frown. “I do not!”

“Yeah, you do. It’s very soft like the purr of a kitten,” he tells you, nuzzling at the swollen gland at the slide of your neck. You make a soft sound at the back of your throat at the touch. “Yes—just like that.” 

“Don’t snore—” you mutter, lashes fluttering and drooping. Too much conversation for the sleepy omega. 

“Don’t go away yet. Talk to me for a little bit. Stay with me.” He squeezes the back of your neck and your eyes blink open, hazy and then alert. 

“Do you have dreams?” He thinks to ask you.

“Oh, yes.” Your eyes droop again, there’s a smile on your face. 

“What about?”

You hum, the look on your face is sly in that half-sleep space he’s trying to tug you out of. 

“Of being great. Of being loved. Of being happy. Of family. Like a story book. I never thought I’d find anyone to love me,” you say with your eyes closed. Joel’s heart writhes in his chest, pains him as if it were cleaving in two. But you’re smiling, tangled in your dream, and say: “I want us to know each other so long and so well, we don’t need words to speak.” 

He’s like an imposter in this bed, for all his feelings of belonging—unsure he could ever give you anything you really want. 

“Does your brother look like you?” he asks all of a sudden.

“Yes. Very much. Does yours?”

“I don’t think so, but people say he does. Where it counts, we’re nothing alike. What’s his name?” he asks you.

You whisper it in his ear. Another one of the small things about your life that he knows about no one else. 

The two of you tell each other things you’ve never told anyone else, funny things, sad things. Words full of hope that leave a bitter and longing taste in Joel’s mouth. 

“Did you never want to have a baby?” you ask, and his heart jumps to his throat. 

“I did once. She died.” 

He can’t believe he has the courage to say these words which he hasn’t talked of in years and years out loud. Your eyes snap open, the pupil contracting so quickly it frightens him. 

“Oh. I understand now.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I see it now.”

“What do you see?”

“What you were looking for.”

“What was it? Tell me—” For part of him feels he still doesn’t know.

“A way back to yourself, of course”

He nods, a feeling of relief so intense washing through his body, his limbs ache with it. Something chemical within him aligning for one perfect, singular second. He feels entirely known, and he thinks: this is the happiest moment of my life— before it fades away. 

“Maybe. Yes.”

“Do you think it can be okay now?” 

You press your entire palm against the skin of his face, as if you’d lift it off his skull and look at what’s held beneath. 

“I don’t know. I don’t think it can ever be okay after something like that.”

“Please, don’t be sad anymore,” you tell him as if it were something so simple. As if it would just be within him because you’ve asked it so. 

“I’ll try.” But he knows it isn’t something he won’t ever be hurt by. Joel realizes, with your simple words, this isn’t something he’ll ever be able to fix. That there will always be something missing, incomplete about him, and that no matter how hard he works, how hard he prays, how deeply he could ever lose himself inside of you, he feels sure it won’t ever be enough. He’s still in want of his miracle. “I’ll try,” he says again. “There are times I feel relieved. She suffered.”

“I’m sorry.” He can tell that you really are. 

“We eventually all do. Perhaps that’s where the relief came from. She got hers over with quick.”

“What was her name?”

“Sarah.”

You put your hand over his heart, your face is wet with tears.

“Do you think this is a betrayal?” you ask him then. 

The reminder of the woman who is his wife, who he had tried to love but who could never reach the bottom of that dark and fathomless well of cold within him to find anything worthwhile, it does nothing to him. Is it a betrayal? Surely to someone who cared it would be. But Joel cannot remember the last time they really talked, the last time either of them cared about one another. Maybe he’s a bad man. He’d chosen her for comfort, because it’d been what he felt he should do. Perhaps merely for something to do, or because he knew it’d be easy. Comforted by the fact that she was a beta and could thus never know him in a more intimate or painful way, in a way that would demand more of him. He couldn’t even accuse himself of not doing right by her because he’d always done what he was supposed to, what she’d asked of him which was so little, truly, that there could be no real claim of betrayal. At least, not before this, you, his knot locked within you and his heart on his tongue ready to be spit into your palm. 

Yeah, maybe he’s a bad man. Certainly one who could never, ever deserve to keep this. 

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I know what the word means anymore.” 

He bids you to sleep again after that, and in a brief respite of clarity, he has the wherewithal to call his house, to let the woman who lives there with him know he’ll be gone for a few days longer. But there’s no answer, and he’s relieved. In the following days, his phone does not ring. 

As he stands before your bed, he takes a moment to study the picture you pose as. Curled in the center of your pink nest—you look lonely. 

Do you even really exist if no one loves you? 

Outside, there is snow in the night—winter come alive in the midst of heat. He climbs back into the bed, taking you into his embrace, arranging you perfectly, a sharp elbow, the soft knee—certain that he won’t ever be able to fix himself, to keep you, choking on gratitude that at least he gets this. He’ll preserve it in his memory for the rest of his life and maybe it’ll be okay. 

As he lays watching you sleep beside him, entirely innocent in your vulnerability, and with such trust, lying here in this bed you’ve shared together, he has for a moment a great and treasurable illusion of the past. This feeling of being trusted by someone so entirely, that gift of someone’s safety and heart and rest handed to him with little compunction, for there is that much certainty in the care that will come from him. Watching the dreamscape unfold behind your fluttering eyelids, the membrane so thin there’s that almost indiscernible pulse of your heart beating through your body. The street lamp glow comes in through a split in the curtains to lay warmly over your lovely face, and there’s only faint sound, the blown snow. Little light, a heart of warmth. 

It’s late now, he thinks, I could love you. Saying it out loud would be like creating a world with its sound. 

He shifts his weight to make you more comfortable, your warm, soft weight rolling more heavily into his side, moaning unintelligibly in your febrile sleep, and then suddenly, lucid—Joel. The sound of his name in your mouth makes him real again for a single moment—how will he ever let this go? His throat is tight, perhaps with the strangle of tears—don’t leave me, don’t leave me, you murmur like you already know. And then settle quiet again, falling away back into deep sleep. 

There is only your rest now, the soft sound of your sleeping, darkness. They are here, the both of them, together. At the center of all things, there is this bond; biology or heart or soul. Fate—perhaps. 

He could bite you, make you his mate, fuck it all to hell. Run away again. He’s done it once before. 

But how could he ever keep you without a miracle fix?

Outside there exists, as always, that great tragedy, that undying grief, that barren loneliness. But for now, there is this, and you, this enduring heart of warmth. His own dreams. 

This cannot be happiness; that ever elusive thing. He must decide that in the here and now, in the presence of this enduring moment. This is the thing he can never earn and will not keep, and even perhaps, cannot realize for what it truly is. 

All of this, he decides with his thumb against the mating gland at the back of your neck. 

This is not joy, Joel lies and lies and lies.

Part 4;

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[seongwars]

strangers by nature | vii

Pairing: heir!Song Mingi x heir!Reader AU: non-idol | arranged marriage | enemies to lovers Genre: angst, humor, fluff in future chapters Rating: NC-17 Summary: After a life-altering car accident, Mingi is given one final shot at redemption—reborn as a fuzzy little puppy. To earn a second chance at life, he must complete three tasks or risk being doomed to the afterlife forever. Word Count: 5.4K Warnings: angst, character d*ath, feelings of despair

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a/n: if I cried writing this chapter, ya'll are going to cry too 😭

“This morning, we bring you breaking news about the arrest of a 48-year-old woman involved in a harrowing incident connected to one of the nation's most prominent families. The woman, identified as the former nanny of the Choi Group heiress, was apprehended late last night following her mistaken discharge from Utopia Mental Health Facility.

According to investigators, the woman, whose identity is being withheld due to privacy laws, had been institutionalized after multiple previous incidents involving obsessive behavior toward the heiress and an attempted kidnapping of another six-year-old girl earlier this year…”

You sat quietly at the long wooden table in the conference room, your gaze fixed on the polished floor beneath your feet. The low hum of the news droned on in the background, the anchors’ voices a static blur. Your bandaged arm rested on the table, the gash beneath the wrappings a painful reminder of how wrong everything had gone.

“What are we going to do!?” your mother paced around the room, her voice rising with every word. Your father sat silently at the head of the table, his expression unreadable. San and Jongho exchanged knowing looks, clearly expecting another one of her tirades.

“The press won’t stop hounding us!” she exclaimed, her voice nearly cracking. “They’re everywhere—outside this building, near our home—they’re relentless! I mean, we can’t even breathe without someone taking a picture or shouting questions!”

San leaned forward, his tone calm but firm.“Kira and the firm are already doing everything they can to handle the situation. The best thing we can do now is to have Y/N lay low while the investigation continues. We need to let the lawyers and PR team do their job.”

Your mother whirled around to face him, her frustration palpable. “Lay low? How exactly do you expect her to do that when her face is on every news channel right now?”

She grabbed this morning’s paper from the edge of the table and waved it in the air, the motion so aggressive it crinkled the front page. Your face stared back at you, frozen in a manufactured smile that you hated with every fiber of your being. It wasn’t you—it was the version of you your family wanted the world to see. 

You looked down at your hands, your bandaged arm resting awkwardly on the table. The memory of the attack flashed in your mind, sharp and vivid, as though it had just happened. This wasn’t the kind of attention you wanted—this wasn’t the life you’d ever asked for. Yet here you were, front and center in a drama you had no control over, and it was tearing you apart from the inside out.

“We’re already managing the narrative,” Jongho interjected. 

“The new cycle will shift, it always does. By this afternoon, Kim Namjoon’s official announcement for his political run will dominate headlines. It’s a matter of hours. Security at all your properties has also been significantly tightened, as you requested.”

Your mother’s laugh was bitter, almost hysterical. “How could security have been tightened when Y/N was still attacked in a public place!?” your mother shrieked, her voice growing shrill.

“You were supposed to keep an eye on her, and–”

That was it. You stood up so abruptly your chair scraped against the floor, catching everyone off guard.

“It was my fault,” you said, your voice shaking but growing stronger with every word. 

“I asked Kira to let me go out with her because I didn’t want to be locked away in the penthouse anymore. I made that decision. This is my mess, my problem, and no one else’s. Pointing fingers won’t undo what happened, so can we stop pretending it will?”

Your mother stood frozen, her face pale, her mouth gaping like a fish gasping for air. She searched for a retort, an argument, anything to regain the upper hand, but you didn’t give her the chance. Without another word you stormed out of the room, ignoring the calls from your family in your wake.

You didn’t stop until you were in the corridor, far from their judgmental stares and suffocating expectations. Slowly, you slid down to the ground, your legs folding awkwardly beneath you. The tears you’d been holding back pricked at your eyes, blurring your vision as you stared blankly at the ceiling. You hated crying, especially over this, over them. But it wasn’t just the argument with your mother or the media circus that broke you down. 

It was the loneliness. 

The crushing realization that no one in that room really saw you or understood what you were going through. To them, you were an asset, a liability, a problem to solve. Not a person.

Your fingers trembled as you fumbled for your phone. But the moment you turned it on, your breath caught in your throat. Maro’s face stared back at you from your lock screen, a photo you’d taken just weeks ago.

His tiny tongue hung from the side of his mouth, his fur slightly disheveled from spinning in circles on the couch, chasing his own tail. You’d taken the photo in the middle of laughing so hard you could barely hold your phone steady. You could almost hear the soft jingle of his collar as he burrowed into the cushions, glancing up every now and then to make sure you were watching.

But the laughter felt like a distant memory now, replaced by the crushing weight of grief. Your free hand moved to your bandaged arm and your fingers curled over the wound instinctively.  

You sat hunched over in the waiting room of the emergency animal hospital with your arms wrapped tightly around yourself. Every second dragged on like an eternity, Every sound made you flinch, hoping it was someone coming to tell you he’d pulled through, that he’d be okay. But as the minutes stretched into what felt like hours, your hope began to waver.

“Y/N!”

You looked up to see Yeosang rushing toward you after you had called him on the way to the clinic. 

“They took him back to the operating room, but—but they wouldn’t let me go with him,” you whispered as he crouched down next to you. 

“Y/N, I’m so sorry,” he squeezed your shoulder. “He’s a fighter. Maro’s tough, and he loves you. He’s not going to give up that easily, okay? And neither should you.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without him,” you admitted. 

“He’s the only one who’s ever been there for me. He’s a dog but through these last few months he never judged me, never made me feel like I wasn’t enough. He just… loved me.”

“I can’t lose him,” your voice cracked, and just like that, the dam broke. Tears spilled freely down your cheeks, unguarded, as your body shook with uncontrollable sobs.

“He’s all I have, Yeosang.”

“I know,” Yeosang replied quietly. “I know, Y/N. And it’s not fair. But you can’t blame yourself. You did everything you could to protect him.”

His soft exhale filled the heavy silence that followed. Yeosang understood that no words could fix this. So, he simply stayed with you, letting your anguish fill the space, offering nothing but his quiet presence as you crumbled.

The sound of a door opening made you lift your head, your heart leaping into your throat. A vet in scrubs approached you, her expression solemn, and your stomach dropped. Her words were a blur, muffled by the roar in your ears, but you didn’t need to hear them to know. 

The look in her eyes said everything.

You curled in on yourself, your sobs muffled now as you pressed your face against your knees, as if trying to hold together the pieces of your shattered heart.

You let the grief take over, let the tears fall freely, because no one was there to see. You didn’t know how long you stayed there, but when the tears finally slowed, leaving you drained and empty, you lifted your head and stared blankly ahead.  

You were so tired. Tired of carrying everything alone, tired of being left behind. But no matter how much it hurt, you knew there was no one coming to share the weight. It was just you.

No one was coming. No one ever did.

It had always been just you.

⋆

Mingi sat in the garden, his small paws tucked neatly under him as he watched Hongjoong tend to his flowers. The garden was a vibrant burst of life and color. Golden marigolds lined the cobblestone pathways, nestled between the soft hues of blooming roses and sprigs of lavender. The gentle garden was otherworldly, which was appropriate considering where they are.

The afterlife was serene. Quiet. Too quiet, Mingi thought, though he’d never admit it. A part of him didn’t want to accept that this was how everything would end.

That this was it.

That he wouldn’t have the opportunity to make amends. That he wouldn’t get to see you smile again. He wouldn’t get to prove to you that he was worth forgiving, worth believing in, worth something at all.

He felt like he was suspended in a world that didn’t quite belong to him—a visitor overstaying his welcome.

Mingi sat atop a stack of books piled high with a cushion, his small, fluffy body perched precariously as his tail swayed lazily behind him. His ears twitched as he watched Hongjoong move around the cozy cottage.

“Comfortable up there?”

Mingi let out a soft huff. “I guess.”

The table was low enough for him to rest his paws on the edge, and he did so now, leaning forward as Hongjoong placed a small dish in front of him. Inside was a portion of scrambled eggs and bits of roasted sweet potato, the steam curling up in tendrils. 

“I think these are dog friendly foods, but since you’re in the afterlife now, I guess anything goes.”

Mingi sniffed the dish suspiciously, then gave an approving wag of his tail before diving in, the mess from the food around his snout making Hongjoong laugh.

“It’s good, right?” he teased, watching as Mingi polished off every last bite.

Mingi responded with an enthusiastic wiggle of his behind, his entire body vibrating with happiness. Once the dish was licked clean, he flopped onto his side with a contented sigh, his paws stretching out dramatically.

The fullness from the meal brought a fleeting sense of comfort. For a moment, everything felt simple, like when he’d curl up beside you after a long day and your presence putting him at ease. 

As his tail slowed and his breathing steadied, a hollow ache settled in his chest, heavier than the satisfaction of a good meal could counter. Mingi stared at the faint glow of the afterlife’s sky out the window.

He missed you.

The thought that he might never get to tell you how sorry he was, how much he regretted every cruel word, every moment of neglect, made his chest tighten painfully. 

Hongjoong moved among the flowers, humming a tune under his breath as he trimmed roses and pulled at weeds. Mingi’s eyes drifted to a bouquet of marigolds lying nearby, vibrant their bold orange and yellow petals standing out against the green backdrop.

His ears perked up as he stared at the flowers, a memory of you flickering to life in his mind. He remembered the day you brought home a similar bouquet, cradling it in your arms. You’d smiled softly with a distant look in your eyes, and then you disappeared again, taking the flowers with you. He realized now that those marigolds were for Hongjoong’s grave.

“Can you see what happens in the human world?”

Hongjoong chuckled softly, as if the question didn’t surprise him in the slightest. His hands stilled over a rose bush, as he turned slightly to glance over his shoulder at Mingi. 

“Sometimes,” he admitted, his gaze drifting upward, as if he could see past the skies and into another realm entirely. “It’s different for everyone. Some people can see glimpses, others nothing at all. It depends on what they hold on to when they’re here.”

“What about you?”

“I made peace with the fact that I was going to pass. Maybe a flicker here or there, but it’s never clear.”

Mingi’s paws shifted against the dirt, unease settling in his chest. That meant Hongjoong might have seen the way he treated you. Maybe not everything, but enough. Enough to know how much he hurt you in ways he could never take back.

“Do you hate me? For how I treated Y/N?”

Hongjoong didn’t respond. His expression remained unreadable, but Mingi could feel the weight of his scrutiny. Of course, Hongjoong hated the way Mingi had treated you. The way he dismissed you, how he walked away when you needed him most, leaving you to fend for yourself in ways you never should have had to. He hated the thought of you standing there, waiting for someone who never looked back.

And yet, Hongjoong also pitied Mingi. Because for all of his mistakes, for all of his cruelty and neglect, Mingi had been hurting too. As the saying goes, hurt people, hurt people.

“No, Mingi. I don’t hate you.”

Mingi’s ears twitched slightly waiting for the rest of his response.

“More than anything, I just wanted you to know what it’s like to love someone and be helpless to stop their suffering. Because that’s how I felt whenever I had the opportunity to glimpse into the human world.”

Hongjoong’s fingers trailed along the edge of a wilting petal, plucking it free and letting it drift to the ground. “But…” he murmured, his gaze flickering back to Mingi.

“What matters now is what you do with the time you have left.” 

Hongjoong’s smile turned wistful. He didn’t push for a response. Instead he gave Mingi the space to lean into his own thoughts. Mingi closed his eyes, his ears drooping as the weight of his emotions threatened to overwhelm him. 

“I…” Mingi started, but his voice wavered. He swallowed thickly, lowering his gaze to the ground as though afraid to meet Hongjoong’s eyes. 

“I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to tell her how sorry I am. I just wanted to be good for her. To show her that I can be better. That I want to be better.”

He turned to Hongjoong, the desperation tinged in his voice. "I want her to see me as someone she can trust. Not someone who always messes things up or leaves her behind." Mingi blinked back tears as he met Hongjoong’s gaze. 

“I miss her. I want to see her, but this time as myself.”

Hongjoong didn’t reply right away. Instead, he leaned back, his gaze drifting lazily toward the sky, where soft, golden light filtered through the clouds. 

“I don’t think it's over for you yet.”

Mingi’s ears flicked slightly, his brow furrowing. "What do you mean? I’m here, aren’t I? There’s nothing left for me to do. Nothing I can do."

He let out a quiet hum, neither confirming nor denying Mingi’s words. Instead, he stood, brushing stray petals from his sleeves before turning toward the small stone path leading away from the garden.

“It’s getting late, what do you want to have for dinner?”

You sat curled up on the couch in the suite, your chin resting atop your knees as you stared at Mingi’s body. Your fingers traced mindless patterns against the fabric of Maro’s collar. Sleep had been a stranger these past three days. The collar was a lifeline in your trembling hands, keeping you grounded as the weight of everything around you crushed you—the incessant calls from reporters, your family’s worried texts, the suffocating guilt.

The attack had turned your life into a circus. All you wanted was to disappear.

This room, though sterile and suffused with antiseptic air, was the only refuge you had left. Here, in the stillness of your husband’s hospital suite, you didn’t have to pretend to be okay.

“What do you think dogs do in heaven?” 

Your gaze dropped to your hospital slippers, the thin fabric worn down from countless restless nights pacing the suite. A sad smile tugged at your lips as you shook your head and set aside the collar. 

This was your reality now: sneaking away from the penthouse just to sit beside your comatose husband, pouring your heart out to someone who, if and when he woke up, would probably scoff and dismiss you for wasting your time on him.

“I heard they all go to heaven,” you continued, as your voice grew quieter. “At least…that’s what the movie says.”

A lump formed in your throat, making it harder to breathe, harder to swallow the ache.

“I think they get to run forever.”

You stared down at your hands, your fingers curling into the sleeves of your sweater.

“And…” 

Your voice wavered slightly as you struggled to find the words. 

“And there’s an endless amount of treats.”

The first tear slipped down your cheek, warm and unbidden, as if your body couldn’t contain the sorrow any longer. It was the smallest thing, but in that single tear, it felt like the world was coming apart. Your shoulders shook with a quiet sob, your chest tightening as you inhaled sharply. You squeezed your eyes shut, desperate to stop the flood, but it only made it worse.

“J-Just big o-open fields where it’s s-sunny all the time.”

And maybe it was silly, this imagining of dogs in heaven, free and happy, without the pain or heartbreak that followed you here. 

“God, I just feel so alone, Mingi. I had the worst fucking week of my life,” you cried into the emptiness, your hands trembling as you clutched your chest, hoping you could physically hold yourself together.  

“If I hadn’t begged Kira to let me go to that stupid store with her, this wouldn’t have happened. None of it.”

The words came out like a confession, one you hadn’t been brave enough to say aloud until now. 

“It’s all my fault. Everyone leaves me and it’s m-my fault!” 

Your sobs filled the room, echoing back at you like a cruel reminder that no one was there to answer. No one was there to tell you that you were wrong, that it wasn’t your fault, that the universe didn’t conspire against you with every loss. But the silence gave no comfort. 

“This is getting ridiculous.”

Unseen, Wooyoung sat perched on his bench in the courtroom, watching over you with a weary expression. His chin rested on the back of his hand, fingers idly tapping against his jaw as he observed the way your body trembled from the weight of grief.

He had seen countless souls in despair, had judged and guided those lost between life and death. But you, your suffering was different.

It was the kind of sorrow that settled into a person’s bones, an ache that would not fade with time. And as much as Wooyoung pretended he had grown numb to such things, this…this he could not ignore.

His thoughts drifted to the one soul tied to yours, the one whose fate he had carefully molded with his own hands. A certain puppy who was at the center of your suffering, both the cause of it in his human form and, ironically, the brightest light in your life now.

If Wooyoung had to guess, Mingi had made you happier than you had been in your entire life. It was a miracle, really, considering who he had been before all of this. But for all of his faults, he had taken to his new form with an earnestness Wooyoung hadn’t expected. He had tried.

The judge had watched him bumble his way through this second chance, a puppy who didn’t quite know what to do with himself. It had been amusing at first: the way Mingi stumbled over his own paws, the way he wagged his tail a little too eagerly, desperate for your affection.

But somewhere along the way, something shifted.

He had seen the way Mingi softened, the way he clung to you like you were his home. The way he curled against your side as if he could take away your pain and carry it for you. 

“Song Mingi, you idiot!” Wooyoung sighed, ready to pull his hair out. 

This wasn’t supposed to be the way things ended. Mingi’s final task was to make you truly happy, to undo the damage he had done. It was the last step before he could return to his human form. But no, he had to play the hero and sacrifice himself to protect you.

He groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. He hated to admit it, but there was something admirable about it. For all his faults, for all the pain he had caused you, Mingi had finally learned how to love you the way you deserved. He had given up everything—his second chance, his future—just to make sure you were safe.

Now you were left behind, drowning in the weight of his sacrifice and Wooyoung couldn’t bear to see how miserable you were. 

With a flick of his wrist, the air around him trembled, the very foundation of his courtroom bending to his will. The air split with a sharp crack, and in the blink of an eye, the room dispersed into smoke, replaced by the glow of the fireplace.

“Alright, Song Mingi,” he muttered, propping his feet on the dining table. “It’s time to go home.”

⋆

“You’re late.”

Mingi blinked, his vision still adjusting as he lifted a paw to rub at his eyes, as if that would somehow make sense of what he was seeing.

“W-Wooyoung!?”

The judge sat comfortably at the dinner table, tapping his fingers lazily against the polished wood. His presence alone was jarring and Wooyoung never just showed up. If he was here, it meant something.

“It’s rude to keep guests waiting,” Wooyoung huffed, tilting his head in exaggerated disappointment. “I’ve been sitting here for ages.”

“You didn’t have a reservation,” Hongjoong deadpanned, unimpressed as he set his basket of gardening tools onto the counter. Unlike Mingi, he wasn’t startled by the unexpected visit. Instead he hummed a tune and busied himself around the cottage, grabbing ingredients for dinner. 

“Hongjoong,” Wooyoung whined.

“Can it wait until after dinner?” he replied. He set a pot of water on the stove, as if the all powerful judge of the afterlife wasn’t currently lounging at their dining table.

“Fine!” he groaned, kicking his feet up onto the chair beside him.

His gaze flickered to Mingi again, and suddenly, his expression shifted.

“Oh my god.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I forgot how small you are!”

Mingi flinched. “What?”

“No wonder Y/N was so smitten with you,” he cooed, practically vibrating with excitement. “You’re so cute!”

Mingi’s eyes went wide with horror. “No, wait—”

He didn’t stand a chance. Wooyoung lunged, faster than Mingi could react, scooping him up in one swift motion. Mingi let out an undignified yelp as he was lifted clean off the ground as his little legs flailed uselessly in the air.

He spun Mingi around in his arms, cradling him like the most precious thing in the world. Hongjoong, unbothered, continued chopping vegetables in the background, the rhythmic sound of the knife against the cutting board the only indication that he was even listening. 

“I can see why all those women refused to leave you alone,” Wooyoung mused, studying Mingi as if seeing him for the first time. 

Mingi let out a strangled noise of protest. “Put me down!”

Wooyoung ignored him, instead stroking the fur between his ears with a contemplative hum. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

Mingi froze, sensing the shift in Wooyoung’s tone. It wasn’t teasing anymore. There was something thoughtful—almost wistful—beneath his words.

“I sent you there to right your wrongs,” Wooyoung said softly. “That was the deal. But instead, you sacrificed yourself like an idiot. Do you know how miserable that made her?”

Wooyoung sighed, shifting Mingi so that they were eye to eye. “You should see how sad Y/N is, I can’t stand seeing her cry anymore.”

Mingi’s ears flattened as he processed Wooyoung’s words. That didn’t make sense, did it? He had spent so much of his life pushing you away, saying the wrong things, hurting you without even meaning to. Even in the end, he had only caused you more pain by leaving.

Mingi swallowed hard, ears flicking. “But… I always made her cry.” His voice was small. “How could I have made her happy?”

Wooyoung huffed out a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “You really are hopeless,” he muttered. “She was happy because you were there, dummy. Because you stuck around. Because, for the first time, you weren’t just someone passing through her life. You stayed.”

Had he really made you happy just by being there? By choosing to stay by your side, even when he thought he didn’t deserve to?

“You didn’t just make her smile a few times. You made her feel safe. You made her laugh. You made her happy without even realizing it. And you did it without asking for anything in return. I guess that's what dogs do.”

Wooyoung reached out, flicking him lightly on the nose. “And that’s why you’re going back.”

“Eh?”

“That’s right!” Wooyoung declared triumphantly, placing him on the ground. He grinned, straightening up and placing his hands on his hips.

“Even if you are an idiot who charged in without thinking, what you did was the purest act of love you could’ve shown. You held up your end of the bargain so… a deal’s a deal.”

“I’m…I’m going back?”

Mingi’s tail wagged furiously, his entire body practically vibrating with excitement. He was going back. Back to you. He could see you again, hear your voice, feel your touch. He could fix things and make things right. He wouldn’t waste this second chance.

“Eat first,” Hongjoong interrupted, scooping up a bowl of stew for the puppy.

“You won’t get far on an empty stomach.”

Mingi let out a tiny huff, his tail flicking in mild protest, but the rich aroma of the stew was too tempting to resist. He sniffed hesitantly before lapping at the bowl. The warmth of the broth spread through him instantly, soothing in a way he hadn't realized he needed. His stomach grumbled again, this time in appreciation, and he begrudgingly continued eating.

Between bites, his gaze flickered up to Hongjoong. Something about him seemed… different. His expression was just as calm and composed as ever, but there was a certain wistfulness in his eyes.

Mingi’s little tail wagged as he padded closer, tilting his head. “Are you okay?”

Hongjoong blinked, seemingly caught off guard for just a second before his lips curved into a small smile. Mingi peered up at him, and noticed the longing in his eyes. Not for something lost, but for something he once cherished.

Hongjoong reached out, ruffling Mingi’s fur with a gentle touch. “Even if things get difficult,” he murmured reassuringly, “I know everything will work out in the end.”

His hand lingered for just a moment longer before he pulled away.

“You just have to fight.”

Your eyes shot open at the sound of the alarm blaring from your phone. The shrill tone cut through the silence of the hospital room, a jarring contrast to the rhythmic beeping of the monitors. Blinking blearily, you forced yourself upright, disoriented for a moment before remembering you had set it for 8 AM, the time you usually fed Maro.

You exhaled slowly, rubbing the sleep from your face. You hadn’t meant to doze off here again, but exhaustion clung to you. You needed to go home. There were things to do. You needed to eat, too—had you even eaten since yesterday? Probably not.

“Y/N…”

Your mind moved sluggishly through a mental checklist. Feed Maro. No, he’s not here anymore. Answer texts. Call Kira. Had you remembered to bring a change of clothes? You should grab something on the way home. Maybe coffee, too.  

“...Y/N.”

For a second, you thought you were hallucinating. There was no way—no way—you heard your name. Maybe you were just overtired, running on empty. Maybe it was your mind playing cruel tricks on you. 

You shrugged, shoving your belongings into your overnight bag, preoccupied with gathering the blankets you’d let slip to the floor in your sleep. 

A strange sensation washed over Mingi as his eyes fluttered open. His body felt heavier and his senses, once heightened, dulled. In the distance, he heard the faint chime of an alarm, followed by the soft shuffling of your footsteps. The sound was muted, like a memory being replayed from another life, but it was real. 

"Be good, okay?" Wooyoung's voice was light, but there was a tightness to it, as if he was holding something back. His hands moved with gentle care, adjusting the small bandana around Mingi’s neck. 

"I don’t want to see you for another 70 years!"

Beside him, Hongjoong let out a soft chuckle, crouching down to run his fingers behind his ears. "Take care of Y/N," he murmured. 

"But most importantly, take care of yourself, okay? Give yourself some grace.”

“I will,” Mingi replied, determination settling into his voice. He wanted to hold onto this moment, to express his gratitude, but time was already pulling him away as the gate for the human world was beginning to close. 

The path before him stretched endlessly, lined with delicate white flowers that glowed under the light of the afterlife. With each step, he could feel the ground beneath his paws become less solid, as though he were walking on the edge of a dream. His body tingled, his heartbeat echoing in a different rhythm now, one that matched the pull of reality waiting for him beyond this place.

As the world around him dimmed, as his senses faded into something familiar, one thing remained unchanged—

You.

Your presence.

And the moment he opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was you. 

Not the flowers piled up in the corner of the suite. Not the wires draped across his chest or the monitors keeping him alive. Not the light of morning spilling through the window, chasing away the shadows of the night before.

Just you.

“Y/N.”

Still, you didn’t hear him.

Mingi watched as you flitted around the room, smoothing down your wrinkled clothes, sighing at the thought of stepping outside this room and facing reality again as you grabbed your bag. 

“Y/N.”

The sound of your name was sharper and more insistent and you knew for sure you weren’t imagining it. 

You froze.

Your breath caught as something inside you, some instinct, screamed at you to turn around. Slowly, hesitantly, your head snapped toward the hospital bed.

Mingi was watching you.

His eyes were tired and heavy with exhaustion, but they were focused. Determined. His brows drew together, as if mustering every ounce of strength he had left just to make you look at him.

Your bag slid from your shoulder and hit the ground as your legs struggled to keep up. A sharp gasp tore from your lips as your chest constricted with a surge of emotions you thought you had long buried.

Relief, disbelief, and something unnamed swelled within you as you staggered forward with tears in your eyes.

Mingi’s fingers twitched again. A little stronger this time, shaking as they lifted just an inch from the bed. For a moment, they faltered, wavering midair. Then, slowly, they stretched toward you.

Reaching.

Wanting.

Your fingers trembled as you reached out, letting your hand hover over his for a moment before finally brushing against his cold skin. His hand stilled beneath yours and his fingers curled weakly as you closed yours around them.

Mingi’s eyes softened, and for a second, you thought he might try to speak, his lips parting slightly, but no sound came. His fingers squeezed yours weakly in response, and despite his weakened state, a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. His eyes held yours and were filled with something that made your heart ache in the best way.

It wasn’t much. But it was enough.

Because this time, Mingi had reached for you first.

<< vi | viii >>

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[cipheramnesia]

Capitalism makes it difficult to attribute agency, in a lot of ways. The reasons for decisions at a corporate level are a closed book, usually jacketed by a market and public friendly piece of writing disconnected from the actual decisions. Possession of large amounts of wealth and power comes with ability to protect against bad decision making, failure in one area simply corrected by drawing success from another. Wealth is also innately protected against criticism, through worth being a more abstract value less connected to the material world. It's not a perfect closed system, but a single person or corporation can make near endless bad decisions while also appearing successful in the eyes of other people / corporations. There are both vast concentric circles of individuals whose less significant personal existence depends on maintaining enormously wealthy centers, and circles of people who have little or no choice in the matter. There are also various market forces that turn on being convincingly confident as an individual, or showing a front value of "worth" which coule be entirely fixtional.

It's very easy, with how all these hyperwealthy forces interact, to become convinced that there are conspiracies everywhere, and diabolical manipulative CEOs behind it all. Certainly, hyperwealthy people and corporations cooperate to the fullest extent then can under laws, and as much as they think they can get away with in additon, but these are not conspiracies per se. So this is a gentle reminder that on balance, things that happen with wealth and power are nothing else besides: "what will most easily and quickly gain the most wealth and power for me/this corporation, and what is the easiest lie I can tell about it." And that the many hyperwealthy CEOs so often presented as secretly brilliant economists, politicians, businessmen, etc are simply people who are in a position where their nearly complete lack of any substantive knowlege is careful shielded from consequences.

In brief, decisions derived from vast strongholds of consolidated wealth are not secretly clever, or part of deeply layered strategies. These are choices that come from simplistic avarice, made by the ignorant, with outcomes that are only successful to the extent their wealth shields them from failure. Don't let yourself be convinced the capitalist oppressor is uniquely qualified or trained for success. Don't do their work for them.

[talonabraxas]

“God is a circle whose center is everywhere, and its circumference nowhere. ” ― Empedocles

Mac Baconai @Macbaconai One ring to rule them all

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

This may be a bad faith take, but my worst fear - as someone who has only watched through parts of Book Seven and not played through the whole thing - is that the plot only halfway explores the themes of the fae’s prejudice against humans.

I know it does the first part by showing us why fae have such a vehement hatred against humans in the first place, but does it go the full way and show them as being in the wrong for directing their hatred at humans in general and not just the Land of Dawning specifically?

Because the war wasn’t just humans vs fae, it was specifically a specific kingdom from the Land of Dawning vs Briar Land. It’s not like humans from every corner of the world ganged up on them.

Them having an ugly, fat, cowardly, and cartoonishly evil king as the leader of the human army isn’t raising my hopes, I’ll tell you that.

But on a smaller level, I’m worried about Sebek specifically. I know that Baur gives Sebek a hard time, shows us where Sebek got his bad attitude from, but then eventually Baur gives Sebek a pair of the armor he wears and acknowledges him as a fae.

You’ve analyzed Sebek’s internalized hatred before and in that analysis you accurately theorized that Sebek’s behavior is a coping mechanism, by rejecting his human side he can present himself as the best fae he can be. What I’m worried about is that his development with Baur serves to justify this coping mechanism instead of break it down.

You’ve likely played through this part of book seven already, are my fears justified or will I be happily proved wrong? You can go ahead and spoil me, I’n already spoiled.

From what I can recall, the Silver Owls don’t belong to a single country; they are described as an alliance of mercenaries from various human nations and the group happens to be led by Heinrick (perhaps because he is of royal descent). They banded together in order to take Briarland’s resources for themselves. If you look at modern day Briarland on the Twisted Wonderland world map, you’ll even see that the country is divided into several sections, implying that the human nations that were victorious split it amongst themselves.

While the human-fae war in book 7 does center on Briarland and its fae population, I don’t think it necessarily has to explain the human aversion for all fae, especially not to the same amount of detail as what we get for Briarland. Fae in general are a race known to be isolated and exclusionary but not necessarily hateful; we see as much in events like Fairy Gala. They are more comfortable around their own kind and their traditions. It’s easy to guess as to why this may be: they are much longer lived, have a deeper respect for nature than humans do, and, more crucially, they are a magically inclined race. We are told that mages in the past were referred to as witches and wizards. They were discriminated against and loathed—and if a particular race is more inclined to magic, then it’s easy to connect the dots and see where fear of “the other” may have formed and snowballed into fae in general not wanting to engage with humans. You see examples of how humans hate fae during Lilia’s travels; he has things thrown at him and is chased out of human communities. A war doesn’t need to be involved to justify why fae everywhere seem to either dislike humans or want to keep to themselves. The reasoning doesn’t need to be deep. People hate other people irl for things as mundane as a fear of the unknown or looking for an easy scapegoat. There does not need to be a large-scale physical conflict in order to breed resentment. The conflict vanishes be and is implied, which I think is a much richer way of delivering world-building rather than outright stating why all fae have beef with humans.

I think Twst does attempt to show us nuance in the human-fae conflict through other characters whose lives were touched by the war. Sure, Henrick is cartoonishly evil and purposefully designed to be terrible and grotesque--but there are "good people" on both sides. The Dawn Knight clearly had reservations about fighting with the Silver Owls. He had guardian fairies who believed in his goodness and wanted to protect the Dawn Knight's child after his passing. Maleanor and her husband were lost in the fight, robbing Malleus of his family. Lilia lost his best friends and many brothers in arms. Silver has to live and cope with the guilt of being the son of the guy who killed Maleanor and brought Lilia so much anguish. Sebek carries on the legacy of hatred and has to actively learn to overcome the prejudices he learned from his grandfather and countrymen. Baur himself is still trying to overcome his own learned prejudices. How successful the depiction of this nuance is, well… that’s up to you to determine.

In regards to Sebek, thankfully his character development in book 7 doesn't just stop at Lilia's dream with Baur knighting him. As I explain in this post, he has meaningful interactions with the first years, whether it's in their dreams or through the experience of going around and waking other students up. His character arc is continuing by having the first years make good on the vow they made to Lilia at his farewell party--that they'll help Sebek on his way if he stumbles.

[frownyalfred]

Not including Thomas and/or Martha Wayne, do you think there's any other ghosts that haunt the Wayne grounds or Wayne Mansion itself?

Even if no one died on the grounds themselves before, with the Batfam's lifestyle they must have made the place a magnet for the odd and otherworldly that some spirit could have made it it's home.

Actually this ask reminded me of a half-formed fic idea I had a while back! I think it was going to be for ASOH but could really be its own oneshot.

It centered around BVS Batman coming back from training with Ra's and the League, and not being satisfied with how their methods/training applied to hunting down people in Gotham. It was too silent, too quick, not effective for the kind of targets he needed to intimidate as a fledgling Batman. They needed to, as TDK Bruce put it, share his dread.

But one night, when he's wandering through the abandoned Manor grounds, trying to clear his head, he stumbles across one of the old ghosts on the property. The old Wayne hunters, like Bruce references in BVS -- the ones who started their empire. Fur hunters, game hunters, etc.

And one of his ancestors -- a ghost -- leads him through a night of hunting, teaching him the skills it takes to be the kind of Batman Gotham needs. A hunter whose quarry knows he is coming, but still cannot see him. A hunter who is upwind and downwind and everywhere all at once. Someone who dogs their steps and never relents, regardless of the terrain crossed or the hours spent. A hunter Ra's could never teach him to be.

IDK, it was kind of in the same vein as the magical realism of misty so I figured I'd space those out a bit for my poor readers. But yeah, I thought it would be really cool to do a one night, one lesson kind of mystical thing with Bruce and his Great great grandfather or something. One of those "Did I just dream that?" kind of nights. The grounds we see in BVS are just so cool and deserve more expansion in description and lore. You know?

[maleyanderecafe]

Hi!! Hope you're having a wonderful day/night!!

I was going through your recommendation list and since I didn't see it, I'd like to recommend Reanimated heart vn to you!! It's my number one most beloved VN and it's extremely well written!! It's also partially voice acted and has a really cool character journal and inventory system!! And one of the LI Vincenzo is also a yandere!!

I feel like you may like it!!

Phew you were right this is a really well made game. It took me a bit to play it because despite it only really going over the prologue/first chapter (or from what I heard, half of it) there's a ton of content within it (that and while I was playing it, there was an update, so there's that as well.) Since there's not a guide currently and I'm kind of useless without a guide, I did my best to see as much of the content as possible. Vincenzo definitely shows signs of being a yandere (along with Black) though since this is just a prologue, not too much has gone on yet. This game has pretty extensive worldbuilding as well and can get pretty gory at times, thus the r18 rating. You can find more information @doubledeadstudio.

This game is pretty lengthy and you can actually pursue three love interests (Crux, Black and Vincenzo). Since Vincenzo is the main topic of this ask, I'll be focusing my time on him, though I'll still mention things from Black's route as well. The blog also mentions that Crux might be one as well, though at least currently in the game I don't really see too many signs of it, but I can theorize near the end.

The story starts out with Moss/Player (default name, though Moss sounds better so I'm going to just use Moss) trying to escape as the world devolves into violence and chaos, riots everywhere. While leaving, they are hit by a car, but instead of actually dying, they instead get isekaied to another world with a green sky and a giant tree in the center (like yggsdril) before being jumpscared by a guy with a lot of teeth looming over them. They are eventually caught by two guys after attempting to run away, Black, the one who jumpscared Moss and is now a zombie and Crux, the mage who brought him there. Crux explains whats going on to a confused Moss and Black. Basically, Crux and Black were friends in the original world. Black died from trying to save a girl from getting shot and the Crux from the original world had set up a spell in advanced to get him revived. However, Moss ended up interfering by accident, leading to the two of them being transferred to this world with no way out and for Black to essentially become a zombie. Crux as a mage is able to be aware of his other selves in other worlds, which is why he knows about all of this, though now that they're both stuck here, they have to find places to live. Crux sets up Black in a recently deceased person's house and Moss with a friend named Greta, whose mother had just recently died. Upon going to Greta's place, we learn a little big more about the world that they have transported to: magic is something that everyone has (which is given by the giant tree), there are magical creatures here, people who come here from other worlds are called outsiders and that apparently Moss does have some sort of powers (this is more implied though). We also learn about Greta herself, as she sells weed to pay for rent (which later can become Moss's part time job), she and her mother had a close relationship (thus the reason that she wanted someone to be in the house, as it was too lonely to bare without her) and that she's generally fairly somber in nature, though takes care of Moss fairly well by providing meals and other things. After setting up, Moss heads to sleep.

The next day, Black asks to meet up with Moss downtown and upon meeting up with him, we learn that Black seems to not really eat normal food anymore nor really sleep or have a heartbeat, though he seems to have a great craving for humans (as a zombie would) and decides that eating the guy who ran Moss over is a good idea. The two end up tracking the guy into an abandoned factory. However, upon getting there we find that someone else has already gotten to him first, and quite literally, as someone is already killing and ripping this man apart into flesh and other pieces. We are met by Vincenzo, the killer and Black ends up eating the remains of the person. After going back and sleeping, the next day Crux basically gets Moss to get a job and start pulling their weight by running deliveries for Greta. Crux ends up driving them to many places to run their deliveries and chatting about what happened the day before. With this we learn a couple of things about Vincenzo: that he's a well known serial killer that has a lot of copycats, that even when killed he is able to somehow revive and continue killing people and that there's a lot of people who fangirl/find him hot. After this you can choose the route that you'll be going for.

So we'll be going for Vincenzo's route first. Moss gets curious about the fact that Vincenzo can regenerate and thus goes back to the abandoned factory to check it out. However, before even getting there and reaching downtown, they are caught by Vincenzo and brought to the factory after passing out. Upon waking up, Moss is bound to a chair with Vincenzo lying his head on their lap. He seems to have taken an interest in Moss seeing that they seem to have basically materialized out of nowhere and pretty much claims them as his. He recounts how similar the two were, that he too was captured by a military general and bound into the dark for years, eventually falling in love and killing him. After questioning him and his intentions with Black (he best responds to obedient answers and betraying Black, it seems) and eventually Moss is forced to be his toy (or killed otherwise) through a ring created by magic that binds the two together.

After heading out and hanging out with Greta more (or going to your bedroom), you are brought by Crux the next day to join a volunteer/rebellion group where we meet Asha, a person we actually delivered to previously. Hana, the leader of the organization introduces everyone to the Evergreen Volunteer Organization where they house people who are homeless, help out in soup kitchen and pick litter off the streets. Crux and Black immediately start asking a bunch of questions including pointing out the lack of members in the group, and why they aren't doing more to actually oppose the government wrongdoings (mostly because people are terrified of Vincenzo which has killed off a lot of their members), which really makes Hana think until a lady named Brandi comes out to basically kick Hana while she's down even more before Hana ultimately kicks her out. After watching Crux and Black bicker, Moss goes to comfort Hana, though Hana agrees that the questioning did help her realize that she has backpedaled in what their organization originally stood for and how far they've fallen and how she's changed since first starting the organization. Upon going back, Moss can either pass out or talk to Vincenzo about what they had done for the day. We can then go and talk with the various characters and run deliveries for Greta. Talking to Vincenzo, we can learn about his mutations and his living quarters (the mutation seems to be caused by a "deal" made with a powerful abomination so that he can have powers but also so the abomination can sort of puppet his body around.

Upon returning back, Greta asks Moss to help her get rid of a Mutie problem, basically a type of pest that is common there and is currently wrecking havoc on her lawn. She asks moss to go to the market to get something that can get rid of the mutie, and sends Moss on their way after giving them some money. After going through a strange ritual to get there, Moss encounters one of the shopkeepers, Missy and buys some things, most importantly a comic book about muties. Upon leaving, Moss runs into Crux who seems to have also wanted the comic as well. Seeing as the information is accurate, Crux proposes a trade where he'll get rid of the mutie in exchange for the comic book. Upon returning to Greta's house, we learn that muties are sort of spirits that have some sort of unfinished business, and after Crux pulls out some magical garments to allow the mutie to pass on, Moss gives him the comic book. Afterwards, Vincenzo tells Moss to meet him downtown (and ignoring this leads to something weird crawling inside of them at night). Upon meeting up with Vincenzo for this date, bringing moss to a table with a naked women tied up and basically tells Moss that they can do anything with her. You can then decide to try to let her go, rape her or kill her (Vincenzo responds best to killing her in a vicious way, which is pretty much what I did immediately because of course I did). Whether you are able to save this lady, kill her or otherwise defile her, the date eventually ends. The next day, Moss returns to the volunteer organization after seeing an email pretty much going full attack and petitioning a new law that had just came out by getting signatures. As a result, Black and Moss go out to get signatures from various places eventually finding two bodies at a construction site. After this, Moss gets a choice of where to work at, either at the same bar as Black, as a magical apprentice with Crux or continuing delivering for Grete.

After that you have freetime to visit people and buy things. We learn from Vincenzo that the two bodies are in fact not his killings but rather killings from a copycat killer, that he dated Crux before and that he has the ability to leave this world if he wants to. The next day you are presented with the opportunity to go to the protesting that Hana has organized or to skip it and end up helping Black with something. Either way, the next day, Moss heads downtown after Vincenzo summons them again, this time however, appearing as a woman. And here you can tell her your preferences for either form. Vincenzo remarks that Black has been arrested (whether you know that or not is based on the previous choice) and that Vincenzo wants to get revenge on the person who tried to impersonate her killings. After tracking down this Irving Dunham, Vincenzo gets you to become a distraction to get him out and so they can kidnap him. Vincenzo kidnapped him basically to see if there was any potential in him, though after he admits to killing his family, he ends up dying/bleeding by her hands. In the end, Vincenzo gives basically an upgraded ring to help Moss in case something happens to them.

Black's route mostly goes around the sudden transformation of being a zombie and his sense of morality as well as Moss visiting him while he's getting a tattoo. I won't go as detailed into it since other than him being overprotective over Moss (mostly because he feels guilty that he was the reason that Moss came here in the first place), we don't see to much of the yandere side of him (and the ask is more on Vincenzo rather than Black, I just thought I'd also mention him since at least stated on the tumblr page, he might also qualify as a yandere).

So yeah, anyways, this game is really well made. With just the game system alone there's an inventory and journal section and I love the way the UI is done (since I'm a sucker for cool UI in games) as the entire UI system is more reminiscent of a scrapbook. The world itself is also very cool too, with it's green skies and magic, definitely portrays a certain mood along with its themes of injustice, society, punk/rebel type of culture and others. Seriously, this world is genuinely very interesting and a lot of thought and effort was put into it. The characters too are all pretty fun to interact with, Crux is sly at times but still pretty caring, Black is more direct but has a soft side, Vincenzo has a genuine creepy feeling to him to contrast with his more charming personality, Asha has a very chill vibe, while Greta is more somber (for some reason she kind of reminds me of Elliot Reed) and then my favorite girl Hana is not only cute but commanding. I think its really nice that despite the fact that we're introduced to so many characters that they are all unique in a way that I can remember. There's a ton of concepts that get explored as well, from morality to mortality, to religion, and societal issues. It is very wild to me that this game isn't more popular than it is currently.

Considering this is just the prologue/first chapter, we don't really know the extent to how Vincenzo will evolve as a character and as a yandere. We see already that he had tendencies given his previous partners and the guard that imprisoned him, killing him out of love and we see that he has a sense of possessiveness to him, especially when Moss is claimed by him. He seems to enjoy violence over everything considering that he is a serial killer and likes obedience overall, as well as worry when Moss isn't around which is why he equips them with the ring near the end. As a yandere, I can see him more as a violent type and one that when when he grows an attachment is the type to either kill them (out of an overwhelming love, as we see with the guard) or to possibly become his partner in crime (for lack of a better word). I do see him having an obsession with the player given that at least in this route, Moss is thrown into more dire situations where they can be violent or otherwise evil and we can kind of see that corruption already taking place as the game goes on, even in just the prologue. Technically speaking I guess it wouldn't be so much as a strictly male yandere, but rather a genderfluid one since Vincenzo can be a girl, but I mean, you do in the end get to choose so given the option I'll just consider it a "male" yandere. But yeah, I see Vincenzo as a combination of a lot of types, more manipulative to a certain degree, violent for sure, unpredictable and always testing the player. Having this kind of serial killer yandere that can't be killed as well as having to experience the gore of such things in the game is pretty terrifying. Aside from that he also kidnaps and stalks people (including the player).

Black on the other hand is more overprotective if anything and we can already see that in the game so far. In a lot of places, he's worried about the player and will often defend them in many places, case in point: meeting Vincenzo for the first time. Much of his route is his struggles with his new zombie form, having not only having to eat humans to sustain himself but also to prevent himself from attacking Moss, even asking them to chain him up in the room. He always seems a bit ashamed in a sense to eat humans in front of the player and is always wanting to help. In a sense, Black is very similar to a guard dog, though at the moment it seems mostly out of guilt for dragging Moss into the world rather than having any romantic feelings for them. I think if there are any endings in the future that are yanderelike, it would probably be due to an overprotective action such as killing one of Moss's friends that might be a danger to them.

Crux is a little harder to decipher, but we do see more of his tender side in his route. While he is sly and manipulative, often stalking, hacking and reading through other people (such as Black's) history, we also see that he is very protective over his family. Crux is the type of guy who seems very does whatever he wants and goes with the flow, though he's clearly harboring another secret given that he seems to recognize Moss, but won't admit to it. Hard to say though since while Crux does take an interest in Moss during his route and we do have the option to kiss him, I just don't know enough right now to know if he's a yandere. Kind of an interesting thing to see in the future though!

Overall, really well made game/demo. I really like the atmosphere and the level of polish this game has and the characters are all fantastic. It'll be cool to see how the love interest in this story develop and hopefully show more of their yandere side as it goes.

[santoschristos]

The Tree of Life - Binah - Kabbalah and the Sephirot

Binah is the womb from which all souls are born, Chokmah the energy that the soul is made of, and Kether the idea of the soul within the Monad itself. In fact at the level of the Supernal Triad, Kether is the self-realization of the Supreme Being that emanates from En Sof, Chokmah is its Living Spirit and Creational Force, and Binah is its Supernal Soul Body through which the Spirit may interact with the lower realms of creation. The soul has always been associated with a feminine energy by Kabbalists as well as many other traditions. Similarly Binah is the Supreme Feminine Archetype, while the Spirit, Chokmah, is the Supreme Masculine Archetype and Kether, the Supreme Union Archetype. Chokmah and Binah are El and Eloha, the creator God and Goddess of this system, together in Divine Union and balance they are Elohim. Kether, however, is neither masculine nor feminine, it just is. The god name associated with Kether is EHEI (Eheyeh), which means “I Am” or “To Be”.

The supernals are the “3 mothers” associated with the Hebrew Letters Shin (spirit/fire), Aleph (air), and Mem (water), which are also the 3 mother rays of Amon Ra: numbers, letters, and sounds that are used to write the name of God, from which all creation comes. The third ray, Binah (Mem), being the one from which all other rays and creational energies are birthed or emanated out from. We see this in the Kabbalah by the path that the lightning bolt or ‘flaming sword’ takes as it carries the creational energies down from source to Malkuth. Binah is the last of the supernals that it enters before coming into the lower realms. Thus, Binah is the closest of the supernals to the world of form, hence it is the original archetypal form, whereas Chokmah is the original archetypal force. These roles of form and force can also be explained through the beginning stages of creation.

Before the beginning of creation there was only En Sof. En Sof was everything, yet no-thing, everywhere and nowhere, all potential but nothing manifest… At this stage En Sof does not even know it exists and has no concept of creation. And then a contraction occurs. En Sof contracted within its own being and from this withdrew from an infinitesimal point. This point became the center and it was a void. But even in its state of void, it still contained the memory of the essence of En Sof that previously was there. This center point of all existence is called the Shekinah by some Kabbalists – the feminine aspect of En Sof. In the very instant that En Sof contracted and this void was formed, so too did the infinite capacity of En Sof move to fill the void, for there can be no place that is not one with En Sof. As the energy of En Sof moved into this infinitesimal point it became a concentrated and intensified spark of light. This spark of light is Kether (the Center Point of the Universe). In the same instant, the intensity filling this point became so great that there was an outward explosion of light and energy moving in all directions. This dynamic expansion is Chokmah (the Big Bang and the photons/energy of light). But the influence of the feminine aspect to define the space and allow for creation was still present as a reflection of the Shekinah, and this influence served as a vessel for the energy to pour into and then subsequently be channeled through towards manifestation. This vessel or womb that channels and directs the light is Binah (Primordial Matter, which leads to Gravity, which is an attractive force that draws things into form). Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 can be related to the supernal triad, where E is Energy, whose essence is derived from Kether; c is the speed at which light travels outward from its source, which is Chokmah; and m is the mass of matter, which can be likened to Binah. The union of matter and the speed of light (mc2), Binah and Chokmah, releases an extraordinary amount of energy (sourced from Kether) that can be used for creation below the Abyss.

Thus the light flows on across the Abyss, through Daath, and on to Chesed then down the rest of the Tree until it finally reaches Malkuth. But it is Chokmah that generates the life force energy that enlivens the process of creation, while Binah is the womb that holds the egg that, once impregnated by Chokmah’s life-giving seed, becomes the vessel that gives birth to the other 7 sephiroth.

Geometrically, these initial stages of creation are represented by nothing (En Sof), the empty/black point (Shekinah), the full/white point (Kether), the line (Chokmah), and the triangle (Binah). Thus Binah is also the foundation of the entire Supernal Triad, whereas Kether is its root/source, and Chokmah its life force, and En Sof is the unseen/unknowable essence that flows through all of it. The triangle is the first form created and thus it is the primary key to the powers of heaven (the square and circle being the other two keys).

The supernals are in a realm that is beyond the human mind, thus any discussion of them can only be limited to metaphors and symbolic language. And because they are all just three aspects of a unity, it is difficult to say anything about any one of them alone. To say anything at all is to define, separate, and limit, thus not a true representation of the supernals. And yet, often in books these are the three parts of the Tree that are given the most attention – perhaps because they are the furthest from what we are acquainted with and hence the most mysterious and alluring. But truly, the only way to come to know and understand the supernal realm is through direct experience, which is the purpose of the ascension up the Tree of Life, which culminates in the crossing of the Abyss. This ascension brings one the vision of seeing God “face-to-face” – the inner and outer God. This experience may only be a momentary glimpse, but even that is enough to change your life, and it will give you the experience through which wisdom and divine light may illuminate your entire being.

[the-necromancer-wife]

I've read a lot of theories pointing out that Skully might have grown in an isolated, religious-like community. But I don't think that's the case. Allow me to elaborate:

TW: Spoilers/ long post/ just me analyzing Skully

It's sort of a cliché for Tim Burton films that the main character is a hermit of some sorts. Someone who is not adapted to the society or social conventions and usually lived by themselves or basically under a rock.

A few examples could be: Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows, Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (and Charlie himself), Edward Scissorhands, Jack Skellington and of course Vincent Malloy.

So my hypothesis so far:

>Skully is not only based on Jack Skellington's appearance, but also in Tim Burton's characters archetype:

Skully had a hard time adapting to the enviroment he presumably lived in and presented difficulties with bonding and forming relationships with others his age. At first i was inclined to believe he could be on the spectrum (autism or asperger) and I don't really discard that possibility yet, but I don't think his social difficulties are entirely caused by autism. I think he is visibly different from others in opinions and behaviors and that's why he's labeled as "the weird kid". And "the weird kid" is not always autistic.

He is similar to characters like Edward Scissorhands who grew up isolated and was visibly different. As a result of his enviroment, he didn't know how modern society worked and he was misunderstood and rejected.

This is one of the main elements on every Tim Burton movie: a certain someone that had a different childhood or whose life experiences led them to have a different (sometimes excentric) approach that wasn't socially accepted, although they weren't really hurting others.

The psychologist Lev Vygotsky wrote about how important the enviroment and social interactions were for a child. The difficulties Skully presents are common in those who didn't really get to experience those.

If he had grown in a conservative community, he wouldn't have access to any material related to Halloween. Why would they keep those books around? And if the community was in fact centered around Halloween as a celebration, why would they be labeled as conservative? Either he was raised in a conservative household or he harvested those ideas himself by isolating and reading old books. Which makes sense and leads me to my second hypothesis:

>He's partially twisted from the character Vincent Malloy.

I already explained who Vincent Malloy was in another post but basically he was obsessed with Vincent Price (the horror actor), and had a dark and twisted view of the world as a result of this, plus the isolation and the books he read.

Skully could be somehow twisted from Vincent given his obsession with Jack Skellington and his behavior indicates, as I said before, that he wasn't part of the community he grew in, just like Vincent.

Jack Skellington, the pumpking king, is depicted everywhere as the harbinger of horror and fear, even if Jack himself is rather a sensitive individual that wants to do things differently. The whole Nightmare before Christmas plot revolves around that: People having a wrong view about Jack as a result of him being the Halloween representative and Jack carrying a crown that's too heavy for him.

Vincent Malloy also enjoyed the dark and twisted world of horror and fear. But I'll elaborate more im my next point:

>Skully's mannerisms and obvious gaps in common knowledge come as a result of his isolation as well as him (possibly) reading horror books that also helped to form in him a more gloomy representation of Halloween.

Skully's arcaic mannerisms and language could be from books he read. Just like Vincent Malloy enjoyed to read the books of Edgard Allan Poe and ended up introjecting some of the elements depicted in those novels as well as those represented by Vincent Price (for Skully, Jack Skellington)

Also, little Vincent decided to isolate himself because of how much he enjoyed to play with his imagination, leading him ultimately to the development of a maladaptative daydreaming that consumed him. And of course, the disinterest in playing with other kids since they didn't really share his obsession.

If this is the case and Skully was a kid that grew without contact with his immediate community (his choice or not), that would explain all of his troubles socializing at school.

And also his outdated knowledge on many things. Is not that he was born long ago before magic stones were a thing, but more likely HE didn't know magic stones existed. At some point he abandoned his solitude, of course. Maybe when he started school.

>His parents and/or relatives are not really involved that much in his life.

It's kinda obvious by now, but Skully could come from a family that neglected him emotionally or materially. If that's the case, it would explain a lot.

>It would explain his poor dental hygiene, as nobody teach him how to take care of his teeth and lips properly. As the clothes are provided by the book we can't really tell if he was wearing modest or elegant clothing before he entered that place. But why would the book would alter his mouth's appearance? The only obvious answer is that it didn't and Skully doesn't know how to brush his teeth, one of the first things a parent should teach their child to do.

>It would explain why he was isolated for so long. Either he isolated himself or was recluded by his parents. Either way, his parents should have known better than to leave him locked up from the outside world or should have intervened to help him interact with others.

>In the case he had a turbulent relationship with his parents or they were emotionally unavailable, that would explain why he developed his hyperfixation. Looking forward to a historical figure like Jack could be a result of him not feeling identified with neither a mother figure or a father figure. Of course this is a very very flexible statement as this is not always the case.

Anyway, everything I said here could be accurate or not. This are just my considerations given the information i have so far.

[sabrinasopposite]

the end of the world

tom holland x reader ♡

two lovers that reached the end of the relationship.

she was sunshine and he was midnight rain

It was clear from the beginning that two lost souls would find their way in the Milky Way. It was evident that the pair of chocolate-brown eyes would be fixed on the girl's, whose eyes were filled with teardrops sparkling like stars.

Love seemed to dissipate from their presence, replaced by hurt and pain that gnawed at their insides instead of the butterflies that once fluttered around them on the nights they met. The birds ceased their songs on their favorite Saturdays, and their tea tasted as dull as their shared kisses.

Young love is often portrayed in movies as pure innocence, building upon their emotions and the desire to understand their hearts, but they rarely depict the harsh realities of the real world. In reality, it marked the end for them.

Their love is lost in the air, not be founded in their hearts that were stringed. 

Y/N always thought their love will be like Amy’s and Laurie’s, or like Elizabeth’s and Mr Darcy’s. An undeniable love that was stronger than their words. Yet, perhaps these were words she was too blinded to perceive, or maybe they were simply absent, unheard by her ears. 

Tom always believed that their love was pure, strong, and transcendent, beyond the reach of the stars. He struggled to find words to capture the intense emotions that surged within him whenever he laid eyes on the girl of his dreams, the embodiment of the perfect world he envisioned.

However, he gradually came to realize that this was merely a fantasy, detached from the reality in which he found himself trapped.

It was one of those rainy nights in London when the city's sparks were veiled by raindrops. Y/N always found herself reflected in the rain; she adored the scent it carried and the melodic patter it painted upon the earth. It was one of those nights when she would coax Tom outside onto the streets, where they'd listen to their favorite 60s playlist and dance in the rain—a silly cliché that they held dear to their hearts. 

However, tonight was the end of their world.

Their soaked clothes clung to their chilled bodies, as not only did the world darken around them and the raindrops fall heavier and heavier, but so too did their hearts. What was once a yellow world now turned blue.

"Why do you have to let me go, Y/N? I don’t understand!" Tom cried out, his words aimed at Y/N, whose eyes reflected the rain. "I know, and I will be forever grateful for everything you've given me," she replied. "But we'll only continue to hurt each other if we stay together." Y/N licked her lips, which once tasted like Tom's, but now bore the bitter tang of salt and regret.

"I would give up everything just to be with you. I-I'm sorry for my absence, but this new life—the acting career—it's all so overwhelming for me, and you know it.“ Tom’s eyes were shining of hope and desperate need of Y/N’s warmth.

Some things remained unchanged, but as soon as Tom became the golden boy of Hollywood, his life transitioned from its former purity into one illuminated by the spotlight. The stage was now his domain, his face adorning posters, TV/cinema screens, and magazines. He was everywhere.

Y/N remained grateful and supportive of his acting career, finally seeing him recognized as the talented young man who once dreamed of playing Billy Elliot or auditioning for Romeo multiple times.

He was now acknowledged by the world, although he had always been seen by her.

His world.

Yet, as with every fairy tale, not every story concludes with a happily ever after, where the princess and the prince marry. Just like Y/N and Tom..

He changed. He was still Tom Holland, but he wasn't the same Tom. Y/N saw it coming but chose to ignore the spotlight, waiting backstage for him. But he remained in the center of the stage, basking in the attention and affection of the crowd.

Y/N, once the midnight rain, found herself overshadowed by Tom's sunshine. But tonight, as their world comes to an end, their roles reverse.

"It's not that you're physically absent, Tom, here in London or beside me. It's that I can't seem to find you anymore. We're living in different worlds now, and there's no room for me in yours. I wish I could express this differently or see things from a different perspective, but..."

Her gaze met his, witnessing his tears mingling with the rain, his trembling not just from the cold, but from the pain. She knew that saying goodbye would only make it harder.

"Please, don't say that... Sweetheart, I can change. I'll change. I'll be the same person I was before, I promise!" His hands tightened around hers, afraid to let go.

"I will always love you, Tom, but I have to let you go. Not just for your sake, but for mine too. It's time for both of us to find our paths again."

She stepped closer, delicately brushing her hand against his cheek, her lips meeting his for the last time.

Perhaps not forever, but for now.

And as she walked away, Tom didn't realize it was the end of their world.

It ended when she whispered, "Goodbye."

this story is very much inspired by the song: the end of the world by skeeter davis.

I hope u like this angst! ♡